Unmarked spoilers ahead!
Basil is someone from Omori's past.
With how Basil is portrayed in the trailers, it not only shows that finding Basil isn't just a one thing side quest (it might even be the main quest for the entire game), but it also implies that Basil is someone very important. This is even further shown in the demo, where we see Basil's sprite for a split second in the dark stair room where Omori opens the box.- Confirmed. Basil was there when Sunny accidentally pushed his sister Mari down the stars, and he had the idea of making it look like Mari killed herself by hanging, but the shared guilt manifested as Something, which haunts them throughout the game.
Hero will be able to call on Pluto to go to areas they've previously been to in the full game.
- Confirmed. Pluto acts as the game's Warp Whistle, though anyone can call him at specific locations.
Basil is in love with Sunny.
Basil is very gentle, sensitive and somewhat effeminate, describes Omori as "perfect" on more than one occasion, and calls Sunny his best friend. Cutscenes show the two holding hands or comforting each other in a very tender way. But the biggest indicator is Basil's reaction to Sunny accidentally killing Mari by pushing her down the stairs during an argument. He is so convinced that Sunny is perfect and innocent that he has a full on breakdown and helps Sunny stage Mari's suicide rather than accept that Sunny could have caused her death. That level of sheer devotion to another person goes beyond friendship or even hero worship. This is the sort of action a person would take to protect their spouse or child. I'm not saying that Basil is homosexual, but he certainly seems to have strong romantic feelings for Sunny.The Mari that said goodbye to Sunny wasn’t the Headspace one.
Rather it was the ghost of Mari appearing in his dreams to see Sunny one last time considering she acknowledges Sunny’s existence and Headspace Mari still appearing in the picnics after that scene.- Something similar might be the case for that moment when she apologized for the fight that resulted in her death.
- Another theory for those that don't want to take the paranormal/supernatural approach is that Sunny's subconscious decided to go "woah, wait a minute." in the middle of Omori's adventures and take control of the moment. Sunny had just gone through the 2nd day in a row of exploring Faraway Town and had to endure Aubrey yet again yelling the truth that Mari is dead in the most blunt ways possible. Perhaps Sunny's subconscious was ready to "let go"? There's also the fact that the voices in the tunnel after Humphrey specifically mention that Mari will leave and then be reborn with the undying soul Omori has cursed her with. Basically, Sunny wants to let her go, but Omori keeps re-creating her afterwards because it's Omori's job to keep Sunny distracted and keep the truth covered up. He can't keep the truth covered up if Mari is nowhere to be seen, and so he re-creates Headspace Mari after Sunny manipulates the dream.
The "Oldest" and the "Wisest" are Humphrey and Abbi.
The Branch Coral talks about the "three great creatures" that always existed in Headspace: the oldest, the wisest, and the favorite. It explicitly says that the "Favorite" is the big yellow cat who lives in Neighbor's Room, but only drops vague descriptions of the other two. With the "Oldest," it describes him as "a parasite within himself," and that he lives just beyond this cavern. Humphrey can materialize within his own body, acts like a parasite despite being inside his own body, and indeed, just a few screens from the Branch Coral's spot, you encounter him. The "Wisest" is a bit more cryptic, and you won't fully make the connection unless you play the Hikikomori route. For some unknown reason, the "Wisest" did something that opposed Omori's will, and as a result, she was stripped of her wisdom and banished to isolation, "a special prison somewhere deep, deep down." In the Hikikomori route, you're able to travel past the end of the road in Deep Well to a new area called the Abyss, through which you continuously descend deeper and deeper. At the very bottom, the lone entity—Abbi—begs you for forgiveness after the battle with her. You never find out what it is she's asking you to forgive her for, but it's highly likely to be the act she committed that led to Omori sealing her away.Mewo is Bernkastel.
Here to torment Sunny by enjoying the tale of him killing his own sister and then ripping the guts out of that tale.Omori's Story takes place after the Hikikomori Ending.
