Welcome to the Let's Fly Club how Let's Fly are ya? *note* I played the demo of this game before but this is the full release. Game is from the same creator of The Repairing Mantis th-cam.com/video/hDFxbZewBFo/w-d-xo.html
SPOILERS the mother’s hands were very spider-like, and the spider spoke with very pampering patronizing language as if talking to children. the swamp is the bathtub, i saw someone in the comments say it can represent purgatory which i really like. things dont die there, just change and turn to mud. stuck in the bathtub the being can never truly die in the stasis of forever waiting. so it can be stuck waiting for eternity, or crawl out of the bath, defying the orders of the mother and being able to crawl towards the light. the fly with the broken legs after getting stuck in the web and being “freed” by the spider who takes control mirrors the one in the bathtub. while it makes sense to read as a person with disabilities, the part with the bath is certainly not all literal. the “cleaning” is crushing open pustules that break wounds into the flesh. the one in the bathtub calls that “cleaning” because its what the mother tells it to do, which certainly is only making it less able to do things and thus becoming more dependent. in the end, being so dependent that it rots in the bath waiting for its mother to come back. i think stagnation, being unable to grow because you were raised to lack agency and independence, can feel like you’re simply going to rot away unable to do anything. thats the vibe ive taken so far of this game which is a more general interpretation rather than just the single indepedent character story, but i still havent digested a lot of other aspects of the game that im certain play big parts in interpreting the themes. i loved repairing mantis too and i remember asking the devs on twitter forever ago if they were going to have a button to rub your little legs together and they said theyd add it, it made my day ❤ incredible games and writing, the different controls and perspectives throughout the game are super impressive! thank you for playing it manly!
Yeah, it seemed there was a clear connection between the Spider with the Mom, and the Fly with the person in the tub. Definitely a parallel with the Spider helping the Fly out of the web while hurting it, and the mother taking care of their child who is clearly too dependent on her, hurting their ability to grow that dependency. It can relate to being unable to overcome physical disabilities that prevent someone from taking care of themself, but probably more easily relates to mental ones like depression. But then what symbolism would the helpers represent, and the fly's eating of either their relationships or the objects? The spider "helping" in ways that look damaging but end up being the path for the "good" ending might be something like the mother exhibiting tough love that lets them grow into a person that is able to be there for the main character (even if trying to help is exhausting) The symbolism for these kinds of things can be interesting to think about, but sometimes they can be very hard to piece together without any clearer hints.
These are really wonderful theories! I really see stagnation in the person begging for the fly to help, rather than helping themselves because they are so deep in this hole of dependence. I think being in a hard situation, and the Fly relating to the main person perhaps the little bugs are him challenging core beliefs and helping himself get out of the tub? or simply imagining that there are people around to help? Often we use escapism when we feel hopeless. I remember someone saying something like "we tend to stay in uncomfortable situations because they aren't bad enough to encourage change." (from a mental health standpoint) Love this game, well done devs
Thank you for creating such a great game ! I am still confused about what is the metaphor behind the game ; disabled kid, parental dependence, depression, child abuse or a mix. I think it's open to interpretation and it's very cool.
your game is so cool! there is so much to think about and the emotions and are really resonant i feel, need for help as horror is so so interesting to me!
It seems almost everyone came to the conclusion this is about disabilities, which makes sense, and as a disabled person who has had to be reliant on others this game really hit me hard. The metaphor of a swamp where nothing dies perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being stuck, unable to free yourself but not willing to die, simply rotting away for an eternity. With the fly being a creature eating away the good memories of others, while seeing yourself as a monster. The spider can't help but hurt the fly when it tries to help, symbolizing the mother. I also think the cleaning is a metaphor for having to appear nice and presentable, while doing so is agony. That's just me relating it to my disabilities, but some of these metaphors are much more left to interpretation than others.
I think it's also about feeling like a burden and slowly removing yourself from your friends, choosing between accepting help or doing things on your own. At least that's what I get from the dialog when the insects lose their objects.
Looking at this, I think it's a metaphor for how a disabled child may feel, especially around their friends who are normal and want to help them The fly is obviously another representation of the child. They view themselves as a monster, one who can't clean themselves, but also a small creature who is disgusting and feeds on corpses. They help their 'friends' as the fly (represented by the other childish bugs), because they want to give back to them for supporting the child it's easy for someone who can't do things on their own like cleaning to feel like a burden. they often want to feel useful like the spider On that topic, the spider is apparently the helpful one that frees you from the webs... that they made. it's clear the spider is representing a toxic friend or parent, one that shames the child for not being able to help themselves or accept support it's easy to tell someone to accept support, but from the perspective of someone who has a physical disability (me), it's not. it's hard to accept help when you feel like you're a burden.
this hit hard, ty for giving your take on the game i love when stories leave a lot up to interpretation honestly sometimes i also feel like a burden on my friends and yeah, helping yourself is harder than it looks on the outside
@@wu1ming9shi to be honest not enough people talk about how just existing in society with a disability and having to deal with all the comments often leads to depression
I noticed the spider was definitely the toxic "helper" because they repeatedly set up situations where they could "help", by benefitting from the expense of others
Yeah, I wasn't sure how to feel about this one - as someone who literally struggles to get out of the bath lol. The ending where you push yourself beyond your limits, risking injury to please someone who is always nagging you to be less disabled, did not feel like a happy one. The spider, yeah, as other comments said, is someone who loves to swoop in and rescue you, and if you don't need rescuing, she'll make sure you need rescuing.
Reminds me of Edith Finch. In that game, the mom leaves during the middle of bathing her child because she went to pick up the phone or something. We then take the perspective of the child having fun in the water, and it’s implied that her child drowned in the bath. I think this game is similar. The kid was disabled and died when their mom left them in the bath. The game is about accepting death (leave the bath) or rejecting it (stuck in bath). The swamp’s creatures ‘can never die’ because we’re in purgatory.
Since people had been speculating that made the spider represented the mother- that she was manipulative in order to only provide to their kid (the fly). So gaining from that knowledge, it just seems that when the mother was telling the kid to "clean" (they were actually crushing pustules.. therefore making it worse and to make them more dependent). So the spider would help the fly- even if meant hurting others or their own kid. (The spider biting the fly in order to free him)
Sorry if that seemed confusing but basically Spider is mom. Kid is fly. Fly is dependent on others and only waits until others are in dire situations to gain something from them. Flies are codependent on other creatures. If something dies, some food is left out, if something excrements- THEN it can feed. Spiders on the other hand are tactful. They create traps to capture prey and don't need to wait for the other to give them something. They just wait until it's caught. Then. They feast.
theres something so fascinating about the waiting end being a fakeout. you can wait. in another game, it might end there, immediately talking about atrophy after the 2nd confirmation or so. but no--it's something the monster has to keep choosing. theres the constant hopes and worries that encourage you to leave, but you dont, but it's a choice, still. until one day you finally make the other choice...but it's already been too late, all this time. and theres no more choice.
Feel free to disagree with me, but I don’t think the mom just abandoned the child. I think she may have slipped and fallen after the phone call and died. That would explain the loud bang in the Bernadette section.
