How do you go to the [Spoiler Room] without anyone else?

[jrubz]

After the ending of the game, if you follow the pawprints to the liminal mushroom room, you'll be taken to the consciousness room where Evren shows up, asking you to face the death shade of the Torment realms alone without her creations. She goes on a tangent noting she cannot reveal who she is to anyone as part of being who she is. You are given the torment room numbers in the games ending sequence, so reasonably I thought I could just try to go there, but Crunchy will pull back the elevator if you put in those keycodes. Riley is also stuck in your party at this point. Riley couldn't see Evren, giving the impression that he is one of the creations.
How do you actually go and face the death shade alone?

[Opera_Ghost]

I think maybe you have to redo the boatman tower defence sequence, but not bring anybody with you? haven't done it myself yet but I assume that was what had to be done

[jrubz]

Originally posted by Opera_Ghost:

I think maybe you have to redo the boatman tower defence sequence, but not bring anybody with you? haven't done it myself yet but I assume that was what had to be done

I thought so too, but the game still progressed as normal. Dr. Dump and the whole gang still shows up after reaching the singularity.

I still ended up getting in the ending where you fight Riley. And since he's an item in your inventory, I don't think there's a way to go without him even.

If anything I'm wondering if the death boss is meant to even be defeated. The song for the fight is literally called "Brain Cancer Fight." I see allegories going on and on about it, which, tbh is fine by me.

If anything, I'm more or less stuck and have the itch of wondering why the game just told me, "hey, go do this thing under this condition" with the implication it's going to unlock something else, even if it isn't a new ending per say.

[eegama]

before the erven fight leading up past the harpies there are chess pieces in the room. I have found there are hidden paths you can run down in these rooms but i hit a block before reaching the erven fight.

[Linos Melendi]

Surprised I haven't seen more people talk about this.

I've also tried doing the boatman sequence without spending a death coin on anyone but nothing changed.

[Landl0cked]

AFAIK, if you collected the other two soul weapons for the Cat God door, you have to hard reset the game. If you don't collect the soul weapons when you play through the game, when you get to the cat god gate, reiley sends you back to the start of the game and you have to replay as a different color. If you have all three you don't get "soft" reset. The "soft" and hard reset will revert the world state before certain decisions are made and allow you to try to prevent the two from going with you.

If you skip the microscopic section altogether, the rat doesn't show up near the boatman, and I assume skipping some section with the alien questline causes the cat to not show up. The first time I went through without the soul weapons, I skipped the alien questline and some other stuff and Sam was not there. He did not show up near the boatman in pandemonium and he was not on the raft.
After I reached the cat god door and was sent back by reiley, I skipped the microscopic world and everything except the very first time you go to the alien dimension. The rat and the cat are not by the boatman in pandemonium. But I'm going to bed tonight and will continue tomorrow to see if anything is different.

My assumption is that you have to skip significant sequences in the game to prevent them from showing up. When the rat eats the god fruit, you can see the Shade hiding in the background so skipping this prevents the rat from showing up. I thought since you can also see the shade behind the dimension master after you defeat him, that you had to skip this as well to prevent sam from showing up, but this last time I accidentally defeated the gorilla and sam still didn't show up by the boatman.

It might just be very convoluted. The whole yellow section is throwing mixed signals. You can talk to purple in the castle and also bring the yellow mask with you back from the sludge, but it hasn't made much of a difference. Half the time i don't know if the game is actually deep and should be taken serious or if it really doesn't matter.

[M I S E R Y]

i'm glad i don't have to replay that entire defense sequence and fight 20 adds just to see if there's any closure lol

[Spockus]

Originally posted by jrubz:

Originally posted by Opera_Ghost:

I think maybe you have to redo the boatman tower defence sequence, but not bring anybody with you? haven't done it myself yet but I assume that was what had to be done

I thought so too, but the game still progressed as normal. Dr. Dump and the whole gang still shows up after reaching the singularity.

I still ended up getting in the ending where you fight Riley. And since he's an item in your inventory, I don't think there's a way to go without him even.

If anything I'm wondering if the death boss is meant to even be defeated. The song for the fight is literally called "Brain Cancer Fight." I see allegories going on and on about it, which, tbh is fine by me.

