Thimbleweed Park Submission: How to be Believed

The key to being believed is making sure everything you tell people is consistent. If you slip up and add that little extra detail, you just might get called out. Make sure you trim more unbelievable elements from your stories ahead of telling them.

Sure, you really did see that man in the purple suit with the gray flower in his shirt pocket, sitting in the tree outside your bedroom window, reading a book with a title you can never remember no matter how hard you try-- but isn't that a little hard to believe?

Just try one of these easily applied pre-made stories instead:

You: "I saw a possum carrying its babies on its back last night."

Them: "That must've been something else!"

You: "I went hiking in the mountains with some of my co-workers."

Them: "Sounds like fun!"

You: "I watched a robin build a nest out of duck feathers."

Them: "Wow! Isn't nature amazing?"

Sure, they might not be true, but at least they're believable.

After all, what’s more important; telling the truth, or being believed?

Stranger than Fiction

One of the easiest ways to believe something someone tells you, is if it’s easily observable in the real world. For example, if someone tells you something like:

I saw a possum in my backyard last night.

The statement is instantly believable. Possums are something we know are real, and seeing one in your backyard isn’t anything out the ordinary. They’re even nocturnal, letting the time of the occurrence match with its expected behavior. Even when you’re more vague, it’s still easy to believe.

I saw some kind of animal in my backyard last night.

You would still believe them, since many different animals could have been in the backyard that night, they just couldn't identify what it was. Even if we take that statement farther, and make it so it’s not “just” an animal, it’s still a fairly innocuous statement.

I saw some kind of weird animal in my backyard last night.

This statement is still believable, since there are plenty of animals that can easily be considered  “weird,” especially is you only see them for a moment or just one part of them. In the case of something like a possum, if they just saw the large fleshy, bristly tail, or the flash of a mouth full of little sharp teeth-- both of those traits could be considered “weird,” and not let the person easily identity the animal in question. Likely, the speaker said “weird” due to being unsettled by the sighting, than because of any actually strangeness of the animal in question.

Now, the important part of this discussion is what starts to make a statement unbelievable. Starting small, we can have a statement like this:

I saw some kind of weird animal, or something, in my backyard last night.

Simply by adding “or something,” it makes the statement start to seem more like something out of fiction than reality. If it wasn’t an animal, what was it? In a real life scenario, one would still likely believe the person, just thinking the unexpected presence of the animal was unnerving enough to nurture a, likely unintended, paranoid conclusion. This can be expanded into:

I saw something in my backyard last night.

Here, the vague descriptors make it, in some ways, less strange than the inclusion of the possibility of it being a “weird animal.” Here, the lack of detail lets the listener fill the gap with the most likely conclusion. They might ask a follow-up question along the lines of: “Like what, an animal?” However, that believability might change if you were to respond in a way that indicated you didn’t think it was an animal, by saying something like: “I don’t think so.” This would then start to invite doubt about the person’s observation.

But what if we take that to the next level? Something like:

I saw someone in my backyard last night.

At this point, you’d probably lose some people in terms of believability. It’s not that seeing someone in your backyard one night is highly improbable, it’s just that it seems more fitting for a movie than reality, so most would react as such. However, with others you might get genuine concern or worry-- mostly from the fact that the situation in question plays on innate fears of observation from some unseen interloper. The point is, that if you actually saw someone in your backyard one night, it wouldn’t be too difficult to convince someone you did, and deal with it accordingly. However, this is entirely dependent on the fact that it’s, just like the possum before, a scenario that is fairly easy to imagine happening in the real world-- there’s a lot of unsavory characters out there after all.

Now, what if the situation you encounter, is more outside the realm of possibility?  The believability here still ranges depending on the factors of the statement. As we discussed earlier, being vague can actually add believability. In this case, that means that just leaving the statement as “someone/something” makes it obviously more believable than if you said something like:

I saw an alien in my backyard last night.

In this scenario, the first thing you’d likely think is that, obviously, your friend did not see an alien in their backyard last night. They likely saw something they thought was an alien, but was actually something else. Why is a statement like that less believable than the “weird animal, or something” or “someone” examples we used above, even though it’s technically more specific? The key here is the presence of the concept being mostly in fiction, rather than reality. This idea is fairly well known, even being discussed by Mulder in The X-Files (since we're already talking about aliens.) The idea, to put it simply, is that when an idea is sufficiently disseminated through media, especially fiction, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe it’s something that could be real (such as the idea of Area 51 being a secret alien and UFO research site.)

However, even with the idea of an “alien,” there are people who would be willing to believe you, especially people who already believe in something like “aliens” to begin with. This also works if you swap out “alien,” for other notable fiction entities that also have followings of people that believe in them, such as an “angel,” or a “ghost.” If you find the right person, the belief is still able to be achieved. However, that’s not the goal of writing this. The idea I’ve been guiding towards, is the presence, hostile or otherwise, of something that is only present in media in a fictional depiction.

In order to explain this, I’m going to move away from the “something in the backyard” formula. Let’s say someone says to you:

I keep having nightmares where someone is trying to kill me.

Nothing really out of the ordinary here. Plenty of people have nightmares like that.

I keep having nightmares where someone is trying to kill me... they feel so real.

Here, a little more to have to accept, but we’ve all had dreams that “feel” real. However, that’s just a feeling, we accept that it isn’t actually real.

I keep having nightmares where someone is trying to kill me... they feel so real. I think if they do I’ll die in real life.

And now we’ve fully left reasonable possibility. In the scenario where you’re trying to tell someone this, you’re probably not going to have them believe you. Even if they tell you they believe you, they probably still don’t. You could probably say one day “I was just overreacting,” and all they’d probably respond with is “Oh. Well, that’s a relief.” or “Yeah, that’s what I figured.” Again, showing they never really believed you to begin with.

This is almost as far as you can take a statement like this. Almost.

I keep having nightmares where Freddy Krueger is trying to kill me... they feel so real. I think if he does, I’ll die in real life.

