The animated red backgrounds aren't what they might seem

[CatManThree]

Something that has begun to perplex me recently (whether it be good or stupid idk) is the moving red images that appear within the game. You know how the background or in some cased foreground seems to be filled move an odd red design or pattern? That is what I am speaking of:

Example of what I am referring [imgur.com]

screw steam's formatting for discussions btw can't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ upload images
Do note that I used print screen on everything cause I'm lazy and you'll be able to see the FPS counter turned on. I used it with good reason later though.


Now you may or may not realize this but those backgrounds aren't just strange patterns up there for aesthetic, they are actual red tinged images depicting stuff. Well, lot of them are anyway. Some either really are confusing patterns or just look incredibly distorted or abstract. The ones that ARE of things aren't too difficult to miss due to having weird zooms, angles, and low quality in the vein of the visual from Milk Inside a Bag.

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The only way to really view these images in relative full as far as I know is during the first death.


When the first death begins it place a special scene which quickly flashes a specific series of the red images in the background. When the scene ends and it starts the dialogue it freezes onto the final image in the sequence (a weird pattern I'm too lazy to screenshot) taking up the whole screen besides the dialogue window. However (tho probably unintentional) if you click during the opening bit to skip to the dialogue, it will lock onto whatever background was currently flashing on screen at the time.

Here's an example of a background I set in by ending the opening early. [imgur.com] No idea what it is but it looks like some plants. From what I can recall another one among the opening images is a closeup of what is presumably the girl's face and an angle focused upon her long eye with long eyelashes.

At the end of the dialogue when the girl yells "Noooo!" another specific group of the red backgrounds is flashed on screen until it reaches the final one which covers the screen for a moment as the first death ends. Funnily enough you can also change what the final one is by ending it early. These red background in particular are of huge interest because most of them are actually OF something. I also took the to record the scene and then screenshot each red background shown frame by frame. They are very interesting and I highly suggest taking a look

Before you look though I must apologize I accidentally recorded it all brighter than its supposed to be. Also pardon the visible media player. Sharing this wasn't my original intention.
Here's the series list in order. [imgur.com]

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Now that that is gone over, it is important I clarify that most if not all the red backgrounds that flash during the first death can appear throughout the rest of the game. Outside of the first death they seem to be chosen at random, in particular whenever you load a save.

So...what are your thoughts? I have no idea who will see this but I hope you find it as interesting as I do. Perhaps someone out there can take the time to obtain better images of these Red BGs as well as the one's I did not capture.

[Femboy Sarah]

The backgrounds are at 'images/skybox/' in the 'archive.rpa' file. There are 85 of them. Some of them definitely look like distorted photos, while some are geometric patterns, some look like abstract drawings or something out of Artbreeder, and some are completely unidentifiable.

[CatManThree]

Originally posted by Sarah:

The backgrounds are at 'images/skybox/' in the 'archive.rpa' file. There are 85 of them. Some of them definitely look like distorted photos, while some are geometric patterns, some look like abstract drawings or something out of Artbreeder, and some are completely unidentifiable.

Good to know.

[Femboy Sarah]

There are also cropped copies of them in 'images/cg_mirror/cg_mirror_gg/' for use as the background of Milk-chan's back. Besides being cropped, some of them also have other differences.
I made an incomplete list.
6: changed from distorted face to... clouds?
20: changed from another distorted face to some kind of strange 3D shape
21: changed from flowers(?) to... shadows?
22: changed from corpse(?) to near solid color image
26: changed from decomposing chicken(?) to something resembling a train track fading into darkness as it extends away from the camera
27: changed from something looking similar to mirror version of 21 to neurons
29: changed from closeup of scalp(?) to... arm?
33: changed from street corner(?) to geometric pattern
34: changed from something unidentifiable image to neurons
36: changed from disembodied eye(?) to something that looks like a drip painting
39: changed from something unidentifiable to... disco balls?
42: changed from foot(?) to geometric pattern
45: changed from face(?) to a really cool-looking cyberpunk-looking mechanism with gears
47: changed from moon with eye(?) to repeated icons of something resembling a watch tower
48: changed from mountains to a young-looking face with identifiable teeth
49: changed from group photo of 4 to construction site
51: changed from doughnut to crying baby
53: changed from abstract vaguely humanoid shape to something resembling the bottom of a table with gum stuck to it
60: changed from something unidentifiable to... some kind of monument?
63: changed from smoke detector(?) to something fleshy looking
67: changed from potato-looking thing with a doorway on it to a clearly identifiable caricature of a human smoking a pipe
69: changed from vaguely humanoid figure sitting to insode of cave(?)
70: changed from face to different face
Stopping here because there's so many I got bored.
There's also 'images/eyebox/', which have some versions of the backgrounds but with the dark purple color being substituted with a bright cyan, and probably a different shade of red. Unsure what these would have been used for. They're loaded by the game, but never used. As it happens, these are based on the versions used in the mirror, not the regular backgrounds, so we can actually see the entire original image of the cropped mirror backgrounds that differ. The "eyebox"-es are numbered 1 to 20, corresponding to backgrounds 59 to 78.