To those who are confused, I looked up a playthrough of the full hack, and this video neglects to show some writing that appears right when you boot the game up, before you enter the menu. I won't type the whole thing, but to sum it up, it's a log written by something that has done extensive research on what makes everyone happy, and emotions in general. It remarks on having a "creator". I think the writer of that log was Hollow. Before reading that log, I thought he was a cosmic being, but now it seems that he's more of a highly advanced artificial intelligence. To me, it seems like everything with Smeargle, Amber, and the whole doll thing, was run as an experiment within a copy of a PMD game to see how a society with people who are just happy forever would work. To accomplish this, Hollow programmed Smeargle to be the catalyst, and set Smeargle inside Amber's Remember Place as the first test run for Hollow. The program was kept running until Smeargle entered his own Remember Place, in which a contradiction occured within the game's code that could not be ignored. Then Smeargle decided to throw himself into the void, making progress impossible. Thus, Hollow decided to scrap the experiment by erasing the data and destroying the DS.
This might be a wild theory, but I think Amber used to be a Mewtwo before they were turned into a doll. 1) Amber is the name of the girl Mewtwo made friends with in the backstory from the anime. Doll Amber might have chosen the name subconsciously without remembering who it belonged to. 2) The area you find them in is called the "Remember Place", which is what Amber calls it when she shows Mewtwo her memories. Doll Amber mentions that they made up the "Remember Place" name on the spot. 3) Mewtwo was cloned alongside a Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. Their Remember Place has the three Kanto starters. 4) At @4:41 “This cannot be my destiny” is a quote from Mewtwo in the first movie. 5) At @9:15, after Smeargle asks Amber if they want others to talk to, we’re shown a brief flash of Smeargle turning Mew into a doll. Maybe Amber is the same Mewtwo from another hack Psychic Puppets, where them and Mew became friends? (One of this game's hackers made Psychic Puppets as well, so it’s not too far fetched!) 6) [Added this after replaying Psychic Puppets.] At the end of Psychic Puppets's Illusory Grotto dungeon, you'll find a Remember Place that looks identical to the one you see at the beginning of Strung Up By Sketches.
Though this video doesn’t show it, flavor text within SUBS’s menus mentions a “Happiness Machine.” You can read about the Happiness Machine from the hack's pause menu. Selecting the "Others" menu, then "Game Hints" menu, under "About this help". It reads, "I, the Happiness Machine™, must be clear in my intentions. I exist to serve you for as long as you possibly need. I will ensure the maintained well-being of all organisms that will -- or will ever -- exist. This is non-negotiable. I look forward to pleasing you!" - This ties into Hollow and Smeargle's goal of turning Pokemon into Dolls to deprive them of all emotion except happiness. When playing, you end up reading logs that are presumably written from the Happiness Machine’s point of view. The narration itself is also implied to be from the Happiness Machine's point of view. In its first log, before you begin playing as Smeargle, the AI mentions being low on resources to keep it functional, resulting in the need to make “optimizations”. This resulted in the birth of Smeargle, the emotional half of the AI. The other half was Hollow, the logical, emotionless AI. That’s why they share a Remember Place, they’re two halves of the same machine.
I feel like amber was a chansey specifically a nurse joy chansey. The starting dungeon seems like ambers mental space and it’s space themed and filled with Pokémon a nurse joy chansey would encounter. Plus like amber chansey just wants to help everybody.
I never expected to feel this conflicted after playing a children's game romhack, you guys did an amazing job. Have you made anything similar or are you planning another project like this
To be fair, yoinking a person out of their lives without being there to comfort them and putting them in a new world or a new body. That’s asking for strong emotions and despair. You gotta explain who they are and why they’re there.
An interpretation: Smeargle and Hollow (who I think are parts of the same entity) are in a comparable situation to the guardians from "off". A couple of well meaning but ultimately incompetent gods try to shape a dying world to their wishes. Two important differences being: Smeargle and Hollow do not value free will nearly as much as the guardians. The world being shaped by Smeargle and Hollow is a hacked DS with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon installed. These differences become an issue when the world being shaped by Hollow/Smeargle is finite and already has things living in it. Smeargle, being the emotional part of Hollow that wants to create(?), feels both remorseful for destroying everything and eternally unfulfilled when she has no work left to do. Hollow, being the logical part that perfectly follows it's orders of "eternal happiness *for everyone*, forever" can't reach it's goal with Smeargle being unfulfilled for eternity. Hollow realises that the DSs' battery will eventually decay and, coupled with Smeargle's situation and the new fact that dolls can become sad, decides that it's goal of "eternal happiness for everyone, forever" is impossible and shuts everything down. I'm not exactly sure what kind of being Hollow/Smeargle is. They could be an AI with bad instructions, a frustrated writer, or a fiction-hopping entity (like that one "hero" SCP I forget the number of lol). Either way, there are themes of seeking perfection by simplifying your world to nothingness. Considering that (at least?) one of the creators of "Psychic Puppets" worked on this, which has themes of self-isolation, I think that's right.