The mom was very doting and didn't seem abusive That said, the Bernadette section is before the bath, so the bang couldn't be something that happens during or after the bath
43:38 i subconsciously pick at my skin a lot even though i know i shouldn't, and the monster yelling "stop" while the fly eats them is just how that feels sometimes
MY OWN INTERPRETATION: I think the bath time is a literal event - the time ticking down from 10 minutes to 4 minutes. If it was something metaphorical, why would they put so much emphasis on the timeline of the bath, especially when BATH TIME comes, lingering uncomfortably long on the screen? I think that it is definitely a disabled child. I think the mom tries her best and is genuinely trying - the game clearly separates the spider from the mom since the spider appears during bath time in the first route. I think the spider represents the abuser, the way they use other "flies" to grow stronger, and the way it "helps" you out of your "confinements". The way it speaks comes across patronizing. And the way you want to be like the spider in the first run somewhat implies manipulation to me. I think the phone ringing is far more important and needs to be pointed out- In a nutshell, I think the father was abusive and perhaps abandoned or left the family. During bath time with the mom and kid, the phone rings, the mom leaving to go pick it up. The phone ringing seems sinister. There is a scene where there is a bang, and that could be the mother falling or something of the sort. That leaves the child dying. I think the game itself is the child dying. The fly, the represenation of rot and decay, is "eating" those memories as the child dies. It's eating the childhood memories, eventually leading to the child dying, either them rotting in the bathtub or outside of it. Thanks for coming to my ted talk, im probably all over the place because im sleep deprived but thanks for reading 💫✨
Well it's actually a really good interpretation, probably the best I read so far, mostly because it explains how the child ended up in this position, and of the characters in this game
A nice metaphor here is the fact that every other kid is a caterpillar, while you are a fly. Caterpillars grow into something else eventually, flies do not. There is that notion of not being able to change being conveyed here in the 2nd ending for which the picture is a caterpillar. You didn't change by staying in the bath, you remained a caterpillar. I'm unsure about what everything else means, I had a couple theories but the endings showed that I got it wrong. I viewed each item the caterpillars owned as an obsession, it kept hurting them and they kept denying being hurt and/or refusing help. I guess it could be viewed as their own trauma instead. Something painful that they cannot get rid of but that gives them purpose. It might also be hope, sometimes it ends up leading to being hurt. I'm also unsure about the spider it seems to be an abusive parent but (with the fact that the "monster" calls to it when you are a fly and its in the tub) it can only be perceived as the mother, and she seems more encouraging than abusive. She teaches the "Monster" to clean itself, encourages it to keep going. I guess she's not necessarily abusive but she might have had moments where her attempts at helping were more harmful. The "becoming the spider ending" does seem to imply that it's still bad though... Maybe "becoming the spider" is less about being abusive but more about rejecting any help that comes your way to the point where it is harmful to you. Still a great gut punch and really nice game.
you say that flies don't change into anything, but flies changed from something, since flies start out as larvae. in that sense, the fly is already an adult, while the caterpillars are still children, in a sense. similarly, a spider never changes; it is born a small spider, and through shedding it's skin, it becomes a larger spider. you might have a point about the caterpillars though; they're indulging in childish things, and they are the first stages of a fully mature insect, -maybe the fly is supposed to be older, or has become so jaded through life that it's childhood has been lost. but instead or being a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, if was a larva turning into an "ugly" fly. others has pointed out that the spider, while appearing to be caring and supportive, could still be abusive. -there are many cases of abusive parents who only wants the best for their children, and think they're doing the best they can to provide for- and take care of their young, but instead it turns into abuse through alienation and/or isolation; the parent doesn't want their child to get hurt, so they keep them at home where the parent can keep an eye on them. other children are too wild, weird, or abusive, so the parent doesn't allow them to come close to theirs. -the bath in the game could be a metaphor for an unintentionally abusive parent who's kept their child from experiencing anything outside of the house, finally getting fed up with an older child who can't do anything by themselves, and is trying to teach them how to become more independent.
@@Konani_the_unicorn_queen Oh I do know that flies come for larvae, I was just making it clear that after becoming a fly, it doesn't have yet another step so it's done with becoming anything else. As for the spider, I phrased that wrong. I actually didn't mean to say that the spider wasn't abusive, I meant that in the metaphor of "being the spider" didn't necessarily mean becoming abusive but completely isolating yourself from any outside help as the "becoming the spider" ending seems to suggest. Although the two can often be linked. The mother does seem to be raising her child alone, if the other comments about that child probably being disabled in some way are correct, she should have help for caring for it and she might have rejected it in a "I should be able to do this alone" which lead to harm.
@@Gyrhoe so many theories :3! i keep wondering what that phonecall was about, since it seemed very important; the phone's ringing is very prevalent through the game
um. or because it was young and wanted to listen to their mom as every adult tells kids to always do. or because it had a controlling mother who abandoned him. there are many things that can implement that mindset. im glad you at least put "makes *me* think". not everything is because of autism. most of the time we are simply scared to move forward because of all the minor things that we thought were supposed to be the way they were (or in worse cases, the things that we knew were harmful but couldnt fix them in any way), not because theres a built-in mental issue to blame, but because others have built a mental issue inside us. (im trying to be educative, sorry if it comes out strange, i know therell be people saying "autism is normal stop being a hater" and all that as if they didnt read my explanation... please be aware of issues in your life and what harms you, and work on becoming what you want to be and never brush it off as something built into you that you cant fix)
The metaphor with the fly and the monster are commonly debating (and I agree, im pretty sure its meant to represent the perspective of a disabled child) but the Spider's role in the story is very interesting , because I'm pretty sure they represent an abuser. Someone who has authority and is trusted (because the other friends also believe in and rely on the spider, even to their detriment to further isolate the monster in the end) to help even when they're the ones who caused the problems or convince the children that harming themselves is the best option. The first ending, having the spider eaten by the monster, changing them into part spider, irrevocably changing *themself* as a person even if it hurts them (completely breaks them down) feels like the way a lot of victims of abuse can end up abusers themselves, or often end up harming themselves to escape a bad situation. Certainly, they may have freed themselves (perhaps even through violence, ie eating the spider) but they then end up scrubbing away whatever's left of themself too. irrevocably changed, jaded perhaps. Honestly, this ending feels the most personal to me. 1d10 psychic dmg. Incredible work by this developer as always, happy to see the full version finally release!
Something tells me this is either an allegory for dementia, or an allegory for a depressing mind that has had so much trauma, it was trying to "eat" all the memories and destroy them Destroy them, so that he may forget that he was the "monster" it thought it was
An extremly long analysis of the game because I love it: I actually thought it's about drug addiction, mainly because the "monster" tries to get clean, the mom at first wanted to help him get clean and wants him to help himself but he is too weak to clean himself from the addiction. She was frustrated with him so she gave up on him to let him rot. The state of his body might represent how bad his addiction is. The swamp is maybe a visual representation of how his mind works after prolonged substance abuse, slow, barely functioning enviroment. I've notices the caterpillers are quite childish, they play with dolls and yoyos and eat lollipops, caterpillers are also the first stage before metamorphosis to an adult insect, these might be his happy childhood memories visualized. The spider is very condescending we see it when he talks to the pink caterpiller and we see it with his method of helping the fly get out of the web, I think the spider is the part of the "monster's" brain that enables him every time he truly tries to get clean. Bath time basically means rehab. The fly is the gaps in the "monster's" memory because of the drugs, at first he still retauns many of his memories but slowly we see his mindspace becoming more and more like the swamp. The 100 years timeskip is a cautionary tale if he truly doesn't help himself he'll have many many failed attempts to get clean, and he'll have no one other than the parts of his brain that enable his addiction and wanting to just forget everything, the parts that can destroy him. When the fly eats him whole he essentially forgets who he is, he can't form new memories and can't remember anything about himself, he's gone. The plants are probably gates to the roots of his most valuable memories and thoughs. The endings: When he becomes the spider, he becomes his addiction. When he stays in the bath, he has lost contact with his family and eventually became addicted again. When he gets out of the bath he has truly chosen the help himself to be clean. If anyone reads all of this hopfully you didn't die of boredom.
@@galloviking4766 that's what i thought of the demo way back when, but honestly thank god it's not. i've had enough symbolic depictions of dementia ever since Everywhere At The End Of Time blew up and got memeified
@@Kyun69 You are misremembering lol. MBH played some short horror VNs and he voiced an animated horror story for another creator, but never made any videos just reading a story or a nosleep.
Something tells me the mom didn't abandon the child, but something bad happened to her instead. The phone keeps ringing for a long time - as if the mom never answered the call.
I've noticed a recurring theme here: abandonment and disability. Even the monster's 'mom' left them. It's really sad, actually; it would appear the person in the bath died of neglect caused by caretaker burnout...
