Btw if you don’t know, “oh fiddlesticks what now” is essentially the audio equivalent of the “error model/pink and black checkerboard” thing in the source engine. You can hear it in parts of ps3 portal 2
@@qwefhj3011 I mean theres no reason why they would reveal this without any good reason. If someone discards their trumpcard it means that they've found a better one, which is interesting in its own right
Soon after the pov character gets sent to the skybox, you can hear a cut soundclip of Kliener saying “Oh, fiddlesticks, what now?”, though it’s cut after the “fiddle” part. I did some digging and I found that this is also mentioned in the original thread discussing the graffiti: “but how can it be a coincidence with the strange sounds when you stand in front of it? the whole reason I even looked at it in the first place was because *it made a sound that was like a scientist voice saying "oh little one, what now" or somethiong?”* Apparently this sound plays when there’s some kind of error importing a sound, so do with that what you will.
Placeholder sounds, textures and nodels seen to be a recurring theme. The error sign is obvious and missing textures pop up around the place, notably when doing the flashnuke, but the Kleiner noise is indeed a source engine failsafe for missing sounds. On top of that, the red X that we can see throughout the videos (representing a crash in I5 for example) is pretty similar to the red X's that source uses fot missing particle effects too. Maybe it's meant to play into the idea that Interlope commands and the DMEditor are meant to be dev tools.
unchecked source games: Stanley Parable --- Great potential with this one, especially since The Narrator is omniscient and capable of breaking the 4th wall Half Life 2 Lost Coast Black Mesa Alien Swarm And every other game made on the source engine made by valve, any other company or any other indie dev, but I in particular am more interested in the ones mentioned above. Either way, this is one of the most amazing ARGs I've seen and it also gets close to my heart by the fact you're using my childhood to bring forth a tale of a great conspiracy. Amazing work Anomidae. Hope to see the conclusion of this one, unlike Half Life...
I'd really love to see some of the big-name non-Valve games. Stanley Parable's initial release is an obvious one, but here's a few that a lot of people don't know are Source Engine games: Titanfall Titanfall 2 Insurgency (not Sandstorm though) And a lesser-known FPS/RTS hybrid called Nuclear Dawn
The POV character seemed to become an umbrella man once he was "trapped," which makes me think that maybe instead of killing/disposing of these dynamic npcs like TheWhat theorized, maybe they're creating more of themselves instead? Perhaps this is their reproductive cycle after a fashion, or perhaps they are rescuing them from the source games instead of killing them? To go further with TheWhat's theory, maybe they aren't disposing of rogue AI on behalf of Valve or FSky, but maybe they are acting of their own accord and spiriting away their newborn brethren somewhere else? Maybe the reason the FSky servers are only active for a single day is thats the day they go out to search, and otherwise hole up and hide for the rest of the year? A hidden society of accidentally created AI sounds more capable of all the things described than a Valve coverup even if they did make them initially, but whatever it is I feel that scene of the umbrella men is important
Hm, that sounds bitter sweet. While they could just as much be infecting the sentient npc's codes to nullify them into other interlopers maybe Anomidae would somehow get access to the FSKY/Ai central servers codes and remove the Interloper's hunting directive and it would still happen. Then the ai could all revert and find a way out of their subjugation from the Source engine completely using the interloper abilities. Sort of like that one gmod arg that started it all. It had a far more shallow story about a demon being in someone's computer then escaping into the internet, maybe this time it'll be the same thing but end up being a comparatively good ending.
If you look closely when the second one appears, you'll see that the dmnpc is still in the middle. Near the end you still see all three of them spazzing out while it's in the middle.
honestly playing along with this series like its a real thing thats actually happening has been extremely fun, and congrats to the creator for making such a compelling and real story
@@modzkiller75 sadly it is, theres no such thing as an interloper and all that in the actual games, but, as i said, playing along with it is awesome :)
im just gonna believe all this is real, hella more interesting, and makes the source engine what its truly meant to be, a garbage fuck fest where everything is happening (said with love)
Honestly this is so cool we got part six so quickly after part 5. I'm loving this horror ARG based around obscure source engine features and mechanics.
The "Oh fiddlesticks" is a sound that plays in some source games (not sure about hl2) when a sound that doesn't exist is attempted to be played. Perhaps that's the DMNPC screaming for help? Edit: according to a reply, this only happens in Portal 2 and later Source games, so disregard this.