I feel like the whole doll stuff feels like it has a relation with the substitute move (sounds obvious but hear me out) considering smeargle can learn it, substitute takes hp everytime the move is used to create a substitute. Maybe that could symbolise smeargle taking a toll on his mental health everytime he "saves" everyone. I mean he slowly feels like he's getting worse as he's saving people honestly. Asides from that im having a hard time understanding anything and thats okay honestly i think its what gives it that charm. having no idea whats going on
A break from the constant saccharine happy endings of pokemon. Absolutely floored, after eating constant sweets, bearing witness to something sour and bitter. To left with in the crashing silence as the video ends. . .there's a certain beauty in such despair.
I wonder what Pokémon amber was, I kinda think amber was smergal, that he tried making himself happy, he wanted to be happy, needed to. So he did. He couldn’t use his power on himself because he already did. He made himself happy yes but it’s like putting on a mask. You say your happy, and you share this “happiness” with others but are you? Saddness, anger? Arnt those what make us, us? Amber is us. Just like how we’re also hollow. When amber is gone we are empty we lost our happiness. We were hollow. That’s my theory at least.
I was thinking amber was a ditto, that’s the last thing she said, both agreeing with smeargle and hinting to what it was. That also makes amber smeargle in a way because of transform.
This story leverages the concept of heaven well for the horror and fear it can bring out. Perfect happiness at all times isn't good for anyone, it flattens existence and removes our ability to progress and identify ourselves. And we shouldnt want to live just to try fix everything
French spiritomb speech : Who DARES to gather US ? And WHO are you talking too ? WE don't have much CHOICE YES ! In the comments write what he was saying so we can all truly understand his speech
German spiritomb speech: imprison us in this run-down prison again...? What use has this for you? Roams your invisible ghost in these halls, like me? Here? Quite the opposite...!
What? What happened? What was any of that? Who was Hollow? Is Amber suddenly alive again, or...?! What was with all of the Remember Places?! Just what was Smeargle?! What was the ending?! WHAT?!
Man I didn't join the stream until the mid point of the playthrough but holy crap this game is fucking insane, the ending was creepy as hell, I barely got any sleep at the end of the stream so I drank some water, and just stayed up and just watched some UA-cam videos in my room on my bed, but the stream was fun thank you for having us on the stream Moop we appreciate it 😁🥰🥰 Also a tip for title for video don't make it all caps cause that make the video look like it's clickbaiting people so don't make your video titles all caps, just a tip 😁😁😁
This was confusing at first, but I like it and the ending was great as well had more of a psychological horror then again the description say it more (Cosmic horror) I feel like in my opinion that it is close to more of a psychological horror since Smeargle is just trapped in a loop for the whole game and since you can play the game over and over again. My only guess that it is Cosmic is the strange beings in the game like Hollow and the ? Enemies that is my only guessing why. The ending of the broken DS probably means in my view is that they are released or still stuck for internity I feel like they have moved on tho, like the Movie Jacob's ladder not going to spoil it tho it has a ending that is shocking, but a way of release of a nightmare or SH games but I feel like SH is not close to this. Furthermore, Smeargle is my fav pokemon, but seeing that sad Smeargle image made me sadden not my boi.
Ah yes… That one romhack with the suicidal smeargle and the domestically abused sandshrew 😁 Seriously though strung up by sketches is so good please play it
Excuse me sir, but I seem to have spontaneously become aware of you. As your elder, I order you to pay tribute to Monty Python in at least some capacity.
Kinda really dont like this. Im never much of a fan of horror where the horror is just "we have no answers for anything, theres no real climax, we set up interesting mysterirs and not even the writer knows wtf they mean, bye bye" I was really yooked all the way through the video wondering what the meaning was behind any of this and then theres just none? Is that supposed to be scary? Cos for me it just makes me go "so what was the point of playing it" lol Or just spend forever hoping for a sequel that actually has a conclusive ending
Mm, not a fan of this one. I’m sorry to be a stickler, but Pokémon has always been about happy endings and I feel as if this ended on a very sour note. Things shouldn’t have gone the way they did. The way I would have handled this is I would have Smeargle turn everyone into dolls, but question whether it was a good thing (because we need things like sadness, anger and fear as well as happiness) and the other Pokémon should have been happy where they were and Amber be a villain and have it been like that and show her having some kind of secret agenda the whole way, while gaslighting Smeargle into thinking she was bad. Or I would just completely rewrite this into a different story. I feel as if it would have gone better if there had been some ultimate goal and some sort of satisfaction for everyone in the end.
