#ash plays outer wilds

[heroinetales]

Exploring the aptly named Stranger (then again what else can you call it? lol) has been really cool so far. Been finding reels of the inhabitances of said space station and they have a depressing story from what I can tell based on context clues and environmental story telling

The Eye sending out signals and these fellows find it and were marveled with it at first but then came to hate it. I don't know what's all about but it does explain the burned down church/temple that has the Eye's symbol

I'm really curious as to know what's inside that submerged vault then again maybe I don't wanna know. Only time will tell of course with more investigation. Also I'm wondering what this guy's story is since their picture is scratched out (must've pissed off somebody):

[660percent]

I’m really not sure how this happened. Was the sun so big at the end of the loop that it went over the quantum moon’s orbit??

I tried to replicate this outside of the quantum moon but it seemed to refuse to orbit the hourglass twins (or I just got extremely unlucky)

[milommid]

they came :3

[hyruviandoctor]

All of my friends as they finally finish Outer Wilds after me begging for years for them to play it:

[ashmcgivern]

holy heck how does that Outer Wilds art have that many notes dkgjh thanks guys for liking the thing I did in a fit of emotions one night listening to 14.8 Billion Years

[ozymoron]

why do i always wake up so depressed

[theguardianace]

the universe is, and we are

[GIF ID: An infinitely looping GIF of various Outer Wilds drawings inspired by the Minecraft End Poem. Individual frame IDs are found below the cut. /end ID]

["And the universe said I love you": the Hatchling at the Eye of the Universe. They are seen from behind, staring at a glowing purple Nomai Eye symbol.]

["and the universe said you have played the game well": an overview of the solar system. All the celestial bodies in the game orbit a large, reddening sun.]

["and the universe said everything you need is within you": Giant's Deep. Multiple cyclones and an island are seen above the water's surface, and jellyfish and an electric current hide below.]

["and the universe said you are stronger than you know": Dark Bramble. The Hatchling's ship sails past a partially obscured angler fish.]

["and the universe said you are the daylight": Ember Twin. The edge of Chert's camp and an entrance to a Lakebed Cave can be seen. The sun is large over the horizon.]

["and the universe said you are the nighttime": The core of the Ash Twin Project. The warp core and masks are seen.]

["and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you": Brittle Hollow. Through a hole in the crust, the black hole is seen. The text warps into the hole.]

["and the universe said the light you seek is within you": The White Hole Station surrounded by chunks of Brittle Hollow's crust. The station and text warp around the white hole.]

["and the universe said you are not alone": Timber Hearth. Porphy and Marl chat outside a house, Tephra leads Galena over a bridge, Rutile watches from afar, and Hal and Hornfels chat while walking down the cliffside. Many trees are seen.]

["and the universe said you are not seperate from every other thing": the core of the Interloper. Pye's body and recorder can be seen floating.]

["and the universe said you are the universe, tasting itself, talking to itself, reading it's own code": The Quantum Moon's south pole. Solanum is watching the vortex above her.]

["and the universe said I love you": the Travelers gathered around the campfire at the Ancient Glade. They all are playing their instruments.]

["because you are love": a closeup of the Hatchling. Though it is obscured by their visor, they are smiling tearfully.]

[twilightprince101]

A fun thought experiment for fellow Outer Wilds heads out there

So in the Probe Tracking Module, it's confirmed that the Ash Twin Project has been looping for millions of iterations. Millions of times the same 22 minutes have played out. Which means that for millions of loops, your player character / OC experienced their first launch.

Which means that, on their very first loop, what your astronaut did was what they've been doing for hundreds of years and millions of rewinds.

On my first loop, I raced towards the Deep Space Probe, knocked it off its orbit, then tried and failed to enter the Interloper, leading to my death. This is what my Hearthian did for hundreds of years.

What did your Hatchling do for hundreds of years on their first launch, completely unaware?

[patricia-taxxon]

Do you think you would've liked outer wilds if your expectations were different?

