Game Theory - A Boy and His Dog (Boneworks / Duck Season)

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he breaks down the true meaning of Boneworks and Duck Season! Credits: Writer: Matthew Patrick Editors: Tyler Mascola, Danial "BanditRants" Keristoufi, Marc Schneider, Dan "Cybert" Seibert and Shannon (Bomb0i) Assistant Editor: AlyssaBeCrazy Sound Editor: Yosi Berman

It's all good, because you know what, this is a great game. I still have no idea what the story is. I was playing it for like an hour, it's over an hour. I still have no idea what the story is. Oh, come on, Mark, it's not that difficult. You're merely a double agent looking to attain immortality by hacking into a demon realm full of murderous fnaf rejects, accidentally unleashing them and turning the world into a bunch of mind-controlled zombie bots looking to cleanse humanity with bloody, bloody, bloody vengeance. Oh wait, was that not clear from the game?

How much time you got, friend? Because this one's lore is gonna make you a woozier than extend to VR play sessions. Hello internet. Welcome to Game Theory. The show that lives in the blurry borderlands between game and reality. Today's episode is all about the new incredible VR title Boneworks developed by stress level zero. If that studio name sounds familiar, well, it should. It's actually the same team that made duck season two years ago. You know, the VR Duck Hunt parody with more dead 80s kids than your typical fnaf game and more hidden game lore than... Well, your typical fnaf game. Go figure. And now it seems like they're back at it with even more tricks up their sleeves and boneworks.

On the surface, Boneworks appears to be a VR riff on Half-Life. First-person shooter, check. Physics-based puzzles, check. Crow bars, facehugger crabs, and a whole lot of orange. Big old check marks there. The only thing that we're missing is a gravity gun. Oh wait. But underneath, stress level zero has created what's perhaps the most original, fascinating, and well-hidden game universe that we've seen.

seen in years, perhaps a bit too well hidden. You see, the surface level was all that some reviewers got out of their gameplay experience. When looking at reviews for BoneWorks, he had people saying stuff like, the story is bare bones, and the lack of a meaningful story made BoneWorks feel a little hollow. Definitely missed the opportunity for some calcium memes there, IGN. BoneWorks is hollow, needs calcium. Suck! Dead memes aside, though, Boneworks is anything but hollow. In addition to being just a really tight VR shoot,

It's also a game much bigger than what it appears. Considering it plays a critical role in a massive multi-game mystery that stress level zero has been laying out for us. And so that is what we start exploring today. The calcium-rich story skeleton of bone works and how the whole thing ties together with a serial killer dogman haunting game cartridges in the 1980s. There is a lot to cover. So let's first start by simply addressing the story that we see in this single game. When you strip away all the melon belly and new-es-you-new-es, At its core, Boneworks is about one man's quest to hack a game and achieve immortality.

Now, we play as Arthur Ford, security director for Monagon Industries. We learn from an in-game timeline that Monagon is a video game company turned global corporate overlord. Back in the 1980s, they were a competitor in the console wars, but in the present day of Boneworks, either 1996 or 1997, they've not only pioneered advanced VR technology, but have also expanded into housing, nutrition, medicine. In short, Monagon is basically Nintendo if Nintendo grew up to be evil Google. When the game begins, we see a cutscene of Arthur logging into Monagon's new virtual system, MythOS City, a virtual metropolis built by Monagon to serve as a functional second life or Sims, where users can hop in and lead an entirely separate life, or heck,

multiple separate lives. The city, we're told, is set to open to the world soon. We are working around the clock for MythOS City opening day. But it's not long before our peaceful stroll through the VR city gets interrupted by a transmission coming in from the outside world. The real world. M. Hayes, security engineer for the Boneworks project, tells us that the city is on lockdown. I have no idea how you weren't kicked. Like, nobody else can log in. The system clock being frozen might have something to do with it. So if you can make your way to the core tower, you might be able to manually restart it and let us back in.

So the system is frozen and it's our goal as the only person left in MythOS to manually rest. start it, and that's the game, or is it? You see, it quickly becomes clear that the system shutting down was an inside job. Hey, so everyone's kind of freaking out over here. There's a rumor from security that somebody broke into the complex and coordinated a breach and myth. I don't know why, or who would even know how, but I think it's an inside job. And from there, it doesn't take much to figure out that we are the double agent. Rewind back to the beginning of the game, we see Arthur jacking into the system via

some very unconventional means. He's barricading doors, he's plugging USB drives into wires, he's using a rough-looking VR headset. And now notice the name on all of those devices. On both the USB drive and the headset, you see the name, Gammon. Now, if you played Stress Level Zero's previous title, Duck Season, or if you just watched my theory on it, you might recognize that name.

