#cospn2

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i like to think when frazie and raz go to donatella abt the intern program dona is still in that shifting mindset where shes like oh yes of course my babies being able to blow up their enemies sounds very good :) you can join that program get big and strong sweetie!!

and frazie is like [stands here in invisibility and zoolinguism specialty] oh uh yeah mom. sure i'm totally interested in the powers that can smite my foes! for sure!!

raz is staring between the two of them like oh my god

its a work in progress

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All these points make me constantly fascinated by how thru the necessity of game design/plot pacing, the game can’t really address the longer lasting symptoms here.

Cause like. Since I first played right as the game came out I’ve always been like “oh no I don’t think you can quit cold turkey like that Bob” but the plot’s not about that specifically. I feel like he needs to see a doctor but we’re following Raz instead of him.

Bob’s road to recovery is a deep well to explore, it’s part of why he’s been rotating in my head for 3 years now

OK OK lemme ramble about some of the symptoms Bob likely exhibits due to his chronic alcohism(from someone who's family has a genetic predisposition for it)

-Based on how his hands and feet look he likely has erythromelalgia,it's symptoms can be triggered by alcohol use.

-he is susceptible to alcoholic dementia

-he very likely suffers from memory issues regardless of if he's drunk or not

-canonically exhibits agitation and aggression

-because of his alcoholism he also likely suffers from poor coordination

-if the other things aren't bad enough he could develop brain damage or go into liver failure

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if you ever get too far into your head abt ur headcanons and aus getting too far away from canon and worry abt them being embarrassing/ooc/cringe, just remeber...,,, its ur house and no one can stop you

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Gristol going to work at the psychonauts mail room everyday

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raz gets an official autism diagnosis age 11 and when he tells his family about it the dominos get knocked over for basically the entire aquato family to go Wait a Minute abt stuff they just thought was normal abt themselves

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doylist: they probably felt like it was a good design choice to make all water off limits 100% so they didnt have to worry abt like whatever funky programming shit happens in an engine you need to make those differences count

watsonian: good god did this post suddenly make me remember how between game 1 and 2 raz thought he was gonnna die in an exploding underwater base

The difference in how the two games treat the water curse is so funny wrt how lenient it is. In the first game raz can run in a shallow stream or step in a puddle and its fine but in the second game its like ‘if raz comes into contact with the perspiration on the outside of his water cup he will be attacked by The Hand.’

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Double Fine is seeking out people's experiences with the first Psychonauts game to celebrate its upcoming 20th anniversary :]

Since they're not on tumblr I figure I'd share this here for anyone who has a fun story to tell

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This is randomly on my mind so I'm curious...

It could be your fav for aesthetic reasons, for a specific part of the location, a particular memory you associate with it, a mechanical flourish you think is fun, ect ect

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man helmut would be real excited abt the bear pride flag. he needs big rainbow and bear flags hung up in his new living space post-game asap

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don't worry, a lot of people have noticed the wacky holes in logic for the psychonauts timeline, and have tried to square the circle in multiple ways 😂

I definitely agree 20 seems REALLY short. Augustus is the weakest link here since people have tried doing the Hard Math on how old he even is and came to wack conclusions. For example, I think Augustus looks maybe 10-13 years old in the memory vault "ford cruller, cracked".

If you take "20 years" literally (which I believe the dev team intended, otherwise why emphasize it so much) that'd mean he's in his early thirties? which isn't impossible. but he seems more like a middle aged man to me, which is more like late 30s to 40s

People also tend to rag on Ford for his lines abt being young and dumb bc let's say he and the others Psychic 7 are like, around 65, that'd make Ford like 40-something back when he used the astralathe on Lucy. Lotta people are like "THATS NOT YOUNG, CRULLER!!" 😂

i can typically suspend my belief in the story's emotional hook to think of those lines more like Ford just knowing hes older and knows better now no matter how old he was to start with, but I know not everyone's willing to

20 years just also makes the organization of the Psychonauts itself seem a lot less put together than the impression you get in PN1. in PN1 Ford's presence himself as a really OLD and famous agent puts in your head the idea this organization has been running for DECADES, and Lili saying theyve lost their touch implies they had a golden era.

and w/the hard cap of 20 years it's like. A golden era? of like, what, 5-10 years where Ford could do missions before his brain fully fractured? and before bob got fired and cassie just left?

