Part 16: Oddities.

Oddities.

So, starting with Episode 2, the games start to have the occasional oddity in the code or in other places.

The best and first example is the game over screen having messages written in nearly the same shade of black as the background, making them impossible to notice in RPGMaker, but if you open the GAME OVER image file in an image editor, it's somewhat more noticable. Filling in the black with a different colour results in this:


The top line of text is, and probably always will be, too small to read. The other messages though...

quote:

Where is your hope?
Death has lost it’s sting...
Help me. I’m afraid.

People think two of these are paraphrased quotes from the Bible, and I'll go by their work. I wouldn't recognize many passages at all even if they were stoning me.

Luke 18:13:
If you really think that God was not there,
Where is your hope?

1 Corinthians 15:55:
O Death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?


The Barrucha Cave also has some events with... words in them. The layer is too high for the player to access them during gameplay.

quote:

Save the kid
Ill, I am.
Head
End is this
Context is all
You lied. I forgive her
Him
6 OR 7 choose
Me!
Read the codes
123F box help
Box 77
26 friends
Not what you think!

quote:

8437877673638439294787884

Decodes to “The Purpose of the Way is truth” in telephone code.

87884443376684464

Decodes to “Truth Hides Nothing”.

585392246589

Decodes to “Luke Wacholtz”.

Truth Hides Nothing is the title of Episode 6. Luke Wacholtz is Lun's real name.

Tallgeese" post="493884525 posted:

I think I can explain the Purpose of the Way line.

Very early Christianity, we're talking when St. Paul was alive, was called "The Way." See Acts.

The games are rife with mostly subtle and some not-so-subtle references to Christianity. Slade's (to be seen shortly) skill, Outer Darkness, is in fact one, but you would never notice it being one until later. Most people would think it is just a cool attack name until they start noticing other references, many of which are, again, subtle.

There's therefore two ways to read the line.

1) God is truth. Fairly simple.

2) Purpose as lowercase. The purpose of going through the Way is to find the truth, implying that the Purpose does not exist as a separate entity but is in fact an anthropomorphized abstract concept. In 2 Peter 2:2, Peter refers to following Christ as "The Way of Truth." Notice that you found the line in Episode 2, which is either coincidence or a blatant reference.

The Marna Stretch also has an inaccessible event with a sprite of a female ninja with a male characters head. When you talk to it after moving the player start (or check the code), he/she gives a speech.

quote:

Hi, I was the original hero
of The Way.
The creator used RTP graphics and
made a long intro featuring me.
But then Lun learned how to do
some 3D graphics....
He also realized that I have
the body of a female
RTP character.
This wasn't cool, so I got ditched
and then Lun created a custom
graphic for Rhue.
Several other failed versions of
Rhue were created in the process.
Lun sure got good at sprite editing
though.
Maybe we'll see some of
them pop up in the game
somewhere...
Another thing, a lot of people seem to
think Lun uses RTP facesets, or merely
edited ones.
Maya made them, but Lun wishes he
would have used a different style now.
However, he was planning on using RTP
facesets somewhat, so he wanted them
to match with the custom ones.
What a mistake. He eventually
ditched that idea of using any RTP
faces. (For the most part.)
Mostly because a lot of people in
the Rm2K community get really
whiney when they see RTP
facesets.
If you don't have a clue what
RTP is, then bless your soul!
That means you have a more
open mind.
However, if you reached me, I would
assume you must know what
RTP is.
Don't bother talking to me again
I'll just repeat this long boring
spiel.

the end