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it hurts[1] |
Chzo Mythos, also known as the John DeFoe Tetralogy or the Trilby Tetralogy, are a series of horror-themed adventure games by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Yes, that one.
The four games are, in order of creation, 5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby's Notes and 6 Days a Sacrifice (in chronological order of events: 5 Days, Notes, 6 Days, 7 Days, though it makes more sense if you play 7 Days before 6 Days). There is also a tie-in game titled Trilby: The Art of Theft, which shares the hero and Player Character with half of the other games, but isn't connected to any of them with regard to subject matter.
Some Interactive Fiction by the name of the Countdown Trilogy and a tie-in short story called The Expedition, which expands upon the background of the universe and some of the lesser, yet still important, events within the storyline also exists.
With their old-school graphics, the games nevertheless manage to be surprisingly suspenseful. Can be found here, along with some of Yahtzee's other games. Special editions with useful author commentary, extra scenes and some other stuff were formerly available as donationware, but are free to download now.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: At the end of 6 Days a Sacrifice, the hero, Theo Dacabe, is turned into yet another one of Chzo's weird-ass minions.
- Apathy Killed the Cat: Nobody bothers checking why Malcom looks a lot younger than a 65 year old.
- Abusive Parents: Sir Roderick DeFoe.
- Action Survivor: Theo Dacabe. Subverted after he was the demons.
- All There in the Script Trilby's true name, Malcolm Somerset was never revealed in any of the games, but is revealed in the commentary of 7 Days.
- And I Must Scream The Trilby clone, and in a way, Theo DaCabe, and Cabadath.
- The unfortunate soldier from The Expedition deserves a special mention. Mainly because he fleshes out just what horrible fate awaits Chzo's prisoners. By carving it into the walls of his cell with a sharpened button before moving on to his own flesh.
- Interestingly, Chzo is suggested to be this. He's the Last of His Kind, he's immortal but can't move or exist outside of a certain area, and all he can do is feel and cause pain.
- The unfortunate soldier from The Expedition deserves a special mention. Mainly because he fleshes out just what horrible fate awaits Chzo's prisoners. By carving it into the walls of his cell with a sharpened button before moving on to his own flesh.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: And then Theo was the Prince.
- Anyone Can Die: Oh, yeah.
- Even the main characters aren't immune, as one of them kills himself to become a deity and another is transformed into the big bad's slave. The only characters to make it through the entire series are Trilby, Jim Fowler and Siobahn O'malley.
- Apocalyptic Log: Trilby's Notes, The Expedition
- Arc Words: "...and he knew the Name of the King".
- it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
- Also an arc date: Most of the important events in the timeline occur on July 28th, as that's the one day of the year Chzo can look in on the world of Technology, and the Tall Man can travel to it to exact vengeance on those who harm the wood of his soul.
- Artifact Title: The characterization of the Player Character of7 Days a Skeptic changed drastically from its initial conception. As a result, the character is quite possibly the least skeptical character on the ship, making the title a bit of a misnomer.
- Artistic License - Physics: Most notably the gravity issue in 7 Days.
- As You Know: In 7 Days, the captain explains quite a bit of ship protocol that your character should already know. Subverted, as "Dr Malcolm" is in fact an impostor.
- Badass Abnormal: Malcolm Somerset, after becoming the Caretaker.
- Badass Normal: Trilby. Who else has pulled a rug out from under the Welder? Or kicked the Tall Man in the face?
- Not to mention the stuff he managed to pull off in Art of Theft - Let's recap: pulled off two amazing heists like it a was a Tuesday afternoon BEFORE the plot began to unfold, infiltrated a top secret lab and later an even more secret base, stole photos of himself to escape from the law, destroyed the entire base along with The Company's superweapon (which he destroyed with his UMBRELLA), and even stuck the bargaining chip XJ Unit on a flagpole 20 stories from the ground, just to make Petora work for her way out rather than have it given to her. It almost makes his achievements later in the series less impressive.
