Let's Sperg Jaimas Plays a Mediocre Game: Night In the Woods - A Narrative Game Better Than Most JRATG Titles

[Jaimas]

The following day opens up with rain and issues.

We explore a bit and then because I'm an idiot I accidentally advance Bea's quest line.

Mae agrees to go with Bea on a repair job. Apparently the old lady that runs this place is having problems with her furnace.

Old woman possum is entirely out of her mind. One reason Bea seems pathologically nonplussed is because of shit like this:

Yes. She kept her dead husband here for months. Really not a whole lot to say here, and Mae and Bea head to the basement after Bea tells the old fart to not lock them in because that has happened apparently.

In the basement, Bea gets to fixing shit while Mae farts about trying to help. Stupidity is the only option and all you can do is this shit:

Beautiful. That little croco-thing is supposed to be a Garden Gnome, by the way.

Soonafter, the pair realizes that old mom Possum did, indeed, lock them in.

Once again, only one option is ahead and you are railroaded into doing something monumentally stupid:

YES.

After hitting the thing like 50 fucking times, we finally cause enough chaos to get the old shit to unlock the door.

Hours later, Mae and Bea are relaxing and getting ready to go home. Bea is a little dejected by the night's festivities.

Mae attracts some fireflies for Bea's amusement, and the two share a laugh. The pair then walk off as Mae tells terrible surgery puns as the pair speculates how Miss Possum's husband died.

That night, Mae watches more terrible Garbo and Malloy with her dad and then goes to bed.

Mae really is a cat.

That night she has another dream. This one, like the previous, involves her finding four musicians and then waking something up. It took me 20 minutes because where you need to go is not clear.

SQUIRREL

 

[Jaimas]

New episode tomorrow.

 

[Jaimas]

This game is infuriating.

It has enough actual content to be enjoyable, and the few good bits of good writing it has are worth celebrating, but it has so much fucking faffing about and so much fucking dead air that it takes forever to get anywhere. A half-hour in, I was hooked by Deadly Premonition. Ten minutes in, I was immersed by Mermaid Swamp. Five fucking hours in and stuff is almost sort of starting to happen in this game.

Our obese cat-heroine talks to her mom, who's all stressy lately. Not a lot here.

It's time to press on.

Some chatting with Selmers later, and she gives us more of her mediocre poetry. We then move on to the characters who actually matter.

Autism Fox is very happy to see us, for he is very bored. He beseeches us to emancipate him from a shitty work day and hang out after.

Mae agrees, and we move ahead.

We're treated to a legit artsy scene of Gregg riding his bicycle. For like a minute and a half. It's a beautiful scene graphically, and there's literally no point to it other than showing off that someone knew how to do visual effects. I spent the entire thing singing a certain song, because god damn it, I'm going to get through this shit somehow.

In the woods, Gregg and Mae walk along as Gregg and Mae discuss his bike.

After the two hop up on a log and make jokes about dying in the woods from the log breaking, Gregg challenges you to a knife fight.

I'm fucking serious.

The knife-fight is a minigame in which you have to poke Gregg's hand with a knife and he tries to do the same to yours. It goes well with me dominating him until the fourth round onwards where he basically cheats by attacking while the dialogue boxes are up.

I did not go quietly.

The log then breaks and our raging autists sperg for a bit about how the woods has changed because they broke a log.

Gregg then wanders off, and Mae follows. Poor kid's been all over the place tonight.

Gregg then shows us his hunting crossbow and invites Mae to take some potshots.

Mae's terrible aim is no match for my split-second timing. I score nothing but headshots.

In a legitimately touching scene, Gregg discusses his fears.

Gregg is a punk, and he knows it. He sees himself as not quite good enough for Angus, but realizes that Angus needs him. Gregg is terrified of fucking it all up, though. Angus, it turns out, had an exceptionally rough childhood and Gregg getting along with him now heavily stems from that. Gregg doesn't want to lose him, and has sometimes argued with him. His reactions portray him as someone terrified of fucking things all up again. Mae puts him at ease, and our heroine returns home several hours later.

