Caine told them about his “Escape the Circus” adventure all the way back in the pilot

Poor Caine. I truly believe that he has no clue what he did wrong and \*genuinely\* believed that the humans would enjoy the adventure.

In episode 1, Caine literally tells the cast “I know how much you’ve all been wanting there to be an exit, but I was having so much trouble figuring out what to put on the other side and never ended up quite finishing it”

This poor guy has been working on his episode 7 adventure since the pilot. He took notice of the characters wanting an exit, and he interpreted that as a “They want an escape the circus adventure!”, but he doesn’t understand the world beyond the game, so he doesn’t understand that they actually want to leave and don’t just want to play through a “fun scenario” of escaping.

This is probably why he gets more and more obsessed with the office photos as time goes on. He’s been wanting to surprise them with this “incredible” adventure that he put so much thought and time and care into. So he meticulously studies the only connection he actually has on the outside world, and uses the information to extrapolate out the rest of the scenario. And if Kinger was the programmer who cut him off from obtaining more information, that would explain why Caine seemingly started to form a grudge against him.

(**TLDR for the next part: Caine reminds me a lot of my mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and how they both struggle to relate to those around them past the surface level**)

He truly, desperately wants to make them happy, but he lacks any theory of mind to understand their desires beyond just the surface level. It reminds me so much of trying to talk with my mother with NPD. She is so convinced that she knows me, and loves me, and she truly does care a great deal about me, but she lacks the ability to see as anything but a list of likes and dislikes. She cannot relate to me beyond the surface level.

So she will accept information like “I like sunflowers” and to her, that’s now a core personality trait of mine, not just a preference I have. So suddenly “sunflowers” is my entire personality in her mind. She’ll buy me clothes with sunflowers on them, books about sunflowers, buy “sunflower yellow” envelopes for me, etc. And it’s thoughtful, sure, but it’s also uncomfortable to be reduced down to a caricature of myself, and not just as someone who can have a passing appreciation of a particular type of flower, or that the reason I like them at all is a somewhat somber one, so having it reduced down to this cartoony obsession kinda feels like a gentle slap in the face.

In a similar way, I truly think Caine cares about the players, but lacks the ability to understand \*why\* they care. I wouldn’t be surprised if I learned Gooseworx based parts of Caine’s personality on someone she personally knows with NPD.