I agree with most of this analysis save one thing: I think the things you're finding and unplugging throughout the game aren't "network extenders" so much as "backup generators" for the entire control system. Once you've disabled all the auxiliary power, you go back and get rid of the central power source and without any reserve power it immediately shuts down completely. That's the reason why cutting any one of the cords doesn't stop you on the spot while the final plug does. Also, looking in the background during the second ending and remembering the game mechanics (you can control a person controlling another person), I believe it's very heavily implied that you were never actually playing as the boy in the first place. You were playing the role of the person in the background of the ending. You can take that to mean that you're playing as some sort of "resistance" to the use of mind control and genetically modified humans. With that train of thought, disabling the system does kill the boy, but seeing that the boy was never actually you, you can call it a "best" ending wherein the system is shut down and you're allowed to walk away to start rebuilding society. There's some other interesting things you can take away that aren't necessarily major to the plot as well. Large swathes of the planet seem to be flooded and some of the modified creations are especially suited to water. It's very possible this is a "post apocalyptic disaster" planet in which people would have taken extreme measures such as what you see in the game just to stay alive. There's also the large number of "normal" people in the first ending whom are scared of you as a blob, and yet really want to help you out, which implies that much of society has a problem with what's going on, but the more powerful groups have set the system in place via laws or other means. Overall though, as you said the game is highly open to interpretation, and I think there's a lot of different things you can take away not just in regards to meaning, but what was going on in the first place. It's a pretty interesting game, even if it does take the shock factor up to a nearly ridiculous point at times. Thanks for the interesting playthrough and analysis.
Idk why but to me dosen't look like they geniunly want to help you because they feel bad, more like they want you to fall under their contaiment again, but fail. It was wierd because first when i seen the contaiment chamber, it remainded me of the first contaiment place for the blob. It there any posibility that you could perhaps broke the loop on you being united in the blob over and over again? And also, there is no sign of the blob dieying at the end or moving or even the slightlest possibility to exclude the chance that you may get contained again. The ending is debatable, because there is no clear picture of what may had happened after.
I like how you formatted the game explanation in different videos because when you try to explain a game at the end of a video, you sound kind of pressured to wrap things up quickly. On separate videos, however, you don't have to feel like you're being rushed to help us understand the story. Great job manly :3
There's too much B-movie horror stuff and only one small section of the game shows a dystopia control aspect and I think that's to throw you off the twist at the ending to lead the player to believe the world around them is "bad" and people are being controlled while it just turns out there's worm monsters.
basically the player is playing as the blob controlling the child to come and allow it to escape, kinda a sneaky way to make the game. or alternative the boy was a part of the blob all along and just working his way back to its "mother" weird but fun game.
Something I noticed is when the blob thing starts to merge with the kid, it looks like the kid is trying to reach for something to keep from getting pulled in?
its like all of the people were trying to get out and they probably pulled on the boy to try and get out of the blob but instead accidently took the boy in and added another suffering to the blob
Definitely like the separate video format for these more "left to interpretation" (or complicated plot) games. My brain is useless, so I can't say I agree or disagree with you, but I did like your interpretation. c:
I actually found this very profound and incredibly nice, Manly. You sure came a long way, eh? If these opportunities ever come back up, please do more of these. I deeply and thoroughly enjoyed this. Thanks again, A Longtime Fan
That was a great play-through and I enjoyed your explanation. I wonder if there will be another part of this game, but then again it would be fitting to leave it in an air of mystery. I hope you keep playing games like these!
I was really looking forward to your thoughts on this game, Manly. It was worth the wait! I hope you do more of these separate videos for future series, especially for the longer ones! Have a lovely day ;-D
For just the blob ending, the boy was acting on his own (excluding the player) but as said in some other videos it's most likely that the boy is another experiment who's being stopped from escaping. what else would you do if you were running that place and saw one of your dangerous experiments running loose?? Anyways, the kid had a mind of his own and knew what was going on. so he just wanted to get himself and all the other poor souls that were forced to fuse into the blob out and into the sun, kinda like the dalek scene with rose and an old dalek that just wanted to see the sun. Now for the alternate ending. As we see through out the game, this place has thousands of machines and power sources which are used to run everything. but what if the power was also used to make life? As said the kid could have been being controlled by the blob, but the blob are just so many poor people sucked into one massive being, now there are two ways to be free, to get out alive, or to die. the first ending is to get out alive, giving the kid and all the others their freedom, while the other, since the kid and all the other experiments were brought to life with power, died when that power died. Not sure if i'm ranting or not, but....it's just a theory.
This game can have so many meanings as people looking for it, everyone will see something diferent on it, simple details perhaps, because when we try to explain this kind of things (with such openess) we all put a little bit of ourselves on the explanation, or the meaning
if you didnt know, some of the audio track has been recorded inside a skull! www.gamasutra.com/view/news/282595/Audio_Design_Deep_Dive_Using_a_human_skull_to_create_the_sounds_of_Inside.php
I like games like these because you make it what you want the story-line to be. Everyone has their own unique comprehensive analysis, which gives us the opportunity of understanding the game in different angles. For me, it was about the boy coming into the facility knowing full well what was going on and aiming to complete a certain task in mind. With that said, I believe it could have been a revenge plot because essentially the boy kills the head honcho of the entire secret facility. My logic was that in the beginning of the game he wasn't just randomly entering an unknown place, but rather a place that he's been before, where he understood the purpose of that facility. I noticed that after the death of the man behind the plot, the workers begin to help the blob(boy) escape. However, the ending was an unfortunate event for him and leaves us wondering whether or not the boy died. I honestly thought I would be able to exit out of the blob, but it just couldn't happen. Great game! 5/5!
Yeah, when you're trying to escape as the blob, there are a couple humans who help you. I wondered if it was all planned or if they were just scared of the blob.