Mae watches more Garbo and Malloy with her Dad. At this point it's impossible to not realize they're a Statler and Waldorf reference, because they basically steal a joke from the Muppet Show verbatim. I can't really shame them for this, if you're going to steal a joke, may as well be from something good.

That night, another goddamned dream. This one's just as tedious and pointless as the other ones.

Is there an actual point to these little mindfucks, or is this just artsy shit for the sake of artsy shit?

Then a giant space alligator consumes Mae and the dream ends.

 

[SoberBlitz]

Good to see another update, saves me the trouble of going out and trying the game for myself. I know that a few posters raked the fox over the coals, but here it seems like he got a genuinely touching moment. Hopefully that lasts for a while before the shittier aspects of that character appear.

 

[vertexwindi]

I'd pay the guy who did the good bits to write a game on his own.

 

[AnOminous]

What's so awful about this game anyway? So far, it seems kind of cute.

 

[Jaimas]

What's so awful about this game anyway? So far, it seems kind of cute.

Three major problems so far.

1. It moves at an insanely slow pace. I'm almost four hours into this game and fuck all has really happened story-wise. We have lots of symbolism and foreshadowing, and some character development, but it's all hedged behind the game slogging along. The dream sequences are especially odious in this regard; they're beautifully animated, but almost all are scavenger hunts that drag on for no eminently logical reason. The second one took me over forty minutes because it demands you enter a room that has no evidence of its presence.

2. It's like 90% minigames with no attempt whatsoever to tell you how to do anything. This isn't so bad but you're never given a chance to practice first. Every single game in this fuckheap is the game throwing you into the deep end. Oh, and it autosaves, so you can't practice until you have a chance to not fuck up. The games are designed in such a way that they're intentionally hard not due to difficulty but because Mae sucks. Only someone who has played through the game several times or has experience with related games really stands a chance here. It's bullshit. There's so fucking many of these, too, and like the main story, it takes forever to go anywhere.

3. The writing is all over the place. You have good shit like Gregg and Bea, and then you have Mae's dialogue which makes you want to throw her into oncoming traffic. I haven't run into any especially obvious political shitcannery yet, but that's supposedly coming and I expect the actual dialogue of the game to start sucking accordingly when that happens. As it stands, it's got some good and a fucking arsenal of bad.

 

[Strelok]

Three major problems so far.

1. It moves at an insanely slow pace. I'm almost four hours into this game and fuck all has really happened story-wise. We have lots of symbolism and foreshadowing, and some character development, but it's all hedged behind the game slogging along. The dream sequences are especially odious in this regard; they're beautifully animated, but almost all are scavenger hunts that drag on for no eminently logical reason. The second one took me over forty minutes because it demands you enter a room that has no evidence of its presence.

2. It's like 90% minigames with no attempt whatsoever to tell you how to do anything. This isn't so bad but you're never given a chance to practice first. Every single game in this fuckheap is the game throwing you into the deep end. Oh, and it autosaves, so you can't practice until you have a chance to not fuck up. The games are designed in such a way that they're intentionally hard not due to difficulty but because Mae sucks. Only someone who has played through the game several times or has experience with related games really stands a chance here. It's bullshit. There's so fucking many of these, too, and like the main story, it takes forever to go anywhere.

3. The writing is all over the place. You have good shit like Gregg and Bea, and then you have Mae's dialogue which makes you want to throw her into oncoming traffic. I haven't run into any especially obvious political shitcannery yet, but that's supposedly coming and I expect the actual dialogue of the game to start sucking accordingly when that happens. As it stands, it's got some good and a fucking arsenal of bad.

So it's indie David Cage?

 

[Jaimas]

So the first batch of Social Justice derping came out during today's episode. Thankfully shit also happened during it, so let's get into it.

In the middle of the night, Dad moved the crates leading to the crawlspace, and Mae found a tooth inside. I have no idea what this is for.

Back home, trouble is brewing. Mae has a nasty fight with her mom, who revealed that the entire family went into debt to pay for Mae's schooling, and that between this and Mae's earlier sperg-out which hospitalized some kid, the family is in economic dire straits. The house they're in is mortgaged - and, currently, underwater - meaning Mae's family owes more money than the house itself is worth. A predatory bank is to blame, and this game can almost be forgiven for using something that actually happened here in the USA.