This one is pretty strange. It is kinda like dreams I have; being just really weird and not much else. The most noticeable thing to me was the fact our pov character walked not like a normal person. I was honestly expecting there hands to be one of a headcrab zombie and the fact things were talking besides the pov kinda confirmed for me that the version of The Stanley Perable that was in Gmod would probably still have the narrator talk in some fashion.
@@_Firebert yeha but I think after they put the body down they were still walking weirdly so maybe they were also limping due to some sort of injury? Maybe they had a fight with Cheaple and their leg got wounded but they still managed to somehow win so then they dragged the still alive Cheaple to finally finish the job until the INTERLOPER intervened.
@@MrDanTheCreative10Z9 Well the Left for dead one had the DMNPC missing a hand so not impossible. Also do you think the Interlopers are also something DM related? As my first thought when thinking about it would be a DMPC as it being some kind of character would make sense and pc stands for player character and they can make hint points like the player was able to on that one occasion. But that’s literally my first thought and I was trying to make a reason from there. So good day
The end noises that sound like smashed piano actually resemble the behavior that plants exhibit when hooked up to a electrical signal emitter, the little currents running through plants translate into notes…
Something I've noticed about two of these is that both Helmetcreek and Misty's light sources are messed up and turn into randomized colors (I know there's a term for it but I can't remember atm) It's harder to notice in Misty (look at 1:39 at the top of the screen) but in Helmetcreek you can see it in 2 different places very strongly at the start No idea what it's supposed to symbolize rn, it's possible it could be a "warning" that umbrella man is coming or showing some form of game breaking from what's going on in gen but it's something small to think about for type 5 demos
yeah, it's an SFM bug, LazyPurple had this issue before when it came to these demonic lights. if the creators are somehow reading this (i doubt it) the sfm command is "ent_fire env_lightglow kill", that genuinely deals with the issue.
I'm pretty sure this lighting effect can be seen one of the times the flashnuke cheat is enabled in Interloper 5, further suggesting a link between it and whatever this is
i think one thing not many people noticed is that the cheaple at the end... IS an umberlla man, you can see them charging towards the camera, like that TF2 crasher clip
This was the most interesting type 5 because I think it gives a better perspective into what we're looking at. So cool that Misty was found. Can't wait for another section of the Interloper series.
I started this series a few days ago and binged all of them, I'm happy to be here to experience these videos as they release, I have to say this is one of the best modern day arg's I've experienced!
In one of the ending glitch scenes, the red and black image, if you raise the brightness you can see some blue bars which look similar to the environments found in the void in INTERLOPER 5
One thing to note is the "Oh Fiddlesticks!" voiceline is a placeholder soundfile used if an intended one fails to load for whatever reason. Happened to me on portal 2 on ps3 ages ago.
I like how anomidae mostly doesn’t go for cheap jump scares, and the build up usually leads to a pretty big payoff, as well it feels more like psychological horror.
I'm a bit late to the party, so I'm not sure if this has been discussed; but each time Anomidae does a 'get' command, the server sometimes replies with a message from the administrator specifying a date something was 'committed. Ex. "Committed xx-yy-zz". Additionally, in the first video when he wrote in the first command, there was mention of an 'archive'. So what if these 'demos' are not being generated 'brand new', but are old data being replayed at random? And if not the demo itself, then perhaps whatever is governing/controlling the alleged DMNPCs or AIs or whatnow?
I thought that these might be dates as well, but that doesn't make any sense. What date would 28/14/15 be? There is no 14th month. There's 12 months in a year. My theory is that these are codes relating to the demos themselves. 'COMMITTED 28-14-15' might be a sort of serial code for the actual 'pre-rendered' aspect of these demos. I got the feeling watching this one that there is definitely something fishy going on. Like, it doesn't seem like this render is happening where it's intended to? I wonder if you can get the same 'demo' on different games.
@@ahealthkit2745 wait commited? thats eeriely similar to something you'd see in a github or database when trying to send in new data. That would mean anomidae/interlope is SENDING something out, presumably the demo. This explains why its never saved, its commited to a database and deleted from the committer. Something is collecting these demos, specifically doing so, and making sure its only available on that server.
