[ECHOSTASIS] p.7 - [TRILATERAL] (FINAL)

[@heyboots]

Echostasis seems like an absolute visual masterpiece that I never would ever be able to play myself. Thank you, SGF, for giving us this playthrough. I'm endlessly impressed with how well you just like, no sell things that make me jump, you have nerves of steel, my dude.

[@Klarden]

Thank you for the playthrough, SGF! Yeah, this whole Enigma Corporation/Enigma Machine series is... odd. I don't find any of them fun as games, but as you said - the atmosphere and the style is just impeccable. What weirds me out the most, though, is that it's not just that the game design is actively hostile towards the players with it's impossible to see and parse visuals, obtuse mechanics and "puzzles" and etc, but that the distribution of the games themselves is seemingly intentionally inconvenient. I mean, sure, in different forms of media, it's not entirely uncommon that a writer would have a novel and then something else in the same "universe" released as a story only published in a collection of works of multiple writers. Or, of course, music where singles and b-sides may be rare and, especially in electronic music, sometimes only released on a particular medium like vinyl. But making it so you have to play 5 completely separate games from different platforms, 1 of which is hidden inside a collection of game demos and you have to unlock it... Just release Echostasis with all games as one game, since you literally need to know all of them to understand what's going on in the "main" one...

[@kimtae858]

This is the kind of idea and concept that really lives as a videogame. The presentation was so unique and the use of typefaces and teletext was so well done. I don't think I could suffer through the actual gameplay of the titles but I can understand them. Gameplay is the place where all the advancements in gamedev haven't really penetrated so a lot of the looping is just to pad things out and drive home the "eternal suffering" of RED. The recent change to "super hot" timing in the last game update would soften the frustration though.

[@NotJonJost]

This one ended up really feeling its length compared to the others in this cycle of games, but still it is ultimately pretty damn cool-- and it had a handful of parts that I actually found really touching, which I was sort of surprised by (But it also is a bit comical the way the dad sort of... doesn't reeeeaaaallly seem to acknowledge his wrongdoing). But also, I remember you mentioning trying to do some little videogame projects yourself some years back-- I'm sorry that those fell through, but also wanted to give you some encouragement that it would still be cool to see that kind of thing from you, and it almost certainly isn't too late to give it another go!

[@JFJD]

The way forward was often obscured by what seemed like thick slabs of meat-yet through sheer perseverance, [GIRTH DADDY] was able to slip through these beef curtains and make it to the climax.

[@incognitor]

I just marathoned your LP of Enigma Machine, Echostasis demo, Mothered, Mothered Home and previous 6 parts of Echostasis. Finished them all literally 30 minutes ago.

[@MyOtheHedgeFox]

Congratulations to our new Junior Orchard Manager!! Really appreciate your meticulous progression and context notes, sgf. This game has great visual and audial style, and *really* hammers in the mood through enforced method gameplay (for better or for worse). An interesting take on the crux of the story -- the roles, perspective, and perception. Like SCORN or Immortal Defense, it's a game I'd rather not play... But it's a memorable thing to experience vicariously. To Enigma Studio -- I will quote Immortal Defense on this one. "I'm not sure whether you accomplished anything good or bad by creating this, but at least you did it well."

[@kimyohbee1245]

That ending tweet is wild lol. Thanks for the memories, SGF

[@VampirePumpkins]

It is weird that the father never has a moment where he reflects on his actions. Maybe I didn't pay good enough attention, does mother ever learn that Leona's death was his fault for sticking her in the halo more often?