IT'S HARFEST SEASON! Halloween is all up ons and the town is decoated accordingly. Rawk.

I head to Gregg's; Gregg plays a minigame with us.

Gregg hurls dead flourescent bulbs for you to smash with a bat, while having absolutely no degree of accuracy. Periodically he also chucks beer bottles and soda cans at you just to make sure you're paying attention (and often beaning Mae hilariously in her stupid head). This one seems to be nothing of any real consequence and is just silly fun, though I remain certain that some Kiwi or another can bring up the immense danger this idiot is facing by breaking the bulbs like this.

Up at the church, we meet a nice woman who calls herself Pastor K, and who asks us to speak to a friend of hers named Bruce.

I will never have another chance at this joke. Tradition and @KidKitty demands I take it:

He's baaaack, motherfuckas~

Bruce seems to be an unwashed homeless man that lives in a tent. He has no relevance thus far.

Moving on from this pointless side-character we meet up with three teens who ask me a question on what I've seen and tell me I'm wrong before the game autosaves because fuck your first-time players.

All I can think of is that @BOLDYSPICY! would punch these nerds and take their lunch money. And then punch the developer and take their lunch money in retaliation for fuck all happening in the last three episodes.

Back in town, local hoodlums have vandalized a mural for Possum Springs with "NUKE POSSUM SPRINGS" crudely painted on the bottom.

Mae dresses up for Halloween and we get this ball rolling.

The halloween scene is kind of cute. There isn't really anything to do, however.

Also does anyone else find it strange that we have a world of animal-people keeping animals as pets?

Paying a visit to Bea's shop, we find she's been roped into doing a play by the Chamber of Commerce. Lacking other options, she drags Mae into helping out (as well as Gregg) and the consequences will never be the same.

The story of Possum Springs' founding is akin to a Kiwi Farms collaborative fiction thread, as a dozen and a half idiots try desperately to keep a narrative hammered together through dank memes, references to various lolcows, and more.

No joke, it's seriously just as Autistic.

Even this guy is involved somehow.

I need to check how spooked we are:

Well, looks like only Calcium can save us now.

Bea has to go to more Chamber of Commerce shit, whereas Gregg is going home for a date with Angus.

And then shit goes from 0 to 100 in four seconds.

The kid playing with his phone is suddenly ambushed, strangled, and carried off by a cloaked figure.

Against all common-sense, Mae gives chase.

Sputtering and exhausted, Mae pursues him to outside the Ham Planet, where Aunt Molly shows up and tells Mae to head home.

Before anything else can happen, we arrive in a strange scene:

You go down a spoopy hill and that's literally it.

Mae wakes up, and I'm left wondering what the fuck just happened.

Downstairs, Mae and her mom make up following a conversation regarding mystery novels.

Mae insists her mom should have been a detective.

 

[Jaimas]

So what was the Social Justice derping I was talking about? Well, aside from the obvious suggestion that Aunt Molly is exactly as evil as Mae jokes about (because cops are evil OK), there's a part following the play where Mae tries to talk about how her playing an evil witch was an overly negative stereotype. Thankfully Bea cuts her off and that legitimately made me laugh.

I have no idea where the fuck this game is going.

 

[BOLDYSPICY!]

Oh my God, this game looks adorable. But I'm a sucker for artsy indie games. Gregg is the best, & Mae's sameface as she falls off a log & watches a kid get strangled just slays me.

Definitely looking forward to more updates.

 

[vertexwindi]

Can't wait until you get to the ending. It makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Jaimas]

A grade-A gray day as Mae explores the rainy town.

There's really not a huge amount to report on beyond the color being grayer. It does make the rest of the setting have this faint desperate quality though.

Mae consults the local children to make sure their friends are all accounted for, and she bids them be careful because there's ill doings afoot.

A new store's already moving into where Pastabilities used to be.

Derelict buildings are increasingly becoming present. You've done almost six hours of setting building by now, game, you can start fucking doing something with this any time now.

I meet with the greatest character in the game and we proceed to band practice.