You see, Gammon was the company that created the Duck Season cartridge, home to the blood-soaked mascot dog, who in that game was able to escape his digital confidence. as well as the Kingbit gaming system that we played it on. So going back to that timeline we saw earlier from Boneworks, we know that this was Monagon's rival during those console wars. Gammons Kingbit Gaming versus Monagons Polysystem. A classic Genesis versus Super Nintendo rivalry. Kingbit does what Polys don't, which is apparently summoning a killer dog to kidnap children and slaughter parents. Slap that one onto the promotional materials. In short, we're playing as Arthur infiltrating MythOS using the technology of Monagon's competitor. He's a double agent. This is all reinforced by a call later in the game with encryption specialist Allora who just shakes her head at us while holding the gammon USB drive.

But this all leads to the question of why. What was Arthur Ford hoping to achieve by betraying Monagon? Well, our first hints come in some messages that are scrawled on the walls of the workplace environment at the very beginning of the game. Quote, our minds are directly connected to the void. Boneworks back end is the only thing preventing true death. What if immortality is possible? Because this is the opening of the game, these messages all just come across as a bunch of meaningless jargon. A lot of gobbledygook. But when you revisit this information later, it appears to be the crux of the entire game's plot. To fully understand why, though, we first have to define some terms.

As we learn in the opening museum level, void energy is chaotic matter that forms the foundation upon which myth OS stands. Quantum void energy particles exist in the... Multiple places at once, providing the perfect glue. glue that holds instant's matter together. Ugh, talk about your reality simulations. The game perfectly nailed the part of reality where I get bored halfway through reading the museum's description. So let me do my best to translate this. Basically, the void is some kind of magic energy source pocket dimension or other plane of existence separate from

reality that Monagon has somehow found a way to access. Based on how it's described here, I think it sounds a lot like the movie Inception. There, you descended down, deeper and deeper through different dream states. You would be active in the deepest layer, but you still existed on all the layers above you. You were in multiple places at the same time. That's why each layer needed what they called a kick to snap you awake and out of the layer directly below you. It seems like in bone works the void functions in a very similar way. Notice that it says void energy exists in multiple places at once, meaning that when you're tapped into the void, you can be in different layers of reality simultaneously. That's why in the game's closing cutscene we simultaneously exist inside the virtual world. We're watching this play out on a screen in the game, but we also see our body slumped over outside wearing the VR headset in the real world. It's just like sleeping in Inception except here we're VR-ing. The Boneworks program then, not the game, but the actual in-game Boneworks project that Arthur Ford and his co-workers have built,

is the layer between the void and the Myth OS City. It's kind of like a protective barrier, so that if you do that if you do it, die in the game, you don't die in real life. You just resurrect in the system. That's why we have the second line of those quotes I mentioned earlier Boneworks back end is the only thing preventing true death. It's an infrastructure protecting its users. But what if your consciousness were able to bypass the boneworks and just exist here? Down in the void. You see, the void is a very real resource in the game world. We see thanks to that timeline I keep going back to that Monagon discovered the void, which on the timeline was redacted, for privacy concerns and it's enabled them to build out their myth systems. As such, everything both real and virtual in this game touches the void in some way.

Monagon just figured out a way to tap into it and send users into the myth system using it. So consider this. If your consciousness is somehow able to get past the boneworks and down into the void, you can die over here in the VR world, or heck, you could even die over here in the real world, and it wouldn't matter. You're immortal. You are beyond the need for a body. free of physical limitations and constraints, you can suddenly access every tech product or heck every living creature that decides to tap into the void energy

And as we're told mythOS is hooking everyone who's gonna be joining this system into the void So your consciousness could theoretically invade any real-world body that you wanted You could glitch trap them all and all of this is exactly Ford's plan We see it in more wall writings than that opening section of the game quote again, theoretically if we can somehow stop the system clock, we could disconnect the resurrection field outside MythOS chambers We could resurrect in the void. The void way could allow for immortality if the monogon heads knew even remotely how valuable this is Even with Boneworks access getting out of MythOS might be hard. Let's go find out So that seems to be the plan that Arthur's following here

