The following warnings occurred:
Warning [2] count(): Parameter must be an array or an object that implements Countable - Line: 906 - File: showthread.php PHP 7.2.24-0ubuntu0.18.04.17 (Linux)
File Line Function
/showthread.php 906 errorHandler->error



Facebook Twitter YouTube Frictional Games | Forum | Privacy Policy | Dev Blog | Dev Wiki | Support | Gametee


Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
The Coin Flip: A Different Perspective
GhylTarvoke Offline
Member

Posts: 236
Threads: 14
Joined: May 2015
Reputation: 9
#1
The Coin Flip: A Different Perspective

I know that this forum is basically dead, but what the heck. This will not be a thought experiment where you wake up in a dark room and must determine whether you're the original or a copy. It's something entirely different.

I've always thought that the playerbase is massively unfair to Simon. Yes, he can be dense, but I believe that most people in his situation - "flat neurograph" or not - would react the same way that he does at the end of the game. I also believe that people who deny this are suffering from a failure of empathy, and are not accurately predicting how they would behave if they were actually in his predicament. Sort of a Dunning-Kruger effect.



Imagine you're playing a SOMA mod. You sit your character in a chair, waiting to be scanned. Ask yourself: am I, the player, going to experience the rest of the game from my current perspective, or from the perspective of a copy? Is the mod about to give me the "scan at Omicron" treatment, or is it about to give me the "scan at Phi" treatment?

Without prior knowledge of the mod, you can't be sure of the modder's intention. In fact, the modder may have programmed an actual coin flip: at the moment of the scan, a pseudorandom number generator decides which character you control.



Let's return to Simon in the chair at Phi.

So far, the game has put you (the player) through two scans. Both times, it switched your perspective to the copy's. Based on this pattern, the game will switch your perspective again: immediately after the scan, you will control Simon on the ARK. (Some players have said that this would be a better ending, and that returning to Phi after the credits would have a greater emotional impact.) Expecting a perspective flip is only reasonable; after all, it happened both of the previous times.

This is exactly how Simon feels. At this point in the game, his experience perfectly matches the player's: he remembers being scanned in Toronto, waking up at Upsilon, being scanned at Omicron, and descending to the abyss. It's only here, at the very end, that the game breaks its own rules. Instead of switching perspective, it shows you what the original Simon sees. It cheats you out of seeing the ARK (until the post-credits scene). And just as you feel cheated, so does Simon.
08-25-2018, 06:01 PM
Find


Messages In This Thread
The Coin Flip: A Different Perspective - by GhylTarvoke - 08-25-2018, 06:01 PM



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)