Look Outside

Eh, don't worry about it I'd say. The party interactions are nice, but it wasn't like you were missing something crucial. Rat Baby's main thing was being another arm to pelt enemies with endless amounts of molotovs and flasks with.
The game's short enough that when the dev releases a content patch like a month or two later you can just boot up another run to your liking since I could honestly imagine some kind of 'true ending' with some of the loose threads currently hanging.

I know it's just a silly little video game, but I think anyone that willingly gave up the baby just because a face on the wall demanded it is some sort of hylic.

It wasn't so much that as the fact Sam reacts to it negatively every time you interact with it and finds it ceaselessly repulsive.
He interacts with everything and everyone with at best a first reaction, plays fucking videogames with Joel who is literally aberrant to stare at even on a portrait, but the rat thing he kept constantly stating I should kill.
Every other time the game is heavy handed about something it pretty much is telling you to just do the thing, and yeah it felt retarded to do it of course, but it was also extremely retarded that Sam was constantly about to throw up and having murder thoughts towards it, so I figured it was just whatever.

That makes sense then. I'll probably revisit the game anyway, so if it's not that big a change then more reason to do it next time.

It was pretty weird that Sam was going 'eugh I can't take this thing with me' when compared to most of the monsters in the game, it's pretty mundane. Not hostile, either. I was following the game casually through its Itch page but the original version of the game didn't even 'trap' you in the mouth room to force you to give it up, so it's neat that he changed it so you HAVE to decide to kill or keep rat baby when you enter.

If you hold down at the mouth room "escape" hallway for 10 minutes, you can leave without sacrificing your arm or the baby. The earth disc spawns outside the door.

The game in general is very unfinished.

I waited for the week 1 balance patch before buying but it didn't really address the problem of lategame being piss easy. I swear it felt like most of the ground floor and basement enemies didn't even have more than 800 health.

Spore Queen dialogue adjusted to clarify which options lead to certain outcomes.

There's dialogue? The bitch just attacked me straight out when I walked up to her

I accidentally mashed through the dialogue too fast the first time and got killed and assimilated thanks to Phillippe. But it's pretty blatantly obvious that everything is a trap in that place anyway.

You probably need Phillipe in your party to initiate dialogue

You need Philippe in your party and you need to have inhaled at least one (1) spore.

Oh yeah, what was up with that? I quickly noticed it stacked and made things a lot worse. Do you just get fucked if you walk into enough?

If you inhale a certain amount you automatically start walking towards the spore queen.
Not sure if you can inhale too many though.

That explains it, I already had a full party at that point so I just told him to wait at the entrance

Oh, and in the demo/itch io version, it was a lot worse when Xaria didn't even have a paintball gun - she instead had a fucking assault rifle and a skill that lets her dump 8 bullets at once, killing literally anything and everything in the game. And at that point, the game had a consistent bug where killing enemies with guns would refund the ammo used for the skill if the fight ended, so she could use it every single fight.
To be honest I wonder how much better the game would be if the dev balanced it closer to LISA the Pointless' resource autism, but I hate the choice to make party members door RNG in general because of how disparately it affects a player's experience. Getting Monty and Xaria early creams most of earlygame, whereas Hellen and Dan are more reasonable options.

troon based combat

You should really change from troonscare to le reddit game, it would be more effective

Same thing. Tumblr is even more accurate.

Man, the RNG for door events really is fucking awful sometimes. I've gone through two full day loops of apartment activities without a single knock on the door, literally will end up with nobody showing up by the time I can even finish the stupid sewers.

I feel empty after beating this game twice. Would go achievement hunting but too many are die to x (and like 6 are Lyle based). The music, the art.. it was just a very fun game.

Yeah, it's one of a kind.
Like ASTLIBRA, Signalis, Black Souls and Outer Wilds you really feel the passion of the developer(s) behind it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

What seems to be the problem?

Where does the Janny go after the fight with the monster? Is he dead?

Yeah, I agree that the game shouldn't force you to be like like, 'eugh, gross' if you specifically agree to take it with you. It makes the actual decision later feel more out of character.

It used to have the hunting shotgun in there

It's just his darkroom, he'll develop the photos for you and even tell you if you fucked them up if you're nice. The reason he doesn't let you in is because he has his stalker shit in there. The key to your apartment and pictures of you.

I see. Combat stopped being scary to me the moment I got an additional partymember. Ended the game barely having shot a gun.

all this and he won't join your party

Missed opportunity

b-b-but he's frail

A literal child made of teeth in my party. And a handful of roaches. Come on.

