lean meme xtreme team: paper straw enjoyer edition

Player experience

We want a sense of culmination in every way -- the culmination the journey, of finally getting to see what Hämärä Maa is truly like and what Cunoesse truly is.

This should be a streamlined sequence, funneling the player [seamlessly] towards the end. We want the player to be unable to [...] the game once they've landed on Hämärä Maa, similarly to how Harry's story spirals tighter and tighter towards its resolution from the moment he steps onto the Deserter's Island.

We want the player to feel as if they are performing cultural [...] with an ominous insular community, something like [...] but with degenerate alcoholics instead of tradwives.

This is where everything we've tried to do over the course of the game comes to count. All the dual-character systems that make the player roleplay as both Cuno & Cunoesse, all the story beats that make the player internalise their respective stakes, all the emotional connection to this feral superorganism, if we can make the player feel like we're making them choose between two halves of themselves, we've achieved what we set out to do. If they feel torn apart, agonized over their choices, we've won.

Summary

Size: Medium
Playtime: ~2 hrs
Energy: High
Emotional tone: [...] & Reality-Twisting
60% Talking; 40% Action
30% Comedy; 70% Darkness

"After all the fear and the mayhem, Cuno and Cunoesse are finally there: landing on the shores of Hämärä Maa, their promised shadow-land. Greeted with the sounds of shamanic singing and solemn drums, the kids will catch the locals in the midst of a funeral ceremony, gaining a glimpse into both the cultural practices of the Näkki and the strange and colorful faces of the island's population. The island has changed since Cunoesse has last called it home. Only her impossibly old grandfather remains, and her [sins?]. She knows she must do one last thing before she can plead to be readmitted into her tribe. Under the pretense of a Hämärän naming ceremony, Cunoesse pressures Cuno into ingesting the bone marrow of the psychedelic cave fish. As Cunoesse takes on the role of his fucked-up trip shaman, Cuno grapples with the growing clarity that her goal is deeply sinister: to bind him to herself, or kill them both trying. Cunoesse embraces him and throws them both off a pier, pulling him deep under water, triggering the stylish climax sequence of the game: the Underwater Psychedelic Trip. Reality will [...] as you seemingly sink for an eternity, fighting for your life and your identity as Cunoesse's true intentions come to light - to use the drug to manipulate Cuno into total and irrevocable ego death, and make him believe that he is Jaakko, the boy Cunoesse killed in the caves three years prior. That was her plan all along: to bring Cuno all the way from Martinaise to buy herself passage back into her community by replacing what she has broken. All she needs him to do now in order for her plan to work is to play along, *really* play along, so deeply that he will never recall being someone else ever again. Their showdown under water will determine whether Cuno will let go of his identity in one [...], or if he is willing to kill his other half in order to remain who he is. The Act spins off into up to five possible endings, depending on which one of the kids lives, dies or is brainwashed."

Player experience

[...] begin to suspect we are approaching a sinister [...] with the things we've been avoiding all along.

[...] more and more about Hämärä Maa [...] borders of a bad neighbourhood, like walking alone at [...] realising your GPS is leading you in the direction of [...] you've realised way too late to do anything about it.

[...] are more frightening if they are unseen. Hearing [...] tales about Hämärä Maa before we've had [...] establish what's there will build up the sense of dread [...] for the game's climax location.

[...] for the later endgame where Cuno breaks free of the bond.

The power balance between Cuno, Cunoesse and the player's conscience will again be tested as Cunoesse urges Cuno to brutally fight one of the Tréville girls in order to steal her raft.

The small self-sustaining community will present the player with the opportunity to engage with the full set of game systems, including game economy, Thoughts, substances, exploration and multiple-approach problem-solving.

