Questions about the ending - Whats your interpretation?

[Russell0]

So I have just finished this game and it was very good. I just have a few questions, I know the ending may be subjective but ill ask anyway. Im also confused with the whole memory thing?

So, the whole point he was going to the moon was he subconciously wanted to meet her again as he forgot their metting due to his brother death. Is this why she kept asking him about what he saw in the paper rabbits just like they did with the bunny star sign?

How did the memory thing work? Did it replace his memories with happier ones? Adding his brother in to make him happier? So when Johnny died he thought he lived a life with him in it different from the one he knew? Then he never went to the cinema with her or asked her out on the stair case?

I mean all he wanted to do was go to the moon to remeet her again they didnt have to re route his whole life?

I would of ended it by when they got to the moon it repopened that memory of them sitting on the log and making the bunny star sign, though I guess it kinda did it sort of flahsed it at the end when he handed her the platapus.

The flashes at the end kinda showed his original life but with his brother in it, but did the memory changer change it quite a bit orjust a little and he still went through what he went through orginally just a bit different.

AND another thing, River spent her whole life clinging onto the fact he had forgotten their meeting maybe? Surely if they re wrote his whole life it just kinda makes the memory of the original river obsoleete. Kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on her memory?

Surely he would want to remember the real river who he actually grew old with, not the fake river who he went tro the moon with? .. I dunno

Anyway tell me what you think I would love to know?

[Russell0]

PS. I thought it was a great game, especially when they were sitting on the log and making the star sign. Realising the connection there made me tear up. Was awsome.

[SunStorm]

Well, you have to realize that the human brain doesn't remember everything, usually only important or impressionable events, so it most likely just changed the events that he could already remember using a comptuer algorithem and added a new one using his subconciousess brain. Everything else you said is pretty spot on. Either way he was able to artificially live two lives, which is more than most people could ever ask for. It very subjective and there is no right or wrong really, the scientists just did what they thought was right and what they were tasked to do. This is the kinda thing you have to figure out for yourself. If you can figure out what this means for you then you will be a lot closer to knowing who you are and who you want to be in this only life we have.

[Russell0]

Originally posted by aarongwil:

Well, you have to realize that the human brain doesn't remember everything, usually only important or impressionable events, so it most likely just changed the events that he could already remember using a comptuer algorithem and added a new one using his subconciousess brain. Everything else you said is pretty spot on. Either way he was able to artificially live two lives, which is more than most people could ever ask for. It very subjective and there is no right or wrong really, the scientists just did what they thought was right and what they were tasked to do. This is the kinda thing you have to figure out for yourself. If you can figure out what this means for you then you will be a lot closer to knowing who you are and who you want to be in this only life we have.

Fantastic reply thanks.

[Russell0]

Any other opinions?

[⎛⎝L O R D G E N O M E ⎠⎞]

They had to reroute his life, basically, because the reason he no longer remembered why he wanted to go to the moon was because of River and how she wanted him to stay with Anya. Not to mention he was given all those drugs to forget his brother's death which also led to him forgetting who River was, and why he felt a connection to her for some odd reason. There are so many things that just click when you finish the game. I feel like she was depressed during her real life because of how he forgot like how they actually met and everything she said to him about the lighthouses and rabbits when they first met. Either way I thought the game was fantastic and was basically pure art.

[Scarlette]

the way u thinking just the same way as mine ^^.

for me the most saddest and kind of unjusticed part is where they move the river away from his memory for a while.. i know they scientist have to accomplish their task but if i were Johny, i would not want this thing to happened where they swept away those moments that my partner and i start knowing each other..

however when im thinking back, they do this because thats the only chance they got to make johny happy and may cherish his best "fake" moments with river before his last breath.. (at least he died happily)
i think he suffered a lot when he has to live alone after river's gone...

after all, they really love each other and who knows they live happily ever after on the heaven..
i believe when u met ur partner back on heaven, im sure God will give back all ur memories with her ^^
actually ive been thinking if the game maker would show that river waits for him or whatever that can show they meet up again afterlife but unfortunately it all were just my imagination lol

my english is not that good i hope you got what ima trying to say here ლ(╹◡╹ლ)

[Russell0]

Originally posted by Scarlette:

my english is not that good i hope you got what ima trying to say here ლ(╹◡╹ლ)

Yes I get you, I thought a good ending would be: He flew to the moon on his own and as he got there its the child river sitting on the log again waiting for him to remember and come back to her. He then passes away and we learn that he died before he got to the moon in this memory change - Kind of sudgesting that what we saw is: he went to the moon and re met River in heaven and she is there waiting for him back on the log in the memory he forgot.

To be honest if the game ended around the time when we learn of that sitting on the log memory I would have been okay with it. I thought wiping his whole memory was kind of sad as it destoryed the real Rivers memory.

[Pizzahaeter]

I thought that the ending of the John's story was pretty clear. When I saw the title, however, I thought about the VERY ENDING of the game: the moment when Rosalene gets a phone call, tells Watts about a new patient and walks away out of the frame - and then there is an effect similar to that they had while in John's head at the moments when he was close to death - a heartbeat sound, monitor went red and also there was a glitch, then Watts took an inhalator(?) or something and did sth we didn't have a chance to see. So what are your thoughts on this? Mine are that they're still seem to be in someone's memories - Watts' or Rosalene's - and that the mission of another person was to change memories about the John's case - maybe, originally they failed it and now they fulfilled a last wish of changing it in a way they succeded.
Or maybe I'm 2deeeep and that's just Watts is ill or sth. What do you think?
sorry4my inglish, if sth

[SunStorm]

@pizzahaeter I'm not sure, it seems like they meant to make further episodes as this was specifically titled episode 1 but as it has been 3 years that will probably not happen.

