Part 24: Bonus 5 - Pact of Smoke

The "Goldenloop" content patch from September 2022 included the HALPS, the Fugue Slab, the Paint Bomber enemies, the 2-in-1 trinkets, some Julianna stuff (I'll try out the invasion side of things one of these days!), and an 'extended ending' per the press materials, so if you played the game on release that's the bullet list of the new things!

Bonus 05!


(Video was set to be done processing HD/4k more than an hour ago but is, according to youtube "taking longer than expected, please wait". It should kick over into HD soon, but may be SD only for a little bit!)

Two full loops, one video. For length I did cut out *quite* a lot of running around if it wasn't showing us anything particularly new or neat, but there's a lot of fun and nifty stuff in this one!

Documents
- From the Machine
- THE ESSENTIAL YOU!
- Letter from Wenjie
- Envisioned Invasion
- Theme: Secret Society
- Theme: Murder Mystery
- The Sixty Second Minute: Charlie fucking Montague
- Vanya's Pact of Smoke
- Anatoly's Pact of Smoke
- Handwritten Letter - this one, or rather Colt's reaction to it, does get under my skin. We know it's canon that Colt was lost due to his incompetent commander firing the rocket when it wasn't ready; why does everyone treat it like Colt made a hard, incorrect choice in the matter? He did not have the agency that everyone is assigning him, arrgh
- Living Deja-Vu
- Towards Tomorrow

I don't think I...'get' Pick, or I'm missing some context. My takeaway is that she needs to die before the loop occurs so she doesn't lose the previous loop's memories? I still feel like I'm missing a key part though. Hm.

Weapon!

The Heritage Gun - another transforming weapon, uses shotgun ammunition. Its compact mode fires slugs and functionally acts like the Rapier with a magazine, its expanded mode acts like the Trencher with a very horizontal, line-like shot spread. Again, do not consider mechanics or engineering, even a little bit, please

Still, it combines two of my favorite guns into one, plus we get some Arnie in T2 feeling from cycling with the lever action on it. Ours increases damage based on the time of day, so it's hitting the hardest on the evening/high-danger portion of a given loop, which is neat!