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SKY//BOX (2022)
(aka: Interloper)

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SKY//BOX (2022) (ARG)
"anyone see that weird grafitti in ravenholm?"

In the game Half-Life 2, there exists an ongoing mystery that has never been solved: The INTERLOPER Mystery.

SKY//BOX is an Anthology Series of Alternate Reality Games by Anomidae ("A-Nom-Ih-Day"), focusing on the mysteries hidden within a variety of Valve Software's Source Engine games. The premise of the series revolves around a collective of digital archaeology enthusiasts named PROJECT SKYBOX, following their investigations into the many mysteries that are at risk of being lost to time.

The first series, INTERLOPER, covers the puzzle of an unusual piece of graffiti in Half-Life 2 with bizarre internal properties. The subsequent investigation reveals a rabbit hole of long lost software, mysterious developers, incomprehensible entities and features of the Source Engine that were never previously known to be possible. The series starts with the video "INTERLOPER: Half-Life 2's Greatest Unsolved Mystery", and continues through various sequel episodes.

A second series, WANDER//STUCK, was teased in 2025. As per PROJECT SKYBOX's call to action, it will focus on the search for a lost Source Engine ARG that featured custom puzzlehunts, plus a troubled development. Its teaser can be watched here.

For a list of every video in the series in both upload and chronological order, you can see our Timeline page.

Not to be confused with the trope Skybox, rendering a 3D game's sky as a cube that wraps around the world.