This is the end-all, beat-all in terms of unbelievability. Not only would you have to accept that it’s possible to be pursued by some kind of dream entity that kills you in real life-- it’s the one that already exists in the fictional media of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Just a straight-out-the-door impossibility right there. This statement would be nigh impossible to convince anyone of. The same applies to anything with a purely fictional presence.

I saw an alien from Alien in my backyard last night.

I’m being stalked by Michael Myers when I walk home.

Daffy Duck keeps trying to burn my house down.

What I’m trying to get at, is that something being present in fictional media, and only present in fictional media, makes suspension of disbelief impossible. It requires us to change what “fiction” means as a whole. We’d have to consider that maybe there is an entity that has somehow disseminated their appearance and behavior into fictional media. That it has serialized itself in order to make sure it’s impossible to gain sympathy or help in dealing with it. Even if you could prove it, with pictures or video-- we live in an age where anything can be doctored or staged, even further expanding that gulf of unbelievability.

If you were someone dealing with something that you knew no one would believe you about, you’d likely just keep it to yourself. After all, what’s more important; telling the truth, or being believed?
Exactly.
That’s why I don't tell anyone what I saw that night.

A Look into the Void [Part 1]

This week, I’d like to take a look at some games that most people probably aren’t aware of. This isn’t to say that they were especially good, or particularly innovative-- I’d just like to take a moment to share my experiences with a series of short games I found around three years ago. I don’t have access to them anymore, and I haven’t been able to find them online, so some of my memories may be a bit off. However, I believe that the impact the games left on me will be powerful enough to deliver a fair amount of accuracy in my recollection, and let me describe them effectively enough, so that those who never got the chance to play them have an idea of what they were like, and understand why my memories of playing them are so vivid.

I can’t remember which website I got the game from, but considering when I played it, my best guess would be Gamejolt, since it was around the time it started to become the defacto indie game website. Again, all of my best efforts to find the game there, or anywhere, have shown that the creator has likely scrubbed his/her existence from the internet. I do remember the creator’s username however, “DarknessDawns,” since it was a line that appeared during the beginning of all four games. The games were all plays on the title of the original game, “Dance into the Void.” This game isn’t the one I’ll talk about first however, since it wasn’t actually the first one I played, an anomaly that I’ll explain further on.

The first game by DarknessDawns I played was called “Rendered into the Void.” This game, like all the others, was a fairly basic RPG-maker, story-focused horror game. I remember that it was during a time when I was really into weird, dark, or horror themed RPGs, and many of the free ones were RPG-maker games. Games like Space Funeral and Ao Oni were some of my favorites, so I was always looking for more games that hit that non-traditional, narrative-focused vibe. The screenshots for the game were the first indication that it was what I was looking for. The whole game had original sprite work and backgrounds, which was usually your easiest way to find games that weren’t either slapdash attempts to make YouTuber-bait, a ripoff of another game, or worse-- a creepypasta inspired game. The sprites weren’t the traditional retro-inspired either, instead opting for using hand-sketched sprites instead. The art style wasn’t particular high-end, and the whole game seemed to be a muted greyscale, but the amount of effort this must have taken was significant at the very least-- and that was my greenlight to download the game.

When I started the game, it was immediately clear that this was not a stand-alone game, as I was met by the opening text of “Chapter 2: Rendered from the Void.” It was my own fault for not really reading the description in-depth, but, in my defense, they weren’t titled on the website in a way that made it more obvious that it was part of a series. Then again, maybe if I had noticed I would have been turned off by the idea of getting into a series as opposed to a single game. I figured if the game managed to keep my interest, then I would consider playing through the rest.

After the opening title, the scene faded into a shot of a bedroom, with a character lying awake in bed. The attempt at a top-down perspective with a hand-drawn style was slightly off, making it a bit disorienting, but I felt that played in the favor of the atmosphere, giving an immediate sense of unease and discomfort. The only light in the room was a flickering lamp in the corner of the room, a garish shade fading between orange and green, giving a surreal, sickly feeling to the scene. The character’s name was Sadie according to the text box, and it appeared she was having trouble sleeping. I don’t remember word for word what she said, but I can give the important details.

Sadie was a struggling digital artist, and was expressing frustration about her graphic design job. She had hoped that when she got the position it would allow some degree of artistic expression, but this hadn’t turned out to be the case. She details multiple clients and jobs where she had to not only do boring by-the-books designs and logos, but often had to go against her own artistic judgement in order to please the client. This often resulted in logos they were happy with, but that she felt ashamed to be associated with. One example was a children’s clothing website, who requested that the text on the logo be in “Comic Sans.” She had pleaded with them that it was a terrible font that no respectable online organization would want to brand themselves with, but only ended up having a complaint filed against her by the client. Her boss had lectured her multiple times about how it wasn’t for her to determine what the client wanted on their logo, website banner, or even as an actual sign in front of their business. Sadie claimed that every fiber of her being, as not only as an artist, but even as a decent person, made her want to just have the chance to show them the logo she would want to create for them, just so they could see how awful, bland, or gaudy the design they would’ve ended up with truly was.

After finishing her occupational lament, she turns off the light, and eventually falls asleep. The screen faded to black, and the text: “DARKNESS DAWNS” appears on the screen in hastily scrawled scratchings.  This is where it became clear where actual bulk of the game would take place.

Sadie woke up, but the scene was blurry. After a few moments of her stirring awake, it grew into focus. The monotony of dull greys gave way to a sudden burst of color. An assault of bright, clashing colors came into view as it finally transitioned from the cutscene back into the game. It was fairly obvious that this was a dream. Even Sadie commented something along the lines of, “Well, this is certainly... off.”