Gregg's a bit under the weather. Something that drives me absolutely crazy abut the band practice scenes is that not only do they get way harder than they have any right to rather quickly, but there's like 6 of the fucking things. I've failed each one and with no chance to redo, Mae just sucks. The minigames in general in this game do this like fucking crazy, constantly throwing you into zero-tutorialized shit and expecting you to either pass or fail. The game is terrible at conveyance, too, which deally drives me nuts. This song is the worst thus far, though. Picture throwing a newbie to Rock Band at Through the Fire and Flames and you get the general idea.

After band practice, Mae tells the others about what she encountered. The group isn't convinced Mae saw a ghost, and Bea suggests the group check things out at the Library to see if they can find any previous cases of ghost encounters.

The library is a bit of interesting characterization, where we learned that Mae was expelled from school for bad behavior and that Gregg is risking firing for his constant stealing and breaking shit. Most of this is learned via Bea, who follows us aroung here. We also learn that Bea is a Socialist, because of course she is.

The microfiche reader is on the third floor.

Mae is still a bottomless fuck-up and Bea keeps her on task as the pair looks for clues. They eventually come across three:

1. An alleged ghost sighting at Possum Jump
2. An alleged Miner's Ghost, "Little Joe," appearing at a graveyard
3. The allegedly-haunted Historical Society building

Another plot-fork is coming, I suspect.

Mae lacks a driver's license, car, and, apparently, any demonstrably useful skills, so Bea can only take her to the graveyard. Mae decides to enlist Angus and Gregg (who rulz OK) to take her to the other two sites.

Up ahead, the pair sits in on a Poetry reading, whereupon Selmers lets fly with this fucking thing:

She breaks into a chilling lament of lost potential due to the rise of big business and modernization, which would be touching and tragic if it weren't so fucking heavy-handed. It's enough to impress Mae, mind:

That night, Mae gets together with the band to discuss events.

Mae intends to investigate all of these during the week (the order is up to us). Gregg wants to check the Historical Society, Angus wants to check Possum Jump, and Bea wants to do the graveyard.

Shenannigans are afoot.

Back home, Mae confirms things and prepares for tomorrow.

Not this shit again.

This is the trippiest one so far. Shadowy bodies slowly drift into the sky, as a giant fish darts back and forth.

I fucking dare you to make less sense.

Finally the fish is eaten by a crane and Mae wakes up. There's a point to these fucking things, right?

 

[vertexwindi]

Sort of.

 

[Pieonoclast]

Hang out with Angus instead of Gregg next, it'll be worth it.

 

[Jaimas]

Right, we're closing gradually on the end of this, but we have some interesting developments this go-round.

For one, we can now access the upstairs of the town center and hop on the wires. Doing so lets us access a hidden area - with significant importance to Mae.

Behold, the remains of Mae's beloved Possum Springtime event. This was a once-a-year event held in downtown Possum Springs that featured a parade. The Parade ended when Mallard, a beloved parade float, had an accident, breaking its chain and running down some idiot kid. Mae is left wondering what happened to Mallard.

She need not wonder long.

This is Mallard's final resting place; the last refuge of his remains. It's something Mae seems both reverent and horrified by; she has found the tomb of a beloved icon from her childhood. Curiousity beckons her to look into the chassis, however.

A pair of baby rats have moved in. Hungry and desperate, Mae elects to feed them with pilfered pretzels until they're old enough to survive on their own.

The thefts are easy enough and Mae gets away with it this once, to feed a few starving rats.

Later, the adventure continues.

Mae elects to go with Angus, and the two really hit it off. Angus is a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic which really nicely clashes with Mae's insistence that the weird thing she was was a ghost. All I can think of is the Homestar Runner Classic episode That A Ghost, and can only imagine that this funtime adventure will end the same way. Regardless, the two agree to head to the Park and investimagate.

ONWARDS TOWARDS ADVENTURE!

At the park, Angus' asthma catches up with him a bit, but it allows the pair to catch up in a big way as they chat near the limestone kilns. Discussions of dinosaurs, limestone, and Angus' scouting days ensue, as the pair gradually works their way upwards and onwards.

More cute banter as the pair discusses dinosaurs further and eventually reach the summit.

