Watcher Doodle But I Tried To Recreate Miimows Art Style

watcher doodle but I tried to recreate miimows art style

(miimows, also know as “del northern” is the official artist for base game rain world, she’s now officially returned to work on the watcher dlc, and drew the steam page art for it!)

Wild googles

Images by kody

On Rain World lore and it's implementation within the game.

This is kindof a random ramble I went on in a Discord chat and just feel like sharing elsewhere. (also note this is all primarily in reference to the original game, Survivor's story.)

I honestly think too many miss the forest for the trees a bit with RW, in terms of how important the lore is, if that makes sense. I talked with somebody about first-time experiences with the game and they said they'd watched a number of lore explanation videos on YT before starting, because of some reason along the lines of "I didn't trust the game to deliver its own story properly." To me this is almost saddening to hear because I really feel that misses the point of why the game has it's lore to begin with.

To me, while playing, any tidbits i learned about history or other information contributed to a feeling like the world I was navigating had a very real history that saturated it, yet one that I would be unable to grasp fully. It is an illusory feeling of realness, given how it is experienced. The game is mechanically not designed to incentivize collecting many information pearls, especially when in the original game you can literally just drop them off a cliff and lose them forever. You get the feeling often like you are bound to never be able to get everything, nor would you even probably want to put in the effort, so the illusion actually stays stronger because of that. Your mind wanders speculating about every little detail, whether intention truly existed behind it or not, because it feels like it did. You learned that it might have. Maintaining that illusion while playing I think is the primary reason they were included, not actually the experience of "knowing" the history. Rain World in general seems to have a thematic fixation on the simple idea that individuals have limited perspectives. Joar Jakobsson has said that one of the core ideas behind Rain World was to recreate the life of a "rat in Manhattan." That is to say, a creature that understands how to find food, hide, and live in a complex man-made structure, that cannot understand it's structuring purpose or why it was built. The very core issue of the iterators, is that the solution to the "great problem" intrinsically has to lie with knowledge that could only be obtained from "the other side." They are corporeal beings trying to know something that pertains to something outside corporeal reality. Yet pursuit of knowledge is very important to creatures like ourselves. Collecting any individual pearl is mostly an exercise in doing a lot just for little bits of knowledge. There is a lot of understanding of just how significant wanting to know more is, even something unimportant, when you are left in the dark the way you are in the game. Most information pearls you deliver are literally completely useless to know about, but they feel personally important, especially in how finding them relates to your connection to the iterators. My primary motivation to find pearls in my first play was to spend more time with Moon. On a very real emotional level, Moon felt like my only friend in the world while I played. On a mechanical level, she does literally nothing. But Rain World manages to operate on a very emotional, even instinctual level with how it's designed. I wanted to be in her company and have something to give her. Because I am alone, and lost. So something along those lines is why I felt saddened to hear the sentiment like Rain World somehow "fails" to deliver it's "story." The purpose of the game is not to find pearls and hear about some grand narrative. At it's core, Rain World is a game that's design was inspired by nature, and it's use of history within the world relates to us as a player the way history relates to us as people. It is relayed through people reading from records created by parties with their own perspectives, and connects us abstractly to a sensation that there is more out there than our own lives. That is a feeling you have as a player, and ultimately the true story that Rain World tells is the memories you have playing it. What you did, saw, and felt. The same as how our story is that of our own lives. That is the purpose of the game.

Moon and Pebbles are interesting parallels in so many ways, some of which the fandom (from what I've seen when I was still somewhat browsing the tag) never really pays attention to. Be it because fandoms have the horrid habit of taking characters and simplifying them into tropes and archtypes, changing what they are for the sake of personal comfort or not bothering to look at the character from their lenses- their spot and time within their world, its rules and how that may have affected them

[Speaking solely about the base game without DP, cuz DP gives me the hibbie-jibbies and the Weh with some aspects and I am one of the so called veteran fans before it released so 'tis my house]

Moon for example is very interesting to play with, I've found in the last few months. The fact that she's an unreliable narrator- I adore that