The trees had neon yellow bark and electric blue leaves, the sky was a shifting kaleidoscope of pink and purple, and the ground was a plaid pattern of vomitus green and glaring reds. I’m glad that the creator didn’t show the dream world in the screenshots, since the shocking transition into it certainly would have been diminished if you knew about it before playing. This image is one of the first that really stuck with me, as it was certainly an audacious undertaking to have the dream world reflect the struggles of the main character. In this chapter, that being Sadie struggling with her artistic integrity at her job. The world you explore in the dream conveys her feeling of being trapped in a place that reflects the opposite of her artistic values.

The bulk of the game after point isn’t terribly important to our discussion, but it was fairly well done. The puzzles were fairly straight-forward “get key A to open door A,” along with fairly typical push-box maze puzzles that are fairly common in RPG-maker games. The story itself in the dream world wasn’t too complex, Sadie meets characters that either represent co-workers or clients, and the antagonist is of course her boss, and his strict complacency. The character designs however, were notable, since they too were rended either poorly, or in various degrees of distortion, in order to fit the aesthetics of the environment. I don’t remember much of the events that happen in the dream, beyond Sadie simply trying to escape the dream, and each character giving vague hints as to the next object she would need to progress.

The game concludes with the final area being a caricature of her boss’ office. Her boss lectures her on not being “a better asset,” and threatens to fire her if she doesn’t “fall into line.” (one note here was “fire” quickly flashed to a bright red “KILL” as the text scrolled past.) The last action you take as the player in the game is a choice box, either choosing “OBEY” or “REVOLT.” Choosing “obey” (obviously the “bad end” of the game) results in Sadie transforming into a neon colored and disfigured version of herself, followed by a woman’s scream sound effect (painfully loud, as is the standard in free horror games for some reason) and the “Game Over” screen.

Choosing “revolt” however, results in Sadie taking a pencil from the desk and stabbing it into her boss's eye-- a bright green fluid leaking out onto the desk. The color slowly fades out of the scene, and the environment of the office slowly takes on a more realistic and normal appearance. And... that’s it. That’s how her story ends. The credits roll, and you’re returned to the title screen. This is the part of the game that blew me away. Was it a dream? Or was the dream simply a means of showing her inner-demons and struggle with the dredge of her career? Suffice to say, I was impressed enough to want to play the other games in the series.

However, before I could even get to the first game in the series, I noticed something in the game’s folder that wasn’t there before: a text file (similar to the mechanic that some may know from the game Imscared: a Pixelated Nightmare.) The text file was called “Lesson 2.” Inside it had a link to this page. Under the link was what I figured to the the “lesson” in question:

“We are remembered for who we were

--not who we wanted to be.”

If the link is still live at the time of publishing this, you’ll see that it’s a graphic design portfolio for “Katie Wilkins.” I tried to follow the link to her website, but it was down. So, I searched online for her name, and the first result was this article. Katie Wilkins was found dead in her parent’s garage at the age of 25. This is what made me remember these game from all the others. Was the character of “Sophie” actually Katie? Was the game an attempt to give some hypothetical context to Katie’s death? Or, was it trying to hint as something else? The “lesson” was also significant, however I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time. After finding this first “lesson,” I immediately downloaded the other three games.

The next game I played was “Chapter 1: Cast into the Void,” since I felt that from that point forward, I should play the games sequentially, in case there were any elements that connected them narratively or otherwise.

Chapter 1 began with another shot of a bedroom, in the same dreary monochrome style of the second chapter. This time the text box showed the name of the character was “Jack.” The starting scene was very similar to the other game I played, since Jack was lying in bed and lamenting his current career. Again, I don't remember his plight word for word, but I can recall the gist of it. Jack had recently become a lead dancer at a ballet company (I think he said his fiancee/girlfriend was an instructor there as well but I don’t think she was actually featured in the game,) and was struggling with what to do with the success he was achieving. On one hand he was incredibly successful in this position, and knew that it was the more defined path he had for building the rest of his life on. On the other hand, he still had other artistic passions that he wanted to pursue, but found little free time to do so. Not to mention that he had dedicated over a decade going to ballet schools, and slowly ascending to this position. He was distraught that he was having these regrets and thoughts now, after he felt there was no way to step back and assess what he really wanted to do with the rest of his life.

Clearly, a pattern was starting to emerge in the games. We had two artists who were in positions that they weren’t happy with, trying to process how to escape the situation. Jack falls asleep, and the screen fades to black. The text “DARKNESS DAWNS” appears on the screen, then fades away. I was very curious what the dream world would look like in the first chapter, and was pleasantly surprised (and a little motion sick,) as the world came into focus.

I had hoped that each game would have a dream world with a different art style, and thankfully that turned out to be the case. The art style was essentially a more colorful version of the “real world,” but everything was constantly moving in various patterns or shifting in size or shape. The trees in the background shifted and switched places, the clouds swirled into and out of each other, and the path constantly pulsed forward. Once again, I was impressed at the time and effort that must have been required to put the art assets together.

The game starts with Jack equally confused as Sadie, and after a moment realizes that he must be having some kind of stress-induced lucid dream. I was disappointed that the gameplay was very similar to the second game, and I had to complete more fetch quests and push-block puzzles to progress. I remember this game more clearly, since I was more interested in what the series as a whole was trying to do. All the NPCs were still people from Jack’s life, but they all had the same name and face in the dialogue boxes. Jack reacted and talked to them differently, and you could usually figured out who he was talking to, but the name spaces all read “‘FRIEND,’” and all their faces were distorted into abstract flesh-colored shapes. The models were also always facing north, so you couldn’t see their faces from that view. At the time it was quite unsettling, but looking back it actually probably just saved DarknessDawns from creating more than one overworld sprite. These led to one element I remember from Chapter One especially, which was the interactions with the NPCs.

Every conversation with the NPCs involves them asking him about his ballet career, and him trying to say that he’s having trouble being happy about it-- since it puts a massive amount of pressure on him, along with starting to force him down a single artistic pathway. However, they always just ignore him, and shower him with admiration and praise about his success. I felt that it really captured that feeling you have in dreams where no matter how hard you try to do something it just won’t work for reasons outside your control. Jack becomes more and more frustrated as the game continues, and by the end he doesn’t even respond to what the NPCs say, knowing that they aren’t really affected by what he’s saying. The tone of this game seemed even darker than the second one, and the environment slowly grew to reflect that.