Probably not. Like initial expectations aside, the game set up its own expectations in its first moments that it also ended up fumbling. Like after a few cycles I was like, "oh, it's secret of monkey island, i'm going on knowledge fetchquests, i'm exploring the world and then being made to notice something that makes me interact with it differently like using item A on environment B." but then the game couldn't figure out how to escalate its difficulty for the endgame so it just got increasingly annoying and obtuse and horrible. Going on the several minute journey to *** ****** just to discover on two separate trips that i was missing some key item is possibly the most upset i've ever been at a game in my life. The ash twin puzzle bounced off my brain with complete destructive interference, I had all the information and apparently interpreted it correctly, but there was (for the first time) simply an execution error in my play that I didn't understand and couldn't remedy because it's a riddle game.

[jacethebeltsculptor]

Outer Wilds Expedition Log #3

Since I've discovered people find these tremendously entertaining, I figured I'd continue journaling my expedition into the Outer Wilds here on Tumblr. Where we last left off, I'd just made my first few runs to Space Florida (Giant's Deep), gave Frog NASA's resident slacker a scathing peer review, found some hints on how quantum objects work and how I might go about locating that ghost moon that allegedly exists. I also had some theories about what happened to the Nomai which didn't pan out that I'll get into in a moment. After my first few runs to Giant's Deep, I discovered that both my spaceship and space suit function as a submersible and diving suit as well. I'm not well-educated enough to know if the physics of that check out or not, but either way, I think I might've not given Outer Wilds engineering team enough credit. This was a game-changer to me, since basically the first thing I did when I booted up the tutorial was throw myself down a geyser in the name of scientific interest. Despite allegedly being aquatic, I drowned pretty quickly, but I noticed evidence of a camp being down there. This, combined with the dude on the moon mentioning that Feldspar's signal was broadcasting from Timber Heath, really piqued my interest. I spent a loop just exploring the geysers as best I could, but the caves didn't seem to lead down to the core of the planet or anything, and once I was down there, I realized Feldspar's signal was coming from somewhere on the surface. I did, however, find old Nomai writing which remarks on observing a nascent aquatic species, which dashes my theories that the Forerunners Nomai evolved into the player's species over millions of years, explaining their disappearance. I managed to do this without drowning, which is a rare show of competence from me. After that, I made me way up to the surface to look into that seed from DARBIS (Darkness and Relative Bramble In Space) that coincidentally seemed to have Feldspar's signal coming from it. Shockingly, it's bigger on the inside. So, gonna have to visit Dark Bramble at some point to figure that one out. Then, I took a nice cozy position on the observation deck to watch the supernova in peace- a lovely, sentimental gesture that I utterly screwed the pooch on due to the planet turning to face the other way. Despite having active investigations going on 2.5 different planets, I decided that I was done being afraid of the sun and decided to check out those two paired planets orbiting it. Once I was there, I noticed something closely orbiting the sun itself, so I decided to be a badass and land on that instead. I failed and got burned to a crisp. On my next loop, I went to visit the Twins. I originally landed on Ash Twin, but after finding nothing of note, I- in my endless foresight and wisdom- decided to just jump to Ember Twin. This led to me to breaking both of my shins and storing my femurs in my lungs, but did not kill me. Immediately, anyway. I started by finding the crashed escape pod below and working my way through the caves, before dying at the entrance to the safe zone by jetpacking my way straight into a cactus and losing the last of my blood. Now, I'm only about halfway through my last play session- you know, the part where nothing gets accomplished- but I'm apparently reaching Tumblr's character limit, so I'm going to have to split this into a whole separate post. Which is probably good, because there should and ought to be a legal limit to how much stupidity should be allowed in one post. Until next time, Tumblrites!