At the top, at nightfall, the group sees a graveyard dating back to the Possum Massacre, whereupon a bunch of striking miners were gunned down by the mine owners in what is a fairly chilling transposition of the Mine Massacres that occurred across the country in the early 1900s, such a the Ludlow Massacre, Columbine Massacre, and Lattimer Massacre.

Spoiler: HistoryFagging

For the uninitiated, these were all incidents in which Miners protested the brutal working conditions, blatant attempts to nickel-and-dime their workers (forcing them to live in company towns that they had to pay for, paying them in scrip) and blatant horrors thrust upon mining workers by company owners, went on strike, and the companies responded by calling in law enforcement and the national guard to break the strikes, often with grisly results; in several cases, law enforcement was looking forward to seeing how many they could murder (because it was always OK to kill Slavs and the Irish). While the companies and law enforcement clearly started it, however, the violence quickly went both ways; soon the strikers were opening fire on scab workers and getting into running shootouts with the authorities. Nobody was innocent for long in this fucking conflict.

These were fucked-up times, and make for a pretty good backdrop for any sort of ghost story, so it's interesting to see NITW play off a real event with its cartoon animals motif.

Mae and Angus chill out and take a gander at the sky, talking about the stars and such while they hope to encounter a ghost.

The pair trace constellations and the pair make up patterns in the stars, and then, a legitimately touching and tragic scene unfolds.

When Gregg spoke of Angus' poor upbringing, he didn't scratch the surface. Angus was horrifically abused as a child, physically attacked by his father, and constantly neglected by his mother, who would lock him in closets for days at a time or verbally abuse him for hours. One of the reasons he's a skeptic now is that he tried repeatedly to use psychic powers and pray to see if someone - anyone - would help him escape that hell, but in the end, nobody did, and Angus ultimately endured and escaped that life.

Angus' worldview can be described as simultaneous atheism and wholehearted belief in the benevolence of man. In his mind, the world is a cold, brutal, and uncaring place, and often filled with assholes, but that doen't mean he has to be. The world is hard enough for everyone, and the good people in it make it all worthwhile. In many ways, Angus meeting the happy-go-lucky Gregg was a chance encounter that paid off big.

Unfortunately, this discussion is interrupted by.....

....Well then.

Not believing in ghosts and not one to put stock in the supernatural, Angus tries to yell to the ghst to get some kind of response.

The pair do the smart thing and fuck off, running like hell back to Angus' car.

Angus still doesn't think it was a Ghost, but he definitely knows Mae saw something up there. But what was it, and why?

More questions than answers.

That night, Mae has another dream.

This one is different. Much so.

Mae tries to talk to this cat-bomination, and it responds in riddles, speaking dire portents that make little sense. It warns that a hole in the sky is growing and that Mae is being approached by things that seek her. It tells her she is not chosen and offers a terrifying vision of what is after her:

I'm choosing to believe that the implication is, in fact, that Mae has fleas.

 

[Jaimas]

In the morning, Mae's mom thinks she's pregnant. Thank christ she isn't.

This gets awkward fast and Mae fucks off.

Back at the Rats, Mae's up to three. Looks like more pretzels will need to be stolen to keep them fed.

With the door at Gregg's apartment open, we can finally get up here. Hell of a view, no?

Not much to actually do up here, but it's still cool.

Soonafter we meet up with Gregg for shennanigans, but there's trouble brewing.

Gregg successfully restored the insane-looking mascot, and Angus is justifiably dipleased that this fucking thing is in their living room. After some discussion, Angus offers to take Mae and Gregg to Donut Wolf, their favorite restaurant.

FEEL THE AUTISM

Angus is kind of a dick this go-round. It seems almost out of char for him, really, and this is one of those scenes that has none of the coherency of the ones before it. En route to Donut Wolf, the team springs a flat.

Gregg and Angus get in a fight and Mae's attempts to mollify only make things worse. The team seems hopelessly stuck until Mae points out that Angus has a Donut (emergency tire) in the back of his car - four lines after Angus saying he has no spare tire. This scene just seems out of place and odd.

Angus changes the tire, and the team gets going to Donut Wolf. I think that the implication is that Angus doesn't like being the only mature one, but it's safe to say he wears the badge of the team straight man well.

