Influenced by the Twilight Zone television show, Night Springs is the name of fictional TV series that players can watch episodes of in their travels across Bright Falls. There are six episodes that you can watch, which will earn you the Couch Potato reward.
Location:
Episode Five. When tasked with finding the helicopter key, head upstairs before grabbing it. While the area will be quiet, you will find a TV set directly opposite the stairs.
Overview:
After answering an advert in a newspaper, Manny ends up running for his life from strangers looking to steal his free will.
Recording:
Transcript:
NARRATOR: Freedom. A fusion of vigilance, conscience and uncompromising clarity of vision. A need so fundamental, it permeates our very being and yet a man may be brought to his knees in a single heartbeat... in Night Springs. Tonight's episode... Taken in His Prime.
(A man runs through the forest, eager to get away from something.)
NARRATOR: For young Manny, the night hasn't been kind; he's a marked man. Selected for a lifetime of servitude after answering an ad in a newspaper. But first, a little field surgery is required.
(Manny stops and looks around. Someone sneaks up behind him.)
STRANGER: Well, well. Look what I've found.
(Manny runs away, but a second stranger attacks him.)
MANNY: Please, no!
STRANGER: Yeah, I think you're just about ready for it.
STRANGER 2: Best if you don't resist us, kid. We've got to beat it out of you.
(Both strangers start to punch him)
MANNY: What?! I don't understand. What did I do? I just wanted to get a job in the service industry.
STRANGER: Haha, you're gonna serve, alright!
MANNY: No! Argh! Ah, please, ah!
STRANGER: There it is! It's coming out now, right between the self-esteem and childhood traumas.
MANNY: What are you doing to me?
STRANGER 2: Quit squirming! There I've got it.
STRANGER: Believe me, kid, this "free will" thing is more trouble than it's worth.
(A light blinds the screen.)
MANNY: Wha- what was that?
STRANGER 2: Ah, nothing for you to worry about, Manny.
MANNY: I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
STRANGER 2: We'll tell you all about that! Don't you worry.
NARRATOR: Another vacant worker ant, birthed in fury and violence for the pleasure and convenience of ruthless, malicious men. Stranger things can happen... in Night Springs.
Notes from Taken in His Prime:
- Taken. Similar to the TV show, the Taken in the game have no free will, becoming a vehicle for the Dark Presence. In Wake's writings, he often refers to a struggle between the Darkness' control.
Night Springs in American Nightmare:
In Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Alan expands on what Night Springs is and its meaning to him in a series of manuscript pages:
- Alan Wake, The Writer. "My name is Alan Wake, and I’m a writer. I didn’t become one overnight. Like most writers, I struggled with it -- a short story here, an article there. Then I got lucky and spent a year as a staff writer on the Night Springs TV show. It wasn’t the great American novel of my fantasies, but it taught me discipline and craft, and the difference between wanting to be a writer and actually writing."
- Night Springs, the Cult TV Show. "Night Springs doesn’t exist. It’s a fictional town from the TV show I used to work on. It was Anyplace, USA, a place we used as a backdrop for whatever strange story we had that week. One of the stories I wrote for the show involved a man, “the champion of light,” fighting his evil double, “the herald of darkness”. It was something I’d written back in the real world -- something I had a link to, a framework I could build on. I adapted it into a new story. This story."
