What is the point of the shotgun in the end?

[Victor66]

Why put it on the table if you can't use it?

[ketrub]

it's a message that you are capable of defending yourself but choose not to

[Professor Goat]

Political agenda.. just look at the developers twitter... this game is entirely a political tweet.

[ketrub]

Originally posted by Professor Goat:

Political agenda.. just look at the developers twitter... this game is entirely a political tweet.

bro having a normal one

[Snort Cannon]

Originally posted by Professor Goat:

Political agenda.. just look at the developers twitter... this game is entirely a political tweet.

Are those political agendas in the room with us now ?

[Gene Parmesan]

Professor Goat up in here with the ice coldest takes on steam.

[Y.Fish]

sorry to chime in late, but here's what I thought the shotgun was about:

The farmer assumes that the hitman is coming to kill him, and that the hitman will probably stage it like a suicide to avoid incriminating the mob--you're a lonely widower, the last phone call you made to your son was heartbreaking; if the police find your body with a shotgun in your mouth, they aren't going to look too far beyond the obvious conclusion.

But instead, the hitman comes in and shoots you point-blank in the forehead-- probably not a smart move on his part, that's definitely going to read as foul play if it gets investigated, even if he feeds you to the pigs that's gonna be a missing persons case with no easy explanation--but I felt like that's a good reflection of the hitman's feelings in that moment. The hitman doesn't want to kill you, that's been the central tension this whole game. He wants this done as quickly as possible because he hates doing it and he hates that (in his view) you're making him do it. His hatred of this situation is making him act irrationally, violently, and that's contrasted with your character's calm, thought-out acceptance of what's going to happen.

Been years since I played this game and I still think about it, damn. Hell of a script, hell of a performance from all voice actors, hell of an ending.

[Doc]

So, when I was pitching the game, a person who is no longer on the team pitched the shotgun at the end. His reasoning was that farmer would say "I know, okay? I know what you are going to do. This is me saying I have no interest in fighting you."

Without discussing it too much, Adios was a game I wrote to try to get across the feelings I personally was experiencing after asking myself if I wanted to participate in something that seemed kinda bad. I was scared of the future--I didn't know what would happen to me if I left that situation, but I knew I hated feeling the way I did, so I tried to write a story about a person feeling proud of some things, deeply concerned he might be facilitating terrible people, and going "I don't want to be a part of this."

This is a man of conviction. He has chosen not to do this anymore. He is going to stick with that decision because of that conviction. He wants to do the right thing. So he's... not gonna stick around and fight it. He accepted this the second he said "I can't do this anymore." He realizes that acceptance at the tree later that day--it hasn't fully sunk in.

That's why he kinda starts to panic at the tree. The reality of it sets in. Hitman tries to calm him down, take him skeet shooting (originally, you could shoot him and then time would rewind and you'd realize you were just thinking about shooting him and deciding not to, but we went with the 'nice try' achievement. Another place this would have happened was at the car hood sequence. You have opportunities where Hitman is vulnerable--Farmer thinks about killing him as a way out, but he wants to be good and chooses not to).

It's the only part of the story that I didn't do myself, and I don't feel very happy with it, because people constantly ask what it means, and that creates an ambiguity that I don't really like. Ambiguity can be great, but this just leaves people confused, so if I return to Adios, I'll probably redo this sequence (and relight it for sure) and try to get inverted controls working too. :)

I'm grateful to everyone who played. The goal was to make the smallest game I could get a publisher to trust me with the funds for. Three actors, one location, four times of day, and a 4,600 word script. Now that I've done that, and been amazed by the response, I am working on a new game that's... significantly larger! The script is around 300,000 words long, and we haven't done sidequests or anything. It has like 26 characters. I'm very, VERY excited and hope ya'll love it. Early readers are telling me it's awesome, and I'm trying to get the systems really, really complex in a fun way. It's very different than Adios.

When I do Adios 2--we have 45 pages or so written--it'll be about Hitman after what he's done, dealing with his guilt, meeting a catgirl, killing a tv preacher. One day I'll get to make that game, kinda a Max Payne 2 meets Persona 5 sort of thing. Very weird combo.

Originally posted by Professor Goat:

Political agenda.. just look at the developers twitter... this game is entirely a political tweet.

Every game you write will have your worldview because you cannot NOT have your worldview in it; if I think "nazis are bad," then I won't be writing "good nazis." But not everything's gonna have your politics. No, Adios is not a political game. I don't talk about Republicans or Democrats or anything in it. I don't talk about methods of governance. I'm not interested in that.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a work of political fiction. I'm not really interested in that.

24 is a work that "has politics," in that it argues "torture is a good thing for America to do to its enemies."

I'm more interested in philosophy--in this case, this is a game about a man saying "I must do good, no matter the cost. Even if I die."

I hope you can mature as a person.

[M!]

@Doc Just wanted to say thanks for this post - enjoy hearing your perspective on the game. I just played this and thought it was excellent, really thoughtful and well-written/directed.

[Jeans]

Just finished the game a minute ago. Fascinating game. Felt like an indie film. I appreciated the length at this time.

Will keep an eye out for the next one.