I haven't noticed anyone mention it in the comments, but it seems the disabled kid wasn't always disabled and maybe it used to have a much better support system that they started to isolate themselves from after whatever happened. I think so because the "monster" has only one arm that's not working too great, but in the hand bath time section they mention the arm from the water looking familiar. I think that used to be their own arm that's not there anymore. So in short, the simplified version of the bath time section goes a little like that: the "Monster" became disabled at some point in their life, or maybe their disability worsened somehow. They used to have three friends represented by the three caterpillars, and they pulled away from them after their health got worse. However, if they keep in touch with those people, they can call upon the memories of them and those memories motivate them to overcome their issues. And finally they call upon the memory of the days when they still could take care of themselves, summoning the familiar hand. As for the role of mom in this, I don't know. It seems a bit like she's neglectful and maybe resentful of the poor kid. She sounds nice, but her tone is weirdly annoyed at the kid, she seems to disappear at some point, and also the poor kid has some deep-rooted guilt about their condition, and I don't think in a healthy environment this wouldn't have reached this point. There's a also a shadow of mom as the "monster" crawls out the tub, as she's on the phone, but she disappears, which to me seems more like she had packed her bags and left, abandoning them. Even though is insanely depressing to think about it like that.
the last part would call attention to a very real problem. people often abandon their partners and family members when they are diagnosed with serious health conditions
I think it's a metaphor for depression and helplessness. The bathtub is someone being unable to help themselves out of their situation. the mother is trying to help them help themselves, but they can't do that forever. In the endings they either just sit and mire in it until the end of time, or they become a bitter person who drove away too many friends and moves on by taking advantage of another, or they are able to move on with the help of friends. The friends ending also shows that sometimes getting better is scary when the monster shows hesitation. I like it. It's a neat little game
the fly trying to remove all memory of the monster hits really close to home for me, I used to hate myself alot for not understanding how to interact with people well and I would spend alot of time wishing I could be completely forgotten. i try not to think like that anymore,
Lol turns out it's in French from Quebec. The book read "the cub that wanted a friend", the shampoo bottle read "clean af!" and the food box "yum-yum".
yeh! and on the pink bottle in the bath, don't see the whole text but it says Ch'feux lol and the bear drawing... I wonder how relevent it is that the friend they desire is female
DUDE ME TOO!! Like when that demo ended I was desperate! I love weird crazy vague games and I was obsessed with this one!! As soon as I saw it pop up in my recommended and recognized I got SO excited!! I'm so happy the dev finished it!! -- omg I just went back to manly's channel to look for the demo, it's only a year old.. IT FEELS LIKE IT WAS FOREVER AGO?!?! Dude I feel crazy haha Man I just scrolled through (I searched for it so its randomly showing videos from different times) and SO many games he's played that are only from like a year ago feel like they were from SO much longer ago! Wow.. I can't imagine how Manly feels with as many games as he's played! He really is a badass!!! This is ironic, I just scrolled past Inscryption and it's apparently been 3 years, but it feels like that just came out haha Anyway! Sorry for all the rambling about my horrible track of time, I think I have adhd.. sorry!!
Funnily enough, I feel like this is slightly happier than repairing mantis. RM’s themes, if I can remember, were more about the futility of dreams and how fulfilling them can leave you empty, while this also has a bit of themes of how hard it is to get help with disabilities, but it’s also about letting go and finding whatever equivalent to peace you can. Please, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not that good with interpreting more nihilistic games.
i thought the "stuck in the bath" ending was. kind of beautiful in some weird way lmao. he can't do anything but sit and wait for death, but hey, the plants were a nice touch
"oh, it must be... i have to go." -i see a lot of discussion the game's symbolism in the comments, but not really any that bring up the phonecall and the mother leaving for it. -some have proposed the thud heard in the game was the mother falling over, and some have pointed out that in the desert, it looks like a somewhat body-shaped outline right next to the phone that's off it's receiver. -the thud could have been the person getting out of the bath, mostly since the mother is already downstairs and have picked up the phone. -since she was trying to teach the person in the bath to be dependent, maybe the phonecall was from a doctor about her own severe medical condition? maybe a heart-condition, or something else, and the stress from it caused her to have a heart-attack (or something else triggered by the call), and thus she fell over and either fainted or died. she was trying to teach her child to become more independent, since she wouldn't be around for much longer to take care of them. -she never came back upstairs since she was either passed-out or dead, and if the monster is to be believed, it was more likely she died, if several days passed without her showing up (the ending they stay in the tub). -even in the "happy" ending, with the desert, the monster passes by her collapsed outline and the phone, crawling toward some kind of light (death?), so maybe the monster exerted himself from the strength needed to crawl through the house and died too. ,there certainly can be many interpretations of the events and symbolism through the game :3
This reminds me of that couple who left their daughter to rot on the couch for years until her death. Her flesh had literally merged with the cushions, and she was covered in all sorts of sores/filth/feces
No one asked but these are my two cents. The caterpillars are the monster’s siblings. Also children and prone to fickleness which is why they don’t help you if you don’t help them. The spider is the child’s ideal self. Strong and able to help others but ultimately self destructive in its ways since it can’t realize its own limits. Need to escape from the web? Simple I will just hurt myself instead of asking for help. This ideal is most likely based on his mom to some extent due to the way it talks. Ultimately I think the message of this game is a very positive one. If you are struggling, not necessarily with a disability, it’s ok to reach out for help instead of destroying yourself. On the other hand being totally reliant on others is also a problem and you risk losing the ability to help yourself.
Well, that was about as depressing as I expected. Not as much as their last game, but still pretty intense. It was quite good, I really liked it. As we so often see in a horror game, we have some stellar parenting here. Another mother of the year contender. Even if you're generous in your readings of her, she still neglected her child and wasn't there when tragedy struck. Far more likely, she's the true monster.
it's interesting to scroll through the comments and read people's various interpretations, i mentioned already that not many seem to focus on the reason the mother left for the phone though, and clicking on some timestamps; that phone is still ringing while the monster is in the tub, and the fly is eating it. but the ending where the monster stay in the tub, i'm pretty sure the phone had stopped ringing. -but the monster didn't stay in the tub and the tub didn't turn into a swamp until the monster stayed in there long enough for it to rot, at which point the mother had already gone to the phone several days ago. -for that matter, i don't see anyone really talking about how the phone is always ringing while/after the fly eat the memories, and interacting with the phone is how the fly return to the swamp. -the fly also only ever find memories to eat after entering the flowers, and doesn't have any memories to eat in the swamp since nothing die there. -also once the fly has eaten the memories which are only found inside the flowers, it cannot enter the flower again, but it can enter other flowers which lead to the same "house" where it can eat memories. -so do the flowers represent anything? why does eating memories of a caterpillar's item make the caterpillar depressed? -are the caterpillars just outside people/sources, or are they also representing some aspect of the monster? i don't know what these things could mean, but they might mean something.
45:07 this feels too much like me. the decision paralysis. wanting someone else to make the choice for you because your scared you’ll make the wrong one even if it’s right it’s correct even if
1:15:50 I wonder if the part where you are stuck in a web and have to let the spider come right up to you, uncertain if it's going to help you or eat you, is supposed to symbolize how the kid is reliant on their mother and just has to hope that she'll take care of them properly, because they physically can't do anything else. And if the spider ever decided to leave, the fly would remain stuck in the web, unable to do anything more than sit and wait to die...
Maybe the fly represents the monster's "death"? The fly eats away at all of it's memories until there's nothing left. Eventually eating the rest of the monster itself. Once the fly gets to it's last body part, the monster admits that it's scared about what's going to happen. Like how a lot of people feel before they pass. And ultimately leaves it up to the fly. Which could mean that the Monster accepted it's fate. As a sidenote, perhaps the spider represents the Monster's mom? It's always calling people sweetie and stuff lol. Idk what eating it is supposed to represent though. -If the Monster let the spider bite IT, it could've gotten cool spider powers instead.-
Man its so true. I don't think I've ever felt such weird and powerful despair as I had when finishing the Repairing Mantis. Just started this watchthrough but it seems like its gonna be a ride again
Manly, i very much enjoy your content. I mainly watch to fall asleep, but to me thats super useful. I dont mean it in a bad way. I watch untill i pass out. How silent and calm you are is very good
I was like "hey, ive seen this video, I recognize that thumbnail" and was about to click off. Nope, I'd seen the demo! ah, its so lovely to see the demos getting full games! such a lovely game
i love your videos, in a world of disheartening news and emotions, your videos give me so much nostalgia for youtube game playthroughs and I love your voice and humor. i really do appreciate your channel
I didn't think a game about a fly could be that interesting but I liked all the different routes. The final 'good ending' route and the whole final scenario was on brand for a fly game, and I liked the message of self determination, and how everything turned out. Be free protag(?).
I literally sobbed, holy shit. The bath scene and the part where you meet the monster as the fly hits so close to heart for some strange reason. Man, I love this game Edit: Okay, after reading the theories I might have an idea. Hm.
To me the story is about someone who struggles to do basic tasks in life due to learned helplessness or something else. The fly is them trying to ignore or get rid of painful memories that cause this, however the only way to actually get through this is to confront the memories and accept them. The mom signifies someone who cares a great deal about the protagionsist, be they a wfie, sibling, friend or a parent. The sequence ahows that those people won't always be there for you in life. Ultimately I think this is a story about learning to be independent of others, emotionally and physically, and that while it is scary, you can very much do it.