- The Bad Guy Wins
- Big Bad: Chzo, and it wins.
- Black Dude Dies First: Barry in 7 Days a Skeptic. Doubles as Retirony.
- Black Magic: Subverted, since you're required to use it to get a relatively happy ending in 5 Days, and nobody goes insane from using it.
- The Blank: The Tall Man.
- Break the Haughty: What Chzo intended when it turned Cabadath into the Tall Man. Given that Cabadath is known as the "Arrogant Man" at the end of the series, it clearly didn't work.
- Breather Episode: The Art of Theft, and also the humorous short novel Trilby and the ghost.
- Brick Joke: At the beginning of 5 Days, Trilby, wearing a three piece suit along with a smooth, featureless mask, runs into AJ, an intelligence agent for the Ministry of Occultism, upon breaking into the manor. AJ seems to recognize him and flees, later to be found dead in the swimming pool. In Trilby's Notes, we are introduced to the Tall Man, who is wearing a black trenchcoat and ruffled shirt and has a smooth, grey, featureless face.
- Chekhov's Gun: Played straight and literally in 5 Days.
- In 6 Days a Sacrifice, talk to the priest and ask him about the Order. Read closely when they're talking about the three Blessed Agonies - and realize your character goes through all three of them during the span of the game.
- The radio masts in 7 Days.
- Church of Happyology: Optimology, which is a front for the Chzo-worshiping Order of Blessed Agonies to boot.
- Cloning Blues: Subverted. One of the Trilby clones runs into some of the other clones, but the existential crisis fails to appear. The Trilby clone even states that he had already thought of the scenario as one of the more plausible explanations of how he could be alive so far into the future.
- Closed Circle: All the games have some form of it. Trilby's Notes has a literal one.
- Coat, Hat, Mask: Trilby, in The Art of Theft and briefly in 5 Days.
- Coitus Ensues: The sex scene in 6 Days a Sacrifice. Yahtzee himself had this to say (from this Let's Play) in regards to that:
Yahtzee: "Fact is, this is me trying to do something disturbing without realising that I'm the only one it disturbs. I've come to develop a weird aversion to sex. I've never been really sold on it. It's possible I have some hangups from a few things from my past, but these days I'm pretty much celibate (and it's not for want of female (or even male) attention, thank you very much, I mean, I own a bar, for christ's sake). I don't think it's immoral, or anything. I just find it a bit gross. This may be linked to the fact that I hate kids and the thought of having any of my own makes me want to stick a gun in my mouth. The sex scene was intended to be grotesque, not in any way titillating. It's about characters succumbing to something animalistic as they lose their grip on reality. It's an expression of Janine's descent into madness (consider how she's behaving immediately afterwards), and another torture device to pile onto Theo. In case it's not been obvious enough so far, the theme of 6 Days is the Blessed Agonies, and how a comparatively short period of experiencing them is enough to turn Theo, the ultimate everyman, into something to Chzo's liking. And the sex thing is part of it. It's just plain physically painful but he's doing it because it's what Janine wants, and she's completely and utterly doomed. But I understand that most people don't see sex the same way I do, so the intention might have been lost. I defend the concept, but not so much the execution." |
- Continuity Nod: Several throughout the games. One of the more subtle instances occurs when Trilby opens the safe in Trilby's Notes. Finding it empty, he comments "Just for once I'd like to open a safe that contains something" - a nod back to 5 Days, where the safe he opened was also empty.
- Another that a lot of people don't notice is that Art of Theft has a special unlockable outfit, "Clanbronwyn Classic", which is the exact same one that is used in Trilby's Notes.
- In the official walkthrough, William Taylor from 7 Days is stated to be a descendant of Simone from 5 Days.