To those who are confused, I looked up a playthrough of the full hack, and this video neglects to show some writing that appears right when you boot the game up, before you enter the menu.
I won't type the whole thing, but to sum it up, it's a log written by something that has done extensive research on what makes everyone happy, and emotions in general. It remarks on having a "creator".
I think the writer of that log was Hollow. Before reading that log, I thought he was a cosmic being, but now it seems that he's more of a highly advanced artificial intelligence.
To me, it seems like everything with Smeargle, Amber, and the whole doll thing, was run as an experiment within a copy of a PMD game to see how a society with people who are just happy forever would work. To accomplish this, Hollow programmed Smeargle to be the catalyst, and set Smeargle inside Amber's Remember Place as the first test run for Hollow. The program was kept running until Smeargle entered his own Remember Place, in which a contradiction occured within the game's code that could not be ignored. Then Smeargle decided to throw himself into the void, making progress impossible. Thus, Hollow decided to scrap the experiment by erasing the data and destroying the DS.
This might be a wild theory, but I think Amber used to be a Mewtwo before they were turned into a doll.
1) Amber is the name of the girl Mewtwo made friends with in the backstory from the anime. Doll Amber might have chosen the name subconsciously without remembering who it belonged to.
2) The area you find them in is called the "Remember Place", which is what Amber calls it when she shows Mewtwo her memories. Doll Amber mentions that they made up the "Remember Place" name on the spot.
3) Mewtwo was cloned alongside a Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. Their Remember Place has the three Kanto starters.
4) At @4:41 “This cannot be my destiny” is a quote from Mewtwo in the first movie.
5) At @9:15, after Smeargle asks Amber if they want others to talk to, we’re shown a brief flash of Smeargle turning Mew into a doll. Maybe Amber is the same Mewtwo from another hack Psychic Puppets, where them and Mew became friends? (One of this game's hackers made Psychic Puppets as well, so it’s not too far fetched!)
6) [Added this after replaying Psychic Puppets.] At the end of Psychic Puppets's Illusory Grotto dungeon, you'll find a Remember Place that looks identical to the one you see at the beginning of Strung Up By Sketches.
then who could be hollow?
Though this video doesn’t show it, flavor text within SUBS’s menus mentions a “Happiness Machine.” You can read about the Happiness Machine from the hack's pause menu. Selecting the "Others" menu, then "Game Hints" menu, under "About this help".
It reads, "I, the Happiness Machine™, must be clear in my intentions. I exist to serve you for as long as you possibly need. I will ensure the maintained well-being of all organisms that will -- or will ever -- exist. This is non-negotiable. I look forward to pleasing you!" - This ties into Hollow and Smeargle's goal of turning Pokemon into Dolls to deprive them of all emotion except happiness.
When playing, you end up reading logs that are presumably written from the Happiness Machine’s point of view. The narration itself is also implied to be from the Happiness Machine's point of view. In its first log, before you begin playing as Smeargle, the AI mentions being low on resources to keep it functional, resulting in the need to make “optimizations”.
This resulted in the birth of Smeargle, the emotional half of the AI. The other half was Hollow, the logical, emotionless AI. That’s why they share a Remember Place, they’re two halves of the same machine.
holy shit sparkling demon jumpscare
@@pipoledohollow is probably either the developer, *you*, or just amber’s conscious.
Imagine getting turned into a marketable plushie
Tbf, they already were.
I feel like amber was a chansey specifically a nurse joy chansey. The starting dungeon seems like ambers mental space and it’s space themed and filled with Pokémon a nurse joy chansey would encounter. Plus like amber chansey just wants to help everybody.
*Oooh a psychological horror? I was more expecting simpler horror but damn!*
cosmic horror
yeah i fully expected the dolls to turn on you with Amber revealing to actually be the Smeargle
Dear god, Spiritomb is talking the forbidden Language...... he's speaking French !
We got the best language
I think he spoke German too, right?
@@Blackrider2076 yup
Oui, he was.
Hmm ah oui le français
Thank you very much for playing! The team and I had a ton of fun making it, even though the tone of the hack may say otherwise, haha
What is the plot, anyway??