The real kicker that this game tries to drive home is that the protagonist's desire to be "free," itself is a "controlled" environmental response. If that's what you call free will, in a way it's not free will. It's how he was programmed. He has no choice but to act on his overwhelming desire to be free, and risk life and limb to do so. They're ALL automatons in the end, and they all run on the same power source. He's like a cancer on this perfect society. That's the symbolism of the blob. This is how they deal with that cancer, and what happens if you don't treat the cancer? it kills its host and in turn itself, as seen in the alternate ending.
Excellent video,Manly! For some reason when I saw the pigs I thought it meant they were feeding people infected pigs to spread the infection but then I thought they were infecting/reanimating corpses. Either way this game's world is incredibly interesting. I really enjoyed your thoughts on it! :D
_Happiness is in the eye of the beholder_ This is that weird kind of surreal existential story that lends itself to multiple theories & it depends on your personal world view & interpretation if it ends happily or not. I don't think that mass of people was an orb at all... but was hooked up to the main orb & mostly controlled by the orbs under the vigilant watch of the scientists. In other words, man controlled that mass. Or so he thought. The main orb was the one below the cornfield - most hidden away, difficult to access. Otherwise I agree with the human truth that we want to live our lives on our own terms. If tho the boy was deciding on his own, I don't feel he would have "powered down" after pulling the plug. I believe it is the player who decides that fate - in essence saying, this isn't the way to live & I want the boy to pull that plug. An interesting & thoughtful interpretation, MBH
Holy crap you are so smart. I completely agree with what you said. I'm a sucker for happy endings but even more of a sucker for bittersweet ones. I always thought--through this--technology is "evil" because for me, the more advance we get in science and technology (as they go hand-in-hand), the "dumber" (as in, our hatred for each other and need to control everything) we become as we continue to try to play "god" and it comes back and bites us, quite literally in this case, in the ass.
But then... why didn't she did that in the first place? And how was using how? Or it was only an agreement between humans and the queen? Because she could make worms to give them power, but i image that she perhaps may need them for something as well? Mind power? How knows.
Anyone have any sort of explanation for the underwater girls? Why did the first few try to drown him when the last one hooked him up to something that would enable him to 'breathe' underwater? What were they? Thank you to who ever may take the time to research this or not-if not necessary-and reply to me with an explanation.
I don't think the last one hooked him up. If you watch it slowly they just kind of unintentionally pass by the cord it and it latches on to him. If you look around the facility it's an old creation ground for the worm people so I assume they're feral ones that got left behind and now roam the waters. Their hair has grown out from years of being isolated.
Do you get upset when someone refers to a "energy saber" as lightsaber too or how people refer to "cotton swabs" as q-tips more than its actual name? It's fairly normal in languages and over complicating it is rigid which is ironically associated with lowest common denominator style thinking. Your own language itself is a bastardization of words that became associated with other meanings from their original. Cronenbergs is just a common pop culture term people use now after it was coined. About 20 - 15 years ago people would've most likely referred to that thing as "The Blob" or "The Thing Monster" which would probably be more apt since it's clearly taking direct artistic influence from those monsters.
I'm still questioning : -why most of the world is flooded in water? -how could the water be upside down? -what were the shock waves created by or why was it even there? -if the "humans" (the ones being controlled by the player/boy) were even humans at all? -why were there "visitors" watching the mind-control happen?(the part when the boy has to pretend to be one of them) -is this a dystopian city? -who are the "bad guys"?
on the secret ending, the wires hooked to the orb looks more like a person his connect to it than wires, like maybe some one put a child their for this "test" to see how far that this child can go, and maybe every time you die they just put a new clone there so you can try again. this is just what I think, but I thought of this after listening to you Manly
I'm not entirely bought on this format of having a separate video to explain games. I think it works best at the end of the playthrough because you as a viewer have it fresh in the mind. Although, I think it can work with some games with deeper lore or that are quite vague or open to interpretation. It's fine if you want to make a video to discuss in more detail about the plot when the plot is not so straightforward, but there are many games that are not worth it.
I mean, the implication was that for more complicated games I'd have a separate video which I've done in the past anyway so it's misleading in that it's something "new". So it's basically what you said.
Welp, this confirms to me what I've essentially forgotten in the earlier segment of the game, particularly with the worms and the pigs. Good thing I checked this.
I've heard various theories as well about the two endings. One is that in the normal ending (the one with the blob thingy), is that that thing was calling the kid or somewhat for the kid to free it. In the secret ending, I've heard another yet totally different theory that is that the kid was actually being controlled by us aka man itself. That's why, when he breaks those last wires, the game ends, as for our power to control the kid. Manlys theories and observations are also pretty legit. But, I guess it all depends on how we see things through out the story.
Humans using mind worms to control genetically engineered humans for specific tasks... yeah, that works quite nicely from what we saw throughout our journey. The failed escape attempt is definitely the more bleak ending of the two, as you're probably right about it eventually ending up back in its cage. The boy and the game itself allowing you to go out on your terms in the other ending is somewhat more positive, as you had more control over the final fate. Picking between feeling my life fade away as the last tether is undone and being kept alive as a monstrous blob is an easy decision. I agree with your interpretation of the endings and general story. Sometimes that silver lining is just gray.
hmmm . . . I think there are too many ideas on what this game is trying to say and whats even happening half the time. Personally I have my own ideas but i'd like to hear a creators of the game come out and say what it means to them. In my opinion, the blob is controlling the kid (who has a worm in him) and is using the kid to escape. It seems like the monster has tried to do this before. The part when all the humans start helping the blob escape was really strange until they lure you onto that trap door . . . meaning they were trying to capture you again. why the blob is there in the first place, what the research they are doing is, what the worms are, what the orbs are, and pretty much everything else is a mystery to me.
