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That third session of band practice was some hot garbage
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Mar 16, 2017 20:09
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Opposing Farce posted:I don't think either of these are reprises of Die Anywhere Else (appropriate as that would be), but they do both heavily feature bits of the "Bea!" leitmotif. Though the more I listen to it, the more I think that theme might itself be derived from Die Anywhere Else? At this point I'm not sure if there's a connection there or if I'm just finding patterns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuuObGsB0No
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Mar 17, 2017 00:22
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Alfalfa The Roach posted:That third session of band practice was some hot garbage I did unbelievably bad at all of the band practices also I drew this picture because this game is Good and I am really Gay  I don't actually know what animal gregg is canononcially
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Mar 17, 2017 02:29
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I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be a fox though his tail doesn't work for that
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Mar 17, 2017 04:03
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He's 100% pure Gregg
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Mar 17, 2017 04:08
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Macaluso posted:I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be a fox though his tail doesn't work for that Scott's said his original drawings were intended to be a wolf/dog but everyone said he was a fox so they went with that IIRC.
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Mar 17, 2017 04:14
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Aaaaaa replaying it and now I got why the hell Bea just flat out tells you to get out of the car and I thought she was just being super weird. Mae you're so unintentionally awful! 
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Mar 17, 2017 04:15
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Sushi in Yiddish posted:Scott's said his original drawings were intended to be a wolf/dog but everyone said he was a fox so they went with that IIRC. If Gregg had been grey I think people would've read him as a wolf, but since he's sort of orange I think people end up reading him as a fox
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Mar 17, 2017 04:23
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i always thought coyote
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Mar 17, 2017 04:48
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See I thought he was a dog as a joke because he's best friends with a cat.
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Mar 17, 2017 07:07
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He was a dog but everyone assumed he was a fox and the creator eventually went "well fine" as I understand it. Also, it's been pointed out before, but the four dream animals matching up with the members of City Council (bear, squirrel, alligator, long-necked bird) has to be deliberate. Most likely interpretation is them having something to do with the cult, which most people have assumed anyway. (And yes, that one person actually is a squirrel from what I can tell; a friend's been streaming his playthrough and I took a close look and, despite superficially resembling Gregg, there's some differences in shape and noticeably blunter teeth.) Which, on a tangent, is another instance where everyone lacking tails makes the type of animal they are not immediately apparent. Though I can see multiple reasons why they wouldn't give them tails, so I don't disagree with that decision.
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Mar 17, 2017 07:36
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isn't the dream people the four musicians who died in the forest from exposure as told by the saxophonist if you get her and the violinist together
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Mar 17, 2017 08:50
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The Saddest Rhino posted:isn't the dream people the four musicians who died in the forest from exposure as told by the saxophonist if you get her and the violinist together Those are the dream musicians, the four dream animals Roland Jones mentions refers to the giant glittering god-animals Mae meets one at a time in her dreams before meeting the Cat God. They're the same species as the chamber of commerce councilors (who are notably absent from the epilogue), and the one cultist whose silhouette is briefly visible during the elevator attack scene is a cat like the Cat God, so it's maybe a hint the council-members were cult members.
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Mar 17, 2017 09:02
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Scott Benson linked an episode of the podcast "The Short Game" about Night in the Woods on Twitter, and listening to their discussion made me realize something about why the ending is the way it is. Some people don't like that the supernatural stuff is "real" and not just part of Mae's psychosis or whatever, but I realized that the reason it doesn't bother me that stuff is real, the reason I actually prefer it that way, is because the things Mae is reacting to actually are real. Like, the crushing sense of ennui? The feeling that nothing matters and you have no future? The big black void of hopelessness and despair that lies just underneath the town? That's, like, real. That exists in real life. It's not an eldritch horror from beyond the void in real life, but it's still a very real feeling a lot of people share, just like throwing young people and poor people and immigrants under the bus in a vain attempt to preserve a past that is never coming back and barely even existed to begin with is a very real thing a lot of people do. Externalizing those things in the form of the cosmic horror death cult stuff is important because it acknowledges that these things Mae's reacting to, this sort of late capitalist existential dread, that isn't something she's imagining up out of nothing, it's a response to very real social and economic pressures that a lot of young people just like her are feeling right now. Mae's got issues, and those issues would exist even if everything was fine and dandy in Possum Springs, but money problems make everything worse and the lack of a stable support system (which her friends start to become by the end) and non-terrible mental health services (which she hopefully finds) absolutely turns a condition that she could have learned to cope with and manage into something crippling. I feel like it would've been kind of cheap and lovely to sort of fall back on "it's all just in her head" when a lot of it really isn't, and though some people find it abrupt I honestly think the turn into cosmic horror works because it presents those big invisible socioeconomic pressures as terrifying and legitimate and real as they actually are. Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Mar 17, 2017 |
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Mar 17, 2017 14:38
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Opposing Farce posted:Scott Benson linked an episode of the podcast "The Short Game" about Night in the Woods on Twitter, and listening to their discussion made me realize something about why the ending is the way it is. Well if that's actually the case that makes that whole chapter a lot better.
