Part 11 is out! This time around I take a page out of the Book of Enlightenment and restart the game to approach things differently. This video is a completion of Look Outside stripped down to its bare essentials to finish the game without simply running out of time, getting all the special challenge achievements along the way. If you're not interested in seeing a minimalist speed clear, the sole time stamp of the video this go around takes you straight to the ending, where the main new stuff happens. Now I'll fully admit, I conceived up a route for this but did not actually practice it at all before hitting record. Partially to see if I could do it in one sitting, partially because I figured it would be more entertaining if things went wrong and I had to improvise. I think I succeeded well enough in both cases.
Extra Notes
-This video is devoted to two things. The first is doing the bare minimum to get a "proper" ending (though not necessarily a good or fulfilling one) and the other is completing all the special challenge achievements, as mentioned previously. The achievements are as follows,
Miasma: Complete the game without ever showering. I believe you can brush your teeth still, though that does little to stunt your ever decaying hygiene.
Insomnia: Complete the game without sleeping. A pretty brutal restriction as sleeping gives a generous heal, and exhaustion from not sleeping limits how many skills we can use.
Gamer's Bane: Never play a video game. Not too big a deal since most game skills are situational anyway and we're mostly going to be avoiding combat for this run. Very easy to work into a standard playthrough if that's more your speed.
Loner: Must beat the game solo, having never recruited anyone. Easily the most brutal restriction, solo combat is not easy for Sam, especially with all the other restrictions we have to deal with. That said, it can be easily cheesed by simply wasting time until you get No Going Back.
Ascetic: Cannot use the stove to prepare meals. You CAN still use food items you find throughout the game world though, which do abate Sam's hunger and are still effective items in their own right for most of the game. Not too difficult to work into a standard run.
Long Weekend: Must beat the game before Day 4. Obviously this rules out No Going Back as a possible ending, and it's dubious how attainable any other ending saved for Failed Ritual is to get with this, especially when you stack in a challenge like Loner.
Now on their own, none of these challenges are really that tough, and honestly due to the way unlocks work, all but Long Weekend can be cheesed out by just wasting 15 days since Hunger can't actually kill you. That's boring though, so we do it the more honest way. Thankfully, the game has no requirement for getting an ending that involves a Final Boss, so Failed Ritual (turn in 4 incorrect offerings to Jasper and head to the roof) is perfect for this.
-For that matter, you're not required to play on Normal mode to get these either. You can totally get them on Easy Mode where the game auto-saves constantly and enemies are much weaker.
-For Failed Ritual, there are two item combos you can spring for to bungle the ritual: Cinnamon, The Photo Paper, a Painting and a Blank Tape, or you can get Cinnamon, Photo Paper, and the two incorrect manuscripts. I decided to go for the latter, my reasoning being that there was only one tough mandatory fight while the former would require me to duke it out with several Fredericks. Having done this now though, with how buffed up the late game enemies have gotten with patches and how little we have to work with under these conditions, the Painting route is definitely the easier one since Tumor Fred, Bright Fred and Shadow Fred can easily be melted with Turpentine with only a bit of damage incurred in the process. Hindsight is 20/20
-Throughout the video I constantly misspeak and say the Elevator Monster is the only fight we "need" to do. As usual, some words get lost in the travel route from my brain to my marble filled mouth. I meant to say it was the only meaningfully difficult battle we would have to do.
-The Pistol and the Cleaver is good enough for any incidental combat we need to do, particularly the rats who are difficult to avoid. The Cleaver also works quite well in Mr. Henderson's apartment, though it's ideal that you just don't get into any fights after the initial scuffle with the home invaders.
-We start running into some obnoxious things that cause problems due to me not practicing the route. I assumed Jasper's Telescope Room Key is supposed to let us get into the Stargazer's apartment on a run like this, but instead it's just an item for a dummied out quest section: it does nothing. Annoying because I wanted to open Edwin's safe for the huge cash prize. The bus escapees also have broken intangibility frames on the current patch, forcing you into an immediate re-fight with them should you try to run from them. This one's not my fault for once, it's just an annoying potential failure point I needed to be wary of.
-The Landlord dungeon is one of the biggest stumbling points for this run, as we need to scrounge up 1,125 dollars to proceed, and there's just not enough money outside the apartment that's easily obtainable with just Sam. A little scrounging did end up being required, but I was mostly able to ignore most of the rooms in the dungeon
-One thing I should have done was looked for D-Clogger, as not having Acid Flasks later came back to bite me. Fortunately, I was able to improvise with other things that happened to be available.