As opposed to the second game, where the color and style returned to normal within a few moments at the end of the game. “Dance into the Void,” took a much slower and deliberate approach. I noticed as I progressed that the environment’s movements were slowing down from the fevered pace of when it started, and continued to slow as I progressed, until they eventually stopped completely. The colors also started to fade out, until it was back to the original dreary look of the bedroom scene, but then kept progressing until it was an even darker monochrome. Eventually, Jack’s movements started to slow, until he was barely moving. Then he stopped, and seemed to collapse onto the ground. Then... the game ended. No decision or possible “Game Over” scenario, it just closed when you reached the point where Jack collapsed.

I looked in the folder, and saw that “Lesson 1” had appeared in the folder. Like before, the text file contained a link and these lines:

We are remembered for how we acted

--not how we felt.

This time the link led to this page. This led to a page for a photography website for Juan Carlos Amy-Cordero. It was a calendar for clients and appointments, but all the entries in the calendar were blank. Looking at the bottom of the page, it seemed that it hadn’t been active since 2011. I was slightly confused at the connection, but remembered that at one point Jack mentioned his interest in photography. A quick search showed the grim connection.

As it had been with my search on Katie Wilkins, the first result for Juan Carlos Amy-Cordero, was this. If the link is still live, it’s an article on the suicide of Juan Carlos Amy-Cordero. Reading through the article, it was clear that Jack was a parallel of Juan. Juan was a principal dancer at the Eugene Ballet Company, and the suicide was seen as unexpected by his friends and colleagues.

This time the theme the games had was made very clear, since it really seemed like “Dance into the Void,” was a kind of attempt to explain what might have been going through Juan’s head when he died. I thought it was a bit morbid and strange to use real people as a basis for your characters in a game, but then again I probably wouldn’t have ever heard of Juan Carlos Amy-Cordero, if I hadn’t played the game. Perhaps that was another of the author’s intentions? I was also still trying to figure out how the lessons connected, if they did, since they were very similar in structure. Regardless, I decided the “point,” of the whole project would be clearer once I played the other two games.

The next game was “Chapter 3: Cast into the Void.” I hadn’t noticed any connection between chapters 1 and 2 beyond their similarity in theming and style, so I was eager to see what the penultimate chapter had to offer. I had expected the game to start in the bedroom like the previous two games, but was met with something else. The third game started with a cold open, with me having immediate control of my character. No title screen, no introduction-- just putting me right into the game.

[Part Two to follow]

Not so Easily "Forgotten"

Today I’d like to look back to an indie game some might remember called “Forgotten.” Now, it might be hard to remember it (no pun intended,) since there are currently six games on Gamejolt alone called “Forgotten.” However, we’re not talking about any of those. We’re talking about a game that was released to IndieDB in September of 2010, by a user named “BoneMarrowBro.”

“BoneMarrowBro,” whose real name was David Fitzgerald, released the game in September, but it wasn’t until nearly December that it gained any real attention. It was then that a slew of people began uploading footage of the game online, that people finally found this gem among the lazy, jumpscare-riddled messes that have always been so typical of the free indie horror game genre. Since the game was made before most current highly popular YouTube gaming channels, it’s difficult, or impossible to find footage of it today. However, that will no longer be the case when the remake of “Forgotten” (submitted to Steam Greenlight “Forgotten: Reawoken,”) releases next week. The demo is already making the rounds, and my review of it should be posted very soon.

Now, it’s time to mention the tragic history behind the game’s creator that resulted in the game’s removal from IndieDB, along with the takedown of most videos of the original version. On January 14th, 2011 David Fitzgerald was found dead in his apartment. The details of his death are scarce, but many suspect that Fitzgerald struggled with depression and psychological health problems for most of his life, and even that “Forgotten” itself was an attempt to channel that personal struggle into an interactive output. In the end, only Fitzgerald himself could explain the motivation behind the game, and his parents have remained private about disclosing the details of his passing. However, they were gracious enough recently to allow Fitzgerald’s closest friends to compile the assets found on his computer, in order to produce the remastered and expanded version.

The game itself wasn’t notable for any groundbreaking graphics or features, what made “Forgotten” so significant was the effort put towards creating a subtle atmosphere of horror. The game wasn’t even tagged “horror,” on IndieDB, which is likely why it took so long for the game to be noticed by the mainstream horror community. Fitzgerald claimed the game wasn’t a horror game, and was more of an “interactive narrative.” However, much of the story and even some of the subtle details clearly show the game has a darker atmosphere than the initial looking over the game’s IndieDB description would have led one to believe.

Most of the game takes place inside a fairly typical house, with the player simply going through and trying to find out the story of those who lived in the house before the character. This element of the game is fairly engaging and explores the lives of a couple who you find, as you progress through the game and find various objects and notes, clearly had a moment of breakage that led to their separation. The tone is fairly somber, and the conclusion is fairly plain in the mundane reality that despite your best efforts, not everything works out. This aspect only took about thirty minutes if you didn’t have any trouble with the “find x to open y,” formula the game followed, most of which was just moving through the house and opening drawers and picking up torn-out diary and journal pages, along with notes the couple left each other. Overall, a fairly typical, although well executed narrative-focused exploration game. However, the real element of the game that caught people off guard was the key one could find under the sink in the upstairs bathroom.