One non mentioned thing is how the number four is repeated throughout the entirety of the game, and how in the final parts , there is other numbers in the background, with what seem to be already cleared puzzles, I think the boy in his whole journey is a lab rat from the start, and from start to finish your path is expected, there is moments in the game you can also see people running in the numbered other background facilities, in similar fashion as you do, from left to right, and deeper and deeper in the facility, as you can see in the path in the "map" of the secret ending. I think the boy is not the first and would not be the last of the blobs to run the puzzle and end all in a similar fashion. Now that I think about it, the only times you are progressing to break the control is when you get out of the lab rat expected numbered path to destroy the orbs, its also the only times you are not running deeper and to the right.
In a meta way, I think the true ending can also be read as the rejection of "controlling" itself. When one struggles to free themselves from the control of others, it is only fair that they should stop trying to control others. This type of manipulation is wrong in and of itself, regardless of if one's on the commanding or receiving end.
I think it *was* completely planned only because underwater there was another facility labeled 3 as the one you escaped from was labeled 4. Meaning they have made a total of 4 different facilities which would be quite expensive.
I think that, on the first run through, the boy is being controlled by someone (or something) to breach in the facility and free the Blob. As the Blob is maintained submerged, I think water is necessary to its life support. The plan was to make it reach the river (or sea) at the end, but the escape run was to much effort for the creature, so it didn't make the last steps to the water. The second run through - the secret ending - is when the person (or thing) that controls the boy decides to put an end to everything. They doesn't want to free the Blob - perhaps because it could harm innocents or the environment, if let loose - also doesn't want to hurt the boy any longer, but definitely wants to terminate the creepy procedures handled at the facility. That's my thoughts.
at the alteretive ending i really am saluting to the boy because he is like that he wont be controlled by that thing an that he rather ends his live instead of being controled and i really havae respect from that
I personally thought that the blob at the end was controlling the other clones like the mermaid and the boy and was leading him to release it the whole time so it could go on its own terms. And with the secret ending I think that it shows that the boy isn't a regular kid like how he falls like the rest of the clones when unplugged.
Since their life cycle seems to prefer water I believe the blob was trying to reach the sea as it could live safely in its "natural" habitat and of course escape and be hard to track down. I don't think it wanted to end its own life as you have many options to give up or destroy yourself ahead of time. The reason it stops just short of the sea and the credits cut is to kind of show how close it came before it either expired from the fall or got exhausted and will soon expire/be recaptured.
+ManlyBadassHero I believe that the blob was controlling the boy using the long-haired creatures as a way to gain control. It was trying to set itself free. The alternate ending shows computers which represent you, the player. You, the player have been controlling the boy up until the blob took control of the boy near the end via long-haired creatures. The boy could breathe underwater after getting plugged by the long-haired creatures because he was now under the control of the blob; he became just like the rest of the zombies.
so is the cronenberg monster an actual thing irl? or is it just a game concept? im only asking because i dont thing the game says anything about a cronenberg monster.
I'm pretty sure "Cronenberg monster" is a reference to David Cronenberg, who is a filmmaker known for being either one of the first or one of the best in the body horror genre. I only know about him from a reference in Rick and Morty, so if you want to know more, you might want to look the guy up on IMDB or something.
They've created a monster that wants to crush his boss. It clearly has to do with society, technology, mind control, and the desire for deliberation. I was very disappointed by the secret ending. I mean, in the first ending you can obviously see that they were fucking with you by showing you the way, opening doors for you, helping you activate stuff then the bait thing. In the end, they got you were they wanted. So, I was hoping that the secret ending would allow us to mess with them and seeing how defeated they become when they realize that their plan ended up biting them in the ass.
The part about they may not be breeding child versions, does that not include the water girl thing? If you have thought about that, I'm curious what you actually think of it.
The scene where the boy was sucked into the blob monster as he was freeing it peculiarly reminded me of a sperm entering an egg. It looked symbolically like the promise of the birth of new life and it’s natural urgency to be free. Even if the boy in a brief flash looked like he didn’t want to be sucked in, I think the blob monster needed him to guide it because it instinctively recognized the boy’s urge to be free as he was freeing them, and it couldn’t do it alone, and the boy naturally accepted it; like a sperm to an egg. Still think there’s some type of conspiracy with the worms; maybe symbolism for how some of the few people at the top controlling the operation are equivalent to evil “worms,” vis a vis greedy CEOs and business people, forming and shaping people’s lives to serve them; like a sophisticated kind of slavery. When the blob monster was escaping, I think that’s why the humans who (possibly) were or weren’t experiments of the “worms” but working for them were automatically trying to help the blob monster as soon as they had a chance (at the end, not the control helmet parts of the game) because they wanted the control to be free too. Can’t quite come up with an explanation for the weird long haired swimming monsters. Maybe another experiment by the “worms?” And dogs, are like, dogs. Maybe they’re symbolic for a threat to thwart the spirit of freedom or, say, competition in society mmmmmm? 😂 Quite a poetic game. Thank you Manly for another fantastic play-through. It’s always so interesting to hear your interpretations!!
Hey Manly....great video! Quick question....are you still sponsored? I haven't heard you make a reference to the headset sponsor in a while and I am just curious if it worked out or not.
Wow this explanation makes the game seem so much sadder :( I get the feeling like the boy was being controlled by the blob(aka the player), just like the rest of the humans there. He wants to escape, but we the player only leads the boy deeper inside. Probably to get the boy to complete our blob so we can escape the inside and get into the ocean. The whole mermaid scene was probably to enable the boy to breathe underwater so that he could join the blob in it's quest towards the ocean :( but it never did make it outside..
Huh, that's oddly reminiscent of what Manly said on 6:45 where you have the choice for a source of pride or a sense of 'I am in control'. Even though this may be unintentional on his part, it's still pretty clever.
I have a theory. The boy is being controlled by worms or something that was evil, maybe a symbol of destruction. He is controlled to kill or unleash the ultimate form of the evil monster. Scientists study their technology, make traps and deadly things to prevent evil lurking towards the giant monster. And the people walking around like robots, they're probably a whole town being inspect for worms or an infection of the monster control. This could mean the sceintists were the good guys. The zombie looking things were probably those captured as a monster infected controlled person to be studied. At the end, the monster had probably failed to destroy and is left on the shore. The "ending set" in that glass case was a study for the landscape in which further escape of the giant monster would succeed. That really wraps everything up. There really might not be a true ending either. Developers of Limbo (same as Inside) wanted us to -Think-.
