givemethepage

[givemethepage]

Painter attempts to go into town to restock ONE TIME, sees THIS where the art supply shop is supposed to be.

#layers of fear #inspirado #hallucinations #painter #guess i'll just use pieces of my dead wife then

[givemethepage]

Just Out of Reach

So who else flipped out at this part in The Final Note? To know that the Painter and the Musician's loops overlapped!!

[givemethepage]

Cursed House by Tais Koui

#hmm this looks familiar somehow...

[givemethepage]

Inspired!

I made dis.

[givemethepage]

myst

[givemethepage]

Layers of Fear 2023, The Actor's Story: Chapter 4

Remember Livejournal where you could put spoilers behind the cut? Well I don't know if I can do that here.

Anyway. Honestly I'm not sure what happened in the literal events of the siblings. Crew found their lost food bag, realized there were kids on board. They had been riled up because of rationing due to the missing food, and an inference had been laid down earlier that the hunger had made the crew bad at their jobs, leaving the ship prone to accidents. So when they find out there are stowaways, they send this lady out to find them. Sister tells little one to go hide. She continues the search for food, and I guess she's inevitably caught.

This is where it all gets blown to shit and I lose my grip. I can't tell if the sister killed this lady? But the lady goes missing. So does the sister. It's assumed that the lady fell overboard accidentally until the quartermaster, (the real one this time, not the kid in a roleplay, UNLESS??) finds the lady's body and "discreetly" throws it overboard, calling the kids monsters and giving up the hunt for them.

After this it gets real abstract. The kid is blaming themself for the sister's loss, imagining her voice berating them, crying out. They can't find her. It's all their fault, they think. AND THERE'S A LIGHTHOUSE.

Enter Rat Queen, playing all meek and subservient. Obviously a trick. But the kid is alone and hears her voice asking for help, so they free 7 lost rat souls which I guess feeds her enough to fully allow her to take hold in this kid. That finally gives them the courage to go I'M THE CAPTAIN NOW, face down the formless, and claim an identity.

Pretty quickly the kid realizes the Rat Queen is full of shit, but it's too late. That's when she's like "see writer? Can't do anything without me." And the kid looks behind the Rat Queen statue, with a figurative "WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOX" scene, revealing the sister's (or the young sibling's?) head. The hair on this head actually has a very similar silhouette to the shadow I found of my own character model in chapter 2. But regardless, this is a no good very bad day, and the director is all smug.

When I get back to the cabin, it's clear the ship sank. The slides say it, the paper says it, and everyone's at the bottom of the ocean. A Flame, MUCH LIKE THE FLAME OF TALENT IN MY HEART, THE SPARK OF MY SISTER'S BRAVERY THE DIRECTOR SAID I COULD NOT POSSESS, ignited the boiler and blew a hole in the ship. I can't read the note from my agent or the director or whatever. It's all crazy. I have two more strange objects in my collection with one to go, I have one empty slot on the slide deck, and I have two blank poster spots left in addition to the one I missed from chapter 2. I found a red lady shoe with the telescope and it did show up in my room, unlike the last 2 objects. I honestly didn't know there would be a full chapter 5, I thought it would be an epilogue, so for a second I thought I missed my chance to pick up all this stuff. Phew.

#layers of fear #layers of fear 2 #the actor #game analysis

[givemethepage]

Layers of Fear 2023: The Actor's Story, Chapter 3

First time through. I didn't realize I was gonna get ALL the backstory I just asked about yesterday. This queer narrative is so front and center and I'm here for it.

SPOILERS.