The fuck are all the manuscripts for? Is it unfinished too?

It think you're supposed to take the page to finish the unfinished one, but it seems to be bugged.
Just hand over the unfinished one.

They're very good against bosses especially early on when your party is lacking and you don't have a lot of good gear

After several hours of deep thunk I feel I am too retarded to understand what does the Security Camera Room mean by "equal" on the sign.

It's just the number of moons each planet has, so you need two sets of two disks that when added together are the same value. You can check the value of all disks in the room next to Jasper. You might find a very useful one.

Do I need to install some RPGM runtime shit to make this game work? I bought it after all that shilling and it just crashes a few screens after the difficulty selection.

youtube.com/watch?v=py-eu1KipNw

i cant find black souls am i stupid or was it a typo. i agree with astlibra being just as addicting as look outside

Check f95zone. Black Souls 1 is alright, but Black Souls 2 is absolutely insane (still, play 1 before 2).
Be aware that it's nsfw.

I am incredibly saddened that I did not know of how to get Roaches from the start and now I have like 6 days left and am at the Spore Queen area.
I could have had a bunch of bugs in a trenchcoat with me for the whole ride, man.

Bros what skills do you find useful
I only really care for nitro boost and jump attack
I guess the pain strike is good too but I don't rely on keeping enemies alive for long

Who cares, everything dies like a bitch

Me, I asked

Well, this was fun

Bros, she rejected me.

Well, you did neglect her in your room for ages.

To be honest due to time constraints alone, unless you're just grinding games for door knocks, Nitro Boost from the racing game + Combat Medic from Myrmidon are the single best options you've got. Jump attack's fine but I've got no idea how good it is. It gives some weapons like the Hellsword actual skills to use it on, but it's not like anyone actually wants to build Sam AGL when shooting people in the face is so effective.
The issue with the other game carts is that you either get them super late into the game or they take way too many 'play sessions' to actually complete.
Dungeon Dance from Wraithscourge is counterattacks which is good.
Numbness seems kinda mandatory for stuff like the endgame fights if you're running solo Sam, Octostrike being 8 hits sounds pretty strong and Painful Stab sounds kinda busted from the status description while being super cheap. (You know, they said Tonics relieve pain but I don't think I actually had a single party member afflicted with it all game.)

Jump attack's fine but I've got no idea how good it is.

I did double damage with it essentially, 50 attack scalpel into usually 100+ jump attacks (noncrits) at like 26 agility so I'd go first and use nitro boost before enemies attacked

+ Combat Medic

Is this even good? Healing 1 ally?

I love my rat son.

youtube.com/watch?v=M2MHMxvydbA

in my two runs i got roaches with like 5-6 days left too, is it even possible to "speedrun" him

I hope the dev continues to chip away at and add stuff to this game. It gives me the same feeling when I was playing LISA the first time and I don't want to stop playing it.

I fucked up and killed the wrong Frederic, but I got a decent reward out of it. A huge heal I can use once per day. I wonder what the other rewards are.

which ending did you go for? failed ritual? might try this too with no sleep/food/friends

dev is streaming daily, gotta say watching him fix stuff is comfy af and makes me want to try game dev (i could only do music tho lol)

in my runs i saved the faceless one (copies an item, i copied coat of arms but maybe theres smth more op), and the first one (painters palette - accessory that deals random status effects with attacks, pretty neat). i assume the angel one gives 400 bucks, the others idk.

I don't play (J)RPGs but this looked cool. As much as I'm enjoying it I don't think it's absurd to say that

it's unfair to expect the player to sit in the apartment and play vidya more than twice a day to roll for a chance for a party member when most games are about playing the game.

having a single chance to get Leigh - the earliest party member you can get - isn't fair if you're playing completely blind.

I don't think the saving mechanic works well because all it does is artificially create tension for wasted time, not because you're worried about happens to the player. I don't need to savescum every fight, but being able to save before entering a dungeon would be nice.

I will not get fotm fomo

Angel one gives either 400$ if you deny its quest, or a necklace that buffs you if you accept it without question.