Summary

Size: Large
Playtime: ~5 hours
Energy: Medium
Emotional tone: Creeping doubt & feeling like an Outsider
70% Talking; 30% Action
50% Comedy; 50% Darkness

"Arriving in the Fourth Act, Cuno is officially furthest from his home that he's ever been, while Cunoesse is coming nearer to hers than she has been in the years after she escaped, and this [distinction?] is starting to get difficult to ignore. The presence of Hämärä Maa looms over them both, as the fabled archipelago lies just across the bay, across the [...]. Having disembarked from the Train virtually in the middle of nowhere, Cuno and Cunoesse come upon the Rhöne-Tréville (Royal) Penal Colony or the Tréville, but most people call it: a [...] centred around a former Royalist prison-labor camp. Being that geographically [...] to Hämärä Maa, the small community represents the closest point of contact between the archipelago and the world, participating in the trade of goods, legends and the profitable psychedelic marrow of an endemic cave fish. Meeting the locals, the kids will learn about the impending relocation of the surprisingly harmonious community-sustaining prison complex, and the complicated [...] between the coordinate [...] of freedom, imprisonment, community and [reunion? tension?]. They will also begin on their [...] is a growing sense of dread that Cunoesse got herself into something that is much darker and more morbid than he could have expected. In order to progress to Hämärä Maa to find out for themselves, the kids must [...]. [...] they must [...] Cunoesse's half remembered [...] family connections among the marrow traders, some of whom are now in the prison, or they might win their way forward with [...] and sneers, stealing a toy raft from a gang of violent girl children."

Player experience

Here we want the Player to relax a little bit and indulge in Cuno & Cunoesse's mischievous and comedic side. The Train is removed enough from both the immediate stress of the murder and from the impending dread of arriving at Hämärä Maa that it is able to have a more lighthearted tone than the rest of the game.

The Player should feel as though they are really covering ground on their journey, as evidenced by the daily changes to the Train map and the dynamic scrolling background.

The characters the Player gets to interact with on the Train can be very thematically diverse and unconnected by background or life experience, joined only by this shared journey. These characters can deliver all kinds of stories from all corners of the game world, expanding on Elysium worldbuilding and lore.

The Man from Jamrock Station throughline will present the players with a parallel plot which bridges the seemingly unconnected locations of Acts 2, 3 and 4.

The Player should have the freedom to decide how they will navigate the special puzzles of the Train, affecting the fate of Trip and his love affair.

The location itself should provide enough exploration incentives to keep the limited train space feeling fresh, including gaining access to various cars and compartments, new Orbs and situations appearing every day, and people and luggage changing location daily.

Summary

Size: Large
Playtime: ~3 hrs
Energy: Low
Emotional tone: Mundanity & Temporary Relief
90% Talking; 10% Action
80% Comedy; 20% Darkness

Themes (anything I can read):
PINK: Social contrast
BLUE: [Deception?] -> Trip as Peter Pan -> Never growing up

"The third Act, entirely aboard the Azure Sans-Détour train line, represents a breather in the tension and a break in the overall darkness. Whether they like it or not, Cuno and Cunoesse have no other option but to stay on this fast-traveling metal tube for three entire days before they've reached their destination, so they might as well make the most of it. The key character of Trip the Train Conductor will serve to induct them into the ephemeral but vibrant social microcosmos of the train, a temporary society on wheels. This is the Act where we have the opportunity to introduce the largest social spectrum of characters, involving the petit bourgeois hops entrepeneurs Vincent & Agnes, wrapped up in a (consensual) love triangle with Trip, as well as other train staff and passengers from social groups Cuno and Cunoesse have never had the chance to interact with before, such as a scientist.(?) This Act will contain another Locust Dream sequence, as well as one-off sequences like the Ghost Station, the Biggest Meal, and Two Kids in a Trenchcoat. The catch of the train journey however, which Cunoesse doesn't tell you until you've already boarded, is that the place where you need to get off the train is actually in between two stations. For this, you're going to have to do Trip's bidding in order to have him pull the emergency brakes on the third day to let you off, or you might have to risk jumping off the moving train to move to the next Act."