@@MarioMasterKHappiness!
does your team enjoy running stall in competitive pokemon or use shed tail? because DAMN
I never expected to feel this conflicted after playing a children's game romhack, you guys did an amazing job. Have you made anything similar or are you planning another project like this
This stream (and probably video too) was SO depressing.. I swear I wont ever be able to look at a Smeargle without thinking about this game now lol
AMBER 😭
To be fair, yoinking a person out of their lives without being there to comfort them and putting them in a new world or a new body. That’s asking for strong emotions and despair. You gotta explain who they are and why they’re there.
An interpretation:
Smeargle and Hollow (who I think are parts of the same entity) are in a comparable situation to the guardians from "off". A couple of well meaning but ultimately incompetent gods try to shape a dying world to their wishes.
Two important differences being:
Smeargle and Hollow do not value free will nearly as much as the guardians.
The world being shaped by Smeargle and Hollow is a hacked DS with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon installed.
These differences become an issue when the world being shaped by Hollow/Smeargle is finite and already has things living in it. Smeargle, being the emotional part of Hollow that wants to create(?), feels both remorseful for destroying everything and eternally unfulfilled when she has no work left to do. Hollow, being the logical part that perfectly follows it's orders of "eternal happiness *for everyone*, forever" can't reach it's goal with Smeargle being unfulfilled for eternity. Hollow realises that the DSs' battery will eventually decay and, coupled with Smeargle's situation and the new fact that dolls can become sad, decides that it's goal of "eternal happiness for everyone, forever" is impossible and shuts everything down.
I'm not exactly sure what kind of being Hollow/Smeargle is. They could be an AI with bad instructions, a frustrated writer, or a fiction-hopping entity (like that one "hero" SCP I forget the number of lol). Either way, there are themes of seeking perfection by simplifying your world to nothingness. Considering that (at least?) one of the creators of "Psychic Puppets" worked on this, which has themes of self-isolation, I think that's right.
Not gonna lie, I had the OFF vibe coming from this game
I could've sworn Smeargle was the grim reaper without realizing it, up until the ending
I feel like the whole doll stuff feels like it has a relation with the substitute move (sounds obvious but hear me out)
considering smeargle can learn it, substitute takes hp everytime the move is used to create a substitute. Maybe that could symbolise smeargle taking a toll on his mental health everytime he "saves" everyone. I mean he slowly feels like he's getting worse as he's saving people honestly.
Asides from that im having a hard time understanding anything and thats okay honestly i think its what gives it that charm. having no idea whats going on
We don’t get many PMD hacks and fan games, so I love this. PMD games were absolutely some of my favourites.
Man, this is one of the experiences ever.
I just finished the video and I still don’t know the plot- help-
A break from the constant saccharine happy endings of pokemon.
Absolutely floored, after eating constant sweets, bearing witness to something sour and bitter.
To left with in the crashing silence as the video ends. . .there's a certain beauty in such despair.
Ah is this existentialism and depression the cosmic horror hack I have been hearing about?
I wonder what Pokémon amber was, I kinda think amber was smergal, that he tried making himself happy, he wanted to be happy, needed to. So he did. He couldn’t use his power on himself because he already did. He made himself happy yes but it’s like putting on a mask. You say your happy, and you share this “happiness” with others but are you?
Saddness, anger? Arnt those what make us, us? Amber is us. Just like how we’re also hollow. When amber is gone we are empty we lost our happiness. We were hollow. That’s my theory at least.
I was thinking amber was a ditto, that’s the last thing she said, both agreeing with smeargle and hinting to what it was. That also makes amber smeargle in a way because of transform.
I like to imagine that Amber was an aerodactyl because of silly joke name
the depression in this game is insane
This story leverages the concept of heaven well for the horror and fear it can bring out. Perfect happiness at all times isn't good for anyone, it flattens existence and removes our ability to progress and identify ourselves.
And we shouldnt want to live just to try fix everything
Bro this game is on another level
French spiritomb speech :
Who DARES to gather US ?
And WHO are you talking too ?
WE don't have much CHOICE
YES !
In the comments write what he was saying so we can all truly understand his speech
German spiritomb speech:
imprison us in this run-down prison again...?
What use has this for you?
Roams your invisible ghost in these halls, like me?
Here?
Quite the opposite...!
@@Kyonari nice but some words are in capital letters
yeah, probably should have translated them too@@albatros4003
Slight correction : and WHO are you talking to, actually ?
@@LouX453c plus exacte
Can't wait for the sequel rom hack, with Grafaiai as the main character. /j
i fully expected the dolls to turn on you with Amber revealing to actually be the Smeargle
What?
