YMMV / At Dead of Night

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Let's start with Jimmy and Hugo:
    • Is Hugo the representation of the evil inside Jimmy? Is Jimmy being possessed by the spirit of his father? Given the game's awareness of Carl Jung, are Hugo's references to "us" alluding to some kind of malevolent collective unconscious that Jimmy and his father Hugo are being manipulated by?
    • What exactly is Jimmy's ailment? Dr. Bose seemed convinced it was a lack of empathy and behavioral issues that could be solved with medication, while Jimmy's suicidal tendencies and abusive childhood suggest he could also be suffering depression from his past. Rose insists Jimmy's troubling behavior was all his father Hugo making him do those things posthumously, meaning he could have been a normal child. While the presence of a seemingly separate personality in Jimmy may point to Dissociative Identity Disorder, the developers made a disclaimer clarifying that Jimmy's case was not meant to be a literal depiction of DID and have acknowledged that this disorder does not cause criminal behavior.
    • While Jimmy as a child was clearly a vicious bully with a morbid imagination, was he really as malevolent as Harvey and Dr. Bose clearly believed him to be? It's notable that the things Jimmy did were dangerous and caused people's deaths, but at no point are his intentions really revealed, raising the question of whether he was trying to kill anyone. Amy doesn't imply that Jimmy goaded her to jump off the stairwell, for example, and depending on how young Jimmy was it's possible he didn't grasp the seriousness of what he did to Dr. Bose or Harvey. When he actually does kill someone, it's Harvey, who was at that point actively hunting him—a child—down with a gun for what Jimmy could have seen as a series of pranks. Rose noting that Jimmy "changed" after that could have also been a My God, What Have I Done? moment brought on by seeing someone die as a result of his actions.
  • It's unknown how morally upright Dr. Bose was, considering that he tried to forcefully inject medicine into Jimmy to curb his impulsive behavior. At the very least, it's implied that he was innocent of whatever Jimmy accused him of.
  • How conscious is Rose of Jimmy's condition and her involvement in its development? Rose's much belated notice of Jimmy's "change" could very easily be interpreted as her simply no longer being able to blind herself to his disturbing behaviors like she could when he was a child. Her penultimate conversation indicates she felt guilty for her horrible mismanaging of Jimmy and his past and became suicidal, but her final conversation is focused entirely on Jimmy's father Hugo, indicating she believes to be Jimmy's father to be possessing his son and that she killed herself partly to spite her ex the opportunity.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The scrying mirror gives pretty good hints towards progressing the storyline.
  • There doesn't seem to be any fail condition when rescuing Maya's friends at the end of the game. Jimmy himself cannot enter a room where Maya is waiting to send a rescued friend out to escape. Also, regardless of whether or not the friend encounters Jimmy, (which they likely will given the difficulty of determining from inside the room whether he is in the path of their escape route), they count as "rescued" by the final cutscene despite what their screams upon encountering Jimmy might imply. The game counts it as rescuing all of your friends whether they encounter Jimmy during their escape or not.
• Cliché Storm: Although the gameplay is unique, innovating, and refreshing, the overall plot itself has many clichés. There's an ordinary person being hunted by a psychopath in a haunted location, and the villain is a victim of past abuse who actually turns out to have a sympathetic side.
• Disappointing Last Level: While the gameplay is incredibly unique and new, it falls apart during your final task to free your five friends and escape the hotel. It consists of running to five rooms, avoiding Jimmy who now triggers a full-on Game Over if he captures you, and watching the exact same "freed your friend" cinematic and hearing the exact same dialogue five times in a row. It feels like the exact same kind of thing you've been doing for several hours now, minus all the mystery and intrigue of talking to ghosts. Your reward for completing it is a very brief clip of Maya leaving the hotel alongside A Winner Is You type congratulation message, a brief scene of Jimmy hamming it up, and a couple of brief establishing shots of the hotel.
• Fridge Logic:
  • Why does Jimmy never use the stairwell? And why doesn't he ever explore the ground floor or the basement? This is especially apparent during Maya's escape in the final sequence. Jimmy will not follow Maya to the ground floor, even though he's trying to prevent her from escaping the hotel and there's presumably only one way out.
    • What makes it weirder is that the penultimate cutscene with Hugo's grave is in the basement and has Jimmy showing up with his bat, meaning he has access to the basement, he just... chooses not to use it for some reason.
    • There's a theory suggesting that to Hugo, everything is a game of cat and mouse to him.
    • Or possibly, as suggested over in Fridge Brilliance, Jimmy is getting the upper hand over Hugo to allow Maya and her friends to escape.
    • Jimmy may actually be using the stairwell. Unless he's waiting to follow us up by using the elevator, he must be moving floors by the only other way possible.
  • Why doesn't Maya take the ornamental sword and dagger to attack Jimmy? Ghosts even note that these weapons are dangerous, and Jimmy even managed to kill Harvey with the dagger.
    • The obvious answers to these are 1: The creator doesn't want the player to have any more upper edges on Jimmy than they already do. If they could just straight up kill Jimmy, it would lower the fear factor. And 2: Maya doesn't want to kill anyone.
  • During the final leg of the game, why does Maya wait in the hotel room while her friends escape one by one? Why don't they escape together? It'd be safer to face Jimmy in pairs, at least.
    • Probably because they have less of a chance of surviving if they're in pairs. Think about it: if they were in a group, then they would make a lot more sound and would need to speak to each other quite a bit, giving away their location. Helping her friends escape one by one would be less risky and safer.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • The player can prevent Jimmy from spawning for most of the game if they start a new file and move through all the floors fast enough, never staying on one floor long enough for Jimmy to spawn. That means that Maya can unravel much of the mysteries without having to deal with Jimmy much, possibly even restarting the game if he does spawn. Although Jimmy will likely spawn later into the game (as cutscenes may force the player into staying on one floor for too long) the player can still make great progress on the story without dealing with any of the main conflict. Best seen in this speedrun.