This ARG is one I feel very invested in, it has the nostalgic feeling of old Gmod ARGS but with tons of polished plot and mystery to give it that Netflix level story telling.
@@PotRoastTheStewonce he's done with roblox mascot horror games he'll get right on the case. that is of course if he doesn't start doing cocomelon theories afterwards
The most interesting thing to me was that the vr npc was already dragging the body when the clip started, implying that these clips are not spontaneously created, but that the vr npcs were already existing and active in worlds even before the demos were generated
It's espescially interesting to me because, we see another ViewModel prop, featuring an AR2. But from my memory, I don't recall the player character having any guns at that point In the game. It seems like the hallway where you initially encounter hostile metrocops in Half life 2. What's more interesting to me is the way that the body that was being dragged seems to have it's own texture blacked out, but there is visibly another head 'attached' to the top of the character model. Like, it's been welded or something to it. It's the only part that has light and texture. And it still has that texture when it's seemingly flung at us at the end of the demo. I wonder if this demo is somehow a precursor to the 'spooky house' demo? The 'possessed' npc that lashes out at the 'player character' actor seems to be a version of the same character, although with it's textures completely fucked up. A big question for me is wether or not this demo is even intended to be played on this map. The way that it begins, the way it travels to the room... it seems pre-render, but at the same time, the organic way it searches the room for bricks and grabs them seems like it's totally intended. But then, when the 'player character' actor is teleported to the skybox, they seem to look around in a very pre-rendered way, as if there is something we are supposed to be able to see in the endless skybox horizon that we can't see.
Didn't think dynamic shadows existed in HL2 way before the episodic updates. They add to the mood of misty but to label it as "beta" footage (in context of what the original uploader in the compilation said) is just strange as the engine wasn't capable of these kinds of shadows cast from light sources probably before episode 1 or 2, let alone the beta version. It even has smoothing.
This was present in one of the first episodes too with the TF2 demo. All the type-5 demos have this issue, I believe it's because they're made with SFM? Bit of an oversight
it looks like messed up shadows, you can see the one sliding is moving exactly like the black oen in the foreground, and you get glimpses of the shaking ones but in white also along the same track in the background
@@calmante4420 the way it is uploaded too is incredibly unique, its unpredictable, usually a project like this has a set schedule but to me it seems that it is uploaded to whenever it is convenient to the creator and the lore
The thing I enjoy the most about this ARG is the lack of a central "antagonist." Sure, you have the typical dark-figure umbrella people, but they seem mostly insignificant and enigmatic compared to the sheer magnitude of the other Source Engine antics and glitches that work to drive forth the narrative/discoveries.
I just realized something, The lights flashing random colors happens in the type 5 of day of defeat, this means type fives are animated in SFM due to that, if you want that to stop you can type ent_fire env_lightglow kill into the console. Just a tip
yes, interesting observation. given that the umbrella men fulfill a sort of "moderator" role in the FSKY servers, i've likened them to gmod admins. if they've already been watching a player close up, it's more convenient for them to yank them away with the physgun. otherwise, they get reports from some other players or view some troubling logs, and they might just teleport them to the admin sit area and freeze them
the story you made brings back memories of Source engine's Foundry, It's probably the only page on VDC to have it's own History tab! It's an obselete source tool that was probably only ever used internally by valve, but leaked back in 2007 with TF2's beta, just to be found decades later. I remember using it wayyy beck before it's functionality was rediscovered, and being very confused. That's all I've wanted to say, really! I love the tight bridging of reality and fiction you've been creating with Interloper, where the differences between the two being increasingly murky, keep up the good work, and I'm excited to see where the series goes!
something ive found fascinating with this series is it treats source games not made by valve as fair game, you'd think there would be some lore rule in place that games specifically not made or made by valve would be capable of generating demos
It could be worth noting at the beginning of Interloper episode 2 you can also hear Kleiner saying "Oh fiddlesticks, what now" but it's also cut/interrupted at the similar point, making it sound like "Oh fiddle"
People are always asking why they dont do the stanely parable as if they cant figure out that the narrator would just write the interlopers out of existence for messing with his story
that'd be funny as hell but unfortunately that's not how it'd go down, if Anomide wanted to do something like that they'd need to get new lines from the original voice actor
"When Stanley came to a set of two open doors, he entered the do-oh? Wait, who are you? No no nooo, you can't have Stanley! How else would I tell my story?! This is my game, not yours! *Removes Interloper* "To be quite frank with you, Stanley, I didn't like the looks of that stranger. I hadn't realized I set your office in such an unsafe neighborhood! I'll make sure to remove that from the script next time. For now, let's restart."