It was YouTube user "13DarkTomorrow13," who first found that by taking the screwdriver from the toolbox (usually used to jimmy open the downstairs closet,) and instead taking it to the empty space under the sink in the upstairs bathroom and using it on the empty bottom space (which only becomes interact-able with the screwdriver equipped,) results in removing a board, and revealing a large iron key. However, "13DarkTomorrow13" couldn’t explain where the key went. This sent players into a frenzy of trying to find the mythical keyhole that might take this mysterious key. The key was also unlabeled, unlike all other inventory items in the game, so there were no hints in-game at any possible locations. Of course, multiple people emailed Fitzgerald (at this time still known only as “BoneMarrowBro”) for any hints he could offer to the key's intended use. However, Fitzgerald was adamant in all of his responses that he had no intention of “solving the puzzle for them,” and stonewalled any attempts to pry out any sort of clue. Eventually they got the lead they needed, but not in the way you might imagine.

All of the emails sent by Fitzgerald were signed “David” at the bottom, which eventually led to players making David their profile name while playing. At first, it seemed this just activated a minor easter egg, in which players would occasionally hear the name David whispered, as if coming from behind them. It was soon after this that players found that by finding the key with the profile name “David,” it was possible to open a door that normally couldn’t be opened. Now, this was obviously the first door people tried when the key was discovered, and similarly so after finding the “David” Easter egg. It’s unknown who first discovered it, but eventually players realized that by going fast enough they could get the key before they heard the first whisper, and it was only then that the door could be opened with the key. This is where players found the true nature of “Forgotten.”

The door opened into a black void, but once players stepped inside-- they found themselves in a much different house. It was clearly the same house as far as the layout was concerned, but the appearance was vastly changed. The house became dilapidated and dark. There were new notes to be found, new puzzles to solve, and, most importantly, the story was a new one. People were ecstatic, and the praising reviews flew in. People honestly couldn’t believe that Fitzgerald had hidden an entire other game inside his game. The “Other House,” as it became known, held a story much different than that of "Forgotten." 
"The Other House" told the story of a man who lived alone, and was tormented by whispers of his name late at night. The notes slowly progressed out of the world of personal psychological struggles and moved into rambling, desperate pleas for help. However, the game once again did a good job of subverting the player’s expectations, since at one point the notes begin to become more positive. Eventually, the player finds a journal, which covers how the unnamed resident of the house finds proper psychiatric counsel, and finds a medication with relatively few side effects that helps him cope. After this the front door unlocks, (similarly to the original stage of the game) the player leaves, and the credits roll. The ending and sudden shift in the story was jarring, but for the most part people were at least satisfied that there was another interesting story within an already fairly engaging game.

Now, most people would assume this is where the rabbit hole ends-- and yet, it's somehow only the beginning. Once again, a YouTuber, this time a user by the name "JackManlyQQ," found yet another mysterious key. This time, it required taking the screwdriver and using it on a floorboard under the table in the dining room. This led to finding a key similar to the one found under the sink originally. This time, however, users were once again unsure where the key could possibly be used. They had entered through the locked door on the first floor, but that door disappeared when they entered the “Other House.” No one had found any new doors while exploring in this new environment. The only lead people had was that they could hear a murmuring and whispering while standing in the upstairs bathroom. It was a commenter on IndieDB that finally discovered what needed to be done. Before one got the key, and while they still had the screwdriver, they had to use it on the ceiling of the upstairs bathroom, which revealed an attic door hidden behind the paneling. Then, one could still use the screwdriver to get the key, and then finally open the attic. Once inside, most players expected yet another house within the house, but they found that the door actually led (as someone who hadn’t played the rest of the game might suspect) into an attic.

At this point, it’s important to note that once again, the response from Fitzgerald was significant as well, and played a major role in how people interpreted the game as a whole. Fitzgerald claimed that there was no attic, and that the area people had found wasn’t something he made. He claimed that someone had hijacked the download, and replaced it with whatever held this secret area, even posting that the area was made to “spite” him. Most people quickly realized that this was likely a stunt by Fitzgerald to drum up attention to the game (which frankly worked,) but there were always those who believed him, and even those who invented conspiracies about how the origins and implementation of this attic are somehow tied to the events of his death.

Inside, the player character produced a lighter, and the range of vision was greatly reduced. The door from which players entered was covered in what appeared to be desperate scratches, and the walls were filled with various messages etched into the wood, like: “I AM AFRAID” “I AM WEAK,” and “I LIVE A LIE.” At this point, there was no denying the psychological horror aspect of “Forgotten,” regardless of how Fitzgerald himself felt about the game. It was also here that “Forgotten” moved from subtle horror and mystery, into a dark personal look into the psyche of a desperate man. Before we delve into the final moments of “Forgotten,” I believe it’s important to again mention the man behind it.

Even to this day, it’s impossible to know if what people found in “Forgotten” is based on real elements from David Fitzgerald’s life, or if it simply serves as a kind of example of the personal struggles he dealt with. It could even be feasible that nothing in the game has anything to do with his life, and his death is a completely unrelated event. Fitzgerald’s parents have never commented on the content of the game, and so far their only involvement with it has been giving permission for the release of the remastered version. People can endlessly postulate the connections and parallels between the lives of Fitzgerald and the life of the character in “Forgotten” and even more so the character of the “Other House,” and yet-- the only person who could possibly shed light on the truth behind the art is David Fitzgerald himself. However, at the very least, there are some widely believed theories on the connection between Fitzgerald and “Forgotten.”

Suffice to say, the most common interpretation is that Fitzgerald is both the man from “Forgotten,” and the man in the “Other House,” who in turn are one and the same. The story of “Forgotten” itself is the main story of the game, since they were (supposedly) the most visible events to Fitzgerald's friends and family. The secrecy of the “Other House,” and the deeper, darker struggles held within would then represent psychological struggles that Fitzgerald went through alone. Finally, and the most important element to people’s theories about the game, is the “attic.” Many believe that this segment of the game represented thoughts so buried and hidden, that not even Fitzgerald was fully aware of them (hence his public reaction to it.) It is this shaky, unproven (and frankly, in my opinion, a bit fantastical) interpretation of the game’s story and characters that readers should keep in mind when discussing the final moments of “Forgotten.”

