The Story of OTHERPLACE

A mysterious person/figment/robot (unknown what this “person” actually is) Finds themself on a long dark road surrounded by tall dark trees. They see a glowing light in the distance far down the road. After walking a little way they see a glowing portal. They don’t see the point in going backward and it seems time and gravity fight them if they do try to turn around. The portal is making a humming sound and looks like a spinning circle of light and webs of darkness. The person hears voices lulling them inside.

 After going inside the portal the person must travel through a kaleidoscope of colors light and space-time. The trip seems to pull them apart and put them back together again. The voices get louder and softer and are maddening. Then suddenly it is over and the person has arrived at a location.

The person (player) is wearing a black cape a little ripped at the end that falls right above the player/person’s knees. The cape has a strange pulsing luster to it of white-silver light, it travels almost like energy across a network. The rest of the outfit is tight and black with floppy ankle boots. You can see the person’s hands but even though they appear human they glow when interacting with certain elements in the environment.

The place the person has arrived is a very foggy forest, the trees are massive and it appears to be a summer evening. There are strange ambient sounds all over the forest, and there is a path in front of the person. Every so often there is a vintage terminal that can be interacted with. These contain hints and puzzles. One of the terminals glows a blue color, the rest are just normal glowing screens. The blue terminal has a journal of a programmer talking about creating the land the person has found themselves in and this land is called OTHERWORLD. It is a limbo between magic, nature, and technology. You find more journal entries as you go which explain some of the world but not all.

 Black abstract-looking forms fly overhead, could be birds, bats, or something even stranger. These can hurt if you run into them,  so can bugs that appear as pixels and a strange static that rips across the world every so often. There is also distortion that appears and you get harmed if you try to walk through it.

You meet a talking light orb that tells you that there is evil in the Other World. The entire realm is waiting to be freed from evil magic. The orb tells you it came here much as you did, but now it remembers nothing else about what it was before coming here. The person finds they remember nothing before finding the portal either. Once you solve the puzzle in the dark forest you are taken to a forest of light.

The forest of light is more friendly, but there are still troubles to dodge there. You begin to pick up some weapons, one of which is a tall scythe the person can store on their back. There is a glowing bottle too that will help you stay above the influence of the Other World. Even in the forest of light, you must drink some every so often to remain in your current form and not become a prisoner of the dangerous Overlord who rules OTHERWORLD. You find out the evil lord is called Vespalian and they killed the programmer who helped create the OTHerWORLD.

There are vintage machines towards the end of the Forest of Light. After you leave the Forest of light you come to the abandoned city.

In the abandoned city you can still hear songs from its past. The city is large and has tall buildings built in very brutalist architecture. Everything is empty but signs of people are everywhere. There are several puzzles that allow you to leave the city. The city is a maze that lets you complete it a little at a time after each puzzle you complete. There are hologram tape decks of people in some of the buildings. You see more of the light mote/glowing ball creatures but you cannot interact with any of them. It appears to be a very gray day. At the end of the world/level, it begins to rain grey ash from the sky and the person/you find yourself walking through a field after you leave through a hole in a tall fence.

After walking through the field with the ash raining on you you find some strange wood structures and statues, this leads to another dense forest, different from the first. After going through the forest there is a small stage. People in white black and gray masks that look like disturbing physically distorted faces gather around. The person can not go forward among them or they will be killed. The person/player watches a sacrifice. Then after this one of the evil people finds the person and they have to fight some of the people and run to escape the small town these people live in. Houses look like ancient Russian wood homes and churches mixed with something more alienesque.

After some time wandering in the second forest and finding enough consoles, you figure out that the dark one is after you, and that there is no way to escape OTHERWORLD other than defeating Vespalian. There are some abandoned parking lots and it is night, there is fog but it is high above you in the sky mixing with the clouds. At this point, you can talk to the spirit of the programmer who has been preserved at this point of the game. You can talk to him through terminals, and also he becomes stronger with each parking lot light you touch. The terminal works as a vintage DOS system on and off during the game. You have to search directories for more information. You find out the evil one wants to eat your soul and leave you to be one of the light motes, you were a pure person in your past life, and that is why he lured you through the portal. So the only way out is through and with directions from the programmer you head down the road to the left at a fork in the road in front of you.

Even deeper is a quicksand area, where the earth will randomly have liquefaction. The dark one knows you are coming and is trying to weaken you and separate you from anything helpful in the world. There are ghosts in the machines now, but they are very weak and cannot tell you everything. 

Find yourself at a large door and you have to create stones from your blood to place in certain recesses of the door. There are large body-horror guards and stone beasts you have to fight with your scythe. They can swallow you whole if you are not fast enough. They have to be completely smashed or they can regenerate. You kill them all but find yourself in front of Vespalian. You have to fight him but he can become invisible, send strange pixelated attacks at you and he can drain your energy. After a long battle, he is killed but in spite of that, you find yourself in a prison. The prison is the real form of Vespalian, and you have to find power points and destroy them. If you haven’t read all the hints on the terminal you won’t know the significance of any object/statue/painting.

You/player/person in cape finally escape, the programmer appears as an entity of white light shaped like a human, tells you they never coded an ending before, but they will try to do so with their remaining energy, and tells you to slip back through a silver portal that almost looks like reflective water. You begin to hear the world around you, an air siren from somewhere.

The person in the cape feels themself die. There is nothing. There is blackness.

But then there is light and you cannot see your own form and you are just floating downwards.

The person in the cape finds themself on the forest floor and walks into the night, but there is a road and you see cars speeding by on it.