There is something that is bothering about the Blob itself. It's surely made of humans, still living and breathing within that unstable form. I've been thinking, do you remember those people wearing an mask? What if they were part of an organization or a cult? And what's worse, those former "followers" could be "selected" regardless of being willingly or against their will to become part of the construction and thus leading into an accident to become the Blob?
I don't think there's a cult, I think this is the world now as city buildings look derelict and quite a bit of it is flooded. Most likely people live in a safe zone which you intrude upon at the end and in order to help maintain and build this safe zone they've hijacked their brain worm invader. There's the possibility they made the brain worms in the first place but it doesn't really matter in the big picture of the contained story.
Perhaps the masks protect against the brain worm. They're worn by the black clothed security and handlers while the people watching the blob weren't wearing masks.
For me this is how I explain the mystery of the game. 1. From both perspective of the game the boy sacfrifices in order to end the company or the experiment. 2. In the beginning , you see a group of people doing something about the failed slaves/experiments , actually the boy or the main character is an escaped slave/experiment which is it can still be controlled by the main source. 3. The boy is actually controlled by the blob thingy and once the boy entered the blob it became one of them , Its because the blob was controlling the boy to let the blob itself escape or end completely the company who enslaved the blob. 4. The game itself is showing how deep slavery is.
ok, i know its far too late for me to comment on this topic, its becoz i just know this game and just played it. im sorry for my bad english, im not good at it, but i'll try to tell what is on my thought. ok, this my opinion, i think, on that time, mind controlling human-like puppet is a commercial. They do what most works ppls do. like become a farmer, a technician or every work that has much risk that ppl can't take. So that time, when some dissease occur on this human-like puppet, the core intelegen computer sending special puppet in form of a kid to fix this failure. So, in taking precaution, the company takes all their product back to prevent any fatal impact on the customer. we can see all the customer looks affraid and terrifying. In that time, every soldier think if our character (the kid) is one of the failure product and try to escape, that's why they shooting at u and wanted u to be collected and returned to the factory. But, in the middle of the way, seems this intelegen computer has some special puppet too that can breathe underwater that seems got prepared for this purpose, the situation when the kid pressed to go thru deep water. we can see this mermaid-like puppet sacrificing it self and its ability by giving the kid it core controller. the mermaid-like puppet stop moving and can be assumed died for the kid to have ability breathing underwater. at the end, we can see the core of the industry being stuck by failure puppet. like typical of any other stories, when we controlling this giant-odd thing, we find the moment when we entering some room with one person cornered on the glass, that person seems the head of this company, and ended up died wether it is because of his failure or his ego to keeping the factory to produce the puppets even if its has some failure. So, the end of this game is just when the core of the failure kicked out. well i think that is my opinion. sorry for my bad English, i hope u guys understand
Good theory, but I have a simpler one. Socialism. This game reeks of socialism. Great game, very entertaining, but definitely a socialistic government/big corporate control over the poor majority based on money. Perhaps some large government corporation found or made these brain worms (they may be alien or man made) and got huge $$ in their eyes. Cheap labor? Mindless workers who don't talk back, don't need breaks or lunches and don't require pay?! The potential profit margin is through the roof!! Now all you need to do is slowly introduce socialistic tendencies into the population and before long, boom, we are inside. Notice how while the guys in the beginning want to kill or neutralize the boy(and do when he's caught, hence the dogs, guns, hostel machinery, etc.), yet when he reaches the office building and looks out the window, those people are not hostel toward him. Furthermore, the hostel people all wear masks (even the kids), the people in the office building don't. This game reminds me of a mixture between Half-Life, George Orwell's book 1984, and the current state that America is heading towards.
I agree with most of this analysis save one thing: I think the things you're finding and unplugging throughout the game aren't "network extenders" so much as "backup generators" for the entire control system. Once you've disabled all the auxiliary power, you go back and get rid of the central power source and without any reserve power it immediately shuts down completely. That's the reason why cutting any one of the cords doesn't stop you on the spot while the final plug does.
Also, looking in the background during the second ending and remembering the game mechanics (you can control a person controlling another person), I believe it's very heavily implied that you were never actually playing as the boy in the first place. You were playing the role of the person in the background of the ending. You can take that to mean that you're playing as some sort of "resistance" to the use of mind control and genetically modified humans. With that train of thought, disabling the system does kill the boy, but seeing that the boy was never actually you, you can call it a "best" ending wherein the system is shut down and you're allowed to walk away to start rebuilding society.
There's some other interesting things you can take away that aren't necessarily major to the plot as well. Large swathes of the planet seem to be flooded and some of the modified creations are especially suited to water. It's very possible this is a "post apocalyptic disaster" planet in which people would have taken extreme measures such as what you see in the game just to stay alive. There's also the large number of "normal" people in the first ending whom are scared of you as a blob, and yet really want to help you out, which implies that much of society has a problem with what's going on, but the more powerful groups have set the system in place via laws or other means.
Overall though, as you said the game is highly open to interpretation, and I think there's a lot of different things you can take away not just in regards to meaning, but what was going on in the first place. It's a pretty interesting game, even if it does take the shock factor up to a nearly ridiculous point at times. Thanks for the interesting playthrough and analysis.
Thanks for writing this, you summed up my general feeling and added some bits I had not thought about. This is great. Thank you again.
Idk why but to me dosen't look like they geniunly want to help you because they feel bad, more like they want you to fall under their contaiment again, but fail. It was wierd because first when i seen the contaiment chamber, it remainded me of the first contaiment place for the blob. It there any posibility that you could perhaps broke the loop on you being united in the blob over and over again? And also, there is no sign of the blob dieying at the end or moving or even the slightlest possibility to exclude the chance that you may get contained again. The ending is debatable, because there is no clear picture of what may had happened after.
