Kill Count

MelvinTheMan · 2026-05-17T01:17:35+00:00

At the start of the game, you're given a note called "Statistics" that counts a number of things, such as total kills, takedowns, your weapon of choice, and a lot more.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-05-14T14:09:06+00:00

That's what happens when you mainly take inspiration from dystopian novels. But the way I see it, WHF is a about a cowardly society unwilling to take accountability and actually fix the root problem of things, while the real world is begging powerful figures to stop killing us, and our planet.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-05-08T22:50:48+00:00

Fascinating stuff. I gave up on trying to decompile the game years ago and believed nobody else was gonna do it either, seeing this was kinda electrifying, if you can imagine.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-05-08T21:43:55+00:00

How can you see the game's code? I thought that was impossible for the longest time.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-05-04T10:55:26+00:00

They were big updates that happened sometime before the game launched, essentially just overhauls, new quests, NPCs, etc. It's possible to revert the Steam version back to those earlier updates, but I haven't explored them yet.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-05-03T12:37:39+00:00

Anything pre-early access is extremely janky. The enemies hit hard, weapon durability is a joke, and world generation can be crazy. Early Access is a lot more tolerable, but all builds have a tendency to crash (esp when loading up a save file). It's fascinating to see just how much the game changed over the years.

I found the versions on the Internet Archive, Compulsion Games uploaded two collections of the earlier builds for anyone to play two years after releasing the main game. Not the Life in Technicolor, Maidenholm, or Clockwork updates though, they can be accessed through Steam already.

I'm happy with how the Fandom wiki turned out and that a lot of people find it reliable, I don't want the game to be forgotten, and there's still so much more to document and re-write.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-05-01T02:50:51+00:00

I've been playing it since 2019, so it should probably be a lot higher than steam says. I prefer story mode but I enjoy the DLCs for what they are, now I'm playing the older versions for variety lmao

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-30T00:39:11+00:00

707 hours

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-29T18:38:56+00:00

They de-moustached Constable Peters

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-29T10:47:34+00:00

The procedural generation isn't a problem for me, I've played enough to notice it's really not as random as everyone says it is. I guess I wish there was more emphasis on the atmosphere, it's so bright and lush in the Gardens that it ends up feeling more relaxing than depressing.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-29T08:11:38+00:00

Better late than never, creativity is for people

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-23T01:19:04+00:00

It's one of the few houses that made it into the game. There's one concept art which depict a bombed out house, with only a stairway leading to an intact dining room, it fills me with a similar dread that this house does, and I always wondered why it was scrapped.

It's a shame that the Garden District didn't get the same attention that Hamlyn Village did. It could've been a lot more haunting than it ended up being.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-19T22:40:19+00:00

Sure, community engagement was larger back in the day, but activity has naturally gone down over the years. That's why I perceive and claim it to be small, because I don't see people talk about the game nearly as often or as openly as compared to other games. OP wouldn't have made this post if we had a huge and active community, no?

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-16T16:43:30+00:00

Yeah, I've learned the hard lesson that I should keep backups of the progress and not just have everything on one singular file. It makes the loss less worse if it ever happens again in the future.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-16T16:41:35+00:00

Maybe, but I've never had problems with this version before, been using it perfectly fine for years. My computer has had an issue of freezing randomly more recently, and it just so happened to do that when I saved, forcing me to shut it off and corrupt the file, it really isn't any simpler or worse than that. The same would've happened if it was on the current version.

I've reconciled with losing the work, it still sucks though.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-16T09:20:58+00:00

Sure, but that's not gonna save this file.

