There are a few bits, like his comments on Annie’s death and the “God I hope this works” line, that imply that he was actively trying some sort of solution, but I suppose that doesn’t necessarily imply that it worked, whatever it was. Or maybe it’s all just referring to his locking up the computer and making a list of people who weren’t allowed to access it.
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I think we can pretty definitively say that. We know that the deaths stopped after Longley’s, because he was the last one and no one remembered him. If remembering previous victims were still dangerous, then presumably people would have kept dying. In fact, the deaths would be increasing exponentially. (And it wouldn’t make much sense to talk about a chain otherwise.)
Yeah, I think this is correct.
I think that the solution was simply “let the last person to die be a loner who’s unlikely to be remembered”. He knew that investigating the case was likely to lead him to remember someone (it seems that the curse had reached the police force by then, so he knew he’d likely known some of the victims) and deliberately kept going so he’d be the next in the chain.
[@] I guess this is what everyone was expecting. No one ever said it out loud, but I knew what I had to do. I was your only choice. No one’s as disconnected from the outside world as I am. The fate of the world on my shoulders.
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Thoughts on the hangman game? @'s death leading to “the world is at peace” (aka the end of the thunderclap chain) makes sense. But why hangman, how does guessing letters in a word fit in with the mechanics of the memory curse?
Also, here’s a theory on John’s initital invitation (Rupert having acquired something that he planned to have running, that might make people think there are ghosts).
I think it’s the piano. Rupert and Martha got a new self-playing piano and planned a dinner party to show it off. Before I realised it operated on piano rolls, it playing on its own did seem rather ghostly! The invitation says John has a “talent” related to it, and John consistently takes interest in the piano.
(I started this as “does anyone have ideas on what the invitation was about”, but as I wrote I got more and more confident on the piano idea. Could be wrong! Or maybe it was more obvious to other people)
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Yeah, the invitation was almost certainly about the piano, though the dinner party wasn’t to show it off specifically, it was for Rupert’s birthday.
As for the hangman game, I think the reason it was chosen was simply for the visual of @ hanging. I don’t think the mechanics come into play except to show that his death is the only option (hence why all the letters are rejected).
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ack, how did I forget that it was his birthday! Thanks for that.
I just went back and reread @'s message about the hangman game being available (20-DI-1, John on the phone with Kate), and am more baffled by it from an in-universe perspective.
Also, I’ve been working on a game of ‘hangman’. It should be installed on your system — try it out if you like. I’ll warn you… It’s not what you’re expecting.
It seems he did this after his impending-thunderclap realisation, knowing he was going to die and the curse would end with him. Was part of “Write something important before you drop dead, you idiot!” creating a cryptic hangman game?? But the tone of the message doesn’t sound like someone about to die. (if he’s working under a time limit though, a pre-determined hangman game with no solution is probably easier to code than a working one)
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I have no thoughts on the in-universe reasons why @ would have bothered coding a hangman game as his apparent last act, but thematically I think the unguessability of the word ties into how thorough the erasure of his identity needs to be. It’s a seven-letter word, right? And both his first and last name, as given in the secret file, are seven letters. So it’s sort of a reflection of either the steps he’s taken to ensure that his memory cannot be retrieved by anyone, or his understanding and acceptance that it will not be because he simply didn’t know anyone that well (depending on whether you think he actively did anything to end the curse or not, as discussed upthread).
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Hmm, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. In his final message he says, “No one ever said it out loud, but I knew what I had to do.” It sounds like he suspected he had to die even before the realization.
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Since we know that John sells pianos, and that Rupert only just managed to get it working the day of the party, I didn’t think it was supposed to be a secret that that’s why Rupert invited him, though it doesn’t come out until the middle of act 3 (17-MA-1-5):
[1 John Hobbes] I wanted to say, actually — it’s a lovely piano you’ve got downstairs. Is it new?
[5 Martha Galley] It arrived recently! I can’t think why we bought one in the end, but Eddie’s quite a fan of the music.
[1 John Hobbes] Well, I happen to work at the Pianoforte Gallery in town! We don’t sell ones like that, though.
[5 Martha Galley] It would have been nice to have got more use out of it yesterday evening, but we only got it running properly once in the end. Oswald and I were admiring it… That was before he revealed his darker side, of course. And to think, I was trying so hard to be polite!
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Yeah that makes sense. So he and the police knew something about the mechanics of the chain and that he would be the next/last to die, the moment in the final note was him realising that this is it, he’s triggered the curse by remembering. Suddenly his death became an imminent reality rather than a vague possibility.
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Type Help will be remastered on Steam as “The Incident at Galley House.”
I wishlisted it right away, and I think you should, too. The more people who wishlist the game, the more visibility Steam will give it when it’s finally released.
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Oh this is exciting! And remastered by the same folks behind the Roottrees are Dead too. Voice acting and music would be really welcome additions to the experience.
I do wonder how the voice acting will be integrated with the existing text-based elements, like will the comments from @ also be voiced? And searching for keywords, renaming scenes.