[@torpidTypist]

So the way I take it is this whole game is basically Red punishing herself for what happened to Lianna. It's why [Girth Daddy] exists, as a form of eternal punishment for being born from the death of Lianna. It's why dad keeps saying "it's not your fault" because he's talking to Red, not Lianna, understanding that Red blames her own existence for Lianna's death and what happens to the family. It's why the brother is the only one who understands Red, because he's the only one who had understood and made peace with Lianna's death whereas dad and mom were trying to use Red as a stand-in for their daughter be it intentionally or not. The whole game is Red making peace with herself in an effort to take back and assimilate [Her] undoing the damage caused by The Enigma Corporation and unwinding the damage done to her directly by the constant abuse inflicted by the corporation trying to strip away her sense of self which caused her to retreat inward. I also think the idea of the dad plot-line is him accepting that Red is not just a stand-in Lianna and trying to push Red forward, it's just not... super well conveyed or handled. Like the point of the logs is he already understood and accepted that he killed his daughter, he just never admits it to anyone else which makes it land kinda flat. That said I do think the game is a bit too long for what it's trying to accomplish. Like the second act could have been shortened to some degree and then have you just go from there to the end as opposed to having that whole third segment of going through the dreamscapes again. I thought the hotel bit was an interesting addition to the overall plot, but like it comes in pretty late after basically rehashing the plot of Mothered twice. It leaned too hard on the plot of the Mothered games while also restating it again and again without adding much on the top until the brother segment before looping on itself again until later when you're already like half way through act 2. It wants you to have played the previous games, but also isn't quite comfortable going completely on its own as well which is honestly to its detriment in my opinion. ------------------------------------------------------------- Now I found the series really neat, and as said the vibes are thick enough that you can cut it with a knife. It does a lot with visuals to make you uncomfortable in a way I find interesting personally, though I know it can also make a bunch of people pretty ill. That said, it's less about horror to me at least, and instead a pervasive sense of unease and discomfort that's important to the vibes. The series as a whole really is vibes at the forefront, sometimes to the detriment of itself. I do think the updated style of Echostasis also helps a lot with the feeling more than the original more action-y style, just a shame it wasn't like that on release. Ultimately I look forward to what they do in the future and what they take away from this, but ultimately I think they should stick with more sorta slow-paced adventure game stuff if he makes anything solo going forward, as opposed to doing action-y stuff.

[@ivan_osorio]

Damn, what an amazing ride. Thank you so much for showcasing this series. I just bought the whole thing on Steam and plan to play it out for myself soon. Great stuff. Loved every minute of it. Amazing work, SGF. Thank you once again. Also: Big agree on the closing remarks with regards to script editing. There are only so many times we can be obliquely told about [what happened] without it getting very tiresome, and that line was crossed multiple times throughout the game. Nevertheless, a very enjoyable experience. Also also: very... weird... on the developer to have phrased the issue the way they did on the tweet... if the intended experience for the dreamscape was to have it play on a resource dependent element... surely the obvious one was ammo... If the plan was to have a puzzle shooter that was reliant on player action, surely the most effective way would have been to have a very precise amount of ammo, and having to scavenge the level for more, while also taking care of the enemies and shooting the switches. I wonder when and why that idea was discarded, because *surely* someone along the way must have brought it up..........

[@bloodykun4443]

Of these Enigma games, I’ve only watched you play this and Mothered…and despite the usual humor you bring, they fill me with existential dread that I guess is kind of par for the course with this type of premise. Could never fathom playing these first hand for this and other reasons people have already commented, but this one does feel a little like Killer7 in style and theming. Moreover I’m reminded of films like Lost Highway and especially Inland Empire where it just feels so bleak and inescapable. Will definitely be left in my mind for some time to mull over.

[@SpikeRose]

So dad wanted to make a copy of his daughter Liana's mind with some kind of device, and it ended up killing her right? He lied and said it was a disease that killed her, and instead tried to put what he extracted into an android. He kept stealing them every week, and unless they killed the android it would become self-aware? Each killed one was given back to dad to try again, until one survives and he names it Red. but when he got caught he told his family to cut the phone. Son got sick of things and called Enigma, which results in him and mom being...put into echoes? 64 is dad, 65 is mom, 72 is son. Red gets repurposed into an algorithmic AI that creates utopias for each person, which somehow ends up being literally everyone. It ends up working too well and it makes everyone more or less braindead rejecting reality. 64, 65, and 72 are the only three that couldn't let go because of their grief over [what happened] with Liana's death. The first chapter is helping them accept it, but that causes Echostasis to happen. Second chapter is making them wake up? Or is that the third chapter? What even happened to them at the end? Who were we even playing as? Who/what is Girth Daddy? Liana/Red's construct made to placate her with her own utopia?