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  • 2-D Space: Discussed in "INTERLOPER 5". Upon trying to do 'expeditions' into the map void, Anomidae initially tries travelling in a straight, flat line from the initial map. After three failed attempts, they realise that they should probably try the Z-axis as well, which does end up leading to something.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The INTERLOPER command appears to be linked to an experimental feature involving "DMNPCs", an attempt to create intelligent in-game NPCs via iterative learning. Eventually, these NPCs become so advanced that they can display human-like movement and behavior, which appears to have been seen as creepy even in-universe. These advanced NPCs appear to be the subject of the Type 5 demos, and are frequently accosted by the Umbrella Men for whatever purpose.
    • Later on in the series, specifically INTERLOPER 9, implies that the map creation tool related to the command is also under an algorithmic intelligence that is self-learning, as FSKY is initially intrigued by it's ability to start generating text in the maps it creates before expressing frustration that it is now developing mazes that the developers cannot comprehend the purpose of.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: The cge7-193 server was originally set to reset every hour, which turned out to be very frustrating for players since they had to deal with a lot of downtime between each attempt at finding a correct code for the 'ask' map. After a day, the server reset interval was quietly reduced to every half-hour, alleviating this issue.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Anomidae expresses disbelief in INTERLOPER 2 that alleged screenshots of a "DM Editor" are evidence of a real Source tool, and dismisses it as a hoax. The same video sees him triggering a Hint node that was seen in said screenshot while manipulating the aborted Type 5 demo, and the later discovery of Eida's videos suggests he's using a similar program for his work, but Anomi never comments on it.
  • Arc Symbol: Checkerboard patterns and an XYZ axis appear quite frequently throughout the series.
    • Metallic cones and other geometric shapes are also seen in much of Project Skybox's visual imagery.
  • Artificial Stupidity: It is suggested that the Type 1 to 3 demos represent AI in the very early stages of learning how to play each game. That Type 4 demos are most common in Portal 1 seems to back this up; Portal is a game where puzzles tend to lack randomness or moving elements, making it the type of game that an AI using iterative learning would do best at. The Portal 2 Type 4 demos seem to behave as if the AI has no clue how to interact with the new puzzle elements, seemingly reinforcing this further.
  • Bad Liar/Blatant Lies: Anomidae claims to "not be a Source Engine expert" in INTERLOPER 4, despite previously being seen brandishing a Saxxy in INTERLOPER 3, an award given by Valve as part of an annual SFM contestnote  (though this could be some Self-Deprecation on his part).
  • Bittersweet Ending: "INTERLOPER F" ends the INTERLOPER arc on this note, albeit possibly leaning more toward bitter depending on how you interpret it. Having realized that his attempts to relive the past through the Source Void were destabilizing the entire system, Anomi uses the Flashlight Nuke to destroy the structure created as a result of his interference, which in the process prevents anyone from using the INTERLOPE command anymore. However, doing so seems to have permanently tanked his relationship with Lucy and Project Skybox, and he admits that he doesn't really know if the Void will be able to heal itself or when someone else will find another exploit to access it. In the process he was also forced to destroy the Skyghost, who- despite being a corrupting force by her existence- was still an innocent victim in all this; and while her final transmission implies that the AI inside the Skyghost survived in the form of a cone, said cone is then seen being attacked and possibly killed by an entity resembling a Utah teapot, implying there are other dangers in the Void besides the Umbrella Men.
  • Body Horror: What little we see of the Mona seen in the "I'm Done" video consists of a stiff, not textured upper body of a woman seemingly embedded in the ground constantly shaking its arms.
    • What the Umbrella Men do to "captured" Type 5s seems to border on this, forcibly converting their models to "cheaple" citizens (as seen in "Misty") or stretching and twisting them in torturous ways (such as the "Hi Guy" in INTERLOPER 8)
    • Eida's breakdown is revealed to involve what looks like outright torture of the Mona when it's confined to a ragdoll, with four of the recovered clips from his channel found through the Kulcs server showing the entity being put into crushing walls, being stuck in unclaimable slopes, and a device that pulled and twisted its head so graphically that YouTube itself flagged the video as being too graphic for certain audiences (which Anomi refused to replay in full in INTERLOPER E).
  • Breather Episode:
    • INTERLOPER 7 effectively functions as this due to its framework as a dossier presentation on investigation finds, with no overtly creepy or scary moments being shown (bar the VRAD Error's sudden appearances and the uncertain note of the ending). INTERLOPER 5 has a similar vibe for the most part, particularly in its triumphant climax, but the ending's examination of Eida's "It's Inside my Computer here's proof" subverts this with a spooky observation and a literal jumpscare)
    • A few of Eida Machinima Archive's videos are from before Eida got involved in his Interloper investigation, and simply feature classic Stylistic Suck antics in Garry's Mod with seemingly little overall story relevance beyond dropping a few hints about Eida's personal backstory. The best example is likely how "I'm Done. Goodbye.", a creepy short video that raises a mountain of questions regarding the Interloper mystery and Eida's activities, was uploaded alongside the self-explanatory "gary man eats tacos and DIES".