Insert the gammon USB key to disconnect the servers stop the system clock and buy himself a couple of hours to get his way into the void and become a immortal. I mean, if you're playing the game like a normal person. Our GT live play-through is like a full day's worth of video for like half the game. So you know, maybe we should have been playing with a bit more urgency. I'm a hammer. Do do do do nook. Shadow puppets with a hammer. Let's just say our version of Arthur Ford, not making it to the clock in time. Anyway, for as complex as it is, apparently Arthur wasn't the only one to figure it out either. According to his co-worker, Laura... You're heading to the tower to reset. I've been obsessing over the possibility for weeks. And you acted on it first. I couldn't let you think you were the only one who saw it. Just leave away for others to get in. Leave away in.

At the end of Arthur Ford's journey, which ends with a lot of ladder climbing, I mean, a lot of ladder climbing. You're staying... We witnessed two important moments. The first happens after finally reaching the time tower and resetting it. Arthur is transported to a dingy hallway with a VR headset warning him to avoid the void.

He doesn't listen and instead follows a glowing purple being through a door that's says welcome home. On the door is the Boneworks logo, as well as a door knob made from a familiar looking baseball, one that's taken directly signatures and all straight out of duck season. We open the door, fall down, and are treated to a cutscene where we see ourselves wake up in the same room that we started the game, except now we're a virtual entity. Pick up the crowbar, hop back into the headset, and are transported to the final level of the game. Compare this cutscene then to the final one of the game. Arthur hops down into the void pit only to watch his body,

slumped over in a chair still with his VR headset on. The crowbar still on the crate where we left it in the game's first cutscene. Min in hazmat suits and guns break into the barricaded room only for the camera to pan back and reveal weird floating ghostly humanoid bodies. The scene cuts to black on the sound of gunshot. What we can assume is Arthur Ford's real-life body being shot. And yet we as the player as Arthur Ford we continue to live on. We're still alive. The reason I call out these two scenes in particular is because to get they show that Arthur's plan worked. He's immortal now. The first sequence is him getting rebooted into the Boneworks plane. In resetting the time tower, he manages to break free of MythOS and become a separate entity beyond his physical body, one that's able to exist outside of a virtual headset, one that's able to pick up a crowbar and use it, which puts him one step away from the void. By diving once again deeper into the system, he's finally descending one more plane down.

He's gone from MythOS down into the Boneworks, and now he's going to from the boneworks down into the void. Once there, his consciousness becomes immortal. He no longer needs his body in real life, nor his avatar in the game. He just exists as a consciousness. And as the floating bodies around him all throughout the endings show us, he's not alone. In fact, his meddling may have just unleashed the creatures that will inevitably cause humanity's downfall. So already the lore of the standalone game is interesting, but that's only one part of the story. As we touched on last episode throughout boneworks, there are multiple references

to Stress Level Zero's previous VR title, Duck Season. Arthur hacks and a monogon using technology from a rival company named Gammon, the same company who made the video game system and haunted game cartridge from Duck Season. The door into the Boneworks doesn't have a door handle, but rather has a signed baseball, one that's ripped straight from the room of our Duck Season protagonist, the 11-year-old David. We even have ourselves the return of mysterious messages left for us the player by a figure known only as X. So what does it all mean? What are all these interconnected clues trying to tell us? Well, not only does it start to peel back how this universe works and how all these games are interconnected,

it also starts giving us clues to stress level zero's next big, scary, and bloody game. But perhaps most exciting of all, everything that we're covering today has led me to perhaps the most extreme conclusion I could make of all. Whether or not it actually ends up being the plot of these games, I'm considering it my own personal head canon. that Arthur Ford in Boneworks isn't actually a man named Arthur. That isn't his original name. He is in fact a grown-up David protagonist from Duck Season. There's a lot that we have to cover today if we're going to make any progress here, so let's begin, shall we?

Our story begins not with Boneworks, but rather with Duck Season, specifically my previous theory on that game. Back then, I concluded that the murderous dog that David fights was actually a human trapped inside of the game based on his smoking habits and his obvious desire to escape. That seemed pretty obvious to me, but then I took it a step further. Based on all the references to David's father throughout the game, the dog mascot of his baseball team, a secret code titled Bad Dad, Bad Kid,

a tape labeled It's Me with the dog seemingly sending us loving messages, I concluded that the dog was most likely David's dad. Admittedly, the how and why the theory was a bit shaky. Why would a loving baseball player father go on to be turned into digital data and start murdering children, including his own kid and wife? but it was the best that I had based on the clues. And heck, it wouldn't be the first time in an indie game that a dad suddenly turns into a raging murderer. I mean, if it can happen to employees of an animatronic-themed pizzeria,

but not to him. Suffice it to say there are a lot of check-off guns everywhere and they were all aimed at dear old dad. Other words, if you're gonna bring heat, you better use it. But regardless of the rationale, it was a theory that got a response, a response from the Stress Level Zero team. Here's what they had to say, quote, When Game Theory made their episode on Duck Season, they were doing pretty good, end quote.