Whats the dev's stream? I'd happily watch.

point one

Fucking around in the apartment is a choice. Not to mention that cooking food is one of the best ways to heal, nudging you to spend at least some time in there.

point two

Missable shit allows for unique playthroughs. Didn't find her? Though shit. Sacrificed the rat? Not the game's problem. Didn't invite Helen over? You guessed it.

point three

Fully agree, I had the same issue with Funger 1 and 2.
I do not like having to do the same thing over and over just because RNG is fucking me over at the last second.

i agree its super unintuitive to get party members by hanging out at home, but you're gonna cook/craft/try games some time so it kinda worked out.
I really doubt anyone gets leigh in the first run (i sure didnt) but its a cool "secret" party member. You can get joal before him easily btw. I also think you're guaranteed to get a party member in the first 5 visits or smth like that.
Saving twice a day is fine, if its too hard theres always easy mode. Theres only one dungeon where you'd need almost a full day (30 ish min?) anyways. You cant lose that much progress.

frankiepixelshow on twitch. Most fascinating thing for me was how quick and tidy he does the pixel art.

He's probably been doing pixel art for like fifteen years now from looking at his Youtube channel. Certainly explains how he made so many unique enemies in only a few months.

You cant lose that much progress.

It's less about 'progress' than it is about prep for exploring. Topping up everyone's health, doing shit before I leave the apartment, having to run down the stairs every time. Basically all it means is if you want to maximize your time spent, you avoid doing the shit people in the thread keep telling you to do, like playing vidya to get party members or making food. It truly makes doing the mundane stuff mundane if you fuck up in 15-20 minutes actually trying to play the game.

inb4 just do it after you're done exploring

No.

>I don't think the saving mechanic works well because all it does is artificially create tension for wasted time, not because you're worried about happens to the player. I don't need to savescum every fight, but being able to save before entering a dungeon would be nice.

Common agreed complaint from my discussion so far desu

Oh, and not only that, if you're in it for campy party interaction stuff, like sharing meals or playing vidya, and then you die, you might get the same scene again later when you have to go back and do everything over. It's a minor complaint, but considering people really enjoy the character interaction in this game, I think it's relevant enough.

yeah you're right at that point. i guess i tried to prepare before saving and exit the apartment right after the save. but repeating preparing is shit yeah

I tried it, it askes too much of my time to save scum 30 times to figure out how to fight a boss, that is annoying and breaks the immersion, either lock me out of fights until i can surely clear them or lower the stats of monsters because getting hit for 60dmg when i have 100 is absurd

I think the saving mechanic is the heart of the issue for the game.

People keep bitching about having to stay in the apartment to play vidya to roll party members, but you can't immediately save the game if you haven't left the apartment yet. And like said, it's annoying to everything BEFORE you leave the apartment if you're going into a new area completely blind.
If you're intentionally trying to get a new party member, you can play vidya and get the door encounter. can just run out, kill a rat or something then run back and save, but the saving mechanic is the core of the issue because it's less about losing progress and more about trying to avoid repetition.

one tip i'd give you is using items in combat, like table knives/forks, plates and molotovs, maybe you didnt know

Honestly, I'm unsure how saving could be changed while still keeping some manner of tension. Realistically the best solution would be to design levels in such a way that you can't just immediately leave and save every time you advance an inch, but keep it unlimited in general. But that'd require a lot more design work.

IIRC the rewards for the Fredquest are...
Frontdoor gives you items as you kill other Freds, eventually gives the palette which is a strong gear item
Wriggling will let you be his friend
Toxic let's you keep his hat, immunity to poison
Shadow still wants to kill you
Biting will try real hard not to bite, but fail
Bright stronger daily healing, and a renewing consumable heal
Tumor gives an attack consumable that will duplicate all unused instances of itself every morning? I forget this one
Coward will feel safer, but nothing else
Godhead 400 bucks if you call out his bullshit, or a low tier accessory otherwise
Faceless is a bit buggy, but if you do it right, he'll make a copy of a non-weapon gear for you

Did tumor Fred want to be put down? I attacked him and he didn't fight back, but he did start crying.

Yes.
He's just in pain.

i did but they do piss poor damage compared to weapons i have AND i waste a turn AND get status effect'd (star gazer and confusion)

Is there any reason not to just take everything I find? If there is a reason, who am I not allowed to steal from?

Honestly just do what some guy said somewhere, have save stations around, or shortcuts that take you back to your apartment through "mysterious means" or whatever
I get the idea of "base of operations" and "expeditions to the outside" but at some point you're not just going a floor down anymore, you're spending extended periods of time away from home

Just get companions... or spam molotovs if you're at the beginning and solo... or y'know use guns

yeah his pixel art is really high quality. I like the variety in enemies.

That being said, what the fuck is up with the hand enemies in the bus. Why the hands?