The Omori of Omori's Story introduces himself as Omori, implying that he has successfully inflicted a Split-Personality Takeover upon Sunny, is old enough to indulge in porn and alcohol, and makes no reference to Basil, most likely having forgot all about him after moving away from Faraway and leaving him behind to kill himself.- It should be noted that this is OMORI in the dream world, not SUNNY in the real world, and the role of TAKO in the predecessor evolved into the character of ABBI in the game, who was abandoned from a previous dream cycle as she was implied to get in the way of his suicidal urges and wanting him to confront and accept the truth.
The friend group will forgive Sunny and Basil in the good ending.
One of the most important Aesops of the Main Route is that grief can make a person selfish, but it's not all about you and you can forgive your loved ones for their mistakes. Kel forgives Hero for treating him as the Dumb Jock and lashing out at him after Mari dies, once Hero feels guilty enough to remember and apologize. Likewise, everyone forgives Aubrey for nearly drowning Basil, when she admits that it was an accident and she was lashing out for no reason. When they hear what happened, as well as the fact that the guilt kept Sunny indoors and Basil on the verge of a constant breakdown, they may be angry but understand that it was an accident.- Further supported by the "secret ending". Sunny stands at Basil's bedside and waits for him to wake up. Basil wakes up and looks at Sunny, and sees Something floating behind Sunny. Sunny gives a warm friendly smile to Basil while his Something starts to fade and closes its eye. Basil returns the warm friendly smile while his Something recedes and disappears. If Sunny hadn't been forgiven by the friends, would he have been able to stand calmly at Basil's bedside and smile so warmly and genuinely, especially after the cruel heart-wrenching things Omori said to him during their fight, especially about how the friends would never forgive him?
- Also, unlike the late-game topic of self-forgiveness, the five growing to be friends again goes more hand-in-hand with the game's other Aesop: that the ones you're close to should be there for one another to process your shared grief in a healthy way.
- Besides, Sunny's cherishing of his present-day friends before and during the fight against Omori involve Kel and Hero promising for the friends to be there for one another, no matter what.
Sweetheart’s real-world origin is Mew Mew Kissy Cutie.
She is, obviously, the Pink Heroine, and has cat ears that didn’t carry over to Headspace for some reason. In the show, she is the typical Nice Girl and Incorruptible Pure Pureness, but Sunny conflated her with Miss Candice, creating the narcissist we all know and love to hate.- Close, but no cigar. While you're right in that Sweetheart is partly based on an anime character from the real world, she's actually just based on an anime original to the game rather than from any pre-existing work. In fact, the final chore on the Hikikomori route is sorting your stuff, and among the items that is sorted is a doll of none other than Sweetheart herself.
Faraway Town is supposed to be in or near Downstate New York.
Assuming that the fictional Faraway Town is meant to exist in our world, there are several in-game clues as to where it may be geographically located. Firstly, Faraway Town's currency is USD (represented by an image of George Washington and a dollar sign in the menu), so it would have to be in a country or territory where it is standard. Things like NPCs called "All-American Guy" and "All-American Mom" further indicate that OMOCAT intended the setting to be in the United States.note Secondly, Hero's nickname comes from the Hero Sandwich, which is an item depicted as an Italian sub. This type of sandwich goes by many different regional names, but is only predominantly known as a hero in New York City, strongly suggesting that Gino's is at least based in the New York metropolitan area (probably serving New York-style pizza as well, which the pizza items also resemble), likely around or close to the archipelagic region where it is a more usual term. Lastly, Sunny's mom refers to the place that they plan to be moving in a few days as "the city" in her first voicemail. By itself, this means little, but paired with the sandwich name origin, it is common to hear the borough of Manhattan colloquially referred to as "the city" by commuters and even residents. This narrows down the most probable location of Faraway Town as within the New York City suburbs of Long Island.
Each of the friends is meant to represent the Five Stages of Grief.
This is something that came to me when thinking about how each of them coped with Mari's death.- Sunny represents denial: He's the one who accidentally killed his own sister, and he managed to suppress the memory for so long that he eventually completely forgot about his own involvement in it.
- Aubrey represents anger: Seeing the friend group slowly split apart after Mari's death made her angry that everyone seemingly abandoned her, leading to her eventually falling in with the hooligans and doing things like pushing Basil around.