Once players finished looking over the various self-deprecating phrases etched onto the walls, they finally descended further into the darkness of the attic. The first thing players found was, as one might expect, a series of notes. However, unlike the notes found throughout the rest of the game these were clearly not notes or journal entries, but the personal thoughts of the player character. Some were short, small scraps like: “My existence is merely a mistake given room to breathe” and “No one will understand me, regardless of their intentions or efforts.”  Others were longer, and delved more specifically into personal struggles and self-doubts that the character held. I would put excerpts of them into this, but I feel they are too grim for the purposes of this write-up. Even the creators of the remake have removed some of them from the game, due to their belief that they were based on elements from Fitzgerald’s own life, although his parents have neither confirmed, nor denied this. These excerpts were some of the darkest and most personal writings that players had read, and many wrote emails to Fitzgerald in support. Fitzgerald was never reported to have replied to these messages, although this was during the time when he was actively claiming that the attic wasn’t a part of his game. Nevertheless, I will put one of them here in its entirety, as it remains vague enough that it would be impossible to connect it to any personal details of Fitzgerald’s life.

“Everyday I wake up, hoping that this will be the day that I find meaning in my life. At some point though, I started to wonder... What if that’s the only thing giving my life purpose? What if the only reason I wake up, the only reason I begrudgingly live, is because of that search? Ironically, I think the only reason I wake up in the morning, is to find a reason to wake up in the morning. How many more days does it take to get the answer, the real answer, to sink in? I don’t have a purpose. I was so sure that I had one, that I was sealing myself off from the truth.

I will live... I will die... I will be forgotten.”

It was this note (especially the last line, which many believe to be the game's namesake) that made players feel that “Forgotten” was a cry for help from Fitzgerald, and that the attic segment especially was something that was made to put that plea out into the world. If that is true, and his death is truly connected to this cry for help, it shows that even with the support of people around the world, it’s not an easy task to help someone with words alone.

Finally, after players had read through all of the notes, they came to the final scene of the game. Players came to a chair, with a coil of rope sitting next to it. It doesn’t take much of an imagination to predict what happens next. The player interacts with the chair, and proceeds to use the rope to tie a noose, hang if from the rafters, and then stands on the chair. A prompt appears at the bottom of the screen that reads: 
“Nothing will change.” 
Upon pressing the interact key the character places the noose around their neck. Then, another prompt appears, which reads: 
“Be true to yourself.” 
Interacting again results in the character kicking the chair out from under themselves. The game cuts to black in tandem with the sickening sound of the snapping of the character’s neck. The game sits on this blank, black screen with the unsettling sound of the creaking and swaying of the rope. Players must force-close the game to leave this screen, as simply waiting never produces any credits or epilogue.

...

I’d like to end this by saying that I am thankful that the parents of David Fitzgerald have allowed the remake of “Forgotten” to be released. I am also glad that the team behind the remake have elected to release “Forgotten: Reawoken” for free. I feel that it is in everyone’s best interest to experience the game for themselves. I have described it here, but words can only do so much justice to the feeling of “Forgotten” itself. Even players who played the original should try the remake, as it is said to feature new content and areas that Fitzgerald had planned to add, but for whatever reason never did. This includes having the name whispering mechanic work regardless of entered profile name, and notes that were cut from the original version. I would like to thank the “Forgotten: Reawoken” team for sending me the demo when I said I was doing a piece on the game, and I look forward to posting my preview here in the near future.

In the end, regardless if the game was about Fitzgerald or not, the game takes the player through the various problems we encounter in our lives. It shows us that even if we think we understand what someone is struggling with, there are always things we don’t know about them, and even things that they aren’t fully aware of themselves.

My thoughts are with the family and friends of David Fitzgerald, and I hope that they have some kind of peace knowing that he might, ironically enough, be remembered through “Forgotten."

The Uncomparable [WIP]

A man paces back and forth eagerly as he checks his phone. He looks to be in his mid-to-late thirties, possibly someone who works in the technology sector, maybe as a freelance programmer. However, one look at his room, walls cluttered with movie posters and a mini-fridge adjacent to his computer, would quickly show otherwise. He irritably twists his finger through his shaggy black hair, and sighs.

Where is he? He said he was on his way. He needs to hear this.

Andrew rechecks the file, making sure it’s still there, as though it might disappear as suddenly as it had appeared if not properly watched. He saved it to a cloud storage, then a physical storage, just in case the internet went out. He saved it in three different formats, so that any audio program could read and play at least one version of it. He resisted listening to it again, to avoid missing any text message in response from the only possible person he knew that might understand why this particular audio file was so interesting. He had tried to find a better description for the file beyond the unhelpful, bland platitudes that he had bombarded against Jacob, but nothing really fit beyond: weird, interesting, amazing, unique, and other essentially useless descriptions as far as trying to explain what it was, or more importantly-- what it sounded like.

Then, suddenly, a knock at the door.

Baring his usual dopey grin, Andrew heads to the door.

Finally!

Andrew swung open the door, and eagerly brought his friend inside.

“Here! Just sit down, I already have it set up.”

Jacob looked equal parts confused and worried.

“Okay, okay! I’m going man!”

Jacob walked over and sat down at the paper and snack bag cluttered desk. He knew exactly what kind of behavior this was. This was Andrew’s “conspiracy theorist” mode. Frankly, the term “conspiracy”, gave a lot more credit to Andrew’s average “theory” than most would say they deserved, Jacob included. Jacob was the only real friend that Andrew had, and Jacob knew that without him, Andrew would likely just obsess and spiral. However, he couldn’t say that at the end of the day the path the Andrew usually led him down wasn’t, at the very least, pretty weird and at least vaguely interesting. So when he told Jacob that this was: “Absolutely the craziest thing I’ve ever found.” That the file was “Seriously, absolutely amazing! Just... weird!” He couldn’t exactly turn down another opportunity to head down the rabbit hole that was Andrew’s obsession with his “audio enigmas.”