Nailed it, guys! Stop reading the quote right there, my friends. No need to go on, because that's all the information that you need. No, no, editor. Stop, stop showing the quote guy. Nope, stop showing the quote. Okay, fine. Fine, we will read the rest of the quote, but I don't want to. They were doing pretty good, but... Got a few things wrong that led to a couple wrong conclusions. I'll say it here as a developer and as someone who was in the dog costume for some of the live action footage, the dad is not the dog. We had plans to make a hidden ending that would have definitely shown this, but the scene would have required a lot of work, and the game was already taking longer to get released than we wanted. That said, game theory sort of mentioned slash brushed by a major idea behind what's going on,

with the main game, Easter egg scenes, and, well, everything. However, game theory missed hitting the major point home, hope when duck season PC comes out that we might see another attempt at a duck season PC theory. End quote. So close, and yet, So far, my personal interpretation of what they're trying to say here is that while I got the dog identity wrong The whole concept of human trapped in a digital or supernatural world Well, that part of the theory was right and now with the release of Boneworks we actually see it practically confirmed

The dog and duck season just like Arthur Ford by the end of Boneworks somehow comes to exist down in the void The bedrock upon which everything else is built which is how he's able to hop between the digital world of a video game as well as the real world to attack David and his mom but Still, we're left with the really important questions, at least as far as I'm concerned, how and why and who? Really, we just have a lot of questions left. But notice what they mention at the end of that quote I read. Duck Season PC, a totally flat version of the original Duck Season game. One where you don't need VR. It's just like flat Fnaf VR.

It came out summer of last year, but went completely under my radar since, you know, I'd played Duck Season before. A lot. Seven play-throughs in total to get all the endings. I mean, I played that game so much that when I pick up a shotgun, ducks around the world tremble in fear. However, I should know better at this point since lo and behold, Duck Season PC had tons of new secrets hidden inside of it, just like Flatfnaf VR again.

Huh, I swear! I'm not looking for ways to compare these two franchises. The comparisons just write themselves. Anyway, the secrets in Duck Season PC do a lot to further the mystery of these games. If you remember back to Duck Season, most of the game's secrets were hidden behind throwing books. Most notably this one, the Kid Wizard book at various objects around your house, which would in turn cause strange behavior, like blowing you up to giant size, or taking you to hidden rooms.

In Duxes and PC, there's more of that, but, like, a lot more of that. By throwing the Kid Wizard book at one of your magazines, you're taken to a stress-level zero showcase room, where, on one side you see your mother working on her computer, and on the other, you're given models from the game, along with developer details. You quickly notice, though, that on the wall, there's a checklist of activities to do around our little virtual E3 booths,

like playing in the shooting gallery, or collecting pizza. Complete all those tasks, and a cat clock appears, along with a creepy, scrawled message along the show floor. It reads as follows. Hello, little one. 30 years waiting for someone to open a gate, and finally these fools decide to use the void way. These fools! These fools! These fools!

Well, thank you for helping with my rescue. I left you a gift, but you can't have it just yet. First, you must be patient. There are others coming, and we must be. We must await their arrival. See you on the other side. Nine. So this cat named Nine, a reference to a cat's nine lives, just confirmed our assumptions about the void that we made in the last episode. It does indeed exist in both duck season and bone works,

and is the thing connecting these two worlds. That's the good news. The bad news is by doing that checklist and talking to the cat, we just released the evil cat demon out into the world. Whoopsy! We see in a separate note the following warning. Kid Wizard, I am putting myself at great risk reaching you. here? The showcase scene has been compromised. One of the cryptids is planning on crossing a gate here. Do not complete the puzzle. I repeat, the puzzle is a trap. But we can use this opportunity to stop them from bridging out, but we'll need some additional help. The more you know, the more dangerous this all becomes. I'm afraid this time we may have to open the bone works.

