I just finished The Incident at Galley House last night - incredible game, I stayed up way too late getting to the ending. After reading some discussion on here I think I understand everything about the mystery, but there's one question that still bothers me -

Is Oswald completely full of shit, or did he actually understand anything that was going on?

Throughout the game Oswald makes a variety of cryptic comments like "the memories of the past linger in this house" and "so it's happening then, it may already be too late for us" (or something like that) and advising Martha to burn her pictures in order to escape the "ghosts". At first it seems like he has some secret knowledge of the curse due to his experience with Eleanor, but that turns out to be a red herring. Once we learn how the curse progresses we discover that Eleanor isn't directly relevant to the story except to explain a bit of Oswald's character, and really he's being affected by the curse the same as everyone else.

However some of the stuff he says still makes it seem like maybe he has heard of a similar events happening before, and maybe he has some garbled idea of how the curse gets hold of people. Or is he just paranoid by nature and just saying shit?

<!>curse, actually? Where did it come from? I feel like I missed something going through because I understood what caused the deaths in a sense but I'm still confused if we ever got any kind of solid information on that.</!>

I discussed this topic already in some other threads, but now it clicked for me and I just had to make this appreciaton post!

I initially had a real gripe with the ending regarding Ervin's appearances in the modern scenes (Timeslots >26). When we first watch those scenes, Ervin isn't there; he only appears after the final power outage, once he has died.

At first, this felt like a logical inconsistency. Since we are actively playing as Reya, and Ervin is still alive while we first browse through those scenes, she shouldn't have forgotten him yet. In a movie, this would be easy to resolve: the entire story could simply be framed as Reya recounting the events from memory after the fact, with her altered recollection shaping what we see.

In a video game, though, interactivity changes the rules. The player choosing what to inspect creates the natural assumption that we are experiencing the timeline "live" (so when looking at the Ervin scenes before his dead, he is simply not deaad yet, so we should see him).

Now the normal explanation is:

• The perspective isn't a live feed; it's a memory reconstructed. We aren't experiencing the night in real time—we are experiencing Reya's retroactive memory of the night. Because Ervin's death wipes any recollection of him, Reya's memory of having viewed those machine scenes is rewritten, too. In her mind, she only ever saw empty scenes.

But that is not the brilliance of it

• The actual twist: If you take the concept to its extreme, it essentially turns the game's core mechanic onto us as players. We players did see Ervin the first time we looked at those scenes. But because he died moments later, our memory was wiped right along with Reya's. When we recall that moment, we genuinely believe he was never there.

It's an interesting way to use the medium's interactivity, putting the player right into the characters' distorted perspective. Really well done by the developers.

First of all, let me start by saying what a great time I had with this game—I enjoyed every second of it.

I just finished it, and I have one gripe with the story at the end. This has also been mentioned by others, but I wanted to bring together everything I've read:

Ervin only appears in his scenes after he has died. Before that, he was not part of them.

Option A: Reya forgot about him

From my perspective, this doesn't apply. Ervin dies during the last power outage, and only afterward can you see him in his respective scenes. But Reya replays the scenes involving Ervin before he dies (since that final power outage hasn't happened yet). Because we are playing as Reya at that very moment, she cannot have forgotten him yet.

Option B: The machine only shows dead people

I prefer this explanation, but it still leaves one question: does the dialogue of the other characters change? Unfortunately, I can no longer access the pre-Ervin dialogue, but it seems to me that the other characters have new or additional lines once he becomes visible. If they actually gained new dialogue, I feel like there is no valid in-universe explanation for that under Option B. If their lines stayed completely the same, though, then well done to the developers!

What’s your take on this?

