Meanwhile, in 1982 Finland, Bent Svensson, a depressed, reclusive retired bio-engineer recovering from Chronic Hero Syndrome, is trying to fix his fogging machine as part of his preparations to cut down an old tree for firewood, only to be interrupted by a mysterious young woman who just arrived on his front lawn in a helicopter and is asking him to come out of hiding...
A New Beginning is a point-and-click adventure game published and released by Daedalic Entertainment in 2010 for Windows and 2012 for Mac OS X. It has an official listing
on the Daedalic Entertainment website, and is available for purchase direct from the developer and on various digital download services such as Steam, GOG.com, and GamersGate.
A New Beginning has examples of the following tropes:
- Apocalypse How: The future is the result of a class 2 as shown in the introductory cinematic and conversations with Fay and Salvador, with a class 6 imminent.
- Artistic License – Nuclear Physics:
- Invoked in numerous ways. Intentionally by Fay to make Bent believe that a series of Nuclear Disasters would cause the world to become uninhabitable by 2050. Unintentionally by the game developer when the Nuclear Reactor is actually shown in-game and uses a design that not only doesn't exist in real life, but makes no sense at all.
- Nuclear power in general is this. Nuclear power is the cleanest and safest energy producer humanity currently has. While radiation and meltdowns can devastate whole areas for centuries, regular pollution from fossil fuels cause more deaths from poisonous gas and killing large swaths of food producing areas like the ocean. 1/6th of the planet's population die from issues related to regular pollution. The idea of trying to eliminate nuclear power first is counterproductive. Modern day politics target nuclear power because it can render major urbanized areas inhabitable if maintenance standards aren't upheld (which is sadly true for a lot of major infrastructure like dams and power plants) as well as nuclear disasters being much more spectacular than the slow burn of chemical inhalation and environmental devastation that regular pollution causes.
- Artistic License – Physics: Fay claims in her Flashbacks, among other things, she used a red filter to increase power to her plasma drill to break through a wall. Bent points out the red filter should've actually decreased the power of the drill. This in fact Foreshadowing for Fae's story being fabricated.
- Even if humanity intentionally burned all fossil fuel available, destroyed the ozone layer, set off all our nukes, burned all the forests, and polluted every body of water we could, we would not be able to kill literally every living thing on the planet let alone doing so unintentionally. The game implies that the complete destruction of the ozone layer will kill all life on earth, but plenty of animals underneath the oceans would be fine as deep enough water defuses UV rays. If the planet was that far on the brink, then it would be completely impossible for the people of the future to go up to the surface, protective suits or not (like they do in the intro). At that point, the surface would have Venus like conditions that would punch right through any protective covering humanity could conceivably create.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Bent and Fay, the only two playable characters in the game, occasionally do this when players try to do or combine things which won't work.Bent Svensson: I know my life has become a silly science-fiction novel, but let's try something else!
- Clueless Aesop: General issue with the game's environmental message seems to be convoluted as plot twists occur. A major one being whether the attempt to sabotage nuclear energy, and later stopping it, was an actual critique nuclear energy or a random plot point. Furthermore, the actual issues—such as fossil fuel industries and corporate corruption—took a backseat as the story progresses despite being shown in the game.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Inoz Indez all the way. From sabotaging Sven Svensson's demonstration of his father's blue-green algae to buying out any clean-energy competitors, Indez will do whatever it takes to ensure his fossil fuel-based energy company, Indez Industries, remains on top. However, he is willing to host an international energy committee, which is concerned with the pollution output of his facilities, without attempting to influence or interfere with their judgement. As his Amazonian nuclear power plant/HQ shows, he also isn't one to skimp on either construction or maintenance costs of his company's facilities.
- Deus ex Machina: At the end of the game, Indez points out that Bent really hasn't changed anything, and that all he has to do is destroy Bent's algae for his energy industry to be secure. Happily, a higher-up for the Oslo energy conference just happens to call at the time and orders Bent and Indez to take the algae there, letting him demonstrate it to the world.