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • Early in INTERLOPER 2, Anomidae brings up the suggestion that the demos could be linked to a defunct Source Engine tool called the "DM Editor", which they dismiss as a hoax. During the Type 5 demo at the end of the video, they discover the ability to place the exact same "Hint" prompt that the screenshot of the DM Editor showcased, revealing that it does have some relevance after all. Later, especially through hints and references in Eida's videos, as well as the Tuesday Manifest files, the DM Editor, or "Boxrocket" as it is called in Eida's videos, is revealed to be an early version of the Source Filmmaker, which becomes a prominent source of the investigation onward starting in "INTERLOPER 9".
    • Also in INTERLOPER 2, after his avatar is taken by the Umbrella Man, every subsequent boot into Portal loads his character into a small room with a red light illuminating the center that almost immediately crashes to desktop; in the video (as well as in the third video) he assumed that this is some dead end and that he couldn't get anything more out of the game. INTERLOPER 4 reveals that the RTX version of the game doesn't crash at all, and that his Portal game was actually turned into a local server through which other Source games can connect into, allowing him to use the INTERLOPER commands in Half-Life 2: Deathmatch again.
    • Eida's demonstrations and tests that helped him along to discovering the "Mona" entity earlier in the series come back around in "INTERLOPER 9" as the reveal of how to draw activity out the uncooperative entity possessing the Lucy model in the Project Skybox mod, when Anomi absentmindedly leaves it submerged in water.
    • The Flashlight Nuke, a seemingly unconnected and unknown cheat code from the Xbox version of the game that had little to do with the investigation, comes back full force in "INTERLOPER C", as Anomi discovers its potential usage while traversing the void as a method to cripple the Umbrella Man hunting him down with its ability lock up NPCs.
    • Back in "INTERLOPER 7", a lot of discussion is had on the functionality of the Source engine sharing similar game logic between games which helps serve as the groundwork for each game's programming developed within it, until the reveal in "INTERLOPER A" where a Heavy NPC is able to kill Anomi in the Project Skybox mod — something that shouldn't even be possible because death was explicitly coded out from the mod unless it served a component of the Source Engine's logic itself. This would be further exploited by Anomi in "INTERLOPER C" to revive himself in the Source Void after dying in the Xbox copy of Half Life 2 by using a defibrillator carried by Bill before utilizing an Engineer's teleporter being deployed at void coordinates to explore it further because the foundational logic between the games are seemingly all shared even in older copies of the games.
    • "INTERLOPER F" brings back a comment made by Lucy all the way back in "INTERLOPER 7" as an aside remark for the Source Engine's limitations in a big way that affects the finale. Namely, the fact that Valve couldn't succeed in creating the immersive dream they had due to the technology being limited in space, which meant that as Anomi and the SKY//BOX team pushed in their pursuit in uncovering the secrets of the "interlope" command, they were actually systematically destroying the stability of the Source Engine at it's core by pushing the Source void to it's limit repeatedly because the actual hardware couldn't continuously maintain the data they were feeding it, leading to more instability and bugs consuming everything from the top down because the human input was too much for it continue to handle in this fashion beyond the intended functionality of the game engine. This fact, alongside the realization of Anomi's obsession with reliving what they've lost from their romantic partner, ultimately pushed them to betray the desires of the SKY//BOX team and put an end to the whole investigation.
  • Chekhov's Skill: In "INTERLOPER 5", Anomi begins his void explorations by flying in various directions - before realising that he can cover more distance quickly by falling instead of flying. During "INTERLOPER C", the speed boost from falling is what allows him and Skyghost to escape a flying Umbrella Man.
  • Credits Gag: The "Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!" credits, which in-universe are meant to be for Eida's Garrymans series, are actually credits for INTERLOPER and Anomidae's Patreon supporters, but with all the names jumbled up and altered to sound a little more 2009.
  • Curse Cut Short: In "Interloper C":
    Anomi: I really wish I wasn't dead though, 'cause I would like to see what is happening... And also this red is very f-
  • Entry Point: The way to start interacting with the game is by finding a distorted "umbrella man" graffiti in an alleyway in the Half-Life 2 level "We Don't Go to Ravenholm". The corrupted part of the image reveals that an "INTERLOPER" console command is to be activated in multiple games that run on the Source Engine; resulting in new gameplay demos that hold clues.
  • Foil: In INTERLOPER 3, Anomidae discovers a YouTube channel archiving the videos made by a person named Eida, who apparently did his own investigation on the INTERLOPER phenomenon. Eida directly contrasts Anomidae's technical, almost scientific approach to investigating by treating the "interloper ghosts" as if they were actual supernatural spirits, to the point of constructing his own Ouija Board-esque map for the purpose of communicating to the "ghost".
