Obenseuer's Protagonist
| Character of Obenseuer | |
 | |
| General | |
|---|---|
| Name | Determined |
| Status | Alive |
| Born | Between 1926 and 2008 (Aged 18 to 99) |
| Gender | Male or Female |
| Appearances | All of Obenseuer |
| Voiced by | N/A |
| Job | |
| Position |
Officially unemployed Tenement Landlord Trade Specialist |
Obenseuer's Protagonist is a player-defined character in Obenseuer.
Biography
Before the player can begin the game, they have to set the first and last name, the age and the gender of their character, then during the initial interview, define backstory for the character.
The name of the character can either be typed by the player themselves or be randomized from a set list of names. The age can vary anywhere between 18 and 99, depending on the age, various characters will refer with a different scope of formality towards the player. The gender is limited to male and female only and affects how other characters refer to the player.
During the initial interview player can set a reason why their character was sent to Obenseuer, these choices will define initial addictions and the wealth state, player can choose being an addict to green mushrooms, a regular drinker of mushroom alcohol, being poor which reduces initial amount of starting money, or leave it undefined, randomizing the starting addictions. In the next question player defined marital state for their character, whether they have a partner or family.
The character has an active bank account in Stalburg Bank, to which they receive unemployment benefits, suggesting the character did not have any official/legal occupation prior to relocation.
Despite the player being allowed to choose much about the protagonist's past, such as family, addictions, age, etc. Some backstory is pre-defined to incorporate into story moments. So far, in the current version of Obenseuer, the main thing we know about the Protagonist is that they were hired by someone to collect Red Rocks. This is confirmed in 3 separate events. The first of which is the beginning of the game, in which the protagonist is located in a dark room and says "Hello? Am I in the right place? Why is it so dark in here? I brought the red ones and... Hello?" The second event is at the end of the quest in which you get a Passport from Eliana Passmore. When she takes a picture of the protagonist, it causes them to have a flashback, in which, an unknown person, presumably their Employer, calls them by name and asks rhetorically if they remember the instructions. This person then proceeds to tell the protagonist that there are a lot of Red Rocks in this area and that they should start collecting as many of them as they can, during this conversation it is specified that, an unknown device is being set up. The third event is at the end of the quest Deeply Insane, in which the player can drink an unknown concoction and experiences some weird hallucinations in which they get teleported to a barren small rocky terrain and enter a hole, in which a big round rock with a human face floating in the sky above him demands that the protagonist answer the phone. In the background, you can even hear the faint noise of a phone ringing. This creature who is presumed to be the Employer, or at least a hallucination of it, becomes increasingly angry with the protagonist asking why they haven't picked up the phone and demanding that they do so right away, suggesting that the Employer has been trying to reach the protagonist but has not been able to do so. The person on the phone will ask if the protagonist has finished his mission, to which the protagonist is forced to reply the same away no matter the player's choice, all the options are the same, saying that failed in their mission. The Employer will state that this was the expected outcome and that the protagonist was hired in the same manner as others before him, as someone who was in a desperate situation and was willing to do anything to get out of it.
Another interesting piece of information that has yet to be clarified about the protagonist is that they may be using someone else's name or look very similar to someone else, or perhaps are a clone, or not even be alive. During the main quests of the game when talking to Anya, the protagonist finds out that a body was discovered outside of Open Sewer with red mushrooms growing from it and that the police identified the body as the protagonist. It is unclear what is meant by this and how the player was found dead whilst being alive and a proper explanation for this remains to be officially added by the developers. There is one thing of potential interest to note: During the opening cutscene when first starting the game with a new protagonist, a corpse with red mushrooms growing from it can be clearly seen as the camera slowly pans towards what is presumably the wall separating Open Sewer from the outside world. It could be that that corpse is the protagonist's. Another thing to note is that when first starting the game, a white flash alongside a camera flash sound effect is experienced causing the screen to go white before the opening cutscene starts. This is the same sound effect and visual effect that occurs when Eliana takes a picture of the protagonist for the passport. Another thing of interest to note is that the background area during the character creation screen is similar to the area where the dialogue occurs when experiencing the flashback after Eliana takes the picture. It is hard to prove this, but they could be the same area. This would then solve the mystery as to why the protagonist experiences the flashback after Eliana takes the picture, as this sound and visual effect is the same one that the machine that was being set up there as detailed by the Employer, perhaps also displayed, thus the protagonist is being reminded of it and remembers the moment. The player having no recollection of these moments further fuels the theory that the player is not alive/is a clone who has had their memories removed. The player fails to understand why they have been sent to Open Sewer and have forgotten their past.
Upon finishing the initial interview, the character is assigned a tenement complex as their property, due to an unknown clerical error.
Possible random names
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Trivia
- Several pre-defined randomized names are a reference to characters in INFRA:
- The first name Markku and the last name Siltanen is a reference to Markku Siltanen.
- The first name Jeff and the last name Walter is a reference to Jeff Walter.
- The first name Xeander and the last name Berg is a reference to Xeander Berg.
- The first name Alex and the last name Hartman is a reference to Alex Hartman.
- The default defined character name for debugging purposes is Esko Virtanen.
- Minimal possible age is 18, likely due to a fact it is a legal age of purchasing and public alcohol drinking in Finland, as well as in many European countries.