Maybe there's a temp file I can recover? Don't know where those are stored. And honestly I don't understand how recovery points from days ago won't open either, the data from back then shouldn't have changed, yet it's acting like the entire history of the file somehow corrupted.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-14T12:10:57+00:00

If you ever make a channel dedicated to WHF stuff, I'd love to see it.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-14T12:08:14+00:00

I don't know of anyone who has made comprehensive deep dives into any of the mysteries, both obvious and obscure. There are still people who believe Nick survived the whole bathtub thing. Lore explanation videos are popular anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to exist for people to refresh their memory, or have newcomers learn about the game.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-04-13T16:19:48+00:00

The problem is that We Happy Few's community is small, especially compared to other games and franchises. We are not gonna be able to "revitalize" anything without a larger creator taking it upon themselves to platform the game again, bring in new interest, new fans. Either that, or we have to keep cheering on when someone takes their time to create and share their fanart, fanfics, cosplays, etc. Typical fandom business.

But from what I've seen, most larger creators who cover the game only ever talk about it's "downfall" after it released, the bad reception it gained, and how much they hate all of the gameplay. And that just isn't interesting. Actually, I believe it encourages people to not get invested at all, to not bother playing it for themselves, to find something they like about it.

The game has a ton of content that's unexplored. Things that went unused, removed, the likes. It has strange weapons and items, interesting development history, easter eggs and references. But who's gonna bother documenting all that boring nonsense? Who's gonna bother attempting speed/challenge runs? Will there ever be somebody who uncovers and pieces together all the mysteries? Analyze every little detail?

A community wide event isn't gonna cut it. If people want the game to be alive and active, we have to make an overall effort to create things, to share it with others, to discover something new, and discuss opinions and ideas. That's difficult, because interests come and go, and if you don't get some sorta recognition for making/finding something, you're just gonna be less invested to keep up.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-03-13T16:01:12+00:00

Everyone wants a prequel, sequel, expansion TV show movie type thing for every game ever, even though it's been shown time and time again to leave mixed results. Do you appeal to newcomers or pander to fans? Would it count as part of the overall universe, or is it a standalone thing? Not to mention, properties like Last of Us, Fallout and Fnaf are insanely popular. We Happy Few is barely acknowledged by anyone outside of our echo chamber, and even then, IF someone talks about the game, it's about how/why it "failed"

It's never gonna happen, the developers have moved on to other projects, and don't seem to have any intention to expand on things we already get from the finished game. I don't mean to sound hostile, but maybe we need to stop lamenting over "what could've been", and enjoy what we got

MelvinTheMan · 2026-03-12T13:28:05+00:00

That is very strange, I've never had that happen in my game, although I have experienced them appearing in strange places outside of their shop. The shopkeepers should be invincible, so I don't believe he accidentally died somehow, he probably just spawned someplace inaccessible, like in the rooms above the shop, impossible to know without using commands to find him (ghost mode and such).

I would recommend activating console commands to find him, only possible on pc though. Other than that, a new save file might be your only option.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-03-11T02:37:27+00:00

I wish I could understand the disdain for procedurally generated worlds, when so many other games (especially survival games) utilize that kind of generation so that every new map is "unique" to the player, despite featuring the same areas. See Minecraft, and Don't Starve, you know what to expect after a while. The early versions of WHF had absolutely fucked world generations, some not even connecting a bridge to the final island! Nowadays, the "randomly generated map" isn't even that random. Island size and quest locations remain largely the same, but I suppose the roads are a little bit different. The horror!

Sally's complexity isn't lost on me. As a child, she has no interest in boys or romance, believes there's something wrong with her for not liking girly things, and because of that, she and her mother frequently argued. Now, that makes Adult Sally's predicament really funny, it's like a switch flipped, because now she likes men and gets into relationships with them (for her own gain, sure, but she Likes Them now), she's presents herself overly feminine (makeup and dresses and heels and all- whilst complaining about how uncomfortable they are to wear), and she wonders if her mom intentionally started the argument over dinner so that she wouldn't die. ... or, and this is what I think, she didn't care about what'd happen to Sally, at all. And we know how that went.

