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. Throughout the game, players can track down six episodes to collect the Couch Potato reward. With the Steam release of Alan Wake, and the pending launch of Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Remedy made three extra episodes available.
Overview:
An athlete attempts to qualify for an ultra-marathon bicycle race, taking a course through the town of Night Springs.
Recording:
Transcript:
NARRATOR: The bicycle. A quick, cheap and convenient way to get around. Fresh air. A little exercise. A fun past time. But for the professional athlete on the road to glory, it's all about persistance and willing. So, ride on brave contender. Ride on... to Night Springs. Tonight's Epsiode... Eternal Endurance.
(A man is riding his bike on the road.)
ATHLETE (V.O): I was gonna compete in the race across America. One of the toughest ultra-marathon bicycle races in the world. But first there was a qualifying race. The weather was miserable, my support team was somewhere behind me in a warm, comfortable van. I didn't really feel the cold anymore.
TEAM MEMBER 1: Hey, Sport! How ya feeling?
ATHLETE: I'm okay! Just wet. How's the forcast? This fog gonna clear up any time soon?
(A brief shot of an accident by a tree. Moments later, we are back at the scene with the athelete competing.)
TEAM MEMBER 1: Maybe in the afternoon? Hey, listen. We think you really need a break. Maybe eat something.
ATHLETE: No, no, no. I'm good. I can keep going. I'm good.
(Another brief shot of the accident, the back wheel spinning on the ground.)
TEAM MEMBER 1: It's just that you still have a thousand miles to go. We're getting kind of concerned.
ATHLETE: I'm fine!
ATHLETE (V.O): I was in agony. There were two thousand miles behind me and I was feeling every one of them in my legs, my arms, my ass. Time lost all meaning. There was only the road and the rythum. My legs pumped away, my lungs burned, my heart hammered in my chest. I pushedd through it, and found the zone. Suddenly, the fog parted. Almost as if it had never been there. Soft sunshine warmed my face. The fog had hid in a small town. I was riding down its main street, it was lined with people. They smiled and waved at me. I slowed down a little bit to see them better.
(People stand at the edge of the road, cheering.)
RESIDENT: Welcome!
ATHLETE: Everyone was so happy that I was here. I wanted to stop, rest a little while with these people who loved me. But I had to finish the race.
(Another brief shot of an accident.)
ATHLETE (V.O) : I was about to speed up again when I saw it, up ahead. The finish line. Relief flooded over me. Suddenly. All the pain was gone. I stopped peddling. As the bike came to a stop, just passed the finish line, the people closed around me, clapped my back, gave me hugs, congratulated me.
(Another brief shot of an accident.)
ATHLETE (V.O): I got off the bike, happier than I'd ever been. I was done! I was home.
(A car pulls up to an accident on the side of the road. It's the athlete with a broken bicycle.)
TEAM MEMBER 2: Oh no. Oh. Oh, geez. He's dead, isn't he? Look at him.
TEAM MEMBER 1: I told you we should have made him stop. I told you!
TEAM MEMBER 2: Oh my God. Poor guy.
NARRATOR: And so the contender took the final opportunity to stop and rest. He won his final race... in Night Springs.
Night Springs in American Nightmare:
In Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Alan expands on what Night Springs is and it's 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."
