After playing in company of myself i find this story WAY too fucking sad.
Reviews for "Fixation"
I'M MOONWALKING!
The only game where smoking SAVES your life!
Simply amazing game... love everything about it.
OBVIOUS SPOILER ALERT
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If you would, please entertain a theory of mine: Jack didn’t kill Kathryn. Instead, I believe that Jack was a victim of unfortunate coincidence and Kathryn was the victim of a vindictive and controlling ex-boyfriend. Thomas, alone and angry that Kathryn took Penelope away from him, attacked her in her now-empty apartment – knowing that, with both Penny’s father-figure and best friend dead, Penny’s distraught mindset would make her return to him. Manipulated by his lies and her self-confidence comforted by his false compliments, Penny would undoubtedly believe Thomas’ whispers of “Maybe it was that strange guy. The ugly, stuttering, self-medicated guy who did it.” With an accusation like that melded together with Jack’s frequent daily amnesia, there would be no alibi for him to deny these statements.
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In TCoM, it was revealed that Kathryn was discovered in a green box. She was discovered, not seen while being murdered. Who discovered her? In this world, I see two options: Penelope or Jack. If Jack was, indeed, the one who found her – that would be a major blow to his already unstable psyche, perhaps one large enough to literally break his mind. His memory of finding her dead in a green box, along with a subconscious tug of a forgotten memory that “If I hadn’t left her that day, she would still be alive,” in his cracked state may have had him indirectly blaming himself for her death. Similar things have happened in real life, where an unstable individual, stricken with confusion, grief and all the other range of emotions that would be felt in that situation, have admitted to crimes that they did not really commit.
In his memory (TCoM), he pushed the button. He believes he killed her. In Fixation, the story about the real events that occurred prior to Kathryn's death, she opens the gate and says goodbye.
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We experienced the entirety of Fixation, up to and including their parting, through Kathryn's eyes using her game mechanics. The inclusion of the final "puzzle" in TCoM being the final "puzzle" of Fixation pays credence to how much impact that forgotten memory had on his guilt - it wasn't him killing her, it was simply the last time he would ever see her alive. In the end, all we saw was Kathryn and Jack parting ways. Now, I know that the story is supposed to go a certain way – one with the fact that Jack killed her – but I find it interesting to entertain the thought that there is still a chance that Jack didn’t really murder the woman that he loved.
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BTW, if it wasn't already noticeable by my lengthy review, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. 5/5