The Slough of Despond (John Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress) In this allegory, the "Slough of Despond" is a swampy mire that represents the burden of sin and despair. The protagonist, Christian, struggles to pass through it, symbolizing the difficulty of purging sin before reaching salvation. While not explicitly purgatory, the swamp serves as a testing ground akin to it.
Southern Gothic Folklore In the American South, swamps are often viewed as haunted or cursed spaces. Stories of lost souls wandering the swamps, unable to move on due to unresolved sins or guilt, align with the idea of purgatory. These tales often involve ghostly lights (e.g., will-o’-the-wisps) believed to be spirits trapped in a liminal state.
Celtic Mythology: The Fenlands as a Passage Celtic legends describe bogs and marshes as mystical places where the boundary between the mortal world and the spirit world is thin. Some tales suggest that spirits pass through these wetlands to be purified or judged before reaching their final destination.
Slavic Mythology: Vodyanoy and Rusalka Slavic myths often depict swamps as homes to restless spirits. The vodyanoy (a male water spirit) and rusalka (female water spirits) are associated with souls of those who died tragically or prematurely. These spirits linger in swampy waters, unable to transition to the afterlife, symbolizing a form of purgatory.
The idea of swamps as symbolic representations of purgatory or liminal spaces-places of transition or waiting-is a recurring motif in folklore, mythology, and literature. Swamps, with their mysterious, often treacherous nature, evoke an in-between realm that aligns with the concept of purgatory.
Everyone seems to agree that this is about disability but for me I saw addiction, the fly constantly trying to “get clean” and eating everyone around him (all the bugs trying to help him get clean but dying in the process symbolising either that they couldn’t help or that they abandoned him but the fact that they cleaned him means they were part of him getting clean eventually) being all consuming and always hungry for more and even the mother tries to help but by the time they manage to “get clean” or free from the addiction they’re already ruined and even their mother has left them.
This could be more literal and be about physical disability and needing to rely on others for help, or it could be about mental illness, like depression, and not helping yourself when you can. I.e. Bernadette's situation, feeling hopeless until someone offers to help something she could have done herself, or the Monster just getting out of the bath. Having those around you help you does help in the moment, but friends only have so much energy to care for you before they have to care for themselves. And if the depressed person does not have enough help, they may reach out to a parental figure (the spider) and quite literally consume all their resources/sense of self/mental and emotional availability until they are essentially dead (ending where he ate the spider to be "strong like them") where they depend and almost abuse their help because they simply don't have the resources to help themselves otherwise. I personally think the metaphor of this game is about nourishing friendships, having those friends help you when you cant help yourself, and then making that final push to get yourself out of the metaphorical 'dirty water' of depression. Thats my take away, anyway. There are a lot of overlaps with mental and physical illness/disabilities. Feel free to disagree with my interpretation
I totally forgot about this game, but I love that it’s out! Incidentally, would you consider looking at a game called “Late Homework”? It seems right up your alley.
OK, OK , if I get it right the fly is a coping mechanism, that trying to eat bad(but sometimes essential to live) memories to help the "monster"(idk I think the "monster" is trying achieve something in his live). The swamp is the present memory that helps monster now. The plants is way to the core memory, that you can forget because it's old and week, that's why it may become dead. At he end the monster is choosing about staying in his zone of comfort or go out of his zone of comfort ( if we forget some important memories we even have no choice). And I don't know who is spider. Uf, now I'm thinking I have a schizophrenia
ahah yeah, a lot of quebecois in manly's games lately lol you seen CROWDED. FOLLOWED? listen to the crowd's audio, there's a lady saying to her kid ''On va se tasser par là, on a pas le choix ya des esti de cons'' and someone talking about le stade olympique XD
Welcome to the Let's Fly Club how Let's Fly are ya? *note* I played the demo of this game before but this is the full release. Game is from the same creator of The Repairing Mantis th-cam.com/video/hDFxbZewBFo/w-d-xo.html
I love your videos
YES I HAVE WAITED FOR THIS FOR SO LONG
🪰Let’s Fly🐦⬛
WOOOOOOOOOO🎉
Do not let the fly eat feces 🤨
SPOILERS
the mother’s hands were very spider-like, and the spider spoke with very pampering patronizing language as if talking to children.
the swamp is the bathtub, i saw someone in the comments say it can represent purgatory which i really like. things dont die there, just change and turn to mud. stuck in the bathtub the being can never truly die in the stasis of forever waiting. so it can be stuck waiting for eternity, or crawl out of the bath, defying the orders of the mother and being able to crawl towards the light.
the fly with the broken legs after getting stuck in the web and being “freed” by the spider who takes control mirrors the one in the bathtub.
while it makes sense to read as a person with disabilities, the part with the bath is certainly not all literal. the “cleaning” is crushing open pustules that break wounds into the flesh. the one in the bathtub calls that “cleaning” because its what the mother tells it to do, which certainly is only making it less able to do things and thus becoming more dependent. in the end, being so dependent that it rots in the bath waiting for its mother to come back.
i think stagnation, being unable to grow because you were raised to lack agency and independence, can feel like you’re simply going to rot away unable to do anything.
thats the vibe ive taken so far of this game which is a more general interpretation rather than just the single indepedent character story, but i still havent digested a lot of other aspects of the game that im certain play big parts in interpreting the themes. i loved repairing mantis too and i remember asking the devs on twitter forever ago if they were going to have a button to rub your little legs together and they said theyd add it, it made my day ❤ incredible games and writing, the different controls and perspectives throughout the game are super impressive! thank you for playing it manly!
I felt very reassuring vibes from the spider, now that explains why I found it so comforting
Damn, that was really deep
This explanation makes the most sense to me, yeah
Yeah, it seemed there was a clear connection between the Spider with the Mom, and the Fly with the person in the tub.
Definitely a parallel with the Spider helping the Fly out of the web while hurting it, and the mother taking care of their child who is clearly too dependent on her, hurting their ability to grow that dependency.
It can relate to being unable to overcome physical disabilities that prevent someone from taking care of themself, but probably more easily relates to mental ones like depression.
But then what symbolism would the helpers represent, and the fly's eating of either their relationships or the objects?
The spider "helping" in ways that look damaging but end up being the path for the "good" ending might be something like the mother exhibiting tough love that lets them grow into a person that is able to be there for the main character (even if trying to help is exhausting)
The symbolism for these kinds of things can be interesting to think about, but sometimes they can be very hard to piece together without any clearer hints.
These are really wonderful theories! I really see stagnation in the person begging for the fly to help, rather than helping themselves because they are so deep in this hole of dependence. I think being in a hard situation, and the Fly relating to the main person perhaps the little bugs are him challenging core beliefs and helping himself get out of the tub? or simply imagining that there are people around to help? Often we use escapism when we feel hopeless. I remember someone saying something like "we tend to stay in uncomfortable situations because they aren't bad enough to encourage change." (from a mental health standpoint) Love this game, well done devs
Thanks a lot for playing our game! I like how your community dissects everything and makes some cool theories!
@@eruptingavocado thank you for the wonderful game!! it really spoke to me and the switching of control is amazing and really unique!!
Thank you for creating such a great game ! I am still confused about what is the metaphor behind the game ; disabled kid, parental dependence, depression, child abuse or a mix. I think it's open to interpretation and it's very cool.
I love your storytelling. Excited to follow your next adveture in game development
your game is so cool! there is so much to think about and the emotions and are really resonant i feel, need for help as horror is so so interesting to me!
Is there actual meaning to this or is it just hipster garbage?
What an incredibly heart warming story about some disabled kid getting abandoned and dying in the bath after picking its wounds
I had a stroke reading this
It's got that German fairy tale energy
I think that's the first time someone has uttered such a sentence...
Spoilers lmao
@@eclipse8149 oh nyo I read the comments and they are discussing the content of the video
How could this happen to me
It seems almost everyone came to the conclusion this is about disabilities, which makes sense, and as a disabled person who has had to be reliant on others this game really hit me hard.
The metaphor of a swamp where nothing dies perfectly encapsulates the feeling of being stuck, unable to free yourself but not willing to die, simply rotting away for an eternity. With the fly being a creature eating away the good memories of others, while seeing yourself as a monster. The spider can't help but hurt the fly when it tries to help, symbolizing the mother. I also think the cleaning is a metaphor for having to appear nice and presentable, while doing so is agony.
That's just me relating it to my disabilities, but some of these metaphors are much more left to interpretation than others.
