Cruller's Correspondence is a level in Psychonauts 2. It takes place inside of just one fragment of Ford Cruller's mental world, which is known as Ford's Fractured Mind. This fragment belongs to Ford's Mail Clerk aspect, and represents memories that chronologically take place between those remembered in Strike City and those in Ford's Follicles.
Description[]
Cruller's Correspondence looks like an enormous mail sorting room, where Raz is smaller than one of the thumbtacks from the cork bulletin boards on its walls. In its center is a large mechanical postman resembling Ford, who tirelessly sorts mail into the various cabinets and cubbies around the room. Postcards and desk supplies float all around the area, and at the very bottom of the room is a whirling sea of letters waiting to be processed. Notably, many of the letters don't end up processed and delivered at all, but only pile up inside several dead letter office areas.
This fragment represents Ford's memories of trying to reach Lucrecia while she was out defending her home country, and losing herself in the process; as well as his tendency to bury his feelings—represented by the letters—and concentrate on work, instead. Raz must follow around an unaddressed love letter to Lucrecia and finally get it posted to reach the Mecha Postman's head.
Sub-Areas[]
- Starting Cubby: A round, normal-sized mail room, containing a desk with typewriter, several sorting cabinets, and heaps of letters strewn about on the floor. A square tunnel made of wood connects the room to a cubby in one of the main sorting room's giant cabinets. Inside the tunnel are a few postcards Lucrecia sent to Ford from Grulovia.
- The Mailroom: Gigantic room which works as the center and/or hub of this mental world. At the middle of this room Ford-Bot can be seen moving and constantly multi-tasking. Aside from him, the area consists of a giant desk with a typewriter in it, at the bottom and around Ford-Bot hundreds of letters flying in circles or moving to other places like the dead letter offices or a furnace pit; many big cabinets are viewed around this area too, most of which contains huge letters, mail bags and boxes.
- Dead Letter Office: The part of the mail room where undeliverable mail is processed—or rather, where it simply piles up never to come out again. This area is reached through a cubby with a skull on it in a red cabinet in the main room. It looks like a separate place from the main room, inside a starry void, and it contains desks and shelves of various sizes, and even a stranded postman's bike and truck, as well as piles upon piles of undelivered mail.
- Typewriter: An enormous, well-worn desk with a similarly oversized "Ford 1000" typewriter, located inside the main room. Raz can operate its keys by ground pounding on them.
- Ford-Bot Interior: An opening in Mecha Postman's chest Raz can pass through. Inside is a rapidly spinning cogwheel, inscribed with the message: "Take the time to write a letter, it might make someone feel better".
- International Dead Letter Office: The part of the mail room dedicated to undeliverable international mail. It looks very similar to the other Dead Letter Office, but the piles of undelivered mail are so large here they may as well be mountains. There's also a large hole in the floorboards that leads back out into the mail room.
- Ford's Inner Head: A small area that distinguish itself by contrasting a lot to the rest of the landscape. This small area is the literal representation of Ford's inside skull, containing facial muscles, his teeth, tongue and even the inside of his eyes; there's also a set of platforms resembling a lot like bone marrows which leads to a small brain with the Mental Shard embedded.
In Psychonauts 2[]
Under Truman Zanotto's secret orders, Razputin has to approach three aspects of Ford so he can enter into each of the mind fragments they represent and, in the end, fix Ford's shattered psyche. Mail Clerk Ford has locked himself into the Mailroom's office, however, and refuses to open the door for anyone except senior mailroom workers. Unfortunately, the only person who qualifies, Nick Johnsmith, is still missing his brain. Raz decides to simply find a loaner brain to temporarily pilot Nick's body and open the door, which takes him to the Brainframe in Otto Mentallis' lab. The brain he obtains then needs help adjusting to all its new senses, however, which leads into the level PSI King's Sensorium, after which Raz can finally enter. As long as this is about getting his mind properly sorted, Mail Clerk Ford agrees to let Raz into his head. Raz gets a stamp, stamps his Psycho-Portal onto Ford, and makes his way inside.
Razputin briefly takes the form of a letter addressed to Ford, which breaks away from a stream of other letters and lands safely in the Starting Cubby area before he breaks out from the envelope. Moving on, he reaches the main sorting room, where an unaddressed letter with a stamp bearing a young Ford's likeness overhears him wondering how to get inside the head of the huge mechanical Ford at its center, to hopefully recover the Mental Shard inside. The letter tells Raz it might be able to help him reach the head, but that it's not addressed very well and will probably be returned to sender. Instead, the Mecha Postman takes the letter before Raz can grab onto it and decides it is undeliverable, dumping it into the Dead Letter Office. Raz pursues it across the room, learning more about the time right after the Grulovian war and Ford's worries about Lucrecia's gradual loss of compassion in the process.