[Pizzahaeter]

@aarongwil I know that it was supposed to be a series, but the point is to make hypotheses.

[SunStorm]

Originally posted by Pizzahaeter:

@aarongwil I know that it was supposed to be a series, but the point is to make hypotheses.:squirtheh:

blahhhhhhhh

[streea_davis]

Pizzahaeter, I agree with you completely. I think that in reality, Watts got his way, Johnny died (unhappy) without ever going to the moon but still retained his true memories of River, and Watts lived out his life with one regret... the one time he failed an assignment and cost a man his final happiness. As Watts was dying, he had the organization come in and change his memory of that case, which was why the theme/pacing changed to one that's more action-oriented towards the end (as he's a geek, the people changing his memories probably thought he'd enjoy that the most). The flash at the end was him dying, and his memories being changed to happy ones.

BTW, what he took at the end were the pain killers he was(n't) addicted to.

[ManofShadows]

Originally posted by Pizzahaeter:

I thought that the ending of the John's story was pretty clear. When I saw the title, however, I thought about the VERY ENDING of the game: the moment when Rosalene gets a phone call, tells Watts about a new patient and walks away out of the frame - and then there is an effect similar to that they had while in John's head at the moments when he was close to death - a heartbeat sound, monitor went red and also there was a glitch, then Watts took an inhalator(?) or something and did sth we didn't have a chance to see. So what are your thoughts on this? Mine are that they're still seem to be in someone's memories - Watts' or Rosalene's - and that the mission of another person was to change memories about the John's case - maybe, originally they failed it and now they fulfilled a last wish of changing it in a way they succeded.
Or maybe I'm 2deeeep and that's just Watts is ill or sth. What do you think?
sorry4my inglish, if sth:evafacepalm:

Wasn't it the painkillers that he took? The ones he was supposably addicted to.

[Sun_S]

Originally posted by Russell0:

So, the whole point he was going to the moon was he subconciously wanted to meet her again as he forgot their metting due to his brother death. Is this why she kept asking him about what he saw in the paper rabbits just like they did with the bunny star sign?

Yes. She asked him because she knew he didn't remember their first meeting. And she wanted him to remember, because it had meant a lot to her (as we can see, she kept the toy platypus for the rest of her life). But because of her condition (River has Asperger syndrome), she wasn't able to just say: "Hey, you know, we met before that time when you asked me out at school."
She was hoping to jog his memory with clues.

How did the memory thing work? Did it replace his memories with happier ones? Adding his brother in to make him happier? So when Johnny died he thought he lived a life with him in it different from the one he knew? Then he never went to the cinema with her or asked her out on the stair case?

Eva used the machine to save Joey somehow, we don't know how though.
Then Johnny imagined a new life for himself. As raw material for that new life, he was using the machine to create a realistic world - Neil calls it "a wiki of existing facts", if I remember correctly. And he must have been using his old memories, too, to make new ones, because we see the same people as before, they look the same, they go to the same places (the pub, the bookstore, the house on the cliffs), etc.
And no, Johnny never went to the cinema with River in that new life, because he only met her at NASA, then.

I mean all he wanted to do was go to the moon to remeet her again they didnt have to re route his whole life?

They had to take River out of his life because like you said, he didn't really want to go to the moon, he really wanted to be with River.
As long as she was there, he had what he wanted and never felt the urge to go to the moon. We see that when the doctors first start the memory changing sequence and they go through his whole life, and everything is exactly the same, no matter how much they try to inspire him to become an astronaut.
When River was gone, he vaguely remembered that they had once said if they lose each other, their gathering point will be on the moon. So now he had a motivation to get there.

I would of ended it by when they got to the moon it repopened that memory of them sitting on the log and making the bunny star sign, though I guess it kinda did it sort of flahsed it at the end when he handed her the platapus.

When you look closely, it's not the same memory from the log scene. The original scene was that Johnny gave her the platypus and ran to his mom. This scene is that River has the platypus and he sits down next to her. Also, it happens after we have heard his heart flatlining. Therefore, I assume it's there to say that Johnny is dead now and he meets River again in the afterlife.

AND another thing, River spent her whole life clinging onto the fact he had forgotten their meeting maybe? Surely if they re wrote his whole life it just kinda makes the memory of the original river obsoleete. Kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on her memory?

River didn't spend her whole life with that, she only started doing this "reminding Johnny of our meeting" thing after he had confessed to her why he'd invited her to the date.
She had another thing that she was living for, too: Befriending a lighthouse and making sure it's not alone. And she achieved that when she made sure Johnny would build the house - she said it made her happy.
Yes, Johnny lived with a fake River in his memory. It makes the story bittersweet. I do like to imagine though that she was pretty much the same person, since we see the same events as in Johnny's real life happen, just a bit different: They meet in the pub, but this time with Joey. They build the house by the lighthouse etc.

Surely he would want to remember the real river who he actually grew old with, not the fake river who he went tro the moon with?

Likely! Only he didn't know that they would have to remove River when he tasked the doctors with his dream.



@aarongwil Another episode is in the making, it's name is "Finding Paradise". The patient from that coming episode appears in another game already, "A Bird Story". In that game, we just see a short story from his childhood, without the two doctors.

[SunStorm]

@Sun_S Aw, that's good I hope it get's finished soon, I really liked this game and I look forward to more.