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Okay I can post this now :)

Fan expo outfit:

I did a vote for "Murtaugh is coming. We should go. We should go now" vs "Don't believe his lies" and they tied so I switched them halfway through.

Closeups of the notes and some props below the cut!

I did my best to make the handwriting between Murtaugh, Liz, and the explorers somewhat distinct.

That notebook has my actual notes from a playthrough.

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Do we think sometimes Shiva is afraid of Liz featuring my& personal designs for Liz and Bunny that I& haven't finished the full refsheets for yet despite working on them for months now

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Submachine Legacy Brainrot Mod

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Thinking about a post or even a video rating all the different Submachine Universe theories based on how accurate they are to the lore as of Submachine Legacy. Obviously at the time these people had less information to work with than we do now but it'd still be fun. Should I& then also include how accurate their theories would be at the time of their actual posting?

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I& don't think I&'m made for FL studio

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Was going to do the 'two nickels' meme but then realized I had a funnier option

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And by the way, I&'m far from inactive - I&'ve been slowly chipping away at a map of Shattered Quadrant! I& thought it would take me& a couple hours but it's turned into a multi-day project o_0 Plus I&'m still theorizing, although it's hard to break out of the bad habit of putting the insane rambles into my& friend discord servers instead of on this blog... I& should break away from that because honestly the insane rambly nature of the liveblogs is exactly what Tumblr is for

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Soooo... yeah, update to this. For some reason it completely didn't cross my& mind to check the 8th layer on this thing. Freaked me& the fuck out because I& never saw that layer changer go crazy like this. It's a REALLY fascinating visualization of what being on a "floating" layer looks like though. So cool!

Noticed this while replaying Submachine Legacy today. I& think this is a sign that the ending (and likely also the beginning) take place in the 7th layer

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Noticed this while replaying Submachine Legacy today. I& think this is a sign that the ending (and likely also the beginning) take place in the 7th layer

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"Harmonic Lagoon", Room sketch inspired by the Submachine series by Mateusz Skutnik.

I'm playing through all the games again through the flashpoint archive to compensate for the fact that I haven't yet been able to get my hands on Submachine Legacy, and got swept away by the incredible art the games deliver in every single scene. Got caught in the grip of creative urge again, so here we are.

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I& am officially going down an absolute rabbit hole of trying to find and log all the versions of the original Flash Submachine 2: The Lighthouse game. And no, this wasn't even prompted by me& finding and playing the early sketch - this is all because, for some reason, version 9 is labelled as a SPEEDRUN build.

AND THERE ARE NO NOTICABLE CHANGES FROM THE PREVIOUS VERSIONS POST-REVISIT. Only some subtle UI and menu differences.

But the craziest thing is? For all I& can find right now, versions 5-8 do not exist. It jumped straight from v4.1 on the official website up to v9 [speedrun].

Also there are two separate versions 3 because I& can TELL that the starting menu looks different, BUT THEY'RE LABELLED AS THE SAME. FROM THE SAME DATE TOO.

This is killing me&. I& will report back on my& findings once I& compile the doc. I& asked in the official Discord server, but I& don't think I&'m going to get a reply. Might attempt the forums later.

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listened to arcturus beaming too many times and am now afflicted with Instead Of Brain There Is Liz Submachine

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I&'ve been replaying Submachine Universe by the way, the game that initially made me& realize that wait, this is really good actually. I& was planning to go through all the theories in the game and see if any of them held up at all now that I& have a better understanding of the lore, although even then back when I& first played the game and have only finished games up to S4, I& still could tell that half of these were straight up fanfiction with a hefty load of pseudo-scientific bullcrap.

My& replay resurfaced those memories proving that impression to be mostly true, but just as before, Jatsko's wonderful and in-character contributions stood out. The Light Theory might be one of if not THE favourite one of mine& in the entire game. The dialogue just has a ton of personality to it, and all of the "oh boy, you have no idea" moments are delightful. Probably the moment I& have the most memories of from the entire game. The Subnet Editing Theory is another example of an absolutely brilliant moment that I& gushed about a lot during my& liveblog to my& friends - it's very clever and neat how the theory itself gets edited, making you suspect that maybe it really is true.

I& haven't finished the game yet, as it's far less straightforward than the other games are. I& have pretty much memorized Shattered Quadrant by now, but the real challenge of Universe has nothing to do with item collecting and everything to do with decyphering location numbers. This very different gameplay loop from the other games always made me& truly feel like an actual researcher trying to estimate safe spots for jumping. I& think this game is the most resistant one of them all to memorization, because you cannot memorize hundreds of 3-digit numbers unless you're some prodigy. All of the note-keeping is another big part of the fun. So satisfying to look at your giant notepad in your inventory after finishing exploring the main parts and just seeing how many places you've visited.

