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AG Community Playthrough #33: Scratches

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Crabapple,
The boy also had physical deformities which some families took pains to hide.  I’m not sure about the UK, but laws for equal education of the handicapped here in the US weren’t enacted until the early 1970s, which meant that 1 in 5 children with more severe disabilites (blind, deaf, “mentally retarded,” or “emotionally disturbed”) were often institutionalized

Of course, there is also the supernatural factor to consider in the game. 

     

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The first time I heard of the whole thalidomide scandal was actually in another piece of fiction, in a movie or detective series from the 80’s (Colombo perhaps?) where it played a similar role in the plot. I can’t remember a single other thing from it but the thalidomide tragedy stuck in my memory, and I later learned more about it.

rtrooney - 28 May 2015 06:44 PM

I’m just not sure I buy it as a contributing factor in Robin’s manic behavior. We have all read about the effects of long-term solitary confinement on prisoners. I think the technical term is “stir crazy.” But would that have been enough to cause Robin to kill his mother?

The effects on adults e.g. prisoners in long term isolation, is well documented, but the same is fortunately not the case when it comes to children being raised this way. I think that the closest equivalent that we have from real life is the conditions in the Romanian orphanages under Ceausescu, but even they weren’t isolated in the same way, at least not from other children.

But even if it isn’t 100% realistic then it is still close enough to be plausible in a piece of fiction, and the alternative explanation is of course even more unrealistic, though also plausible from a fictional point of view.

Sefir - 28 May 2015 05:05 PM

Also, makes the Blackwoods the WORST. PARENTS. EVER. and Dr. Milton the WORST. DOCTOR. EVER.

I think that [spoiler]James can partly be excused explained by the fact that he is half-crazy (if not completely crazy), and Catherine can be excused explained by the fact that she is the weak part in this triangle, it might have been done more or less against her will, which also explains why she was talking to other doctors. But Dr. Milton, his actions is just despicable. I’m also not sure why he took part in this, guilt for prescribing the thalidomide in the first place? Misplaced loyalty towards the Blackwoods? Feelings for Catherine?[/spoiler]

crabapple - 29 May 2015 01:53 PM

Re the time periods when the game was set…

See my explanation above.
Their behaviour is certainly not normal for the time period, and perhaps not normal in any time period. But even today horrible and abnormal things like this happen, like for example the Josef Fritzl case in Austria.

Agustín Cordes - 28 May 2015 11:36 PM

There’s just one thing you should keep in mind: no matter how much you loved or hated the ending, all the clues to understand what happened in the story are present in the game. Everything has been carefully planned, and years of discussions and theorizing can attest to this.

Yeah, for me everything clicked into place with lady K’s discovery, but even without it things still made perfect sense. But this doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of things that aren’t open for interpretation, it is clues that you have to put together yourself, instead of a neatly packed explanation for everything. I also love how there is two alternative explanations, and you can pick the one that you like the best, combine them to sort of half of each, or lie awake a night wondering could it really be true…

Personally I prefer the more earthbound explanation with the thalidomide, and I agree with Sefir, that it really makes it more of a tragedy than a scary story.

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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By the way, I thought it was a nice touch the way the music starts when you finally start digging in the right place.  That made the find all the more poignant.

     

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In one of the drawers in the master bedroom, there are bottles of Thalidomide.

Gasp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide

My goodness!

Embarassed

     

I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.

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See my first post on the previous page, Mikekelly. Smile

     

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Well my throat is sore from screaming after finishing the last bit of the game!  It’s not everyday that a game frightens me so much that I hesitate to make my next move!

I was very proud of myself for solving the combination without resorting to a walkthrough.  Everything just seemed to click into place for me.

I also went well with the key in the greenhouse puzzle

After solving what I thought were quite difficult puzzles, I then proceeded to dig around in the garden for hours on end then finally convinced my fiance to give me a hint from the walkthrough. Cry  Turns out I was two hours too early, even though I’d looked at the photograph and was around the right spot, I’d missed the time detail in the letter.

I’m usually one that’s really good at seeing an ending but I ended up believing everything in the newspapers like a chump!  I got carried away by the fear so much!

I loved this game!  Laughing

     
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Well my throat is sore from screaming after finishing the last bit of the game!  It’s not everyday that a game frightens me so much that I hesitate to make my next move!

Yes! I do know this feeling….........the ending struck me this way too. I also didn’t see it coming. And for good reason…..........

The game really didn’t have anyone else in it…..until the end and after a while you got used to be the sole person in the house.

Gasp

     

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I’m guessing that the scratching sound was Robin tearing down the brick walls in the cellar.

     

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I finished The Last Visit.

1. Robin and Milton are still alive at the time of this visit.
2. Robin, although malformed, does not exhibit the type of malformation usually associated with Thalidomide babies, i.e. missing limbs.
3. Robin is active. There is no evidence that Thalidomide caused mental impairment. So the only thing that could have caused his manic problems is his childhood incarceration.
4. Robin had been released from the cellar, and is apparently living in the house with Milton.
5. The bonus chapter doesn’t clear up what actually happened to Blackwood or who’s body is in the crypt.