- Basil represents bargaining: Having witnessed his best friend kill someone (accidental as it may have been), Basil began reasoning with himself that said best friend couldn't possibly do something like that, slowly going insane in the process.
- Hero represents depression: Understandably, Hero's pretty torn up about losing the girl he was in love with — so much so that it's mentioned he became a shut-in for a full year after the fact. The episode with Mari's ghost playing the piano shows he still hasn't gotten over it yet.
- Kel represents acceptance: While Kel is still a bit shaken up by Mari's death, he managed to bounce back far faster than the others, finding happiness in making new friends and playing sports. Of course, he still hasn't forgotten about his old friends.
The bad ending is another layer of Headspace.
- Unlike in the ending where Sunny stabs himself, we don't actually see Omori-in-Sunny's body hitting the ground, and players noted that hospitals tend to not be that high. The background also changes to the trippy visuals from Head Space and Black Spaces, hinting that it's not real. As Omori sees it, Sunny doesn't deserve the sweet release of death for killing Mari and believes that Sunny wants to be punished forever.
- This seems to conflict with Omori's nature as an escape mechanism and him repeatedly telling Sunny "You should just die" at the end of the boss fight. Despite how unhealthy Sunny's reliance on him ended up being, Omori exists to help Sunny, not punish him. The overly long fall and the trippy visuals could easily be dismissed as the last imaginings of Sunny's mind as he falls, equivalent to the usual "life flashing before your eyes" deal.
- Sunny is actually comatose or catatonic in the pediatrics ward. He's lying in bed but unable to wake up, which is the significance of the lyrics of "My Time" where the singer encourages the listener to close their eyes so the dream will be over.
Sunny's mother's plan to move away set the whole plot of the game in motion.
There is an entire room in Black Space of all places, dedicated to this one singular line (and a few beds, and a background full of clocks and tally marks). The STRANGER in the room says "You've buried the truth for so long, but something made it slip." and in the same room, we find a ringing phone with the aforementioned line. Sunny had been in a stable loop of going through his adventures in headspace, until he inevitably finds out the truth and Omori resets Headspace so they can do it all over again. Something (not that "Something") changed everything. One might think it is Kel knocking on the door, but in the Hikikomori Route, that doesn't apply. There has to be something in both routes that caused this loop to be different than all of the ones before it. The fact they're moving away seems like the #1 suspect. The fact they are moving was also the catalyst for Kel to knock on Sunny's door as well, though nothing forces Sunny to actually answer the door.If Headspace is real and not merely Sunny's dream world, one can only access it after undergoing major trauma.
- It's an Eldritch Location that welcomes visitors that wish to leave their world, and give them the adventure they like. Some of the entities seem to have existed before Sunny dreamed up this world.
- If that's the case, then it's possible that the friend group could have connected to Headspace as well if they had succumbed the way Sunny had to take refuge in dreams. They didn't because each found different outlets, healthy or unhealthy. With that said, the Fanfic Fuel is strong about what Headspace would look like depending on the dreamer and what their monsters or quests would be.
Related to this...
Basil knows that Omori killed his dream self.
Basil can see Something, both his and Sunny's. He also has undergone some Sanity Slippage after covering up Mari's death and faking her suicide. It's possible that he was dreaming and saw Omori's multiple resets. Before, there was an uneasy status quo because Dream Basil before then never brought up Mari. That would not help his relationship with Sunny at all when the latter finally leaves the house and tries to break the ice after four years of silence. Then this quest happens, to find Dream Basil, which ends in Black Space, corrupted versions of the friend group, and Omori himself killing each version of him. It's traumatizing enough for the players; imagine being Basil and being subjected to that repeatedly.- The next day, Basil refuses to leave his room. Kel assumes it's because Aubrey nearly drowned Basil and she needs to apologize. It's actually because Basil dreamed of Omori, who looks like Sunny, killing him over and over again, and it was an Et Tu, Brute? moment.
- What supports this? Basil, for the only time in the game, draws a weapon on Sunny, "reassuring" him this is for the best. He ostensibly is attacking Something, but hits Sunny in the eye. Basil had a Twitchy Eye during this, in denial about Mari's death.
Kel spent four whole years with all his loved ones at arm's length at best.