The voidway was not meant to be used in such a frivolous manner to showcase a game. They were not thinking. X. From there we see the cat's paw prints walking towards three doors. One labeled boneworks, one open door labeled Dead FM and the last one labeled Machine King. Well, we know that the first one is definitely a stress level zero game so we can conclude that the others are also based on their future projects. Dead FM sounds like it'll be a game about spooky radio station broadcasts. Based on the bloody cross iconography on the third door, it looks like Machine King will be a much more violent horror title or action title. It's also worth noting that the cat prints walk through the Dead FM door. While the cat does appear throughout boneworks on various walls throughout the game, it's isn't a big presence like it is in Duck Season. The Cat Prince walking through the Dead FM door though seems to imply that it'll have a much bigger role over in that world. In fact, we also know based on X's note that whatever the gameplay is for these future titles, the meta gameplay behind it all is gonna be trying to stop the crypted animals from escaping out into the real world.

Kind of like what we saw with the dog in this game. But Duck Season PC has an even bigger secret that it's hiding. After you get all of the game's main endings, you can play a hidden Hollywood mode by throwing the Kid Wizard book at your mom's computer. And then again at this pumpkin. At the end you get abducted by a UFO Unlocking a cereal box back in your main living room. Here there's a series of riddles against the back of the box that you have to solve by tapping the box against the appropriate items Including your video game collection and a banana. You'd think that be enough but we're not even close. In addition to the 10 riddles on the back of the box you also have to complete a summoning circle. Back in my day, cereal boxes had mazes on them and you were happy with that. None of this hoodoo voodoo nonsense but what can I say just another? thing those millennials are ruining. Anyway, to complete the summoning, you need to find five taro cards hidden throughout all the various secret areas in the game. Each card represents something important from the stress level zero meta lore. The cat, the other animal cryptid of the monkey, the cursed game card representative of duck season itself, the candle, which is necessary for any good summoning seance, and lastly a mysterious bloody card known as the entity.

When all of these are found and placed on the cereal box, finally your summoning ritual is complete and you're taken to yet another secret room. Here, we can find a clipboard with a transcript between two Monagon employees, identified only by their employee number. Their chat reads as follows. So this is how Gammon is accessing the voidway? Seems kind of dangerous since they aren't securing pathways could lead to actual material extraction. No worse than us. At least they aren't piping the void way directly into people's cerebral cortex. The consequences here are insane. You have to realize just how big of an impact this could have if anyone manages to bridge the device. Of course they have. We would do the same.

It was obvious they were entering. Can't think of any private companies besides maybe Saber Lake that have crossed in. Careful, they could be reading this com. They have opened Pandora's box. If they have figured out item duping, it is possible to extract even our security channels. This table won't cut it, but if they managed to get here with a headset, Gammon could route through Boneworks into myth. I'll patch it now.

We know MGE number 7388A is Hayes, because it matches the employee number that we see for Hayes whenever he communicates with the player in Boneworks. As for who the other employee is, well, it's definitely not a Laura, because it doesn't match a Laura's employee number, which is MGEE number 773AA. So we can assume that it's probably Arthur Ford himself. At the end of the transcript, the unknown employee says that he found an exploit and says that he's going to patch it in the system, but then does it. In fact, it's the same exact exploit that Ford uses to break into the game, using a gammon headset to route through boneworks into myth. The fact that that exploit is still there and that Ford uses that

exact strategy when hacking into the system implies that that second employee is Arthur. But also notice what these two employees are talking about, the dangers of tapping into the void. First, they mention material extraction, physically taking things from the virtual world out through the void and into the real world. I mean, this is our dog, how he can get out of the virtual environment in order to attack us. Secondly, though, they bring up connecting the void way into the human mind. This goes to what we were talking about last episode, about how Arthur is able to become immortal in the system by spawning into the void. The same holds true for our duck season dog, a human who somehow becomes a virtual being. He was hooked up into the void and somehow his consciousness is able to live there. But notice this. By the end of bone works, things take a strange turn. Instead of fighting null bodies or VR zombies, you're now fighting dozens of clones of yourself. Dozens of other Arthur Ford's. Why? How? My guess is that you as Arthur have started to

