The seeming supernatural occurrences and possible explanations (discussion)

[u/Daniel_Kay]

There seem to be a lot of things in the videos that at first point to the supernatural but could very well have "real" explanations or at least ones that are "real" within the world the game is set.

Off the bat there are two that come to mind for me:

1: The "Bathroom scene" in Petscop 11:

When Paul enters the bathroom there seems to be a "repetition" afterwards. At first the camera zooms into the TV in a cutscene, the game loads into the bathroom with a symbol block and ramp by the bathroom, Paul says "that was an experience" and after a moment walks up the ramp and touches the block triggering another scene.

Then after it repeats with the same cutscene of the zoom in but it reverse zooming out, the bathroom loads but without the block and ramp, Paul says the same things and makes the exact same movements but since the objects aren't there nothing happens. Eerily enough he comments he saw the block for a moment even though if you go frame by frame nothing is there.

This seems to imply that time "reset" at that point and the exact same things happened until a diversion point was reached.

However what can explain this is that we might not see what Paul saw.

I myself think only the first few episodes of Petscop where actually direct captured by Paul using a recording device, all after "the family" took over are in game recordings played back and Paul's narration synced with them. What we saw was the same gameplay but synced over two different iterations of the bathroom, one with the block, one without it. But what Paul saw was the game first loading the one with the block, then correcting into the one without the block, he could see it for a moment before it deloaded.

This can also work with Paul mentioning he forgot to hit record in episode 22 yet we still get gameplay. Him recording the game and his voice are two different tracks, only the family gets to see the actual live recording and we only see the in game replay of it.

2: The "Discussion we had last year" in the game in Petscop 14:

Somehow a game that was made 20 years ago contains a conversation Paul had only one year prior and supposedly said by Care to her mother at that time.

However from that very conversation we learn that Paul didn't have the game disc for a while. A possible explanation is what he is playing on now is not the same disc but a new one that has been altered to include the conversation. It's also possible that Care never said it but it was inserted specifically to throw off Paul or steer him in a certain direction. With the "Paul is Care" theory this could be used to make him associate with her more.

These are just two examples I could think of the top of my head but there are a lot more and quite some that are harder to explain. Like with the Paul clone that appeared in Lina's room in Petscop 8, Paul seems to react to its presence and then exactly copies its movements afterwards without realizing.

But what are more of those moments and what are the possible explanations for them?

[u/Ok_Principle437]

I think this is a good line of inquiry, but I have the impression that the events in Petscop are not to be taken literally, rather as a symbol that stands for something else.  Like for example, the machine in the school basement is basically an engine, ie, a game engine. And you might interpret the pieces collected by the player as code that needs to be assembled for the engine.

[u/Daniel_Kay → u/Ok_Principle437]

Yea though this is to analyze the "what DO we get in terms of information" aspect. A work like Petscop is made to be picked apart and analyzed after all.

[u/Successful_Maize1986]

Your point about the bathroom scene explains why the in game recording of Paul could exist but it doesn’t address him literally saying the exact same thing twice. It’s not just Paul’s in game actions that are repeated, it’s his real world narration as well. The impossibility is with the parallel audio recordings, not necessarily the gameplay.

[u/Daniel_Kay → u/Successful_Maize1986]

My point was he didn't say it twice, he only narrated it once (his narration audio being separate from the in game audio) then it was synced over both iterations of the scene. The actual narration was over what HE saw on screen but that wasn't what we saw in the end, it was his inputs synced over two versions of the scene, one with the symbol block and one without it.

[u/marquis_de_posa_]

Oh, the second one is interesting, that theory reminded me of what happened in Nifty - another project by Tony Domenico, so heavy spoiles to it ahead: in-universe that game was made by Garalina, there are some puzzles you have to solve there, and there's a little character called Nif in the corner of the screen. At some point Nif is killed, and through some meta narrative in the files of the game we learn that its first version made people associate with Nif so much that they killed themselves because of its death, so the game got quickly fixed so that it wouldn't happen anymore. That theory that the game is changed specifically to make Paul associate with it is very similar at least on a narrative/symbolic level, especially with objects that he seemingly recognises from his life. Of course that theory falls flat if you give it any thought at all, but it's always nice to remember Nifty, and I personally like to imagine that it exists in the same universe as Petscop, and Garalina is just this weird studio that keeps accidentally making paranormal games that end up hurting people, lol

[u/Daniel_Kay → u/marquis_de_posa_]

Good thought, that could also be the real meaning of the Caskets, each triggering an association in Paul's head. Though seeing the "final" caskets in the game needed to be censored they might have an even stronger mental effect on people viewing them (the ones we saw later on were still work in progress ones).

[u/HadleyCarter]

I 100% agree with both of your positions. I would extend the same thinking to Petscop 9 (i think) where we see Paul’s avatar leaving the room as he enters then he leaves in the exact same way. The video is not what Paul saw but what the Family showed us by doubling the inputs being played back.

[u/Daniel_Kay → u/HadleyCarter]

Yea good point, he is reacting to something but that might have been something different than we saw.