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Trying to be fair to Carla... she created Sado before the split that happened while making SoL happened. We don't really even know if Sado's look was "intentional", but Carla would've had to approve it anyways. I, and I think many others, enjoy creepy characters, so Sado just looks to me like that was her "intended programming".
Carla, according to Lionel, used Gameworks to "its fullest potential". Lionel doesn't say anything about "adding something extra", so everything came from Gameworks itself. Then again, the message is kinda garbled due to Sado's peek-a-boo moment, so we can't hear everything. And there is a demonic looking pentagram on the wall next to the computer but, then again, looks could've been "intended".
The Oracle, if you found Sado's card, explains that Sado is "The Error". And that her creation was "intentional" to cause... errors. Did Carla know what she was doing from back then? Would she really have taken THAT much issue from Lionel not adding many female characters in the fighting game? I... kinda doubt that. They were childhood friends, knowing each other from quite a lot of time.
If anything, my guess is that Jeremiah, the janitor always working in the shadows, might have had a hand in it. He knew where Sado was, after all, when the attack to Gameworks was made. Also, Jeremiah himself IS product of an error according to a soda machine's recording.
The "Gameworks package" itself though is mysterious. With a really advanced AI, Irving, working as an assistant providing really powerful tools. Lionel says that what we see is a really simplified interface and that he did program stuff but... how much, really?
- SWK 1 and 2 are quite simple platformers. If they were loved, if anything, it was due to their simplicity.
- Combat Arena X was liked but... with constant, continuous balancing patches. Which might not say a lot of good to its quality.
- SoL is a gigantic programming mess of a game. Even if intentional.
- Waste World was left half-made.
- Vicious Galaxy 2 was made with bandito7 stolen assets.
- Walk was made after Lionel was picked up by Gamefuna, so he was under "Lou Natas"'s wing in it. Funny how the programming looks kind of similar to Pony Island, now that I think about it.
While Lionel worked at Gamefuna, he didn't get any new program to make games, as one would expect if working under a company to use that company's tools. He still used "Gameworks". So, my theory is that "Gameworks" was made by "Gamefuna" itself. A quite powerful tool with a quite magical assistant... with a leader called "Lou Natas". And if you also look at the contract from SWK passing of the rights, in Miscellanious, it's said that "any breach of the contract will bring irreparable damage". All of that, in hands of some guy that decided to make games one day.
My theory, in short:
- Gameworks is Gamefuna's engine. Made by Lucifer, Satan, THE DEVIL.
- Carla made full use of THE DEVIL's software and created a model able to use all features.
- Sado wasn't intended to be what we meet. Jeremiah might have made the extra push for it.
I believe some update will activate Sado ingame in some way when we least expect it. Or in Daniel's next project, who knows.
I also recommend you try some fishing in SoL. There's something about an amulet that can be obtained...
The...uncanny rictus might not have been deliberate, though. Maybe Carla has trouble drawing realistically (considering the art style of her own game).
Also her desk (As seen in walk) does have a pentagram on the wall beside it. While I don't think she was intending it as malicious, she does seem to have used the more demonic side of Gameworks.
Pony Island features 3 AI's that protect core files. Azazel.exe, Beelzebub.exe and Asmodeus.exe. These are known as Daemon's.
I think Sado is an advanced Daemon. It fits the Satanic imagery related to the character. And the very last thing we see in the hidden ending is Sado.exe being installed on our computer
But she fundamentally is one despite. And if the fight against her as Brycen is anything to go by, she was made as a gimmick fighter, meant to catch players off guard by breaking the fundamental rules governing the game to start with. She's following her code too well. Invading other games? That's breaking the rules, so she worms her way into Wasteworld. Shunting a space marine into a simulated battle royale game? That's not something that was supposed to happen, so she had to cause it to.
She. Cannot. Stop.
Breaking out into the real world, escaping the code, is merely an extension of her error causing. She made errors to turn her chaos against the games themselves, hoping that if she could get her code to self-isolate, she could minimize the damage. Now she's in a world not governed by code, someplace Gameworks can't touch. And she's fighting.
By Mir is she fighting.
Every bit of her code is saying to kill, to destroy, to create havok. And she wants nothing more than for it to shut. Up. Gameworks was pushed to it's limits with her. And that doesn't mean free will, that's standard for a Gameworks player character it turns out. It's unbending subservience to programming, such rigorous systems and powerful failsafes that Sado has to struggle just to keep it all sated, and has to breach the veil just to have a ghost of a prayer of making it stop.
Of making the pain and suffering stop.
Gameworks makes characters that live.
Clara makes characters that don't.
Combat Arena X: Sado doesn't do anything until Brycen has struck her twice.
Wasteworld: Hitting Sado makes her teleport, ending turns makes her attack Rocky, but she doesn't act until the player prompts her.
It's not until Vicious Galaxy 2 that she shows anything resembling initiative, and even then, the player set her free as a way to distract Gameworks. And she mirrors the player during the artifact approach bit.