taking over the null bodies for yourself, spreading your consciousness to a literal army of avatars in your own likeness. How could we do this when we just entered the void at the end of the game? Well, remember that the void exists beyond time and space. So in Boneworks we play as Arthur entering the void, sure, but the things we're encountering maybe things or instances of ourselves that have already happened. That's why by the end of the game, we already exist in the hundreds and have to fight through hordes of our own clone. It's also why it seems canonical that this game is once again headed towards FNAF VR territory, where we're going to end up glitch trapping everyone. I mean, if everyone and everything is hooked up into the void, it means that any creature inside the void, evil cat crypted, psycho killer dogs, or heck, even Arthur himself,

could take over the mind of that machine, human, device, whatever. And it looks like that's exactly what's gonna happen based on what else we see in this room. Turning a bit, you'll notice that there's more information on Machine King, now with the full title, Hall of the Machine King. Based on the artwork, we know that not only will this be a gory and violent game, but that in it will be going up against a giant, hulking, living machine. And we just finished talking about Boneworks, a game where human minds are actively being pumped into machines, and vice versa. So it looks like we saw the origin of this technology in Duck season, the first time anyone tapped into the void.

Then we saw the expansion and exploitation of that void-based technology in Boneworks. And finally will end in the final battle of Man vs. Living Machine in Hall of the Machine King. As the beings from the Void starts surging out, corrupting the minds of both man and machine alike, wiping humanity out for their hubris and tapping into the void for such frivolous things as video games. And above it all, my prediction is that there'll be one man leading the charge. Want to put bets on whether Arthur Ford is that game's final boss? The mind behind the Machine King in the third game of this little trilogy, that he was set up to invade the Void and Boneworks so he could be the mastermind.

of the machine up arising in the final part of this trilogy? I certainly hope so. But there's one last little twist here. The head canon I alluded to at the top of this episode. My hope that Arthur, star of Boneworks, are a mortal void being at this point, is actually the star of all three games. That this whole stress level zero metaverse is secretly his story, one of loss and revenge. A coming-of-age story involving corporate espionage and horrific murder, as all the best stories often do. But in order for that to be the case, it would mean that he would have had to have been there in duck season. And I absolutely believe that he was,

and that there's enough evidence to support his presence there. What first got me going down this insane rabbit hole was this scene in the early game of Boneworks. As you're walking down the streets filled with turret bots and head crabs, you're suddenly back in a Monagon office lunchroom, and you see this, a small replica of a suburban home. Not only did the out-of-nower inclusion of a tiny house in the middle of an otherwise sterile office setting set off my theorist tingles,

It got a lot of viewers at home to tingle too. Tyler Birchfield says it's the house from duck season. Is it? Is it the house from duck season? That's a good question. We did do a demonic ritual in a tree house of some form. Oh. I believe this to be a replica of David's house from duck season. Now, admittedly it's not perfect.

There are some windows that are out of place, a sliding door is missing, and the fence is a different style, but the essential elements are there, namely this dog house and this outdoor play set in the backyard. Very intentionally put there by the developers to show the parallels between these two houses. Plus, in the best min ending of duck season, we watch as the dog sprints around the outside of the house before being taken down in the backyard with the appropriate amount of force. The news coverage of this slow-speed chase shows us the outside of David's house, and it proves that it does indeed have a railed in front landing, just like we see in the model. Again, it's not exact, but it's certainly close enough to suggest that these two houses are meant to be one and the same.

But why would a replica of David's house be in Monagons? break room. Well, we see attached to the house a series of oversized pipes, all leading up to a giant black box with the monogon logo. Could this be a Monagon server or an actual Monagon office? Based on the small door that we see at the base of the structure, it makes it look like it's an actual building. And as we approach to End Game of Boneworks, we see these sorts of pipes making a reappearance at the base of the time tower before our big battle to restart the system. The pipes are here, along the left wall in a room full of, wouldn't you know it, duck season displays. In the center, we have what can be assumed to be a magical void rock, presumably one of the first discoveries that allowed Monagon to tap into the mysterious powers of the void. And over here on the right, we see our infamous cat cryptid 9

alongside the Gammon Kingbit gaming console and a bunch of clocks. We know from Duck Season and Duck Season PC that these are all objects and characters that are able to cross into and out of the void space. So it appears that Monagon secured them and studied them in order to understand how they could tap into and utilize the void in building their myth OS city, meaning that the material flown through those pipes is presumably the void energy that's powering the whole operation.