So so so so. This man is a war photographer, he loses an eye, but he's not a soldier so instead of a pension they give him a medal and call it a day. He's got a wife at home where he becomes a projectionist at a theater he doesn't own. Has a daughter. Real firecracker. Eye hurts. He drinks. You find his wooden eye at one point. Of course that would hurt. Why not glass? Wife gets pregnant, gets sick, dies in childbirth with their 2nd child, MAB. This guy misses his wife, sort of kind of maybe blames the younger child, or that's how it feels to the kid. They're timid, effeminate. This makes the dad ashamed. The older sister is protective of the little one, teaches them ways to cope. Roleplay, hiding. Stay in the dark, play a part. Masking. (See chapter 2 on masks lol,) The young kid doesn't want to do this, isn't great at it. Yet they're coached by the sister to be brave, strong, like her. She even models for him the rejection of traditional gender roles when he questions her choice to play the captain, who is a man in the film. So, playing pirates like the movie that runs in their theater, the sister plays the captain and creates the quartermaster role for the kid, but the kid, instead, decides to create this first mate character, Lucia: a femme pirate who is a lot like the sister, and "so proud" of the captain. And by the way, the sister has seen how the pirate movie ends, but the younger sibling hasn't, and she's sort of withholding it from them. The theater is falling apart and the owner won't invest. People aren't coming, nobody is getting paid. The father must have caught the kid dressing up as Lucia and gotten real mad: you find a belt, the dad becomes represented by the cyclops from the movie, and once you make it through a maze with his burning eye in pursuit, you find these flowers and learn that on the anniversary of his wife's death, which is also the young kid's birthday, he spends all his coin on the wife and forgets the kid. Note here that the dad says "I'm going, look after your brother." Like, maybe he's not coming back. But that's speculation. It's also shown that the sister found news relating to this ship, and has the initial dream to escape their life by sneaking aboard. And perhaps the most interesting bit during the pretend space mission, she reveals that she always knew her sibling had this actor's charisma, this ability to affect people. And that's why she always cultivated it. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't teach them to internalize her natural bravery, confidence, grounded sense of identity. "He could be anyone... But not me." Not the exact quote, but I think that's what that means.

And then! I found this weird box thing! When I got back to the cabin it went in the section with the Rat Queen lore note. There's an achievement about strange objects. This must be one. I must have missed some in the first 2 chapters. I know I missed a poster in ch 2. And when I touched it again in the cabin, the box got stuck on my flashlight hand! Glitch? Puzzle? Do I need more stuff? And then in the telescope I found another floating but, but it didn't appear in my room like the first two. I hate the feeling of missing stuff. But that's why I start in chapter mode.

And then here's what it says when I try to exit on the first floor. This must be dependent upon the choices I make during the decision points.

1. You run, but do you know the way?

2. You build one character. You destroy the other, but do you know which one is which?

3. You follow reason, you see through it. You cut away the strings.

4. You're not afraid to play your part. You accept the inevitable.

Very cool. I can't wait to see the opposite, to mix and match, to fail to decide later??

The Rat Queen does keep taunting the writer, comparing her to the young sibling. "You're just like him," etc.

I'm also really interested in the way the daughter has sympathy for the father, warning us that the monster is also hurting, much like the formless version of the actor. And we see a sort of formless version of the father as he's losing his identity. It's alllll connected. This game is great, and I'll say it again, just as rich as the Painter's story if not richer. It's so REAL and plausible. Not exaggerated, not reliant on egomanaiacal or melodramaritic personalities. So, onward! And then maybe I'll correct myself about details during the 2nd playthrough.

#layers of fear 2 #game analysis #the actor #layers of fear

[givemethepage]

Layers of Fear 2023: The Actor's Story, Chapter 2

I'm just going to give more impressions. This may spoil something, or I may be very wrong in my speculations. Don't tell me yet if I am.

Rat Queen says "Do you remember hunger?" in response to the earlier Writer narration.

Camera item says something about the character looking off on film. "I think you must have moved. You just don't look quite yourself." Did the camera capture two people? Is one sibling literally haunting the other sibling? They're deliberately being cagey about which one died, though I'm fairly sure it was the sister. The Writer was using a singular They when talking about the actor before. Ugh. I don't get how some people who liked the first LoF didn't like this one.

What are these gramophone cylinders? Who is speaking?

In the cabin, it said put on the mask. Then the items keep saying that they don't recognize me and some of the mannequins are wearing masks. I think it's being pretty clear about actors, performing, trauma, various types of masking. If LoF1 was the Freudian game, then this one seems like the Jungian game. Idk if that will fully hold up. But as far as what it means for the literal events of the story, not sure yet.

Director: "No man is an island, but one can become a vessel to carry the flame of another." I mean...

Also I'm tired of seeing comments like "mannequins aren't scary bro. This game overuses mannequins."

I blew up the "city." Director is furious according to the note from my agent. Did I miss that Black Wanderer poster? Could I have picked it up?

So it seems so far that... The sister, Lily, died, either while they were stowing away on a ship or after. No idea what they were running from that they snuck aboard. Did she starve and allow James to escape? And then there's this implication that James was jealous of her strength, so when he became older, maybe he pretended to have it and became our famous actor using her confidence. Or something. Or maybe it's more sinister. Maybe he killed her, or consumed her, or something. Although I think his guilt may be more along the lines of living her life after she died, rather than actually ending it. Idk.

Who is the director, and why does he know all there is to know? He keeps prompting me to bury the sister and show... my true self? Who seems to be more than just the little boy.

Also what the fuuhhhh there are now breadcrumbs of a definitive lore?? Who wrote THESE rat notes??