The only downsides are:
1) Your MC might feel bad eventually, but no real repercussions
2) There's some cursed gear in the game, but you have to equip it to be affected, so don't just spam optimize or blindly throw stuff on characters.

One of the soldiers says a guy just transformed into hands and started infecting people with hands, does it need a reason?

NTA but at least some of the early mutants have a theme and origin, which made people look for "reasons" or "rules" for the mutants.
Personally, I gave up on that around the time I got to the Fish and Chips place.

What are some other games like Look Outside
Aside from Funger

People compare it to LISA which I can see

I feel like it varies, some people have an easily identifiable reason while others it's just random shit. My favorite was one of the card players. He liked rats, so now he's two rats I guess.

As long as we can calm down and count to ten, everything will be just fine.

One

In what sense? In how unique of an experience it is? Or more like the gameplay loop/graphics?

IIIIIII'MMMM LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKIIIIIINGGG AHHHHHH

He's fine in the failed ritual ending, right? He's not insane, just scared.

Failed ritual, black photograph/cinnamon/any random painting/detective novel is the fastest I think

Can't you give both the detective novel and the real thing?

Panic and fear during the transformation is usually one of the first things leading up to completely fucking losing it.

If more intense fear and panic results in a worse transformation, imagine the kind of stress that resulted in the kaijus.

When I first played the game, I inhaled none of them and had Philippe in my party, and when we saw the Spore Queen, he was like "Oh look, what a beautiful creature" and I said "You mean that gross monster?" and Philippe said "You can see that? Wait, did you not inhale any spores?" or something like that. It's funny because I would have totally fallen for it too.

im out of resources for molotovs and i havent found any guns yet i dropped the game after dying 5 times trying to beat confusion after spending like 10 tries trying to beat taxedermy

If you're trying to fail for the purpose of quick endings, Cinnamon and then the three manuscripts (unfinished) are probably the fastest. None of the other spots give more than one.
Though I can't remember if Xin Amon spawns if the ritual is a total failure.

got to taxidermy without finding the pistol

I don't think that's possible unless you really goofed

I can't
LISA is way more like Earthbound than Look Outside

LISA sucks massive dick and anyone telling you otherwise is either lying or has no taste.

Spent a long time in the apartment, I guess... without getting party members.

He's fine in the failed ritual ending, right?

lol no he is extremely not fine and likely turns into a world-ending horror

He doesn't, it's the same ending as regular total failure

does he turn into one of the hundred gods? he's the only one described as a fractal besides the visitor

no, I think in the failed ritual and utterly failed ritual endings, much like the truth ending, he turns into something WAY beyond and far worse tahan the Hundred Gods

Good morning, my fellow witnesses.

Fight the type writer boss in the apartment with the manuscripts to get a Loose one. Go into the bottom right room of that same apartment. Turn on the lights and check the type writer in the desk. You should either be told you added it to the one loose one in your inventory, or get something that allows you to add it to the loose one in your key items. Using the manuscripts from the key item menu won't give you a game over, so just fidget with them until it says 'it's now complete' or something like that. When the time comes hand over the Loose Manuscript.

Dear Mod who took a photo of the Visitor and stickied it on the front page
Fuck you

all this and he won't join your party

Theres still code in the game for lyle as a companion. Not sure if it's cut or if its future content.

I'm theorizing it's either due to two-handed weapon fuckery

can confirm
I lost my ranged arm (even though I specifically wanted to keep that one) but I still had a fuckton of throwables by the time the punk duo showed up at the door
days later I grew my arm back by equipping and unequipping a claymore

to be honest the arm glitch doesn't even bother me, an arm growing back randomly feels completely suited to the setting

You have no taste.

am I completely out of line to say that at the end sybil is just the giant worm covered in eyes wrapped around the building

Sybil is a puddle of goo

nah she's just meat and goo, you never see her and the Visitor takes her in every ending

Rana is cute!
CUTE!

I don't mind giving up my arm for Rat Baby, especially after doing the Perfect Ritual.
All the new limbs I got more than made up for the one I lost.

Your mom is a puddle of goo, Sybil is my beautiful monster wife.

My mom is a spooky scary skelly actually

Why do canadians know how to use guns

imagine the hugs

can you even give the tentacle her laundry before she mutates?

No.
Going into the laundry room is the coded trigger for her mutation. If you turn back without going in, then you can see her starting to lose control of her body.