So what does any of this have to do with David's house? Well, the events of duck season were pretty clearly the first instance of a void-based creature coming out into the real world. The secret message from Nine the Cat we covered last video confirms this. It's been 30 years since the void was last opened, so that's a pretty big deal. In short, David's house becomes the nexus point, this gateway into another dimension. Plus, it's easy to forget that Duck Season has a canon ending,

explicitly labeled as THE CANONN ENDING. You don't do that unless you plan to do something with that story later on. And in the canon ending, we watch as David successfully destroys the killer dog and leaves his house. But look again, there's an important detail here. Notice that when the dog explodes, we see his particles erupt everywhere, but they don't disappear. They don't fade away. David also smashes the haunted cartridge, but leaves it and his Kingbit gaming system back at his house before a bear wearing his mother and running away into the distance.

It seems clear to me that Monagon learned of David's story, researched the house, and tapped into the remnant void energy that was found there. Between the dog particles, the cursed cartridge, and the game system, the house is like a hot spot of void. And by building their office near that hot spot and tapping into it using their pipes, Monagon has been able to use the void energy to build their business and their VR city. And already you can start to see how David might be playing a bigger role in the story. He's the only one who truly knows what happened inside his house,

that some being leapt out of a TV to attack him and his family. He's also got a very personal stake in all of this. In duck season, David loses a lot to the void. His mother is killed by a void creature, and he's forced to leave home and never return. In fact, it's likely he's held responsible for his mother's death. The police aren't going to believe that some otherworldly creature popped out of a TV and killed her. It would mean that he's practically a criminal on the run. It also means that it would probably have to check.

change his name, away from David into something different, maybe something like Arthur. I mean, if I were him and had to go through all that, I'd want to make sure to either seek revenge on all other void-based cryptids or ensure that the void is closed forever, or make sure that I'm the one exploiting the void for my own good. And as I said before, in the canon ending of duck season, David is still out there. He's on the road. His story continues on. So we've connected his childhood house to MythOS, and we've established that David definitely has the motivation to come back and interrupt Monagons void activities. But there's more. When Arthur is near the end of his journey in Boneworks, after resetting the myth system and preparing to enter the

Boneworks layer of the system, he's led through a door by a void being. But there's some really particular details about that door. First, the knob is made of David's old baseball, one presumably given to him by his father, who was himself a professional baseball player. We can assume this since we know that David's dad played for a team with the dog mascot and a dog character has clearly signed the ball. Now why would that ball be there, of all places? On the boundary between MythOS and the void. It makes zero sense. In the canon ending, David just leaves his house. He doesn't enter the void, he doesn't transition any objects into it,

so it implies that either someone in-game programmed that detail in as an Easter egg to his original house, thereby commemorating the thing that made void technology possible to begin with, or that this whole sequence is somehow a product of Arthur's mind. In which case, he would have to have been aware of the ball, and it would presumably be meaningful to, to him in some way. So that's all well and good, but the kicker to me, and quite honestly the strongest bit of evidence for this game hypothesis is the other strange detail of this door. Two words welcome home. The void is literally welcoming Arthur back. Is it because time is repeating and we've been through this door before? Maybe. As we've established, the void does seem to exist beyond time. But this plus the baseball on the same door means that the two clues need to be taken together, which reads much more clearly as a person coming full circle. Arthur coming back.

to where it all began. He's home again, but he wasn't around for when it all began. Or was he? If Arthur and David are truly one and the same, these two little details of the baseball and the text of welcoming him home would make a lot of sense. Arthur's journey would have started when he was attacked by a killer dog in a video game, and he's dedicated his life since to getting his revenge. And at this juncture and boneworks, he is truly finally home. He's back to where his journey first started. He's now ready to face the creatures of the void one more time. Welcome Home could also mean something else. When you go through the door, the game suddenly changes drastically. We go from a portal-esque future world with sterile visuals and modern aesthetics to a dark dungeon lit by torches.

The final level of the game is a literal fantasy world with Ye oldy Coliseum, Ye oldy dungeons, and Yon Castle thither. It is a jarring switch for the gameplay. But if you've been paying attention, it does make some level of sense. You see, it seems that we've been dropped into fantasy land. A game that's been hinted at throughout various posters and binders in Boneworks. A game that, we're told, is being produced by Stress Level Zero Studios. Yep, in the lore of the game, stress level zero is itself a character and canonical entity that works,

just like it does in the real world, producing games. Just again, like in FNAF VR, where Scott Cawthin Kind of Sord or almost maybe inserts himself into the lore. Oh, wait, no, it's a different indie developer, but still very closely parallels to his own personal story. I'm not looking for reasons to draw parallels between these two. Now, why would I bring that detail up? One, the welcome home could be implying that Arthur once worked at stress level zero, so he's coming home to an old and presumably long-forgotten project. Alternatively, and more excitingly, consider this.

