The speaker discusses their experience playing an indie game called "Close Your Eyes," which they describe as the scariest or most confusing game they've played in 2018. The game has a unique mechanic where the player's character's eyes are closed for most of the game, and the player must rely on other senses to navigate the environment.
The game is set in a dystopian future where a company called "View" has developed a method to transfer human consciousness into robot bodies. This allows humans to survive in a post-apocalyptic world by hiding in underground facilities. The game's protagonist, Cecily Newman, is a robot whose consciousness was transferred from a human.
The game presents a cryptic narrative, with clues scattered throughout the environment and heavy use of symbolism. The speaker spends a significant portion of the discussion deciphering these clues and piecing together the story. They reveal that the "husks" encountered throughout the game are not monsters, but rather the discarded human bodies from the cognitive transfer process. These husks seek to reunite with their lost consciousness by hunting down the host robots and retrieving their eyes.
The speaker also discusses the game's multiple endings, which range from freeing the husks, to the player becoming the witch, to the world exploding. The speaker suggests that the best ending is the one where everyone keeps their eyes closed, symbolizing ignorance and bliss in a hopeless situation.
Finally, the speaker leaves the audience with a call to action to play the game themselves and share their own interpretations in the comments.
1. The speaker is discussing a game called "Close Your Eyes," which they describe as the scariest or most WTF indie game they've played in 2018 .
2. The game features a game mechanic where the player's character is forced to close their eyes, and the speaker reveals that this is an actual mechanic in the game .
3. The game is set in a laboratory in the year 2050, and upon loading the game, the player is welcomed to this view laboratory .
4. The game presents a mystery written in reverse wing-dings 3, which the speaker is trying to solve .
5. The game presents a story hidden under layers of hallucinations, cryptic dialogue, disturbing visuals, and heavy symbolism .
6. The speaker is trying to piece together the story of the game beyond drugs .
7. The game presents a chart for a test subject named Cecily Newman, who is part of the view program .
8. The speaker reveals that Cecily Newman is a robot with no assigned sex, blood type, and an age of only four hours .
9. The speaker introduces the concept of "husk status" in the game, which they explain later as referring to the discarded human bodies of cognitive transfer subjects .
10. The game reveals that the husks encountered throughout the game aren't monsters at all, but rather abandoned remnants of people that want to reunite with the lost part of their consciousness .
11. The game reveals that the view program was controversial, as indicated by protest signs claiming that cognitive transfer is murder .
12. The speaker discovers that the view stands for "Vitality and Identity Extraction for WWE" (World War Five) .
13. The game ends with an apocalyptic wasteland ravaged by war, which might be a consequence of the cognitive transfer program .
14. The game features a character called the "witch," who seems to straddle a line between both husks and host robots .
15. The speaker encounters a sequence in the game where they follow a path through a field of hands, leading them to a lake where they retrieve two glowing flaming essences from two statues .
16. The speaker reveals that the two essences retrieved from the statues suggest the idea of an essence having been split across two bodies - the witch's body and a host robot body .
17. The game features four possible endings, one of which is the "recollection" ending where the player chooses to give the witch their eyes, effectively becoming the witch .
18. The speaker reveals that the witch's true identity is Cecily Newman, and this is supported by various details throughout the game .
19. The speaker concludes by discussing the game's final ending, which suggests that the best ending is the one in which everyone keeps their eyes closed .