While Kel was by far the quickest to accept the loss of Mari, that doesn't mean he hasn't seriously suffered from it. He's estranged from his parents over him being The Unfavorite, his siblings couldn't do much to keep him company, Sunny is the first person he was effectively able to reach out to, and his basketball friends never seemed anywhere near as close to him as the Hooligans became to Aubrey. Kel's carefree spirit may have been a healthier coping mechanism than those of his friends, but it still concealed a lot of grief.Basil wearing his pink flower on his head was inspired by Aubrey's pink bow.
He may have also saw it as a reminder of his and Aubrey's former personalities.Basil won't be as In Touch with His Feminine Side when he grows up.
He's a growing boy who's already 16 (not the innocent baby some make him out to be), and many people have some changes to their most outward traits as they become adults.Basil's venting worsened Sunny's mental health.
While the friends were close enough for Basil to share his issues with Sunny, it's possible he did it enough to make Sunny more anxious about the world around him.Omori was repeatedly deceived by the Stranger into getting Sunny close to the truth.
Omori constructed Headspace to keep Sunny away from what he repressed, and both at the end of the game's prologue and in Black Space, the Stranger leads Omori towards certain unpatched holes in Sunny's rampant escapism. What other reason would Omori have to be anywhere near such?Even in the waking world, the romantic love between Sunny and Aubrey is unrequited on the latter's end.
Sunny might not have really projected his feelings on Headspace!Aubrey, since he may have never like liked Aubrey in his whole life. Furthermore, for all of Headspace's escapism, Omori doesn't seem to return Aubrey's Puppy Love in the same way at all. Headspace's Aubrey's affection is a major aspect of the exaggeration of her waking self.Each living member of the friend group has a different favorite love language.
- Sunny's is quality time.
- Basil's is gift-giving.
- Kel's is physical touch.
- Aubrey's is words of affirmation.
- Hero's is acts of service.
Sunny was in a fugue state or catatonia for four years after Mari died.
- After Mari died, Sunny started to disassociate according to the datamining texts. His parents came home and saw the body strung up in the tree. They realized what the bloodstains on Mari's clothes and her clean stockings didn't match her ostensibly walking through the grass, climbing on the toybox, and kicking it over. When they asked Sunny what happened, he was unable to answer but logically his fingerprints would have been the ones that stained Mari's clothes. They don't know the details, fortunately, or unfortunately, and can't figure out the truth but know Sunny was involved somehow. His father assumed the worst and left, unable to handle the grief. In contrast, his mother weathered the storm, because she couldn't lose her only son as well as her only daughter. She didn't have the resources to break his catatonia, however, not until he and Basil end up in the hospital in a good ending.
- The grey areas: Sunny's mother is away from the house all day, leaving notes and voicemails for her son and signing them as "Mommy". Her distance may make more sense if she had been trying to get Sunny to open up while dealing with a divorce. It's implied that Sunny hasn't talked in four years.
- What supports this? Sunny wakes up four years after the events, as new to the Faraway Town details as we are. We have to find out that Mari actually died several years ago, as well as see how everyone in the friend group has changed.
Sunny can never kill himself on purpose.
- He got so used to killing himself in his imagination, that he could be dissociating too badly to realize that he's in the waking world and/or understand that jumping from a high place and stabbing oneself often result in permanent death in Real Life.
The black light bulb in White Space was created by Omori to contain Black Space.
Either by containing Black Space and the repressed memories inside itself or just by warding them off (more likely the latter), this is why the black light bulb is there. To help repress the truth and keep Sunny oblivious. As long as it stands, the light bulb can keep a good part of the Awful Truth at bay.But in the events of the game, the black light bulb eventually loses its force and/or gradually becomes incapable of warding off the chance of the memories coming back due to the holes becoming too big to patch (evident when Something, and bits of the truth leak more and more into Headspace), thanks to the "thing" that made the truth slip and make the current Headspace iteration different, and it can weaken more or keep working depending on the routes you play. In the Hikikomori route, the light bulb still stands, and so does it keeping the Black Spaces from tainting Headspace even more (and defeating the Something bosses prevent it from possibly self-destructing). In the Normal route's endgame, it's exactly after it is destroyed that the Awful Truth is completely free to relentlessly leak out… and for Sunny to confront it.