When Raz reaches the Dead Letter Office, the unaddressed letter is just as quickly taken a second time by the Mecha Postman, and dumped in the International Dead Letter Office, this time. Raz continues to follow the letter, in the process passing by the huge typewriter in the room. He finally reaches the International Dead Letter Office, and once inside, slides down a mountain of mail as Lucrecia's voice rings out, saying she embraces her new identity as Maligula. At the bottom, Raz tries to recover the letter as it teeters over a hole in the floorboards, but they both fall and end up back in the mail room. Mecha Postman, annoyed that the letter keeps coming back, threatens to throw it into the furnace, but Raz offers to complete the address himself. The robotic Ford agrees, and puts the letter in the typewriter to be addressed. Raz returns some missing keys to the typewriter—as it happens, the ones that spell L.U.C.Y—and correctly addresses the letter, which the Postman then mails. The reply comes nigh instantaneously in the form of a postcard of Maligula destroying the countryside, reading: "To Ford Cruller/Lucy is dead./She is never coming back./--M". The emotion causes Mecha Postman's head to outright explode off of his body, after which Raz can access its inside.
Inside, Raz finds a room that looks like the inside of Ford's skull, complete with tongue and facial muscles. He makes his way to the brain at its center and pulls out a Shard of Agent Cruller's mirror, as Mecha Postman threatens him in protest. Mail Clerk Ford, inside the mirror shard, hands over a typewriter to Agent Cruller as the two get a moment to talk. Then, Raz, back in the exploded cabin portion of Ford's mind, puts the mirror shard back in its place and leaves the typewriter on a shelf at the cabin.
If all three aspects of Ford have been completed at this point, the game will automatically move on to the next level, Tomb of the Sharkophagus.
Collectibles[]
See also Ford's Fractured Mind, for the collectibles across all parts of Ford's Mind.
Figments[]
Cruller's Correspondence contains 47 figments, most of which are themed around mail.
Emotional Baggage[]
- Hatbox
- Bag: Located inside the International Dead Letter Office, turn left immediately as you enter this area to see the bag above you.
- Tag: After leaving the Dead Letter Office, turn to the left immediately and swing on the push pin towards a letter with a wax seal. Look to your left again to see the tag.
Memory Vaults[]
- Lucy's Letters: Located inside the opening in Mecha Postman's chest.
Half-A-Minds[]
- In the International Dead Letter Office, look up at the shelving after going down the slide.
Nuggets of Wisdom[]
The Nuggets of Wisdom in all of Ford's mental worlds are shaped like pieces of bacon.
- After leaving the International Dead Letter Office, follow the tightrope and push pins to a set of Mental Connection nodes. Follow the nodes to the top of a green lamp to collect the Nugget.
Enemies[]
- Censors
- Doubts
- Panic Attack (Mid-Boss Fight)
- Regrets
Trivia[]
- Cruller's Correspondence contains the only instance of Theodore and Rokel Malik's voices, heard sometime after leaving the international dead letter office.
- The typewriter in Cruller's Correspondence will filter out profanity by replacing the last letter with a hashtag, and Ford will even comment on it. This filter is subject to the "Scunthorpe" problem; it does not check if the insulting word being typed is inside a harmless word.
- Although "AMONGUS" is not an actual swear word, it will also be censored when being typed out.
- The typewriter will accept both "LUCY" and "LUCRECIA" as the addressee.
- The addresses on the letters and packages in this world include:
- Gzar's Palace - Complaints dept.
- Bob Zanotto - Tia's Greenhouse - Green Needle Gulch
- Otto Mentallis - Research and Development - Motherlobe Industries, Inc.
- Helmut Fulbear[sic] - Bottom of a Frozen Lake - Grulovia
- Stamps on the letters feature images of the Psychic Six as well as Hollis and Milla.
- Using the "plucky" pin in Cruller's Correspondence has Raz pick up a cardboard box, resembling those found in the mailroom.
- Cruller's Correspondence is one of the only mental worlds to lack any sort of combat music even though it has 2 enemy assaults.
- Tomb of the Sharkophagus doesn’t count since the level was made mostly for plot purposes and thus it has no enemy combats in any moment.