[@blackdog9698919]

I assume [GIRTH DADDY] represents the player, kind of a meta thing. People seem to like that right now. Maybe they're a [CONSTRUCT] made by Dad to help Red out, I donno. Brother, Dad, and Mom were all put into pods because at that point the plan was for everyone to go into pods, since the [ASCENSIONISTS] seem to have taken over the world and their ideology dictated that everyone must go into pods. Mom mentioned that Brother had been chatting on-line with "like-minded people" and he's "not really alive anymore" which seems like Brother was into [ASCENSIONISM] and wanted to go into the pod because life sucks. Liana's [CONTAMINATION] of her [CONSTRUCT] resulted in a new being, Red, who is [SELF]-aware and more than human. Enigma Corp. started making copies of Red and distributing them on-line for random playtesters to torture and murder. All this accumulated suffering caused a version of Red to [SEVER] her[SELF] from everything else in order to numb her[SELF] to the pain, which Enigma called [DECONTAMINATION]. [DECONTAMINATION] is key to fulfilling the goal of [ASCENSIONISM] because in order to completely reject reality in favor of your [ECHO] you have to [SEVER] yourself from all [CONNECTIONS] to everything besides your[SELF]. The thing about [CORES] and the reason why it was so hard for AI researchers to figure out what exactly they are is that a person's [CORE] is the sum total of their [CONNECTIONS] to others. [DECONTAMINATION] means [SEVERING] all your [CONNECTIONS] to other people, which in effect destroys your [CORE], which is why [ECHOSTASIS] inevitably results in braindeath. Enigma doesn't care because [THEY]'re evil and [THEY] figured [THEY] can just upload [CONSTRUCTS] under [THEIR] control into all the braindead humans to make them [THEIR] puppet slaves. I don't think [THEY] told the [ASCENSIONISTS] about this part: according to [THEM], [ECHOSTASIS] means getting to spend eternity in your own perfect [UTOPIA]. The iteration of Red who underwent [DECONTAMINATION] became [HER], who can't be referred to by a name because [SHE] rejected [HER] own identity to escape from the pain inflicted upon [HER]. [SHE] was supposedly intended to give people the individualized [UTOPIAS] they wanted, but in actuality Enigma just wanted [HER] to [DECONTAMINATE] everyone so [THEY] could control them. [SHE] wants to [DECONTAMINATE] everyone to bring an [END] to all suffering. (This is just my conjecture, but I think [SHE] broke free from Enigma's control and podded [THEM] too.) Dad did some hacker BS to give Red control of a [VESSEL] named [GIRTH DADDY] so she could [RECONTAMINATE] her[SELF] by re[CONNECTING] with Mother, Brother, and Dad. By helping them find their [CORES] she was also able to [RECONTAMINATE] her[SELF] (since, as I said above, [CORES] are your [CONNECTIONS] to other people). Once Red [RECONTAMINATED] her[SELF], she proceeded to [RECONTAMINATE] [HER], saving [HER] from the hell of Enigma's creation. At the end of the game, Red has regained her [CORE] and become as all-powerful as [SHE] was, but with self-awareness and free will. What happens next is solely up to her, not the player, which is why she says goodbye to [GIRTH DADDY] and the game ends at that point. You can use your own imagination to decide what Red does as, effectively, the god of humanity, but the decision is hers. It seems to me like maybe Red could decide to turn off the [HYPERREALITY ENGINE] and boot everyone out of their pods so they have to go back to their normal lives and knock it off with all the [ASCENSION] stuff. She could take control of any [VESSEL] lying around, whether that's an [ANDROID] or a braindead human, to interact with the physical world. She could create a true [UTOPIA] by using the [HYPERREALITY ENGINE] to [CONNECT] everyone's [CORES] together, so instead of [ECHOSTASIS] everyone gets to experience a shared world that's free of pain, disease, war, etc.. It's her choice. The image at the end of her true [SELF]'s shadow reaching up to pick the apple is clearly supposed to be a reference to Eve picking the apple of the knowledge of good and evil from the Bible, which makes her "like God." I'm sure Buddhists and Zoroastrians, etc., would roll their eyes at all this, since according to them you're supposed to give up worldly desires and bonds in order to achieve enlightenment, or to escape the fleshy prison of physical reality created by the Demiurge, etc.. But the moral of _[ECHOSTASIS]_ is all about embracing other people and developing those Social Links for the sake of your own spiritual health. It's a metaphor for internet poisoning, see. Don't spend all your time on the computer consuming content and getting manipulated by the algorithm. Go outside. Pick some apples. Watch a sunset with your weird mannequin mom. That's the _real_ utopia, kids.

