Always eating pasta

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First off, the Supervisor. When we see her, she’s clearly very busy managing the factory. She gets extremely frustrated when we turn off the security TVs, then subsequently “transforms” into a feral spider that chases us. I love this in concept but its execution didn’t make a whole lot of sense and should have had more build-up.

Low and Alone should have been disrupting the factory’s work flow/production throughout the chapter, causing the Supervisor to become more upset as time goes on. In order to progress, Low and Alone have to keep breaking the machines and ruining her papers (spilling ink, shredding, disorganizing) and distracting/killing the factory workers and just making a mess of everything. (I would have liked to see the Supervisor interacting with the factory workers, urging them to speed up production or even abusing them.) We could have seen that stress gradually build up and culminate into the fateful scene in the Supervisor’s office: multitasking with all six of her arms, stacks and stacks of paper surrounding her, notes covered in red exes, everything becoming even more disorganized, shrieking in frustration, pulling out her hair, destroying the room — until she falls over behind the desk and emerges as the feral spider.

Despite how sudden it was, I liked the hydrolic press killing her in the end — a fitting representation of how she got crushed by the weight of the job and stress. (It was awesome how she benched it for a bit, too.) I like how the AI (the character you’re not playing as in single-player mode) goes up to the Supervisor’s dead hand and touches it, then pulls away, shocked. The AI even stands in front of the Supervisor’s painting and stares at it. It all feels so solemn. Like, no matter how evil she was, you killed someone just trying to be good at their difficult job.

I liked the room with her skirts. I assumed she sewed them herself and wore them to look more professional. She seems particular about her appearance. I like her design as well, but it would’ve been interesting to have her face reflect a more overworked/stressed-out person who is desperately trying to make herself seem presentable and professional.

Also, a last thought: The cameras should have been important! It felt strange that they were just… there, watching you, and nothing came of it. I mean, I understand not wanting to rehash the “eye that turns you to stone” gameplay — I don’t really have an idea for the cameras would work. But I was expecting a security guard antagonist at some point: someone who’s been watching you, perhaps waiting to trap you. Or, there could have been a puzzle where you disconnect and reconnect certain feeds so the security guard can’t see what you’re doing, enabling you to go down certain rooms and hallways without being spotted.

Now for the Kin. I’ve seen some other people say this as well, but it would have been interesting if the Mini-Kin was clearly the one in charge, kind of like an evil service dog.

Imagine this: There’s a room where it’s just Kin. (Mini-Kin is somewhere else.) As the player tries to figure how to get past him, they realize that they can make noise or walk near him without the Kin noticing or catching them as easily as he should be able to. Indicating to the player that the Kin can’t see or hear very well, and that he’s basically useless without Mini-Kin.

Another way to communicate Mini-Kin’s control: the player makes noise and the Kin begins walking towards the wrong room, but Mini-Kin makes a fuss and pulls him into the correct room. This dependence on Mini-Kim would make the fact that you end up burning him to a crisp give a deeper emotional beat: you just killed the poor senile guy’s service dog!

When we actually see the Kin for the first time (not counting the tent silhouette or posters), he’s slumped over on a couch, asleep in a dark room with the TV still on. It was a unique introduction for a boss but the concept should have been taken further, like surrounding him with bottles and smokey cigarette trays. It would have been interesting if there were old posters at the beginning of the Carnivale that showed a younger, more bright-looking Kin. Then, when you actually see him, you see that he’s a washed-up shell of his former self. But Mini-Kin looks relatively the same in the old posters. Maybe the present-day Mini-Kin looks more like the Kin’s younger self, signifying the puppet’s competence and control over its gone-to-shit master.

The Kin’s mask even makes him look like a husk of a person, at least more so than most bosses. He has noticeably black, sunken eye holes and a dark mouth. Meanwhile, Mini-Kin has visible eyes and teeth, looking much more alive and sentient.

Also, I was a little disappointed by the puppets. In the Carnivale’s beginning, you see some puppets in glass cases that looked like something that Sid from Toy Story would create. That’s what I was expecting to come after me. But all of the puppets that ending up moving and attacking you all looked pretty much the same with little variation. Still very creepy, though. I liked the room with the puppets hanging from the ceiling with the strings, although I would liked if they would have attacked you. Kinda like that one scene in the Polar Express, where the homeless guy on the train’s roof is tormenting the kid with the puppets. There definitely needed to be more aggressive puppets.