Completed the game - Wow !

[starrynight]

Just want to chime with my opinion - this game was excellent. Good job all involved.

[Jazzy]

Terrific game, definitely not too easy. Nice, long gameplay, if you get stuck as I did. Great characters, scenes, and the storyline ...I was trying to predict what would happen, and boy was I wrong, LOL. Now to go back for more!

I didn't look at the achievements before playing. I wanted to get them as they came along the first time. I'll run the commentary next time, also. I didn't want any spoilers from it.

25/38
303/340

[ayooi]

Just wanted to say that Resonance was absolutely fantastic. I have not enjoyed an adventure game as much as I enjoyed Resonance in a very long time. I'd write more but I think I'd just be repeating a lot of what others have said

Definitely will be checking out Wadjet Eye's previous titles as well! The Blackwell Deception series is next on my list!

[Condor299]

Very good game indeed. I wish they had another game around the corner for us.

[tramponline]

@Condor299

They have! Wadjet Eye is on the roll!

Check it out:

http://www.adventuregamers.com/forums/viewthread/341/

[Rognik]

Definitely will be checking out Wadjet Eye's previous titles as well! The Blackwell Deception series is next on my list!

Repeat away! You shouldn't be afraid to share your point of view just because it's been said already. Opine away, or comment on the plot. There's a lot to talk about, if you want.

[Tropxe]

I've just completed it too. There were quite a few things that I thought might become plot points or developments, but didn't. For example, I was already suspicious of Ed due to how he had this kind of lurking-in-the-background feel in Morales' journal. It's the kind of thing where he kept being name-dropped repeatedly in such an innocuous way, it stopped being innocuous and started being very visible and notable.

Kind of like if someone in a movie made a record of their day and it kept saying things like "Went to shop and bumped into John", "Was frying some eggs when John knocked on the door", "Was about to fall asleep in my chair but John rang and snapped me out of it". If the journal isn't meant to be about John, it stands out that John keeps being mentioned and that it will probably be referred back to later or will stand out as foreshadowing on consequent viewings. I guess you could call it "reverse-engineered foreshadowing".

Anyway, the point is, I had this suspicion of him and so everything he said or did suddenly became questionable to me. When he didn't want to move through the collider because of the magnets, his excuse seemed very thrown out there and kind of like he was hoping people would just accept it. When I took into account that he was a very dry and technical person in many ways, and confesses that he's bad with people but good with numbers, and sees everything as an equation, I had this idea that maybe his shoulder being metal wasn't a lie, but it was only part of the truth; all of him is metal. He's a robot. I know it's one of the old sci-fi tropes, but it just seemed really possible. Then I remembered his apartment; no food in there (apart from some cocktail onions), no real lighting, a bathroom that doesn't seem to be used. It's almost like he doesn't have human needs; almost like he's... a robot!

Keeping that idea in mind, it really stood out to me when Reno looks up at the end of the press conference and her eyes are bright green. Kind of a Terminator vibe, where Arnie's eyes are eventually revealed to be these red lights rather than actual eyes. It made me imagine that she was connected, in the computer sense, to all the data and that's how she figures it all out. She's like the core of this massive network - she's like a sci-fi version of the classical Antevorta - the Roman goddess of the future.

Also, in true "reading far too much into everything" style, I could help but notice that she's next to the Post Office when Antevorta's sister was called Postvorta. On top of that, one of Antevorta's festival days was the 11th of January, or XI of January if you see where I'm going with that. Yep, she's behind the XI door (and incidentally, the two sisters together are comparable to Janus, the god whose name January is taken from, and he was the god of doors, which is linked to the fact the XI was on a door if you want to go fully connection crazy).

Anyway, insane tenuous links aside, this game is amazing. The puzzle design, characters, plot, dialogue, music, art style - everything.

[ZX497]

One thing that got me suspicious of Ed at one point, was when I noticed he was the only character who had an established motive to kill Dr. Morales: Morales wanted to destroy Resonance, while Ed wanted to preserve it. On top of that, I realized his and Anna's apartments were on the opposite sides of the lab (as I was wondering why they're even marked on the map if I can't enter them), so I figured they might have something to do with the Resonance blast...

Even still, the reveal came as a surprise to me. That's simply because this is one of those rare video games where deductive work like this actually, surprisingly, works, and I wasn't expecting it to. When it comes to video games, pretty much every time you're able to draw an early conclusion based on a story so far, it is entirely incorrect, since the big reveals are almost always explained entirely in retrospect. Not in Resonance.

The coolest thing to me is, that all the information you need to piece this mystery together is right there in front of your eyes the whole time. You're just not really looking.