At Donut Wolf, self-consciousness strikes. The tension is thick enough to eat it with a spoon. Mae can't help but feel like she fucked everything up, and goes to the bathroom.

Mae is frustrated and angry. She needs to destress. Her response? CAT THINGS.

USING ALL THE TOILET PAPER

SCRATCHING ON THE STALL

STUFFING TOILET WADS IN THE DRYER

In a shocking change from the norm, Gregg comes in to make sure Mae's all right, freaking her out, and asks why she's doing this, and she can't give an answer. Finally after calming her shit, the group eats.

It's just as uncomfortable as you might suspect.

Nobody is talking. And Mae seems to be largely to blame, since she's been getting Gregg in trouble.

Gregg too, since that fucking robot is in the living room. Tension all around.

The group gets the Doomnuts Pack, which is a host of delicious and showy donuts. The tension gets worse as Gregg and Angus argue. Worse, Angus isn't that hungry and neither is Gregg, so Mae eats like 8 of them and promptly gets sick.

After Mae once again hurls, the group retires to the parking lot, where they have an actual discussion.

Gregg elaborates on how, while he and Angus don't really face any discrimination or anything in Possum Springs, they don't have much love for it, either. He goes on to explain how shit's changed - a lot - since Mae left, and how Gregg needs the chance to grow up himself, explaining a story where he let some sheep out when at his uncle's ranch and several got hit by cars. One survived and escaped into the woods though, and that's how Gregg sees himself and Angus: The ones that got away from the farm. Really, no one in Mae's circle of friends has a normal upbringing.

Mae elaborates that they'll always have the good times, which inspires her to suggest one last crime. She also wants Angus in on it.

It's a good one.

The trio carries the robot into the woods near a playground and leaves it there to scare the shit out of people with. Harmless shenannigans at their finest. The three friends patch up their rocky friendship, and after some amusing banter, the trio goes home.

Mae talks to her dad, who hears out her concerns. He explains that stuff can always get overwhelming, but it's all right, since the fam has one another. The pair watch Garbo and Malloy for a bit, and Mae goes to bed.

She doesn't dream that night. Excelsior!

 

[Jaimas]

After a rough night, Mae has a heartfelt convo with her mom. Time to do the usual schtick of various idle tasks followed by stuff happening.

Aunt Mall Cop intervenes and explains that the severed limb was from someone who already died. Mollie has bad feelings about it and requests that Mae be careful. Shit's creepy, yo.

Bruce has disappeared. Pastor K is sad. I have a feeling this is leading somewhere.

We meet at the Snack Falcon, grab our Autistic Hero, and proceed onwards towards adventure at the Historical society.

Gregg capsized his bike in a hairpin turn, but aside from this, the pair arrives without incident. The pair break into the building, but not without price; the door locks behind them and the pair are trapped in.

I vaguely remember this being how Sweet Home started. That's a great game I may Let's Sperg at some point.

The entire area is dark, with tons of locked doors, and a confusing layout. It's a legitimately creepy area, since you get this constant feeling of being watched and unexplained throughout the building, whose layout is a confusing mess of corridors. Gregg and Mae are ideally-suited to this task.

After finding the library, the duo discovers more about the Possum Massacre, which I covered earlier. They then wander around for a while trying to find the way through a building whose layout makes less sense the higher you go, with almost half-a-dozen elevators. The music really sets the tone well here.

The group makes their way to the map room, which has the Possum Springs map and a big old animatronic of a wolf miner that's under repair. That's the source of the unexplained noises that have been reported, but something immediately dawns on our heroes: Someone had to be here to turn the fucking thing on.

Realizing that they aren't alone, the pair hurries to unlock an elevator as Gregg attempts to use the benefits of his ill-spent youth to pick the lock - but someone is coming - fast. Gregg hauls ass and the elevator takes them back to the entrance - with the unknown hostile in hot pursuit.

Gregg gets the door open thankfully fast.

The pair risk it.

The pair wind up in the attick, and encounter a painting - a painting of a black goat, sailing through space. It makes Mae feel.... Strange, reminding her of something. It reminds me of something, too.

