[seagul]

Sughly, I like your thoughts about Gravin, Max’s/Grimwall’s friend.
I didn’t realize, that there is an analogy between Gravins wife and Jennifer. But you are right: it’s the well-known story about a man with a goal (like: safe the children, compensate what you did to Sarah) and the prize he is not aware of to pay.
[/URL]
Did you find the second part of the machinery?

Spoiler:

Look out for a rope that leads you to a new room.

After The Hive I thought I knew in which direction we are heading to, but the next chapter confused me anew.
I hope we all can discuss this chapter soon.

[LeftHandedGuitarist]

After seeing this playthrough on these forums, I decided it was about time I started playing this game. I caught up with everyone here and then realised it has come to a standstill!

So, I went on and finished the game today. Pretty decent from a narrative point of view although not the most satisfying ending - terrible interface and voice acting which took me out of the story on several occasions and lessened its impact.

A pleasant surprise was that the puzzles remain logical throughout. What was very poor though was how difficult it was to see items that you need to pick up or interact with, and I was very annoyed at a couple of puzzles that required me to click on certain points of small objects before my character would do anything with them. I had no idea.

Quite a different style from the type of adventure game I'm used to playing. Not sure how strongly I could recommend it to others, it is let down by several issues.

I'm pleased to say that I did not experience any technical issues or crashes as others here have. I played the GOG.com version on Windows Vista.

[Sughly]

Oh man! I literally forgot about this playthrough, been so busy recently. Surprised to still it still hasn't moved though. Methinks AFGNCAAP (?) is awol. I haven't loaded it up again since my post seagul but I'll have to go looking for said clue

Feel so guilty, but alas I don't seem to be the only one who has disappeared...

[seagul]

Everybody seems to have dissappeared!
It's so sad.
I played sanitarium till the end.
But with noone to discuss ...

If you end the chapter, we can make it a dialogue.

[harald]

Well... I feel a little bit guilty. I played through The Hive, but I haven't found the time to put my thoughts into words yet. It's difficult enough to get a grip on this game, and to actually explain the experience in English, well, you get the idea.

Anyway, couldn't we elect a "deputy" host until AFGNCAAP turns up? Not necessarily one who knows the game, just someone who keeps the playthrough going by setting up deadlines and possibly playing a chapter ahead of the others.

What do you think?

[Sughly]

Originally Posted by harald

Anyway, couldn't we elect a "deputy" host until AFGNCAAP turns up? Not necessarily one who knows the game, just someone who keeps the playthrough going by setting up deadlines and possibly playing a chapter ahead of the others.

What do you think?

Hmmm, well there were some people who weren't really into this idea but it doesn't look like we'll go anywhere otherwise. And I think said people have also left anyway haha. So I suppose I agree. Maybe seagul? You always have good insight into the game, and seeing as how you've completed it you might be a good guide...

[seagul]

Ok, no long discussions any more, or we all fall asleep again.
So everybody please: give your comments about The Hive till next sunday.
On monday, november 22th, we start the next chapter.
I will give an summary of The Hive on sunday.

[seagul]

Sorry, AFGNCAAP, I have to act as a substitute for you – or at least try to be the supervisor of this playthrough. I apologize for my poor english skills.

After such a long break in the playthrough a summary of the solved chapters is needed.
If something is missing or totally wrong, please join in with a comment. Every annotation is very welcome.

The PROLOG starts with a movie in which we hear about a great discovery and an untold secret, reported by someone to his wife (?) and a car ride which ends in an accident.

In the first chapter THE TOWER CELLS our hero awakes without memory in a madhouse - mad in every sense of the word. The conditions are unacceptable, the personal hostile, the residents forlorn.
We see forebodings of later chapters. We hear the first time of Dr. Morgan. He gives our hero some information about who he is and why he is in this madhouse.
Our hero has to find an escape out of this chaos. He will be aided in a fantastic way by an angel statue, who is worried about the children.

In the second chapter THE INNOCENT ABANDONED we finally find out our hero’s name, Max. And we are confronted with topics that will reappear in nearly every chapter of the game.
There is the topic of the abandoned children. The topic of the deformed/ill children. And every time Max assumes it is his duty to save the children.
There is the topic of the bad person who doesn’t follow moral standards but creates his/her own laws, based on self-serving motives.
The story is interjected by little movies every time an event triggers a lost memory of Max about his real life.
The chapter ends with Max deleting the harassment and saving the children and by this finding a way out.