She's unreliable for two reasons: 1. Her state of being that we know her the best in- she's broken beyond repair, an amnesiac, tired all the time. She still remembers mostly very basic stuff anchored within the material reality, but where and when does she screw up because of her state? She's tired and so doesn't disclose all possible information presented in pearls, too 2. She's a being with her own personal opinions and her existence is exclusive to one room, one place, six giant metal walls suspended on eight legs. Funnily enough, she strikes me as kind of more closed-minded, sceptical-of-spiritual person even though she exists in a world where spirituality is so heavily present (the karma, void spawns, the Void Sea, void worms, the cycle of rebirth oh so painfully concretely real)

What she says about the wheel flower interests me the most, when it comes to distrusting her extend of believing in the spiritual (not that she completely disregards it, mind you, only a fool would in her place in such a world)

Something about the use of the word "hallucinogenic" ticks an alarm off. There are definitely words that would better describe what the wheel flower does for a regular organic creature. Like transcendence. Hallucinogenic- and in connection hallucination- carries the air of "it's not actually real. they were just wigging out". Yet we know well that the flowers have special spiritual properties

Or this

How does she define "starving" oneself? Why does she essentially mock/disdain it? (At least that's how I'm reading it.) Is it anything less than a perfect diet? Fasting and dietary restrictions are typical for religions. As a giant metal brick biorobot in the sky she isn't exactly in the position to judge this stuff outside of science. As for the gravel part we have no idea what the Ancients ate. The shopping lists/recipes mentioned in the white pearls contain some weird things. Maybe they were completely fine with a filterfeeder-esque/scavenger-esque diet, not necessarily needing fruits or meaty meals

It's fun to think of the two siblings in this light- Moon the sceptical analytical one, if she can't see it or it isn't written in a scientific research paper there's always a good chance that it isn't real, while Pebbles is here entertaining the integrity and nature of reality like a rubics cube

(he's so amazing for giving questions like that too. the last line is fun to ponder, because the definition of death for them is so vastly different from ours. keeping that in mind, all the "Pebbles is so edgy he wants to kill himself" takes within the fandom lose or change their meaning. death isn't the end. crossing out isn't supposed to be a type of suicide. death is an actual gateway for the creatures of this world without delusions born of despair [though delusions born of despair definitely happened to the Ancients just in a different place])

Moon's greatest fault is sticking to conrete reality and rules and refusing to branch out with her thinking while Pebbles' greatest fault is getting too caught up in thoughts, theories, inner spiritual workings of reality to the point that it results in a near-death of a dear friend(/sister) of his because of the resulting ignorance

And these things continue to show in other aspects of them, too! Like their relationship to the Ancients

While thinking about *that* one needs to keep in mind that Moon has been alive and with the Ancients for thousands of years while Pebbles... not all that much

Moon sticks to the rules, to what the Ancients pre-set as the Correct ways of interaction in a society and relationships, from the beginning to past their end. They influenced her to hell and back, exactly like parents influence their children's worldviews. An ideology can begin as pure and good, yet at some point it will rot away into something worse- most often after the death of the original creator, because the following ones understand the world differently. And they can't help it but put their perceptions and understandings into what they work with. Or they might even be malicious with it. Moon is either incapable or unwilling to recognize that what she's sticking to has gone rotten. The thing that mostly speaks this to me is the parasite line

The Ancients, by the end of their existence, turned into society with a rigid polite system. Tip-toeing around any slightly uncomfortable topic, hardly getting anything communicated right. They talk and talk, hiding the point under useless letters out of fear of being Rude and Disrespectful. And so does Moon!