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Mar 17, 2017 15:08
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Opposing Farce posted:Scott Benson linked an episode of the podcast "The Short Game" about Night in the Woods on Twitter, and listening to their discussion made me realize something about why the ending is the way it is. I agree. I look at it like this. There were inevitably going to be two roads for this story was going to have to go down at the end. It either is or is not in her head. I think the writers here are good enough to get a poignant message off with either story branch ending to be honest. If its all in her head, it reinforces the mental trauma Mae has and has carried throughout her life. It manifests in different ways and bends her reality accordingly. Until she confronts it and it's manifestations, she really cannot move on. Her coming home is seen as her finally having to deal with it as it is crippling and killing her future. Mental health, or the lack thereof in her rural town, is a part of this story and many of her friends and neighbors are struggling with it themselves in different but similar ways. The idea that the big bad in her head is linked to the town would be a good point to make. That all said, the other choice is the one they took which is the path of the unknowable, unfeeling, all-destroying elder god. I liked it simply because it was strange and yet makes sense on reflection. The "in her head" path is one well-trod in video games or other mediums so it was nice to see the enemy being an actual thing. By making it this thing, you are right that the writers can link it to dozens of different things from mental health to the death of the American dream to just basic good ol'fashion death cults. By it being real, you can project whatever you want onto it whereas otherwise you'd just be projecting onto Mae. Both can work honestly, but I think this path is more interesting. I will have to check out that Podcast. Thanks!
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Mar 17, 2017 15:22
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RE: Dreams Who is the person in Mae's dreams whose silhouette you can see but never interact with? Casey? Also, my wife was listening to Spotify while I played the Epilogue and this song came on and it was scary how well it fits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRQ8l7Z-_k0 At the "you gotta keep on walking you'll forget about me" I started bawling 
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Mar 17, 2017 19:43
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How many hangouts are there for Bea and Gregg? First run through I got up to Proximity with Bea (but missed the housecall). Is there anything past proximity or was that it?
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Mar 18, 2017 12:16
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Synthbuttrange posted:How many hangouts are there for Bea and Gregg? First run through I got up to Proximity with Bea (but missed the housecall). Is there anything past proximity or was that it?
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Mar 18, 2017 12:47
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I never read the city council members as part of the cult. They're kinda petty and probably a little inept, sure, but they're very actively involved in the community on a human, for lack of a better word, level, while the cult came across as very all-in on the hole. They also don't exhibit the "good old days" mentality of the cult. When they look at historical monuments, it's a budget issue, and then a vandalism issue. They want local businesses to survive but they also want to attract new businesses, new people. And it's kiiinda working? There's a Snack Falcon now, Harfest attracts people from out of town, the ferris wheel is a consistent yearly hit, a taco place moves in at the end. I think these guys, if anything, are taking the opposite approach from the cult for trying to keep the town afloat. Rather than living in the past, the city council heard the word "gentrification"* and immediately responded "TELL US MORE." *That is not to say Possum Springs has a realistic chance at it, but some of the council's actions definitely have an awkward older-people-trying-to-appeal-to-younger-people aspect, what with the Awesome Springs poster, bus station mural, Harfest play rewrites... I get a strong suspicion that at least one of these guys has made an embarassing attempt to use old memes on the Twitter-equivalent. And while the cosmic beasts may be of the same sort of entity as the black goat, they are distinct beings doing their own things. If we want to find patterns involving these astral entities, we should probably first consider the three interpretations of god. Honestly, I'm not sure the black goat is even still in the hole. Have to do the astral cat convo again. Synthbuttrange posted:How many hangouts are there for Bea and Gregg? First run through I got up to Proximity with Bea (but missed the housecall). Is there anything past proximity or was that it? Forgall posted:I believe there are three times you get to choose, and fourth time is based on who you picked at least two times out of three. Proximity is the fourth event for Bea. Ghost hunting adventures are separate and don't factor into that. ...also, calling them investigations seems to imply a lot more competence than what actually happens. Ghost hunts, then.