The third chapter THE COURTYARD AND THE CHAPEL shows another regularity of this game: one chapter is situated in the madhouse, the other one in an unreal dream world.
The madhouse once again is shown as a hostile place. But this time some of the male nurses seem friendly. Dr. Morgan acts very uninterested in the residents, he is busy with some experiments. Once again we see forebodings.
Max tries to help his inmates, and discovers an important wish of his: he wants to see his sister Sarah again. A gargoyle, whom he helped, grants him the wish and Max enters

chapter four THE CIRCUS OF FOOLS. Here Max incorporates Sarah with no memory of himself.
In this chapter we find out that the dream worlds deal with problems Max had in the real world. We get to know some of the fools, who are mostly very decent people but under a curse. Some persons and events of chapter two are reprised and shown under a different angle. We hear about Max wife and ask ourselves if she is happy with the relationship.
Even in this chapter Max wants to help everybody.
He escapes this world through an underground region which ends in

THE MANSION, where his childhood home is reconstructed.
We see the impact Sarah’s illness has on the little family.
Max finally meets Sarah, or his memory of her. Max can by this encounter resolve his childlike confusion in which he thought he left Sarah high and dry. He realizes that Sarah loved him till the end and never felt betrayed by him.
This triggers a strange sequence in which Max enters a world in which Sarah is alive and his wife wants him to belief every thing is real. When he doesn’t believe her, the farce collapses and Max realizes that Sarah is dead and this world a fake.
This knowledge leads to

chapter five THE LABORATORY.
Once again Max finds himself in the madhouse. And it’s getting more maniacal every time he enters it!
Max discovers the mutilated body of some inmates and the scientific work of a madman. A madman who, even in Max’s returning memory is revealed as unscrupulous.
As soon as Dr. Morgan finds out Max knows his secret, he sedates him – for his own safety, as the doctor declares. While fighting to free himself, Max enters

chapter six THE HIVE.
Poor Max! Without repose he is thrown into the next situation.
But you will have a chance to recollect yourselves. More about this chapter later today.

[seagul]

THE HIVE.
This time Max impersonates a comic book hero of his childhood, the cyclopean Grimwall.
Years before there was a great battle of supremacy which the cyclopeans won thanks to Grimwall and the insectoids where forced underground.
Now Grimwall has become a myth and the insectoids tries to infestate the cyclopean people again.
Grimwall has no memory of his past. But he meets Gravin, another cyclopean.
Knowing the plans of the insectoids, the cyclopeans send Gromna and some men to spy on the hive.
But Gromna has an agenda of his own. He pretends to support the insectoid queen and gives her the blood of cloned cyclopean children. He transmutates his fellow cyclopeans into insectoids through which process they lose their wits. His main goal is to become immortal.
Grimmwall can stop Gromnas evil plans. Gravin helps him, after he becomes convinced that Gromna is evil. The nearly transmuteted cyclopeans help him, too.
Again it is Max’s task to help the children.
Again it’s a war or disease who threatens them.
A new element is the letdown that Gravins has to face.
But again it is a bad man who takes advantage of the situation to enrich himself.
Interesting that GROMNA is build by the same letters as the name MORGAN.
Here we see where the dream world and Max’s past meet. Morgan is a character of Max’s past, he is the head of the madhouse and he appears disguised in every dream world.
What we know about Max’s past till now:

Max Laughton is a doctor. The memory of his dying sister pursuited him. So he made it his goal to save children from a rare disease. But he couldn’t find a cure. One day, out in the jungle with his wife, he heard about the research of Dr. Morgan, a fellow student. Dr. Morgan found a way to slow the disease. So Max starts to work with Dr. Morgan. But soon he discovers that the children still die without a real medicine. And that Dr. Morgan isn’t the benefactor who he seems to be. His goal is not to find a cure, but to become famous and rich by selling hope.

[IndiePhonics]

I'm guilty of keep promising to play then forgetting but if the playthrough is back on organised track it should get me going again

Thank you for the chapter summaries!

[seagul]

Thanks indie - you can easily catch up now.

In my capacity as substitutional leader of the playthrough:
i hereby declare the next chapter open.
So please comment on THE MORGUE AND THE CEMETERY.


This chapter will be open till november 28th.
Next chapter will open on monday 29th.

[harald]

Shoot, I'm not sure I'll have time to post any lengthy thoughtful texts for a while. Let alone continue playing the game. Well, I suppose I could do it during evenings or something, but I want to be focused while playing, not fall asleep at the keyboard. I'd also like to replay it from the beginning to freshen up the details.

That said, I'm glad the playthrough is continuing. I know I'll be able to catch up eventually.

[seagul]

It would be nice if you could play on, but you can read the playthrough later.

[Sughly]

Yay! Good work seagul! Back to Sanitarium it is. And excellent summaries by the way

[seagul]

Thanks sughly.
I hope to hear your personal view of the chapter.

