First of all, hello everyone. I've been taking a break for the past two months due to having just gotten a brand-new gaming/video editing PC, and wanting to play the crap out of Fallout 4. However, production of Alone has started back up, so, thanks for putting up with my procrastination.
I am currently polishing the updated demo (tying the levels together, compiling, testing, that sort of thing), and I'm happy to say that this one won't have any bugs or crashes.
Moving on, there's something that I've never really discussed about the mod in terms of it's story. Obviously, I've explained that Alone is meant to offer a creative look at what happened in Simon's life that caused him to get to the pitiful stage in life that he was in at the beginning of the Cry of Fear main campaign. However, I've never discussed the way this story will be told.
The majority of the cutscenes take place in Simon's waking day (at school, talking with Sophie, at home, etc.). The gameplay, however, is quite different.
The first three chapters of Alone take place in Simon's dreams; in these dreams, Simon encounters terrifying events in locations that have occur in his day-to-day life. These encounters are not mere horror-game-fuel, they contain symbolism of the thoughts and feelings Simon due to his psychosis, a real-life mental diagnosis that causes vivid auditory and visual hallucinations, as well as delusions (the strong belief in something that does not exist, yet patients view as part of everyday life on earth).
Example
Simon wanders into a dark basement room; the walls are covered with Polaroid photos of mutilated children. In the center of the room is what appears to be a gynecologist's table, with a tape recorder and an audio tape. Simon plays the tape, which contains audio of an act of violent genital torture.
This is symbolic of Simon's psycho-erotic fantasies, which he secretly dreams of enacting on his mother and Sophie.
The last 2 chapters take place in Simon's deep psyche (otherwise known as "Simon's Mind", seen in all four of the endings of Cry of Fear).
It is through these dreams and these manifestations of Simon's mind that we can see how much his psychosis affects him.
