Board 8 > 12 Minutes Discussion Topic *Full spoilers*

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*Spoilers*

Beat this last night. At first my biggest surprise was how clunky the game can be, I thought it'd be more polished given they shelled out for Hollywood VA and it's been pushed back so long. But I was having a decent enough time with it anyway. Personally I think the game works best when you treat it as an intentionally silly melodrama, my biggest laugh was when I realised you can just sit and enjoy dessert whenever you want, even if your dead wife lies in a pool of blood at your feet.

But the last act of the game took many, many turns into bizarre territory. As soon as the word 'brother' is mentioned you know where things are going, but I didn't expect it to be handled so... weirdly. They plow through all the twists at breakneck pace, then throw you into the weird scenes with the Father, then the game just kind of ends. I'm not even sure what I think about all of it because they don't linger on anything enough to let it sink in. I have no idea what the Father scenes are supposed to be (or why he seems to be the Stranger), what reality means for the protagonist or what any of it is really trying to say. The only 'real' ending seems to be deciding to leave your wife before things begin (in the weird dreamworld past+present scene in the library) and ending up alone. All the other endings just keep the loop going in some form.

Thinking about it my biggest problem is that none of the characters ever seem authentic. I know it's the nature of a time loop game but everybody gets convinced about things so quickly in each loop that it just seems silly, emotions go spiraling from one end to the other within 10 seconds and any interesting moments are either brushed past or become annoying through repetition.

The Wife feels more like a doll than a person, she's there to be rearranged as necessary to progress the plot and acts like she's reading from a script. Around the 10th time I drugged her with sleeping pills I realised how weird the whole thing felt. The Stranger also fluctuates wildly, if you don't push the exact right buttons he is ready to murder both of you in a second, but do things the 'right' way and he's a tragic sympathetic figure who leaves after a single two minute conversation.

But in thinking about why the ending twists left me so cold I believe it's the Husband who gets treated the worst. There's a really weird lack of empathy towards him from the writing. I don't just mean him being a tool for the player, but I don't get any sense that we're supposed to root for him or want him to get out of his situation in the end, there's no real pushback to this idea that he is a Monster. They also put in 'oh I forgot I did all this' like it's a handwave rather than a massive plot development.

IDK, I have mixed feelings and I'm not mad I played the game, but I really don't know what they were going for. It felt rushed out the door (though I know it was first shown 6 years ago), and I'm just left feeling like... what was the point of all of it. What was this game trying to do? Curious what you all think, I'm sure some of you will have played it by now.

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andylt posted...

my biggest laugh was when I realised you can just sit and enjoy dessert whenever you want, even if your dead wife lies in a pool of blood at your feet.

Yeah, when the Wife was talking to the Stranger and I couldn't really interact I figured I might as well just have dessert

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There's some neat stuff you can do, but I think it falls far short of other similar games. The husband "forgetting" everything was certainly the dumbest part. Like what?

I highly recommend a similar game called Overboard! that came out a few months ago. You play as a woman who murders her husband on a boat voyage, and you have to figure out how to avoid getting caught until you can get off the boat. It has a similar formula where you learn things every loop, but the characters and story and everything are a lot better, IMO. It's also less obtuse.
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I posted my overall thoughts on the game in the other topic, but to get specific on the story:

There are definitely some interesting things going on with this story but, as I said in the other topic, I'm pretty certain a lot of it won't land with most folks. My own interpretation is that the entire time loop is an imagined part of a hypnosis session with the dad, trying to get the main character to realize why it's best to walk away from his incestuous romance. That's why every return to the library starts with "you're back," why the cop looks and sounds exactly like the father and why the only endings that actually break the loop are either giving up on the relationship or accepting the memory-wipe hypnosis.

It's kind of neat IMO when you cast how ugly the reality is against the beauty and emotion of the "perfect day" non-ending you can get, but this exact contrast is what I feel will turn off the average player who was probably hoping the actual ending would be more like the non-ending, minus the late game reveals.

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I thought the first dozen loops were intriguing but by the end I really hated this game, and I hate it more the more I think about it. Part of that was the sheer annoyance of later loops where I would need to go through the motions yet again to try something new only to find it didn't accomplish anything (breaking the lights and putting a candle and the watch in the bedroom vent should get the cop's attention so he finds the watch and leaves, damn it). However, it was the awful incest twist that really bugs me.

I want to lay this out to see if it's just me or not. I know the whole time loop is probably just in the husband's head in the hypnosis ending (making it one step above the 'it was all a dream' cliche awful ending, but I digress). Still, pretend for a moment that the scenario in the time loop was 100% real. In this one the husband can't be the murderer because he, too, was hundreds of miles away the day that the father died. In this scenario, it's just a guy so happening to meet his unknown half sister and the two fall in love. The game treats the revelation that they're related like a gigantic bombshell. The dude's mind breaks for, like, a full loop.