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Mar 18, 2017 15:44
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Then again, consider the council's reaction to Bruce. How they obviously wanted to move him on or maybe get the police to bring him in, but were at least partly restrained because the preacher - new in town, I believe - had taken an interest in them. I thought it fit into the cult stuff since they actually wanted to sacrifice him but couldn't do it if the preacher was going to notice he'd disappeared. Also going over some of the supernatural stuff again, I figured the thing down the mine was one of those blind horrors the Cat God showed live outside the universe and that the hole they came in through to this universe is different than the Hole At The Center Of Everything. The Cat God seemed to suggest they were closing that lesser hole to prevent other crossings, but the horror down in the mines will remain on this side. It makes me wonder what they got up to in the mines after the collapse. Did the cultists jump down the hole and sacrifice themselves? Were they just killed in the cave-in? The horror seemed to survive considering it spoke to Mae while she was in the water, it seems like they only succeeded in burying it and cutting off its influence by killing the cult but it's still there waiting to be discovered again. I know these aren't really questions that need answering since they sort of take the supernatural elements a little too "seriously" as opposed to their allegorical significance, but it's still kind of fun to think about. Your average Call of Cthulhu investigator would give Mae and the gang low marks for their shoddy workmanship, let me tell you!
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Mar 19, 2017 00:54
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I enjoyed hanging out with Gregg but lol that you're the cause for the intense awks in Legends and if you didnt hang out with him at all, Gregg and Angus are fine 
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Mar 19, 2017 01:43
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Synthbuttrange posted:I enjoyed hanging out with Gregg but lol that you're the cause for the intense awks in Legends and if you didnt hang out with him at all, Gregg and Angus are fine You can hang out with him once and still get Bea's story. Best of both worlds!
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Mar 19, 2017 04:51
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I finished watching Slowbeef's play through. I think that investigating first with Angus kept him from doing Legends. Gregg said he couldn't hang out because it was date night. EDIT: Now that I think about it, it might be because he went with Bea on the first two days, so there would be almost no context for the robot. eatenmyeyes fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Mar 19, 2017 |
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Mar 19, 2017 05:26
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You make some quality posts, Opposing Farce.
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Mar 19, 2017 05:29
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eatenmyeyes posted:I finished watching Slowbeef's play through. I think that investigating first with Angus kept him from doing Legends. Gregg said he couldn't hang out because it was date night. I hung out with Angus first in that sequence and it locked me out of doing Bea's investigation thing, I think.
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Mar 19, 2017 05:31
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I just finished this game. Sat down and talked with Gregg a lot after the fact Life goes on, man So does that mean I got the Gregg ending? How many different endings are there?
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Mar 19, 2017 05:53
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precision posted:I hung out with Angus first in that sequence and it locked me out of doing Bea's investigation thing, I think. When you first get the option to do hang outs (starting after second band practice) you get three choices of either Gregg or Bea. Choosing at least 2 for one of them will lock you into their path for the final hangout. Once you get the investigations, you can do any 2 out of 3 in any order with no restrictions/lockouts. You do get slight variations of dialog depending on what hang outs you did before but that's it.
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Mar 19, 2017 05:58
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Alfalfa The Roach posted:I just finished this game. Sat down and talked with Gregg a lot after the fact 2 endings
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Mar 19, 2017 06:02
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Just finished. It's probably already been discussed to death online, but I love how this game encourages you to do things for emotional rewards, rather than xp points or new equipment, or even to move the plot along -- I watched TV with dad because I wanted to watch TV with dad and it didn't really matter what came out of it.