If anything, I'm more or less stuck and have the itch of wondering why the game just told me, "hey, go do this thing under this condition" with the implication it's going to unlock something else, even if it isn't a new ending per say.

You can win the "death boss" and you get an achievement for doing so. It's just really really REALLY hard. Ideally bring an L5 blue soul weapon and spam mid casts, it plays well with the boss' patterns and it has lifesteal which is the ONLY way to heal in any way in this fight. Good luck.

[The Unstable Anarchy of ヤギ]

I just beat the game on a new save file bringing no one with me to no result, even using the soft reset the ending is identical, the only changes being forced to fight The Dragon's 3rd phase to get my soul weapon, stoneguard showing up to try and kill me after reaching the hangout, and no other changes till the end of the game where shade now explicitly mentions the workshop instead of just saying the hillbert hotel has infinite challenges.

[jrubz]

hmm. This just continues to look like a red herring? It is odd to have the biggest lore room in the game telling you about what the torment dimension is have a whole bit about doing something different. And now it seems the condition isn't there? There's several locked doors we never open too. Many of them in the hangout seem intentionally so, but Sam's door is locked. Dimitri's lab door is also still locked. People say they've mined the game top to bottom already, and that there's nothing new to be found, which seems odd.

I don't really care if there's a bunch new or not. Why is a part of the game giving me a challenge then sending me on a quest for some condition that doesn't seem to exist? Unless that's now one of the questions the game is wanting me to ask...

[Groversoup]

Originally posted by jrubz:

I don't really care if there's a bunch new or not. Why is a part of the game giving me a challenge then sending me on a quest for some condition that doesn't seem to exist? Unless that's now one of the questions the game is wanting me to ask...

This moment is essentially just characterization for Evren. They want you to journey to the end of time alone because even getting on the boat marks you for death, but even if you don't pay for the assistance of the other characters, they still come along for the ride. The only way to rise to their "challenge" is to intentionally fail the boatman challenge. This doesn't access anything new, it just puts you back where you started, which is exactly where Evren wants you to stay.

[jrubz]

Originally posted by Groversoup:

Originally posted by jrubz:

I don't really care if there's a bunch new or not. Why is a part of the game giving me a challenge then sending me on a quest for some condition that doesn't seem to exist? Unless that's now one of the questions the game is wanting me to ask...

This moment is essentially just characterization for Evren. They want you to journey to the end of time alone because even getting on the boat marks you for death, but even if you don't pay for the assistance of the other characters, they still come along for the ride. The only way to rise to their "challenge" is to intentionally fail the boatman challenge. This doesn't access anything new, it just puts you back where you started, which is exactly where Evren wants you to stay.

This kind of makes sense now. I think I was supposed to see that scene before I beat the game then.
That's a writing oversight.

I still enjoy the game overall, but yea, the writing is a bit bumpy for the point they want to make, especially since a good portion of the game can be taken in any order you want.

It makes me wonder, did the shade make the entire story up? Did we ever even leave the drawn house? You would think the Shade is just telling us Sam and Irvene died in the torment realm. But I'm starting to think that the Shade was just showing Sam and Irvene to us from the first game. I entirely forgot they existed in Everhood 1 because of how long ago I played it. I'm starting to think we never did leave the first part of the game , and that makes me a bit less upset. It kind of makes me impressed.

[BeanBoi]

i love how the game gives hints that you can change the story/ending but nothing ever changes

stop trying at this, its just a troll from the devs, just like how they said you could 'lure' Yellow.

[Friggin_Ponies]

Didn't Evren say you have to LOSE the boatman ride? So you need to show up with nobody and lose in order to get a different result. For the record, I'm pretty sure Riley counts as someone.

[Spockus]

Originally posted by Friggin_Ponies:

Didn't Evren say you have to LOSE the boatman ride? So you need to show up with nobody and lose in order to get a different result. For the record, I'm pretty sure Riley counts as someone.

It's impossible to ditch Riley without outright hacking the game, to my knowledge. :(

[Friggin_Ponies]

Correct me if I'm stupid, but doesn't Evren say you have to get to the boatman section **without** any of her creations, to spend no death coins on them, and to them fail on purpose?