A tweak to the frozen lake/river scene
Deltino
Moderator
Alright, so I know this topic has been argued back and forth quite a bit, but I've been thinking about ways to make this scene work better from a logical standpoint. My aim here is to find a way to keep the scene the same as it is for the most part, but change the exact details of how it occurred. In this case, the group's reason for deciding to 'cross' it: They don't initially realize it's a lake/river.
It's covered in snow. A layer of snow is covering the entire area, making it appear as if it's just a clearing in the woods; nothing out of the ordinary. With the house being on the other side, everyone starts going across under the assumption that it's solid ground. Kenny of course makes Arvo go first, and everyone else follows suit.
Everything's going fine until bam, the ground beneath Clementine cracks like it does now. She immediately calls out saying that it cracked. Jane, concerned, scrapes away the snow beneath her, and sees the ice. That's when everyone realizes they just unwittingly crossed a frozen river/lake.
Kenny, infuriated, immediately begins to accuse Arvo of knowing about the ice, and deliberately not saying anything. The rest of the group try to get him to lay off, and they argue about what to do: they're about half-way across already, do they turn back, or keep going?
However, the argument gets cut short when they notice walkers starting to follow them across the ice. After seeing the walkers, everyone pretty much agrees to keep going forward rather than risk going back.
They start to move forward, only to be distracted by walkers starting to fall through the ice. From here, the scene plays out as normal: Arvo tries to book it, Kenny chases him down, and Mike tries to stop Kenny from doing something stupid, the ice cracks around Luke, decisions are made, lives are lost, etc etc.
It's not a perfect explanation, but it removes the arguable decision of deciding to cross a frozen body of water on your own volition. I think this would also provide a nice "oh shit" moment when you finally realize that you're actually crossing ice.
It also provides more ambiguity to Arvo, and gives Kenny a slightly more justified reason to be pissed at him. Not to say that this in any way justifies him beating up Arvo, but it provides a more valid explanation for why he would do it, as he would believe Arvo was purposely trying to endanger them by not mentioning the ice. As such, the player would also be left to make their interpretations as to his motives. Did Arvo purposely not mention the ice? Or did he also not know about it?
Basically, it allows the scene to happen as it does, but provides a better explanation for it occurring in the first place: no one knew what they were getting into. It'd be like unwittingly stepping into a mine field, only to see a worn out warning sign once you're half-way through it.
And to fulfill some peoples' fan fiction side, here's some dialogue/script ideas for it:
[Group is crossing when the ice cracks beneath Clementine. Clementine stops]
Luke: What is it?
Clementine: The ground... it-it cracked!
Kenny: Cracked? The hell do you mean 'cracked'?
Clementine: I don't know, I just, felt it crack, like-
[Jane brushes away some snow with her foot, revealing ice beneath them]
Jane: Shit. Guys, it's ice.
Bonnie: (surprised) What?
Kenny: You gotta be fuckin' kiddin' me! Ice? We're on fuckin' ice?!
Mike: Kenny--
Luke: Just calm down, okay? Just... we'll be fine.
Jane: Luke's right, we can't panic.
Bonnie: So what do we do now?
[Kenny turns to Arvo]
Kenny: Son of a-- you knew about this, didn't ya?
Arvo: What?
Kenny: You knew about the fuckin' ice! And you didn't say a goddamn thing!
[Dialogue choice for Clem here. She can tell Kenny to stop, ask what they should do, or blame Arvo as well. Following dialogue from Kenny and Mike is background conversation during the choice.]
Arvo: No! No I did not-
Kenny: Bullshit! You were hopin' this would happen, weren't ya? You little...
Mike: Damn it Kenny, calm down! Stop blaming him for every-
Kenny: This fucker nearly got us killed once already, remember? Are you really gonna keep trustin' this piece of shit? Use your damn head, Mike!
--
Jane: Enough! There's nothing we can do about it now, so let's just--
[The group notices walkers behind them, starting to cross onto the ice]
Bonnie: Damn it, we got walkers incoming.
Luke: Well shit... We're about half way across, right?
Mike: Yeah. It's only a few of 'em, we should be fine if we keep moving.
[Another dialogue choice. You can agree to keep moving forward, suggest trying to go back, or again asking what the rest of the group thinks. A couple of throwaway lines from characters either agreeing or disagreeing with you, leading back into the main dialogue]
--
Jane: Look, if we're going to go, we better get going fast.
Bonnie: Yeah, let's just keep moving. We can make it across before they get close.
Luke: Yeah, yeah. Just-just keep moving, guys. Okay? We're gonna be fine.
[Scene plays out as normal from here. Arvo starts moving quicker, Kenny tells him to stay close to them, walkers fall through ice, Arvo runs for it, etc]
But hey, I'm just tossing around ideas.
What do you guys think?
Comments
Oh yeah, Snow covering it would have fixed alot of things. It was really dumb that youl couldnt walk around, and it would have been a big surprise to find out you were above ice
That would've been a pretty cool scary twist finding that out. And I agree too, snow covering would've solved a lot of problems with that scene, even for a lake >.> <.<
Luke's death still would've sucked, but that's one big ass plot hole filled in for ya. Nice thinking Deltino.
I'd consider Luke's death, and the circumstances surrounding it (Bonnie trying to be a hero, etc) to be a different discussion. I just wanted to focus on the bare basics of this scene, the primary reason for it to occur. An "oh shit we are actually crossing ice" moment would have really added to the scene and made it more tense, since it raises the stakes even higher; if the ice is covered in snow, it becomes difficult to even tell what areas are weakened/cracked.
In fact, what if we went the full mile? An actual interactive 'puzzle' sequence where you have to navigate the ice while watching/listening for audio cues of it breaking.