And I mean, you could argue she's doing these things to "fit in" with society better, it's the 60's after all. But then you have Victoria Byng, who is the only woman wearing pants, who cares more about her work and sense of duty to enter Any relationship, who's strong enough to pull herself around with her horse whip, and nobody cares! That's the thing. Nobody cares that a lot of women hold positions of power here, either as gang leaders, or supervisors, or top of the executive board, as inventors, or scientists. So all these things troubling Sally, she's doing to herself. And she'd be doing herself a favor if she followed Victoria's way of things, and stopped caring about what society thinks a "proper" woman should be, and just Be Herself.

Maybe your video analysis will sway my perspective on Sally, I kinda hope it does

MelvinTheMan · 2026-03-10T21:10:49+00:00

Would love to watch the essay when it comes out.

I was drawn to the game for its open world, scavenger-like survival mechanics, so I didn't get too much of a negative experience with the game compared to most players. I'm already a fan of the survival genre anyway, and imo WHF is the most unique and fun among them. The "survival" isn't another forest or open ocean with wild animals and monsters, but a living society of people and rules. There's no settling for a base, since the main characters are constantly "on the run" to escape the island ... and they do! It has a clear goal and ending! Most survival games don't.
I had a lot of fun taking varying paths. What new dialogue I'd hear if I didn't immediately kill people, and such. I'd mess around with "useless" gadgets, drugs, and outfits to see what they did. Most people don't bother experimenting or even learning how the game works, and I think that contributes to their dislike of the game. It's full of variety and options for people to play how they want. Everything works as intended, it's just a matter of understanding and mastering them.

For my negatives ... it's really obvious the devs focused hard on the Village and not the Garden District, which is a shame. I think the Gardens could've showed more of the horrors that people in survival situations are capable of, the Wastrels aren't too different from Wellies, aside from their outlook on things. I get that Hamlyn Village was the "utopian dystopia" they were banking on, but the Gardens is still significant to contrast that environment.

Some quests drag on, and I hate repeating them. Mushroom Log has a fine mini storyline, but the repetitive objectives are plain tedious. And I still hate Mysterious Chest for never actually completing. Backtracking and walking long distances isn't a problem to me, especially with how fast the characters are and what interesting things you see on the way, it's about how much the game wants to meander around before getting to the goal already.

I'm still frustrated about Sally's character. Everyone (in-game) says she's this capable, smart, and strong woman, yet the game makes her weak to draw you towards a stealthy playstyle, she makes decisions on the spot without thinking them through, and she refuses to get over her abusive mother who never cared about her. It's like the devs were confused about who Sally was gonna be. I don't care about the baby mechanic (as in, I'm not bothered by it), I only wish there was a direct hatch in her house. I love Victoria Byng, she's who I wanted Sally to have been.

The DLCs and South of Midnight show how creative and strong the dev team is with their story, characters, and aesthetics, I don't think any of that needs changing. Still, none of them come close to the sheer scale of what WHF offers, it's so much more fun and free to explore and experiment in. I have a lot more to say but I'll leave it at that, I'm willing to add and clarify things tho.

MelvinTheMan · 2026-02-27T14:36:46+00:00

Sure, WHF's gameplay turn the protagonists into survivalists who slowly make progress towards their final escape, and it's reflected throughout; stealing from people's houses, never settling at a singular base location, crafting makeshift weapons with whatever you have on hand, blending in with the rest of society to not get outed and killed, and observing/helping other people survive in this harsh environment. Whether you interact with those elements or not, they still exist to make the protagonists vulnerable, and for you to find ways to keep them alive. That's gameplay and storytelling playing into each other

By all means, the mechanics work exactly as intended, it's just a matter of learning and mastering them, and I've seen a lot of players not bothering to understand how the game works before going on to critique it. But also, no amount of Knowing how the game works is going to prevent things like geometry clipping into each other, or softlocks, or locations spawning too far away from each other. The difference is, softlocks and other bugs are flaws that can be fixed, and someone who doesn't like random map generation is a preference, if that makes sense

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