Last episode I showcased one of the secret Easter eggs from duck season that had you unlocking a stress level zero showcase booth, like the type of installation you'd see at an industry event like E3. That showcase room has two very clear and deliberate sides. One inside the booth itself and one outside, where randomly we see mom working on her computer. Could it be that she works at stress level zero studios, producing early games for them? That Fantasyland was one of her earliest projects. And so David, being welcomed home, is him returning back to the unfinished game that his mother once worked on at her old company,

an early, early prototype that was trying to build a VR experience off the power of the void. It could be. And here is where everything starts to come together. You see, I don't just think that David is Arthur. I think that David is Arthur Ford and is also the dog. We've established time and time again that the void exists beyond time. So an older version of David coming back to send a message to his younger version absolutely makes sense. We know that David's father was in a baseball team with a dog mascot,

so future David could choose to disguise himself in that way. There's also the mystery of the final, it's me tape, from duck season where the dog sends a message to David, you, me, baby. I thought that that was a father sending a loving message to his son, you're my baby, back in my very first theory on duck season. But knowing that the dog isn't the father, what does this message mean? Well, it could translate to you or me as a child. We also also know that in one of the game's other endings,

the dog is sympathetic towards David when he gets trapped inside the void. He's not a killer all the time. But why? Why would a future David dress as a dog to revisit his earlier self to kill his mother and potentially himself? Well, it's to prevent an apocalypse. Last episode, we talked a lot about how the next game in the stress level zero metaverse is going to be about a machine uprising where monsters from the void wipe humanity out, or something like that. And we just talked about how David's mom, working at stress level zero studios,

could be working on some of the earliest tests of a void-based game. To me, this all reads as future David going back to where the void-based game, first opens in an attempt to stop her, to stop it all from happening, to stop people from accessing the void and thereby releasing these monsters out into the real world. He's closing the loop, except it doesn't work. Young David kills his older self and Monagon is able to steal the technology for themselves. Anyway, like I said, wild speculation, but the clues and definitely the storytelling, are certainly there. Anyway, going back to the slightly less aggressive theory of David being Arthur, we know that duck season takes place in the summer of 1988 It's in the Steam description for the game. It's also made clear based on the calendar Mom has posted on the kitchen refrigerator. According to the game's wiki, David is 11 years old.

Moving over to Boneworks, we know that Arthur Ford's attack on Monagon is happening in 1997, shortly before MythOS City opens to the public. This would make David roughly 20. Still young, but certainly old enough to look like this and be holding down a full-time job. This is especially true when you compare his look to his co-workers, O'lorin Hayes, who themselves also look to be on the younger side. Now, there is one big elephant in the room. David's looks versus Arthur's looks. You might immediately point out that David is super blonde as a kid and Arthur Ford is decidedly not. Then again, it is a fact that children's hair color can and often does change naturally when they go through puberty, with blonde, toe-headed children seeing their hair darkened to brown as the amount of e-melaninin in the hair increases when they mature.

I was one such kid, a blonde bombshell back in the day and now just, you know, I got a mop of muddy poop brown on my head. So that could explain away the difference in hair. The difference in eye color, on the other hand, though, is a lot harder to get away with. Sure, like hair color, eye color can change with age. It happens to 10 to 15% of the Caucasian population, but there's one big catch with that. It only tends to happen to children under the age of one. Then again, there is one other explanation here, and one that I alluded to a bit earlier. You know what changes both a person's hair color and their eye color?

Dyes and contacts. People on the run in witnesses. protection, someone looking to change their identity, like, I don't know, someone who might be held accountable for the murder of his mom, just saying. And so there it is, my rationale for why David from duck season and Arthur from Boneworks are one and the same, as well as my further rationale and wild speculation as to why both of them are probably also the dog from Duck season. I still personally think there's plenty of evidence to link all three of them. David has the motivation, he's the right age, his house is directly connected to Monaghan, and the boneworks literally He literally welcomes him back to the void. The character design differences, sure, that is a blow to this theory, but we also came up with an explanation for that too.

Plus, you know what? In video games, characters looks evolve. I mean, Kirby used to look like this, and Mario used to look like this, and Sonic this, so, you know, it could change. In the meantime, remember, it's all just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.