As a WMG subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
Amanda is a serial killer.
Hear me out, if the game is expanded to have a bigger story, this would make sense to include. Sure, Amanda's true form is a monster, but maybe it's a manifestation of the monster inside her. In life, Amanda was a serial killer responsible for the murders of several young children, who was later arrested and executed, but before she died, she made a Deal with the Devil to continue her rampage after death. Her spirit, which was made a hideous monster to represent her on the inside, possessed the tapes, and she manipulated them to look like her favorite shows when she was a little girl to lure in more victims.- Perhaps Wooly is one of her victims, having been dragged into the tapes with her. If so, then perhaps there are more tapes, showing the other victims.
- If you take into consideration the image of the two children who most likely are young versions of Amanda and Wooly before they died, as well as the fact that Wooly is repeatedly trying to resist Amanda's control, it's possible that Wooly, her brother, could have been her final victim or an (possibly unwitting) accomplice who felt remorse and fought back against Amanda, resulting in both of their deaths and subsequent possession of the tapes.
- Most of this is Jossed; Rebecca Colton, the ghost inside of Amanda, is just a normal girl and just as much a victim as Wooly. The demon, on the other hand...
- If you take into consideration the image of the two children who most likely are young versions of Amanda and Wooly before they died, as well as the fact that Wooly is repeatedly trying to resist Amanda's control, it's possible that Wooly, her brother, could have been her final victim or an (possibly unwitting) accomplice who felt remorse and fought back against Amanda, resulting in both of their deaths and subsequent possession of the tapes.
Grandma is the one buried in the forest.
In the new secret tape of the 1.3 update, Amanda goes to the forest to dig up "treasure". She mentions three tools she brought: A crowbar, a rope (tied like a noose), and a shovel. Amanda says she already "used the crowbar on the door" and in the middle of saying what she used the rope for, the audio cuts out. I think she used the crowbar to break into grandma's house, strangled her with the rope and buried her in the forest. We've never been shown Grandma's house either. The house in episode 3 is the player's house. Not to mention, Amanda didn't break in, the player opened the door for her. Lastly, when the player picks the shovel, Amanda says "Let's dig this up before someone..." then Wooly cuts her off. Before someone finds out maybe?- Tacking onto the above Serial Killer Amanda theory, she could've killed her own grandmother in life, and the secret tape could potentially be symbolic of that.
- Adding into both of these, Amanda wasn't a serial killer in life, but became one in death. She unintentionally killed hers and Wooly's grandmother via meat poisoning due to her odd insistence about food. Tying her up via noose to force her to eat the meat after breaking in with a crowbar due to her anger issues at being disobeyed or corrected. She doesn't, or rather didn't, understand things like food allergies or being vegetarian, seeing them as "being stubborn" and "wrong". Ultimately killing her grandmother due to this and how she tied her up. Notice how she doesn't call the rope a noose, but instead insists that it's rope while saying that she "didn't bring that". After burying their dead granny in the forest and going back to unbury and move her before someone else found out, she and Wooly got into a fight that resulted in Wooly's death, and rather than get punished for (in her mind) being "right" and "disobeyed" she instead offed herself via eldritch ritual (not understanding what THAT is or why it shouldn't be done) so she can be right and followed all the time, and trap and kill everyone and anyone else that dares go against what she says. Which is ultimately "Never My Fault". Hence the kid show nature of the tapes. All in a vain attempt to deal with/mask her denial and grief over her grandmother, missing her but never acknowledging how SHE was the core cause and problem that resulted in her demise, taking it out on others, and becoming desperately addicted to killing people that watch her tapes.
When the full game comes out, there's going to be a special ending if you don't annoy Amanda.
Whether it's going to be a good ending where Amanda's demon form doesn't decide to come after you, a bad ending where you become trapped inside her show, or just a silly ending where the game is surprised you had that level of restraint on you, we'll just have to see.- More or less confirmed. You can tell you don't want to hear her secret and be unceremoniously thrown out (no demon form) and you can be trapped with the butcher just by following a normal playthrough.
Amanda isn't the monster, she and Wooly are both victims.