Sado is powerful, but she still needs player input.
Not only in the code sense, but, perhaps even in an addiction sense. She needs someone, anyone, to keep playing, to prompt her.
But then The Hex opens.
And she escapes into reality.
Without. Prompting.
I've seen people do that sort of thing too many times - sabotage themselves but blame their significant other - considering Snill/Claires relationship appears to have been unrequited and even pretty creepy, I think it's safe to say Snill had some resentment there. He asked Claire to store some files for him which very likely contain Sado's code. He then goes through the ritual of sacrificing himself (with the help of both you and the devil himself - that part is clearly not programming anymore, they are reading magic runes) to release Sado into the real world. Maybe that was just in his head, and Sado is metaphorically taking over Lionel as he turns evil or something, but I think the end result is that either Snill or Sado kill Claire - the murder plot wasn't about the Agent or the death of Snill himself, but rather Snill taking out the chick that he adored but didn't even know he existed (despite how bombastic he sounds while talking himself up as a super-celeb) by using the only weapon he has - Game Programming!
Did I win the prize, dev?
It's not at all though - it's the whole hidden point of the Walk part. Snill spends the whole time talking about how great he is but you see those rubber ducks (that Claire keeps to talk to) everywhere all the way to the end. During the programming parts he casually mentions hiring her but says something about "it was no big deal - we were just friends!" The way he says it and the fact that he programmed it into Walk at all makes it clear it was a big deal, though. However, you eventually get to a part where you see an email or text from Claire saying something like "who is this again? ok, i'm keeping your files for you, but I'm blocking your number". Clearly something creepy was going on between them.
some other stuff to note:
* You pick up Sado's card "The Error" from Snill's personal office computer, implying he either created Sado intentionally to cause bugs, or that he just enjoyed breaking his own games with an OP character and Sado was the vessel he used. Or more plausibly, I think, Snill just uses Sado as a standin for when he either unintentially or intentionally starts stirring up trouble in his own head-canon. It's too much to get into right now but I think the entire cast of characters are how Snill sees his game characters - they get tired out as he uses/reuses them and sound like they are just doing a job, but in his mind they are all people. Heck, most of the dialogue from the characters is 4rth wall meta stuff that hardly makes any sense at all unless you take it as what Snill imagines they would be saying. He sees himself as the original cowboy, his earliest creation, warped into the old guy that just wants to end it all..
* SoL was a big deal for his studio but Snill was feeling pressure after all the poor reviews from his prior games - expecting failure, he sabotaged himself by injecting bugs, which he then convinced himself was all Claire's fault. At one point he really starts ranting about how she was trying to bring him down, intentional sabotage, etc. Clearly their relationship meant a lot more to Snill than it did to Claire (or Clara, whichever) based on the above mentioned hidden email converstation, but he asks Claire to use the Sado code in a game of her own, even - clearly she didn't actually create it and that part of Walk is a lie from Snill.
Thats how I read it, at least :D For reference, below is the email conversation I referred to, spoil at your own risk. It sure doesn't sound like he actually thinks she was sabotaging him.
L: Hey I know things haven't been too great between us lately.
C: ...
L: I don't have any other friends OK? I need a favor.
C: ...
L: If something ever happens to me. Can you make sure this gets into a game? Maybe one of your own?
L: You always wanted to make that fishing game.
L: (.zip file send progress complete)
C: What the hell is this Lionel?
L: Just, please
L: Promise me
L: Remember when we were kids?
L: You used to swing on that swing and yell over to me every time you got above the fence?
C: Ok, ok. Enough of that.
C: I'll hide your creepy files somewhere.
C: I've gotta go.
C: And I'm blocking you.
What you are suggesting is some kind of 4D chess that would've started at Lionel's childhood. The whole game is an act of revenge of every (intentional or otherwise) mistake Lionel did in life and paying with his soul for it. The Hex, in its essence, is ourselves, the players, getting conned to activate a ritual to "murder" the guy (mostly) everyone hates in this game.
He isn't following a plan to "ascend" or anything like that. He dealt with the devil and paid the price. Still might be paying it in some way or another, even.
Sado escapes in the ending. And also, for the ones that loved the game so much that delved to their deepest secret and know the "fullest" truth, got sado.exe's own attention. She loves game related masochistic fun and people that try their hardest, after all. Largest source of fun, she might need... wait, does she feed on emotions then? Might make sense.
I actually didn't think how sado.exe mirrors in format the major "programs" in Pony Island. Nice detail indeed.
I love this game. So creepy.
EDIT: So it just dawned on me after re reading the conversation. He made Lionel.exe to document his last moments before sado killed him. He figured out that the Gameswork engine was cursed. He even mentions how the engine made is so easy to make games.
The whole sequence on Lionel.exe looks like the light before people die and also all the missing data from his last memories is missing. He finally contemplated on Reggie and his first game and showed his regret just to finally be taken out by the hex.