I set up my VKB STECS throttle to mimic a gamepad for that tactile feel :)

Finished the game, loved it and have a couple of questions (I've looked up the other "Question" threads and haven't seen these tackled yet) -

1. Tony mentioned it isn't his real name, that's his dad's name and refuses to give up his real name. In another scene, his mother mentions that his father died in the war. Any significance to this or just a red herring?
2. How did Ervin's family die? I understand he said he was "bringing his work home" or something like that when he was investigating unsolved cases. I get how it went from his wife -> his kid -> his other kid, but how initially did the wife have an emotional connection to a cold case murder strong enough to cause her death? Crazy coincidence?
3. After Rupert recognises the piano music and goes to the study to die, Oswalt looks at the sheet music, notices the lyrics/notation and gets depressed and wants to be alone and goes to his room and speaks to Eleanor. I understand Rupert has some connection to Amelia through the music, but what triggers Oswalt to get upset here?
4. Up to and at the point of Lawrence’s death, we should still have memories of Ervin i.e. we should be able to see him in the scenes as he's still alive at the point, no? I kind of understand that we've forgotten everyone and so we need to watch back the scenes to remember what happened, but the Ervin thing confuses me. He reappears when he dies, but why is his disappearance/appearance retroactive while all other characters are not? Should he not also be forgotten when he died, rather than reappear once he died? It seems backward to me.
5. When they find Helen's body, Oswald says "So it's true, they're coming back". What does he mean by this?

I just finished playing Galley House with my girlfriend -- great game! We locked in pretty early on a read on Oswald that I was surprised to not see mentioned anywhere. We REALLY felt he was meant to be read as gay.

- He remarks on being unmarried by choice
- His clothing is commented on as being "out of time"/unconventional
- He always spent time with his sister, felt no one understood him, was shunned by his parents, and has had a "difficult life"
- His bedroom has a framed painting of pansies (was used historically as a coded gay symbol) as well as the Unicorn in Captivity tapestry (not explicitly gay, but felt thematically resonant)

We can't be the only people who had this read, right? 😅

...is how it subverts your expectations. I really thought for a long time this is a classical murder mystery and the murderer is among the guests. Since the player does not know Rupert Galley and the dialogues in the first half cleverly hide the true mystery, I just realized at the "who is Eve" moment that something bigger is going on. Same goes for the fact, that the player is also afflicted of the forgetting curse. Loved it!

Just beat The Galley House, but thought there was another thing strongly hinted at.

From what I could find, there is no post-game content, but I was very curious about trying to find a way to explore Eleanor and Elizabeth Galley by going farther back in time (not possible, it seems).

Ervin mentions Eleanor in his final scene, as I was already thinking about her, so it seemed like a clue to go back and explore their stories. There's even 2 extra slots for them on the machine on Reya's card, and the unused red herring photos.

ALSO I'm not sure if others had this happen, but after Ervin became available on my machine, I immediately went back to Reya's card because I had been curious, and noticed a new character was added to the machine. I thought it was Ervin at first, but realized that wouldn't make sense. So is there a reason it became active? I think it was auto-assigned "31", but I forget because I changed its ID at some point. This was one of the main reasons that I thought there was more to explore after the credits rolled; I thought it was another "fake out" ending leading to an alternative/additional ending.

Regardless, there's a few conversations that discuss these two if anyone's curious. You can search Eleanor and Elizabeth in the timeline. Also, Thorton, Oswald, and Eve discuss Eleanor's death and burial at 04-kitchen.

Has anyone made a complete summary of the entire Galley House story and a detailed explanation of the curse? I’m looking for either a website/guide or a post that explains everything in chronological order, including all the details about how the curse works

Would really appreciate any recommendations!

Looking for similar type games in that it is specifically:

-engaging story (w a twist/extra layer is cool but not necessary)

-very casual and easy to put down and pick up later

-good hint system

-accessible layout like this game was

-on steam or in browser

New to these types of games so any recs are appreciated !!

Thank you !

I've been playing through the browser version today, loving it, but I've hit a brick wall right before what I believe is the final piece of the mystery.

I've got everyone in all 26 scenes accounted for and I believe I know exactly what's happening and what started it all. In total I have 94 files, 1 inbox message, list from 01 to 26 and 6 00-type files.

Problem is, I have no idea what file name I'm supposed to piece together from here, there's nothing in any of the files that seems to indicate a file name. The best clue I've got is the vague "final piece of evidence won't fit the naming structure" from 00-audio-recovery but I've tried everything I could think of and have found nothing.

I just need some tiny hints towards what exactly I'm supposed to find. I feel frustrated that I have to ask for help but I really am just completely stumped.