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: Near the end of "INTERLOPER 9", as Anomi investigates the Half-Life 2 radio music the Skyghost is playing, he flies past one of the Heavy models he spawned in the map. For a handful of frames as it moves off the left of the screen, the Heavy turns to face Amoni just like the Skyghost... and smiles with a wide open mouth.
  • Haunted Technology: Eida believes that this is the true origin of the INTERLOPER anomalies, though there is nothing to confirm this in the actual investigation thus far.
  • He Was Right There All Along: The stinger to Episode 5 reveals that Umbrella Man was in Eida's final video – but the video quality was too low resolution to actually see him.
  • I Fell for Hours: This is what Anomidae does in INTERLOPER 5 to explore the void, killing his character on 2fort and letting it fall out of bounds. For 6.5 hours.
  • In Medias Res: Eida Machinima's channel archive is incomplete, meaning we only get to see small pieces of his INTERLOPER investigation at various stages of it.
  • Kayfabe: Anomidae is both the creator of the ARG, and its in-universe main character as the person investigating the mystery. The very first video in the series presents itself as an investigation into a genuine long-standing mystery, only fully revealing itself to be an ARG with the "Made with Source Filmmaker" credit at the very end.
  • Live Episode: INTERLOPER 4 was first broadcast ostensibly as a livestream, with an edited down version of it serving as the main episode. Out of Kayfabe it was still pre-recorded, with a Leaning on the Fourth Wall explanation of Anomidae not being able to easily see the chat as the justification for why they don't directly respond to specific comments. "INTERLOPER 8" is also presented as a livestream, this time with it being cut-off and what happens afterwards being elaborated on in the subsequent video.
  • The Lost Lenore:
    • It is implied that "Mona" is this to Eida in some form. She first appears in "Garrysmod Zombie Slayer" as the person Eida protects, calling him a sweetheart at the end of it. Eida's channel was originally named "Eidam0na Machinima", and his Interloper investigation is credited to "Eida-M0na", suggesting that the channel was supposed to be a collaborative effort between the two. The archive channel's description describes the content he made during his "breakdown" as consisting of many "Mona videos", and in his channel deletion video, he kills some kind of entity he dubs "the Mona". Given that he believes the INTERLOPER phenomenon to be paranormal in nature, the implication seems to be that he believes the haunting is linked to Mona the person in some way, and that his breakdown stems from him beginning to closely associate the entities to Mona herself.
    • INTERLOPER F implies that Anomidae had a romantic partner who died, causing him to investigate the Interloper command in the hopes of reliving the memories with them.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The dynamic between Anomidae's science and Eida's paranormal investigation leans a bit into this. As the series follows Anomidae's perspective it heavily promotes the mundane theory for what is happening, but there still isn't anything to conclusively prove that there's no supernatural elements to it (though Eida's interpretation of them as literal ghosts is highly unlikely with how eldritch later entries become). The fact that the 'ghosts' seem capable of responding to pain also falls under this. Just the way they are programmed to behave, or a sign that they actually do have a level of consciousness? INTERLOPER B starts to show that the whole series may in fact lean to a paranormal origin as Anomidae starts experiencing things related to the investigation that scientifically are completely impossible, and while he still tries to justify it as just something he's yet to explain, it's clear Anomidae is starting to get less confident in his own theories as the mystery evolves into something more unnatural. By INTERLOPER C, he's started putting "do not attempt to replicate" warnings at the beginning of his videos, just like Eida used to, when he previously encouraged viewers to investigate on their own.
  • Meaningful Background Event:
    • During the Portal Type 5 demo in INTERLOPER 2, the Umbrella Man can actually be seen twice before ambushing Anomidae: once at 13:45 watching him through a window (which Anomi doesn't notice), and once at 14:21 sliding out of view behind a corner (which Anomi does catch a glimpse of but doesn't specifically describe, making it unclear on first viewing what he's actually reacting to). The former example is particularly noteworthy because it appears before the trademark windchime sound plays, suggesting that the Umbrella Man can actually appear without the sound playing.
    • Near the end of INTERLOPER 8, as Anomi examines his games following the Tuesday Manifest, he fails to notice in his Project Skybox mod that the head of the Lucy model from the last video is turning to follow his movements, up to and including her head turning backwards to face him. Fortunately, the real Lucy did notice and gave him an earful over it.
  • Meaningful Release Date: An Invoked Trope: The Eida Machinima - Video Archive reupload of "Spise Test [1 of 7]" was, in Kayfabe, released exactly eleven years after it was originally uploaded.
  • Mockumentary: Anomidae's "INTERLOPER: Half-Life 2's Greatest Unsolved Mystery" series is a set of investigations into the fictional mystery.
  • Mythology Gag: The name "Interloper" is a subtle reference to the Half-Life 1 level of the same name.