- Actively a plot point in 6 Days since Samantha Harty's death triggers the memory of Philip Harty's death from 5 Days, which is the key to getting the Trilby clone to cooperate with you
- Controllable Helplessness: In Trilby's Notes. The solution is to kill yourself by entering the command "die" in the text parser. You could also drink some cola, if you wanted to.
- The Corpse Stops Here: In both 5 Days and 7 Days. Possibly subverted slightly in the latter since it's suggested in 6 Days that your character in 7 Days may have really done it, having been possessed by the Welder.
- Cosmic Horror Story: The last two games belong to this genre.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: CPR does not help stab wounds! Unless you're given the replacement life force of your clone from the future.
- Cruel Twist Ending: The end of 7 Days. "Dr Jonathan Somerset", the Player Character, turns out to be an impostor who killed the real Dr Somerset [who we later discover is his own father] and was using his identity. Oh, and he gets arrested for 6 murders, out of which he commited only 1.
- Of course, if you take into consideration the Alternate Character Interpretation, the fact that "John", or Malcolm, as is his real name, was possibly the one responsible for the murders in the first place, it doesn't help that when in 6 Days when the Welders were being killed, there was no "Decompression" deaths, so Malcolm may have been more responsible for the murders, because he was the one who was possessed.
- Dark World: The Ethereal Realm. Or at least the parts of it that are under Chzo's control.
- Death by Origin Story: John DeFoe, Malcolm's father.
- Death by Sex: Almost literally: It's implied that Janine went crazy because she was "tainted" by Theo's dark future in 6 Days
- Death Equals Redemption: Happens to William at the end of 7 Days
- Depraved Homosexual: Jack Frehorn, though notable in that his depravity only began when he was tricked into murdering his lover, Wilbur. Only afterward did he begin using his sexuality for evil instead of occult-nerdly good.
- Deus Ex Machina: Frehorn's blade. Also, The Caretaker Malcom.
- Downer Ending: Chzo wins. The good news? Chzo's worshippers drastically overestimated his interest in our world to begin with.
- 7 Days also has one. After killing the mixmatched body, Malcolm is arrested for six murders, only one of which he actually committed.
- The Dragon: The Prince, followed by the New Prince
- Dragon with an Agenda: The Prince spends the entire series futilely trying to keep Chzo from replacing him. Ironically enough, the Prince's defiance of Chzo's will turns out to be the key factor in Chzo's final decision to replace him.
- Dream Sequence: Several throughout the series.
- Dual World Gameplay: Going between a real world and a Dark World is used in Trilby's Notes. The player can switch at will to a certain extent and often encountered the "path open in another world" technique
- Eldritch Abomination: Chzo
- Easter Egg: Try playing and completing the games on Yahtzee's birthday, May 24th.
- Empty Room Psych: The recreational room in 7 Days, which serves no useful purpose.
- Also The entire first floor of hotel rooms in Trilby's Notes. There is never any reason to go there, as none of the characters are staying in rooms on that floor.
- Enclosed Space: All of them. It's perhaps creepiest in Trilby's Notes, as while you can go outside, all roads lead back to the hotel.
- Eye Scream: Happens on the final day of 7 Days.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Everything started when a druid named Cabadath made the unbelievably stupid decision to summon Chzo to the Realm of Technology so that he could use Chzo to destroy his enemies.
- Fan Nickname: 7 Days a Space Adventure!
- A Fate Worse Than Death: The name of the game for Cabadath, Theo, Trilby... At least Trilby gets put out of his misery after 200 years when the man in the red robe comes by and kills him. Also, it probably isn't really Trilby, but a clone. Probably.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Happens three times in Chzo Mythos; chronologically, the first is Cabadath becoming the Prince, then John DeFoe, on his death, and finally Theo Dacabe becoming the New Prince.
- Gambit Roulette: Chzo is the supreme, grand master of this. Sorry, Light.
