What happens in Pseudoregalia?

[Haos Serpenoid]

This is where I will give my thoughts on everything that's happened in the game lore wise and maybe some theories. If there's anything I miss or anything you want to add, please feel free to do so! Spoilers by the way.

[Haos Serpenoid]

So this is what I gathered:
By the end of the game, it is revealed that you're in a dream, more specifically the princess's dream. I theorize that you are playing as some sort of dream guardian named Sybil who goes to different people's dreams to help them. The fact that words like "wake up" are frequently used in the ending I think clearly indicates that this is someone else's dream.

What strengthens this theory is the fact that one of the books in the library that you can read brings up a sea setting, and Sybil comments on her interest and says that maybe she will get to go to a world like that next time. She doesn't say this exactly she actually says something like "Maybe next time" but you get what I mean. The beginning of the game also suggests that Sybil is in a disguise, or is in a form that is unique to the world she is in, similarly to how Sora and his friends change looks when they go to different worlds in Kingdom Hearts. In this case, Sybil seems to of tried to disguise herself as one of the little goat people who are the only npcs present in the world. Though the disguise seems to have failed in a way with her commenting on it at the beginning and one of the other goats calling it a paper thin disguise.

Speaking of the library, lets talk about the princess. The main conflict in this world revolves around the princess. There are a couple of books in the library that seem to give small information regarding this. For example, there's a book about a girl who loved a monster so much that she left her family. There doesn't seem to be anything exactly indicating that this is related to the princess, because of the books in the library have random stuff in them, but I thought there had to be some significance. A book that has guaranteed significance is the princess in the tower book. It follows the plot of a knight saving a princess in the tower, except the final page is torn out. I think that this either means that the princess was angry at the ending, or kept it for herself to hold onto, but I have a feeling its the former.

With this information, I think it's safe to say that the princess is possibly some sort of angsty teenage girl who is going through drama and is locking herself away from the world in a way. She is basically shutting herself away from the world and it's up to Sybil to help her wake up and realize what she could be doing better.

Still on the topic of the library, there's a book that's about revenge and Sybil comments with "Revenge sounds nice." A bit of small hints on the type of life she may have lived.

I'm sure there might be WAY more to this with various details in the game. There are still many questions such as, why did Sybil come out of a mirror at the beginning? Why are there goats in this world? Is Sybil's weapon a cross and what significance does it hold? Do all the locations have significant meanings?

I just beat the game a bit a go and wanted to use this to dump my current thoughts on it. Maybe I'll go back into it to further clarify things or to potentially find more details. I may post further thoughts here later. Feel free to have your own contributions or theories.

[Haos Serpenoid]

I honestly didn't read the description of this game before playing it, and it straight up confirms that this is a dream. Whoops.
Still had fun figuring out what was going on in the game without this information. I thought it was more fun figuring it out on my own within the game anyway. So you can ignore the theory bit I had. The other information present is still worth bringing up. ^

[Talon]

In it's in my belief that the outfit you get from the Tower Ruins time trial might be the closest thing to Sybil's true form aside from the silhouette of her in the main menu. Mostly because it lacks horns just like what is seen in the main menu.

[Haos Serpenoid]

Originally posted by Talon:

In it's in my belief that the outfit you get from the Tower Ruins time trial might be the closest thing to Sybil's true form aside from the silhouette of her in the main menu. Mostly because it lacks horns just like what is seen in the main menu.

You're talking about the "Bleeding Heart" outfit. When I saw that for the first time (Hardest outfit to get imo) I assumed it was related to the princess in some way. But I agree that it's interesting to think that some of these outfits probably also have significance to Sybil as a character as well.

That is interesting that it's the only outfit without horns. Too bad the outfits don't have descriptions in the menu. They have descriptions when you acquire them but there's no way to look back at them.

Speaking of the menu, I think it's clear that this is Sybil drifting across realms in some way, looking for different dreams to go to.

[Mateusinho]

Huge props for getting the dream thing without seeing the description, I would be kinda confused by the ending without it.

I read in other comments that there was supposed to be more lore, but the dev ran out of tiime for the game jam and scrapped it, hence why there ar empty unreadable pieces of paper in some areas of the map, some in well hiddne platforming challenge areas.

Since the library was added post jam, it makes sense there are some hints to it.

One extra detail I'd like to add, is about the final battle and the ending itself, and how it can show us a bit about the princess. I think there's either some sort of revenge as you pointed out or something related to guilty in the reason why the princess can't wake up.

Instead of saving the princess, we fight her. It is the change in the ending, represented by the torn page maybe. And I'd say this is related to guilty, or something making the princess see themselves as a villain, because the name of the area were the final battle happens is written with some blank letters, DSTRTED MMOY, which seems to actually be DISTORTED MEMORY. For me, I think this implies that the princess is not seeing herself as a princess, and why the battle takes place in a pit. She is not in a good state of mind,.

This is further supported by the quotes at the ending:

"Not really the kind of person you wanna hang out with, right?"
"I barely remember what she was really like at this point"

This shows that whoever is the person having the dream, doesn't actually remember how the princess really was and sees herself as a villain, "someone you don't want to hang out with".

The following lines shows the person "don't remember who they are" and they "aren't someone special", but follows with that being the reason Sybil is there to begin with. That she is there to show them they have to "wake up".

"i get it. I just can't hide here forever and pretend I don't exist. I'm sure I'll find something worth being awake for. Maybe Ill finally get into photography"

This dialogue for me shows someone who clearly had lost purpose in life. Sybil is not just waking someone up from a regular dream or nightmare, she is literally saving someone from something in the likes of depression. Someone who is hiding themselves in their dreams, and sees themselves as a villain.