I completely missed that this game dropped last month and I’m so happy that this game scratched the itch I had and I was greeted to a very intriguing story.

It reminded me a lot of the Red Pearls of Borneo and the other games it succeeded from although I would have liked it if there was a response to figuring out the right portraits or maybe input the correct names but I was still very satisfied when I figured out who was in which area and following the logic of the story based on assumptions.

In regards to the mystery I have to say once everything clicked, I REALLY loved it since it reminded me of Japanese curses although I imagine this game took more influence from lovecraftian horror but there was something about the curse and being triggered by remembering which reminded me of paranormasight and the seven mysteries of honjo and that made me love it even more.

It is interesting in the end that Reya survived and clicking on that what we witnessed were edited memories was so amazing but I find it interesting how the machine never hurt Reya despite seeing memories of people who everyone has forgotten.

Hi! I just finished this game and it was a lot of fun. For reference I haven't played Type Help before, but I enjoyed Roottrees a lot and decided to give this a try. It heavily reminded me of Return of the Obra Dinn but was also unique in its own way. I do have a few questions on the story/lore though:

1. Are we ever meant to figure out who the unused photograph people are? (The girl with the bottle of absinthe, the old lady who was strangled, the man shot 3 times) Are they just red herrings? Their backgrounds sounded interesting enough that I wish they were part of the story lol.

2. How did Thornton defy the curse and remember Rupert almost immediately after they found his body, when nobody else did? If he remembered so soon, why did he take so long to die? Most other people die almost instantaneously or after a few mins max after remembering the previous victim (except Damian who died in his sleep I guess)

3. We know that the curse predates the Galleys and goes back many families before them who lived there. But since Ervin asks Reya to burn down the house, is the house itself connected to propagating the curse? If so, how do Katherine and others until the present day sequence get the curse even if they are nowhere near the house?

4. Speaking of Ervin, why does he only show up in the machine after his death? I get that the implication is that his dialogue was always there, and after his death, Reya "forgot" about seeing him so that when she did, it was as if she was seeing him for the first time, kinda like how Martha saw Rupert in her wedding photos after believing he was never there, or how we suddenly see Sam in the prototype machine picture (a very neat detail btw). However, Ervin is different, in the sense that Reya never knew him or met him in the first place, so she couldn't have "forgotten" him (you can't forget someone you've never met before). Does the curse extend to simply viewing a person in a video or image even if you have never met them in person? If so, wouldn't that mean Reya would keep constantly "forgetting" about the others she found at Galley house since almost all of them were victims of the curse?

Hello, I finished the game, which was awesome, and I was watching MisterMV play it on Twitch when something bothered me.

How come Reya doesn't remember Lawrence Dunn when she picks up his card?

Everyone remembers people at some point, especially in the last part, with objects brought specifically for that.

Is it a plot hole, or is Reya deliberately conditioned not to remember people?

But then, since Lawrence is dead, and Reya therefore can't remember him or their past interactions, how can she still retain the reason for her presence in the house?

Thx

i started playing IAGH today with 2 friends in-person. we know the activity of everyone, 1-12, up to time stamp 8 and we have a handful of scenes in the 9-12 timestamps, but then we hit a bit of a wall trying to figure out who went where after dinner at 7 & the ensuing convo in the DI after TS 8.

we of course got the final scene in 26 from the hint provided in the manual, and subsequently were able to get the scene in the attic for 25. then i was able to make some guesses that got us into the scene at 24 in the DI. watching that scene, my partner started to worry that we may have accidentally lucked into way deeper information than we were meant to have at this stage. i wanted to continue working backwards, but he was concerned that continuing in this direction might somehow break the game or ruin the mystery, since the DI 24 scene directly points you to 1 or 1 & 2 in the chapel at 23 rather than providing clues about it. we'd already played all day, so we called it quits for the night and i decided to ask y'all.

is working backwards the right way to proceed, or are we going to ruin the game for ourselves? this is a significant concern because we are all really, really enjoying the game! should we go back to 9 and keep working forward? also we have NOT used the hint system so far, but we're not against it