Interesting, thanks

I’ll wait for more balance updates. There’s also a ton of unfinished content.

I'm definitely looking forward to the replay in a few months.

Can I pleasure myself with the tongue

Imagine the FUGS

except one

You got the wrong Sybil

He hasn't opened his window yet

There's nothing to fear, Anon. Just a little peek ok?

she won the mutation lottery

She's an arachnophobe

I think two rats guy got off way easier.

even if she can't look in the mirror without getting scared she should be thanking god she came out as a reasonably cute spider creature instead of a writhing mass of hands or a giant hole full of teeth

outside

Eh overrated

So am I and she looks cute to me, so she fine

You should marry her and be scared of spiders together.

based. f&h has always been shit and I'm glad i was a day one hater(beat both games)

I can't be unfaithful to Lyle like that anon. There's only one spider for me. He would make sure of it.

So what's outside, tough guy? Tell me, I'm not looking if it's not worth it.

That stalker deserves to get cucked desu senpai

shit b8 m8

She'll have to beat arachnophobia when I fill her up with our babies.

What do I do with the unmarked cassette? I thought the weeb may want it if he showed up, but nothing happened

Theres a guy who trades them at mutts

I mean, he does, but still. Cute spider lady doesn't deserve to be in the line of fire of all that noise.

My bad I retarded out, I meant the unmarked videogame, not cassette tapes.

It's the third artifact. You need to go into the room with the four planet disk slots in the basement. You will also need a hamster.

i haven't played it yet but beatle ninja feels similars

Unmarked video game is just a collectable, you can try to play it but it's busted.

Aha, funny, that was next on my to do list when back on the PC. Cheers.

He asked about the video game, not the empty VHS tape.

It's probably a unused item, for now.

Wait, I retarded and my brain combined it into videotape. Yeah, I think it's supposed to be either unimplemented or some kind of joke on creepypastas.

What if it's her fetish?

Man, what a kino moment this was. Beautiful stuff hearing this and getting to see the view of the outside.

whatever else there is to say about the game, he absolutely stuck the landing on the rooftop sequence

Can you save the dude that is getting eaten in the mushroom area's first fight at all?

No.
There is no one you can save in that area.

dont do this

Just beat the game for the first time and can finally come into these threads.
I never found any party members. At several points I was convinced they weren't real and the things that seemed to imply them were just more rpgmaker default engine jank.
All the bosses I couldn't manage became real easy after hastily filling the party.

I can't believe my slughydra neighbor is THIS cute!

WHICH PAIR OF EYES AM I SUPPOSED TO MAKE EYE CONTACT WITH

How do you know which channel is the correct one to tape? My guinea pig is not reacting to any in particular.

Just keep switching, theres like 24 channels for some reason

Where am I supposed to look when I flirt with her

Glance out the window first and you can look at both

I would like AI to make photorealistic versions of these characters so I can decide if I find them attractive or not

kinda hard given the pixel art

Making Philippe just for such a short lived GOTCHA moment is honestly a bit disappointing.

Honestly he probably should've been in the party a bit longer, the fungus dungeon just kind of ended instantly. I really hope he adds a way to revive him and he fucking hates you.

the fuck are you talking about? that mushroom took over his brain and forced him to turn on us. once the dev fixes his revival quest we'll have him as our loyal friend and companion once more

Gone to soon

I didn't even realize you could get party members by sitting in your apartment because that was completely counter-intuitive to me. I didn't like wasting time so I barely played the games and just came home to save and heal. The only people that showed up at my door were shops or monsters, but the game still became piss easy once I found based Papineau at the ground floor and got some good guns.

isn't the core concept of look outside kind of similiar to fear and hunger's moonscorching?

isn't the core concept of look outside kind of similiar to fear and hunger's moonscorching?

I take it you've never read a lick of cosmic horror in your life

Do I need to find something to get Tickle away safely or should I just kill the fucker?

sadly, Tickle must die.

frapollo played it
youtube.com/watch?v=W3pBOpPh2Tw

i hate the comparasions all the secondaries are doing with fear and hunger

Faggolo

Pity, but so be it

Is the Void Disc to use with the projector for the photo offering?

if you did the thing with the telescope then the projector is the last step.

Yes, and it has a special value you can see if you put it in the room next to Jasper.

last

meant to say next step you still need to develop the photo after all that

Yep, it was fucked but it unfucked itself on reload. Thanks

If you kill rat baby you are a terrible person
The Nestor quest is very unfinished, look at Eugene's sprite lol

I am waiting for rebalancing and I want to replay a solo run.