She has the *right* to call them like that, not miss them, be angry at them the same as Pebbles. What good are parents that see their child as an obligation. Who leave them behind, trapped in one place, knowing they *can't* escape that cage because the parents specifically taught and limited them just so

I don't believe the Ancients were all scum their entire existence. They found joy in the smallest damn pieces of the world. They loved and they created beauty. But by the end the saturation of the bad became too strong. All that is left after they all committed mass suicide (wether willingly or not doesn't matter in the long run of the Iterators) is the bad. What good stayed eventually rotted away leaving the Iterators only with the pain created by rules and taboos and a broken world

Pebbles knows this negative most intimately. He wasn't there for their better times. Moon was and so her perspective is wider, but she doesn't set any personal boundary because of the afermentioned lack of willingness of recognition where the society ended up going

Politeness is *not* kindness. Politeness can be manipulative. It can become a barrier between a person and the truth they need to hear

She was closer to them, Pebbles never calls them his parents. She is So attached, feeling guilty, feels the need to respect them, even though deep down where she is true she thinks of them lower than dirt. Even though she admits her and most Iterators don't miss populated cities, she can't bring herself to completely cut herself off from them

Moon *absolutely* thinks of the Ancients as parasites. That sentence came from the heart. Then the mind kicked in and what she was taught by their society came in and she apologized because That Was Not Polite. Heavens Forbid We Speak Our Hearts If It *Offends* Anyone

Pebbles doesn't have an issue with that! Pebbles doesn't give a Shit! Because *they* didn't give a shit

Pebbles' best characterization moments are his talk with the Survivor, the Hunter and the Sky Island pearl obtaining his and Suns' conversation. The last is the greatest

Because the pearl reveals that he is righteously angry about the Iterators' predicament. Not only his but *everyones*. He hates that they suffer, that their effort is really for nothing, that they die slowly and painfully. This is Unacceptable. They don't deserve it (and elder Suns waves it off, not caring for the suffering. The end justifies the means- let everyone but one die, because there *surely* is no way at least the one of them won't figure out the answer in the end)

Pebbles understands justice, his worth and is active, but also recognizes the seeming futility of this research especially in these constricting straightjackets their creators put them in. He'll snarl, claw and tear to get to the bottom of this and spare everyone the slow deaths they are all inevitably hurling to. And in the process, by unfortunate development... he hurls himself into an early agonizing death instead. A case of a tragic anti-hero

He speaks brutal truth. He isn't being egoistic/narcissistic when he calls himself "god-like in comparison". In comparison to rats, humans are also god-like. Just the fact that he says god-*like* and not godly also speaks for itself. He is only an imitation of a divine truly godly being, he knows. Just because he doesn't tear himself and his worth down doesn't mean he's full of himself

He calls the old rituals "silly", because what good is a ritual really. Isn't it better to focus inwards, explore yourself than dance for someone else? He gives the Survivor the *option* of this salvation he'd desire for himself. You can take it, or not. But really Survivor's story is about making peace with being lonely, letting go of the need of relationships- she is on the way to the enlightment. She might as well listen to him and words shared in kind

He says, "Not that it solves anyone's problem but yours." because goddammit so many horrible things have happened. He's so tired, but can't stop. Can't save anyone even though that is his very purpose. Then he wishes her luck, or asks for her to go a way less uncomfortable for him

He warns an animal (one that he knows can explicitly understand him) twice before using force. What's so bad about enforcing his boundaries? (Moon could never enforce her own until she was already dying.) Even the way he dispatches a lingering slugcat; it's quick and painless (I once heard someone say that Pebbles would take joy in suffering of little creatures and dear stars tthat is so far from truth. he doesn't *enjoy* that). And still keep in mind that death is very different for them than for us. It isn't the end. It's more like a knockout without a lasting damage when you think about it

Pebbles is really cool for taking responsibility for the near-murder too. And idk how anyone else is reading his Hunter dialogue but this man has such kindness to him, honestly

TLDR; Pebs is a very cool dude who just doesn't take shit actually, not only a little without-a-reason pissed off man hiding some sort of self-worth issues and Moon's a mess that would benefit from taking some notes from him sometimes (just as he would from listening to her some)

Dos fucked up siblings

Slightly terrifying thought! What if the void worms aren't normally right under the Void Sea's surface?

There's a method to call earthworms from the ground in real life called worm grunting or worm charming. It involves sticking one stake with carved grooves called a "stob" into the ground, and rubbing it with another stick to create the vibrations that causes the worms to come to the surface.

