by Andrew Vanden Bossche
The goal of Lone Survivor is to take care of yourself a little better every day. It’s a little hard but you should think about this first. Think about it before you worry if the monsters are real or just a delusion. Before you start trusting the man in your dreams who wears a box over his head. Before you trade pills to strangers or worry about the woman you can’t quite remember. Before even you worry that the next trip you take outside the apartment might be your last, that the monsters real or not may kill you, that you might not find food or medicine. The first thing you should worry about is right now: have you had a decent cup of coffee? Did you warm up your food before eating it? At least try not to eat such obviously spoilt milk if you can help it. If you’re lonely try listening to the radio before you talk to your stuffed cat. Remember to sleep when it’s hard to see clearly, when the dusky blur settles over the scanlined screen, and rub your own real life eyes out of empathy. It will save your game and you’ll have to live with the consequences. But rather than fret about how many bullets you spent or the mistakes you made or the things you regret, the first thing you should think about is this.
Are you okay?
Did you have a good day?
Surviving doesn’t mean staving off zombies for another hour. Surviving means living day to day.
Some Lies
You’ve got more important things to worry about but I guess at some point theses thoughts are going to happen aren’t they?
The first lie you get (1) in Lone Survivor is: Day 1. When the tutorial’s done you might believe that it happened or you might not, but in the end it doesn’t matter, and if it doesn’t matter if it’s true or if it’s fake it can’t be a lie. But Day 1 is a deception, because this isn’t Day 1. The player drops in on Day 1, so it’s Day 1 to us, and everything we know starts on Day 1 and comes from Day 1.
Actually the first lie is the name of the character, which is You, although it’s subtle and you don’t notice it until after the first lie, so we’ll call it number (2) . You aren’t You, and you know it. If we were You, we’d know what happened before Day 1. Which is the third lie (3) , the trickiest kind of lie, a lie of omission. It’s Day 1, and your name is You, we, the players, don’t know what happened before Day 1. But he knows. He knows what happened and he’s not telling us. If he’s not familiar with the apartment why does he tell us, angrily, that nothing in it is his, and why doesn’t he want to sleep in the bedroom, on a real bed?
It’s difficult to take care of someone who isn’t honest with you. And it’s hardest of all to take care of someone who isn’t you. But you’ve got to take care of this guy. Even if he doesn’t make it easy.
A Guide to Food:
- Fruit Salad (delicious, but how is it still good?)
- Prawn Crackers (heavy on cracker, light on prawn)
- Ground Meat (would be better with buns, ketchup, and fries)
- Beans (you’d be surprised how good it tastes after prawn crackers)
- Irradiated Orange (you shouldn’t stress yourself out too much wondering about how this happened, it’s not good for you)
- Clearly Spoiled Milk (what’s the worst that could happen?)
- Delicious Ham (so good; this is the ham I’ve been waiting my whole life for. Ham would never break my heart or betray me like those horrible prawn crackers)
- Squid on a Stick(a poor man’s ground meat and a rich man’s prawn crackers)
If Worst Comes to Worst, Shoot First
Lone Survivor is a one dimensional game; I mean that literally. The graphics are 2D the gameplay is 1D; a straight line between You and the monsters. Because of that, the distance between You and the monsters is everything there is. When they reach you you are dead. The distance is measured by your number of bullets and the speed of their approach, and you can aim in three directions. A headshot hurts the most and the thin men and fat men cannot endure being shot, so headshots are the best because that ammo is valuable. But a body shot can hit clear across the room, and sometimes the monsters will surprise you with how fast they are. The feet deals the least damage but it forces them back and when they get too close it is your only option. This dance is dangerous; they will surely die if you are careful but you will run out of ammo even if you are careful. That is not enough to survive. You’ve got to think about the long term, and keep yourself safe.
Take care of Yourself.
Additional Lies
You don’t really have to read this part but if you find yourself with enough time to think about the sorts of things you’d in all honesty be better off not thinking about whether or not the monsters are real or not is going to come up.
If you’re looking for the answer I don’t have it. Lone Survivor doesn’t have any answers. What it is you have to accept. It’s a game that lies a lot. But at least it’s honest that it’s lying, and the author’s honest when he says there’s no firm conclusions here. But I’ll try to piece together as best I can what happened.
The Monsters Can’t Possibly Be Real Because:
- 1. When You kills the monsters, he has trouble looking at himself in the mirror. He feels older and he’s not sure what’s happening to himself. The monsters are terrible and maybe it really is us or them out there. But if killing them is that difficult there might be reasons why. And you shouldn’t be doing things that are hard on yourself anyway.
- 1. The thin men and fat men are indistinct mounds of writhing screaming flesh but they look very human. They’re clearly alive and they’re looking for food and don’t care how they get it.
- 1. Isn’t it a little funny that a game called Lone Survivor has so many people in it?
- 1. The Director is the closest thing you have to a friend but he’s never heard of any monsters, and he’s assuredly real.
I just thought you should know that because you’ll probably get curious. And maybe you’ll sleep a little better if you’re less worried about it. But I want to remind you that even if the director doesn’t think monsters are real he’s trying to survive just as hard as you are. It’s a cruel world out there.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t someone out to get you, and just because you’re hallucinating a disaster doesn’t mean that disaster hasn’t struck.
Worry less about that and worry more about where you can find some more ham.
superflat world’s Lone Survivor can be purchased on Steam or from its creator, Jasper Byrne . -Ed
