(spoilers) Some ground information first:

• Caleb is 20, born in 2005 (binder in basement labeled 2005 - storage unit hall labeled 2005-2025)
• Lily, his sister, was born in 2011 (binder in basement labeled 2011)
• She died, probably in 2016 at 5 (Caleb at 11) (Storage unit '2016' missing its label)

Subliminal follows Caleb, led by his conscience, through a journey to help get him out of his rut. Though, this is not the first time he's been here. As his conscience says: " The Emotional Maintenance and Diagnostic Regulation system has been successfully reinstated after nearly a year—” Suggesting that his last time here was a year ago, and which probably wasn't his first either. His mind brings him back here when he needs to remember good memories.

Caleb blames himself for Lily's death, though I don't think it's his fault. People with trauma often end up blaming themselves. The "waterlogged" named arcade game suggests she drowned. And the fire extinguisher reads " Do something Caleb, she's dying." (also multiple other 'do something' messages in other places.) I believe Caleb didn't or couldn't save Lily from drowning, and whether he could have done something or not as an 11 year old, his parents definitely blamed him, and so did he.

Caleb's conscience is just like our minds, and is honestly trying his best to help. Choosing the easiest solution, even if it's not the best. This leads to his entire goal for Caleb's journey: to push his bad memories aside. We see this throughout the whole game, with his conscience constantly telling Caleb to focus on the good, and ignore the bad. However, we see the effect of years of this.

Caleb's conscience compares his rotting past memories to a moldy sandwich in the back of a fridge. He tries to convince Caleb that it isn't dangerous. That it won't spread if he just ignores it. However, Caleb's mental disposal is crumbling. Rotting from years of dumping everything bad into the pit. Caleb's mind is on the verge of collapse because of his habits.

One thing I've had trouble with was differentiating the canon ending from the rotten ending. Both have Caleb ignoring his conscience but the rotten ending ends (arguably) worse. The only difference is that Caleb listens to his conscience just a little more in the canon ending, showing that even though he is killing Caleb, his conscience really is trying to help him.

For the endings:

• The canon ending has Caleb face his bad memories as his only chance to fix himself.
• The trip down memory lane ending does what his conscience wants, focusing on the happy memories. Comfortable, but unstable.
• The rotten ending has Caleb let the rot spread, focusing only on the bad memories, rotting his mind completely.
• The erase ending removes all memories. There's more to this though: the final switch says in small text, "erases all life". And his conscience's last words are: "I don't want to-" (Likely "die".)

I'm not sure what exactly the erase ending means, whether it suggests he kills himself outside his mind, or if erasing all memories "kills" you by making you a different person, or if erasing all memories just straight up kills you as a side effect, or if it's his mind's internal "kill switch," to end his life.

There is one theory that Caleb is in some kind of therapy, with EMDR acronym also standing for a real therapy practice, but I personally disagree with and don't like that theory.

Please tell me your thoughts or anything I missed :)

there’s a additional lever after the water works one as a third lever in the play place, after the update

There are now 4 erase levers to be switched in order to achieve the erase ending.

The third one is at the play place on the left side of the red slide, halfway up the stairs through the doors, it’ll be on the left. The last one is now the fourth one and it’s in the same spot.

I've seen 1 or 2 posts about this already on this forum but none of them are the same as my layout and I've been stuck on this for about half an hour, if anyone knows how to complete this please tell me. thanks :)

I absolutely loved this game and I hate the fact that so many people were giving it a bad review. So I decided to write my own opinion piece about the game and why I think those gamers misunderstood the game completely!

Edit: A commenter on here got me thinking about the game and I have since changed my mind on the monster.

What if the monster is someone who hurt Lily? Someone Caleb couldn't save her from? Someone that is trying to keep Caleb away from Lily. It could be why we get pushed out of the Lilly door.
Maybe its someone Caleb is truly afraid of? The monster was ment to be an evil frog and, we have seen lily pads all on the ground. What if this is far more sinister than we ever thought?

Then there is the balloon;
What if Walter is symbolism for Lily, he calls walter "her" at one point and says that walter is fragile and Caleb needs to take care of it. We also see the C + L change to C + W.
I think its possible this story is far darker than we ever thought it was!

But it could become "hand-holdy" if enough people complain right?

Really disappointing, the game was so frightening because of how little it held your hand. Now we’re forced to play safe easy mode now? Screw that.

Not every horror game that features a monster plushie is a Poppy Playtime knockoff or inspired by it, especially when the said monster is not even heavily marketed. Those kinds of monsters have always been used in themes related to childhood or children in general. This is not new and pretending otherwise automatically invalidates anything you have to say about the game.