[thecreaturecodex]

The Great Game: Outer Gods and Great Old Ones

As the deities that are most physically tied to the Material Plane, it is perhaps unsurprising that the various entities collected together as “Outer Gods” and “Great Old Ones” have been paying attention to the Great Game. The allegiances of some of the prominent members of these pantheons are as follows:

Abhoth The Unclean God is patron of disease and fecundity, and knows how these two things are tied together. More are born than can survive, and many of those that die fall to disease before anything else. As such, Abhoth is well versed in ecology, and knows that Lamashtu is overpopulating Golarion with her monsters. Abhoth’s followers seek to spread plagues among monstrous species in order to keep their numbers down, and as such, Mormo counts Abhoth as an ally.

Azathoth The Primal Chaos does not seem to have noticed the Great Game, or much of anything that has happened on Golarion in centuries. This is probably for the best. If any of his attention were to be turned onto the conflict, it could easily become a disaster for both parties…something that Nyarlathotep is hoping for, and working to make happen.

Bokrug The Water Lizard fondly remembers Mormo from before the evolution of true mammals, and they have hunted and sparred together and even mated in the past. Bokrug may be difficult to rouse from his slumber, but his ire is terrible when provoked, and is likely to be directed at the followers of Lamashtu.

Cthulhu The Dreamer in the Deep has dreamt of Golarion, and one or two of his star-spawn have come there. But he cares not for the Great Game; he has his own stars that need to be right once again. A star-spawn of Cthulhu is a dangerous agent of its own right, and one more likely to support Lamashtu than Mormo.

Hastur The King in Yellow respects Lamashtu and her ravenous appetites. Although he has his own plans to absorb chunks of Golarion, or the whole world if he can, into the Nightmare Kingdom of Carcosa, he is at least nominally on the Mother of Monster’s side. As long as their cultists can keep sharing the same sybaritic festivities.

Ithaqua Ithaqua is more concerned with consuming anyone on either side that he can sink his talons into. The Wind Walker is slightly more favorably minded towards Lamashtu than Mormo, but any relationship between their cults is likely to be a tenuous one that could break down into ravenous hunger at any point.

Mhar Mhar wants off of Golarion. He sees a change in the status quo as the best way of achieving that goal, and is resentful of lamia clerics of Lamashtu for helping Karzoug the Runelord to build a palace on his surface and deface him. Mhar’s release would likely be devastating for Mormo’s goals of making Golarion a richer and more diverse ecosystem. But on the other hand, volcanic ash and lava rock makes for excellent fertilizer, and his eruption might not be as destructive as he hopes it will be.

Nhimbaloth As a devourer of souls and a corrupter of wild things, Nhimbaloth is an ally of Lamashtu. Of course, she does respect Mormo’s goals of eating Lamashtu as a fellow apex predator. But Nhimbaloth thinks that the Goddess of Predators is too arrogant and needs to be taken down a peg. Nhimbaloth would happily eat Mormo herself if given half a chance, and for that reason, Mormo keeps a wide berth of Nhimbaloth’s home world, Voidbracken.

Nyarlathotep The Crawling Chaos is delighted by this galaxy spanning conflict, and on the surface is playing both sides. Lamashtu is his real dog in the fight, as he views Lamashtu as being more likely to lead Golarion to ruin, cracking open and releasing Rovagug. That would be a fun show to watch, seeing how the Rough Beast would react after eons of imprisonment. The Mask of Nyarlathotep that is most actively involved is the Black Pharaoh, whose cults are pushing technological advances into the hands of demon cultists and dangerous maneaters.

Orgesh The Faceless God is technically on Lamashtu’s side, although not by any direct aiding or abetting. Orgesh wants to fight Mormo himself. And is sending his chardra to pick fights with her worshipers, and is gunning for her most powerful servitors himself, in the hopes of getting Mormo’s attention. Worst case scenario, Orgesh will be killed and be able to respawn on another planet. Unless Mormo gets sick of his interference, and starts doing research on a way to kill him for real before setting her sights higher.

Shub-Nugganoth* The Goat of the Woods views Lamashtu as a kindred spirit, and the two of them have indeed collaborated on the spawning of horrors in the past. They are doing so again, notably through the personage of one of the Goat’s most powerful mortal worshipers in Avistan, a fleshwarping-obsessed alchemist named Doctor Agatha Shiny. Doctor Shiny and her creations are actively hunting down Mormo’s allies in order to transform them into blasphemous horrors, or just murder them.