My favorite image so far is when I turned around right before leaving the engine room and saw the two mannequins holding hands through the bars that blocked my way back.

#layers of fear 2 #the actor #game analysis

[givemethepage]

[givemethepage]

Visceral oil on canvas paintings by Kim Jakobsson

[givemethepage]

Just watching Penny Dreadful again and wondering who the hell cleans Dorian's floors after all that.

#penny dreadful #dorian gray #no amount of perfume could mask that smell

[givemethepage]

I'm just finished with the first chapter of the Actor's Story in LoF2023. It's slower going because i haven't played this game before and I have no idea how my interactions are going to affect the story. So I'm doing it in chapter mode first. I want to try avoiding the Rat Queen as much as possible throughout story mode in case that affects the ending for the Writer. Doubt it? Idk.

I haven't googled too much because story spoilers, but I did look to see if there were multiple endings for The Writer and the answer seemed to be "we've only found the one so far." The only thing that makes me think she might have more than one ending is the way chapter mode is set up in the first place: how it says the changes you make here won't effect the outcome of story mode. Why would you need that if the Writer's Story doesn't branch at all?

After I get to the end I might try to go into the game files if that's possible, but I'm not ready to do that yet.

But hey man this identity metaphor is really something else! It may not be the Painter's story but it definitely has its own richness and emotional depth. I'm very much in after just one chapter. There's also an interesting gender thing happening here that I'm excited to explore. For the first playthrough I decided to disobey the director because I realized I could, so I'm going to stick with that. At the same time, I'm collecting absolutely everything I can find. I'm not sure if collecting items of a certain type tips the scale one way or another like it does in the Painter's story, so I'm not going to worry about that until story mode.

The art in this game is cool, and very different from the first game. Most of it is original rather than actual works from history. There are several seascapes we may or may not have already seen in the lighthouse that look like real paintings but none of them are familiar to me. The movie posters are great. I have 3 of them so far, and they all seem to tie into this sibling relationship. I haven't read ahead, I promise. The Rat Queen hasn't said much yet. Except to tell the writer she should be more obedient, which is funny because I'm disobeying the director. This blog wasn't going to be a full on diary but it looks like it's a full on diary now, so that's fine.

#layers of fear #layers of fear 2 #game analysis

[givemethepage]

Ok! Just played through the two endings of The Final Note, the new expansion that comes with Layers of Fear 2023. This adds a really satisfying (weird to use that word for something so fully tragic) new perspective on the family's story, expanding on ideas about the Musician that were only touched upon in Inheritance and at the end of the original game. I think some of my speculations from the other day seem sort of silly now, as I sit here so emotionally affected. As far as who is culpable, it's everyone and no one. It's hard not to do a full-on, Yellow-Wallpapery feminist read of The Final Note, especially given the letters from Beatrice, but again, it's more complicated than that. And I am still blown away by how much empathy this whole saga has has. And how well it plays with every single character being such an unreliable narrator. Between the three you can almost see what was true beneath all the paranoia, miscommunication, exaggeration, insecurity. It's beautifully told. All 4 characters unreliable for very different reasons, mind you. The Rat Queen included in that count. Now it's on to the Actor's Story. I never actually played Layers of a Fear 2 so this will be new to me. Rat Queen is reallllllllllllll

More Bullet Points

There are new artworks in this! It makes sense. Loved em all.

You GUYS. This may not hold up in court but what if Thomas Caldwell's agency is THE agency? Like the writing contest agency. The Rat Queen shell company, preying on the link between people's creativity and pain? And will an agent like this appear in the Actor's Story? Actors gotta have representation.

Omg I totally saw the Musician character model in the mirror. The Painter never got her right at all did he lol

More fuel for the eventual Steep Park House post. I hope I'm still fixated enough to go through with that later.

#layers of fear #game analysis #the final note #dlc

[givemethepage]

main theme (feat. penelopa willmann-szynalik) // layers of fear {composed by arkadiusz reikowski}

[givemethepage]

Layers of Fear 2023 Initial Playthrough Impressions, Part 1.

[SUPER LONG POST AHEAD, LIKELY FULL OF SPOILY BITS] (All my posts in this blog probably will be.)

Obviously I love it and my obsession with this world has been reignited, burning twice as hot as it did the first time around. So far I've played through Painter's Story 3 times, Daughter's Story twice, and I'm about to start the Musician's Story. Meanwhile in story mode, the Writer is about to sit down and begin writing the Actor's Story after a harrowing return to the lighthouse during which she's made an attempt to reject her earlier pact with the Rat Queen. I know. I tend to do things in weird sequences. I just want to see everything there is to see before I finish.