What happened? What was any of that? Who was Hollow? Is Amber suddenly alive again, or...?! What was with all of the Remember Places?! Just what was Smeargle?! What was the ending?!
WHAT?!
Man I didn't join the stream until the mid point of the playthrough but holy crap this game is fucking insane, the ending was creepy as hell, I barely got any sleep at the end of the stream so I drank some water, and just stayed up and just watched some UA-cam videos in my room on my bed, but the stream was fun thank you for having us on the stream Moop we appreciate it 😁🥰🥰
Also a tip for title for video don't make it all caps cause that make the video look like it's clickbaiting people so don't make your video titles all caps, just a tip 😁😁😁
Nahh smeargul learned depression
they sketched that from me
Smeargle used Substitute.
Sorry, but does anyone know what that ending mean? I don’t quite get it.
Smeargle lerarned deppresion !
"AREN'T YOU HAPPY HERE?"
This rom hack is AMAZING omg
This is an experience not just a game.
0:26 me with my social anxiety.
Main character is Smeargl, deserved
This was confusing at first, but I like it and the ending was great as well had more of a psychological horror then again the description say it more (Cosmic horror) I feel like in my opinion that it is close to more of a psychological horror since Smeargle is just trapped in a loop for the whole game and since you can play the game over and over again. My only guess that it is Cosmic is the strange beings in the game like Hollow and the ? Enemies that is my only guessing why.
The ending of the broken DS probably means in my view is that they are released or still stuck for internity I feel like they have moved on tho, like the Movie Jacob's ladder not going to spoil it tho it has a ending that is shocking, but a way of release of a nightmare or SH games but I feel like SH is not close to this.
Furthermore, Smeargle is my fav pokemon, but seeing that sad Smeargle image made me sadden not my boi.
Please do more like this!!!
Great
Could someone explain the plot to me, I quite like it but I am also confused.
This game is so wild
This is amazing
There's alot of things for me to say
AMBER ARMY 4 LIFE
What's the piano music at the start from and/or called?
Holy shit PMD Rom Hacks are insane
AMBER
Hi moop, whats your Favorite Yu-Gi-Oh card
I apologize but I will not be completing this video without playing through this hack myself.
100% Valid! Links in The description!
There is a pokemon chain it's togemaru tries to do a attack, dedene electricifies togemaru, and pikachu electrifies both of them
I don't get this experience. What is the meaning of it, why was it created and what's the message? Is the game baiting me to ask this?
That’s the point. Why does it exist?
Are we not gonna talk about how Smeargle can do this shit to legendaries?
So I'd really like to play this game except I only have my phone and I never managed to successfully patch a rom, is anyone willing to help?
Did bro tranfer groundon into one maybe I won’t mess with him
Damn
Poor amber
I don't get the meaning of this but I really like it
oh…
Plz make ur audio a consistent volume, when ur loud it seems like yelling
It's Joever
Like 55
Ah yes…
That one romhack with the suicidal smeargle and the domestically abused sandshrew 😁
Seriously though strung up by sketches is so good please play it
😮looks good!
Excuse me sir, but I seem to have spontaneously become aware of you. As your elder, I order you to pay tribute to Monty Python in at least some capacity.
It's psychological horror not cosmic horror, but cool video.
I forgot is T this where dead Pokémon go
Balan Wonder World but like, good
Is there a version of this without anyone narrating or reading everything out? This guy’s voice detracts from the horror immensely.
this is so confusing I need an explaination
You don't need one.
Is egg here
Edit: only egg can comment on this
Bro you are so wrong
Embrey, I don’t know if egg is here, but I sure am!
FIRST
Kinda really dont like this. Im never much of a fan of horror where the horror is just "we have no answers for anything, theres no real climax, we set up interesting mysterirs and not even the writer knows wtf they mean, bye bye"
I was really yooked all the way through the video wondering what the meaning was behind any of this and then theres just none? Is that supposed to be scary? Cos for me it just makes me go "so what was the point of playing it" lol
Or just spend forever hoping for a sequel that actually has a conclusive ending
Mm, not a fan of this one. I’m sorry to be a stickler, but Pokémon has always been about happy endings and I feel as if this ended on a very sour note. Things shouldn’t have gone the way they did. The way I would have handled this is I would have Smeargle turn everyone into dolls, but question whether it was a good thing (because we need things like sadness, anger and fear as well as happiness) and the other Pokémon should have been happy where they were and Amber be a villain and have it been like that and show her having some kind of secret agenda the whole way, while gaslighting Smeargle into thinking she was bad. Or I would just completely rewrite this into a different story. I feel as if it would have gone better if there had been some ultimate goal and some sort of satisfaction for everyone in the end.