| Waterloo World |
Waterloo World is a level in Psychonauts. It is set inside of Fred Bonaparte's mental world.
Description[]
Waterloo World revolves entirely around Fred and a mental figure that takes the form of his ancestor, Napoleon Bonaparte, as they sit opposite each other in a salon richly decorated in Empire-era French style, and endlessly play a strategic board game.
Most of the level takes place on the board game map, which Razputin can access by climbing or jumping into the table and shrinking down. Approaching key areas will cause Raz to shrink even further, allowing him to enter buildings and talk to the board game's inhabitants. To grow to the overhead view of the board game again and interact with the game pieces, Raz can pop open giant champagne bottles embedded in the ground and ride their air bubbles up with Levitation.
Waterloo World's board game map is reminiscent of the French countryside in Napoleonic times, but with all of its terrain divided up into hexagonal tiles. It includes rivers, some small hills, and a mostly empty forested area on the outskirts of the map. All buildings, such as a blacksmith's, a water mill, a guillotine, and peasants' houses occupy their own tiles, and many of the key buildings have a rotating sign on their roof to clarify their purpose. At the edge of the map are the board game's perimeter walls, with a ladder to exit back to the salon and some assorted items left by the players—an inkwell with quill, a piece of cheese, and a pair of glasses—that look enormous from the perspective of the board game's inhabitants.
The board game's most important feature is Napoleon's castle, which Fred is meant to capture by simply moving a knight into it. However, all of Fred's forces are in hiding when Razputin arrives, and they must all be separately convinced to join the war efforts. When they are, they spawn on the map as talking, but immobile wooden game pieces that each take up one tile.
Points of Interest[]
- Board game salon: The initial room Raz spawns in, where Fred and Napoleon play their game. It is very opulent, decorated with lots of gold and velvet, expensive furniture, and busts of Fred and Napoleon. Interestingly, while the entire board game sits on the table in the salon, the salon itself, with Fred and Napoleon inside, can be seen through the window of a large building on the board game map, which is presumably Fred's mansion.
- Napoleon's castle: A large castle that takes up 6 tiles on the board and is surrounded by a moat. Capturing this building is Fred's goal if he wants to win the game. A blacksmith's workshop and stable are right next to its drawbridge.
- Restaurant: Nearby the river, separated from a little arch structure and the stronghold of Napoleon itself. Inside, the Hearty Knight is waiting for any “decent food” of his preference.
- Carpenter's house: A sizable house on the board game map with an attached workshop. This is where the Carpenter, a game piece who can repair bridges, lives.
- The Guillotine: Located close to one of the Peasant’s houses and surrounded by 5 trees. This long wooden platform with a huge guillotine on the front has a rope that leads to a house which the latter has another rope tied to the Carpenter's house.
- Orchard: As the name suggests, an orchard on the board's countryside dotted with peach trees. Snails can be found here.
- Peasant's houses: Three different houses which the first one is residing close to the guillotine, the second past the first bridge and the final and third one right after the second bridge and close to the stronghold. They distinguish thanks to their yellow roofs and by featuring a long signboard with (redundantly) a peasant in it.
Story[]
When Razputin enters the lower floors of Thorney Towers, he immediately runs into Crispin, a rude man guarding the elevator, and Fred, an extremely tall patient in a straitjacket who's playing some sort of makeshift war game with random objects on a crudely-drawn map of hexagons on the floor. Raz can approach the three patients on the asylum's lower floors in any order, but he needs Fred's straitjacket as part of a disguise to trick Crispin into letting him on the elevator to the upper floors. Fred is initially more than willing to let him take it, but the side of him that calls itself Napoleon refuses, calling the jacket "the uniform of [his] army". Raz has no option but to use his Psycho-Portal to help Fred deal with Napoleon.
When Raz enters Fred's mind, he steps into a salon where Fred and Napoleon play a board game. As he asks who's winning, Napoleon claims he is a "genetic memory" of Fred's actual ancestor, the historical figure Napoleon Bonaparte. Fred keeps trying to convince Napoleon to leave, but the general explains that he thinks Fred is ruining the Bonaparte family's reputation. It becomes clear very quickly that Napoleon doesn't think much of his opponent, and that Fred has long since given up on trying to win the game of strategy in front of him.
Raz climbs down into the game board to see what's going on for himself, where another Napoleon patrolling the map on a chair with legs assumes he is Fred's reinforcements. Napoleon summons one of his best soldiers and orders him to take out one of the bridges on the board. Fred immediately tries to throw in the towel, but Razputin challenges Napoleon further, to his great delight. If Raz interacts with him again, the Napoleon on the board explains that the game is incredibly easy: to win the game, Fred's forces need only to move a knight into his opponent's castle to conquer it.
Razputin's first order of business is to repair the bridge, for which he must approach the Carpenter. This piece tells him he cannot leave his house for fear of the burglars he hears on his roof seizing their chance to rob him. Razputin finds a way up onto his roof, where he defeats some Censors. Satisfied, the Carpenter comes out of hiding so Raz can position him next to the broken bridge for him to fix it.
Next, several soldiers summoned one at a time by Napoleon need to be fought off, which Raz accomplishes by talking to the local Peasants. Each peasant wants a different motivation to join the war. One is disappointed that Fred doesn't care about the people, so Raz gives him a signed note from Fred expressing concern. A second wants money, which is solved when Raz finds a commemorative coin in the salon's fireplace. Finally, a third peasant asks for a weapon, unwilling to die like the others, so Raz passes through the blacksmith's workshop to reach the stables and finds his rifle among the hay bales.