- The Scandinavian telepath, Ericsson, from The Expedition does however question this:
The King is a beast. That's the most foolish part of it. He has no sentience. His mind is nothing more than that of a fattened pig. He could be the most powerful entity in any universe and his actions are no more calculated than a dog chasing a bone. Randomness and magic turned a dumb animal into God. |
- The source and the writer, for that matter should be taken into question, though. The source is a clearly insane man who has delved into the mind of a Lovecraftian-esque Eldritch Abomination. Some other abominations can drive a man insane on sight--delving into the mind of one? I think you know where I'm going with this. The writer also becomes insane enough to actually write on his body even after he's pretty much finished. With a sharpened button. And the Books of Chzo imply that Chzo is actually intelligent, and we damn well know that Cabadath wasn't the one to tell Frehorn what to write. A possible facade?
- It's possible Chzo did all this on pure instinct.
- The Books of Chzo are also not entirely accurate. They're penned by Jack Frehorn who, for one, is a fanatical follower, and for another, note the difference between the written account of Wilbur's death and the actual flashback.
- The source and the writer, for that matter should be taken into question, though. The source is a clearly insane man who has delved into the mind of a Lovecraftian-esque Eldritch Abomination. Some other abominations can drive a man insane on sight--delving into the mind of one? I think you know where I'm going with this. The writer also becomes insane enough to actually write on his body even after he's pretty much finished. With a sharpened button. And the Books of Chzo imply that Chzo is actually intelligent, and we damn well know that Cabadath wasn't the one to tell Frehorn what to write. A possible facade?
- Genetic Memory: the Trilby clones, to a degree. Their memories are only jogged by Cabadath and Samantha's ID card, respectively, and they clearly haven't inherited the original's abilities.
- Genre Savvy: Trilby, in 5 Days especially.
- Genre Shift: The series goes from fairly conventional (but good) horror, to SPACE horror, to Cosmic Horror. Trilby: The Art of Theft is a completely different type of game alltogether, being a Platformer/StealthBasedGame.
- Gentleman Thief: Trilby.
- Given the reason for his moniker, he also counts as a Classic Hat Burglar. yeah...
- Government Agency of Fiction: The Ministry of Occultism. The Special Talent Project could be described as this, although Word of God states it is "hired out" to various government agencies.
- Hearing Voices: The soundtrack for the Dark Hotel in Trilby's Notes.
- Hell Hotel: The setting of Trilby's Notes, and that's just the normal hotel.
- Hilarious Outtakes: 7 Days offers some really funny ones.
- If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten: Delia Reneaux, the main character in the second part of Countdown series, is asked to kill her ex-boyfriend, Jason, in order to suffer the Blessed Agony of the Soul and become a fully accepted member of the Order of Blessed Agonies.
- It's Up to You: In 7 Days a Skeptic, your role is supposedly ship's counselor and yet you end up running around doing everything, including tasks that should be someone else's responsibility. This is most glaringly apparent with Adam, the engineer, who seems to have no qualms at all in leaving someone far less qualified to take care of things he should be doing. Somewhat justified in that Adam was scared out of his wits.
- In 6 Days a Sacrifice, you are sent to run around finding guns or looking for vital objects despite nursing some rather severe injuries following a nice little fall down an elevator shaft. Yahtzee both justifies and lampshades this in the 6 Days special edition commentary by pointing out how dull the game would be if the player character could only sit around doing nothing.
- The Killer in Me: in 5 Days, Trilby gets possessed and ends up killing a fellow prisoner. There was foreshadowing earlier in the game.
- Actively a plot point in 6 Days, as it foreshadows Theo DaCabe's eventual destiny.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Justified in 5 Days, because you expect a thief to steal things.
- Of course, you can still only take things which are relevant to the plot, even in the early part where you'd think he'd at least grab anything of value while he was looking for the way out. Still justified though in that based on some of the comments made by Trilby, there isn't really anything worth stealing.
- Lampshaded in Notes: if you tell him to steal a painting, he reminds you he's no longer a thief. He has no problem stealing plot-relevant items, though.