I think it's also about feeling like a burden and slowly removing yourself from your friends, choosing between accepting help or doing things on your own. At least that's what I get from the dialog when the insects lose their objects.
i feel the same way
I don't know. This whole theory just sounds like a stretch.
Looking at this, I think it's a metaphor for how a disabled child may feel, especially around their friends who are normal and want to help them
The fly is obviously another representation of the child. They view themselves as a monster, one who can't clean themselves, but also a small creature who is disgusting and feeds on corpses. They help their 'friends' as the fly (represented by the other childish bugs), because they want to give back to them for supporting the child
it's easy for someone who can't do things on their own like cleaning to feel like a burden. they often want to feel useful like the spider
On that topic, the spider is apparently the helpful one that frees you from the webs... that they made. it's clear the spider is representing a toxic friend or parent, one that shames the child for not being able to help themselves or accept support
it's easy to tell someone to accept support, but from the perspective of someone who has a physical disability (me), it's not. it's hard to accept help when you feel like you're a burden.
this hit hard, ty for giving your take on the game i love when stories leave a lot up to interpretation
honestly sometimes i also feel like a burden on my friends and yeah, helping yourself is harder than it looks on the outside
You're probably right but I feel like this could also apply a bit to depression.
@@wu1ming9shi to be honest not enough people talk about how just existing in society with a disability and having to deal with all the comments often leads to depression
I noticed the spider was definitely the toxic "helper" because they repeatedly set up situations where they could "help", by benefitting from the expense of others
Yeah, I wasn't sure how to feel about this one - as someone who literally struggles to get out of the bath lol.
The ending where you push yourself beyond your limits, risking injury to please someone who is always nagging you to be less disabled, did not feel like a happy one.
The spider, yeah, as other comments said, is someone who loves to swoop in and rescue you, and if you don't need rescuing, she'll make sure you need rescuing.
Reminds me of Edith Finch. In that game, the mom leaves during the middle of bathing her child because she went to pick up the phone or something. We then take the perspective of the child having fun in the water, and it’s implied that her child drowned in the bath. I think this game is similar. The kid was disabled and died when their mom left them in the bath. The game is about accepting death (leave the bath) or rejecting it (stuck in bath). The swamp’s creatures ‘can never die’ because we’re in purgatory.
ALL IN LE HEAD!!! ALL IN LE HEAD!!!!
@@ndartehkewl1282 I expect a 4 hour video essay from Pyro on this
Oh lord, i remember that game, that game is AMAZING, 10/10, manly should definitely play it. The stories in that game are all amazing
DUDE that's exactly what I was thinking!!!
@@bretttutorialesygameplay3330real
I remember watching jacksepticeye play it as a kid.
I should play it as an adult
all my favourite demo's are getting their full games released and I'm loving the nostalgia I'm feeling
Which games?
@@puppyloverrexmusic6301 Sniper killer is probably one they’re talking about
I know! I was so excited that this game of all games was made into the full thing!
its awesome when you see your favorite game demo get full game released 🔥🔥
@@Undead_Hare dont forget mouthwashing!!
31:18 was so uncomfortable they killed that poor caterpillar through the love of its doll, truly the move of a predator.
100 percent agree , I was feeling extraordinarily uncomfortable in this part
Since people had been speculating that made the spider represented the mother- that she was manipulative in order to only provide to their kid (the fly). So gaining from that knowledge, it just seems that when the mother was telling the kid to "clean" (they were actually crushing pustules.. therefore making it worse and to make them more dependent).
So the spider would help the fly- even if meant hurting others or their own kid. (The spider biting the fly in order to free him)
Sorry if that seemed confusing but basically
Spider is mom.
Kid is fly.
Fly is dependent on others and only waits until others are in dire situations to gain something from them.
Flies are codependent on other creatures. If something dies, some food is left out, if something excrements- THEN it can feed.
Spiders on the other hand are tactful. They create traps to capture prey and don't need to wait for the other to give them something. They just wait until it's caught. Then. They feast.
theres something so fascinating about the waiting end being a fakeout. you can wait. in another game, it might end there, immediately talking about atrophy after the 2nd confirmation or so. but no--it's something the monster has to keep choosing. theres the constant hopes and worries that encourage you to leave, but you dont, but it's a choice, still.
until one day you finally make the other choice...but it's already been too late, all this time. and theres no more choice.
Feel free to disagree with me, but I don’t think the mom just abandoned the child. I think she may have slipped and fallen after the phone call and died. That would explain the loud bang in the Bernadette section.
i think the loud bang could also be the child getting out of the bathtub
I disagree with you!
Not with what you said, but you said I could.
you can see the outline of the mom on the phone during the scene crawling through the "desert"
The mom was very doting and didn't seem abusive
That said, the Bernadette section is before the bath, so the bang couldn't be something that happens during or after the bath
I think it’s possible she didn’t mean to abandon the kid, just leaving a kid unattended for a little while can be dangerous
43:38 i subconsciously pick at my skin a lot even though i know i shouldn't, and the monster yelling "stop" while the fly eats them is just how that feels sometimes
I do the same thing, if I don’t pick at my skin I can’t forget about it- this is how it feels for me too
there is a name for this- dermatillomania
@@CygnusDoesThings I think you have to eat it to qualify for that diagnosis
@@lissibeeMe i eat it sometimes
@@mintykiwisame 😢
MY OWN INTERPRETATION:
I think the bath time is a literal event - the time ticking down from 10 minutes to 4 minutes. If it was something metaphorical, why would they put so much emphasis on the timeline of the bath, especially when BATH TIME comes, lingering uncomfortably long on the screen?
I think that it is definitely a disabled child. I think the mom tries her best and is genuinely trying - the game clearly separates the spider from the mom since the spider appears during bath time in the first route. I think the spider represents the abuser, the way they use other "flies" to grow stronger, and the way it "helps" you out of your "confinements". The way it speaks comes across patronizing. And the way you want to be like the spider in the first run somewhat implies manipulation to me.
I think the phone ringing is far more important and needs to be pointed out-
In a nutshell, I think the father was abusive and perhaps abandoned or left the family. During bath time with the mom and kid, the phone rings, the mom leaving to go pick it up. The phone ringing seems sinister. There is a scene where there is a bang, and that could be the mother falling or something of the sort.
That leaves the child dying. I think the game itself is the child dying. The fly, the represenation of rot and decay, is "eating" those memories as the child dies. It's eating the childhood memories, eventually leading to the child dying, either them rotting in the bathtub or outside of it.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk, im probably all over the place because im sleep deprived but thanks for reading 💫✨
Well it's actually a really good interpretation, probably the best I read so far, mostly because it explains how the child ended up in this position, and of the characters in this game
@СветланаОбрывкова-б4д thank you, I appreciate it!!
A nice metaphor here is the fact that every other kid is a caterpillar, while you are a fly. Caterpillars grow into something else eventually, flies do not. There is that notion of not being able to change being conveyed here in the 2nd ending for which the picture is a caterpillar. You didn't change by staying in the bath, you remained a caterpillar. I'm unsure about what everything else means, I had a couple theories but the endings showed that I got it wrong. I viewed each item the caterpillars owned as an obsession, it kept hurting them and they kept denying being hurt and/or refusing help. I guess it could be viewed as their own trauma instead. Something painful that they cannot get rid of but that gives them purpose. It might also be hope, sometimes it ends up leading to being hurt.
I'm also unsure about the spider it seems to be an abusive parent but (with the fact that the "monster" calls to it when you are a fly and its in the tub) it can only be perceived as the mother, and she seems more encouraging than abusive. She teaches the "Monster" to clean itself, encourages it to keep going. I guess she's not necessarily abusive but she might have had moments where her attempts at helping were more harmful. The "becoming the spider ending" does seem to imply that it's still bad though... Maybe "becoming the spider" is less about being abusive but more about rejecting any help that comes your way to the point where it is harmful to you.
Still a great gut punch and really nice game.
You bring up some very good points. The spider is seen as strong but also manipulated the pink caterpillar to get stronger.
you say that flies don't change into anything, but flies changed from something, since flies start out as larvae.
in that sense, the fly is already an adult, while the caterpillars are still children, in a sense.
similarly, a spider never changes; it is born a small spider, and through shedding it's skin, it becomes a larger spider.
you might have a point about the caterpillars though; they're indulging in childish things, and they are the first stages of a fully mature insect,
-maybe the fly is supposed to be older, or has become so jaded through life that it's childhood has been lost. but instead or being a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, if was a larva turning into an "ugly" fly.
others has pointed out that the spider, while appearing to be caring and supportive, could still be abusive.