You're in control of Clem and you have to move around, avoiding spots that sink or crack after something else walks by, and listen for spots you walk over to make sure they're not weak or cracking. If you do fall in, it's a game over (and yeah I know, that means you survive if you fall in trying to help Luke but hey, who really cares, it's just a game over to make the scene worth it)
I think you should’ve written Season 2.
Hell, there’re a lot of people on this very forum who could’ve written a better season. No disrespect to the Telltale writers, they’re obviously talented and awesome (example, Pierre Shorette wrote Zer0 Sum), but “zombie apocalypse” & “moral dilemmas” aren’t really their forte.
To add to your scenario, have the group run out of ammo during the shootout with the Russians. It would’ve made the shootout feel like it had more consequences, for one thing. The choice would be to either help Luke or trust him to get out on his own, and being unable to shoot the walkers would’ve made the scene tenser and Bonnie’s stupidly suicidal desperation to help Luke a lot more understandable.
I'd like to also add on to your add on: they run out of ammo, but they scavenge what ammo they can from the russians. During the lake scene, you'd only have a super limited amount of bullets to work with (akin to the mansion siege in No Time Left). The choice to cover him has you attempt to kill all of the walkers, but you ultimately run out before you can, which leads to one of the walkers getting close enough to Luke that it causes the ice to break, sending him down along with the walker. Or alternatively, you have Bonnie run over to Luke in a panic once you run out of bullets, causing both of them plus the remaining walker(s) to fall through.
Also, just to mention this: I don't think the writing this season was completely terrible, I just think it lacked forethought. There's a lot of writing that goes into these games, from character dialogue to the actual story, to story-telling, and beyond. For the most part, it's just the story part of it that didn't really work too well this time around. It just doesn't feel like they had much of a road map to follow with S2, which is why so much of it felt inconsistent; they had no real established story. Concept art seems to suggest that they had story-points planned (eg. Kenny losing his eye), but not a full narrative for those story-points to fit in.
wejoiwjeiowjoewijirh that would've been so awesome a section to play through if they'd done that! T.T
This also would’ve made Bonnie’s anger at Clem a little more justified, since Luke would’ve died due to Clem’s bad call rather than Bonnie getting Luke killed pointlessly. Speaking of which, I always thought her reactions to Luke’s deaths should’ve been flipped. If Clem tried to help Luke, she should’ve been mad at Clem since she directly caused Luke’s death. If Clem shot the walkers, she should’ve been nice to Clem since Bonnie was the one who got Luke killed. We’ve already seen that Bonnie is quite hard on herself for her own stupid decisions, why wasn’t she this time?
You know what, Bonnie being mad at Clem in general felt absurdly out of character from how she was portrayed previously.
It almost feels like David Cage wrote Season 2. It certainly followed his storytelling style of “create disjointed scenes that are mildly effective individually and when devoid of context, then try to work scenes together afterwards into convoluted & nonsensical narrative, hope no one notices the plot holes”.
This would've been way more passable than what we got. Hell, I probably would've taken Luke's death a lot better if they hadn't knowingly risked all their lives by crossing the lake.
While Luke's death is a sort of different beast to the actual 'cross the lake' plan, I probably would've preferred if, instead of Bonnie/Clem trying to approach him, we get some concerning camera shots of him approaching a crack without seeing it and then the ice collapsing under his weight without warning, forcing Bonnie to try and approach him. The group panicking rather than having time to think it through would've worked a lot better.
Yeah, I completely agree with this idea, I think we should make some sort of "fixed plot hole thread" for fun but I'm sure its already been made or something. As for the snow.. it would have made so much more sense if that actually happened + the mini game too.
I'd forgo the crack and just have him fall through without warning. Have a camera shot from the front of everyone, showing Clem and Bonnie walking along, with Luke in the back. Then, all of the sudden, Luke just falls through out of nowhere to everyone's shock.
Maybe it's just me, but I think having someone just fall through without any kind of build-up would actually make a scene like this even more tense, and it just hits back home the idea that shit can happen to anyone without warning. Fine one second, in mortal danger or dead the next.
This just made me think of all those Disney on ice things. The Walking Dead on ice? Anyone? :P
But in all seriousness, that sounds cool and it would fix everything. It would mean the group aren't a bunch of mindless morons and just made a careless mistake... argh why couldn't this have really happened. It would make so much sense and would be so cool and wouldn't make me hate the second best scene for tension in episode 5.
You did a good job, and it would have been better this way. However there is no way telltale makes any changes.
If changes were going to be made I'd also have Luke save Clementine in some way, that actually results in his death. This would make his death more meaningful, but also more sad.
"We're on fuckin' ice?!"
[Luke breaks into song and dance routine with Kenny]
Yeah, I'm aware that they wouldn't make changes. I just like thinking about things like this, coming up with changes that could make scenes work for the better and all that. I think they had a lot of solid ideas, they just needed more time to sit back and think them through a bit more.
That would be perfect! Better than what we got :P
I'm pretty sure she was written this way to make her appear more unlikable since the rant happens not long before her 'betrayal' and the attempted theft of the truck and supplies, which is an act that was also out-of-character.
They could have done that, or they could have just made it a river.
He did If Clementine/the player choose to "help Luke" option. A zombie grabs Clem under water and Luke saves her, but the zombie ends up grabbing his leg while sinking into the abyss.
Also Kenny let Arvo live even though he clearly could've just left Arvo there to die... Kenny even SAID that he should've let Arvo die.
Sorry... I don’t see how this scenario makes the scene work better from a logical standpoint.
As far as I’m concerned, a group of people making the (arguably rash) decision to cross a frozen body of water requires far less suspension of disbelief than a group of people being clueless enough to not realize they are crossing a frozen body of water.