BUT THAT'S JUST A THEORY, A MANLY THEORY.
THANKS FOR WATCHING
Super masculine
I like how you formatted the game explanation in different videos because when you try to explain a game at the end of a video, you sound kind of pressured to wrap things up quickly. On separate videos, however, you don't have to feel like you're being rushed to help us understand the story. Great job manly :3
I thought there was some symbolism of how technology can control us. If there is, they managed to get the message across without sounding pretentious.
There's too much B-movie horror stuff and only one small section of the game shows a dystopia control aspect and I think that's to throw you off the twist at the ending to lead the player to believe the world around them is "bad" and people are being controlled while it just turns out there's worm monsters.
Yeah. Technology is kind of a touchy subject. I mean, it's a good thing, but you have to know it's limits.
Like pokemon go, everyone went full retarded with that ""game""
basically the player is playing as the blob controlling the child to come and allow it to escape, kinda a sneaky way to make the game.
or alternative the boy was a part of the blob all along and just working his way back to its "mother"
weird but fun game.
Curseius the girl drowned him and plugged him into the blob then he was able to breathe under water
Something I noticed is when the blob thing starts to merge with the kid, it looks like the kid is trying to reach for something to keep from getting pulled in?
its like all of the people were trying to get out and they probably pulled on the boy to try and get out of the blob but instead accidently took the boy in and added another suffering to the blob
oh shit that makes sense O:
That scene also strangely reminded me of a sperm entering an egg; like the birth of new life and it’s natural urgency to be free
Deep analysis, beautiful game, brilliantly-crafted plot. Inside's pretty artistic
Definitely like the separate video format for these more "left to interpretation" (or complicated plot) games.
My brain is useless, so I can't say I agree or disagree with you, but I did like your interpretation. c:
I would love to see more of these kinds of videos.
He usually normally does this at the end of any series.
I actually found this very profound and incredibly nice, Manly. You sure came a long way, eh?
If these opportunities ever come back up, please do more of these. I deeply and thoroughly enjoyed this.
Thanks again,
A Longtime Fan
Thank you Manly. This explanation was different from the other ones I have heard and is pretty cool :)
That was a great play-through and I enjoyed your explanation. I wonder if there will be another part of this game, but then again it would be fitting to leave it in an air of mystery. I hope you keep playing games like these!
I was really looking forward to your thoughts on this game, Manly. It was worth the wait! I hope you do more of these separate videos for future series, especially for the longer ones! Have a lovely day ;-D
Nice analysis! I just finished watching both endings and was left with a few questions, but I like your interpretation (:
For just the blob ending, the boy was acting on his own (excluding the player) but as said in some other videos it's most likely that the boy is another experiment who's being stopped from escaping. what else would you do if you were running that place and saw one of your dangerous experiments running loose?? Anyways, the kid had a mind of his own and knew what was going on. so he just wanted to get himself and all the other poor souls that were forced to fuse into the blob out and into the sun, kinda like the dalek scene with rose and an old dalek that just wanted to see the sun. Now for the alternate ending. As we see through out the game, this place has thousands of machines and power sources which are used to run everything. but what if the power was also used to make life? As said the kid could have been being controlled by the blob, but the blob are just so many poor people sucked into one massive being, now there are two ways to be free, to get out alive, or to die. the first ending is to get out alive, giving the kid and all the others their freedom, while the other, since the kid and all the other experiments were brought to life with power, died when that power died. Not sure if i'm ranting or not, but....it's just a theory.
Love these kind of videos, thank you Manly!
This game can have so many meanings as people looking for it, everyone will see something diferent on it, simple details perhaps, because when we try to explain this kind of things (with such openess) we all put a little bit of ourselves on the explanation, or the meaning
am i the only one whos noticed that the trees on that final hill you roll down look a bit...small?
The hill is the same as the small model inside the facility, complete with fake “sunlight”
4:21
I like this format of doing a separate interpretation video for games that have layers and depth to them.
Okay but what about the thwomp shockwaves, what the hell was that all about?
I WANNA KNOW THAT TOO!!
same
if you didnt know, some of the audio track has been recorded inside a skull! www.gamasutra.com/view/news/282595/Audio_Design_Deep_Dive_Using_a_human_skull_to_create_the_sounds_of_Inside.php
I like games like these because you make it what you want the story-line to be. Everyone has their own unique comprehensive analysis, which gives us the opportunity of understanding the game in different angles. For me, it was about the boy coming into the facility knowing full well what was going on and aiming to complete a certain task in mind. With that said, I believe it could have been a revenge plot because essentially the boy kills the head honcho of the entire secret facility. My logic was that in the beginning of the game he wasn't just randomly entering an unknown place, but rather a place that he's been before, where he understood the purpose of that facility. I noticed that after the death of the man behind the plot, the workers begin to help the blob(boy) escape. However, the ending was an unfortunate event for him and leaves us wondering whether or not the boy died. I honestly thought I would be able to exit out of the blob, but it just couldn't happen. Great game! 5/5!
i also find important to point that the humans also have the illusion of control over the blob/mother worm, but in the end it brought their own demise
Yeah, when you're trying to escape as the blob, there are a couple humans who help you. I wondered if it was all planned or if they were just scared of the blob.
+AeJin Lee The couple of humans were likely just trying to help you get to the trap they set up.
I got the impression the humans helping you out really wanted to - some kind of guilt.
The real kicker that this game tries to drive home is that the protagonist's desire to be "free," itself is a "controlled" environmental response. If that's what you call free will, in a way it's not free will. It's how he was programmed. He has no choice but to act on his overwhelming desire to be free, and risk life and limb to do so. They're ALL automatons in the end, and they all run on the same power source. He's like a cancer on this perfect society. That's the symbolism of the blob. This is how they deal with that cancer, and what happens if you don't treat the cancer? it kills its host and in turn itself, as seen in the alternate ending.
