Ending Discussion (SPOILERS obviously)

[geraldvincentt]

So I just finished the game. What a beautiful game. Good graphics, great music, awesome and mind-blowing short story. It's one of those games that'll gives you unique experience that you will remember for the next 10 years or so. Thank you for all the people who made this (free) game.

Now with that being said, let's talk about the mind-blowing ending. But before that, let me tell you now that this is going to be SPOILERS ALERT! Don't even think to read this before you finished the game unless you want your Serena experience to be a little bland.

So what really happened? Is Serena cheated on him? Is he dead? Who's the dead body? I didn't see the last photo, but I heard that his face changed? Is it just a dream? Did he have stroke? Why did he forgot about her in the first place? Share your thoughts below.

[Ex]

Theres still no reason to destroy the cabin. Who would sell a cabin with the obvious murdered body which could be linked back to them. Who would buy a cabin that looks like it was put together with toothpicks and no insulation. Why would someone buy a cabin in the middle of nowhere, then spend that much money. bulldozing down 10000 trees to knock it down, for no apparent reason.

[illgib]

I remeber that only they know were the cabin was, maybe she selled the terrain years before and now the actual owner, or someone who made him an offer, have to build something else around there and have to clean the place, like a street or some buildings. Nobody inspect a burning bunch of rubble, they buldozz everything and clean up the place. If a worker or an inspector finding the cabin there take a look inside and find the body, can lead to a police trail and a prosecution to the her.

[X]

SPOILER ALERT PLOT EXPLAINED... THOUGHTS ON A PROPER SEQUEL

The ending to this game was very obvious and pointed to by several facts. From dialogue in the game.

1. He cannot look at himself in the mirror no matter how hard he tries.
2. He cannot leave the house.
3. He finds the sunlight oppressive
4. His memory is somewhat gone.
5. He cannot go to bed/rest (aka restless soul)

All of these signs point to the fact that he is a ghost trapped in the house after Serena killed him.

The plot is this. He and Serena have a wonderful relationship at first but he is a hermit that loves to stay in a cabin and be away from the world Serena wants more they argue eventually she takes a lover and they form a plan to kill him.


( I believe this plan included the blood pressure pills that she was so adamant about him taking. I think you can infer they were poison)


However Serena being the stone cold psycho ♥♥♥♥♥ she is that tosses ♥♥♥♥ around breaking windows (as stated in a dialogue option if you look at the cracked window) hits him in a fit of rage and kills him stuffs him in the closet and leaves her wedding ring in her jewelry box.


(that is the object the killers are speaking about that she left behind because she could not bear to wear it anymore)


In the final moments of the game you find your body but the game throws the red herring of you believing you had killed your wife although the short hair on the corps, along with the other 5 facts I posted earlier didn't ever throw me off the truth. If you look at her picture again the game clarifies more making you look dead giving all but definitive proof of the truth. You are dead. Your wife killed you and now they are destroying the last evidence in a fire. You walk to the window and Serena all but confesses to the crime then you burn.



(as an added twist/mind ♥♥♥♥ I suspect the loving letter you find written by Serena in the dresser with the mirror is actually to her lover that plotted to kill you. It was written ambiguously and when she signed it says "to my love" not "S." she signed it different then the hate filled letter she wrote to you and left in the trunk,which leads me to believe she was writing to a different person. This leads me to believe it was another red herring and was actually written to "her love" the unidentified murderer on the porch.)


Easter Eggs

(If you read the book shelf several times he wonders to himself if he gave away his copy of the necronomicon)


My Future Wish for the Developers....

Now this game would be amazing if it was a tech demo for the actual full release and to tell the truth it could be.

Imagine if after the cabin burns down you are released and can wander the world. You can now haunt your killers and choose to either drive them insane, Kill them yourself or drive them to confess. Or even let them get away with it. If It was an adventure game with choice and multiple endings it would be even more amazing.

If you notice there was a picture on the wall that had 3 kids in a bath tub what if they are your kids? That would add even more suspense....Do you take revenge on your wife that killed you but leave your kids to be raised in the system? Or let her get away with it and live happily with her new lover. What if you can lead you kids to the truth will they kill them? Would you want that to happen? Imagine The Sims meets Deus Ex Human Revolution meets Hitman Blood money meets The Wolf Among Us. You could wield your powers and influence people but always from the shadows, manipulating others to do your will or even reveling yourself. To recruit them to your cause. But will they be seen as insane as a result? They are the ones in danger you pull the strings, so there can be danger as they do the work in the physical world.

As stated earlier if it is a child it is even more intense especially when you consider what your wife and lover are capable of. They could lock your kid in a mental ward or kill them if you make the wrong choice. How far would you go for revenge? I WOULD LOVE TO PLAY THIS GAME

The potential for choice and consequence would be through the roof and the free nature of the first game could allow many to be open to where the game could lead. There is a game murder soul suspect that took this premise but from what I hear it was not fully realized and took a more action game route. I hope one day someone take s a more thinking mans approach and makes a noir game with real consequence and story but gameplay to boot.

[illgib]

Calm your tits dude!
It was a gift made from a group of adventures developers and players for the players, and it show the engine used in the next Cordes game Asylum, no need for an open world unslaught game!

[Potentiality12]

The bulldozer coming could be a reference to the beginning of the Infocom game Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I loved all the references to pop culture and to 1980s Infocom Zork games and other retro games/etc. in the titles of the books on the bookshelves. Also the rug: in Zork, you have to move a rug in an empty house to uncover a trapdoor. "Nothing under this rug" though. There were probably more than a few references I missed, too.