-It's around this point where we start suffering the effects of our hidden stats declining. Thankfully, steam user Llamakazi has written a
very thorough achievement guide that also includes some smaller details about the game's mechanics. Relevant to this current point, they figured out what happens when each stat decays to certain thresholds.
Social: As you explore without anyone in Sam's party, his Social stat begins to decay and he will eventually acquire the Lonely status. You can abate this by viewing Social Media, but that's not really worth the time. I'm not sure how many screens this takes, but a Solo Sam will eventually become Lonely, getting a penalty to his evasion and the Attack command becoming ....Attack? There are two more tiers of loneliness after the initial status is incurred, but they have no additional impact on Sam's stats.
Calm: As you explore at high danger values, Sam's Calm will begin to decay. If it decays enough, you'll be afflicted with Anxiety. This happens much faster than Lonely, and the penalties are a bit more severe. Once Sam has Anxiety, your EXP gain is reduced by 50%, and you get penalties to your accuracy and crit rate. Like Lonely, there are two more tiers of Anxiety after the initial status hits you, but the penalties do not worsen. In both cases, this just means it takes more effort to purge the negative statuses.
Energy: This is tied to sleeping. If you go a day and a half without sleeping, Sam will become tired, having his STM reduced by 25%. Unlike the previous statuses, this can get worse. Should you go about 3 days without sleeping, Sam becomes Exhausted, losing 50% of his STM, 25% of his Agility, and getting an evasion penalty. It's not possible to clear this run before Tired kicks in, but thankfully we do clear it well before Exhausted kicks in. I believe Coffee and stuff like Cola/Energy Drinks can abate this, or at least the game implies that they can.
Hunger: If Sam does not eat, he will become hungry. Fortunately, I do know for sure that the food items we pick up and can use as restoratives do abate the decay of this stat, and we clear the run without Hunger ever becoming an issue since we're only forbidden from using the stove. If you go a whole day without eating, Sam will become Hungry which reduces his max HP by 25%. Go another day without eating, and he'll become Starving, getting knocked down to 50% Max HP and having both his melee and ballistic attack stats reduced by 25%.
Hygiene: As time passes, your Hygiene decays. Let it decay enough, and you'll become Disheveled. This reduces your luck by 50%, makes you more vulnerable to status ailments, and increases the range at which enemies can detect and aggro towards you. There's not much we can do to stop this from happening in this run since brushing our teeth is nowhere near effective enough to abate the decay of this stat, but thankfully it's not really as big a deal as it sounds. This is another status that has two tiers past when the negative effect kicks in that don't actually cause the penalties to get any worse.
Morale: I'm actually not sure what causes Morale to go down. There are some games that consume it if you play them, but otherwise I just have to guess that it decays if you just laze around the apartment and not do anything. Obviously not an issue in this run. If it does decay enough, Sam becomes Depressed, increasing all damage he receives by 50%. A disastrous debuff to be sure, but it's essentially impossible to ever encounter it as the game currently works.
-With the Landlord Dungeon done, things smooth out a bit from here. We can ignore most of the basement in this run since the side rooms really have nothing helpful for us. Steve is scary but easy to bribe out of the way. As long as we're moving quickly in the Boiler Room, we're also not under much threat in that section of the game.
-The Parking Garage is loaded with annoying to dodge enemies that are extremely hazardous to us. We're low level and light on gear, so we have to hope escaping works out. Like most RPGs, failing to run from a fight increases the odds the next attempt will be successful, but you can still get caught in failure loops with attempting to run. Thankfully, I don't have too many issues with that in this recording.
-The Elevator Monster ended up being a quite a wall for me, and I had to get creative. Luckily, Mutt was selling the Pickelhaube, a pretty good helmet that combined with the Elbow Pads I lucked into, boosted my defense enough to tank enough punishment and shoot the thing to death. Acid flasks would have been really nice here.
-Thankfully, that's the last tough part. The Typewrither is so passive we can just run in and grab his spare manuscripts with no issues, and the Elevator allows us to easily reach Jasper and turn his booby prizes over to him.
-Be careful when giving items to Jasper. You do not get the option to take them back, and Cinnamon is the only one that carries a warning against turning him over.
-Once you reach the roof, there's no turning back. Make sure you have everything you need before opening that door if you're due for a final boss!
-There's quite a few variations of what can happen on the roof. Naturally, we'll be going through a few of these as we get more endings!
-Each challenge gives a sizable point bonus (with the exception of Miasma, which gives a paltry +10) for your final score. Stacking these altogether on Normal mode secures you a triple S score regardless of anything.
