Adventure Gamers - Forums

I have had some time to try & catch up - I’ve finished chapter 2 (incidentally, I don’t get any ‘intermission’ between or announcement of Chapters - should I?) The most significant things for me were Sam completing the 1st part of the ‘Daedalus’ puzzle & reading the info about Styles in the library & her immediate sense of empathy for him after a flashback to a loss in her childhood - it was very touching & almost made me cry!

I’m now partway through Chapter 3 playing as Styles. So far it’s obvious that sadly Styles can’t get over his loss but is still thoughtful in that he wonders about what became of his former patients. It’s apparent that so far he hasn’t warmed to Sam & would prefer her not to be in the house & also that his outwardly ‘noble’ experiments for greater good are actually for a different purpose to indulge his own personal agenda.

I’m finding it interesting to get different impressions/info when 2 protagonists look at the same thing e.g. the painting outside of Styles’ bedroom. Back to play some more!

I’m here!! I’m here!!!
Pardon my entousiasm, but after that thunderstorm here I wasn’t very hopeful of being able to post (the power was cut in the entire city for at least 4-5 hours due to the wind).

I see that the grand majority have already finished the 4th chapter. Even diego is really close to catch us. The 4th chapter was probably the best up to now, stirring some interesting conversation, not to mention explorations. Now we return to control your beloved Dr.
Please don’t run!!! I promise you that this chapter is far better than the 3rd! New beautiful locations, interesting conversations with experts on the subject and a really interesting chapter ending. Who knows, perhaps some of you will get to like Dr. Styles a little bit. The deadline for the 5th chapter is 22th of July.

Until then, have a nice, warm smile.

Tip of the week: I could really use your opinion about the playthrough’s pace. Do you find it too slow? Or do you think this slow pace enables us for more conversation and throughout discussion about every chapter’s details?

diego - 15 July 2014 04:07 PM

Sefir - 15 July 2014 04:00 PM

The deadline for the 5th chapter is 22th of November.

Hell, even I’ll be able to finish this playthrough on time.

Honestly, I have no idea why I wrote that. It’s the rain probably.
Fixed of course.

And don’t be so sure about yourself. I’m still waiting you to finish CCS as well. It’s been one and a half year…

Well you make some good points, and it might be consistent with the character, but that one “Rationalist bias” remark he made simply rubbed me the wrong way.

I think that line in particular is just clumsy. For one thing, that’s not even what “Rationalist” has historically meant. Styles is closer to a Cartesian Rationalist than Sam is! Sam is more of an empiricist!

If we read this line literally, either:

A) Styles believes that Sam is a Rationalist in the strictest, Cartesian sense. In that case, she really would believe in a separate soul and body…

What? That’s not what he’s objecting to, is it?

B) Styles believes that Sam is a rationalist in the broader sense that she believes in trying to be reasonable… and that this is a “bias.” This is incoherent. “Why are you so biased in favor of being reasonable? TRY BEING UNREASONABLE, THAT WOULD BE BETTER!”

...Rationalist is also an empty term when people throw it around this way. “Of course, I’m a rationalist.” Well, great. Is there someone walking around claiming to be an Irrationalist? Even a believer in a poisoned Kool-Aid death cult will insist that their beliefs are reasonable, given the core tenets of the cult.

So in this reading, Styles is telling Sam she needs to be deliberately unreasonable in order to be less biased.

——-

I don’t think Styles means either of those things. Not only would a scientist not say them, neither would any person who thinks about the words that come out of their mouth.

What Styles probably meant was that Sam needs to set aside her materialist bias. That is, Styles believes that there is more to the universe than the material world, and that there is evidence of this… somehow.

Sam seems to believe that the universe is basically material, or, if it isn’t, the immaterial stuff probably doesn’t go around painting mazes, etc.

Styles is arguing that this is an assumption on Sam’s part. MAYBE THERE REALLY ARE MAZE-PAINTING GHOSTS, HOW DOES SHE KNOW???

So yeah, the line reads better if you assume it’s an authorial mistake and that Styles meant to say “materialist” or “anti-supernaturalist” or something. Not that someone who prattled tiresomely about “materialist bias” would be terribly welcome in most neurobiology departments.

I’ve just had a marathon & caught up to the end of Chapter 5! & I had to make myself stop as I’d got so engrossed!

Chapter 3 seemed so sad with David ‘wallowing’ in his memories & I loved the idea of using items representing the 5 senses to evoke those which also turned up in Chapter 5 in the park. I didn’t like David much in Chapter 4 finding him quite aloof & abrupt in contrast to the love smitten/bereaved man seen previously (& later) 

Iznogood - 13 July 2014 07:49 AM

Becky - 09 July 2014 02:07 PM

I just finished Chapter 3. What I noticed this time through were the contrasts between Sam and David.

True, the game does to a very large degree, takes place in the contrast between Sam and David. I however still maintain that it is not about the contrast in their personalty or their differences as persons, that is only the icing on the cake, but instead about the two different archetypes or antipodes that they represent in the ongoing debate about paranormal elements. You could even go as far as calling them clichés or standard roles in an play that exist in a million different variations but always follows the exact same basic script.

And just to prove my point:

Though I must admit, hearing what is suppose to be a scientist scolding someone for being too “rational”, is very weird, but then again Styles isn’t really a real scientist in this game, but instead a representative of the “Believers” vs. the “Rationalists” represented by Samantha.

I would disagree Iznogood that he is not a real scientist. As a neuro-biologist he is studying the power of the brain - I believe when he scolds Sam for being too ‘rational’ he is scolding her for theorising about how the lines appeared & how dye was used in the 1st & 2nd incidents respectively with no evidence to support that & he simply wanted factual reports which is what a scientist wants! (& then they do the theorising & more experiments!) I believe that Sam as a magician which involves trickery & illusion is thinking about how the situations could be manipulated in the context of the ‘material’ world rather than there being any other explanation - I’m looking forward to seeing how she interprets the 3rd incident witnessed 1st hand.

It does seem that in the 5th Chapter that there are 2 different types of phenomena happening - one where the soul of a departed person may live on & make limited contact to the living & one that’s reportedly too powerful for the deceased to wield as explained by one of David’s friends/acquaintances. Did anyone else get the impression that David was starting to get freaked out by what he thought were physical manifestations of Laura & was having 2nd thoughts about it going that far?