[AgustinCordes]

İlk olarak Potentiality12 tarafından gönderildi:

Also the rug: in Zork, you have to move a rug in an empty house to uncover a trapdoor. "Nothing under this rug" though. There were probably more than a few references I missed, too.

You might be interested to hear that, originally, the "reveal" was supposed to be found in a trapdoor under the rug :)

[Poobah Gorg]

İlk olarak kebukai tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak ReisDular tarafından gönderildi:

My personal theory is that he either killed himself or had a heart attack/stroke. So why is he in the armoire? in his final moments he might have chosen to shut himself in the armoire with the last of her clothes that he still had. Otherwise, Serena and her boyfriend might have found his dead body and shut it up where they couldn't see until they could decide what to do wth the situation.

I like your theory until this part, because then there's an incongruency with the bloodstain on the floor that appears when you find the body.

There's also that broken side kitchen window that appears at that point, too.

I'd think one of them shot him, but the coroner would find the bullet hole in his burned body (I'm American, our TV shows and "news" programs spend much of their time on murder and homicide detectives). To be honest, they'd probably find out that he got brained with the frying pan or stabbed (or whatever it was). Maybe she poisoned his food, wine or the BP medicine with that plant? It's tough to say.

[Poobah Gorg]

What I love about this game is that the protagonist is never quite the hero, innocent victim nor villain. He's a person. Our culture has a tendency to turn the dead into the best people that ever lived. In games (and dumb and in particularly OLD movies) folks are either good or bad, and their character usually only turns/reveals "bad" or good ONCE (as the wife does here). The main character is very HUMAN throughout. He's complicated, and a fair bit self-absorbed.

[Perpetuum Mobile]

I just finished the game and love all theories posted here. Unfortunately, I haven't seen many comments on the pictures on the wall yet. I was a bit disappointed that there was no way to interact with them. Do you think there was a deeper meaning behind them?

[Poobah Gorg]

I suspect that either he or Serena is one of the kids in the tub, back when they were children. Neither of them EVER mentions having children, and kids in the tub are pictures only parents or grandparents would get. A lot more common in the 60s/70s than they would be now.

[ScorpionWasp]

The one thing I can't seem to tie up is why exactly she needs the ring in the end. Let's summarize all the relevant evidence:

1 - The guy didn't appear to have a penny to his name. As Serena says in her letter, paraphrased, "he's a failure, who could never actually make any money off his stupid self indulgent passion for books." This makes the idea of a planned murder far-fetched, as there's no motive. There's no cash to be gained, and if she wanted to leave him, she could just leave him. No, this suggests that he was murdered in a fit of rage.
1.1 - Serena's boyfriend is probably only involved in the cover-up, not the murder itself. His mention of a plan most likely refers to that. She panicked when word came up that the place was going to be bulldozed and the body found, and had to destroy all the evidence before that happened.

2 - The guy has been dead for quite some time. Even if we assume the hot summer sped up the process some, the entire cabin is in a state of disrepair. Not once in all this time has Serena bothered to retrieve her ring, so it does not appear to have any inherent value for her. Her motive in retrieving it now must be related to getting rid of evidence, but what evidence does the ring represent exactly? I understand that the ring must have her name engraved on it, but surely once a burnt skeleton shows up, investigators are going to look up whom this cabin belonged to, and whom that person was married to? How does removing the ring sever that lead?

3 - if one assumes the corpse will be completely destroyed in the fire, then removing the ring accomplishes even less.

[Moshpitflow]

I guess removing the ring is the only link to her existence that´s left in the cabin when it´s burnt down right?And when the police would ask her she could say she left him for her new boyfriend and the protagonist committed suicide...

Anoher thing i´m not sure about: Is there any hint of the year or the era they lived in? (Except the bulldozers ?) it could be crime investigation werent that good and a burned house and a person with mental problems would be enough to save her.

Btw one of the most intense games i played lately.

[Nessos]

Awesome discussion and the best proof that the devs made a really great game.

As for Old One's request with the revenge story: I like that the game incites this sort of wondering. I'm a sucker for these kinds of endings that can mean everything and nothing. Let art unfold in the mind of the one looking at it.

I'm still a little unsure about the - let's say - classical ghost idea, because he's too focused, he's actually doing stuff like opening drawers. I like the limbo idea, but not necessarily looped. Anyway, I think he has to come to terms with what happened. Phrases like "eternal punishment" are used a lot and you get the impression that he's in the cabin for quite some time without eating, drinking or even noticing time going by. In my opinion, the twist of Serena not being killed and him being the victim, together with burning down the cabin, represents salvation for him.
If we take what's said in the game itself, it seems more reasonable to assume he died without Serena's help. He has high blood pressure and doesn't do much about it (she even accuses him of not taking the pills, poisoning him with them wouldn't be a very reliable murder method), uses too much salt and talks about the sun being dehydrating and lethal. On the other hand there is "the plan"...

[the_lorelei]

I'm sure that she killed him with the frying pan. He mentioned that she threw it at him once and it "could have" killed him. If you look on the ground near the stove/book area there's a stain that looks like blood.

He's decayed because she had left the body there for a long period of time. They lived in an isolated cabin so she didn't really fear someone finding the corpse. The only reason she's back now is because the area is going to be torn down.

That game threw me for a whirlwind. I pitied her for a while. Truly thought that he was possibly possessive and obsessed in the beginning which caused their arguments and then at the very end when I realized it was him in the closet..... jeeez, man. My head is still spinning.

[TG Ghost]

I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but I was curious about the wine label you can read that says Chateau Serena. Not sure what the point of it was