r/pathologic • u/essidus True Menkhu • Sep 21 '20
Pathologic 2 Challenge Runs
I've put in a lot of hours playing the role of Artemy Burakh, to the point where I've lost the magic of the game. I feel like I know so much of the game now that the aspects of it that made for difficult decisions have vanished entirely. Because of that, I've put together a few challenge runs for myself, that I believe will, in part at least, allow me to feel that crushing misery and insecurity that made the first run so special. I've heard others express a similar feeling, so I thought I would share my concepts with you guys too, because I'd really like to hear how it changed your engagement with the town. Also, because I have so much time to think while I was walking, I even put together a sort of Immortell-style presentation for them. So without further ado:
Hello my wonderful Thespians! I cannot begin to tell you how delighted I am to hear that you have yearned to recapture the pain and misery of human existence. I am so overjoyed, that I have decided to make something a little special for you. For you see, this time I will not be the one binding you. No, for you will be binding yourself!
You've played your role so many times, you must know The Lines by heart. So, for the first, you must bind your eyes! Yes, no more of that pesky map guiding your way. For the second, you must close yourself from death itself. No more deals with death, he doesn't belong in this place anyway. For the last, you must bind yourself from the present, and prove yourself a man of the people. Perhaps you may yet prove yourself to be a True Menkhu. Best of luck to you, my dear friends, and do tell me how it goes!
So here are the challenges and the parameters I've set for them. I do not recommend any of them to anyone who has not already reached an ending, and some spoilers exist. I'll explain my thoughts about them after:
Bound Eyes-
- You cannot use the map in the menu at any point
- This includes using the ferrymen, since it opens the map
- You're allowed to look at maps that exist inside the game
- There are a few times the game forces you into the map. Try not to abuse it.
No Deals with Death-
- You cannot ever trade or buy items with the Traveler
- You cannot take the Traveler's offer in the theater
Man of The People-
- Do not harm or kill the Steppe People, unless they don't give you a choice (only in the Abattoir)
- In dialog, always pick the option that best represents the beliefs of the kin
- You cannot use any drugs, only the stuff you make yourself
- You cannot trade, sell, or otherwise benefit from drugs either. They must be stored or dropped.
- Yes that includes immunity boosters, morphine, and Shmowder
- Nocturnal Ending
True Menkhu- (preferably, do Man of the People before looking at this one)
- All of the previous parameters (Bound Eyes, No Deals with Death, Man of the People)
- Everyone on The List must survive to day 12.
- Yes, this is possible
- I'm so very sorry
Finally, for every run you should do your best to keep as many people alive and healthy as is reasonable while attempting your larger goals, and you should try to play the game as intended. Try to avoid cheesing the game with sleep skips or save scumming.
Commentary (spoilers and strategy hints ahead):
Bound Eyes was the original challenge I came up with, thinking that I spent a lot of time planning routes on my map, regardless of the fact that I had the layout of the town and most of the key landmarks fairly well memorized at this point. The only thing that makes this hard is the boat limitation, since it puts an additional burden on route planning. You still have your Menkhu sense to give you the vague directions, and your idea grid to help you keep track of what you're supposed to be doing.
I find Man of the People to be the most compelling challenge. The peculiar mix of restrictions and open decisions will put you in a position of having to make some very difficult choices, if you take the roleplay of the world seriously. It also puts a rather heavy strain on your inventory space. Pills and powders take up very little room, but those tincture bottles very quickly gobble up space, especially considering each color of antibiotic has five different versions that don't stack.
True Menkhu was actually the second one I had made, more out of curiosity if it were even possible to do. I haven't attempted it myself yet, but it is technically possible. I found it odd how little I interacted with the medicine crafting, organ harvesting, and the reputation system in general, and this seemed like an elegant if brutal way to force myself to focus on all three. I had toyed with who had to be saved by the end of the game for a long time, and eventually decided to split it off as a less restrictive challenge in the form of Man of the People. Eventually it turned into the "hardest challenge mode".
No Deals with Death actually came as I was starting to think about working Mark into the theme of the challenges. Mark truly despises The Traveler. He's basically an audience member who decided to jump on stage and start moving the props around. I had a whole bit worked up in my head where Mark would rant about him for a while, but that didn't really fit the style I was going for. It's a much less complicated restriction than the other ones, but I kept it in because it fit the theme rather nicely. Originally, I was going to present each challenge individually as a letter received from Mark, but that very quickly became too cumbersome for me to handle myself, and honestly I was really worried that people wouldn't engage with it, and that was too painful to think about.
Cutting Room Floor:
There are a few other challenges I've considered and discarded for various reasons. Most are small enough that I didn't consider them worth an entire separate run, or were just to force me to play a different style than I was used to, or they didn't fit the theme I had going for the others. Some are memes. I decided to add them back in here, in case any of them were particularly interesting to anyone.