Is this game about to Lovecraft? I can't tell if that's an amazing twist or a retarded one.

Lacking any options, Gregg breaks a window using his jacket and he and Mae escape. We then see the identity of our pursuer:

O͓͔͙͎̞ͦ͊̈͋Ȟ̡̛͍̤̯͓͍̜̬̓͒ͧ͠ ̢̞͙̲͈̠̠͈̲̒ͩ̉̒́ͅHͨ͆ͩ̉̔̾́̋͢҉AI̢͈͙͚̗̭̬̞̿ͥͧͮ̍ͣͧ̚͘

Godjesus fucking Bearchrist.

The pair escape with their hides intact. Gregg doesn't know what they encountered.

Back home, Mae talks to her buddies about what happened and says she's going into the woods whether they believe her or not.

The group cheerfully agrees to help, because fuck it, in for a dollar, in for a kingdom.

Armed with Autism, a few snack cakes, and all the moxie they can muster, the team goes to the woods.

Shit is going down, it seems.

 

[Jaimas]

What the group happens upon.....

Well then.

A team of hooded cultists surrounding a crippled man. They make clear that this cripple is the guy who fucked up and left the arm outside the Clik Clak. In payment for his failures, he is to be some kind of sacrifice. However, something fucked up and his leg is trapped under a rock.

So they free it. With brute force. The terrifying scene scares the hell out of Mae, who is promptly spotted.

Hooded cultists chase after Mae, who has to run like shit after eating Tex-Mex. Regardless of whether you escape or fuck up, the scene ends.

I'm gonna posit my thoughts on what I think the plot is, knowing what I do of both H.P. Lovecraft and what I've seen from the game thus far: These cultists are worshipping Shub-Niggurath, and are providing sacrifices to her in exchange for some kind of boon that grants the town bounty and vitality. At least that's what I think. We'll see how right I am.

That isn't fucking ominous at all.

In a shocking change, we now control Gregg! The entire team made it home, except for Mae; something happened, and she got badly hurt. She's in the hospital and the group suspects she's in big trouble. A week has passed; there are cultists shadowing Bea, Gregg, and Angus as well. The group is scared out of their minds. Thankfully Angus can keep stress down with his cooking and Bea's nonplussed attitude keeps her from panicking. And nobody knows what goes on in the mind of Germ.

A knock at the door.

Elsewhere, we learn what happened to Mae in her escape - she fell - hard - and got seriously hurt. She stumbled back into town before being scooped up by some of the locals and broguht to the nearby church by Pastor K and mom.

Mae is in rough shape but alive. After a week in the hospital, she's brought home - and promptly escapes.

Mae slowly works her way to Gregg's place, and from there the two narratives re-join. What the hell was even the point of all that?

Mae made it. The group lets her rest on the couch, Bea lets Mae's family know where she is, and Angus orders a pizza from a shop a town and a half over so no worries about cultists.

Mae can't even finish a slice.

Soonafter, Mae turns in for the night.

She's not alone though.

Mae explains several things - why she snapped and beat some child with a baseball bat in school, why she left college. Mae is afflicted with crippling depression and has faced loss for much of her life, and at some point or another, a major loss caused her to snap, and just stop seeing meaning in.... Well, anything. It's nebulous how accurate she's being. It's a tough scene, not because of the content but because Mae legit describes what sounds like a terrifying psychiatric problem.

Gregg encourages her to relax and goes to bed.

That night, Mae slips out - she doesn't want her friends to be victimized by whatever horror is causing this shit.

SYMBOLISM!!!~!!!14

Mae returns to the woods, and runs into the apparition. After it fails to answer her questions, Mae prepares to just give up.

....Only for the thing to take a crossbow bolt to the chest.

GREGG RULZ OK

Cursing and yelling, the entity flees, and Mae explains that she has to go where it did - she can feel whatever is the source of this calling her.

You Autistic bastard, I read your book!

The mine is dark and doesn't offer much variety, but shit is tense.

Deeper into the mines, and into the darkness. What lies beyond?

 

[Sable]

Cultists? Shadows? Crossbows?

For a moment there you could drink a bottle of absinthe and pretend you're playing Darkest Dungeon.