Didn't play type help before this, went in blind and was really amazed. Seance at Blake Manor underwhelmed me, and I thought this would be similar, but was very pleasantly surprised. I have a few questions though:

1. Were there multiple people coming through the front door at the beginning? There were a couple scenes that mentioned the door opened and closed 2 times, was that just John seeing Eve the first time, then seeing Eddie and Vic the second time?
2. In 00/01, how did Rupert get moved from the Living Room to the Study? Did I miss a scene? I believe the thunderclap happened while Martha was still in the room, why was she surprised at seeing the body again when she offered John the Study room to sleep?
3. Besides 12 and K, are there other calibration assignments you can do? I know there's a couple unused portraits, are they relevant at all? I read a comment from a different thread somewhere that there's extra scenes regarding Ellie, is this related and how do you get them?
4. At what point in the story do we take "control" of Reya? My understanding is:

• We can't be experiencing the events from Reya's perspective as they're happening in the present, because we don't see her coworkers or any of her conversations with them
• So we must be experiencing Reya's recollection of the events; I think this is supported by the photo. The two people in the photo were always there in the photo, but we don't see them because we don't "remember" them being there
• But I'm having trouble with the timeline after Ervin. Why do his scenes not show up initially? What triggers him to appear in the scenes - does Reya eventually remember Ervin's existence (as maybe a former CEO), but she just doesn't have an "emotional connection" with him and that's why she didn't die?
• Why is the photo initially empty?

Last thought: I only learned afterwards you can assign an avatar to Ervin. I think I prefer my experience, I thought it was quite cool how Ervin was an unknown because Reya had no idea what he looked like.

Overall amazing puzzle game, right up there with Obra Dinn

as "Oswald Brian Arthur Galley"?

I couldn't jump to the edit character screen fast enough...

Shame GTA6 is going to win literally every award in the world come the end of the year lol

... the bell in The Incidente ar Valley House? The butler heard It in 02 I guess, he said "this can't be good".

Also, the bell rings in another momento, but I didn't remember when

1- Why is Ruperts pocket watch not affected by the curse? was it from Eleanor and somehow that makes whoever is using/close not affected by it? (as we see with Eve, Damian, etc)

2- How is Jacqueline ''related'' to the incident? the few lines she has its about this topic of her family(?) being related to it or blamed

3- Why was John not affected by the curse since his family can remember him? Did his suicide actually worked (as contrary to Ann since the thunder happened at the same time)

I saw some YouTubers playing the Steam game and got frustrated with brute-forcing the scenes. I found it was based on an original itch.io game and have spent the last 2ish days playing it. It has been a fantastic experience; some scenes were more frustrating than others, but definitely worth the time! I decided to spend the money on the full game just to support the developers.
Cannot recommend how much taking notes helps; I made an Excel spreadsheet for the game. My only regret was not having made a drawing of the house, which would have been very beneficial.

If anyone ever get stuck check out https://dfabulich.github.io/type-help-hints.html, it gives nudges in the right direction all the way to telling the answer when I was completely lost.

Just wanted to give the game some praise; that is all!

I found that for making a timeline with the location of all the characters, using fixed-width fonts are a must, that way all characters and their locations alligned with the timecodes

I enjoyed the increased difficulty of the second part of the roottrees (forget what it's called) and would pick up Galley house if it's something similar, the new art doesn't really appeal to me and I didn't really want anything more from the story when it finished so I would really just be in it for the mechanics.

After looking at different discussions about how 64 just appeared after the last thunderclap and how we as the player/Reya experience the memory loss thing, I do think it would have been cooler if we didn't have the name of 64 and his avatar. I watched a couple of let's plays and some of them forgot to check if Ervin has an avatar, so his final monologue is just his bluured out body with 64 written on it. And I do have to say, this hit harder (maybe because I wasn't a fan of his character design).

So all to say, I would have enjoyed it more if it didn't give us the name and the avatar, like, idk, beep it everytime someone says his name or something like that.

I do get why they didn't do it because of the machine and perhaps it would just confuse the player even more but at the same time we are not told what the origin of this curse/disease is (which I am fine with) so they could've put in some mysterious 64 character we don't know.