- Distant Prologue: Inverted since the introductory cinematic is set in the 26th century - almost six centuries after the main part of the game occurs.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: The results of the first time-travel attempt resulted in this. All, except Fay's and Salvador's teams, suffered an ill-fate when their time-capsule landed in 2050 (actually 2500). Josep's team in Paris were caught in the Tornado with himself Killed In Mid Sentence by debris from the Eifel Tower. The second and third were implied to have died in crashlanding in desertified New Delhi and dried Sydney respectively. The fourth team was caught in a volcanic blast in Tibet. Hardy perished in frozen Moscow before announcing the mission failure. Dina's pod was adrift in flooded London with no means to escape. Sadi's last transmission in South America was her report on an irradiated area in the Amazon basin before the intense radiation caused it to shut off and possibly killing her in the process.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Fay says that a nuclear plant exploding caused widespread climate collapse, Bent immediately points out that climate change can't be narrowed down to a single point like that, and is a gradual process taking decades. He's completely correct - Fay lied about the plant exploding to get him on her side, when really the process did take decades because of humanity's apathy towards long-term problems. Her mission was to cause the accident to convince Humanity that nuclear power wouldn't work and to look for alternate energy solutions.
- There's also a subtle bit at the ATLAS facility, where Fay talks to someone about comic books and mentions they exist in the future to teach kids about what to do if their nuclear reactors meltdown. This stands in contrast to the continued insistence that the future is powered by bio-energy, and Salvador later confirms that they use Nuclear Power as their primary energy source..
- Green Aesop: The whole point of the game.
- Fay's time-travel story also comes off as this - especially when it's revealed she's an Unreliable Narrator.
- Happily Adopted: Fay was adopted by Nigel, her mentor, after her parents died in an ill-fated weather observation routine.
- Here We Go Again!: The stinger has a new time egg pop up in the basement of Bent's now empty hermitage implying he's about to have a second round of fixing the future. It would make the game a Downer Ending except for the fact that people are at least still trying to save humanity.
- Heroic Sacrifice: How Fay ultimately saves Ben's life by flooding the reactor chamber with her and Salvador inside, killing both of them and averting catastrophe.
- Kidnapped by the Call: Fay's fantastic time-travel tale - and her continued insistence that only his blue-green algae can save the future - causes Bent to show her the door. Bent's head is then shown a quick blow to the head by Fay's ally Ozzy, and Sven's now-unconscious body is dragged into their waiting helicopter.
- Mundane Object Amazement: Since Fay grew up in a post-apocalyptic world inside a bunker complex, she reacts to mundane things—such as wallpaper and cosmetic products—in the past with surprise. More examples include her assumption of a large mattress owned by a homeless person as something from a wealthy estate, and a corporate headquarters as a living complex.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The whole point of the Phoenix Plan.
- Sociopathic Hero: Salvador is shown to be this in Fay's Flashbacks, as the now-dead random homeless guy and the chief inspector of the World Energy Commission found out. He's also shown to be this in the present, eschewing stealth for outright murder of security personnel at Inoz Indez's Amazonian nuclear power plant/HQ. This could be why he was chosen to cause said power plant to go critical.
- Solar Flare Disaster: What will finally do in humanity. Justified as a danger due to the protective ozone layer being depleted.
- Unreliable Narrator: Fay is revealed by Salvador to be this - the first time jump to '2050' was really the 26th century, Indez' power plants are completely safe and the Phoenix Plan's true goal is to cause a nuclear disaster in the Amazon to force the world to look to alternative energy sources. The whole story ends up being this. Made worse by the fact that all the characters from the future die or can no longer be communicated with. This means that the player is unaware of what parts of Fay's story was true and which parts were misdirection.
- Updated Re-release: A New Beginning: Final Cut is the translated, international release of the German original.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The entirety of the Phoenix Plan is made of this: force humanity to recognize and reverse climate change by telling them their negligence will cause an ecological apocalypse in 2050 (when, in the original timeline, it occurred in the 26th century) and destroy the rainforests of South America by causing a nuclear power plant, coincidentally owned by a Corrupt Corporate Executive, to go critical to drive home the point.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Fay receives one from Bent mid-game, pointing out how much force she has had to use to progress, like inciting a peaceful protest to violence in order to crash an energy conference (and wrecking someone's car to get them away from an important console) to make it listen to her.
- Arguably the Phoenix Plan in general, considering an actual nuclear disaster would occur in the Ukraine in 1986 and aside from curtailing Nuclear Power (which doesn't give off Greenhouse Emissions that contribute to climate change) a bit, doesn't seem to have done much getting the Human Race to care much about the environment. Instead, they might have irradiated large parts of the Amazon Basin for nothing.
