Anime Let's play: Strangeland (Finished)

[MRY]

Not a painting, an etching, part of a series called "Los caprichos" (the caprices).

I talk about Goya a bit in this dev diary:

“The world is a masquerade. Faces, costumes, voices—all pretend. We all wish to appear as we are not, we deceive ourselves, and in the end, we do not even recognize ourselves.” - Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Los Caprichos (6)

The next treasure from my trove came from Francisco Goya, whose art I studied while living in Madrid 20 years ago. In college, I wrote (though never released) a mid-length work of interactive fiction in which the player visited a gallery of a pseudo-Goya’s works and discovered he could (and indeed must) enter those works and engage in various adventures within them. The force Goya exerted on me has, if anything, grown over the intervening time. It is not just specific paintings (such as the famous image of Saturn devouring his child), but the overall mood and mentality of his work as a whole. The distillation is, for me, Los Caprichos—a series of captioned etchings that convey the way in which supernatural horror springs from the everyday misery that is all around us. The characters of Strangeland are a blend of Gormenghast’s eccentric weirdos and Los Caprichos’s grotesque “ordinary folk.”

 

[baud]

Having finished reading the last two updates, I realized I appreciate the writing much more here than while playing the game. Maybe it's because I'm more receptive now than last month, or knowing the whole story help frame the text or just that the way I play games isn't conductive to appreciate the writing. Don't really know why.

Also for the choice, I'd say fly away, because that's what MRY wanted the story to be about:

I wanted to make a narrative about the triumph of human spirit and classical wisdom, hope and faith, decency and dignity.

 

[MRY]

 

[Darth Roxor]

The last time we left the disconsolate dude, he was about to make THE BIG CHOICE.

Spoiler

I will assume MRY's cannon post was a perverse way of saying the dude should fly, so that's 2:1 in the flight vs fight vote

The dude contemplates his meeting with waifu.

I never thought I'd see her again.

And her words tell him all he needs to know.

It's time.

Indeed. Time to end this evil that marshals before us.

The orb starts glowing.

The golden hair begins swirling as the shadow dude vanishes.

zomg

the curtain falls

As credits start rolling, there's some weirdo concept art flashing between the individual boards. You'll have to excuse some of the less ideal screens of said art because it really just flashes for a second or something, making it a bit hard to capture.

And then there's a list of remaining credits as the screen keeps sliding upward, showing the whole Strangeland from the clown gate to the cage at the top.

Yeah, I'm not showing the entire list.

Congratulations, men. The dude is no longer depressed thanks to our combined efforts.

But not all reincarnations of the dude are this successful...

What if the dude stared too much into his reflection instead of his waifu?

You know how this ends.

Indeed!

It ends in TRIAL BY COMBAT

zing

Really? Are you faster than thought? Stronger than shame? Even on your best days, you couldn't rid yourself of me. And now? Well, if this is the end you want, nothing would give me greater pleasure. Shall we?

Yes. We shall.

Das rite, my dude. There are only two ways this can end.

Spoiler

And in both of them - you die

dude never stood a chance

There's a fade out, and the clown begins to speak.

"Doc," he says, "I've got this *horrible* thought stuck in my head and it just won't go away."

Shrink says, "That's not a thought, you idiot, it's a five-foot spike of darkness."

Man says, "Okay, but how can I get rid of it?"

Shrink says, "Well, I wouldn't suggest a knife."

GAHEEHEEHAW!



The curtain falls... and the rez sound plays in the background. The dude's not getting out of here that easily.

And what if the dude went on a rampage?

Never!

Okay, he won't do harm to waifu, but...

There are other targets in sight!

You couldn't cut yourself free from your sorrows out there... Do you really think you'll do any better in here?

I can't do any *worse*, can I?

Fabulously optimistic to the end

STAB!

ick

Man goes to see his shrink and says, "Doc, I'm depressed."

Doc says, "That's easy, go see the great clown, Grimaldi, the show's in town tonight."

Man says, "But Doc... my wife just died."

Doc says, "Jeez, I sure hope she wasn't Grimaldi."

GAHEEHEEHAW!

this is the best shit

The curtain falls, again as the rez sound plays in the background.

Rather than up, the dude can also fly down.

I fell from up here before, but it looks... farther. I can't even see the bottom.

What bottom?

Don't listen to him dude, it's time for your leap of faith.

Wait! My love... I don't think there's any coming back from that fall.

Don't listen to her either! A womyn will only keep a men down.

The world dissolves as the dude makes his choice. His words echo the woman's first line at the very beginning when she jumps down the well.

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Guy wakes up in a crazy carnival with a *killer* headache...

Whole place feels strangely familiar, like deja vu all over again.

He sees a *clown head* in the distance and starts walking down to it.

Says to himself...

"Well, I sure could use a laugh."

GAHEEHEEHAW!

The curtain falls.

And so this LP ends. Thanks to the three or whatever of you out there who followed it.

 

[lightbane]

Finally played this game, and finished it in like 4 hours. A bit too short, seemingly derivative, nonsensical and edgy for my taste, although I like the QoL features and the reactivity. I liked how there are notable differences on what you can do as shown in this LP and my playthrough. Quite Tormentian ending, although I don't get why we see the Woman being torn apart by insects or as an ugly thing. Metaphor for cancer, I guess?