Maybe I'm going a bit too far, and some little goats are imprisoed and fear the princess just to show that she is a villain, but they could represent little positive feelings locked away.

Anyway, I just rushed through the game in the last few days, and I really loved the gameplay, and these little bits of lore felt pretty interesting. it would be really cool if the devs could pop up and clear their ideas behind it someday to see what we got right and what we didn't.

[Haos Serpenoid]

Originally posted by Mateusinho:

Huge props for getting the dream thing without seeing the description, I would be kinda confused by the ending without it.

I read in other comments that there was supposed to be more lore, but the dev ran out of tiime for the game jam and scrapped it, hence why there ar empty unreadable pieces of paper in some areas of the map, some in well hiddne platforming challenge areas.

Since the library was added post jam, it makes sense there are some hints to it.

One extra detail I'd like to add, is about the final battle and the ending itself, and how it can show us a bit about the princess. I think there's either some sort of revenge as you pointed out or something related to guilty in the reason why the princess can't wake up.

Instead of saving the princess, we fight her. It is the change in the ending, represented by the torn page maybe. And I'd say this is related to guilty, or something making the princess see themselves as a villain, because the name of the area were the final battle happens is written with some blank letters, DSTRTED MMOY, which seems to actually be DISTORTED MEMORY. For me, I think this implies that the princess is not seeing herself as a princess, and why the battle takes place in a pit. She is not in a good state of mind,.

This is further supported by the quotes at the ending:

"Not really the kind of person you wanna hang out with, right?"
"I barely remember what she was really like at this point"

This shows that whoever is the person having the dream, doesn't actually remember how the princess really was and sees herself as a villain, "someone you don't want to hang out with".

The following lines shows the person "don't remember who they are" and they "aren't someone special", but follows with that being the reason Sybil is there to begin with. That she is there to show them they have to "wake up".

"i get it. I just can't hide here forever and pretend I don't exist. I'm sure I'll find something worth being awake for. Maybe Ill finally get into photography"

This dialogue for me shows someone who clearly had lost purpose in life. Sybil is not just waking someone up from a regular dream or nightmare, she is literally saving someone from something in the likes of depression. Someone who is hiding themselves in their dreams, and sees themselves as a villain.

Maybe I'm going a bit too far, and some little goats are imprisoed and fear the princess just to show that she is a villain, but they could represent little positive feelings locked away.

Anyway, I just rushed through the game in the last few days, and I really loved the gameplay, and these little bits of lore felt pretty interesting. it would be really cool if the devs could pop up and clear their ideas behind it someday to see what we got right and what we didn't.

I didn't know about the development troubles in the background but it makes sense. I love the gameplay of the game but I think the world itself and story could've used more focus. I would still rate the game highly regardless. Which is a lot of points for gameplay and other things that are already there.

I like what you add to the ending. Also, when I brought up the revenge part I was mainly referring to Sybil's reaction to it. Though I suppose it would make sense if the books all had significance considering we are in someones dream. There are some books that felt like they were just thrown in there without much reason and for comical purposes, which is why I only focused on a couple of them that stood out to me in terms of lore. I felt that the revenge book was mainly to show a bit of Sybil's character but it's also interesting to think about how it factored into the princess's life. Maybe it would've been better if the books had a bit more focus or if some of them weren't on the shelf showing that they were read by the princess to separate the lore specific books from the others.

Good post.

[neo2157]

From what I can tell its about a a woman escaping depression via the dreamworld, cybils weapon is literally called the "dreambreaker" and her main upgrades are all "light" based and by extention a metaphor for the sun in the waking world. the world around her is falling apart both functionally in the sense the skybox outside looks like its tearing itself apart and the goat servants hide to prevent punishment from the princess and literally as there are spaces like the room in sansa keep and the end boss that are a distorted mess. the library is the games only real "safe" place that was sealed off from the rest of the world and there are a series of books you can read that paint a bit of a picture: one talks about a woman being with someone and can't quite say if the woman was happy or not, another talks about a woman leaving her family for a "monster", and finally there is one about a generic fairy tale princess meeting prince charming that sybil remarks has the ending page torn out.

These books don't mean much at the start of the game but in sansa keep you find a throne room with two chairs.... yet there is only one person in this world that is royalty, then you finally meet said princess who attacks you unprovoked to prevent the dream from ending. after the battle you get dialogue that really puts everything together: "I can't even remember what she was really like." this right here is important as the book that wasn't quite sure if the woman in a relationship was happy is referring to a relationship on its way to failing, the "monster" she left her family behind for was actually a same-sex relationship that she probably cut contact over, and the torn fairy tale book is her frustration at not being able to experience her fairy-tale ending. its also worth mentioning her battle music is Paramnesiac which is a phenomena involving confusion of fact and fantasy.

After the defeat she realize's that she can't escape reality forever and thanks sybil for helping her carry on acknowledging that she's some sort of entity that travels the dreamworld helping people return to the real world and return to their normal lives, she also mention's when she wakes up she going to write sybils name down which just reinforces she's accepted it was all a dream that she will likely forget if she doesn't have a record of it. (kinda like artist's who keep pen and paper near their beds incase they get inspiration from a dream.) another interesting fact is that sybil is in fact not a "goat-bunny-cat lady" its just her disguise to blend in with the denizens of the princess's dream, one of the goats in the prison mentions your disguise is "paper-thin but it will fool most" and one of sybils alternate costume's ditch's the horns meaning they are not an actual physical part of her.