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The Vanishing of Ethan Carter |OT| A first person murder mystery (PC)

dekline

Member
Beat it@ 3.3 hours. Streamed the entire run lol. Nice experience and a cool little story.

Very good. I expected something around 5 hours in length so my Friday night is set.

I guess I should ask if you rushed? Did you take your time? Just curious.
 

GavinUK86

Member
God this game is beautiful. If I saw these out of context I would think they were real photographs.
docddz.jpg
xhihbw.jpg
 
Ehh, went to bed feeling too tired to start it up, and now I've spent the last hour reading this thread and watching videos of people playing the game... :-/
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
Very good. I expected something around 5 hours in length so my Friday night is set.

I guess I should ask if you rushed? Did you take your time? Just curious.

No rushing at all. I think a few people from here watched me play. I was walking around a lot, looking for stuff. I think the most important thing is that I do not feel cheated at the length.
 
Finished it in three hours...

Even if the "you're part of a child's imagination" twist was pretty predictable, I have to say that was one hell of a downer ending. :(

All in all I really enjoyed the story and the impressive tech. I do think they could have hired some better actors and skipped the lame
Amnesia knockoff
stage.
 

Squishy3

Member
Early spoilers:
I found a dead body chased an astronaut and then left the atmosphere and flew into a wormhole. Okay. I have no idea what the fuck is happening. Will come back later.
 

MattyG

Banned
I think I may have hit a bug SPOILERS
I just finished the father's suicide, went up the lift, and where the scissors were it still says inspect. I've been all over the map and can't find the next event. I hate to ask for help because I feel it will ruin the experience, but I'm pretty confused.

Edit: to anyone who may have just seen that, I apologise, I accidentally hit bold instead of spoiler. Very sorry.
 

leng jai

Member
Stuttering is kinda ruining this for me.

This has the be one of the most organic looking games I've ever seen though. The visuals just feel so real, so natural. The audio mix and soundtrack are also extremely well done, the atmosphere here is off the charts.
 
Finished it in three hours...

Even if the "you're part of a child's imagination" twist was pretty predictable, I have to say that was one hell of a downer ending. :(

All in all I really enjoyed the story and the impressive tech. I do think they could have hired some better actors and skipped the lame
Amnesia knockoff
stage.

Incredible
 

Zeliard

Member
Just my luck to stroll in here when those spoiler tags mistakenly weren't placed.

*cries self to sleep*

Anyway, good to hear all the positive impressions. Game sounds very interesting and I'll probably try to check it out this weekend.
 

MattyG

Banned
Yup, definitely a bug. I don't think it's preventing progress, just annoying. Also I have no clue where to go. Been exploring for an hour, can't find anything more.
Just my luck to stroll in here when those spoiler tags mistakenly weren't placed.

*cries self to sleep*

Anyway, good to hear all the positive impressions. Game sounds very interesting and I'll probably try to check it out this weekend.
I'm sorry :(
 

CheesecakeRecipe

Stormy Grey
I ran into a hilarious bug just a few moments ago, very late game spoilers (would really recommend not clicking unless you've beaten it):

As I opened the gate for not-cthuhlu, it teleported me to the next part of the scene. Staring at the tentacles underwater for a few moments was suddenly interrupted by the zombie from the chase sequence appearing on screen, grabbing me and performing the attack animation. He was missing his lower body. It kicked me out of the sequence and back into the mines. Trying to get back to the gate is impossible because there's a rock blocking my way onto the pad.

For those that did beat it
does opening the not-cthuhlu gate end the game? Or is it just a hallucination and you continue past it? Seems kind of like a game ending sequence of events to me, but it's hard to tell if there's more after I leave the mines and see the father get murdered.
 

-tetsuo-

Unlimited Capacity
I ran into a hilarious bug just a few moments ago, very late game spoilers (would really recommend not clicking unless you've beaten it):

As I opened the gate for not-cthuhlu, it teleported me to the next part of the scene. Staring at the tentacles underwater for a few moments was suddenly interrupted by the zombie from the chase sequence appearing on screen, grabbing me and performing the attack animation. He was missing his lower body. It kicked me out of the sequence and back into the mines. Trying to get back to the gate is impossible because there's a rock blocking my way onto the pad.

For those that did beat it
does opening the not-cthuhlu gate end the game? Or is it just a hallucination and you continue past it? Seems kind of like a game ending sequence of events to me, but it's hard to tell if there's more after I leave the mines and see the father get murdered.

You aren't done.
 

-Deimos

Member
I ran into a hilarious bug just a few moments ago, very late game spoilers (would really recommend not clicking unless you've beaten it):

As I opened the gate for not-cthuhlu, it teleported me to the next part of the scene. Staring at the tentacles underwater for a few moments was suddenly interrupted by the zombie from the chase sequence appearing on screen, grabbing me and performing the attack animation. He was missing his lower body. It kicked me out of the sequence and back into the mines. Trying to get back to the gate is impossible because there's a rock blocking my way onto the pad.