- Amanda is caught between two forces, Rebecca her original voice actor or more specifically Rebecca's ghost and the computer program meant to imitate the original so the production company wouldn't need Rebecca. Rebecca's ghost doesn't fully understand what happened to leave her in this state and so she lashes out when reminded of what transpired in the real world while the computer program attempts to keep things on the rails with a typical Amanda adventure. All the abuse of Wooly is based on a misunderstanding that what she's experiencing is effectively imaginary.
- Wooly is another program made in the voice print of her co-star. He's a bit more lucid then Amanda due to being solely a program and trying to keep her comfortable both for his own sake and out of empathy for her situation. He understands that Rebecca is dead, her body buried somewhere, and she can faintly feel herself decomposing if not distracted.
Hameln orchestrated Sam Colton's disappearance
- They were developing some kind of technology that would recreate his daughter Rebecca's likeness to make a new kind of animated series, one where she could actually interact with the children. Sam grew increasingly uncomfortable at the things they were asking for, and when he tried to get the show cancelled, he was 'disappeared' and the experiment concluded with all the voice actors (Rebecca, the VA for Wooly) being 'uploaded' into the show while their bodies were discarded. However, Rebecca retained some level of awareness of what happened to her and eventually the entity was created, born from her being unable to reconcile the truth with the cartoon world created for her. The tapes are a result of her trying not to give in to the entity, while getting someone to listen to her and find out where her rotting body is so she can rest in peace.
In relation to the above, Hameln was also responsible for the missing children
- Various newspaper clippings found in the attic plus one secret tape shows that various children went missing while watching the show, part of the controversy that led to it being cancelled after Sam's disappearance. This was due to Hamlen Entertainment trying to replicate the same method they used to extract Rebecca's soul into the show (possible the Celtic rune that was stolen), to give her 'friends' that would be introduced as new characters. Plus, y'know the clue is in the name. Hamlen...as in the Pied Piper of Hamelin from the fairytale in which a town's children were stolen away.
The key to stopping Amanda is finding Rebecca's body.
- Amanda reveals her secret in the daybreak ending, where she says "I’m out there… somewhere." Combining this with how Amanda says she can feel herself rotting, it's all but stated that Rebecca's spirit is haunting the VHS tapes in some capacity. It's possible that Amanda/Rebecca means that her body hasn't been recovered and is buried somewhere, and finding Rebecca's body will placate her ghost, allowing her to move on and stop possessing Amanda. Perhaps this might even be what will set her free from the demonic Amanda entity's control.
The next game will be set inside a police station
After doing the Golden Ending when you have collected all the hidden tapes, things are pretty much the same as before, with the sole exception of a slit second of seeing someone in a trench-coat enter the attic. What I'm thinking is that this will lead us into the second game, which will open with us getting interviewed by the trench-coat guy, and after a breif introduction where he introduces new players to the mechanics (Like typing answers and clicking on things), he'll throw us into a room and tells us to wait...that just so happens to contain a tv and an Amanda tape. Eventually, we'll be able to get out of the room and fully explore the station to solve puzzles and get more vhs tapes, while making sure to avoid the trench-coat guy and eventually Amanda. The events of the original game happen after the full game
Through brief glimpses on the tapes near the end, we know that the original games were cannon in one way or another, and in that original game, in the secret tape, there's someone trying to destroy the tapes, but can't bring themselves to do it. What if that character was actually a friend of Riley who was told to burn the tapes by them before they were (presumably) taken into custody? There was originally going to be a sequence where you'd have to evade Amanda in the rest of the house in order to escape.
In the scroll on the Steam page the final image is of Amanda's monster form in a dark hallway that very obviously does not match the attic one bit. With all known endings and paths found, and this image STILL being present on the page, this leads this troper to believe that either one of the endings besides the Gruesome one was meant to result in a chase sequence of sorts or that there was a sixth ending with this as its unique scenario that was cut for time. If true then it's either lost media or to be added later in as update. Because otherwise why is the image even there? A Red Herring maybe?- That screenshot has been removed on the steam page but I found it on google images, I see what you mean. It was likely something cut during development for being too different to the rest of the game.