Moonscorching is turning you into your worst you, but with Sulfur God cranking it up to 11

I dunno, from cripple to MEGABOT DESTRUCTO feels like quite an upgrade.

What sort of game is this?

are ANY of them actually the real one?

Jrpg

Yes, the one with a hole in his face. It's pretty straightforward.

maker?

RPGMaker horror game where you explore and go back to home base. Propped up by an interesting setting, monster design, and decent dialogue.

What do you put in the combination lock for the Saturn door? Saturn is like 200+ moons, my discs don't got that juice

Jupiter, Pluto, Uranus, Neptune, Mars

The game lists Saturn as having 148 moons. I don't know if that's actually true or where it comes from.

Saturn has 274 Moons IRL. Maybe the Visitor ate some on his way here.

Well that's retarded. Thanks.
Btw I gave the last piece of info to Jasper, do I have to go to the roof the same day or can I dick around for the last remaining days then go in just for the last?

Where am I supposed to look when I flirt with her

aaaand now I've gone from horror brain to coom brain again

open saturn door

to get saturn disc

Bitch wat

Same reason you have two disks with zero moons I guess. I'm sure it will be added soon™.

Mew under the truck levels i don't believe this

youtube.com/watch?v=bUoKGoKTFxY

More like sluthydra

Needs a bowler

Real talk, what the hell is with Lyle's apartment? Why was there a guy full of tumors in his kitchen?

Lyles apartment was made during the game jam so frankie just threw whatever he had into it for content, he talked in stream about wanting to redo lyles apartment.

Checks out, it definitely felt a little out of place since he just has random shit in his bathroom and kitchen.

Looking it up, Saturn got 128 new moons on March 11, 2025. Ten days before the game released.

Combat medic is definitely good - the bleed sucks a bit since you can't cure it without balms mid-combat but think of it this way - HP is the most valuable resource in Look Outside and health items proportionally heal much less than the SP items outside of the tonic and medkit, which is rather finite. 25% max hp heal is a LOT and you can use it a ridiculous amount of times for its SP cost. The fact that it scales on max HP makes it even more busted if you've done stuff like making Joel a full HP-spec character with the Taxidermy patchwork gear.

i dunno, man. i feel like i can't just return to do some random side quest after that ending and all the closure, whatever the update brings

What if it's for character epilogues?

The game's like 3 hours long if you know what you're doing.

I know it'd be a lot of work, but I really would appreciate epilogues for all companions and endings

Good news, it's planned

Game's very clearly unfinished. Some enemies have obvious WIP sprites, like Nestor, along with the rest of his questline.

>wip sprites
There are only like 2 of those anon

Yeah, and Nestor is obviously one of them. Doesn't even have shading. Looks like an NES sprite in an SNES game.

yeah but I don't fault it really when there's like 5 of those and some freakish amount of fully detailed sprites and a lot of super-detailed ones, all that in six months, that's nuts

Just wait for hard mode

There are dozens.

Here's a question, how the hell does 'infectiousness' work with the Cursed people anyway? Is every monster infectious, or just some?
I kinda expected a bad end from getting bitten by Joel when he hugs you, but Sam's gameplay immune to most potentially infectious things.
It probably isn't just wanting to infect someone - Sam and your human party members are all fine. Story gameplay segregation and all that, but it's still something I think about.
i wonder what Aster's weird silly lizard bubbles would do to people, haha

You could hand-wave it away saying that the tooth infection required blood relation or something. Similarly rat hole tells you that the rat king turned him into whatever the hell he is, so you'd think that'd be a risk. There's all the hand people as well, guess Sam is just built different.

Just some, and I assume a majority of them lost that nature when the Visitor departed.

IIRC, apparently there's a door event for an injured guy who was bitten by Joel's dad and he mutates eventually? I've only heard about him from the thread/I've seen his normal non mutated form so I can't verify if that disproves the blood relation idea or not.
Interesting idea about some of the monsters just losing the ability once the Visitor's gone. That would make some sense, but the only real on-screen infection we see happen is the Landlord swallowing a couple of hands. Makes me wonder if it's sorta zombie rules - IE, body fluids and infected tissues are transmittable.

Makes me wonder if it's sorta zombie rules - IE, body fluids and infected tissues are transmittable.

It's chaos rules. Fever dream logic. There is no consistency to any transformation save for state of mind and means. The Visitor is straight up a Mythos-like being that warps time and space.