For those that did beat it
does opening the not-cthuhlu gate end the game? Or is it just a hallucination and you continue past it? Seems kind of like a game ending sequence of events to me, but it's hard to tell if there's more after I leave the mines and see the father get murdered.
It doesn't end the game. I think the game ends when you investigate all the spots. I only have one spot left according to the spoiler map.
 

MattyG

Banned
Just finished. Wow. Wow. Wowowowow. Full spoilers ahead.

So I kind of guessed that this was all stuff Ethan made up. The minute I started finding those stories and paper clippings, I had a feeling that was the case. I thought maybe Paul was a famous author Ethan had written to, and Ethan's stories were coming to life. The final reveal was definitely a surprise though. Those last few lines of dialogue between Ethan and Paul were really excellent, too.

Couple small details I noticed: all the clocks always say 7. I noticed this at the train platform, and again when I walked by it a second time. I thought it was a strange oversight in a game with so much detail, so then I started wondering if this place wasn't maybe like the Lost island, with no flow of time or something. But then at the end, we see the time that Ethan died at was 700.

Also, the final shot of the Carter's parallels some of the cases. The grandfather is hitting Travis (I think that's his name) to put out the fire (killing him to get rid of the Sleeper's influence) and his father is giving his mother the buckets of water.

Overall, I loved it and I think it's a serious contender for GOTY for me right now.

Also, on a completely different note, is steam not keeping track of anyone else's playtime right either? Overlay showed I played about 3 hours, but when I quit it said I only played 45 minutes. I don't really care, just thought it was strange.
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
Can someone that completed it answer this question I have an hour in (I think it might be a bug):

When you got to the elevator next to the dam, was it not there? In my game it was on the lower section, and I accidentally fell down all the way to the lower part. I then used the elevator button to bring myself back up. Is this supposed to happen? Is the elevator supposed to be at the top level when you first arrive?
 

MattyG

Banned
Can someone that completed it answer this question I have an hour in (I think it might be a bug):

When you got to the elevator next to the dam, was it not there? In my game it was on the lower section, and I accidentally fell down all the way to the lower part. I then used the elevator button to bring myself back up. Is this supposed to happen? Is the elevator supposed to be at the top level when you first arrive?
It's supposed to be at the bottom.
 

-Deimos

Member
Finished it after 4 hours with a lot of backtracking and exploring. I have to say I'm pretty disappointed with the length and size of the game. I know it's an indie game but I didn't realize it was this short, especially with a description like "The game offers an open world and a non-linear progression." Kind of paints the wrong picture imo.

Still, despite that it's still great for what it is. Definitely a fun experience, $20 is a bit steep though.

Can someone that completed it answer this question I have an hour in (I think it might be a bug):

When you got to the elevator next to the dam, was it not there? In my game it was on the lower section, and I accidentally fell down all the way to the lower part. I then used the elevator button to bring myself back up. Is this supposed to happen? Is the elevator supposed to be at the top level when you first arrive?

It's like that for everyone I think.
 

MattyG

Banned
Ok, but -
Are you supposed to fall down and explore down there?
No,
you'll eventually make your way down there through a different path when you're following the trail of cases.
What happened when you fell? Did you just land down there? Or did you die or something? Are you still down there or did you get back up to the houses?
 

-Deimos

Member
No,
you'll eventually make your way down there through a different path when you're following the trail of cases.
What happened when you fell? Did you just land down there? Or did you die or something? Are you still down there or did you get back up to the houses?

Nothing happens when you fall. You just play the game as usual and make your way
into the mine or generator building
if you want.

BTW, is it even a requirement to do all the investigations? I know you have to find all the stories but what's stopping you from
going to the burned down house after collecting the stories?
 

MattyG

Banned
Nothing happens when you fall. You just play the game as usual and make your way
into the mine or generator building
if you want.
That seems kind of strange. You'd think they would have made it impossible to fall or something, seeing as how the other way is clearly the intended path.
BTW, is it even a requirement to do all the investigations? I know you have to find all the stories but what's stopping you from
going to the burned down house after collecting the stories?
I'm not sure. But now that I know how and when everything happens, I want to see if I can screw with the order of things and maybe skip right to the end, like you said.
 

-Deimos

Member
That seems kind of strange. You'd think they would have made it impossible to fall or something, seeing as how the other way is clearly the intended path.

I'm not sure. But now that I know how and when everything happens, I want to see if I can screw with the order of things and maybe skip right to the end, like you said.

I didn't even realize that you weren't supposed to go that way. I thought they just left the elevator in the wrong position. So how do you
get into the mines normally, through the hole?
 

MattyG

Banned
I didn't even realize that you weren't supposed to go that way. I thought they just left the elevator in the wrong position. So how do you
get into the mines normally, through the hole?
You go up the hill behind the two houses, past the witches tent and the church, follow the path behind the church to down to where that gate into the mines is, and then up a hill on the right there's a little tunnel through some rocks that you can get through. Maybe that's the hole you're talking about though.

You can also get there by following the road next to the houses that runs parallel to the water and goes through those two short tunnels.
 
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