Stressed Out is a blend of fear and anger.
Stressed Out isn't necessarily a higher tier of being Afraid, but of Sunny and Basil's growing madness at each other being rooted in fear.Oh, and it increases attack and reduces defense, just like Angry!
Sunny killed Mewo on purpose and doesn't remember it.
The room in Black Space, where Mewo is strapped to an operating table? That's one of Omori's memories, not just a choice horror moment. After accidentally killing Mari, Sunny's freedom from the violin made him feel guilty all over again for being pleased at the result of what he'd understood to be unintentional. The fear that, deep down, he really did want Mari to die, inspired Sunny to attempt a controlled experiment where he intentionally kills someone he loves, and the only person in the house available for that role… is Sunny's cat. There's plenty of implication that Sunny has some degree of personality disorder (Omori's Skills all center on cruelty), so it stands to reason that his fear of "Omori" as a facet of himself would merit further study. The difference is that the hollowness of killing Mewo was actually a comfort to Sunny despite Omori finding it so hollow he needs to stab himself to escape it. Knowing that he was horrified by the experience assured him he's not the real monster, leading to the birth of Something… but Omori recognizes that confronting Mewo's death would lead to Sunny confronting the Truth about Mari, so even if the experience felt bad but turned out to be beneficial in the long run, he still can't let Sunny recall it.- The entire experience is confined to Black Space, where Omori seems to store all the painful things that Sunny doesn't want to face. Unlike the other scenes of that sequence, this one has its own black-and-white environment with a unique NPC that gives it an uncomfortable similarity to White Space. This seems to imply it's more "real" than the more abstract, fantastical environments and happenings.
- Mewo and Mari are linked in Omori/Sunny's mind: Mewo appears alongside the non-threatening, piano playing ghost of Mari, who we also find out was Mari's kitten, not Sunny's. This implies their spirits are together, wherever they are.
- Mewo in White Space says "Waiting for something to happen...?", the cat-butler in the Mewo's Dissection event asks if he "expected something to happen" by killing her.
- In Pyrefly Forest, the cute and comforting Mewo's become terrifying Spiders, but Sunny's fear of spiders comes from his association of fear with Mari's spidery hair as Something. Why should Mewo be associated with both fear and death, if she was such a comfort to him before?
- Mewo was a kitten at Sunny's birthday party, which means she'd be around five years old at the start of the game, except she's gone. It's very unusual for a housecat to die of natural causes that young.
- Sunny has only positive associations with Mewo, including in the finale where he follows her home; Omori, not so much, since his version of her taunts him and turns into spiders, but he still manifests her in White Space.
Pluto is an enemy to Omori.
After you meet him, Pluto behaves as a Warp Whistle service that allows you to fast-travel around Headspace and complete its main quests faster. Furthermore, Pluto often flaunts the fact that be broke free from his isolation at the edge of the solar system, in stark contrast to Omori trying to hide Sunny from the world. Omori might have even arranged Headspace so that he could pick a couple of petty fights against the rogue planet.There can be more than one Dreamer, and Candice-Sweetheart is one of them.
This supposes that Headspace is not merely something Sunny made up, but actually something primordial that he's taking claim over. (See earlier WMG about Basil being also in contact with Headspace). In that case, the story behind Sweetheart's castle is essentially a mirror of Sunny's story. Candice, like Sunny with Omori, created the Sweetheart persona to get over a traumatic breakup, which generated the castle as a result. The two dreams leaked into each other.- The Keeper of the Dream allowing Omori to take over Sweetheart's castle once Sweetheart is done with it — because Sweetheart's needs are also important since she's a dreamer too.
- It's maybe significant that accessing Sweetheart's castle requires a minecart ride and breaking through a barrier. Trying to go further away from the game area also involves a seemingly endless highway.
- This helps explain things/real world references in the dream that it might be odd for Sunny to know as a hikkomori.
- Some mysterious objects/people in headspace that don't have any direct reference to Sunny's experiences might also be left over from other past dreamers/leaked concepts from Candice. E.g. Snaley, the various named Somethings.