Raz on the game board.
After Raz guides all of Fred's peasant militiamen to mutual destruction against Napoleon's soldiers, Napoleon commands his men to retreat into the castle and raise the drawbridge, even going so far as to jam the drawbridge's gears with an eyedropper. Fred, having regained some spirit from the victories he and Raz have won so far, excitedly orders Raz to un-jam the gears. Raz makes his way around Napoleon's castle to remove the eyedropper using Telekinesis, but Fred's forces also still need a knight to capture the stronghold. The Hearty Knight piece tells Raz he is too hungry to fight, so Raz gathers up some extremely patriotic snails from the orchard and feeds them to the Knight as escargot. He then moves the knight into the castle, finally conquering it and winning the game for Fred.
Napoleon is astounded and relinquishes his hold on Fred's mind, assuring him that he is destined to share in the many victories of his family name if he holds on to this competitive spirit, and finally disappearing. Raz exits Fred's mind and gets the straitjacket for his troubles, since Fred no longer needs it. The man then lies down to get some untroubled rest for the first time in ages.
Upon revisit to Waterloo World, Raz finds Fred alone in the salon, in the exact same position as before. Despite having won the war, the lack of activity now just leaves the inner Fred feeling bored. The board game is also the same as it was originally, but all pieces for Fred and Napoleon's game are gone. Instead, several pieces representing cows stand grazing on the grass tiles.
Collectibles[]
Figments[]
Waterloo world contains 243 figments, which is the largest amount of any world in Psychonauts. The figments in this world are quite varied, but mostly fit the Napoleonic France aesthetic, ranging from furniture to soldiers to laborers' tools to birds. For a full list of figments and their locations, see the unofficial Psychonauts figment guide.
Figments of Interest[]
Among Fred's figments, some that stand out include:
- Two separate figments of a decapitated noblewoman and her head around the guillotine area.
- Many figments shaped like peaches that Raz has to shake loose from the trees in the orchard.
- Various figments of people and animals in military hats all over the place, including children, ducks, horses, squirrels, birds, and pigs.
- A figment shaped like a pink fairy making a shushing gesture that is located unnecessarily far from anything of importance on the map, in the forest above the river entrance close to the Carpenter's house.
Emotional Baggage[]
- Steamer trunk
- Bag: Located around the base of the castle.
- Tag: In the building to the right of the castle bridge.
- Suitcase
- Bag: Behind the guillotine cobweb.
- Tag: Behind the restaurant on the game board.
- Hatbox
- Bag: Behind the cobweb in front of a small underground cell outside the back of Fred's room.
- Tag: Talk to Fred or Napoleon before entering the board for the tag.
- Dufflebag
- Bag: Across a tightrope near the farmers house behind a boarded up window.
- Tag: On top of the second peasant's house.
- Purse
- Bag: Across a tightrope on the left side of the castle bridge. It’s blocked by a cobweb.
- Tag: Across the river accessed by levitating over the chimney smoke. It’s under an arch.
Mental Cobwebs[]
- Past a path near the building next to the farmer's house.
- On the side of the guillotine.
- On the side of the carpenter's house.
- under an arch accessed by using levitation over the chimney smoke.
- At the entrance to room at left of the castle bridge.
- On a roof near the chimney smoke.
- above a ladder at the castle moat bridge.
Memory Vaults[]
- Fred vs. Crispin - On the roof of the Carpenter's house.
- Fred vs. Napoleon - Inside of the courtyard of Napoleon's castle, while Raz is at the smallest level.
Enemies[]
- Stamping Censors
- Shouting Censors
- Strongarm Censors
- Cannon Snails
- French Soldiers
Trivia[]
- Milla's Dance Party and Waterloo World are the only mental worlds in the game to not have FMV cutscenes in them.
- The background music in this level is an arrangement of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture," which was written to commemorate Russia's defeat of Napoleon. This piece cites the French national anthem as well as "'U Vorot, Vorot"[1], a folk song that is originally meant to represent the Russian people but can be very prominently heard in Waterloo World.
- If the player tries to move, burn, or otherwise influence one of Napoleon's game pieces, he will shout: "Hey! Don't touch my pieces! Zat is cheating!"
- The room Fred and Napoleon are playing the game in appears to be a part of the game board itself. The room - with them in it - can be seen inside a mansion near the carpenter's house, through a large window on the back side. A ladder leads up to it.
- Additionally, if the player stands against the window while in the room with Fred and Napoleon and goes into first-person view, they can see the inner edge of the game table if they look up towards the sky.
- According to the Psychonauts Vault Viewer commentary, Waterloo World was originally planned to be an actually playable board game level. This was changed to an explorable world while the development team was flying around the map, because it was simply not very fun to play in that state.
- When the carpenter or the snails are placed on the stronghold, nothing will happen. When Raz jumps into the stronghold, he will think he has won, but Napoleon corrects him, pointing out he needs an actual knight to conquer the castle.
- In screenshots of an early build of Waterloo World, Fred can be seen physically present on the game board. In the final version of Psychonauts, he only appears in the room outside.
- This mental world has the most amount of figments in Psychonauts, which is 243 figments, many of which are difficult to find or reach. So far, it is second only to PSI-King's Sensorium, which has 263 figments, across the series.
- Waterloo World is the only mental world belonging to one of the asylum patients without a boss fight at the end.
- The Waterloo World gameboard design is based on the real life board game Terra Mystica.
- ↑ Link to this song on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9-281Q3cOo