Yes, “enigmas”, as Andrew called them. These sounds were recordings he made using a device he had built himself. It would’ve been impressive if it wasn’t such a waste of his intelligence and talent. He usually ended up with various garbled electronic feedback and noise that sounded, as far as Jacob was concerned, like sounds you’d hear on a spaceship in a low budget sci-fi movie. The actually interesting part, at least as far as Jacob was concerned, was that Andrew was usually able to figure where the sound of coming from, whether it was feedback from a local radio station’s signal, or the white-noise from a factory, and track it down. He was even able to duplicate the sound once he had found the source, “solving the mystery” as it were. It was a strange hobby, and arguably pointless, but at the very least it kept Andrew satisfied.

Jacob put on the headphones, hoping the sound would live up to the endless hype that Andrew had built. He hovered the mouse pointer over the play button, and looked back at Andrew, who just nodded vigorously, and hit play.

...

Jacob didn’t know what to think at first. Was the sound weird? Yes, but most of the sounds Andrew found were, at the very least, that. Was the sound interesting? Well... not really, but can a sound really be interesting without any context? However, was the sound unique? Absolutely. In fact, just as Andrew had struggled, Jacob now found himself equally unable to find any terms to apply to the sound. It was like smelling a kind of spice or herb that you’ve never come across, you can’t really describe it without knowing it. Finally, Andrew broke the silence.

“Well? That’s some weird shit, right?”

Jacob just nodded as he played the file again. He raised one earphone and turned towards Andrew.

“Drew... What the hell is it?”

Andrew shrugged, beaming.

“I got no fucking clue man!”, Andrew laughed in booming exuberance,

“Isn’t it great?”

Jacob laughed, although closer to a meek chuckle than a real laugh.

“Only you would think not  knowing is great.”

Andrew turned to a pile of papers stacked on top of a closed laptop.

“Seriously Jake, I have no idea where this came from-- let alone what it is.”

Jacob furrowed his brow,

“What? How can you not know where it came from? Where was it pointed?”

Andrew shook his head without looking up from the papers,

“It wasn’t pointed at anything. I always leave it pointed in the same position when I’m not specifically trying to look for anything. I mean, I have it set up to record it it picks something up, but for the last year it was always nothing. It was only yesterday that I checked it, and saw that it had picked something up. I aimed it there all day today, and it still hasn’t picked up anything else.”

Jacob smirked,

“Well, you have your first real mystery on your hands don’t you Agent Mulder?”

Andrew rolled his eyes,

“Well, Scully, I’ll just have to rope you into this, won’t I?”

Jacob chuckled, putting down the headphones, and sitting backwards in the chair,

“So, where do we start?”

Andrew took on a sudden look of seriousness, as he thumbed through the various papers in his hands, before finally taking out two and handing them to Jacob.

“We start here, which is the only real lead I have.”

The first was a Google Maps printout, leading to a location that seemed to be in the middle of an empty area of undeveloped land. The second was a Google Streetview, that showed that it was in fact some kind of empty warehouse or factory, that seemed old, but not excessively dilapidated.

Jacob’s eyebrows rose,

“What is it?”

Andrew shook his head as he took the pages back,

“No idea, could find any information on it, not even what it’s mailing address was-- let alone anything about what it was at any point of operation-- if it ever was in operation.”

“So,” Jacob said, “when do we go?”

Andrew grinned, and hoisted a pair of backpacks.

“Tonight.”

Jacob put the bags in the trunk of his car, as Andrew fumbled with the car’s stereo, which he was in the process of hooking up to his phone. Jacob chuckled quietly, thinking about how little his friend had changed over the time he had known him. He wondered if he would still be doing this sort of thing ten years from now. Part of him hoped that eventually he’d grow out of this nearly juvenile fascination with all this pursuit of these non-mysteries. Although, for now, he was fairly amused by the ordeals that Andrew dragged him through.

Getting into the car, Jacob noticed Andrew’s look of frustration as he fiddled with his phone.

“What’s up man? No reception? We don’t need GPS or anything, I got the directions right here,” Jacob said, as he patted the print-out that Andrew had prepared for them earlier.

Andrew shook his head,

“Nah, it’s the sound man. I can’t get it to play on your stereo. I listened to it on my phone before we left, so it’s not the file.”

Jacob shrugged, starting the car.

“Whatever, we’ve both just heard it. It’s not like we’ll forget already.”

Andrew nodded, tucking his phone into his shirt pocket.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Immediately, Andrew went from dejected to ecstatic.

“Okay, let’s head out!”

...

As they climbed out of the car, they stood for a moment in stunned silence. It was clear that the pictures they had seen online were outdated. Very outdated. The slightly dilapidated warehouse they had seen online was, in reality, a wilting mass of rusted sheet metal and peeling paint.  

“Wow,” was all Jacob could manage after a moment.

Andrew was a slightly more optimistic, as he turned to Jacob and smiled.

“Good thing I packed us those asbestos-graded masks, right?”

Jacob was more of a realist.

“Drew, man, I don’t know-- This place looks like it could come crashing down on our heads, you know?”

“Oh whatever, it’s fine.” Andrew scoffed. “The worst thing we have to worry about is stepping on a rusty nail or something, don’t be overdramatic.”

Jacob sighed, and resigned himself to the fact that Andrew wasn’t one to be deterred from a place like this.

As they entered the building, they found that the interior was in better condition than the outside would have led one to believe.

“So,” Jacob started, “do you really think it could’ve come from in here? I mean, usually the places are, I don’t know, occupied, right? I mean, they at least have people still there. How could it be coming from a place like this? I thought it was just in bad condition when we looked online, but it’s pretty clear nobody’s been here for years.”

Andrew thoughtfully tugged at his patchy beard.

“Well... The only thing I can think of, is if something is still tied into the power system, which in turn is still hooked up to the power grid. Although, I have trouble believing they would ignore it for this long. But, hey, anything’s possible right?”

Jacob returned a nonplused nod in response, “I suppose.”

