[SPOILER] Plot Discussion Thread *Spoiler Alert*

[Rytkonen]

Idk what this disappearing everyone is talking about is. Everything stayed the same for me as far as I could tell.

Sorry, I should have provided a link to a video. Here is one disappearance in the centrifuge level (video should start from 20m59s position). http://youtu.be/DfChK55MHck?t=20m59s
In that video you can see the door disappearing and also the hallway on the left if you watch the video few seconds more.

There are many others especially in that level. For example next to the actual centrifuge is that table in the corner. In the opposite wall there is a door (or should be), that disappeared when I was playing. In this same video I already linked, the door is not there (look at the right side of wall opposite of the desk down the stairs):
http://youtu.be/DfChK55MHck?t=3m52s

In some other video I watched it was there for some time at least.

[Draug]

The owl in the taxidermy room also changes it place after the wheel behind the grizzly is turned. A user also found out a special meaning behind owls and the aztecs, but I have to search for it.

[chineseroom]

Great stuff figuring some of the stuff in the notes. You're still light on investigating the hint text, which is Mandus really journeying deeper into his own self-knowledge. The rabbit hole goes quite a bit deeper still...
have fun!

At any point will you guys release something that explains the story?

I think the community are doing a pretty good job right now. What's also really important to me is that your own understanding of the story means as much as ours. I hate it when you get something you didn't think dictated to you. The discussion is the really interesting bit.

Can you at last tell us a bit more about custom endings that were removed or explain existence of vo_temple_orbend_1.ogg, vo_temple_orbend_2.ogg, vo_temple_orbend_3.oggvo_temple_orbhit_1.ogg, vo_temple_orbhit_2.ogg, vo_temple_orbhit_3.ogg ?

Yeah, there were originally two endings to the game. When we got close to alpha, I wasn't happy with the temple level at all and ended up actually redesigning 80-90% of it. At the same time, I looked again at the dual endings and discussed it with Thomas, Jens, Jess and the others and we decided that one really punchy ending was better and we were in danger of making weak endings for no purpose other than to having multiples.

So in these original endings, either Mandus chose to smash the hearts with debris and destroy the machine, or let a timer run down after which the Machine destroyed London. Both of those felt like a 'game' thing, not fitting strongly to the fiction, world or even characters, and I re-wrote and designed something more open to intepretation that played much more tightly to the plot and characters of the game. What does happen at the very end?

Not telling. You can figure it out, I'm sure.

[rotten]

First of all I'll have to correct myself here:

>The entity of the Egg is using Mandus, it's real goal being to hatch and be freed (so I guess).

There actually was a flashback (as I recall) where the children ask Oswald if the egg will hatch, and he says that it certainly will.

Then,
Kein, the Egg must be in the temple. And it's quite logical and consistent from where I stand.
Why we don't see it in the game? Well, we know some parts were cut (i.e. second ending), and someone on this thread already mentioned some object titled as the Orb Room.

About the Shadow - it's a question to discuss, but maybe it just wasn't the same Orb as in TDD. I'd say they behave quite differently.


What would really help is if someone posted here all the dialogues, Oswald thoughts and flashbacks in text, just like Kein did with the notes. We have to consider it, cuz now the discussion is revolving mainly around the notes.

[Change]

I think there maybe DLC or add-ons to finish more of the story, I hope so unless there's a way to get another ending.

[Draug]

Great stuff figuring some of the stuff in the notes. You're still light on investigating the hint text, which is Mandus really journeying deeper into his own self-knowledge. The rabbit hole goes quite a bit deeper still...
have fun!

At any point will you guys release something that explains the story?

I think the community are doing a pretty good job right now. What's also really important to me is that your own understanding of the story means as much as ours. I hate it when you get something you didn't think dictated to you. The discussion is the really interesting bit.

Can you at last tell us a bit more about custom endings that were removed or explain existence of vo_temple_orbend_1.ogg, vo_temple_orbend_2.ogg, vo_temple_orbend_3.oggvo_temple_orbhit_1.ogg, vo_temple_orbhit_2.ogg, vo_temple_orbhit_3.ogg ?

Yeah, there were originally two endings to the game. When we got close to alpha, I wasn't happy with the temple level at all and ended up actually redesigning 80-90% of it. At the same time, I looked again at the dual endings and discussed it with Thomas, Jens, Jess and the others and we decided that one really punchy ending was better and we were in danger of making weak endings for no purpose other than to having multiples.

So in these original endings, either Mandus chose to smash the hearts with debris and destroy the machine, or let a timer run down after which the Machine destroyed London. Both of those felt like a 'game' thing, not fitting strongly to the fiction, world or even characters, and I re-wrote and designed something more open to intepretation that played much more tightly to the plot and characters of the game. What does happen at the very end?

Not telling. You can figure it out, I'm sure.

So the hearts of the children power the machine? (There was a third heart in a seperate room (whos the owner?))
I think at the ending mandus heart get extracted from these machine arms... but the purpose.. mhh.

[VadimLongcat]

So, the egg is the Orb, right? And yeah, it's really strange, that Shadow didn't haunt Mandus...
And another question - how did Machine know, that Oswald lost his memory? That's because piece of his soul was in it and Machine could read his thoughts?

[Kein]

Kein, the Egg must be in the temple. And it's quite logical and consistent from where I stand.

I don't have a problem with Egg being the Orb and being in the Temple. I have issues with the fact that Oorb does not behave as an Orb in Amnesia universe. This is where inconsistency is.

About the Shadow - it's a question to discuss, but maybe it just wasn't the same Orb as in TDD.

Yeah, no. From DD we know about at last few more Orbs and their owners and the fact that Shadow hunted them too.

This is the reason why I don't like Orb hypothesis. It assumes that AAMFP rewrites the basis it was founded on - DD. That is rather... primitive.

And if it is true then it seems like I'm going to lose the only actual reason to like this game, huh.

[rotten]

Kein,
Well, that's a pity, because it's obvious that the Orb is the Orb (which is confirmed by chineseroom's comments) and Mandus brought it from Mexico. And it's a fact that the Shadow isn't mentioned nowhere in the game. We might think that Mandus has created his own orb using his children's hearts (he says somewhere that he has laid his own egg) and that's why there is no Shadow, but I just don't think Mandus would be capable to do this as he's not acquianted with magic and stuff.
But we may always say that the Shadow lived inside Mandus and was his "dark half", because that can't be proven wrong.

[Kein]

If you played DD then you would know that Shadow isn't a cunning and smart beast like the Machine, it is brutal, ruthless and primordial. transcend being that devours and destroys everything around. It has no interest in playing silly games with Oswald or constructing some weird machine for pigs. You took orb? You used its powers? You pay the price, end of story.