As mentioned in the prior post, I want to investigate A.S. as a character within the game. In the 4th level of the game, entitled Seance, there are the usual riddle letters left by A.S. Throughout the previous 3 levels, the player learns that A.S. is involved with these various rooms in some way. He knows informations about the rooms that help the player solve the puzzle and move on to the next level. But it is still unclear his exact relationship to these rooms.
In Seance, however, the player discovers what has happened to A.S. Seance, an apt title, ends with A.S.’s corpse in a chair at a table of tarot cards. In this level, the player must use a typewriter to type out words, which illicit an automated response from the typewriter. Though these clues are not signed, it is fair to assume that A.S. has set them up prior to his death, which the player is still unaware of. This call and response makes the player a text maker too. While the words, INFINITY, VOYAGE, and HOPE, are given to the player, he or she still has to manually input them into the typewriter, making the player an author as well.
This call and response shows the importance of A.S. within the game. If the words that came back on the typewriter were merely automated, the allure that A.S. embodies would be lost. During Seance, we are instead communicating with the dead A.S.’s message, a much more captivating puzzle to be solving.
Additionally, though we are given the words, we become a part of his story. We ignite what he has left us through the typewriter; we become a part of his story. Simultaneously, A.S. has managed to live on through the words he has left. Though probably not intended by the developers, they have touched upon the theme of what it means to die in the digital age. Of course, A.S. is not a real person, but just as his words live on within the game and give him some sort of afterlife, social media enables humans to “live on” in some sense. The Room 2 creating such grand meaning through a puzzle game shows the immense power that some video games, which seem “casual”at first, can create.