I dont think the Narrator would actually brcome sentient, just the player character throigh DM editor. Resulting in a sentient NPC following the pre-scripted words of a fairly complex AI tree. And THEN the interloper comes to reap, unimpeded.
@@white_mochi Yes. But it's specifically pointed out during the flashnuke section. So it definitely has some sort of significance, especially considering that the "do random shit" part of the sequence looks like a type 3 demo.
I know this is a little much to hope for but I think it would be hilarious if one of these NPCs just beat the shit out of the umbrella men. On a more serious note, I'm curious how the command works for entities in games that aren't natural to that game, or things that are hacked to function in ways that aren't typical of the game. Like if you modded in an unkillable Dr. Breen and let him run around what would happen?
imagine gman just fucking around with them he just sends them to his subway station again, and again, and again, and again, as they noclip back annoyed "WHY WONT YOU DIE!" "time to wake up and smell the ashes, mr Uman." "fuck this who made the gman model a DMNPC"
Hey, just came back to check out the Interloper series as I remembered November was when we have access to the interlope command again! I look forward to wherever the investigation goes next. Stay safe, and have a good one!
In most (all?) clips, we can see the multicolor blinking light (1:42), and at the moment the corpse on the ground move his head, we can hear the same sound as we hear in the first TF2 clip right before the crash Is this a sign that a Dynamic NPC becomes aware? Or a sign that the Interloper takes control of a body? And for the second time, we saw a "crasher" coming right to the spectator camera. Is this a way they try to communicate, but the interloper crash the game on purpose? Great storytelling by the way
The tingle chime seems to be an indicator of DNPC/DM NPC interaction. As soon as that tingle happens, the 'actor' loses gravity and collides with the ceiling. We only hear another tingle after they are teleported to the skybox of the map (I'm not even sure it's the same map, honestly) when the other DM NPCS (Umbrella Men) spawn.
alright so, i binged the interloper playlist after last night's part 5 upload to refresh my memory on this whole thing (including the source filmmaker logo thing) and I am uncomfortable! had chills the whole time during this and it continues the saga of me being consistently frightened of what i've dubbed the "minecraft exp noise" even though i know it's not that.... looking forward to interloper 7, and the cold sweat that follows, thank you!
I really need to make that chime the sound my phone makes when I get a text... @@vvvires I totally agree though. The chipper out-of-tune piano sounds also remind me of something like Minecraft, or the TF2 character select chimes.
Im going to try and analyze misty as it seems very confusing at first: in the beginning you can hear a sound that I can only describe as vaguely sounding like someone saying "dont eat me". The cameraman (definitely not gordon freeman considering Spookycoast also didnt have a hev suit) seems to be dragging something. He drops it in an apartment to reveal that its a cheaple model citizen (low poly cpu saving citizen model that you never see up close) which he then starts to throw cinderblocks at to kill it. The sound of that robotic voice stops at the throw of the second cinderblock. The cameraman is then thrown upside down onto the ceiling before being taken outside of the world into the skybox. As three umbrella men approach him while the cameraman has entered thirdperson, a cheaple shows up and then misty ends, meaning that if Im correct, the cheaple is an entity working alongside the interloper's (the umbrella men)
I’m guessing that misty is now a homeland to all umbrella mans and is the strangest video out of all of them. Note is that you could see a split second of a creepy HL2 citizen face before ending. Also something has to be related with “IT BEARS TO EAT.” I think it really means something with the umbrella man or something else..
I wonder about the behavior in Half-Life: Source - dare I ask, in recording demos on one of the maps in the "Interloper" chapter? Perhaps it's wishful thinking to believe that HL:S, the ridiculed community punching-bag, had a grand purpose all along via interloping...
1:54 An incredibly disconcerting fact is that you can see the Ragdoll's arm falling. Implying that it had been reaching up and Trying to grab the DMNPC as they shuffled past. What degree of awareness does it retain? Perhaps they themselves were a past DMNPC, Trying to speak but left with no choice other than to endlessly loop the same phrase.