The fanart you see is also absolutely delightful <3 The favourite section of them all for me& has got to be the maps room, because even if they aren't all that legible for an actual walkthrough, artistically speaking these maps are exactly how I& imagine the Subnet in my& head and show really well the proximity of each space to another. They're gorgeous, very fun to examine. Including two of these that I& screenshotted for context.

But, of course, the theories.... The main star of the game.... None really provided any super clever insight into the game's actual real lore. Granted, most of these are very old and didn’t have the foresight and knowledge of future lore additions we would get, but. Some of these are especially funny to me&. Here's a few shout outs:

Tim Roth.

I& couldn’t stop laughing at this whole theory like YOU JUST MADE UP AN OC THERE. TIM ROTH???? The incredible assumption that a scientist from modern day would have the most American name you can think of, and the whole attempt at explaining ancient Egyptian theme in the game with downright conspiracy-reminiscent fanfiction is great. I& found this so funny that I& named the whole location after Tim Roth, my& new favourite Submachine character.

Submurchine Theory:

A+ goated theory purely for the pun. That's it guys, we've solved Submachine. Sorry I& mean Submurchine.

Ok this next one had me& in actual tears because:

PAYPAL ME& ONE ANCIENT RUSTING COIN.

Me& and my& friend cannot stop making jokes about that "Paypal me one ancient rusting coin" tumblr shitpost, so when I& reached that sentence I& SCREAAAAMEDDDDD. HIS SAVINGS.... OF ONE COIN...... THAT'S HIS LIFE SAVINGS GUYS. We solved why the coin is there it's Murtaugh's hidden stash that he's withholding from his scientists THIS IS JUST SO FUCKING FUNNY YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS SHIT UP.

There were some other funny or downright wrong moments in the theories such as people saying the bullet holes are from Murtaugh trying to kill us (??? IT'S LITERALLY ELIZABETH'S SHIP IT'S HER GUNS... she tried to kill Mur what are you even on), people getting the very concept of the 4th dimension downright wrong (and I&'m not even talking about the "is it space or is it time" debacle, I& mean implying that 4th dimension was... a... a klein bottle esque surface?? Itself?? Like the whole dimension??), implying colonialism is most obvious motivation, sanism, and whatever... this fanfiction is. I& don't understand what in the world is going on here.

All of this is lighthearted joking, I& think for what the people had to work with back in the day these are all pretty okay as theories. It was interesting to me& how I& instantly accepted that yeah, this is just a world that works differently to ours, and the questions that interested me& were all related to the actual narrative presented in the game - which order the events happened in, things like that. But a lot of other people seem to be far more interested in figuring out the backstory of things, the technology itself, and its connections to the real world.

To be entirely fair to these people, we didn't know until very recently that the events of the games are supposed to be happening entirely outside of our regular Earth and layer that we're used to. That Kent is apparently not even the real life British place of Kent, but its own made-up location. It goes against what one's intuition would say, and it's frankly kind of a retcon considering that not all of the lore of the games was written with that implication in mind. I& think initially, these theories would have been pretty reasonable for what we knew. The real world imagery excites the imagination and encourages one to draw the logical connections.

I& have a lot more thoughts on this game, the lore featured in it, the mechanics of the puzzles and more. Maybe I&'ll make other posts on this topic later, but these were the things I& wanted to talk about from my& yesterday's replay.

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hey uhhh, any chance I could get a list of submachine lets play's you've seen (and liked)? If not no worries!

OMG OMG OMG ok so

I&'ve only watched two full letsplays of Submachine Legacy right now which are by Quasimofo and by Jacob Forster

Quasimofo is good if you like really chill letsplays and he explains his thinking a lot which I& like! He pays a lot of attention to every detail, which is exactly the approach one needs for solving Submachine but it's also does mean that sometimes he completely misinterprets what's required of him. He's pretty smart though, keeps good notes and does cut out the boring moments.

Jacob Forster tries to be as hype and energetic as possible, but he doesn’t really explain his thought process. He relies quite heavily on his fans in the comments and asks them for advice all the time, which I& suppose is more fun than looking up a walkthrough. He cuts out a lot less from his videos. He also compares this series to Rusty Lake, which is a bit of a pet peeve of mine& but completely understandable since that's the game he played before.

I& really liked both of those, even though neither really focuses on the lore and just solve the puzzles. It probably comes down to whether you like energetic or chill youtubers, honestly.

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Gifs for when I&'m gripping my& head in agony and thinking about how good Submachine is