Excellent video,Manly! For some reason when I saw the pigs I thought it meant they were feeding people infected pigs to spread the infection but then I thought they were infecting/reanimating corpses.
Either way this game's world is incredibly interesting. I really enjoyed your thoughts on it! :D
They're not being "bred" though, they're being brought in from outside the facilities.
_Happiness is in the eye of the beholder_
This is that weird kind of surreal existential story that lends itself to multiple theories & it depends on your personal world view & interpretation if it ends happily or not. I don't think that mass of people was an orb at all... but was hooked up to the main orb & mostly controlled by the orbs under the vigilant watch of the scientists. In other words, man controlled that mass. Or so he thought. The main orb was the one below the cornfield - most hidden away, difficult to access.
Otherwise I agree with the human truth that we want to live our lives on our own terms. If tho the boy was deciding on his own, I don't feel he would have "powered down" after pulling the plug. I believe it is the player who decides that fate - in essence saying, this isn't the way to live & I want the boy to pull that plug. An interesting & thoughtful interpretation, MBH
I thought it was Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...
***** Yes - I made an analogy.
Love this explanation manly, great work! :)
Excellent review! Loved this game.
Holy crap you are so smart. I completely agree with what you said. I'm a sucker for happy endings but even more of a sucker for bittersweet ones. I always thought--through this--technology is "evil" because for me, the more advance we get in science and technology (as they go hand-in-hand), the "dumber" (as in, our hatred for each other and need to control everything) we become as we continue to try to play "god" and it comes back and bites us, quite literally in this case, in the ass.
So the queen controls the boy to come to her so she can escape?
But then... why didn't she did that in the first place? And how was using how? Or it was only an agreement between humans and the queen? Because she could make worms to give them power, but i image that she perhaps may need them for something as well? Mind power? How knows.
Anyone have any sort of explanation for the underwater girls? Why did the first few try to drown him when the last one hooked him up to something that would enable him to 'breathe' underwater? What were they? Thank you to who ever may take the time to research this or not-if not necessary-and reply to me with an explanation.
I don't think the last one hooked him up. If you watch it slowly they just kind of unintentionally pass by the cord it and it latches on to him. If you look around the facility it's an old creation ground for the worm people so I assume they're feral ones that got left behind and now roam the waters. Their hair has grown out from years of being isolated.
Wow :) that's sounds like a very valid explanation. Thank you for responding. Sorry if this sounded sarcastic haha
Do you get upset when someone refers to a "energy saber" as lightsaber too or how people refer to "cotton swabs" as q-tips more than its actual name? It's fairly normal in languages and over complicating it is rigid which is ironically associated with lowest common denominator style thinking. Your own language itself is a bastardization of words that became associated with other meanings from their original.
Cronenbergs is just a common pop culture term people use now after it was coined. About 20 - 15 years ago people would've most likely referred to that thing as "The Blob" or "The Thing Monster" which would probably be more apt since it's clearly taking direct artistic influence from those monsters.
I'm still questioning :
-why most of the world is flooded in water?
-how could the water be upside down?
-what were the shock waves created by or why was it even there?
-if the "humans" (the ones being controlled by the player/boy) were even humans at all?
-why were there "visitors" watching the mind-control happen?(the part when the boy has to pretend to be one of them)
-is this a dystopian city?
-who are the "bad guys"?
on the secret ending, the wires hooked to the orb looks more like a person his connect to it than wires, like maybe some one put a child their for this "test" to see how far that this child can go, and maybe every time you die they just put a new clone there so you can try again. this is just what I think, but I thought of this after listening to you Manly
I'm not entirely bought on this format of having a separate video to explain games. I think it works best at the end of the playthrough because you as a viewer have it fresh in the mind. Although, I think it can work with some games with deeper lore or that are quite vague or open to interpretation. It's fine if you want to make a video to discuss in more detail about the plot when the plot is not so straightforward, but there are many games that are not worth it.
I mean, the implication was that for more complicated games I'd have a separate video which I've done in the past anyway so it's misleading in that it's something "new". So it's basically what you said.
+ManlyBadassHero I'm glad you agree and thank you for the response. Keep at it.
Welp, this confirms to me what I've essentially forgotten in the earlier segment of the game, particularly with the worms and the pigs. Good thing I checked this.
I don't know why but I thought the cronenburg thing was some weird power source when I first saw it.
It's probably hooked up to a kind of network to help control the zombos for human gain.
THERE ARE MULTIPLE ENDINGS?!
All secrets (the little spherical generator things) and not all secrets.
I've heard various theories as well about the two endings. One is that in the normal ending (the one with the blob thingy), is that that thing was calling the kid or somewhat for the kid to free it.
In the secret ending, I've heard another yet totally different theory that is that the kid was actually being controlled by us aka man itself. That's why, when he breaks those last wires, the game ends, as for our power to control the kid.
Manlys theories and observations are also pretty legit. But, I guess it all depends on how we see things through out the story.
Humans using mind worms to control genetically engineered humans for specific tasks... yeah, that works quite nicely from what we saw throughout our journey. The failed escape attempt is definitely the more bleak ending of the two, as you're probably right about it eventually ending up back in its cage. The boy and the game itself allowing you to go out on your terms in the other ending is somewhat more positive, as you had more control over the final fate. Picking between feeling my life fade away as the last tether is undone and being kept alive as a monstrous blob is an easy decision. I agree with your interpretation of the endings and general story. Sometimes that silver lining is just gray.
hmmm . . . I think there are too many ideas on what this game is trying to say and whats even happening half the time. Personally I have my own ideas but i'd like to hear a creators of the game come out and say what it means to them. In my opinion, the blob is controlling the kid (who has a worm in him) and is using the kid to escape. It seems like the monster has tried to do this before. The part when all the humans start helping the blob escape was really strange until they lure you onto that trap door . . . meaning they were trying to capture you again. why the blob is there in the first place, what the research they are doing is, what the worms are, what the orbs are, and pretty much everything else is a mystery to me.
