Iron Lung Theory On Story

Lore Summary

The story of Iron Lung is pretty straight forward.

All planets and stars have suddenly disappeared from the universe. This has left only the light currently traveling from the now vanished stars as the only source of radiation in the universe and once it is gone, everyone and everything left in the various traveling ships, space stations, and moons that are remaining will all slowly die in total darkness. Fun stuff.

You play as a convict marked for execution. Your task is to explore a literal ocean of blood that has been found on a moon crater. (which you learn is apparently the 4th one discovered? idk)

What you are meant to find, who you are, where you are, and how a 1950's era submarine is available for the task are all never explained to you.

Hope you paid attention in basic trigonometry, good luck!

Gameplay Walkthrough (Not Really)

There is no need for any walkthrough of this game because it is mindlessly simple.

Your sub contains 3 things:

1) Your controls at the head of the vessel.

2) A camera, its bright green button can be seen in the dark.

3) A little fire extinguisher tucked away to the side.

That's it. Everything else in the sub is scripted to happen. Pipe leaks, oxygen running out, even the one fire you run into are all scripted and are not needed to be worried about at all. And that's my main complaint with this game, because once you realize that then the game is ruined as there is no need for tension over a mechanic I know I have no control over.

Hitting tab will open a map. Each of the "nodes" on the map will have a set of coordinates, (x _177, y_356) and an angle value (a_87).

To play, first aim your ship in the direction you want to move. The angle means given a 360 degree circle, which angle you currently face towards. A little arrow icon should reflect this if you happen to be an idiot. Just look at the little arrow as you turn left or right and point in the direction you want to go.

Using the up and down arrow buttons on the right move your ship forwards and backwards and the coordinates on your controls update to reflect your current location.

What throws a wrench in the works is the fact that the main window of the sub has been sealed so all of this must be done blindly. Since you are in like an ocean trench, this means you have to use your radar to avoid hitting walls.

ONCE during the entire game a fire will start at the rear of your sub, pick up your fire extinguisher and ensure you get rid of the closest flames before moving on or you'll just die.

Congratulations, you have now mastered Iron Lung.

My Theory

If you have played this you know you basically paid $7 to chart points on a map for an hour and then get a jumpscare. How terrifying -_-

Nothing is explained in the story until the very end. At the last node, after we are killed by jumpscare fish , we are given a note which tells us those who sent us here were looking for something called the SM1 and that its wreckage looked as though it had been torn apart by a giant beast.

This explains the various tubes and broken pieces we photograph in the lower section nodes, we are being sent to locations where pieces of the wreckage can be found.

The node of interest for this theory can be found in the left most part of the upper section of nodes:

As you get close to its coordinates, you might notice the screen start to warp and change a little . Taking a photo reveals what look light rays of light.

After heading north from this point, you'll notice you run into some ship problems and after a moment, you might also have noticed you have been teleported to a new set of coordinates .

From here, the player probably heads to the last node and the ending. (There are no alternate endings, nothing you do matters)

Now my theory is that the SM1 is actually some type of device that was created to warp space/time. (Think Event Horizon) It got out of control and quite literally teleported all inhabited planets and stars away (or more likely just teleported all the unlucky ships, stations, and moons away) either to an alternate dimension or perhaps just somewhere really far away in the same universe. This explains the current state of the universe. It also explains why your sub is suddenly shifted a great distance (relatively) from what we can only assume to be the power source shortly after you discover this node.

Just a short exposure imparted so much energy to our sub that it's able to physically teleported uncontrollably, and that's with the SM1 completely destroyed.

Imagine how much power it possessed before whatever happened to it happened and the story of the game began?

Summary

You're probably thinking,"OK, that's it??"

Yeah, that's it. Like I said this game kind of sucks and really is more of a basic tech demo for something entirely longer and more involved than this. I wouldn't even had said anything negative if this hadn't cost more than $5.

Vampire Survivors is $3 and that game has like 8 hours of replayability easy.

Iron Lung is $7 and is 45 min of building up 1 jumpscare.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2790077449

Theory On Story

Lore Summary

Gameplay Walkthrough (Not Really)

My Theory

Summary

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