[seagul]

So another week has passed by and another chapter of Sanitarium should come to an end.
I try to give a little abstract of the chapter, as I see it, but everybody please feel free to add your own thoughts.
For everybody who still misses AFGNCAAP, he said some very interesting things about sanatorium here: http://www.adventuregamers.com/forum...ght=sanitarium
It’s a very interesting discussion – but be aware of massive spoilers!

This chapter was very confusing for me. Till now it seems that part of the game is a dream world and another part is a real asylum. But now at the latest this seems to be impossible.
The chapters located at the asylum have so much fantastic elements (like a mad sanguinary scientist, a zombie girl and a speaking tree) that they or part of them can’t be real.

Let’s start with the amiable zombie girl. She surely knows something and warns Max – it is his (unknown?) enemy who wants to destroy Max. This time it is Max himself who is in danger. It is the first time he has to save himself. But he is aided by some people and a whimsical tree.
They all help him to open the door to the Aztec mausoleum, one of Dr. Morgan’s secret workplaces. There he has to solve another riddle to follow Dr. Morgan in another dream world.

The two main riddles of this chapter involve light. Max needs a prism to create a light key to open the door of the mausoleum. And the Aztec calendar shows the different stages of the sun during day and night. After activating the calendar Max disappears in a flash of light. So light opens the doors/worlds.
It’s interesting what our whimsical tree says:
The light. It is housed within the hearts of ancient, mighty warriors. They alone understand the meaning of sacrifice… My limbs ache to stretch upward into the nurturing sunlight, yet I must remain steadfast… I am he who must remain in place… Greed, pride, evil, these aspects of humanity threaten all life. Thus I remain, and none may pass…
Sounds like the commitment to a noble goal to me.
Perhaps the tree reflects ideas the Max of the real world had in the past: fight for the right thing, not let greed or evil lead himself astray or falter.
In this case the light would represent moral sense and behaviour. Perhaps it even represents the compassion for suffering creatures (as Max showed it in every chapter) opposed to an egoistic behaviour where ones own advantage is the basis for acting (as Morgans showed).

[Sughly]

Good timing! I finally managed to finish fumbling my way through this chapter - some parts really had me stumped (and the solutions of some of these were reaaaaly infuriating, such as a certain wall to get through ).

That being said, I was on my way here to talk about light and you beat me to it seagul haha! Ah well, you said it better than I would have anyways. You even picked up on details that I seem to have a bad habit of overlooking in this game. When you point all of them out it really makes me realise how rich with detail this game is.

As for my thought son the Hive, which I never did get too far into discussing, I'm afraid that is all a bit distant and hazy and probably between what we both discussed already there's not much new ground for to talk on anyways . Oh and thanks for your advice, I saw the damned rope as soon as you mentioned it. ARGH!! (I find I'm doing this a lot with this game, but enjoying it nonetheless!)

Oh and... Aztecs? What the heck?! This game just takes more and more bizarre turns as time goes on. I assuming it has something to do with his cavern exploration and the 'ah it's been right on front of me all along!' clip. Time will tell I suppose...

[seagul]

Thank you Sughly, for your kind words.
I'm happy you saw the light, too.
There are more details, i'm sure, because normally i always miss some - mostly the most important. Perhaps i have a better insight, because it's the third time i play this game - and it is as fascinating as the first time.

I know this game sometimes is a bit ... illogical in every way. The first time played it i stumbled around and never saw this dam*** rope.


You are right, now we arrived at an Aztec village, so i herby declare chapter 8 open.


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We close this chapter next sunday, the 5th december.

[IndiePhonics]

FINALLY finished The Hive today. Just did not like this chapter at all, had no motivation to play it and everytime I opened the game I just wanted this chapter to be over.
I think I just did not connect with the insectoids, I thought the graphics and layout was very confusing. Too many little hidden object that I seemed to spend forever looking around.

Thoughts relating to the plot, I just totally agree with you seagul. I thought it was clear the insect/cyclops we meet at the top (just before Grommna) was meant to represent his wife. I imagine maybe she put too much trust in Dr Morgan but suddenly realised that he was not who he seemed just too late. This could relate back to the cut scene at the start with Max talking to his (possible)?

I'm quite a way through the next chapter but will post a summary (hopefully) by Weds

[KasiaD]

I, on the other hand, liked the hive and its wacky graphics. It has stayed in my memory, because it sort of gave image to how the world invaded by bugs would look like, a scenario often present in sf books.

As usual, the sound puzzle defeated me so I had to use a walkthrough
But this still is one of my favourite chapters of Sanitarium, I am saving the world and all, and discover my friend betrayed humanity.
The half - bug creatures I felt very sympathetic towards - the conversations with them were were a little disturbing. Also, nice to have someone strong and capable to control, finally