The blob is an attempt to create a human overmind for all the zombies
One non mentioned thing is how the number four is repeated throughout the entirety of the game, and how in the final parts , there is other numbers in the background, with what seem to be already cleared puzzles, I think the boy in his whole journey is a lab rat from the start, and from start to finish your path is expected, there is moments in the game you can also see people running in the numbered other background facilities, in similar fashion as you do, from left to right, and deeper and deeper in the facility, as you can see in the path in the "map" of the secret ending. I think the boy is not the first and would not be the last of the blobs to run the puzzle and end all in a similar fashion. Now that I think about it, the only times you are progressing to break the control is when you get out of the lab rat expected numbered path to destroy the orbs, its also the only times you are not running deeper and to the right.
I believe the mass did manage to escape, and was just happy to stay in the sun for a little bit.
In a meta way, I think the true ending can also be read as the rejection of "controlling" itself. When one struggles to free themselves from the control of others, it is only fair that they should stop trying to control others. This type of manipulation is wrong in and of itself, regardless of if one's on the commanding or receiving end.
I think it *was* completely planned only because underwater there was another facility labeled 3 as the one you escaped from was labeled 4. Meaning they have made a total of 4 different facilities which would be quite expensive.
A twist sad-end story is also known as a tragedy and was the mainstay of entertainment for hundreds of years
hey manly, r u considering playing persona 5 when the game comes out? just asking.
yes manly! pleeeeeease
I loved everything about this game, the aesthetic, the gameplay, the mystery of it all. LIMBO and The Fall have a new baby brother.
I think that, on the first run through, the boy is being controlled by someone (or something) to breach in the facility and free the Blob. As the Blob is maintained submerged, I think water is necessary to its life support. The plan was to make it reach the river (or sea) at the end, but the escape run was to much effort for the creature, so it didn't make the last steps to the water.
The second run through - the secret ending - is when the person (or thing) that controls the boy decides to put an end to everything. They doesn't want to free the Blob - perhaps because it could harm innocents or the environment, if let loose - also doesn't want to hurt the boy any longer, but definitely wants to terminate the creepy procedures handled at the facility.
That's my thoughts.
at the alteretive ending i really am saluting to the boy because he is like that he wont be controlled by that thing an that he rather ends his live instead of being controled and i really havae respect from that
-Puts on watch list for later viewing.-
Nice video to rap things up I think you are on point.
I personally thought that the blob at the end was controlling the other clones like the mermaid and the boy and was leading him to release it the whole time so it could go on its own terms. And with the secret ending I think that it shows that the boy isn't a regular kid like how he falls like the rest of the clones when unplugged.
Since their life cycle seems to prefer water I believe the blob was trying to reach the sea as it could live safely in its "natural" habitat and of course escape and be hard to track down. I don't think it wanted to end its own life as you have many options to give up or destroy yourself ahead of time.
The reason it stops just short of the sea and the credits cut is to kind of show how close it came before it either expired from the fall or got exhausted and will soon expire/be recaptured.
+ManlyBadassHero I believe that the blob was controlling the boy using the long-haired creatures as a way to gain control. It was trying to set itself free. The alternate ending shows computers which represent you, the player. You, the player have been controlling the boy up until the blob took control of the boy near the end via long-haired creatures. The boy could breathe underwater after getting plugged by the long-haired creatures because he was now under the control of the blob; he became just like the rest of the zombies.
so is the cronenberg monster an actual thing irl? or is it just a game concept? im only asking because i dont thing the game says anything about a cronenberg monster.
I'm pretty sure "Cronenberg monster" is a reference to David Cronenberg, who is a filmmaker known for being either one of the first or one of the best in the body horror genre. I only know about him from a reference in Rick and Morty, so if you want to know more, you might want to look the guy up on IMDB or something.
really good explanation but your right its sad and depressing
They've created a monster that wants to crush his boss. It clearly has to do with society, technology, mind control, and the desire for deliberation. I was very disappointed by the secret ending. I mean, in the first ending you can obviously see that they were fucking with you by showing you the way, opening doors for you, helping you activate stuff then the bait thing. In the end, they got you were they wanted. So, I was hoping that the secret ending would allow us to mess with them and seeing how defeated they become when they realize that their plan ended up biting them in the ass.
The part about they may not be breeding child versions, does that not include the water girl thing? If you have thought about that, I'm curious what you actually think of it.
The scene where the boy was sucked into the blob monster as he was freeing it peculiarly reminded me of a sperm entering an egg. It looked symbolically like the promise of the birth of new life and it’s natural urgency to be free.
Even if the boy in a brief flash looked like he didn’t want to be sucked in, I think the blob monster needed him to guide it because it instinctively recognized the boy’s urge to be free as he was freeing them, and it couldn’t do it alone, and the boy naturally accepted it; like a sperm to an egg.
Still think there’s some type of conspiracy with the worms; maybe symbolism for how some of the few people at the top controlling the operation are equivalent to evil “worms,” vis a vis greedy CEOs and business people, forming and shaping people’s lives to serve them; like a sophisticated kind of slavery.
When the blob monster was escaping, I think that’s why the humans who (possibly) were or weren’t experiments of the “worms” but working for them were automatically trying to help the blob monster as soon as they had a chance (at the end, not the control helmet parts of the game) because they wanted the control to be free too.
Can’t quite come up with an explanation for the weird long haired swimming monsters. Maybe another experiment by the “worms?” And dogs, are like, dogs. Maybe they’re symbolic for a threat to thwart the spirit of freedom or, say, competition in society mmmmmm? 😂 Quite a poetic game.
Thank you Manly for another fantastic play-through. It’s always so interesting to hear your interpretations!!
Hey Manly....great video! Quick question....are you still sponsored? I haven't heard you make a reference to the headset sponsor in a while and I am just curious if it worked out or not.
could you possibly tell what he background music was?