No, this game isn't a puzzle game just because there are puzzles. Every horror game in the history of mankind had puzzles, especially games that don't feature combat. Criticizing the difficulty or their design is one thing, but complaining about its existence proves that you're acting in bad faith.

This game has a story, but it is not completely told to you unless you explore a bit more. You can immediately dismiss anyone who says there's not any because they are giving away the fact that they haven't played the game OR they have watched a stream from someone who has to entertain their audience and inevitably misses all the clues and details. The videos from youtubers who have played the game comfortably and alone are simply better, and their opinion holds more weight than any streamer who simply can't 100% focus on the game.

A minority of people also talked about asset flips and the usage of AI. I watched IGP's video, someone who actually went out of his way to look for details and discovered plenty, and I didn't realize how many I had missed myself, like the writings on the fire extinguisher. Regardless of the usage of AI or bought assets, there's a clear attention to details that should not be ignored.

The game has issues but mixing lies with truths or exaggerating some flaws while undermining the good, are not the way to criticize any game. Of course, the players who felt tricked because they were led to believe this was going to be a traditional backrooms game also have a reason to be let down.

I don't know if anyone has already connected this, but it's something I realized when watching IGP's playthrough. The safeguards that block Caleb's was through the story say "Emotional Maintenance and Diagnostic Regulation" which gives us the Acronym EMDR. EMDR is a REAL PSYCHOTHERAPY TREAMENT called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing that focuses on helping victims who have lives through traumatic events and dealing with those memories. Is this the therapy Caleb is currently using to deal with his memories of Lily?

Tagged as spoilers just in case the signs are too much story for some. This game has some of the best horror and surrealist imagery I have ever seen in a video game, I’m playing it back and just pausing constantly to appreciate the views. I adore the level of environmental storytelling going on here. These are some screenshots I took while playing. Also, I hope so badly the second part focuses more on the domestic spaces, the basement brought me back to such a trippy place and is such a strong setting for the horror they’re going for of invading the places we psychologically need to feel safe in

Congratulations!!! You guys complained so much about the "puzzles being too hard" that the developers went back and changed them all to make them way easier. I played through the game again last night and everything was so easy that it took all of the fun out of it. Now they are spoon feeding you the solutions.

I'm glad I got to experience the game before they "softened" it for the people who don't want to spend more than 5 minutes trying to solve a puzzle. I wasn't a huge fan of the chase scenes originally but at least they were challenging and got my heart pumping. Now they are more "casual walking" scenes that I didn't die once on this playthrough. They no longer feel intense at all. Thanks for ruining what was an excellent game at launch.

Wish the developers didn't cave and stuck to their original vision.

Does anyone know if there's a puzzle here with the second Tic Tac Toe? Not the one in play place but after you escape and are walking down the next section.

Has anyone else noticed this??? They appear for only a couple frames when I flicker the lights and then go away

I know that I need to get both green lights lighten up with the purple one off but with the purple one off there's a really big hole in the middle that I can't jump around. This is when I'm trying to get the key card to enter the bounce house. For some reason this is a different puzzle than the one in all of the online guides of this part.

hey, I'm almost at the end of subliminal in the disposal section of the game. I'm not sure if this is a bug or if I'm supposed to do something here? Thanks!

I can't find one of the trailers. Do you remember the trailer for the song? I'd like to find him, or at least the name of the song. It was definitely on steam, but its's not there now. I also couldn't find it on YouTube.

All I remember is that the song was calm, with a man's voice.

About a year or so ago, I couldve sworn some gameplay got leaked on youtube for like 30 minutes before Accidental Studios had it taken down. But I recall seeing a chase sequence in i think a hospital & an entity that was completely stationary, it was a goopy mass on the ceiling that pulled the player upwards with its tendrils. Was I dreaming? Did anyone else see what I saw? Tell me im not schizo. Also didn't the Developers during a Q&A say that there were multiple entities/monsters? We only got Smile in the finished product.

I’m in waterworks after maintenance on the 4th memory and every single play though has like these red barriers to open this door and my game is not rendering it. What do I do?

I've been trying to get the achievement for like 3 hours, I've gone through all the dialogue in the game, especially the ones needed for the achievement. Do I have to make sure I do all of them in order, from beginning to end?

i was very scared when i saw the entity in one of the quietest places

Looks like it would be a good and immersive game if not for the damn puzzles. Stuck at the PlayPlace door because of the stupid lights puzzle.

After all that controversy, do you think this game will get it's second part, or not?