It's all just a lil silly. I think the most straightforward answer is the dev team/tim schafer probably settled on the time without ironing out all the minute details on who's this age and when. So it's an open question on if you'd rather try to make that timeline work as literally as possible or if you're ok with filling in the gaps w/your own interpretations or headcanons

actually yk what wait an actual gripe I have with psychonauts 2 is that personally I feel like 20 years is a REALLY short time for the entire "maligula's been gone" to take place yk.

it just feels sort of off to me? i don't know if it's that way for anyone else but whenever I think on it for a little while I always go wow wait that's honestly not a lot of time when you think about it a little. i feel like it should've been maybe 30 even 40 years.

ngl my primary reason for this is that I was thinking on how old augustus was and then I was like wait how old IS augustus?? how old is nona??? how old are ANY of the psychic six because they're clearly like grandparent age but also???

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Do you ever think abt this visual parallel where Nona has this golden glow before the last part of the Maligula boss fight, vs the way nuggets of wisdom are golden too? Do you? I feel like I never see ppl make this connection. Grannie’s finally lucid again and she’s got the ultimate power up for you

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thinking abt this gif... appreciating the layers of it....... the good animation, the warm colors radiating outward, the TWIRL! the HEART? STUCK IN THE ICE? ICE SKATING?? im going to be ill

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crying at this photo i think i screencapped from the psychodyssey

ID: A screenshot of Sasha, Oleander, and Milla in an unfinished version of the jet in Rhombus of Ruin. Oleander has been tossed. End ID.

TOSSED I say

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I personally have always really loved the idea of Helmut being able to produce music as a subset of his figment powers!! Like if he can generate images, why not sounds, maybe it's all some scifi explaination nonsense abt manipulating the air and perception and blah blah listen to him do a guitar solo hand gesture and it MAKES THE GUITAR SOLO HAPPEN BABY!!!

I like imagining he'd do this for his performances but a lot of people would assume they're backing tracks and he's secretly a little bummed like no 🥲 I'm doing that live 😔

but aaalllsssoooo I do think he has actual physical instruments too. can't really do music psychically when he has to record for a casset tape or a hand made vinyl. he's the full package baby.

do we have any actual evidence of helmut being able to play an instrument? like i'm sure he can, he's a musician, but if there's no concrete proof that he can then i have reasonable cause to speculate about how he would get music in his shows as a one man act

do his figments make music? is he controlling all the non-vocals in his songs by making his funny little pictures in certain patterns? is audio control a psychic power that we just didn't learn about? is helmut telekinetically bending sound waves to make music?

and if he can do that, what implications does that have for the rest of his life? is he constantly being followed by cartoonish sound effects and ambient music? does he hear humming in different tones when his figments pop up? can they slowly congeal into a coherent many-layered symphony?

or does he just use backing tracks?

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do you think the power of "time bubble" existed before helmut or is helmut like the pioneer of time psychic magic

like on one hand u can get a time bubble pin from the otto-matic. on the other hand thats a game abstraction and i think its cooler if helmut was the first to ever do it.

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interesting notes abt the campers' designs after drawing them all in a row

- cool to see how accessories play into the designs since Most of the campers play nice and wear their camp shirts

- it says something interesting abt which campers don't wear their camp shirts, like Dogen being in his PJs

- their eyes are so far apart and small... there's few exceptions, mostly Lili. Her design philosophy more closely matches Raz's big peepers

- half these kids have no nose to speak of

- Crystal's gaping muppet mouth & ponytail with no other hair combo was the hardest camper to convert into my less exaggerated style without completely losing what makes her look like "herself"