This idea seems to have already been floating around Joar's mind around the time he was in the early days of Rain World development. One piece from his portfolio in 2013 was called, "Calling the Spirits" and involved the concept of worm grunting, though with an expected weird and surreal aspect to it. It was also was reminiscent of other concepts and even designs that made their way into Rain World.

I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. The drills definitely evoke the same vibe, extending all the way down to the Void Sea shore. Moon even states how the benefactors tried putting them deeper, but they were broken by a "force" unknown to them. Maybe void worms normally reside in the depths of the Void Sea, but were called up by the actions of the Benefactors.

What this would actually entail? I genuinely have no idea, it's just a thought I had, but I'd be interested to hear if people could expand on it.

The Architecture of Rain World: Layers of History

A major theme in Rain World's world design that often goes overlooked is the theme of, as James Primate, the level designer, composer and writer calls it, "Layers of History." This is about how the places in the game feel lived-in, and as though they have been built over each other. Here's what he said on the matter as far back as 2014!

The best example of this is Subterranean, the final area of the base game and a climax of the theme. Subterranean is pretty cleanly slpit vertically, there's the modern subway built over the ancient ruins, which are themselves built over the primordial ruins of the depths. Piercing through these layers is Filtration System, a high tech intrusion that cuts through the ground and visibly drills through the ceiling of the depths.

Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets, the friendly local ghost, tells the player of the "bones of forgotten civilisations, heaped like so many sticks," highlighting this theme of layering as one of the first impressions the player gets of Subterranean. Barely minutes later, the player enters the room SB_H02, where the modern train lines crumble away into a cavern filled with older ruins, which themselves are invaded by the head machines seen prior in outskirts and farm arrays, some of which appear to have been installed destructively into the ruins, some breaking through floors.

These layers flow into each other, highlighting each other's decrepit state.

The filtration system, most likely the latest "layer," is always set apart from the spaces around it. At its top, the train tunnels give way to a vast chasm, where filtration system stands as a tower over the trains, while at the bottom in depths, it penetrates the ceiling of the temple, a destructive presence. (it's also a parallel to the way the leg does something similar in memory crypts, subterranean is full of callbacks like that!)

Filtration system is an interesting kind of transition, in that it is much later and more advanced than both of the areas it cuts between. This is a really interesting choice from James! It would be more "natural" to transition smoothly from the caves of upper subterranean to the depths, but by putting filtration system in between, the two are clearly demarcated as separate. The difference in era becomes palpable, the player has truly found something different and strange.

Depths itself is, obviously, the oldest layer not only of subterranean but of the game itself. The architecture of Depths has little to do with the rest of the game around it, it's a clear sign of the forgotten civilisations that our friend Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets showed us, there's not actually that much to say about it itself, it's mostly about how it interacts with the other layers of subterranean.

That said, Subterranean is far from the only case of the theme of layers of history. It's present as soon as the player starts the game!

The very first room of the game, SU_C04, is seemingly a cave. It is below the surface, the shapes of it are distinctly amorphous rather than geometric. (well. kind of, it doesn't do a very good job of hiding the tile grid with its 45 degree angles.)

But let's take a closer look, shall we?

See that ground? it's made of bricks. The entire cave area of outskirts is characterised by this, the "chaotic stone" masonry asset is mixed with brickwork, unlike the surface ruins which are mostly stone. This, seemingly, is an inversion of common sense! The caves are bricks and the buildings are stone. This is not, however, a strange and unique aspect but a recurring motif.

This occurs enough in the game for it to be clearly intentional, but why would materials such as bricks be used in otherwise natural looking terrain?

The answer lies in the "Layers of History" theme. This is in fact, something that happens in real life, and it's called a tell

en.wikipedia.org

Tell (archaeology) - Wikipedia

To be specific, a tell is a kind of mound formed by settlements building over the ruins of previous iterations of themselves. Centuries of rubble and detritus form until a hill grows from the city. Cities such as Troy and Jericho are famous examples. The connections to the layers of history theme are pretty clear here, I think. Cities growing, then dying, then becoming the bedrock of the next city. The ground, then, is made of bricks, because the ground is the rubble of past buildings. The bones of forgotten civilisations, heaped like so many sticks!