- Left Hanging: How did Trilby's car end up in the backyard or Serena's hand go from a closed storage area, down a floor, through a grate, out a maintenace shaft, and into a food dispenser, while leaving sizable blood stains almost exclusively on the walls?
- Let's Play: The whole series, by DeceasedCrab and others.
- Another, more recent, screenshot-based LP by Quovak. Featuring comments from Ben Yahtzee himself.
- Locked Door: Quite frequent, and jammed glass windows as well.
- Look Behind You!: Malcolm to Angela, she logically ignores him. What an Idiot!.
- Madness Mantra
- Meaningful Name: Theo DaCabe's name, if rearranged, is phonetically very similar to Cabadath, aka The Tall Man, hinting at Theo's eventual fate as his replacement.
- Also plenty of meaningful surnames. It comes most into play in 6 Days as the combination of the name "Harty" and "dead" triggers a response in the Trilby clone you are trying to get on-side, but Yahtzee seems to be fond of descendents/ancestors: see Chahal (Barry in 7 Days, Abed in Notes) and Taylor (Simone in 5 Days, William in 7 Days). It is also implied in the SE commentary for Notes that the Somerset in Notes may be a long-distant ancestor of the Somersets in 7 Days - he reveals that he had originally planned to keep Owen Somerset alive, leading to a theme of "Somersets always survive", but changed his mind further down the line.
- Cabadath is also known as "The Arrogant Man" in the Order's holy writings. Much of the plot is driven by the fact that he's trying to prevent his god from replacing him; efforts which, ultimately, are what cause said god to decide to replace him.
- Mind Screw: 6 Days.
- Neck Snap: There's one in 7 Days which manages to transcend the graphics to be horrific purely on the merit of the sound effect. Necksnaps also show up in 6 Days, where the Tall Man uses this method to dispatch the Trilby Clones in the late stages of the game. His reason for doing so is because it's a relatively painless death. He's trying to operate under Chzo's radar by this point, and Chzo would be alerted to his actions if pain were involved. Possibly counts as Fridge Brilliance for those players who figure the logic out by themselves.
- Nice Hat: Trilby, of course.
- No Name Given: Trilby claims he doesn't have one anymore; trilby's the type of a hat he wears, and "as a name, it suffices".
- Yahtzee gives it away in the 7 Days SE commentary. Turns out his real name is the same as "John Somerset"'s.
- Also, there's AJ, whose real name is never stated. The tie-in fiction suggests it's Andrew Jarvis.
- Confirmed in the extra materials of the special edition of 6 Days.
- Non-Indicative Name: 7 Days a Skeptic is actually eight days long. Whoops. [2]
- Yahtzee addressed this by stating that the first part of the game does not count as a day, since it does not have an intro like the others and should just be seen as a "Day 0".
- Also, the Player Character is the least skeptical one on the crew.
- In addition, 6 Days a Sacrifice takes place over the course of five days. Well, there is one more than the sequential five days.
- Non-Lethal KO: In 6 Days, anything that would have given you a Game Over in previous games (i.e. any time you get caught by John DeFoe or DeFoe-possessed Janine) now instead has Theo simply wake up in the sleeping quarters, ready to pick up right from where you left off.
- No OSHA Compliance: The ship's escape pods in 7 Days take several hours of automated preparation to use. I'm going to repeat that. The devices which are intended to be used in case of dire emergency cannot be used until several hours after they're activated.
- Nothing Is Scarier: There are only three points in the whole of Notes where the player is in danger of a Game Over. But with Foreboding Architecture, constant whispering, and in the normal hotel, utter silence, you will tense up at every room transition, and you will leap from your seat when m0ds' soundtrack kicks in.
- Odd Name Out: Trilby's Notes, although it is different from the other three games in a few key ways.
- Old Dark House: 5 Days a Stranger takes place in one.