I love love love the additions and changes to the first game and its DLC, insofar far as I can remember the details of the original. The completionist in me is sad I can't find the Dust Mice sketch or whatever is meant to be behind the pipe on the secretary near the front door, and there may perhaps could possibly might be another whisper object that goes on the upstairs table.

But THAT'S not important. What's important is the story and the creation of the story! This new ending seems like it's missing a cutscene, but I really like that before you walk out the door, you're still surrounded by messages of failure. The intrusive thoughts don't disappear just because you've opened a path to healing. I'm not sure if I liked seeing what was beyond the front door, or maybe I just wasn't pleased with what they chose to put there, especially given what I did after I turned the game off.

For the first time in however many playthroughs since the original game came out, I stopped to examine the origins of the house's design. I came across Steep Park House/Potter's Manor. So many urban explorers have documented and photographed this mansion. Must remind myself to make a full post about it! This place seems to be just one of the inspirations for the couple's house, but an important one, given not just how close the architecture of the house's common areas are mirrored (literally) by the Painter's mansion, but also how many of the basic narrative details of LoF are shared with the former owners of Steep Park House, i.e. the painter who abandoned his home after the death of his wife, leaving behind many portraits of her, himself, unknown subjects, still life, etc., along with countless notebooks, letters, publications, and other possessions that provide clues to the lives they led. Seriously that's all actual circumstance from the real life house. I really want to ask the designers about it since all I can find right now is Reddit speculation about whether it's even the right house. But even green tinge of the wife's diary pages and the font on some of the mail can be found in the photographs of Steep Park. It HAS to have been instrumental in dreaming up the very concept of Layers of Fear. At least I choose to believe it is.

Gonna save the full spread for a Steep Park/Potter's Manor post.

Back to the game, though, the growth of the Rat Queen's role for the 2023 version doesn't sully the universality of the game's allegory like I was worried it might based on some Steam reviews. She remains a symbol of the despair that accompanies memories of trauma, and explicitly making a pact with her seems to me to be a commitment to using that despair as a wellspring for creativity, at the expense of any ability to see truth. The despair will only further twist your memories and warp your perspective. We see all 3 members of the family fall prey to the subjectivity of their memory, even moreso in this version with the addition of voiceovers and I think a few more notes(?). And choice still carries just as much weight in the new game, even with a supernatural force pulling strings from behind the curtain. One heartbreaking thing the Rat Queen has said this time around was that the Daughter was "mine from the moment of her birth." Wow. I went straight for the True Ending, so that statement did turn out to be true for me, but what of the Forgiveness and Resentment endings? Do those also necessarily reflect a Daughter trapped in the Rat Queen's grasp? Are these messages from the Rat Queen, (which I presume are spoken to the Writer,) set in stone? Are they reliable? Are they true? So many implications. One of which is:

What will happen to the Writer??

Will she have multiple endings like the others? Will she be able to break her pact with the Rat Queen? And will that depend upon the outcomes of the other stories along with which collectibles I found during her scenes in the lighthouse? That might be a problem because I am just scooping up everything and devouring every bit of lore my cursor passes across.

Other questions:

Have any works of art been added to/subtracted from the family's portion of the game? I want to do a symbolic analysis of all the real works within the context of the timing of each painting's appearance during gameplay. I know that's a huge task with what, 38 works? But that's a future post and it's why I made a whole separate blog for this in the first place. To be honest I'm shocked that I haven't found anything like this online in the 7 years since the original Layers of Fear when there are a million channels dedicated just to deconstructing the lore of one Zelda game, (which I also love.)

Are there any easter eggs in the family's stories? It's been fun to read real critiques of the first game planted all over the lighthouse, but I wonder if anything like the lemons or the ouija board event are going to pop up in this.

Is the Musician more culpable than I thought? I also went back and did the Dad ending in Inheritance and I don't remember Mom being quite as paranoid or short tempered. It made me see her writings in a new light, and it makes me excited to go through her new story a few times. I must see everythinnnnnnnnngggggggggg.

What does the writer mean by "bring him back" in Chapter 3? Did her son die? Did they have a falling out? Does she believe the Rat Queen or her agency has the power to fix this? Do they?

And then ultimately, is the Rat Queen an invention of the writer? Is her fascination with these stories and the mysteries behind them only leading to flawed adaptations tainted with themes of insanity because she has projected the insecurities of her own fragile mind into the events she's depicting in her books? (Nah)

I dunno I dunno I dunno I dunno I dunno

#layers of fear #reimagining #gaming #game analysis #steep park house #potter's manor #steep park