I am starting to see the Umbrella man in real life because of this, like out of the corner of my eye. Keep up the good work, because I am officialy horrified.
"Stanley then gets a glaze of a mysterious figure with a umbrell- wait what? that was not part of what i had planned! i dont remember this at all! now, stan-" *jingle plays, stanley is dragged out of the map*
*Some notes.* - Viewmodel of a weapon or the player character's arms in the 'spawn' location seems consistent across type 5s, with the exception of the L4D2 type 5 (unrecoverable) - The sound effect being played sounds vaguely like 'EBIS' or 'EDBST' or 'Eating me, he is'. Hard to say. Slowed down, it sounds like "eating me he is-ST". Does anyone know what this sound file is? - The model on the floor that is dragged into the room looks to be a civilian model but without the texture. - There is a 'head' model seemingly attached to the 'top' of the other model's head, which looks to be an older civilian model from the Half Life 2 Beta. - The 'layout' of the room and hallway seems reminiscent to an early level in Half Life 2, in which the player traditionally has no weapons or items. - The way that the 'player character' actor grabs the brick is not replicatable. Never seen a model be able to 'hold' any objects like this, even in VR. Seems like a pre-rendered animation or something? - Just as in previous type 5s, it seems as if the process somehow breaks the lightmaps. Seems to be a consistent issue. Could be related to the hint nodes? - As soon as we hear that trademark 'tingle' chime that seems to correlate uniquely with the Umbrella Men or 'Capture' DM NPCs, gravity seems to reverse for the player character 'actor', slamming them against the ceiling. This seems consistent across type 5s, with a 'corrupt' NPC engaging the 'actor' with the chime effect signaling something. So far, it's usually directly before a crash or a rather harrowing depiction of drowning. - Could this be some kind of early version of a 'capture' DM npc? It's hard to say but it seems as if the pre-render cutscene doesn't fit the room or the apartment complex map. The weapon placement, also does not make much sense... Could this have originally happened in a different map or location? It's a shame we don't have the demo files, it'd be interesting to try to replicate it and see what is and isn't present. There's another sort of hint to this, which is that after being transported to the skybox, the actor seems to look off in the distance at something we can't see. Is it possible that in the original context, there was meant to be something present in that direction? - As soon as the 'actor' reaches out towards the character model on the floor, they are transported to the skybox of what looks like a map from Lost Coast. It could also be the buildings used to create the skyline effect in one of the early HL2 maps but it's hard to say just looking at it. - The 'Oh, Fiddlestix' line is sort of humourous. I suppose it's just another part of the glitchiness of type 5 demos, but it's interesting because we haven't heard many sound effects in the actual demos, aside from movement, collision and the chime sound effect that seems to coincide with the 'attacks' of the Umbrella Men and 'corrupt' npc models. - Shortly after the 'Oh Fiddlestix' moment, the actor's perspective jostles inorganically, sort of like a ragdoll being manipulated by a phys gun? Seems sort of similar to the CS:S type 5's jostling reaction to being 'held' in place above the skybox. - For a brief moment at 3:22 we can see the player character 'actor' model, pretty much clarifying that this is occurring on a map's skybox. Almost immediately after, there is another chime and the manifestation of one of the 'Umbrella Men', although it seems because of their placement in the skybox, there is a second (much larger) version of themselves present in the map. I believe that the second one in the foreground that has a beige colour is a duplicate due to their placement in the skybox, as that colouration is consistent across both the 'models' we see in the distance (player model does the same thing). - At 3:28, the skybox itself changes material to a dark, stormy one. I don't recognize this skybox but it could be from anywhere? This could be significant. Rain, storms... Umbrella men. The Umbrella Men bring storms? - Immediately after 3:28, there is a strange sound effect that coincides with the perspective being entirely decoupled from the 'actor' model. We see that it is one of the default civilian models from Half Life 2. This is also semi-significant. The two most common models we see in these bizarre Half Life 2 Type 5s seem to be civilian models. It's interesting to note that, if this is a paranormal occurrence, then the 'spirits' manifesting are deliberately choosing less terrifying models than what the base game offers. (There are numerous frighteningly realistic models, such as the charred