Take the Eleven Foundation for example. The first time you learn of this organization is during the "tutorial" section of the game, when you get their file. On top of that you learn of a guy who enters a door marked "XI" using a special knocking code, 2. 3. 1. Ok, so can we deduct that's where their base is? Yes, if we look at aforementioned file: Eleven Foundation, POBox 231. ALL the information needed to connect the dots is right there, given to you during the first 10% of the game!

The fact that stuff like this exists, and that the game doesn't have to go to excessive lengths to cover the twists, just makes it ever so much more enjoyable to me. Absolutely brilliantly written and executed story.

[Jazzy]

I believe the knock is 2,1,3.

[ZX497]

Oh, you're right. And so is the POBox address, I just remembered them wrong, as I was going with my memory

[Starmaker]

Anyway, the point is, I had this suspicion of him and so everything he said or did suddenly became questionable to me.

I started suspecting Ed when he expressed his dislike of computers. Another game I like a lot is Starlight Sacrifice, a second-person thinker, and the main character there shows strong signs of being indoctrinated or mind-controlled while being a genuinely good-natured and conventionally-likable person. He doesn't like computers either. That's seriously very telling. Ed looks like a player avatar, but this little detail sends a very clear message that he isn't "Be warned: Your characters are not you. They may have their own interests and goals". Dislike of computers is the Hitler 'stache for the 21st century. (Also, I just Godwinned the thread.)

Initially, I thought it highly unlikely that Ed killed Morales - I thought he was definitely aiming at something and I get to blow it up later in the game (his distress in the lab was obviously genuine, while if I were him I wouldn't have been able to even fake it). I was surprised that Bennet's letter wasn't also planted by Ed.

My main beef with just about any work of art is the matter of consequentialism. People learn from experience, including imaginary secondhand experience. The correct answer to "why did character A do action B" is "because the author said so". However, I find it amusing to attempt to look at a work through the eyes of a hypothetical three-year-old and deduce the Important Life Lesson.

I seriously think Ed did nothing wrong and was Right All Along. Being Right All Along is not easy or emotionally satisfying, brings no praise and may very well not lead to the best result. In this case it obviously doesn't, and Ed may even get himself killed through no agency of his own. Being Always Right means being predictable and therefore easy to manipulate. This is exactly like exploiting a mathematically perfect optimization algorithm in a strategy game.

Bennet is Righteous. That *is* easy and emotionally satisfying (and very different from being Right). He won't let crimes go unpunished, and he won't be complicit in a crime. It's something that can garner you praise and admiration, except it might also get you killed through no agency of your own, too bad about that.

Anna doesn't get to choose because there's no reason she should. She's not the final authority. Sure, Morales entrusted her with that responsibility, but so what? He's dead. He doesn't have a stake in the future. (While we, as a civilization, need to keep up the pretense that the wishes of the dead matter, both for out own comfort and to encourage people to risk their lives - that is, for the greater good - that greater good takes a backseat to Free Energy For Everyone).

I absolutely love the characterization and plotting. Here, the question "Why can't they just get along?" has a definite answer. Given specific external circumstances, there's nothing they could have done differently. The catastrophe is unavoidable not only because it's an adventure game, not only because we saw the news report in the opening, but because the characters were acting to the best of their knowledge and abilities within their own very different moralities.

And that is why Ray is my favorite character (as in "the one who I most want to be like"). Besides being witty and honorable (someone powerful enough to supposedly dig up compromising material on the president blackmails him and he reacts by deciding to do a story on the blackmailer), he keeps an open mind. He gets not only to live in the end, but to affect the global outcome. Well, actually he gets to live because the devs said so, but I'm talking about Important Life Lessons, and as Important Life Lessons go, this one isn't bad.

On top of that, one of Antevorta's festival days was the 11th of January, or XI of January if you see where I'm going with that.

Eleventh day of the eleventh month? Heh.

The coolest thing to me is, that all the information you need to piece this mystery together is right there in front of your eyes the whole time. You're just not really looking.

Everything serves a purpose.

This reminds me of similar experience with Spider and Web, best expressed by baf: "I'm still discovering subtleties just by thinking about it afterwards". TL;DR: play it right now, it's free and short (took me about 3 hours on my first playthrough). There's a twist in the middle, a choice in the end, the science/ethics problem mirrors that of Resonance, and you can actually define your character (although in broad strokes).

[Tropxe]

My problem with Ed being in the right is that he clearly experiences a nervous breakdown as the story proceeds. It's hard to see someone as doing the right thing if they end up racked with guilt and completely off the rails.