-there are many cases of abusive parents who only wants the best for their children, and think they're doing the best they can to provide for- and take care of their young,
but instead it turns into abuse through alienation and/or isolation; the parent doesn't want their child to get hurt, so they keep them at home where the parent can keep an eye on them. other children are too wild, weird, or abusive, so the parent doesn't allow them to come close to theirs.
-the bath in the game could be a metaphor for an unintentionally abusive parent who's kept their child from experiencing anything outside of the house, finally getting fed up with an older child who can't do anything by themselves, and is trying to teach them how to become more independent.
@@Konani_the_unicorn_queen Oh I do know that flies come for larvae, I was just making it clear that after becoming a fly, it doesn't have yet another step so it's done with becoming anything else.
As for the spider, I phrased that wrong. I actually didn't mean to say that the spider wasn't abusive, I meant that in the metaphor of "being the spider" didn't necessarily mean becoming abusive but completely isolating yourself from any outside help as the "becoming the spider" ending seems to suggest.
Although the two can often be linked. The mother does seem to be raising her child alone, if the other comments about that child probably being disabled in some way are correct, she should have help for caring for it and she might have rejected it in a "I should be able to do this alone" which lead to harm.
@@Gyrhoe so many theories :3!
i keep wondering what that phonecall was about, since it seemed very important; the phone's ringing is very prevalent through the game
The fact that he didn't want to get out of the bathtub because his mom told him to stay there makes me think the "monster" had autism
the monster was either disabled, or it was a metaphor for depression and that others will not always stay to help,
I thought it was very clear that he was a drug addict and the whole idea of him trying to “clean” himself after the damage from his addiction
@@poggerino2578 wow i never thought of it this way
um. or because it was young and wanted to listen to their mom as every adult tells kids to always do. or because it had a controlling mother who abandoned him. there are many things that can implement that mindset. im glad you at least put "makes *me* think". not everything is because of autism. most of the time we are simply scared to move forward because of all the minor things that we thought were supposed to be the way they were (or in worse cases, the things that we knew were harmful but couldnt fix them in any way), not because theres a built-in mental issue to blame, but because others have built a mental issue inside us. (im trying to be educative, sorry if it comes out strange, i know therell be people saying "autism is normal stop being a hater" and all that as if they didnt read my explanation... please be aware of issues in your life and what harms you, and work on becoming what you want to be and never brush it off as something built into you that you cant fix)
@@shrek069 i love this interpratation!
The metaphor with the fly and the monster are commonly debating (and I agree, im pretty sure its meant to represent the perspective of a disabled child) but the Spider's role in the story is very interesting , because I'm pretty sure they represent an abuser. Someone who has authority and is trusted (because the other friends also believe in and rely on the spider, even to their detriment to further isolate the monster in the end) to help even when they're the ones who caused the problems or convince the children that harming themselves is the best option.
The first ending, having the spider eaten by the monster, changing them into part spider, irrevocably changing *themself* as a person even if it hurts them (completely breaks them down) feels like the way a lot of victims of abuse can end up abusers themselves, or often end up harming themselves to escape a bad situation. Certainly, they may have freed themselves (perhaps even through violence, ie eating the spider) but they then end up scrubbing away whatever's left of themself too. irrevocably changed, jaded perhaps.
Honestly, this ending feels the most personal to me. 1d10 psychic dmg. Incredible work by this developer as always, happy to see the full version finally release!
Tbf eating the spider and becoming the spider is an incredibly blatant metaphor I imagine.
Something tells me this is either an allegory for dementia, or an allegory for a depressing mind that has had so much trauma, it was trying to "eat" all the memories and destroy them
Destroy them, so that he may forget that he was the "monster" it thought it was
...what even is this game, I'm feeling all sort of emotions
you dont want to "eat" the memories at first, but after a while it starts to get addicting. forgetting is just... alluring like that
Hey, it’s the repairing mantis guy? This is gonna be symbolic as hell.
An extremly long analysis of the game because I love it:
I actually thought it's about drug addiction, mainly because the "monster" tries to get clean, the mom at first wanted to help him get clean and wants him to help himself but he is too weak to clean himself from the addiction.
She was frustrated with him so she gave up on him to let him rot.
The state of his body might represent how bad his addiction is.
The swamp is maybe a visual representation of how his mind works after prolonged substance abuse, slow, barely functioning enviroment.
I've notices the caterpillers are quite childish, they play with dolls and yoyos and eat lollipops, caterpillers are also the first stage before metamorphosis to an adult insect, these might be his happy childhood memories visualized.
The spider is very condescending we see it when he talks to the pink caterpiller and we see it with his method of helping the fly get out of the web, I think the spider is the part of the "monster's" brain that enables him every time he truly tries to get clean.
Bath time basically means rehab.
The fly is the gaps in the "monster's" memory because of the drugs, at first he still retauns many of his memories but slowly we see his mindspace becoming more and more like the swamp.
The 100 years timeskip is a cautionary tale if he truly doesn't help himself he'll have many many failed attempts to get clean, and he'll have no one other than the parts of his brain that enable his addiction and wanting to just forget everything, the parts that can destroy him.
When the fly eats him whole he essentially forgets who he is, he can't form new memories and can't remember anything about himself, he's gone.
The plants are probably gates to the roots of his most valuable memories and thoughs.
The endings: When he becomes the spider, he becomes his addiction.
When he stays in the bath, he has lost contact with his family and eventually became addicted again.
When he gets out of the bath he has truly chosen the help himself to be clean.
If anyone reads all of this hopfully you didn't die of boredom.
My first thought was that it was about dementia (the fly eating memories...) but was rather surprised by the twist.
@@swepli Thank you I'm glad that you enjoyed reading it =]
@@galloviking4766 Yeah, I thought that at first too when the demo came out
@@galloviking4766 that's what i thought of the demo way back when, but honestly thank god it's not. i've had enough symbolic depictions of dementia ever since Everywhere At The End Of Time blew up and got memeified
Man, The Binding of Isaac keeps getting weirder with every DLC.
You actually got a dead kid, flies and spiders.
Checks all the boxes lol.
LMAOOOO
Bathbirth
@@thomthebomb948 Afterbath
I was about to say.
I wonder how Manly's voice would sound reading a children's book.
back then he did read some nosleep, this literally bring nostalgia for me 😭
@@Kyun69 You are misremembering lol. MBH played some short horror VNs and he voiced an animated horror story for another creator, but never made any videos just reading a story or a nosleep.
i wonder how much we'd need to pay him to do an audiobook reading of Go The Fuck To Sleep
Something tells me the mom didn't abandon the child, but something bad happened to her instead. The phone keeps ringing for a long time - as if the mom never answered the call.
Imo she just got “tired” of taking care of her child…
Maybe she fell? Cause during the brush scene u hear a loud bang
@@neriahmcclanahan6592 She slipped on the brush and that is why it was found under the stairs?
I've noticed a recurring theme here: abandonment and disability. Even the monster's 'mom' left them. It's really sad, actually; it would appear the person in the bath died of neglect caused by caretaker burnout...
Ooof, the bath scene with the music was nauseating and depressing. Also the mom gave me Snowboard Kids vibes with the nose, haha
I haven't noticed anyone mention it in the comments, but it seems the disabled kid wasn't always disabled and maybe it used to have a much better support system that they started to isolate themselves from after whatever happened. I think so because the "monster" has only one arm that's not working too great, but in the hand bath time section they mention the arm from the water looking familiar. I think that used to be their own arm that's not there anymore. So in short, the simplified version of the bath time section goes a little like that: the "Monster" became disabled at some point in their life, or maybe their disability worsened somehow. They used to have three friends represented by the three caterpillars, and they pulled away from them after their health got worse. However, if they keep in touch with those people, they can call upon the memories of them and those memories motivate them to overcome their issues. And finally they call upon the memory of the days when they still could take care of themselves, summoning the familiar hand.
As for the role of mom in this, I don't know. It seems a bit like she's neglectful and maybe resentful of the poor kid. She sounds nice, but her tone is weirdly annoyed at the kid, she seems to disappear at some point, and also the poor kid has some deep-rooted guilt about their condition, and I don't think in a healthy environment this wouldn't have reached this point. There's a also a shadow of mom as the "monster" crawls out the tub, as she's on the phone, but she disappears, which to me seems more like she had packed her bags and left, abandoning them. Even though is insanely depressing to think about it like that.
the last part would call attention to a very real problem. people often abandon their partners and family members when they are diagnosed with serious health conditions
Reminds me a lot of the book ‘The Metamorphosis’.