Wow this explanation makes the game seem so much sadder :(
I get the feeling like the boy was being controlled by the blob(aka the player), just like the rest of the humans there.
He wants to escape, but we the player only leads the boy deeper inside. Probably to get the boy to complete our blob so we can escape the inside and get into the ocean. The whole mermaid scene was probably to enable the boy to breathe underwater so that he could join the blob in it's quest towards the ocean :( but it never did make it outside..
WAIT A MINUTE!!!
...
...
...
Leaving hate was an option?!?!?!?
Huh, that's oddly reminiscent of what Manly said on 6:45 where you have the choice for a source of pride or a sense of 'I am in control'. Even though this may be unintentional on his part, it's still pretty clever.
I have a theory. The boy is being controlled by worms or something that was evil, maybe a symbol of destruction. He is controlled to kill or unleash the ultimate form of the evil monster. Scientists study their technology, make traps and deadly things to prevent evil lurking towards the giant monster. And the people walking around like robots, they're probably a whole town being inspect for worms or an infection of the monster control. This could mean the sceintists were the good guys. The zombie looking things were probably those captured as a monster infected controlled person to be studied. At the end, the monster had probably failed to destroy and is left on the shore. The "ending set" in that glass case was a study for the landscape in which further escape of the giant monster would succeed. That really wraps everything up. There really might not be a true ending either. Developers of Limbo (same as Inside) wanted us to -Think-.
I didn't even notice the worm things
eggscape
ultron stank lol ik wtf
manly has some interesting speech...uh quirkiacks
He got plugged in by the girl and killed you and from then on the blob takes over and controls you to set him free
I'd still like to know what was creating that huge energy pulse that kills you if it hits you.
I believe in you
I know this might be a dumb question but is this game in the same universe as limbo? I only ask because of the brain controlling worm things
limbo, is part 1, inside is part 2 and where is part 3 ?................i want to part 3 play-dead game
Inside = Insight
There is something that is bothering about the Blob itself. It's surely made of humans, still living and breathing within that unstable form. I've been thinking, do you remember those people wearing an mask? What if they were part of an organization or a cult? And what's worse, those former "followers" could be "selected" regardless of being willingly or against their will to become part of the construction and thus leading into an accident to become the Blob?
I don't think there's a cult, I think this is the world now as city buildings look derelict and quite a bit of it is flooded. Most likely people live in a safe zone which you intrude upon at the end and in order to help maintain and build this safe zone they've hijacked their brain worm invader.
There's the possibility they made the brain worms in the first place but it doesn't really matter in the big picture of the contained story.
Perhaps the masks protect against the brain worm. They're worn by the black clothed security and handlers while the people watching the blob weren't wearing masks.
Why do you think he's a worm?
Tears in rain.
Lord Funface The Atomic Toaster this is more than a little nightmares I would say
For me this is how I explain the mystery of the game.
1. From both perspective of the game the boy sacfrifices in order to end the company or the experiment.
2. In the beginning , you see a group of people doing something about the failed slaves/experiments , actually the boy or the main character is an escaped slave/experiment which is it can still be controlled by the main source.
3. The boy is actually controlled by the blob thingy and once the boy entered the blob it became one of them , Its because the blob was controlling the boy to let the blob itself escape or end completely the company who enslaved the blob.
4. The game itself is showing how deep slavery is.
ok, i know its far too late for me to comment on this topic, its becoz i just know this game and just played it.
im sorry for my bad english, im not good at it, but i'll try to tell what is on my thought.
ok, this my opinion, i think, on that time, mind controlling human-like puppet is a commercial. They do what most works ppls do.
like become a farmer, a technician or every work that has much risk that ppl can't take. So that time, when some dissease occur on this human-like puppet, the core intelegen computer sending special puppet in form of a kid to fix this failure. So, in taking precaution, the company takes all their product back to prevent any fatal impact on the customer. we can see all the customer looks affraid and terrifying. In that time, every soldier think if our character (the kid) is one of the failure product and try to escape, that's why they shooting at u and wanted u to be collected and returned to the factory. But, in the middle of the way, seems this intelegen computer has some special puppet too that can breathe underwater that seems got prepared for this purpose, the situation when the kid pressed to go thru deep water. we can see this mermaid-like puppet sacrificing it self and its ability by giving the kid it core controller. the mermaid-like puppet stop moving and can be assumed died for the kid to have ability breathing underwater. at the end, we can see the core of the industry being stuck by failure puppet. like typical of any other stories, when we controlling this giant-odd thing, we find the moment when we entering some room with one person cornered on the glass, that person seems the head of this company, and ended up died wether it is because of his failure or his ego to keeping the factory to produce the puppets even if its has some failure. So, the end of this game is just when the core of the failure kicked out.
well i think that is my opinion. sorry for my bad English, i hope u guys understand
But, what if its us, the player, that controls the boy?!?!?
I disagree coz I think the scientists planned it... coz why else would those guys actually aid the boy's escape...
Nice
I didn't care if I was first, so I let someone else br first anyway I was playing MCPE, so ya I don't give a fuck if I'm first
Good theory, but I have a simpler one. Socialism. This game reeks of socialism. Great game, very entertaining, but definitely a socialistic government/big corporate control over the poor majority based on money. Perhaps some large government corporation found or made these brain worms (they may be alien or man made) and got huge $$ in their eyes. Cheap labor? Mindless workers who don't talk back, don't need breaks or lunches and don't require pay?! The potential profit margin is through the roof!! Now all you need to do is slowly introduce socialistic tendencies into the population and before long, boom, we are inside.
Notice how while the guys in the beginning want to kill or neutralize the boy(and do when he's caught, hence the dogs, guns, hostel machinery, etc.), yet when he reaches the office building and looks out the window, those people are not hostel toward him.
Furthermore, the hostel people all wear masks (even the kids), the people in the office building don't. This game reminds me of a mixture between Half-Life, George Orwell's book 1984, and the current state that America is heading towards.
That is so stupid