I just finished the game and I’ve gotta say, it’s really fantastic! I’m interested in replaying to see what the other choices will do, but I think I’ll probably give it a few days first. :)
Loving this game so far, it’s AMAZING. I just adore ghost stories like these. However! For the last 20 minutes or so I’ve been futzing about looking for the fifth window. Does anyone know where they all are?[li]
Quiet squeal of delight. Actually beaming. The FBGers will wonder what’s wrong, I normally only smile when slaughtering puns.
If you need a hand, PM me your character name and I can look and give a hint, but not during working hours, so it won’t be for a while. [/li]
Thank you so much for the hint! I’ve just finished the game, and it had as wonderful an ending as I had hoped. I will definitely be playing it at least two more times. I said something to this effect in my previous post but this is the sort of ghost story I absolutely adore: dreamy, dusty, soft and grey, full of fairy-tale creatures and uncanny nostalgia. And most importantly, it made me feel things I hadn’t expected: affection and longing and regret for childhood memories I hadn’t thought about in a long time. I have never been accused of sentimentality, but somehow this game evoked in me a combination of emotions I had never felt before in my life, manifesting as a (frankly perilous) desire to send my childhood piano teacher a rambling apologetic letter. Lethophobia holds a special place in my heart. Thank you for making it. <3[li]
Hear hear! Lethophobia is really something special.
I am so happy right now. :) :) :) (I’ve passed this onto my co-author.)[/li]
I just played through lethophobia in one sitting and went on a rollercoaster of emotions. For something named after the fear of forgetting, the game certainly is very memorable and I keep thinking about it. It has made me feel things. Awfully nostalgic things. Sad, but not like horrible things like hungry orphans are sad, more like satysfying sad, like staring through a train window in a thick downpour of rain with appropriately sad music playing softly in the background.
Right off the bat, with all that walking, exploring, picking up items and sniffing around an old house, it reminded me, very fondly, about text-based adventure games of old. Not to mention the delicious little references to other popular things; books, games. Boo.
I also really liked the gameplay. Most of the time after finishing a task, a clue was provided as to where to go and what to do next, and it sparked such an "aha! i’m on a hunt" excitement. Very pleasant. The one time I got stopped for a longer while was the doll’s head. The game told me to look to my right hand; I had superglue there, so instead of thinking I’m lacking something, I spent like 20 minutes perfectly sure that I could… glue the pieces back together, somehow.
The beginning was fascinating, the middle- most gripping and engaging, but the ending… hm. Hmmm. I have strongly mixed feelings. Cannot decide whether I loved it or hated it with passion. That entirely depends on…- wait, huge ending spoilers;
[spoiler]I chose to snap the lid on my child self, hoping that it might help my character to leave the past behind and no longer be bound to haunt his house like a decrepid spectre dripping spiders everywhere. Alas, the ending merely offered to wipe my stats and start again (and the narrator implied that I have killed the hedgehog. I will have you know that I did not kill the little critter, and that my ghost is a pure cinnamon roll, who was too good for this world, too pure, and a disney prince, friend to all woodland creatures.) which, at one hand, is genius. I have started the game locked up in a dark, tight place, I have nearly died in a tight, dark place, and to a dark, tight place I return. Again. It reminds me of a looping, cyclical plot of dark souls, and that is a good thing.
But it also offers no clarity, no definitive ending, which feels a little unsatysfying. Have I collected all the shards of myself just to lose them again and again? That is not a good thing. That is a profoundly depressing thing.
My decision on whether I love or hate this ending depends on whether, had I chose to take my child’s self hand and pull him up to life, I would get any more substantial ending, or would it also loop me back to beginning. (Is the game depressing by design, or have I just made a bad choice?) Anyone who already played through this one can tell me?
I also disliked how the tension, the entire build-up, seemed to dissolve after I climbed up to the attic. It was this foreboding door, always there, at the end of the corridor, at the edge of thoughts, and the secret behind it just didn’t live up to the hype. The Sleeping Beauty and Princess Charming coming up to meet the moth-clad me was beautifully bittersweet, but it dissolved the tense atmosphere too early. I was expecting something horroresque behind that door, I really did. All those warnings, don’t go to attic, don’t even think about attic, there’s a monster in the attic…-
Cat and Boo coming to player’s rescue during the showdown with the medium was a sweet thing, but it also ruined the entire mood. How could I possibly stay serious in any way, shape or form, while imagining a hamster riding joust on a cat. That was just…- too much. [/spoiler]
My main criticism remains that in a game filled with animal friends; the cats, the miniature giant space hamsters, the spiders and their genteel king, the hedgehogs, the moths…- there’s an alarming lack of a comforting canine presence. To put it plainly, there’s not a single dog in the entire game. And I looked! Oh, how I looked.
This is my main criticism too. I’ve managed to forgive myself, for it is not an oversight. A dog is a pure perfect being. It would never belong in a creepy house. Creepy house couldn’t be creepy with a pure perfect being there.
Thank you. I’m not going to answer your questions because [valid reason here], but I genuinely appreciate all your feedback. :) Thank you.
(checks the name again) … I have been reading it as leftophobia (and assuming it’s fear of the left side) … x_x
I’m really loving the game, but I think I may have encountered a bug. I had just put the eight slivers together and went up to the attic, when I hit terrifying presence 8. It took me to the storylet that says "They are calling. You must answer," but when I click "scream" the storylet goes away and isn’t replaced with anything. If I refresh, I get the "scream" option again, with the same result. I don’t think I can go anywhere or do anything else.
I don’t know if you’re still responding to this thread, but I’d much appreciate if you can help. I’m really looking forward to seeing the ending. :)
Character name is Whomst.
edited by earthbourn on 12/1/2017
Yes, there’s a new bug affecting all SN games. You can’t move areas, basically.
That might be why it freezes every time I try and break the window. Hope its fixed soon, I was really getting into it.
I’d hope so, as some games are absolutely amazing, but:
I half remember them saying they don’t support Story Nexus any more?
Edit: I may be mistaken, as I found an article saying it was in ‘maintenance mode’, but they would still support it.
edited by Robin Alexander on 12/4/2017[/quote]
They’ve always said they’d fix game-breaking bugs.
[quote]Hush, flailing couch guy!
Go back to sleep!
The little spiders won’t bite.
They’re nice, like sheep.[/quote]
This is quite possibly the best game ever made.
[quote=Snowskeeper][quote]Hush, flailing couch guy!
Go back to sleep!
The little spiders won’t bite.
They’re nice, like sheep.[/quote]
This is quite possibly the best game ever made.[/quote]
Shucks! :)
I just fell into the crystal ball, the only option I have is scream, but every time I try and select it, nothing happens. it just kind of freezes and I have to refresh the page and am back at scream again.
That’s where I’m at too. It’s a bug on SN’s end, apparently.
I thought it was fixed. I couldn’t move area in any other FB game and couldn’t smash the window in this one, once I could do all that I figured it was fixed. Guess not ;_;
Stuck in the crystal ball as well. Guess this friend of the forest is doomed to scream eternally, until SN’s fixed. :(
The author of the game can manually un-stuck you using the debugging tools; is babelfishwars still around?