Am I the only one who thinks it isn't so bad? They didn't know, after all. No one did anything bad intentionally. They weren't raised together at all so they're only blood related. Absolutely check if the kid has any issues and get an abortion if it's looking bad, definitely get a vasectomy and adopt moving forward, but that should be it? There's no guarantee even that the baby will be messed up at all. Royalty needed to marry cousins for generations to cause real issues. The Ptolomys in ancient Egypt married brothers to sisters over and over again. I'm not advocating incest as a good thing, but they didn't do it on purpose. I just don't see it as some huge deal, certainly not one worth murdering for or going through some convoluted hypnosis to forget it.

Then again I don't have a sister so maybe I can't imagine the true horror of accidentally sleeping with her.
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Damn. Cant believe I forgot that time I murdered my dad. Whoops, funny how things slip your mind like that

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The GFs made them forget they grew up in the same testicle?

I smell a lawsuit.

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Xiahou Shake posted...

I posted my overall thoughts on the game in the other topic, but to get specific on the story:

There are definitely some interesting things going on with this story but, as I said in the other topic, I'm pretty certain a lot of it won't land with most folks. My own interpretation is that the entire time loop is an imagined part of a hypnosis session with the dad, trying to get the main character to realize why it's best to walk away from his incestuous romance. That's why every return to the library starts with "you're back," why the cop looks and sounds exactly like the father and why the only endings that actually break the loop are either giving up on the relationship or accepting the memory-wipe hypnosis.

It's kind of neat IMO when you cast how ugly the reality is against the beauty and emotion of the "perfect day" non-ending you can get, but this exact contrast is what I feel will turn off the average player who was probably hoping the actual ending would be more like the non-ending, minus the late game reveals.

I can see this interpretation, but if it's all imagined from a hypnosis session there's details that I can't really make sense of. Like, who is Bumblebee then? Why would he imagine a cancer-stricken daughter of a stranger, is she supposed to be some manifestation of the Wife? I don't think you're wrong at all, but it doesn't really improve the ending for me. If your idea is right then the Father is just some horrible psychopath forcing his son to live life the way he wants it, and there's no way to actually break free from his cycle. Either you accept the lonely life the Father demands or you're stuck in the loop forever, it's just... really bleak and hopeless, and not in an artistically good way imo.

Robazoid posted...

Am I the only one who thinks it isn't so bad? They didn't know, after all. No one did anything bad intentionally. They weren't raised together at all so they're only blood related. Absolutely check if the kid has any issues and get an abortion if it's looking bad, definitely get a vasectomy and adopt moving forward, but that should be it? There's no guarantee even that the baby will be messed up at all. Royalty needed to marry cousins for generations to cause real issues. The Ptolomys in ancient Egypt married brothers to sisters over and over again. I'm not advocating incest as a good thing, but they didn't do it on purpose. I just don't see it as some huge deal, certainly not one worth murdering for or going through some convoluted hypnosis to forget it.

I agree somewhat with this, I think it is a big deal but not to the extent that it warrants infinite torture or complete isolation. The game comes down really hard on the main character but the incest was accidental and the killing was no more premeditated than when the Wife shot him a week earlier, it's just... really cold to him. Like it's not a bad thing for him to suggest telling her the truth at least lol.

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andylt posted...

Like, who is Bumblebee then? Why would he imagine a cancer-stricken daughter of a stranger, is she supposed to be some manifestation of the Wife?

I think this is it. The Father and Cop are the same person, both doing what they're doing to protect their daughter. I did wonder if there was some dialogue that would allude to her being nicknamed Bumblebee, but I couldn't be bothered to find it if there was.

Overall, I thought it was okay. I enjoyed it well enough at the time, although later loops became tedious to trial and error, but knowing the whole plot and looking at the whole package, it was just a bit meh. Even knowing the twist, the fact that the protagonist just conveniently forgets things (which didn't happen?) didn't feel as clever as I'm sure they wanted it to be. Would have been way more interesting if the Husband knew everything from the start but was trying to hide it.

I also wish the game had more fun with itself. I too tried to do silly things like stab the Wife then sit and eat my pudding until the Cop showed up, but it very rarely led to anything unique. It's a shame, because the game does have some cool details, like if you try and stab the Cop multiple times, the Husband does get better at it and will eventually stab him, but still gets knocked out. Similarly, the first time you stab the Wife, you do it once and she bleeds out slowly, so the next time he stabs her a few times.

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JackMan posted...

very rarely led to anything unique.

There is unique dialogue for dancing with the Wife before dropping the bombshell about being her brother and the "real" murderer. She says something like 'you... You dance with me, then this?' So that was a fun inclusion.