In the good ending, Aubrey, Kel, and Hero do not forgive Sunny and Basil for Mari's death, or at least they don't for a very long time. And as for Sunny and Basil being all smiles in the extra scene...
As mentioned in an earlier WMG, it's possible that in the post-credits stinger (for getting the good ending and watering Basil's plants and flowers in Headspace), the two of them were forgiven because otherwise they wouldn't be calm and smiling at each other.But what if their three friends don't forgive them? Killing someone isn't something your average friend-of-victim would just easily forgive, even if it was by mistake, and especially if you were to then make it look like a suicide (arguably even more traumatizing to the victim's loved ones than merely committing involuntary manslaughter due to the implications of the victim's mental health that come with a suicide). It's quite possible that their silent reconciliation and forgiveness isn't just because of Mari's death. Perhaps they're also forgiving themselves and each other for losing three of their lifelong friends. They know that, even if their friends won't forgive them now, if ever, they still have to move on and take care of themselves; at the end of the day, they might still have each other. They were prepared for the possibility that their newly-mended friendships would be cancelled as a result of the truth, and they chose that over mortally suffering in silence.
The good ending, and the events leading up to it, are all about self-forgiveness. As pessimistic as it is, it would make more sense for this particular theme if the three friends refused to forgive them, because that would make an important teaching point: Your forgiveness of yourself is independent of others' forgiveness of you, because the only person whose forgiveness you have control over is yourself. You have to accept what you did and its consequences — including your friends declining to forgive you and possibly even leaving your life — and move on. You can't move on and become a better person if you're dead (i.e. at your own hands).
No matter what happened in the final-day conversations we don't get to see, Sunny and Basil are reassuring each other and themselves, sincerely for once: everything is going to be okay.
All the Basils in the first Black Space were from previous Headspaces.
Omori was glad to leave them abandoned and lost in the dark side of Sunny's psyche, and recreate a new one to fill the spot (just like it's hinted with the rest of the party), which is why all of them gladly follow Omori once he finds them and all of them are unaware of their own incoming doom: they aren't aware of each other and their respective timelines.Omori finishes all of them at once (or allows the room to do it for him) because they all were banished for the same reason as the latest Basil (almost spilling out the truth behind Mari), and when they try to do it again, he ends them for real to guarantee the truth won't spill out.
In the Omori route, the latest Basil is the only one spared because of a memory wipe to make him forget. On the main route, he's killed as part of a last-ditch effort from Omori to prevent Sunny from learning the truth (since Basil is one of the strongest ties to that day in real life).
Mari wouldn't think the friends will stick together after the good ending.
When Sunny cherishes his memories of his now-teenage friends, he imagines Kel, Aubrey, and Hero promising to support him before he fights Omori, but all appearances of his imagination of Mari focus more on his self-forgiveness, implied to result from what Sunny believes she'd think of it.Whether or not you water the plants in Headspace alters the friends' attitudes towards Sunny and Basil in the good ending.
The secret cutscene where Sunny and Basil smile at each other is sometimes thought to occur only should Sunny and Basil be confident that Kel, Aubrey, and Hero will still be their friends; and/or Sunny and Basil are perfectly willing to forgive each other, even after what got them both hospitalized.- My belief is that watering the plants actually alters Sunny's attitude towards Basil. Sunny is nurturing the part of himself that still considers Basil as his best friend by taking care of the symbols most associated with him: his flowers. After all, Omori has been silencing Headspace's Basil by making him disappear (and possibly erasing and replacing him) for four years, maybe with the hope that Sunny even forgets about Basil and only associates him with "a Stranger". Thanks to keeping the flowers alive, a small act that might look inconsequential to Omori, Sunny can keep Basil's memory and friendship alive and so he stays until he wakes up in the hospital to comfort him.
The picnic baskets scattered throughout Faraway aren't an Acceptable Break from Reality.
They're actually either unattended baskets for others, or full of free food and can be donated to or taken from freely.Sunny is a Puella Magi
With Omori being his witch and Headspace being their labyrinth and the people from headspace being the familiars.The world of OFF is Hugo's Headspace.