     

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This is really an atmospheric game, I and I feel sorry I couldn’t play it in the last few weeks. Love the hint system, and the diary - those two things motivates you and make you want to progress in the game even if you have little time to commit, or make such a long pause that you don’t have a clue what you’re supposed to do.

I guess my main, and only gripe remains the interface - I never had troubles playing Kheops games (which are very similar in terms of the interface/scene rotation), but here there’s little trouble in “aiming” things. Also, it’s not much of a hassle, but somehow I wished there was a hotspot description. And I wish there was a way to skip the door animation.

     

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diego - 30 May 2015 06:54 PM

Love the hint system

What hint system? - It has a hint system?!?


I also finished The Last Visit, and it was nice to get back and revisit the house, even though it is now in a miserable state and we unfortunately only have access to a small part of the house. I guess recreating the whole place in its new state, was too big a task for what is “only” a small bonus chapter.

Story wise it doesn’t really add or change anything, expect that we can now clearly read the label on the bottles of Thalidomide, and of course Dr. Milton gets killed by Robin at the end. I was also a bit surprised that Robin what still in his cellar, even though he was now free to go where he wanted, I guess that spending most of his life in that cellar, he simply wasn’t ready to simply leave it.

One detail that I really liked is when the reporter goes into the cellar with the furnace. You probably remember the eerie music and Michael’s comment about how he feels a menacing presence or something similar, well when the reporter goes down there, there is no spooky music, and the reporter instead comments that “it is extremely damp down here” Grin
It kind of flips the whole scene 180 degrees, and it also show that where Michael was very willing to believe in the supernatural, then the reporter is instead looking for the rational explanations. Kind of similar to how we also have different explanations here in this thread.

One thing that I didn’t really like was that at the end, the reporter made a neatly packed explanation for (almost) everything. I prefer games that allows the players to make their own conclusions, but instead just provide all the clues - Like the main game did so well. But since it is a bonus chapter and not the actual game, then I can live with it.

For those of you that haven’t got the bonus chapter, I have made a transcript of his conclusion:

The Blackwood estate has now been demolished, and I have arrived to a conclusion, it is clear that the Blackwood family, with the help of this Dr. Milton kept their son hidden from the public, as he was suffering from severe malformations.
It is unclear whether he was truly dangerous or the Blackwoods were simply psychotic. Quite possibly one thing led to another… and this situation ended with the death of Catherine Blackwood.
We can finally give some closure to this sad episode in the peaceful town of Rothbury. And yet, there’s something I can’t quite explain… a missing link, something that just doesn’t fit. We may never know what the real heart of the mystery is…
But for the time being, this will have to do.

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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rtrooney - 30 May 2015 04:13 PM

4. Robin had been released from the cellar, and is apparently living in the house with Milton.
5.
The bonus chapter doesn’t clear up what actually happened to Blackwood or who’s body is in the crypt.

Re. #4 - Milton didn’t let him out.  Michael left the door open when he ran away from Robin.  (I liked that sneaky little bit at the very end of the main game when you see the door isn’t fastened.)  Milton came from his deathbed to see the boy one more time.  He may not have realized the boy’s interaction with the mask.

Re. #5 - It was Blackwood’s body.  Bailey told Michael he died, and we know where Catherine was.  The maid lived to tell the police what she saw.

There were several mentions of a cat in the lower room, and Robin had feline claws and glowing eyes.  Is he now the embodiment of the evil god that had been trapped in the mask?

Izno,
I wasn’t sure if Robin was going to kill Milton or hug him.  That was also left to our imagination.  The reporter also mentions a missing link and then the scene cuts to the mask.  His conclusions remind me of Asimov’s chapter headings at the end of his Foundation books: “The Answer That Satisfied” and “The Answer That Was True.”  Smile

     

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Totally disagree on almost everything. If Michael had not locked the door behind him, he would not have been able to escape. Robin was fast enough to catch the reporter. If it were not for Milton’s intervention, the reporter would be dead. Thus, the only person who could/would have freed Robin is Milton.

Baily also told Michael that he, personally, had never seen any of the bodies. Not Catherine’s, nor Robin’s, nor Blackwood’s. Nor did he ever meet with the maid. Anybody could have imitated a voice that told Baily what he wanted to hear. Any speculation as to what he knew for sure is exactly that…conjecture.

That is one thing that is totally enjoyable about this game. I can totally disagree with you, and Iz, and crabapple, and Mikekelly, Sefir et al, about anything as it applies to the game’s ending. And we might all be right. (In our own interpretation of what we believe to be the facts.)

     

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I thought that the very ending of the game showed a hole in the ground where Robin had finally dug his way out.

     
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There was more, at least in the director’s cut.  Did you wait for the end of the credits?

     

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