I’ve got to the final scene of Trinity. It’s much the same as the first scene, except that at random points the game abruptly ends with the words ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE KENSINGTON GARDENS. The Invisiclues, and one of the IFDB reviews, suggest that there is more to the ending than this. Am I missing something, or is this it?
I’m pretty sure that is the ending, yeah. I can’t remember exactly and don’t have the source code files up right now, but that is basically the end…
Thanks! I had expected a bit of a deeper ending - perhaps a proper reunion with the woman from Nagasaki - but this one will have to do. Good to know, at least!
The basic point is that the narrative establishes a deterministic time loop and a bit of a short-circuit grandfather paradox. Your attempts to alter or sabotage the nuclear age can’t stop the overarching tragedy. That’s what the voice tells you about causality at the end. If you prevented the past from leading to the future, you could never have gone back in time. Which means the nuclear age started as planned. But if you did go back and alter it, the past no longer leads to the future, which means it would not have led to you.
The game addresses this logic directly during the final confrontation at the Trinity test site in New Mexico: “If Harry doesn’t get his A-bomb, the future that created you cannot occur. And you can’t sabotage the test if you’re never born, can you?”
It’s been so long since I’ve played that game, but I recall it left me feeling the game was meant as a warning: “this could happen again, in your own backyard”
A lot has been written about this. Here, for example: