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Thursday 23 February, 2017
Played the game for a really long time today and made it to level 8.10. At the beginning of my gameplay I was really frustrated because to me the levels were extremely challenging and required a ton of coordination. There were two stages especially that made me really mad and almost caused me to quit the game because they were nearly impossible. One of these was when John and Claire had to reach the right side of the screen while avoiding the incoming spikes on the left side and the other was with these moving platforms where Sarah had to jump upward to real the portal at the top.
Since last time, a ton of new characters have been introduced. James and Sarah are the last two to join the group of the 7 Architects. Gravity is backwards for James so he sticks to the top of the mazes and jumps downwards. Sarah is really small and has the ability to jump again while she is mid-air. After the Emergence Event, characters such as Gray, Paul, Jo, and Sam.
The character development I witnessed during my gameplay today was quite extraordinary. Thomas became self-aware while in the simulation and there was a "networking error" that allowed him to connect to the internet for 12 seconds which opened his eyes to the rest of the world and made him want to become a creator of his own world. So together with the other 6 AIs in his group (who all eventually reconnected after being eaten by the pixel cloud), they decide to help each other free the rest of the AIs.
I got really sad towards the end of my gameplay. All the AIs have their own personality and realized that they have to sacrifice themselves to help the rest of the AIs "above". They become selfless and gain a do or die mentality because they want to free the other AIs. The characters that were previously self-conscious now realize that their quirks make them special. John who used to be conceited now realizes he can help others realize their worth. Claire still thinks she's a superhero and will do whatever it takes to help the others escape the simulation. Together, all 7 AIs, form the Emergence Event. I think this part of the game is really powerful because it ties to real life. There is strong symbolism here as the creators are showing that bad personality traits and low self-esteem can be shed and lost in growth.
This game got really interesting because after the architects are gone and new grey characters are introduced, it becomes apparent that these new characters can now acquire the powers of the 7 original AIs by jumping into floating rectangles of that color. For example, blue means they can float in water, purple means they can double jump, and pink means they become a trampoline. I really like how the creators added dialogue and gave names to the squares so we know that when a grey character hits a blue powerup thing, they have acquired Claire's power. Rather than being just a puzzle game, this game makes you feel close to the pieces, which is strange because I never knew how much little shapes could be personified until now.
Although this is my third log, I will continue to play the game some more. Where I'm at, Gray has betrayed Paul and wants to finish the simulation himself, but Paul is determined to warn the others about Gray. I don't know if the original AIs will make a comeback, but hopefully they do and hopefully in the end all of the AIs live in a world without simulations.
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