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Mar 19, 2017 06:05
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Doctor Reynolds posted:You make some quality posts, Opposing Farce. Thanks. Now if I could just make them with like 1/4 as many words we'd be golden. Night in the Woods is one of those games that really digs under my skin and puts the part of my brain that dedicates itself to picking apart stories and narratives and themes into overdrive for weeks at a time, which is something that only happens to this extent once every couple of years or so. There's so much richness and depth there, and most importantly it's backed up by superb writing, incredible style, and one of the most instantly endearing and likable casts I've seen in a game period. It's a game that speaks to things I've thought and things I've felt that I don't think I've ever seen represented in fiction before--the vague, creeping dread that builds and builds over the course of the game, the way it bleeds into everything and starts to eat away at Mae's life, is something I related to intensely in a profound, "I know exactly what this feeling is and until this moment I didn't know anybody else did" kind of way--and as a recent grad working minimum wage to pay off loans I don't think I'll ever be rid of while my family is on the verge of being consumed by debts and medical expenses the whole thing felt really personal and timely, not just for me but for an entire generation of people who are in situations not too different from my own. Like, if I was going to try to explain to someone from the future or an alternate dimension or something what it feels like being 20 years old in the 2010s, I would tell them to play Night in the Woods, because I don't think you're going to find many other stories that understand it this intimately or portray it this well. It's a really incredible piece of work. Someone on Scott Benson's curiouscat asked "How does it feel now that you'll be the reason for someone's imposter syndrome?" and it felt like a weirdly on-point question to me because this is definitely a game I walked away from thinking, "gently caress, I am never going to make anything that speaks to anyone the way this spoke to me." Which is probably true, but, I dunno. Normally it's the kind of thing where I understand intellectually why that kind of thinking is wrongheaded but that doesn't prevent me from feeling it emotionally, but this time I think there's a part of me that genuinely feels like "hey so what you can go make stuff anyway and there might actually be a future there for you." NITW ends on a note that's really frank and honest but still manages to be reassuring and hopeful, and I think it kind of rubbed off on me. Everything sucks but maybe it'll be okay? It's a weird thing to feel. Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Mar 19, 2017 |
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Mar 19, 2017 12:26
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Synthbuttrange posted:I enjoyed hanging out with Gregg but lol that you're the cause for the intense awks in Legends and if you didnt hang out with him at all, Gregg and Angus are fine I don't think that's true, actually. Gregg still steals the robot and battery without your help (though I wonder how he gets the robot upstairs), and Angus will still surely chew him out for that. In the end Mae has very little influence on Gregg and Angus. Speaking of Gregg, can anyone tell me what happens if you screw up carrying the robot up the stairs over and over? Does Gregg give up after getting hurt too much and figures out an alternate solution to skip the sequence, or does the game start softballing it?
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Mar 19, 2017 19:23
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McFrugal posted:I don't think that's true, actually. Gregg still steals the robot and battery without your help (though I wonder how he gets the robot upstairs), and Angus will still surely chew him out for that. In the end Mae has very little influence on Gregg and Angus. You probably could have phrased that differently.
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Mar 19, 2017 20:08
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eatenmyeyes posted:You probably could have phrased that differently. I don't get what you mean.
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Mar 19, 2017 20:17
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McFrugal posted:I don't get what you mean. If you haven't finished the game, ignore me. I changed your text in the quote. I now realize that it was dumb to do that with spoiler tagged text.
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Mar 19, 2017 20:39
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eatenmyeyes posted:If you haven't finished the game, ignore me. I changed your text in the quote. I now realize that it was dumb to do that with spoiler tagged text. OHHH, right. That, haha.
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Mar 19, 2017 21:29
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I'm sad at finishing the game, AGAIN! aboobloohoo I think that's pretty much it for the game for me. What a game. 
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Mar 20, 2017 01:47
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Just finished. It's probably already been discussed to death online, but I love how this game encourages you to do things for emotional rewards, rather than xp points or new equipment, or even to move the plot along -- I watched TV with dad because I wanted to watch TV with dad and it didn't really matter what came out of it. The thing I wanted the most was for Mae's mom to give her a hug and she never did. 
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Mar 20, 2017 04:27
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rotinaj posted:The thing I wanted the most was for Mae's mom to give her a hug and she never did. I assumed she did after Jenny's Field but you may have missed that part.
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Mar 20, 2017 04:42
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eatenmyeyes posted:I assumed she did after Jenny's Field but you may have missed that part. I'm so glad I got that scene. What a great little part of the game 
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Mar 20, 2017 04:51
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