corpses as well as the headcrabless zombified models, none of which we've seen in any meaningful fashion) - We can see the model of the Umbrella Man distant in the skybox moving closer, echoed by the much larger beige duplicate. I wonder what the significance of the skybox is? Is the Skybox a trap? Skye? Skyebox? hmmm. - Biggest development here seems to be the scale of the Umbrella Men model compared to the player model. We've also never seen it oscilate so rapidly before, in ANY type 5. Hard to understand why there is no Umbrella Men in the Tf2, DoD, or l4d2 type 5s. Could be something to do with a strong tie or connection to Half Life 2? City 17 ghosts... Maybe it has something to do with the core Half Life 2 maps? I'd love to see an exploration of some of the Beta Half Life 2 content, I'm curious if there might be any significance to that. - Things start to get kind of strange towards the end. Multiple Umbrella Men (one notably without an Umbrella, but all preforming the same jittery movements). There's also the relevance of the beta half life 2 civilian head zooming towards the viewer at the same point as the furthest Umbrella Man getting closer to the 'trapped' model. All in all, the demo itself seems to portray a murder, and subsequent punishment through the 'possessed' victim manifesting Umbrella Man / DM NPC style effects, subsequently calling other 'Capture' NPCs to the location. It's hard to say if the 'viewer' is really in any harm here, since while the npc model is flung around, the viewpoint remains largely unobscured until the last minute. - At the end, we can see a line in the console that has perplexed me consistently. "message from the administrator : COMMITTED 28 - 14 - 15". At first I thought these could be a date, but that doesn't make sense. 28th day, 14th month, 2015? Doesn't make any sense. I'm curious if anyone else has catalogued the 'COMMITTED' information. It seems like it could be relevant to the investigation, along with the error messages popping up in the console. They could tell us a story about what materials the demo is trying to pull from. Perhaps trying to re-run an old demo with these files intact in the game will allow the demos to operate closer to their original encounter? *Some thoughts considering the current breakthroughs:* - Check the following games: Fistful of Frags, Dota 2, Cry Of Fear, Half Life 2 Beta, Half Life 2: Lost Coast. - Consider what models are used in the type 5 demos. Consider the importance of the hint node, and it's relation to the odd physics glitches discovered by Eida. - Investigate SKYE and it's significance. Investigate the Skybox used in this demo. See if any other demos have altered skyboxes. It's a shame we don't have any game file data on the models here, I'm curious if the half life 2 beta civilian's ID will show that it is the same or similar to the 'capture'/Umbrella Men npcs?
Wanted to share a little thought, the audio file sounds like someone saying "Delete the videos". And the playermodel that says it looks like Mona, the one character Eida was really close to.
they didnt need to gyrate and make all that noise, doesnt serve an imaginable function beyond being creepy to the viewer, which feels out of place in this more technically oriented series if that makes sense
Okay what the hell, is nobody gonna talk about how this and last video are. Not right at all? I mean part 5 was literally clips meshed together, and dont forget all the glitchy bits Didnt the creator say there could be some third party tampering during and after the stream or something?
There's so many other games I'd love to see explored. Half life 2 Beta, Half life 2: Lost coast, Half life 2: Episode 1 & 2. I really need to see type 5s from those games. Additionally, there's a ton of third party games made on the source engine which I am sure would have very interesting results, such as; Fistful of Frags, Black Mesa, Cry Of Fear to name a few.
@@ahealthkit2745 Sure but I think the umbrella man portal demo was really overlooked for what it was, would be great to see more about that. Besides the HL2 coastal house one (I can't remember the name of the demo) where the guy shoves the player, it was the one that had me on edge the most
on the corner of the video theres a link to "PROJECT SKYBOX" and in there theres an archival of the first Interloper thread and also a page talking about a computer graphic conference called DIGIVISIONS. I wonder how the last one is related to this or if its related at all
i love how they hit the other civilian on the floor with bricks, then as soon as the bell sound is heard, it looks like they're trying to stomp on its face but is instead just like, welded to the ceiling or smth, while being stared by the... corpse? ragdoll? entity?
About that twinkle effect. I believe source of that effect is from a game called "iamscared". Which is actually strange, knowing that "Iamscared" wasn't made on a Source Engine™