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I liked that there was unique dialogue for flushing the pocket watch

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Oh yeah, I'm not denying there is unique dialogue for doing stuff, but I feel given how limited the amount of actual things there are that you can do, the fact that there isn't unique dialogue for all combinations is disappointing.

I did appreciate that the Wife passes out in multiple ways on the bed though.

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So my eyes wandered and I read this out of context:
"The Wife feels more like a doll than a person, she's there to be rearranged as necessary"
and then the next words under it were:
"drugged her with sleeping pills"

With only that to go by I feel like this game could be very problematic, lol.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS6HRKZQLFA&ab_channel=KanyeWest-Topic

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JackMan posted...

I also wish the game had more fun with itself. I too tried to do silly things like stab the Wife then sit and eat my pudding until the Cop showed up, but it very rarely led to anything unique. It's a shame, because the game does have some cool details, like if you try and stab the Cop multiple times, the Husband does get better at it and will eventually stab him, but still gets knocked out. Similarly, the first time you stab the Wife, you do it once and she bleeds out slowly, so the next time he stabs her a few times.

Agreed, I like the potential of the zany stuff and the bits of unique dialogue, but I wish there was more of that. Maybe I'll get Overboard as Mac recommends, I hear that has a lighter tone too.

ChichiriMuyo posted...

With only that to go by I feel like this game could be very problematic, lol.

Lol well not in the sense I made it sound like there but... it doesn't really treat its characters with any respect.

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I hated this game for so many reasons. Which is very sad because the trailer looks so good, and iv listened to the dev talk about the design in ways that made me feel like he really knew how to do this right. Things like reducing the scale down to just three characters and one apartment to keep things controllable and allowing lots of possible ways for things to u fold. But ultimately, the design of this game ended up being TERRIBLE.

Ultimately, the single biggest flaw is not understanding what makes time loops fun. It isn't fun to repeat the same things over and over, which this game is massively plagued with. It's fun that everything else pans out the same normally and YOU can do different things, which will cause things to play out differently.

I didn't feel like I had much impactful choice at all in this game. There really only feels like a couple unique scenes that I had to repeat over and over until I make the one minor right change to make progress with. It was an incredibly boring and frustrating experience

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By the end I was annoyed at having to repeat entire certain conversations and actions if I screwed up one choice of like 3 or 4, but the ending I saved for last had just enough intrigue to kinda save it for me.

The listen ending that you can only do before any loops occur. I thought it was really neat the way it heavily implies the wife is going through a loop, because she knows something bad is coming but forces you to leave the apartment before she will tell you.

Kinda reframes the whole game and fits perfectly with the forget what you know and live in the present, or whatever that quote was.

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Oh yeah the Listen ending was nice, I forgot about that one. I didn't twig about the implication there but now that you mention it that is very interesting...

Opinions are all over the board on this game, and I can understand everyone's varying responses! Ultimately this isn't the game I had hoped it would be, but I got something out of it at least.

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Xiahou Shake posted...

I posted my overall thoughts on the game in the other topic, but to get specific on the story:

There are definitely some interesting things going on with this story but, as I said in the other topic, I'm pretty certain a lot of it won't land with most folks. My own interpretation is that the entire time loop is an imagined part of a hypnosis session with the dad, trying to get the main character to realize why it's best to walk away from his incestuous romance. That's why every return to the library starts with "you're back," why the cop looks and sounds exactly like the father and why the only endings that actually break the loop are either giving up on the relationship or accepting the memory-wipe hypnosis.

It's kind of neat IMO when you cast how ugly the reality is against the beauty and emotion of the "perfect day" non-ending you can get, but this exact contrast is what I feel will turn off the average player who was probably hoping the actual ending would be more like the non-ending, minus the late game reveals.

I don't know if I would say this is interesting. I think this explanation is correct,t's the only explanation I've heard that actually makes fits with what happened. But is it satisfying in any way? Does it make us feel resolved with what happened with these characters, or that our time in the gameplay was in any way meaningful? I'd have to give it a gigantic NO on every front.

The way these revelations actually happen is just disjointed and meaningless, but even with reflection I don't think they are improved. It's just a bunch of made up nonsense by the dev without much attempt to tie storyline or characters through.

Thinking about it just makes me even more annoyed by the game.

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But what IS good is The Forgotten City. I just finished this masterpiece - now this is what time loop games should be look.

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I recommended The Forgotten City back when we had that 6:45 time loop topic! It was indeed pretty great.
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Somehow I had never heard of The Forgotten City before! Thanks for the rec, it's on my radar now (started life as a Skyrim mod, huh). Between that and Overboard I'm glad there's some apparently cool time loop games around.

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Definitely want to give Forgotten City a try

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