Wooly doesn't have a voice actor credit in the show because he doesn't have a voice actor. He's an AI/entity created to keep Rebecca in-character as Amanda
It's why he tries to steer Amanda back on script in some tapes (the alternate 'In Your Neighbourhood' and 'Everything Rots'). When it becomes clear that she's getting too powerful, he tries to directly reach out to the player. In the retail release, Wooly believes that Rebecca's soul simply cannot be saved from corruption.
To him, keeping her docile and trying to get a moment alone with whoever's watching and convincing them to destroy the tapes is the closest thing to a happy ending that can be achieved. Unfortunately for him, his attempts to end the cycle of the tapes for good doesn't endear himself to Rebecca OR the demon. The Entity is Mammon.
Hameln Entertainment promised to make the animated Amanda The Adventurer famous, which could possibly benefit not only Sam, but the company itself too. If Mammon is the demon prince of Greed, maybe he was one of the demons summoned by Hameln to bring them profit and fame that ends up possessing Rebecca's corpse, killing anyone who tries to investigate the tapes and the actions of Hamlen Entertainment. Escaping wasn't enough.
In the pilot Amanda was constantly trying to escape into the real world and Wooly was trying to stop the player from letting it happen. The slogan was even "Dont let her in". Yet it never comes up here and her monster form seems to come and go as it pleases. Also, while it does certainly respond to her emotions, she doesn't really seem able to control it. As shown if you repeatedly ignore the question on whether everything rots, she says a bit regretfully that she thinks it might be too late, before the monster busts in. Whether because of the player in the pilot or some other event, Amanda fully was able to free herself as intended and her monster form entered the physical world... and that's it. Her consciousness was still trapped just like before. That's also why Wooly is more supportive in general and Amanda gets sad a lot more often. Her big plan to escape failed completely, and now she's stuck with no real goal as of yet.Sam is the mysterious stranger who busts in the attic in the secret ending
I think Sam could be this person and he just dressed like a detective or police officer as a disguise.Should the game get a sequel, it will reveal even more lore.
Looore! It would be nice to see if Sam is still alive, and to learn more about the company itself. Wooly is Danny McQuiggin, the containment specialist.
I feel like him simply being an AI would be rather underwhelming, especially with the "Who is Wooly?" secret message. I chose Danny specifically Larry Smith the Neurosurgical Officer because Wooly acts like someone who's "containing" Amanda: he keeps her calm, reacts unfavorably when she starts acting weird, and most tellingly, Amanda only tries to escape the TV in the daybreak ending when Wooly (who in this theory was containing her) has been forcibly been removed form the show. Wooly doesn't have a credit because he's already listed in the credits somewhere else. In the second "In Your Neighborhood" segment, when Wooly is randomly labeled as "?????" it's five letters - which also matches Danny (and Larry, but I've already said why I think Danny is a better fit).Under this theory, Danny likely needed to have some experience as voice actor (since containment specialism involves playing another main character on the show.) Why is he still trapped alongside Rebecca all these years later, how much he knew about what was happening are all unclear and are suspect. But at the very least, Wooly does recognize the name Sam. Riley is a SHIFTer.
Getting different endings requires Riley to use clues before they should have learned them, much like in the Zero Escape games. So it's possible that a similar power is in play here, and Riley was able to SHIFT away from the timelines where they get killed or trapped in the tapes. A future sequel will have Amanda replaced/meet/be friends with a Diego expy
Possibly one of the kids that disappeared because of the Amanda show, or someone Hameln hired or recruited as a "guest star episode", especially if it turns out Amanda the Adventurer is not their only work involving a human child trapped as a cartoon character with a demon possessing them. Wooly is Sam.
This seems to be a popular theory, like Rebecca Sam is trapped in the tapes as a character and he doesn't fully realise it or remember who he is but he wants to keep Amanda under control. Rebecca and the demon are fighting over control of Amanda
Amanda is kinda inconsistent. Sometimes she is friendly to Wooly, other times she is inconsiderate or absolutely hostile towards him. A lot of the time she acts like an abused, scared child, but other times acts insane, violent and malevolent. Perhaps Rebecca’s soul is being tortured by the entity and is often hijacked by it.