9 : 28
The titel of the book is in french and means "The little bear who wanted a friend".
Thank you for that!
Note, because french is gendered, it the female form of friend. Dunno if that's of any importance
I think it's a metaphor for depression and helplessness. The bathtub is someone being unable to help themselves out of their situation. the mother is trying to help them help themselves, but they can't do that forever. In the endings they either just sit and mire in it until the end of time, or they become a bitter person who drove away too many friends and moves on by taking advantage of another, or they are able to move on with the help of friends. The friends ending also shows that sometimes getting better is scary when the monster shows hesitation.
I like it. It's a neat little game
the fly trying to remove all memory of the monster hits really close to home for me, I used to hate myself alot for not understanding how to interact with people well and I would spend alot of time wishing I could be completely forgotten. i try not to think like that anymore,
Lol turns out it's in French from Quebec. The book read "the cub that wanted a friend", the shampoo bottle read "clean af!" and the food box "yum-yum".
yeh! and on the pink bottle in the bath, don't see the whole text but it says Ch'feux lol
and the bear drawing... I wonder how relevent it is that the friend they desire is female
I remember loving the demo! Im excited to see the finished product- the mantis game was extremely good too!
ugh the building mantis nostalgia
@@weirdgriffindragonah yes horrors beyond comprehension
DUDE ME TOO!! Like when that demo ended I was desperate! I love weird crazy vague games and I was obsessed with this one!! As soon as I saw it pop up in my recommended and recognized I got SO excited!! I'm so happy the dev finished it!! -- omg I just went back to manly's channel to look for the demo, it's only a year old.. IT FEELS LIKE IT WAS FOREVER AGO?!?! Dude I feel crazy haha Man I just scrolled through (I searched for it so its randomly showing videos from different times) and SO many games he's played that are only from like a year ago feel like they were from SO much longer ago! Wow.. I can't imagine how Manly feels with as many games as he's played! He really is a badass!!! This is ironic, I just scrolled past Inscryption and it's apparently been 3 years, but it feels like that just came out haha Anyway! Sorry for all the rambling about my horrible track of time, I think I have adhd.. sorry!!
@@PanicLedisko ITS FINE TO RANT I DO TOO (even though i didnt read all that) I LOVE THE "AESTHETIC" OF IT!!
What do you call a fly without wings? A walk!
but what do you call a walk without legs?
A crawl.?
A hop
Or an inch lol
@@mintykiwi a worm! Cause that's both a verb for worming around, and a noun for a little squiggly guy!
Funnily enough, I feel like this is slightly happier than repairing mantis. RM’s themes, if I can remember, were more about the futility of dreams and how fulfilling them can leave you empty, while this also has a bit of themes of how hard it is to get help with disabilities, but it’s also about letting go and finding whatever equivalent to peace you can.
Please, correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not that good with interpreting more nihilistic games.
i thought the "stuck in the bath" ending was. kind of beautiful in some weird way lmao. he can't do anything but sit and wait for death, but hey, the plants were a nice touch
1:13:04 what a selfish mom dude..imagine you'd rather abandon your child then help them. Just became you're tired of taking care of him.
sadly some kids dont have to imagine :(
@Miss_Akashiya yeah...
it takes a village. you can do horrible things when you get too tired, sadly
I remember when Manly played the demo to this ages ago! Nice to hope on to a Manly video!
yeah me to. got me thinking about how longs it's been😅
"oh, it must be... i have to go."
-i see a lot of discussion the game's symbolism in the comments, but not really any that bring up the phonecall and the mother leaving for it.
-some have proposed the thud heard in the game was the mother falling over, and some have pointed out that in the desert, it looks like a somewhat body-shaped outline right next to the phone that's off it's receiver.
-the thud could have been the person getting out of the bath,
mostly since the mother is already downstairs and have picked up the phone.
-since she was trying to teach the person in the bath to be dependent, maybe the phonecall was from a doctor about her own severe medical condition? maybe a heart-condition, or something else, and the stress from it caused her to have a heart-attack (or something else triggered by the call), and thus she fell over and either fainted or died. she was trying to teach her child to become more independent, since she wouldn't be around for much longer to take care of them.
-she never came back upstairs since she was either passed-out or dead,
and if the monster is to be believed, it was more likely she died, if several days passed without her showing up (the ending they stay in the tub).
-even in the "happy" ending, with the desert, the monster passes by her collapsed outline and the phone, crawling toward some kind of light (death?), so maybe the monster exerted himself from the strength needed to crawl through the house and died too.
,there certainly can be many interpretations of the events and symbolism through the game :3
This was so entertaining, really a fan of this developers style, and really happy to see many fulfilled demo's recently!!
"The beast rubbed it's mouth equiped with sharp teeth" FLIES DON'T HAVE TEETH
Haha I googled that right when he read that
But they have a spongy proboscis that covers the eats with disgusting digesting enzymes, aka fly spit. Teeth would be nice.
Caterpillars have teeth in this game so I assume the fly got them too
Tryna fall asleep to this vid, it's almost 2:00am here(btw I did watch the demo, i love the perspective of being tiny)
1 am for me
this hungry hungry caterpillar sequel is craaaazy.
This reminds me of that couple who left their daughter to rot on the couch for years until her death.
Her flesh had literally merged with the cushions, and she was covered in all sorts of sores/filth/feces
Manly, thank you for feeding us well today. Just makes sure you give the same dedication and love to yourself that you do your channel!
No one asked but these are my two cents. The caterpillars are the monster’s siblings. Also children and prone to fickleness which is why they don’t help you if you don’t help them. The spider is the child’s ideal self. Strong and able to help others but ultimately self destructive in its ways since it can’t realize its own limits. Need to escape from the web? Simple I will just hurt myself instead of asking for help. This ideal is most likely based on his mom to some extent due to the way it talks.
Ultimately I think the message of this game is a very positive one. If you are struggling, not necessarily with a disability, it’s ok to reach out for help instead of destroying yourself. On the other hand being totally reliant on others is also a problem and you risk losing the ability to help yourself.
manly senpai posting always cheers me up
Well, that was about as depressing as I expected. Not as much as their last game, but still pretty intense. It was quite good, I really liked it.
As we so often see in a horror game, we have some stellar parenting here. Another mother of the year contender. Even if you're generous in your readings of her, she still neglected her child and wasn't there when tragedy struck. Far more likely, she's the true monster.
it's interesting to scroll through the comments and read people's various interpretations,
i mentioned already that not many seem to focus on the reason the mother left for the phone though,
and clicking on some timestamps; that phone is still ringing while the monster is in the tub, and the fly is eating it. but the ending where the monster stay in the tub, i'm pretty sure the phone had stopped ringing. -but the monster didn't stay in the tub and the tub didn't turn into a swamp until the monster stayed in there long enough for it to rot, at which point the mother had already gone to the phone several days ago.
-for that matter, i don't see anyone really talking about how the phone is always ringing while/after the fly eat the memories, and interacting with the phone is how the fly return to the swamp.
-the fly also only ever find memories to eat after entering the flowers, and doesn't have any memories to eat in the swamp since nothing die there.
-also once the fly has eaten the memories which are only found inside the flowers, it cannot enter the flower again, but it can enter other flowers which lead to the same "house" where it can eat memories.
-so do the flowers represent anything? why does eating memories of a caterpillar's item make the caterpillar depressed? -are the caterpillars just outside people/sources, or are they also representing some aspect of the monster?
i don't know what these things could mean, but they might mean something.
45:07 this feels too much like me. the decision paralysis. wanting someone else to make the choice for you because your scared you’ll make the wrong one even if it’s right it’s correct even if
1:15:50 I wonder if the part where you are stuck in a web and have to let the spider come right up to you, uncertain if it's going to help you or eat you, is supposed to symbolize how the kid is reliant on their mother and just has to hope that she'll take care of them properly, because they physically can't do anything else. And if the spider ever decided to leave, the fly would remain stuck in the web, unable to do anything more than sit and wait to die...
I'm glad to see this game be finished, it looked so cool to me when I first saw it.
Ohh I loved this game im glad there’s a full release now!!
Well, and here i was thinking i was dead inside too. I wasn't expecting to get sad watching this
It’s always great to see a demo transform into a full fledged game! Best of luck to the Devs!