Tsathoggua Saint Toad knows what it’s like to be forgotten and abandoned. He is a supporter of Mormo, if only because she’s the underdog in this fight, and Tsathoggua has a soft spot for underdogs, as much as he would deny that. Mormo knows that the Father of Night is a fickle and somewhat dangerous ally, so doesn’t rely on his help, but does appreciate his guidance and wisdom.

Yig The Father of Serpents calls Mormo “sister”, and the Goddess of Predators calls Yig “brother” in return. This may be an actual genealogical relationship, it may not be. But Yig is among Mormo’s closest allies, and the two are active collaborators. Those colonies of serpentfolk who worship Yig are hotspots for burgeoning cults of Mormo, as they see the two ophidian Old Ones as a way to reclaim some of the lost glory of the Age of Serpents without relying on the increasingly unstable Ydersius.

Yog-Sothoth The Key and the Gate views things on a vast, cosmic scale, even more than the other Outer Gods. As such, the safety and long term stability of the galaxy is his highest priority (after all, it has to collide with another galaxy in approximately 1.2 billion years, and then enough of it has to be around to decay into degenerate matter as the universe shifts past its stelliferous era. So anything that dramatically accelerates that process, or might get large portions of the galaxy pulled out of the Material Plane altogether, are not ideal outcomes for Yog-Sothoth. As such, he supports Mormo, but is doing so in a subtle way—opening portals in the right places, weakening planar boundaries—rather than sending his children to fight en masse.

*This is the name I am going to be using for that particular Outer God in the future. Clearly the same entity that has been developed into a character by Mythos authors over the last 100 years, but doesn't have a racist slur built into the name.

[heroinetales]

I dozed off around that green fire and when I awoke the bodies were gone which freaked me out. So I go outside and noticed the architecture is sound and everything is lit up

This is a shot in the dark (pun not intended) but I'm guessing I'm either in a dream world or a simulation because this planet definitely wasn't here before

So the fire is obviously the connection between this place and the real world. And because of the fire I know those fellows are alive because I heard screaming twice. They probably died when the reservoir broke and when that tower in Cinder Isles fell due to water extinguishing the flames. If that's the case that's fucking depressing

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Was thinking of an idea for an Outer Wilds dlc in the same vein as the Echoes Of The Eye completing the picture of why the Eye stopped sending out a signal for no apparent reason.

My idea for the dlc can start with a glitch in the Ash Twin Project taking us back wayyyy back in time rather than just 22 minutes (maybe by us finding another warp core and putting one in the Ash Twin after the sun dies and taking the duplicate to the Vessel, going into the Eye and causing the big bang, making enough energy to send us back way longer or something idk)

And then the second dlc will center around a much older species that lived in this solar system and found out about the universe dying, prompting deep research into ways to reverse it, leading it to creating the Eye and launching it into orbit in their solar system, emitting a signal out to the universe, hoping later species will get it and use it at the end of the world.

Maybe they delayed the signal somehow to only start when stars begin dying, maybe they destroyed themselves in the process of deploying the Eye. Maybe they did that on purpose. Maybe it was only a small group within them that agreed to do it. Maybe one of them leaves an echo of themselves behind to explain the purpose of the Eye to whoever finds it. Maybe they lived on Dark Bramble's past planet and that's why their message was lost to time when it was destroyed by the dark bramble. Maybe they join your song when you restart the universe again when you come back to the Ash Twin Project after figuring out their story in the distant past. Maybe they are a species that only has one eye.

Goddd would I love seeing that kind of story play out

[hoshigumayuugi]

just played outer wilds for the first time

I have a. question.

on the Ember Twin, there's that station where you can redirect power from the Sunless City to the wormhole machine thing and put the wormholes in the little slots

what was the point of that? was that just to teach you how wormholes worked? I kept getting confused cuz I thought you had to set that up every time you wanted to warp from the Ash Twin and so I spent way longer than I should trying to get to Sun Station for example.