  • Noodle Incident: The unspecified "breakdown" that Eida suffered prior to his INTERLOPER investigation, beyond suspicions that it has to do to with what "Mona" meant to him beforehand. The reason for his channel deletion is similarly vague, but recent evidence suggests the "mona videos" he made as a result of the investigation were part of an obsessive pattern that his friends and fanbase were negative towards, if not anything related to how those behind the anomaly might've responded to him. The description of a recovered Saxxy Awards video would finally reveal some details about what caused his slip, with his audience implicating him repeatedly of plagiarism that caused him to have a breakdown after insistent harassment.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Lilico as mentioned on the projectskybox.net website. The only information about it we're provided besides one screenshot of a primitve being made of blocks is that it was "Particularly Unsettling" With no elaboration into the actual content of the tape.
  • The Reveal: "INTERLOPER F reveals that Anomi had been conducting his entirely own investigation, hidden from the public and the Project Skybox team, where he was researching if the Interloper was connected to reliving old memories.
  • Overly Long Gag: "half life 2 is not a good game 2014.11.3" is a video during Eida's breakdown where he hits a can prop in Half-Life 2 For an HOUR straight.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: Eida Machinima's investigation in many respects demonstrates a much stronger understanding of how the INTERLOPER anomalies work than Anomidae's own research. However, Eida approaches the mystery from a paranormal perspective rather than a technical one, making his assumptions about the kind of entity he is dealing with leads him to a wildly different conclusion.
  • Running Gag: Anomi's affinity for Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. In "INTERLOPER 4", Anomidae sheepishly admits that they regularly play it in their spare time. In "INTERLOPER 5", they are shown playing the game while waiting for a result from the first Z-axis expedition. Then in "INTERLOPER C", after deciding to give the Xbox version of Half-Life 2 on emulator a try, Anomi almost wistfully wonders out loud whether somebody has ever ported Deathmatch to Xbox.
  • Selective Obliviousness: Episode 8 of Eida's ghost investigation reveals that his belief that a ragdoll is possessed by Mona is because of this. Already believing that he is dealing with something paranormal in nature, he takes it very seriously when it scrambles an alphabet to create a sequence of letters that can spell 'Mona' when viewed from a very specific angle. The idea that Eida was deliberately trying to find a pattern in a completely random set of results isn't something he considers. "Correcting the record 2013.1.2" more or less confirms this, as Eida seems to intentionally overlook and cut out the entity blatantly spelling 'Olive' infront of the camera before it scrambles together 'Mona'.
  • Significant Anagram: The channel name "Eida-Mona" is an anagram of Anomidae. This especially highlights their contrasting nature when it comes to the INTERLOPER phenomenon (see the Foil entry above), as one need do little more than reverse the name of one channel to get the other's.
  • Stealth Sequel: The game "Ricotanks", initially promoted by Anomidae as a side-project unrelated to the INTERLOPER story, is revealed in its ending to be a teaser for WANDERSTUCK, the next entry in the SKY//BOX series after INTERLOPER concludes.
  • The Stinger: "INTERLOPER C" features a short post-credits scene of Anomi seemingly preparing to continue playing Half-Life 2 on Xbox.
  • Stylistic Suck: Eida Machinima's non-investigation videos are pastiches of 2000s-era Garry's Mod machinima, with poor audio and visual quality, base-level use of gameplay features, "Unregistered Hypercam 2" in the top corner and of course the use of "Blow Me Away" as a soundtrack choice.
  • Tempting Fate: In "INTERLOPER A", Anomi gets the idea of playing sound effects to Skyghost to see if it reacts. After trying several and getting no results, they have a "really funny idea" and try the wind chime sound effect associated with the Umbrella Men, which DMNPCs in Type 5 demos seemed to recognize in fear, and Skyghost likely saw from "viewing" demos as Anomi ran them. As a result, the entity reacts with unprecedented behavior, fleeing from Anomi's sight before eventually sneaking up on and somehow killing them despite death being disabled in the Project Skybox mod. By the episode's end Anomi is still stuck in the death cam, unable to respawn as Skyghost runs rampant in the map, and can't risk restarting the mod to try and fix it since that would most likely mean permanently losing the entity.
  • Tom the Dark Lord: The Umbrella Man's name is apparently Olive, according to the model.
  • Unreliable Narrator: "INTERLOPER F" reveals that Anomi had been deliberately withholding information from Project Skybox and the public so that he could continue his own private investigation.
  • Unusual Chapter Numbers: The INTERLOPER videos are numbered in hexadecimal (after Episode 9 comes Episode A).
  • Weird Sun: A recurring trait of many Type 5 demos is that the sun has a strobe lighting effect that causes it to flash through multiple colours, with it also being visible through walls and scenery. This is a Source Filmmaker bug that is very easy to fix, so its presence in the demos appears to be very intentional.
  • What the Hell Is That Accent?: Eida has a distinctly prominent accent in during his videos investigating the INTERLOPER Anomaly, but hard to pin down due to the late-2000s qualities of them. Though it turns out to be a moot point anyway, as during the Tuesday Manifest files, it is revealed that the accented voice doesn't belong to Eida but a voice actor friend of his, implicated by Eida as Jman from the forums that uncovered the mystery in the first place.

Alternative Title(s): Interloper, Sky Box

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