- Old Shame: The Something Awful Let's Play of the Mythos was quite scathing of 5 Days and 7 Days, and had its complaints about Notes and 6 Days as well. Yahtzee himself joined the thread fairly early on, took its criticism very gracefully, agreed wholeheartedly with nearly all of it, and noted that it was a growing experience for him.
Yahtzee: Chzo was, objectively, a Good Thing for me. There's no reason to be ashamed by past works because the only person who should be ashamed is the person you were when you made them, and that person no longer exists. It's said that every artist/writer/whatever creative type has 10,000 bad paintings/stories/projects in them, and it's just a matter of getting through them all. Chzo was part of that. So I don't regret anything about them. I can't make people forget about the rougher bits. But I can criticise them along with everyone else. |
- Parasol of Pain: Trilby's grapple hook/taser/umbrella - the grolly.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Most of the crew in 7 Days rely on the counselor to do everything.
- Poor Communication Kills: Oh boy...
- Power Floats: The New Prince Theo Dacabe.
- Pure Magic Being: Chzo. It can't even survive in our relatively mundane dimension.
- Put on a Bus: Jim, possibly literally - after Simone's death in Notes, Trilby advises him to go into hiding. This is the last we ever hear of him.
- Some of the extra material suggests that he will eventually become a paranormal investigator, and given that Yahtzee has a tendency to name his main characters 'Jim'...
- Railing Kill: In 7 Days, the means of getting rid of the possessed starship captain.
- Random Event: The hallucinations in Trilby's Notes. Chances are you will run into at least one or two over the course of the game, but which ones and where you are when they happen are random: the game is coded so that every time you take a pill, there is a chance that a random hallucination will trigger two screens later. Granted, it is possible to take advantage of that fact by trying to trigger them on purpose, but chances are it'll take several pills and a lot of patience to trigger them all.
- Rant-Inducing Slight: Try repeatedly making Trilby look at doors in 5 Days. Just try it. He will eventually Break the Fourth Wall and hand out a What the Hell, Player?.
- Reality Warper:Malcolm Somerset as the Caretaker (but only on Destiny's orders). Also, the Tall Man and the Welder somewhat (given that he has no problem handing out oddly prophetic dreams).
- Recycled in Space: 7 Days A Sceptic is mostly 5 Days A Stranger inside a spaceship.
- Redemption Equals Death: Delia Reneaux again. She dies in a car crash at the end of Countdown 2, trying to escape from the cult.
- Religion of Evil: The Order of Blessed Agonies, whose members worship Chzo, a pain elemental.
- Retcon: Oh so very much!
- The DeFoe twins' birth was changed to a month later to match the July 28th significance.
- The letter in 7 Days describes things very differently than how they happen in Trilby's Notes.
- At the beginning, 5 Days and later 7 Days were going to be stand-alone games. When Yahtzee had the idea of Chzo, he had to work it out this way. 6 Days is basically a gigantic Retcon to put the whole series together.
- Retirony 7 Days was to be Captain Barry Chahal's last mission before retirement.
- Ridiculously Average Guy: Theo DaCabe.
- Room Full of Crazy: Trust Gladn to describe it - "Cabadath, what is this madness?"
- Rule of Three: Features very heavily in Notes and 6 Days:
- Notes gives us the trio of Body, Mind and Soul. The most obvious way this is used is with John DeFoe/The Bridgekeeper) but there are other more subtle uses of a Body/Mind/Soul trio that the "Special Edition" highlights. Firstly, the three main characters at the hotel form such a trio (Trilby as the Body, Abed as the Mind and Siobhan as the Soul). Secondly, the three pictures in the Dark World's bar (the Tall Man, blank and broken) sum up the three elements of the Prince. Finally, if you ask Lenkmann about the ritual after Trilby's been stabbed, he will offer the first explanation about the Blessed Agonies, with Trilby as Body, Lenkmann himself as the Mind and Siobhan sufficing for Soul mainly on account of there's no-one else left.