Much like Sunny, Hugo created the world in his head to cope with some event in his life, such as a terminal illness. The Batter functions much like Omori — a sort-of alter ego who has some level of control over the world. Back in Sunny's Headspace, the various areas are the Zones of the world, and the Arc Villains who serve as the main bosses are its Guardians. The Three Great Creatures are the original Guardians — Humphrey is the Guardian for the Underwater Highway/Deep Well, the Big Yellow Cat is one for the Vast Forest and Playground, and the last of the three, Abbi, guards the Abyss and Black Space after having been banished there. The other Guardians were created later — Captain Spaceboy for Otherworld and Snowglobe Mountain, Sweetheart for Pyrefly Forest and her castle, and the Unbread Twins for the Orange Oasis. The reason the Zones don't vanish upon defeating the Guardians is because Omori is not out to "purify" them, merely to defeat them in battle — with the exception of Abbi, but perhaps her Zone is so corrupted that even purifying her does nothing to it. Black Space is, of course, the equivalent of The Room, where Hugo and Omori's darkest and most painful memories lie. Something and its variants are Omori's Spectres, out to wreak havoc in Headspace until Omori purifies them. Both he and the Batter were created to protect their creators from some horrible things in their past that they want to forget. But eventually, the corruption of Something/the Spectres gets to be too much and takes so much of the world that both Omori and the Batter, at different points in their journey, decide there is only one option left — purify the world. This leads them to Hugo and Sunny, who they try to purify "for their own good", as a Mercy Kill of sorts. Notice how White Space heavily resembles a purified Zone, in particular the very last room in OFF where the Batter fights the Judge — this room plays the same purpose and has a switch to turn it all OFF. Should Omori successfully purify Sunny, he shuts the switch OFF and takes control of Sunny, purifying him in the real world as well.
The adults are well aware of what happened.
And the parents covered it up.- If there was a police investigation, it would have easily revealed what happened. But there wouldn't be any proof that Sunny didn't push Mari down the stairs on purpose; add the attempt to make it look like suicide into the equation and suddenly Sunny's story starts to look shaky. From the point of view of an outsider, it could be construed as deliberate murder, or at best he'd get charged with involuntary manslaughter.
- Sunny's mom already lost Mari, so she doesn't want to lose her son too.
- His parents prevented him from seeing a therapist because the truth might have been revealed. This obviously doesn't do Sunny's mental health any favours.
- Sunny's father blames him for Mari's death and disowns him. Eventually he walks out, leading to Sunny's mom having to spend long hours working to support them both, which results in Sunny being left alone at home for long periods of times.
- Sunny's mom either gets a better job in another town or just decides to make a fresh start since Sunny has made no progress. And this is what kickstarts the game story.
Kel grew up to be a covert Lightning Bruiser.
If his thrown basketball is stronger than the malnourished Sunny's strikes, imagine if he tried angrily punching and/or kicking the Hooligans. He has no reason to lose the agility of his child self, and imagine the strength he gained from both his growth spurt and his physically active lifestyle. Even without Sunny's bandages, he could give each individual gang member more than a run for their money.The game takes place over Memorial Day weekend.
For those not familiar with it: Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the US that's celebrated on the last Monday of May. While the holiday is meant to commemorate dead military members specifically, it's sometimes also used as a day for commemorating the dead in general; almost every grave in the cemetery has flowers or some other offering left on them. Memorial Day is often seen as the unofficial start of Summer, and Hero specifically mentions that he'll be home "for the rest of the Summer", showing that the game takes place sometime during Summer. This would also mean that the confrontation at the Church took place during the Saturday evening service, which would explain why it's evening by the end of the scene.- In addition, Sunny's mom mentions a really good furniture sale. Memorial Day also has the benefit of everything being on sale.
Sunny was familiar with Daphne and Bowen in some way when he was younger.
Their Headspace counterparts are far closer their real selves than the equivalents of, say, the Hooligans. They're some of the only characters in Headspace that appear to be human outside of the main group. The twins live on the same street as Sunny, and may have been living there back when Sunny was still going out of his house. He may have interacted with the twins in some way, e.g. them watching Sunny if Mari and Hero weren't available or the twins playing with him, given their apparent immaturity.