Headscratchers / Eversion

• Was the world a horrific hellscape all along or is it all Zee Tee's doing?
• How does eversing to X-6 and farther cause you to explode in blood when you die?
  • You descend further into a Darker and Edgier level of existence. Everything explodes in blood when it dies.
  • But....plants don't have blood! (Then again, they don't walk and jump around, either...)
    • Technically, you're not a plant. You're a *.
  • Alternatively, the farther you get into the worlds, the more you begin seeing things as they really are. You or the monsters not bleeding in earlier worlds is the unnatural part.
• Okay, the faces on the blocks turn from happy, to less happy twice, to a plain face, to sad, to distorted. Okay, but then they become swirls, and, from the ending, you could see that they turn into eyes. The point is, why do they stop becoming faces?
  • They probably are faces. Creepy, distorted, lovecraftian nightmare faces.
  • To me, the look of some of the eversed faces was a Shout-Out to Gigiyas' final form
  • Or on a related note, Claus. At least, the X-6 face.
  • In the HD version, some clouds in X-6 do look like Giygas... Or maybe it's just me. Anyway, when I played the game for the first time, I thought the faces in the blocks were becoming older, or sick, eventually dying and becoming souls. Then they come back wrong.
  • As the world changes, everything becomes more corrupted. Similarly, as the faces become more corrupted, they appear less jubilant, then more somber, then completely horrified, until the level of corruption transcends psychological effects and physically transforms them. Then they turn into eyes, because at this point everything conforms to the new "evil" paradigm.
    • So in other words, ZeeTee isn't dimension hopping, but literally turning worlds inside out- turning things demonic? Cool.
• Not for children? This is a perfect game for children! But then again, I am a dick who loves to scare people.
  • Why not let kids play? It ain't that scary at all.
    • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARMS. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARMS. THE ROCKS ARE NOT ROCKS THEY MOVE THEY MOVE THEY HAVE FACES
    • OH MY GOD THERE'S SOME DUDE'S HEARTBEAT IN MY EAR MAKE IT STOP MAKE IT STOP... Grr, stupid maze...
• This game has very little to do with Lovecraft and I wish people would stop bringing it (Lovercraft) up. From what I can see, the author made the game based on the quote that's displayed at the start of the game ('hearing music from another world' type thing). They probably had the idea of a game based on seperate 'planes' some time before that. You can't say it's Lovecrafty because it decays into darkness. It's just not applicable! If this were a trope, it would be Informed Comparison (analogous to Informed Ability and Informed Attribute): people keep saying it's Lovecrafty because other people are calling it Lovecrafty. Stop it!
  • It has the same themes as many of the stories — not only the descent into madness, but the idea that seeing things as they really are would make a sane man start screaming and never stop. There is the constant reminder that we are living in a world that is temporary and subject to change by forces we do not understand. Sometimes, horrible things happen for no reason (oh god oh god oh god the wall of nothingness). Yet we must go on, for there is no return to innocence for our little flower. He has seen the truth, and can only go forth into the heart of madness.
    • Of course, that interpretation operates under the assumption that the later worlds are the "true" worlds. If you don't see it that way, then the Lovecraft comparison does come off as poorly informed.
  • Well, the game was made for a Lovecraft-themed freeware competition, so people aren't just Wild Mass Guessing the Lovecraft angle. Each entry took its inspiration from a different Lovecraft quote, which is why Eversion opens with that line. It's not all that direct, and the constant "omg teh black blob is Nyarlathotop" stuff kinda bugs me too, but there's an intentional thematic link.
    • Any other games from this freeware competition available anywhere?
    • I haven't played any others, but here's the list: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3865.0. Oddly enough, Eversion apparently didn't win: the winner's a game called "Verge".
  • Just read "From Beyond".
• In High Definition version, how come that world X-2 (and to some extent, X-3) is so construction-themed with lots of screws and strings shown? And why world X-4, hills are missing altogether and instead there is a green "sun"set seen in the background?
  • Probably to suggest that world X-1 is a facade, and you're seeing more and more past the illusion as you everse. Once you reach X-4, the cheerful false reality falls away completely to reveal the sunset, and then a new, darker reality starts to appear as you keep eversing.
    • But is darker reality a facade to world X-4 too when you're approaching things from another viewpoint?
    • In the original game, sure: it's all just a matter of whether you count the light, dark, or the middle as the true reality. In that sense, I like the original Eversion better than the HD version. World X-2 and X-3's changes are more subtle than the HD's version with strings and bolts coming loose, and feel more like you're shifting between parallel, but equally "real", realities.
    • But, on the plus side, those of us who were insisting that it was the case that the dark world was what things really look like, and he was just pulling back the veil rather than corrupting the world back when everyone thought we were crazy are finally vindicated.
• Why do so many people (including Deceased Crab) say "to everse" and "eversing"? It's TO EVERT! SAY IT RIGHT!!!
  • Probably because 'everse' resembles 'traverse'.
  • Probably because, when he LPed it, the version of the game he played had the same error. Given that "everse", in all its forms, is not a particularly common word, he just ran with it.
  • Also, since the first form of the word in peoples' mind is eversion, not "evertion"...
    • Ahem. Convert/conversion would be a logical starting point for anyone to draw from. "Everse", thus, still makes no sense.
  • It's a mixture of the words "evert" and "inversion", making it a Portmanteau. So, you know... Everse, inverse. It's also the name of Zee Tee's ability.
    • Are you sure? "Evert/eversion" is the act of turning a sphere (or world in this case) inside out - perfectly accurate to the power that our little asterisk seems to possess.
• The eye in the ending. What is it? What does it stand for?
  • Good question. O_o
  • behind you◊
  • Zaratustra once spoke in a interview for DoubleJump that the blank Ready screen was supposed to have the eye in it, but while he was testing and being lazy about it, he realized it was better that way. Thus the eye is likely who announces each level. It "can see us" after all, as best shown when it reveals itself on the title screen.
• What is the "MOTHER" message supposed to mean? All of the other ones make sense, but not that one.
  • I thought it meant that the eversion was scaring all the "enemies" and making them call for their mothers. That's all I could think of.
  • Other meanings could be that it's supposed to represent the player calling out for their mom, or that Nehema is actually Zee Tee's mom. The latter becomes especially true if you interpret the "Good" ending as Zee Tee and Nehema were Eldritch Abominations the whole time, and it's just then you're seeing them for what they really are. It also helps that there aren't any real "bosses" in the game, so it could be that Zee Tee is just returning home. What that implies for the "Bad" ending is up in the air.
  • I just assumed it was meant as something calling for mother. Be it Zee Tee, or the narrator that would be saying "ready" in the first place, or some other entity.
  • Princess Nehema is the princess of... Something. Probably the world of Eversion. Perhaps this "mother" is the Queen.
• Related not to game, but to its developer. What happened to his website? Why did he remove all the stuff?
• Why do people keep saying that the good ending is ultimately bad? Sure, they get turned into Eldritch Abominations, but it is ultimately the good ending as it's clear that that's Zee Tee's and Princess Nehema's true form.
  • How do we know that it's Zee Tee's true form? I don't actually disagree with you, just saying that whether the ending is "happy" or not is definitely open to interpretation.