I actually feel that he becomes totally dehumanised as the story goes on (he's a robot! ) because Ray and Bennet remain as themselves throughout the story, through all that happens to them, and their own personal "do the right thing" doesn't make them into babbling nervous wrecks. However, you could say that their "right thing" isn't as "right" as Ed's, that it was more like the generally acceptable and approachable thing (saving a cute little girl even though it means 2 adults die, as opposed to saving those 2 adults only to see the little girl die painfully) and so it doesn't take a toll on their minds as Ed's actions do on his. So Ed is dehumanised, "Ed" ceases to exist and in his place is an entity that wants to set things right, like a kind of equilibrium.

That seems to justify Ed in a way, but interestingly as he becomes this kind of inhuman force of equilibrium, he seems to fulfil his earlier assertion that everything just comes down to maths in the end. It's okay to do these things because this particular "equation" ends up with a higher total. So it's like that the moral correctness of his actions weren't his motivating factor, it was his kind of autistic, maths approach to everything. And yet, he's clearly losing his mind and being assaulted by his guilt and regret over his actions.

So paradoxically, he loses his humanity through his actions, but discovers it at the same time. When he really has to put his theory that everything is just maths to the test, his pesky human emotions get in the way and he goes crazy. He's realising everything isn't just maths at the same time as having to cling to that theory in order to stave off his unbearable guilt. It's sad, but I can't really feel pity for him because it was all because of his impersonal and mechanical view of things that it all happened in the first place.

Edit
Holy crap, just had Ed ask Anna about her lucky coin when you first arrive at the baseball field. She says "Sure you still don't believe in luck? There's been a lot of coincidences recently!" to which Ed replies "Like I said, nothing's ever really a coincidence". I love things like that.

[Starmaker]

No, he's too human and not suited for applied math and trolley problems at all. Killing Morales is Right. Killing Anna is Right. Blowing up Antevorta (assuming it's the whole Antevorta of the finished game rather than a replica of the initial draft, as indicated by commentary) is Right. He does the Right thing up to the very end and can't help but feel really shitty about it. I want to be more like Ray than Ed, even though Ed is brilliant and cute and huggable and Right, exactly because he's too emotional.

Speaking of trolleys: I know a retired railroad engineer who's had three suicides and is still feeling guilty about them. I'm told it's common. I realize those people could've been helped (because if they could get to the tracks and walk in front of the train, they are unlikely to suffer from anything that makes euthanasia a valid choice), but why the guilt epidemic?

I really hope Ed will retain enough reason to actually provide the unlimited energy that so many people had to die for. (But what I think is more likely is that after the attacks, the world governments will put a ban on Resonance research and everything will be in vain.)

[Tigrou]

Have you seen http://www.pippinbarr.com/games/trolleyproblem/TrolleyProblem.html ?

[Tropxe]

No, he's too human and not suited for applied math and trolley problems at all. Killing Morales is Right. Killing Anna is Right. Blowing up Antevorta (assuming it's the whole Antevorta of the finished game rather than a replica of the initial draft, as indicated by commentary) is Right. He does the Right thing up to the very end and can't help but feel really shitty about it.

It's important to bear in mind that the world didn't need Resonance. It wasn't like the world was going to end unless Ed shot his friend and his friend's daughter. Ed liked the idea of infinite energy and fast internet speeds, so he supposed that killing people would be okay in the end. Even if you suppose that the world needs infinite energy someday, it's not like the loss of this data would preclude it ever happening again. Besides, by the end his aim is no longer the preservation of Resonance but the destruction of Antevorta; killing Morales and Anna do not contribute to that aim.

Also, his actions didn't just lead to those two deaths, his actions caused the deaths of all those people around the world because his impersonal and overly-technical way of looking at things (numbers over people) was exploited by the Eleven Foundation because such a mechanically-minded person was easy to control. Note how Ray and Bennet, two much more people-focused guys, and much more "human" than a robotically-minded maths-obsessed weirdo who lives in squalor just so he can be in the optimal place to murder his friend, were not controlled in the same way and did not cause the death of thousands.

I think what you saw at the end was a man who no longer believed in his own cause, and was finally putting people first rather than seeing humanity as a kind of data packet to apply maths to, but couldn't stop here because then he'd just be a common murderer. He had to keep on killing to transform his murder spree into something, as you say, Right - even though he knew it no longer was. After all, within days of Resonance being solidified into a definite technology, it had been weaponised several times, including by Ed himself, but had yet to be used in any positive way whatsoever, thus totally mangling Ed's original belief about it. It's kind of like "Uh well I guess Resonance was a bad idea, b-but it's not as bad as Antevorta, right guys? Guys? D-don't make me shoot you, a-agree with me!"

@Tigrou: The odd thing is that each choice is easy to make, I expected it to be really difficult. Even the most contentious one: who wouldn't let three random strangers die instead of their mother?