Respect the Rules-
- Never use a bladed weapon, except lockpicks
- Optionally: No lockpick weapons either
- Don't cut open any bodies that would lower your reputation
- Optionally: don't even cut open any bodies you're allowed to
- Only drink or fill from barrels or your basin, never pumps
- never steal from healthy homes
- Optionally: or infected/burned-out homes
I Don't Believe in Fairy Tales-
- Only use modern medicine
- No tinctures, even for diagnosis
- Don't try to make the panacea
- Diurnal Ending
Ripper-
- Do not attempt to help the town or the people in it, including the kin
- Not even in the hospital
- Do what it takes to survive until day 12
I Pay For What I Need (this might be impossible)
- No trading
- Optional: No looting corpses
- Optional2: No looting homes or bins
The Oath
- Do not kill anyone outside of the one place
- Provide Prophylaxis to anyone at risk
- Cure anyone on your list who becomes infected
- Attempt to reduce symptoms on any unnamed character you run across
- Trade some kind of drug to any sick person you run across
Consolation-
- You may only save a total of 30 times in a single playthrough (PC only, console players already suffer this weight)
The Only Prescription-
- You must take/trade for any bull bell you find
- Any bull bells in your inventory must never leave
- No trading them away
- No storing them
- No dropping them temporarily
Girl Pants-
- Don't ever upgrade your inventory outside of when Aspity gives you your father's fanny pack
8
u/idol_emm Aglaya Lilich Sep 21 '20
Love all these and how creative they are! Would love to see more posts about the outcomes if you run them or more ideas :) Also girl pants is hilarious
5
u/essidus True Menkhu Sep 21 '20 edited Sep 21 '20
Thank you! I'm presently working on the Bound Eyes run, and I'm keeping a sort of travel log, so I'll definitely report back. At the start of Day 2 I'm feeling pretty good about it, but once the infection hits I'm positively screwed. I remember the town's layout pretty well, but the infection zones... not so much. I'm excited for Day 3 to kick my butt.
4
u/essidus True Menkhu Sep 22 '20
I've had some interesting realizations at the end of day 2, so I figured I'd report back.
First, I now know why I know the town so well. The answer is clothing shops. Because of my obsession with keeping my gear in top shape, I can tell how far I am from the nearest clothing shop in any part of town, and the best route to get to the others, and I know all the key locations surrounding them from plotting routes around the shops.
Second, I haven't been using my Menkhu sense nearly as much as I thought I would. I mostly use the tip of the polyhedron or the smokestacks to get a sense of direction, and I do most of my route planning while sorting inventory or staring at the thought web. It's usually more of a reminder of what I'm meant to be doing at the moment instead of harassing kids for soap and women for thread.
Rolling into day 3, the most I've missed the map for has been checking my reputation, oddly. It seems I had a habit of intentionally trading where my rep needed a boost. I have this creeping feeling that it's going to change in a moment. Does my skin feel sandpaper-y to you?
3
u/idol_emm Aglaya Lilich Sep 22 '20
This is all already super interesting!! I didn’t rely on clothing shops too much my first run, but I think I’ll find myself paying more attention after this.
I think it makes sense that you aren’t using the Menkhu sense too often. I hardly ever use it playing normally because I find if I don’t know the area well enough to navigate without the map I don’t know it well enough to dodge dead ends while following the sense.
Thanks for the update!
3
u/essidus True Menkhu Sep 23 '20
Another update, about halfway through. Small confession to make, I'm actually trying a True Menkhu run. I won't get into it, but I feel almost exactly the same way I did in my very first full run, minus the fact that I'm not confused about some of the mechanics.
3
u/essidus True Menkhu Sep 28 '20
Finished. I decided to make a whole post about it, possibly because I'm egotistical.
5
3
u/cynicaleyebrow Dec 11 '21
Update on I Pay for What I Need: This is actually very easy. So much so, I've even done it in only buying from Bad Grief. Although I've not tried it without looting for obv reasons lol
2
u/essidus True Menkhu Dec 11 '21
That's very good to know. For some reason, I have to make myself check stores for stuff other than clothes/thread/thimbles. I rarely even sell twyre, and have never seriously looked at the organ trade. I tend to treat rep as perhaps more precious than it really is, considering how easy it is to fix in the back half of the game.
2
u/cynicaleyebrow Dec 12 '21
Yeah. When districts become infected it resets your reputation, so if you treat your weapons well you can just go on a murder/autopsy spree and use Var as a personal bank
1
u/essidus True Menkhu Dec 12 '21
Yup. And even if you really foul up the timing, fixing one pump gets you out of the "kill on sight" problem, or treating a couple of people in a nearby infected district.
12
u/itsnotlauren Sep 21 '20
Great ideas!! I like how you went beyond the basic challenges that people do (no deaths, save everyone, let everyone die). I inadvertently completed “no deals with death” and “girl pants” on my first run 😂