frustration is also a form of flattery

 

So I have been wanting to type this up for some days now - And here we go! So I downloaded this game from itchio, you can find it here https://ccrberus.itch.io/carnificare I realise it's a jam game, it's free - and all that. But now that I am breaking out the big guns after all, then I actually do not feel petty when I say; the dev said that the game was late and ergo was not a part of the jam that it was originally created for.

I don't know this dev at all, and I can read in their blog they struggle with depression, which is something I know all too well what is like. Still it is just not a excuse, then you should have waited with the release, and fixed your game - it was late anyways. So you made it as good as you could within the confines of the jam, and since you  found yourself no longer in a rush for the love of baby Cthulhu, couldn't you have waited and done it right?

If you think i'm out to get the Dev, I am not. It is because I think this is a AWESOME freaking story that I get this frustrated, I feel like I read a book only to find it's a series and the other books have gone out of print for ever. 

So first up, the video i made lacks the one game mechanics the game has. when there is a little questionmark icon on the screen, there is some extra info, which you can find in either side of the text, on the images. I didn't understand this, I just thought it meant I got new dialogue options.This could be explained better somehow, I feel slightly petty saying it, but I honestly didn't understand the game instructions.

So...

I played the game through in the browser and I reached the end and didn't understand a thing, who was who, and were they the same? or what the fuck. So I figured I had done something wrong, that I was missing something, because it seems like such a well crafted story and universe.

- and I played it again, launching it via the itch app on my computer. and this time it didn't freak out on me and I tried some things and found out about how the game mechanics worked, so I started over, thinking this is the missing link. You guessed it - it was not! The game mechanics actually only appear thrice in the very start, which is why i didn't bother redoing my video. one extra info tells us that the stranger has weird eyes, the other tells us that he belongs to some fraction that we're never told about in detail.

Thats it! 

It didn't solve anything for me, actually just felt absolutely pointless. And I guess this is where you can see the dev ran out of time, and didn't get around to implementing the stuff they wanted to, so the start of the game is how the game is supposed to be. And I admit that I might actually redo the game one last time, just to be absolutely sure, and because i think my video is annoyingly off. 

Okay let's break down the plot here, or what I understand from the plot. 

we are in a world where there are monsters, and ergo also monster hunters, we (the potagonist with no name is a such). And we meet a stranger in the village we were born in, and still live in, who wears clothes from a larger fraction of monster hunters, but he won't tell us about it. we strike up conversation and decide to hunt together. (and apparently he has weird eyes)

he pays overprice to the barkeep and we are puzzled about this - and personally I think this means that he knows he won't return. The next morning we come and meet this guy who is called Selwyn Hale, acts pretty peculiar but we go monster hunting anyways - (with that i mean it's very evident that he bought food -and egg- but don't intend on eating it). on the way to some monsters cave Selwyn tells us a story about someone he met named Seraphim Trix. Now he wanted passage on a boat and Selwyn had one, and apparently Seraphim could detect monsters in the water?!  - (okay so this is where I sort of disengage, because it's evident from the text that Seraphim Trix is supposed to mean something, but it doesn't, I even tried googling it cause I figured it had to be some obscure fandom - nope, and I am clueless as to what the deal is with that name.) Seraphim sticks around and helps the crew and Selwyn to hunt down monsters, and then one day they come across a Kraken that grabs Seraphim. And I think it's him who returns to the boat as a huge bird like aquatic creature, but Selwyn has awesome powers of observation and tells his men not to kill that particular monster but to give it some clothes?! Yeah...

If you squint it could be hintet that Seraphim didn't know he was a monster, if the monster indeed is Seraphim. Then Selwyn asks Seraphim to take him to the heart of the monster storm, what ever the fuck that means. And he does.

And since the Kraken thing, Seraphim has been tethered to the boat with a rope, but Selwyn cuts it and says 'dude it'll be fine' and then Seraphim falls into the ocean. Shortly after Selwyn falls into the water too. When Selwyn comes too he is under water with a monster (perhaps that is the heart? fucked if i know) and the three of them talk, I mean Selwyn, Seraphim and the new monster at the bottom of the sea. (The monster keeps saying shit like 'loyalty like that makes you a king' and 'you know what you must do' to which Seraphim keeps answering 'i know' - and I haven't the foggiest! Okay so Selwyn has time to carry a conversation under water? And what is that Seraphim knows he must do - and who is a king? whose loyalty are we talking about? Seraphim and Selwyn or Seraphim and the monster? or Selwyn to mankind? - I don't know.) Okay so that is the end of Selwyns story and you and him is standing at a cave where there is a monster. You both enter and - well suddenly there are some monster hunters from another city, that other fraction we heard mentioned in the beginning, and so we talk to them.

 And this is where I lost my shit completely! So apparently there is a monster in there who tells us that we can let the monster hunters know it's in there. and we get that option when we talk to them - to either tell them or stay silent. Either way we aren't told more. If we chose to stay silent, "someone" left a map for us at the inn, and there is a place circled in blue. We order eggs with no intention of eating them, and the barkeep asks us if we learned some tricks from that other dude.  the end.

WHO IS THE MOTHERFUCKING MONSTER? I mean I have questions. 

So...

1. what's the deal with the name Seraphim Trix?

2. what is with 'the heart'

3. why does Selwyn want 'the heart' 

4. why does he cut Seraphim's rope?

5. Who is loyal to who?

6. What is it Seraphim must do? that 'he knows'

7. Is the monster in the cave Seraphim?

8. is the monster in the cave Selwyn?

9. Are we the new Selwyn? what?! 

10. And did they bang, cause the bromance fu is strong.

To answer my own questions, I can only come to these conclusions;

1. Seraphim means burning one, Trix is a made up stupid harry potter name - it makes no damn sense no matter how I try and analyse it.

2 & 3. I think the heart of the storm is that monster in the sea, and that it's perhaps some portal or some shit? And Selwyn wants to kill it? or own it? I mean we're not told anything about his motivation.

4.  Perhaps he wanted to feed Seraphim to the monster so it would be preoccupied? I mean it sounds like they have a love affair, which makes it make even less sense to me honsetly. he clearly sacrifices him, but why.

5. yeah I simply don't know, but my guess would be that Seraphim is loyal to Selwyn, but the monster is telling Selwyn that in the end Seraphim is loyal to his kin, not to Selwyn?! 

6. Also dont know, but I guess it's kill Selwyn? - or maybe it's to let Selwyn kill him?

7 & 8: so this is what confuses me, if I had to guess I'd say the monster is Selwyn, and Seraphim is long dead. And that Selwyn has been the monster all along? 

9. this is just confusing to me, because we do exactly what Selwyn did, indicating that we are his successor or something. but why?

10. of course they did.

I DON'T KNOW AND IT DRIVES ME NUTS!!!

I don't understand anything... I have no clue who is the monster, Selwyn or Seraphim, or both. and we're never given any real context, or world building for something this specific. But I like it dammit! and that is why i get so worked up, I want it to be good dammit!!!