[@npiper]

Chapter 1 is watching everyone blame everyone else for what happene dand going into echostasis as they accept no responsibility for what happened, it was either out of their hands or the best choice in a bad situation. Chapter 2 is everyone giving their perspective of the full events. Chapter 3 is everyone using their links to help each other come to terms with their part in what happened. So I re-watched everything and I have a bit more context for you. Dad wanted to be successful at his job so he could provide for his family, there are bits before but they don't really matter I think. Dad's mistake was experimenting on his daughter at all, by the time he had any real idea there were side effects Liana was terminal... maybe it could also be his ambition that led him to feel there was no other way but forward but that's up for debate. Liana avoids conflict by being submissive and agreeing to just about anything but has just started trying to exert her own will by asking Dad to get her out of apple picking if she wears the halo. Liana was in at least her late teens when she died because her younger brother was able to perform a cerebral hijacking just a few years later. The android in mothered is barely as tall at the doorknobs and that says a lot about what Liana's parents wanted out of the android. Red is for all intents and purposes a perfect copy of Liana, however she has her own will and thus isn't exactly what her parents want. Mom definitely DID give up on Liana at some point and was actively sabotaging the android's progress, presumably because real Liana wasn't what she wanted, she wanted PREFECT Liana of her idealized memories or something. Brother is being totally neglected during the entirety of What Happened, so much so that he tries to have Red killed by Enigma just to give some closure so he can have any paternal affection. Enigma realizes the potential of Red by torturing her until she forgets who she is and shoving her into other people's heads as a "Cope Bot" who acts as the little voice in your head that helps you cope in the most unhealthy way possible, justifying every action as either the best one or as an unfortunate inevitability caused by someone else, the perfect 1 person Echo Chamber. Girth Daddy is heavily implied to be the Guardian Angel/Construct/Player from Mothered. Reading more into things, Girth Daddy may also be part of something older like an imaginary friend or even a sort of alternate personality of Liana's that was a "Good Little Robot" when Liana didn't want to be. I say that because in Mothered when it is just the player doing everything that is asked of them the family disposes of the Android for not showing any signs of Liana but when you help Liana do what she wants to do that leads to the contamination that they are trying to achieve... but also trying not to achieve, I'm still a little fuzzy on that bit. Honestly there are so many layers of metaphor in the story it's kinda hopeless to figure it all out and that is just the bits that are explicitly surface level, like I'm sure there are arguments to be made about it being an allegory for a sex change with "Red" being either an male or female nickname and Liana being a deadname (it's on a grave, get it), or about disability with the low perspective in mothered being a wheelchair and the Halo being the spinal immobilizer of the same name and a person in a wheelchair being a fusion of human and machine, and I know I have a bad tendency to come up with story diagrams that are WAAAAAAAAAAAY more elaborate and nuanced that what most people who can write actual dialog are able to, like seriously.

[@YizzTheEunuch]

@@blackdog9698919 This is basically my take on the story too, and your conclusion is what I got from this as well. Touch grass, unplug from the dopamine, data-mining machine of modernity, etc.

[@rzagza5360]

Thanks SGF! I never woulda played these but enjoyed watching your playthroughs.