[celestialorcas]

The Outer Archives

Spoilers ahead for all of The Outer Wilds, all of Echos of The Eye DLC, and all of The Magnus Archives

So played outer wilds a couple years back, and its remained as my favorite game of all time, so I got to thinking recently, which locations in outer wilds can be mapped onto different fears from The Magnus Archives which i also loved! (Not as much as outer wilds but not really a fair comparison-) So today I got to work and made this:

First obvious thing before I go into my reasoning's for each is Timber Hearth is clearly missing, thats just cause I could not think of a link to any of the fears, it really is just a chill place- Anyway my reasoning's (some are obvious but bear with me) The Sun: Represents the end, I thought about maybe The Extinction, but thats more the end of humanity with everything else carrying on, the sun I think perfectly represents the end cause it's supernovae-ing alongside the rest of the universe, everything is ending and the sun serves as a manifestation of that. The Ember Twin: All those little cramped caves systems slowly filling up with sand that you can get buried and crushed in The Ash Twin: It's the centre of the whole loop, its the ash twin project after all, everything that happens in the game can be attributed to the ash twin project, something out of your control till the end that youre stuck in The Attlerock: Esker..... Its a tiny moon thats easy to miss, with the character who in game is forgotten about a lot by the rest of the Hearthians, a quiet space for them to be alone and forgotten Brittle Hollow and Hollow's Lantern: The whole thing is slowly falling apart and being destroyed, catalysed by the big fire rocks from Hollow's Lantern being chucked at it, Represents collapse and destruction Giant's Deep: Big water planet, open space, tornados that can throw you from a vast ocean planet, into the infinite reaches of space. The depths that Gabbro swears they say a sea monster in, very vast. Dark Bramble: I can see how people could think of The Dark for this, the anglerfish being blind and hidden out of sight, but I think corruption fits better for the "planet" itself, it wasnt always Dark Bramble after all, it was once an ice planet that dark bramble corrupted and grew on until it took over its host, shattering it. The Interloper: The cause of the slaughter of this games Nomai clan, senseless destruction and killing just by chance (The Trickster from Doctor Who/SJA would have a field day with this) The Quantum Moon: Constantly changing from what you expect it to be and what it should look like. It's surface is different depending on what planet it orbits, and everything on it moves around, the world is not right, its the spiral The Stranger (EOTE): Not because they are named the same, thats just an amazing coincidence. The whole thing is unknown, no one you know has been there, all has an air of unease and creepiness to it, the burnt out reels destroying/changing information, the whole time I was there, despite the peaceful river (until...y'know-) and calm vibes, under the surface theres something just not quite right Eye of the Universe: Again, not because of the name, another great coincidence, or i guess not really a coincidence. The eye sees everything and constantly outputs a signal calling people to it, it rebuilds a new world based on the experiences of the hatchling, what the hatchling has seen. Just like the eye in the magnus archives, it takes all the experiences of the main character (Hatchling/Jon) and makes something new built upon them (New universe/The apocalypse). Love to hear peoples thoughts and where they would place things differently (especially if yall have an idea as for Timber Hearth-)

[aeroplanestouchthesky]

Massive Outer Wilds spoilers, don't read if you haven't played!

From the moment Chert said that other stars in the universe were going supernova, I was pretty certain that the entire universe was dying. As a result, I didn't have the same "reached-sun-station-and-gave-up-hope" experience that I think a lot of people going through outer wilds had.

Instead, after learning about how the single sun exploding would be enough energy for 22 minutes of time, I had this theory that the entire universe going out would be enough energy to power the Ash Twin Project enough to go far enough back to when the Nomai still lived. Maybe we could give them the coordinates to the Eye of the Universe or prevent them from dying to the Stranger. Even before meeting Solanum, I'd thought there might still be a living Nomai inside the ATP, since one of the masks was lit. Maybe I could tell them and they could change things.

Only once I made it to the Ash Twin Project did I actually feel crushed. Nothing left to hope for.