With only one place to go in Amanda the Adventurer 3, Riley descends into Hameln's facility, located directly underneath the Kensdale Public Library. Why Kate Park (Riley's aunt) had a secret hatch that led straight here—I don't know—but we're on the home stretch to finding Rebecca Colton.
While I still have questions regarding Hameln's true intentions, many Amanda the Adventurer mysteries are now answered, with theories both confirmed and denied. So, let's get into everything we learned from playing Amanda the Adventurer 3.
Warning for spoilers throughout.
Table of contents
Amanda the Adventurer 3 story, explained
Prologue
Amanda the Adventurer 3 takes a surprising turn as we move away from Riley in the prologue. Taking place 10 years prior to Riley's story, we follow a nameless intruder breaking into Hameln's maximum security facility. After randomly stumbling upon a Level 4 Clearance Access Card, he discovers the pod room. This room houses eight pods, each holding a "subject" inside. It's unknown whether more of these exist as the facility has multiple floors, accessible via the elevator, which is separate to the hatch Riley used to reach Hameln at the end of Amanda the Adventurer 2.
The pods are clearly active, with levers lining the walls, and a control room used to create backups. It seems this room is used to make copies of Amanda the Adventurer show, which in theory would replicate Rebecca's mind over and over again, spreading her soul across tapes. Strangely, there are more googly eyes than ever (presumably captured children) in these older recordings of the show.
I believe the unnamed protagonist here is David, a member of Kate's group who went missing during their investigation into Hameln Entertainment. The group started looking into Hameln in 2003 and had their last meeting in 2017. As the series takes place in 2023, this would place the prologue's event in 2013. If correct, David's disappearance is explained inside the prologue, where he was shot three times by Hameln Happiness Protectors.
The prologue happened 10 years after the Colton Anomaly incident. This incident inspired Hameln to create Shepherd in October 2003, where details were mentioned on the monitors during Amanda's scavenger hunt in the prologue. We can then assume Hameln vanished because of the Anomaly, who injured and killed staff whenever Amanda felt threatened. Hameln tried to contain Shepherd near Kensdale water treatment infrastructure, but he escaped and must be the reason for Kate's car crash.
Subjects
We re-join Riley exploring the facility, finding the same pods from the prologue. Solving Amanda's usual puzzles and finding those mysterious secret tapes, we uncover the cult-y underbelly of Hameln. Wanting to go back to Darkness, Hameln called themselves the Curtain. They wanted to unlock the powers of the Unseen, using the innocent, malleable, and susceptible minds of children to harbor entities within their thoughts so the Curtain may safely guide them into reality.
The facility captured children and called them subjects. A child would initially be kept in rooms, where we can see drawings sprawled across the office cubicles and plushies atop employee desks. Hameln attached personality traits to each subject to help them determine whether one was easier to control than others. While I strongly believe two of these subjects were Lauren Matthews (disappeared 6/12/03, I also believe this is subject XF582KB-02) and Karla Aldeli (disappeared 11/04/02), the pod with an error message on it has to be Jordan Cook, Joanne's younger brother. He went missing two years prior to Kate's investigation, likely placing his disappearance in 2002.
It's a wonder how Jordan had a physical form in the tapes as he wasn't around prior to Riley's Kensdale Public Library visit (and neither Amanda or Wooly recognize him). Perhaps Jordan appeared because his sister was near, or maybe he only features on the tapes closest to Hameln's facility. The awful truth is Jordan was likely XF582KB-01, a subject trapped inside a pod which Shepherd came in and destroyed. Now all googly eyes in the show are vacant, lifeless, and unmoving, no longer breathing and reacting to Amanda and Wooly's words.
A small piece of lore that ties the games together is by finding Sam Colton's room. You can open it using the authorization code that was on a secret tape from Amanda the Adventurer 2. This tape shows Sam being recorded and forced to read off a script that Hameln created to trick Rebecca into thinking she's safe and to explain why her father isn't around anymore. The script, camcorder, and purple elephant plushie are inside this room, confirming this is where Sam was held captive. This goes hand-in-hand with the first tape in this game, where Sam escaped to find Rebecca, resulting in the Colton Anomaly.
The Anomaly incident occurred on April 8, 2003. Sam Colton used the authorization code of an employee to escape his room in the facility. He attempted to rescue Rebecca but the bond between herself and the Anomaly was too strong. Sam's interference caused tremors, followed by the Anomaly's first appearance. Sam suffered fatal injuries and died at the scene. Hameln believed an energy surge from Rebecca's neuropsychic system (the link between brain and nervous system) created the Anomaly. Instead of containing the Anomaly, Hameln prioritized keeping the Colton Asset (Rebecca) contained through Shepherd.
Shepherd
A huge part of Amanda the Adventurer 3's story is learning who Wooly is. We finally get the reveal and I couldn't have been more wrong. Wooly is a Hameln employee called Marcus Moutman. A devoted employee who transferred to Hameln's Pneumatransference Department, Marcus spent 19 years keeping Amanda contained. Hameln theorized that the destruction of the tapes would be needed to regain control over the Anomaly and to sever the connection between it and the Colton Asset (Rebecca).
But Hameln didn't foresee how the Anomaly would become a part of Rebecca. Hameln replicated the Anomaly successfully with the Shepherd program, where Marcus became Wooly with the singular goal to destroy any tape that had Amanda on it. No longer recognizing himself, Marcus would come to hate his ghoulish reflection as he was left behind by the company to do the Curtain's bidding forever.
Shepherd became just as much as a problem as the Anomaly, both being incredibly aggressive and dangerous. While Marcus was sent in to control Amanda as Hameln worked towards destroying the tapes, it would soon backfire as time went on, for Amanda had to keep Wooly calm so Shepherd didn't harm others.
Memories
The main goal in Amanda the Adventurer 3 is to help Rebecca regain her memories, to restore who she was. This is the exact opposite of what Wooly and Hameln wanted, choosing instead to destroy all tapes while keeping Rebecca confined. The destruction of all tapes wasn't feasible for years because Kate made her own recordings. It’s only when Rebecca remembers her father and her best friend that Wooly's grip begins to loosen.
Having forgotten himself after the years of being Hameln's puppet, Wooly loses control and erases everything that made him Marcus. Marcus Moutman is gone, leaving the uncontrollable and vengeful Shepherd behind.
Amanda the Adventurer 3 endings, explained
Default ending
By restoring Rebecca's memory, Amanda brings Riley directly to her chamber to free Rebecca. Sigils are sprawled across her pod, the same markings we saw inside the Chapel. Rebecca is saved, but it's too late for Marcus. Having failed his mission, Shepherd enters the room to take Rebecca out once and for all. But the Anomaly appears and battled with Shepherd. Both fall (presumably to their death) as Rebecca tells us she'll never be whole again.
True ending
The only difference in this ending is to find all four secret tapes. This alters the last cutscene where Riley rescues Rebecca. Rather than a dramatic showdown between Anomaly and Shepherd, the Anomaly enters the room covered in blood and has lost an arm. The Shepherd is nowhere to be seen. Rebecca takes the final tape off Riley and snaps it in half, sending the Anomaly back to whatever dimension it came from. Rebecca is whole again and the Anomaly surely returned to its true form, no longer affected by Rebecca's consciousness.
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