Orientation [Environmental/Misc]

1.4 Beta/Unfinished Version Mediafire 70.94MB

Old Version 1.2 - Mediafire 63.96MB
Update for Old Version - Mediafire 107KB

Ending 1 (Red Light)

Ending 2 (Green Light)

Ending 3 (Mother)

Ending 4 (Matrix)

the one where you shut down mothers power




Went back and looked around for second secret ending but so far no luck.  

Hat's off and waiting for the next part.

• It's possible to instantly reset the game by jumping during the shift at the end of the white corridor in ending 4.
• If you run towards a terminal while pressing down, it's possible to audibly (and sometimes visibly) climb around on the terminal screen, something that might be resolvable by placing vast quantities of noclimb objects (sounds tedious).
• The custom object used to fade to black for endings 1 and 2 is 1 pixel too far to the right.
• The custom object used to fade to white on entering the grand archive looks to be about 2 pixels too far to the right.
• The custom object used to put a pale white overlay on grand archive areas also looks to be about 2 pixels too far to the right.

Pardon my pedantry.

Is it possible to get an ending without green or red light? When I get to normal ending it always gives me green or red light.
Green light was the first ending I got and I also found the Matrix ending myself.

I really liked the plot during my first playthrough (I got the good ending). I'm less happy about the other endings. I don't understand why the good ending is predicated on reading the last message in full, I couldn't read the messages displayed when Mother13 noticed I was in the wrong place (please make them go much slower and/or stay on screen), I see no reason why Juni would switch off MO13 and I don't understand what happened in the last one.

The Too-Fast Scrolling: I know that CO goes by too fast but I'm much too far away from this level at this point to fix it. If I run it any slower the flicker looks way bad. If I make it static, well it really doesn't have the same effect to me. Basically, in my mind, it's a tradeoff. I know most people can't read that fast but on the other side it's not necessary that they do. What they're missing isn't integral information and the fact that it can be missed makes things seem more functional and alive. To me the tradeoff of having the screen display changes trumps the reader missing descriptions of what they've just done. i.e. "subject is deviating from course. subject is reading log notes." or whatever the things that scroll by are.

The Bad Ending: The "white"/bad ending is the character being reintroduced into the pool of matter/goop they use to grow/make another clone. It's basically death. I realize it's not very overt but interpretation is always fun too. I think that something being more obtuse is better than beating someone over the head with it. I confess that I did rush the end and it could have been more overt but the only canon ending is the stars/good one so I don't really feel that obliged to tinker with anything. It also isn't necessary to read all the messages to get the good ending. It alternates between messages and I think it resets if you keep reading the last message again after the terminal closes. I could have made it more random probably and I would've preferred to just use a random variable to decide it but it is the way that it is now and I feel that it is in a "random enough" state to fulfill my needs for the story. It isn't supposed to be fair, even if I had the ability to program in a way for it to determine if you followed all the orders exactly and did them extremely quickly and without any failures or deviations, the point is that it's not fair. It's dissatisfying but I kind of want it to be. The ending and the aww-shucks futility of survival is basically a preamble to what The Empty Planet is going to be. This is a story about hopeful, possible purpose and all that shines through there but beneath that is this factory of life that arbitrarily decides the rules for your entire existence and even if you're fit to exist at all. It might be heavy handed but I tried to hide all of that through Mother's cheerful and hopeful demeanor but once you're out in the real world it becomes very apparent how dark the trappings are and were from the beginning.

The Mother13 Ending: The thing about switching off Mother is that it is wrong. It's clearly a bad thing to do, but it isn't necessary. I think it should be clear that this isn't Nifflas' Juni and even though it's not canon for her to switch Mother off, I'm of the mind that the choice about who this Juni is should be left up to the player. If it wasn't clear a lot of inspiration for this level came from the movie Moon and the AI Gerty. Gerty subverts the trope of the evil by design or moral-less computer, such as HAL 9000 in 2001. Gerty is honestly just doing exactly what he's programmed to do, help the main character in any way he can and it's really interesting especially after there have been so many evil AIs in the media. Mother, not to be confused with the Mother AI from Alien, just another nod, Mother13 is programmed to love each new clone that comes off that assembly line to her orientation. She literally has no choice in the matter. From the perspective of the character, I would hope it would be clear that along with her love and help she is also programmed to herd them to a fate that could very well be death. It's not her fault in any way but she's programmed to do it and by that token cannot help herself. Taking that into account, it may not be good or righteous to pull the plug on her but survival trumps that to some people. I think it's much more of a moral gray area overall but I also know that it's much harder to show that in a level where I can't really effectively have the character communicate wishes/behavior and still keep the element of choice in the level. And I really like that there is a choice.  What it comes down to is accepting your lot in life or struggling to escape it. I didn't want to make it justifiable moral to do either in this case. I also had planned an escape sequence after that that eventually leads to the entire space station they're on blowing up but I realized that brevity is the soul of wit. And also that I'm lazy.

The Really Hidden Ending: Basically just breaking the Matrix inside her own brain leading to crazy dream-like sequences and ultimately death. Basically breaking the program by pushing it too far. Not really that exciting but I like the idea of manipulating a virtual reality world and compounding that with the chaos of a dream.

There is a lot I would do to fix this level if I had the inclination but I've moved on to the next level and I'm far too deep in it to come back here. Maybe when I'm done with it I'll come back to this for an extra coat of paint, but I won't promise that. I'm sorry if certain parts bug you... you can look at the CO with the scrolling text to see what is said if it's that important it is co116.png in the custom object folder.

All things considered though, thanks for playing the level. All criticism is welcome.