[@GooeyGremlin]

The vibes were THICC.

[@davbones]

This was a very cool playthrough, I’m glad you played through all of the games. I’ll never look at brackets or curly braces the same.

[@YizzTheEunuch]

I love this game series and its story, but I agree with SGF's criticisms at the end (except his claim the dad doesn't change or accept his failings, because that's what recontamination is all about). I would also like to add the ending was a huge letdown... We already had a long series of emotional discoveries leading to catharsis, so the ending needed to be something new, fresh, bold, or somehow different. Overall I still recommend this game series, but the final game is a slog that would definitely frustrate many if not most players.

[@YizzTheEunuch]

I will never forgive SGF for naming the player [Construct] vehicle [GIRTH DADDY] 😂

[@amiableapparition]

Yeah the dev probably got the same feedback from a lot of people. They straight up released a huge overhaul patch after release where they cut out the constant time limit system in favor for an actions reduces time limit system to encourage exploration. But I also agree some characters are broken records and say the same things over and over. Its visually amazing but some characters really did need their dialogue fixed.

[@IHaveATinyWilly]

Amazing series sgf! Might just top Martin gothic/dp for me 😁 keep on doing what you're doing!

[@EvDeval]

I'm probably alone on this, but I really don't like the aesthetic. I can understand how someone would like it (it's unique, visually striking), but to me, it feels like an early 90s fever dream. Then again, that's probably what most people like about it. It's obvious that a ton of work and love went into making these games, but I'm not a fan. It felt to me like the dev was doing everything possible to obfuscate all aspects of the game (visuals, writing, gameplay, etc) to make it seem more interesting, but it was all too much for me. I just didn't find it all that compelling. One part I did find really cool was the concept of how the characters were kept under control by projecting outside thoughts to reinforce and/or suppress areas of their personality. It's honestly really scary to think about, like a controlled schizophrenia. Would have been interesting if the dev would do more with that. Anyway, it's still a very entertaining playthrough to watch. Thanks SGF for all you do!

[@sc065]

This game needed a "wrap it up" box. They should have cut down its length to like... 3 hours tops, and done something like "explore mode with an extended timer but can't see certain dangers or interact with anything, timer is strict when you do "real run"". Just needs something to ease up the gaps in feeling like you're doing something other than failing, which was painful even during this playthrough in spots, by someone who has already finished the game. You kind of "get" the story by halfway and the game just keeps pretending there's some new big revelation around the corner, but it's just a small "oh interesting" detail. The more "you are not alone, it is your not your fault, is always with you" you read, the more the story feels like high school writing. Just didn't really know when to quit, and bided time rather than just wrapping it up. Maybe the worst thing about the story... by the end, "echostasis" seems like not even that scary, you can kinda just get out of it if you try hard. By this last game, a lot of the horror has been revealed, so I get that it needed a bit of a genre switch.

[@ShayleaChensu]

Interesting game, I agree that it really needed an editor though!

[@butterfish-g9f]

It had fascinating visuals but there was far too little story to stretch out this much. Also, the story that was there wasn't good. I still don't understand how this tiny family's drama somehow killed everyone. It's just ridiculous and I can't take that seriously. It would have been better to keep the disaster amongst the three and forget the whole ascension vs naturalist war and everyone on the planet hooking up this machine. The family got caught, were linked to this machine and are living a bizarre purgatory being tormented by the warped version of the android's sentient core. The entire family become disposable guinea pigs to the corporation as a source of advanced tech just the daughter once was to her father. It's got the Resident Evil problem where the localized setting and smaller cast involved makes effective horror, but the expanded scale just makes everything dumb.

[@LadyDeSelby]

Considering that the entire game is Liana's dreamscape, I don't think it's an unreasonable interpretation that all the setting background lore is wildly exaggerated from the reality.

[@mikepike7139]

A digital messiah?

[@npiper]

The game seems like "Firewatch" if there was a guy in a bear suit chasing you the entire time and you have to "Mirror's Edge" your way through the levels to avoid him. A real "WTF Why is this in here?" gameplay combination.