  • The player can also remove Jimmy from the final segment of the game, allowing Maya to save most of her friends in peace.
• Idiot Ball: Yes, Maya, going downstairs to the basement and having a friendly chat with the Ax-Crazy man who's been stalking you, terrorizing you, and beating your head in with a baseball bat is a great idea. (She only gets away with it because she's about two seconds faster than Jimmy and is able to lock the door on him before escaping to the elevator.)
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. Can't you see?"^ExplanationA parody of The Notorious B.I.G.'s Hypnotize ("Biggie, Biggie, Biggie. Can't you see?"). Courtesy of Dashie Games here.
• Narm:
  • Sometimes when Jimmy attacks Maya, he gives an odd yelp or scream while doing so.
  • Harvey is quite the Large Ham, constantly shouting Jimmy's name and to the point where it might get odd for some.
  • The High-Pressure Blood during Harvey's death scene is out of place with the rest of the game, which features little gore and isn't nearly as dramatic.
  • During the final segment of the game, the player can rescue their friends and then purposefully send out their friends to their deaths with Jimmy out there to kill them.
    • Making it worse is that instead of screaming, struggling, crying, calling out for help or even acknowledging Maya, the friends are just sitting there passively with their hands tied up and blankets tossed over their heads. It looks like the most hilariously half-assed attempt at kidnapping ever.
  • Jimmy isn't quite as scary once you realize that he sort of looks like Bill Nye.
• Nightmare Fuel: Mainly Jimmy himself, alongside with the death scenes of all the hotel guests.
  • After Maya pieces together the entire story, she narrowly escapes an encounter with Jimmy in the basement, running back upstairs. At this point, the game saves—for the last time—and Maya now has to rescue all five of her friends and get out to safety. And while Jimmy had merely given her a Tap on the Head with his baseball bat before, this time it's game over. If Maya fails to elude Jimmy, we are treated to a lovely game over screen with Jimmy's leering face, combining a Kubrick Stare with a Slasher Smile, tinted bright red over a black background, making him look like an actual demon.
    • The worst part of all of the above is that Maya doesn't die right away: just before the game over screen, you can see her coming to, fuzzily, and Jimmy hovering over her with: "Sweet dreams...!" This, just after he's monologued about how they're destined to be together and she's going to stay there with him forever.
  • The end of Dr. Bose's story. With Jimmy having destroyed his life, he ties a rope to an elevator, makes a noose out of the other end, slips it over his neck, and lets the elevator strangle him to death.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • Knowing that Jimmy is roaming the hotel alongside Maya and can be on any of the three higher floors is enough to keep players constantly watching their backs. Every sound heard could be his footsteps, and every shadow could be Jimmy around the corner. And the player may remain paranoid on the ground floor, the basement, and the stairwell until they realize that Jimmy never ventures into those areas.
  • The player must quickly move through each floor, as Jimmy might spawn if they take too long.
  • Even time Maya walks down a hallway or even turns, she might encounter a ghost scene or be attacked by Jimmy.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The slight and constant shake of the camera can be off-putting to some, though it's probably supposed to represent Maya's fear.
  • The button to call Jimmy is placed right underneath the spirit box button, which occasionally leads to players accidentally calling out for Jimmy while trying to talk to ghosts.
  • The compass isn't exact, often pointing to strange directions and leading the player around in circles.
  • To open doors with keys, Maya must first try to open the door first, fail, and then use her key from the inventory.
  • To activate ghost cutscenes, Maya might have to walk a certain path and turn a certain direction. Some scenes are harder to encounter than others, with some players taking even up to an hour trying to find just one.
• Special Effects Failure: Jimmy's actor is wearing ludicrously bad bald make-up. Fortunately, he wears a hat much of the time, but it blows a lot of tension out of the jump scares.
• Spiritual Adaptation: A serial killer possessed by a ghost tries to kill the few remaining inhabitants of a hotel. Doesn't that sound familiar?
• Tear Jerker: Maya uncovers the various mysteries behind the ghosts and Jimmy's past, often leading to stories about how Jimmy has ruined their lives.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The game glosses over some of the more interesting details about the hotel, such as the origin of the radio and scrying mirror, how supernatural Hugo Punch may or may not be, and what exactly the Hall Family's implied connection to Maya might be.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Maya's friends aren't involved with the plot until the end, when Maya must save them. And even then, they don't receive much dialogue or characterization, and it's unknown which character is Hannah from the opening.
  • During the opening, Jimmy states that Hugo "always does this" to their customers (that presumably being knocking them out and tying them up, possibly even killing them afterwards). The spirit box also has several different voices calling out to Maya, warning her about Jimmy. However, there are only four ghosts haunting the hotel, all of which come from about the same time period. There's no mention of possible victims that came after Rose's death, and the extra voices from the spirit box are never heard again.
• The Woobie: Each of Jimmy's victims count as this to varying degrees, with some notable examples.
  • Amy Bell was just a child when she encountered Jimmy, who bullied her, burned her belongings, stole her money, and tricked her into getting drunk which led to her death. Sadly enough, she is often heard crying throughout the hallways until her story is done.
  • Dr. Bose was a visiting psychiatrist who tried to treat Jimmy's disturbing behavior. Unfortunately for him, Jimmy tricks him into eating a sandwich with broken glass, ruins his entire reputation by accusing him of some horrible crime, and basically drives him into suicide. Many players have expressed sympathy for this ghost in particular, due to his odd suicide at the elevator.

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