Part 2: Five Days, Part 2: Paper-Thin Excuses
Added Eternal Darkness to OP, since it is a pretty big influence that he does explicitly mention. I think I'll cap the inevitably large list there, however.
Unsupervised Horse posted:
While Yahtzee may not post here anymore, he clearly still lurks.
That's pretty awesome. The credits sequences to the later games make reference to SA, and I've read Flashback, but I was under the impression he had completely abandoned the place.
Makrond posted:
I thought toxx clauses resulted in perma-bans
Well, I guess it's up to Ayatollah Slowbeef. Hopefully it won't come to that, however; I'm still putting faith in that moon.
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Five Days, Part 2: Paper-Thin Excuses
Last time, we got trapped in a house, neglected to steal anything in said house (except some scrap copper), and heard a man lie about how many chairs there were in said house (There are five chairs in the dining room, the rocking chair, a chair in the office, and the couch. Yes, I'm pedantic). Today...

We learn about science.

We also get to see the Chekhov's Gun concept at its most literal. Trilby can't carry this gun around or set anywhere except back on the hearth. No foreshadowing here, no sir.


That painting is boring set dressing, but pay attention to it as the game goes on. Yahtzee "added scariness" while he fixed some of the glitches.

"So how did they eat" is this game's "How do you type with boxing gloves on". The commentary tries to justify this by saying that everyone in the house ate all the food before Trilby showed up, and he was too much of a gentleman to complain about it. The fact that the other characters also seem unfazed about going without food for five days sets up the later plot twist that they're all actually snakes.


There's no in-game explanation for why exactly there's a miniature salt mine in the Defoe kitchen. I'll assume that the Sir Clarence became one of those crazy rich eccentrics a la Howard Hughes, only instead of being germaphobic he became desperately afraid of goiter.


Yahtzee claims to dislike overly relying on "Use X on Y" puzzles, and Five Days makes absolutely no attempt to hide how arbitrary most of its uses of that trope are.



Of course, he seems to have no problem with equally arbitrary event flags. Upon venturing upstairs, we now meet a woman who Yahtzee admits looks like a man in bad drag.













After his banter with Simone, Trilby gets to take out his blind rage on a tree, for no particular reason alluded to in the game. When you "use" the tree, this happens:



The ravine was added in as a pseudo-justification for why Trilby can't just grapple over the walls. It's as weak and shoehorned a justification as it sounds.

(Not pictured: a ravine)


This game is actively set up to encourage as much backtracking as is possible, and as a result it's incredibly linear. You have to talk to Simone before finding Jim, for example, which leads to a lot of aimlessly wandering around in search of the one thing you actually can do at a given point. It's about as fun as it sounds, hence why I'm ignoring the travel in screenshots (though, in fairness, I could have talked to Simone before going outside the first time to streamline things somewhat)




















The rest of the day is basically an exposition dump, and a perfect opportunity to show off the fact that I'm not transcribing excessive walls of text. Below are summarized versions of the three things you can ask everyone. If you don't feel like reading it all, the summarized summarized version is that the possibly-sentient house is letting people in one at a time, but apparently being pretty selective. Phil, also a thief, has an article about the house's equally strange past.

What she knows: Weird things have been happening for decades, including disappearances. People have gone missing, for example, ever since the original father/son inhabitants died.
Why she's here: Old ghost stories have been popular recently, and the BBC felt a story on the events would pull in ratings. She wandered around by herself and was let inside, but her camera crew wasn't. Trilby reiterates that he hates TV.
Who she is: She mentions all the TV programs she works on and nothing else about her personality.

What he knows: He read an article about the family's unfortunate history, which he gives to Trilby. We'll read it next update.
Why he's here: He wanted to look for artifacts and "called in some favors" to get over the ravine and back wall, then got trapped. His partners won't get suspicious for months, though.
Who he is: He's in the "import-export" business and resents the title of thief. Trilby finds his cavalier yet self-righteous attitude toward stealing ungentlemanly (maybe because Phil actually steals things).

What he knows: The mansion was the subject of rumor and gossip among his schoolmates. There was talk of a killer who ate people alive.
Why he's here: Jim was dared to step inside for a pound. He does the admirable thing and gives in to peer pressure without hesitation, getting trapped. Nobody has come back to try to find him, as he lacks friends.
Who he is: He's sixteen and goes to boarding school. The end.












Sadly, stealing twigs and neglecting to look for allies is basically the high point of this group's efficacy. Starting next time: Longer updates. Also, I reiterate the "Yell at me if I'm doing things horribly wrong" request.