9:27 "What is this?" It looks like 2 bears hi fiving... no wait two bears mauling a small bear!
"Why is it always about bears with you."
A kind doctor that dug me up from a shallow grave showed the same thing!
Been waiting SO LONG for this!!
"I'll finish bathing by myself"
"No 😡"
Maybe the fly represents the monster's "death"? The fly eats away at all of it's memories until there's nothing left. Eventually eating the rest of the monster itself. Once the fly gets to it's last body part, the monster admits that it's scared about what's going to happen. Like how a lot of people feel before they pass. And ultimately leaves it up to the fly. Which could mean that the Monster accepted it's fate.
As a sidenote, perhaps the spider represents the Monster's mom? It's always calling people sweetie and stuff lol. Idk what eating it is supposed to represent though. -If the Monster let the spider bite IT, it could've gotten cool spider powers instead.-
Man its so true. I don't think I've ever felt such weird and powerful despair as I had when finishing the Repairing Mantis. Just started this watchthrough but it seems like its gonna be a ride again
Manly, i very much enjoy your content. I mainly watch to fall asleep, but to me thats super useful. I dont mean it in a bad way. I watch untill i pass out. How silent and calm you are is very good
I was like "hey, ive seen this video, I recognize that thumbnail" and was about to click off. Nope, I'd seen the demo! ah, its so lovely to see the demos getting full games! such a lovely game
ohh thats why theres so many flies in my home
Well that was deeply unsettling. Fantastic surreal horror game.
God the soundtrack is so eerie i love it. If only there was the full ost posted somewhere
i love your videos, in a world of disheartening news and emotions, your videos give me so much nostalgia for youtube game playthroughs and I love your voice and humor. i really do appreciate your channel
I didn't think a game about a fly could be that interesting but I liked all the different routes. The final 'good ending' route and the whole final scenario was on brand for a fly game, and I liked the message of self determination, and how everything turned out. Be free protag(?).
I literally sobbed, holy shit. The bath scene and the part where you meet the monster as the fly hits so close to heart for some strange reason. Man, I love this game
Edit: Okay, after reading the theories I might have an idea. Hm.
To me the story is about someone who struggles to do basic tasks in life due to learned helplessness or something else. The fly is them trying to ignore or get rid of painful memories that cause this, however the only way to actually get through this is to confront the memories and accept them.
The mom signifies someone who cares a great deal about the protagionsist, be they a wfie, sibling, friend or a parent. The sequence ahows that those people won't always be there for you in life.
Ultimately I think this is a story about learning to be independent of others, emotionally and physically, and that while it is scary, you can very much do it.
Well I'm certainly never going to look at a fly the same way again. They apparently lead incredibly interesting lives
The Slough of Despond (John Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress)
In this allegory, the "Slough of Despond" is a swampy mire that represents the burden of sin and despair. The protagonist, Christian, struggles to pass through it, symbolizing the difficulty of purging sin before reaching salvation. While not explicitly purgatory, the swamp serves as a testing ground akin to it.
Southern Gothic Folklore
In the American South, swamps are often viewed as haunted or cursed spaces. Stories of lost souls wandering the swamps, unable to move on due to unresolved sins or guilt, align with the idea of purgatory. These tales often involve ghostly lights (e.g., will-o’-the-wisps) believed to be spirits trapped in a liminal state.
Celtic Mythology: The Fenlands as a Passage
Celtic legends describe bogs and marshes as mystical places where the boundary between the mortal world and the spirit world is thin. Some tales suggest that spirits pass through these wetlands to be purified or judged before reaching their final destination.
Slavic Mythology: Vodyanoy and Rusalka
Slavic myths often depict swamps as homes to restless spirits. The vodyanoy (a male water spirit) and rusalka (female water spirits) are associated with souls of those who died tragically or prematurely. These spirits linger in swampy waters, unable to transition to the afterlife, symbolizing a form of purgatory.
The idea of swamps as symbolic representations of purgatory or liminal spaces-places of transition or waiting-is a recurring motif in folklore, mythology, and literature. Swamps, with their mysterious, often treacherous nature, evoke an in-between realm that aligns with the concept of purgatory.
Haven't checked that info, but sounds reasonable yet too obvious. Thanks chat gpt, thanks @ManlyBadassHero!
Well, my theory on the demo video was completely wrong, but I still feel like it was a good theory for what info we had at the time.
Everyone seems to agree that this is about disability but for me I saw addiction, the fly constantly trying to “get clean” and eating everyone around him (all the bugs trying to help him get clean but dying in the process symbolising either that they couldn’t help or that they abandoned him but the fact that they cleaned him means they were part of him getting clean eventually) being all consuming and always hungry for more and even the mother tries to help but by the time they manage to “get clean” or free from the addiction they’re already ruined and even their mother has left them.
This could be more literal and be about physical disability and needing to rely on others for help, or it could be about mental illness, like depression, and not helping yourself when you can. I.e. Bernadette's situation, feeling hopeless until someone offers to help something she could have done herself, or the Monster just getting out of the bath.
Having those around you help you does help in the moment, but friends only have so much energy to care for you before they have to care for themselves.
And if the depressed person does not have enough help, they may reach out to a parental figure (the spider) and quite literally consume all their resources/sense of self/mental and emotional availability until they are essentially dead (ending where he ate the spider to be "strong like them") where they depend and almost abuse their help because they simply don't have the resources to help themselves otherwise.
I personally think the metaphor of this game is about nourishing friendships, having those friends help you when you cant help yourself, and then making that final push to get yourself out of the metaphorical 'dirty water' of depression.
Thats my take away, anyway. There are a lot of overlaps with mental and physical illness/disabilities. Feel free to disagree with my interpretation
YAY! Been waiting for this one! Thanks Manly 😁
(**edit)... 56:35 so that turned way more Grimm than expected
I’m here eating in my living room and watching this somehow, idk what my life has become
Outstanding video manly.
Nah though imagine dying for not leaving in the bathtub for too long after your mother abandoned you, so sad..
Wow this and the mouthwash demo getting their full game in the same time Frame. What a treat
imagine wrong organ x erupting avocado collab
i was just on steam and i was thinking about playing this, now i dont have to because manly has played it 🙏
I totally forgot about this game, but I love that it’s out!
Incidentally, would you consider looking at a game called “Late Homework”? It seems right up your alley.
I believe he has. 😊
He had! Well before the extended steam ver.
_Jeff Goldblum approves._
EDIT: the game at 10:52 is called "The Repairing Mantis"
This game disturbs me in ways I can't explain, originally was trying to fall asleep to this but change of plans I guess
Demented gameplay.
Love it.
I REMEMBER THIS DEMO!!
THIS GAME IS SO AWESOME :D
OK, OK , if I get it right the fly is a coping mechanism, that trying to eat bad(but sometimes essential to live) memories to help the "monster"(idk I think the "monster" is trying achieve something in his live). The swamp is the present memory that helps monster now. The plants is way to the core memory, that you can forget because it's old and week, that's why it may become dead. At he end the monster is choosing about staying in his zone of comfort or go out of his zone of comfort ( if we forget some important memories we even have no choice).
And I don't know who is spider.
Uf, now I'm thinking I have a schizophrenia
AHHH FINALLY IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE
11:05 Despite his monotone voice he does have feelings
Manly during the day hell yeah
Yay! I was always on the lookout for this one!
As soon as I saw MENOUM, I looked up Erupting Avocado and they're indeed Québécois (menoum is our version of yum)
ahah yeah, a lot of quebecois in manly's games lately lol
you seen CROWDED. FOLLOWED? listen to the crowd's audio, there's a lady saying to her kid ''On va se tasser par là, on a pas le choix ya des esti de cons''
and someone talking about le stade olympique XD
There's a demo of new upcoming horror game called "don't fret" I haven't played it but I think you must
I was waiting to see this game release, I’m so excited to have it finally out now
44:10 the irony of a "monster" calling a fly monster
Always love see an hour long manlybadasshero video.
WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR IT
Babe wake up Manly just uploaded the full version of The Hungry Fly
39:10 just gives me the chills
tripophobic nightmare
I saw it when you played the demo seeing the full release is going to be fun
The game aesthetic is interesting. And Manly reading a twisted version of The Hungry Caterpillar was a great experience
1:03:29 man someone could make a horror game about caterpillars and soap with both nature and mechanical stuff to it
this metaphor is on another level
Flies don't have teeth. The Fly (1986) taught us that.
Wow this took a long time to finish for devs. I remember seeing the demo a few years back