Andrew patted him on the back,

“Hey, this is the only place it could’ve come from. I mean, you saw the drive up here-- there’s literally nothing arounds for miles. If the sound isn’t from here, then it’s just a bug, or a mistake in the program. It would be the first bug I’ve had with the program since I’ve started using it, but, like I said-- anything is possible. This is just the more interesting possibility.”

Jacob smiled,

“Well, at least you’re being a little more realistic.”

Andrew laughed,

“Exactly! Now, let’s figure what this place was. My bet is on some kind of storage facility for cryogenics, which was abandoned once the fad died out in the early 2000s.”

Jacob just rolled his eyes in response.

...

Andrew had immediately gone for the remnants of what looked to be a corner office, while Jacob had decided to check the door in the back, looking for anything that might clue them into the direction of a generator or power supply.

Inside, Jacob found various empty shelves in various degree of collapse, along with a single large circuit breaker in the corner of the room. Jacob sighed. It was clear that this place didn’t have any kind of generator or major machinery. He opened the circuit breaker and flipped the various switches to no avail. It was obvious that the place was as dead as it looked. Jacob decided to head back to Andrew, hoping that he’d found something to make this expedition at least worth the gas he’d spent to get them there.

He found Andrew sitting in a rusted metal folding chair, which he couldn’t believe he actually sat in without winding up sprawled out on the floor like a comedic caricature. Andrew was looking over a toppled file cabinet, searching through a clearly empty drawer.

“Hey, so, did you find anything?” Jacob asked.

Andrew sighed, shaking his head.

“Nah, this place has been out of commision forever by the looks of it. I’m thinking that the whole ‘this is just an empty warehouse, and the sound is just some glitch,’ idea is becoming ever more likely.”

Jacob nodded, and sat on the floor.

“Yeah, there’s just the one circuit breaker, so this place isn’t exactly a powerhouse, you know?”

Andrew chuckled, this time without the usual enthusiasm.

“Sorry I got you so worked up, I was sure this would be worth checking out. It’s not even old enough to be interesting in a kind of ‘urban exploration’ kind of way. It’s literally just a glorified abandoned empty garage. Really wasted your time...”

Jacob shrugged, smiling.

“Hey, can’t know without checking, right? Let’s give the outside at least a once over before we head out. Maybe there’s at least, I don’t know, some separate utility closet or something. They had one at that place we went to last month, right?”

Andrew nodded as he stood up.

“Sure, might as well.”

...

They had found something. The two of them differed on what exactly it was, but it was definitely something.

“Come on man, it’s just like you said! It’s like a separate utility area, or whatever! It’s a pretty simple explanation Jake, don’t bail on me now.” Andrew pleaded.

The “it” in question, was a small set of doors set into the ground. And, as far as Jacob was concerned, it looked more like a cellar than anything that even resembled a utility closet.

“I still don’t know man. It just doesn’t sit right, you know? I mean I was talking about like a shed attached to the building itself. Not like a fucking medieval wine cellar like fifty feet away from the warehouse. I don’t even think it’s a part of it, it seems like it’s something left over from whatever was here before the warehouse, whenever that was...”

Andrew groaned in frustration.

“Oh for Christ’s sake-- now who’s the one with the active imagination man? It’s not some serial killer’s secret storage space, or some middle-of-nowhere homeless squat spot! It’s just like, a place for the generator. They probably just had to keep away from the warehouse for like, zoning reasons or some shit-- it doesn’t matter!”

Jacob shook his head,

“No man, that doesn’t make sense. I mean that’s like way too far. I don’t care what zoning fines you’d get, it wouldn’t be cheaper to have your electrics this far away from the building.”

Andrew grabbed Jacob by the shoulders.

“Dude! That’s just one explanation, there’s probably a millions reasons why they’d do this, the point is that it’s here, we found it, and it’s probably where we need to go to find our sound, right?”

Jacob let out an exasperated sigh. It was clear that Andrew wasn’t going to let this go that easily. Even if it meant having to run screaming from a giant rat or some territorial, knife-wielding vagrant-- there was nothing that was going to stop him from dragging him down into this-- whatever it was.

“Okay! Okay... Let’s go down there. But! If see anything in there that seems like people are living down there-- I am done. You hear me? The last thing I need is to get shanked by some junkie for walking into his drug den-- alright?”

Andrew laughed, and clapped his hands together.

“Yes! Yeah man, for sure. I promise, first sign of sketch-- and we are gone. Deal?”

Jacob hesitantly smiled.

“Deal.”

...

Jacob felt ridiculous wearing the respirator mask, but Andrew insisted they wear them. Judging from the giggy look Jacob could see behind Andrew’s mask, it was mostly for Andrew’s own personal enjoyment (and making the descent feel more movie-like) than it was for their own safety. They had decided knocking would be the safest first step. Andrew had insisted that Jacob be the one who knocked, since he was the one paranoid about anyone being inside the “clearly abandoned” structure. Although Jacob was fairly certain it was so Andrew would be farther away in case someone came bursting out of the doors.

Jacob knocked. The sound reverberated for a few moments.

“Nothing.” Jacob said, visibly relieved.

“See? I told you there was nothing to worry about.” Andrew returned smugly.

Jacob rolled his eyes, “Yeah, but did you hear that echo? It sounds like the things pretty spacious. I’m still saying that it’s not any kind of utility space. At this point, I’d bet on some kind of secondary storage area.”

Andrew shrugged, “I don’t really care what it is, all I care about is finding the source of that sound.”

Jacob sighed, “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s all about solving the ‘mystery.’ Let’s just get this over with.”  

Laughing, Andrew handed Jacob a flashlight. “Hey, you didn’t have to come, you know?”

Jacob couldn’t help but smile. They both knew there wasn’t a scenario in which Jacob would tell Andrew “no” to another aimless meander into the unknown. It just wasn’t in his character.

...

Andrew was the first to descend the stairs, his flashlight pouring light into the utter darkness.

[to be continued]