- 6 Days adds to the above with a Past/Present/Future trio and, specifically, how the two events in 5 Days (Past) and 7 Days (Future) created ripples across the timeline that collide in the Present in which 6 Days takes place. It also expands a little more on the Blessed Agonies and in the Special Edition, Yahtzee suggests that Canning, Samantha and Janine were abandoned alive in order to provide Blessed Agonies to tempt Chzo.
- Also features in 5 Days, though in less meaningful ways (at least at the time the game was made) - both with the body-finder device, which comprises of three components ( stick + string + possession belonging to the dead person in question), and in the final puzzle with the welding gear, knife, and remains of John DeFoe. There's also the fact that of the five in the house, three survive and it is only by utilising all three that you can avoid getting killed by the now quasi-mortal DeFoe and get the true ending.
- Hell, John DeFoe's attire is, in itself, part of the Rule : a mask, an apron, and a knife.
- Sanity Slippage: In 6 Days a Sacrifice, as you go deeper and deeper into DeFoe Manor, the look-at-info of the doors changes. It goes from "I think it's a door, but I can't think straight. Being in this place feels like having huge weights on my head.", to "It's a... I think it's a... it hurts...", then to a simple "it hurts".
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: 7 Days revolves around a locker found floating in space in a distant galaxy. For one, finding anything this small in an entire galaxy is so mind-bogglingly unlikely that it can only be expressed with large numbers of exponents. The locker was also launched several hundred years ago with no method of propulsion, somehow traveling millions of lightyears since then.
- Lampshaded when one of the crew notes the extreme unlikelihood that a small locker floating around for only 400 years would end up in a completely different galaxy. The ensuing conversation implies a supernatural force is responsible - which makes sense when you consider that it has the remains of a murderous ghost in it, and it's basically being manipulated by a god.
- Secret Test of Character: The added dialogue in the special edition of 6 Days reveals that the entire series was a Secret Test of Character for Cabadath aka the Tall Man engineered by Chzo. He failed it.
- Shout-Out: Given the many parallels between 7 Days and Event Horizon, William tearing out his own eyes seems like it may be a homage.
- Yahtzee actually outright says it's a Shout-Out in the walkthrough he made for the game.
- There are also shout outs to that movie in the first game, in the form of the player walking into some horrible situation only to realize it was a hallucination or dream.
- Somerset in "7 Days" cites regulation code 1701.
- Jim namedrops Treasure Island and Terry Pratchett in 5 Days. In his Let's Play, Quovak complains that there's no real significance to the Shout-Out, it's just there; Yahtzee admits that he never intended any deeper meaning, younger-him just thought it would be clever to drop it out of the blue, and were he making the game today he wouldn't have been quite so injudicious about it.
- The Slender Man Mythos: Oh boy.
- Solve the Soup Cans: Some puzzles are definitely of this sort.
- Spear Carrier: The unnamed main character in Countdown 3.
- Stable Time Loop: In 6 Days, a seemingly supernatural bald man in a red robe appears and helps the characters out. It is revealed that this character is none other than the Somerset from 7 Days, revealed to be the son of the real Dr Somerset, in a mental asylum for the 7 Days murders. He kills himself with a ritual knife, which ends up turning him into the bald robed man. After the ending scenes of 6 Days, taking place 196 years before 7 Days, he goes to urge his younger self to kill his father, thus triggering the events that got him thrown into jail in the first place.
- In the Special Edition of Notes, the scene where Trilby is brought back to life is expanded on, with the Caretaker talking to a resistant Trilby and telling him he has no choice but to return, on account of the events that have already taken place in the future requiring Trilby to still be alive.
- Straw Vulcan: The helmsman and first officer in 7 Days A Skeptic are indoctrinated in the ways of "logic", but it's more along the lines of an irrationally extreme version of Occam's Razor than logic. They refuse to even investigate any leads that don't have an obvious rational explanation.
- The first officer then proceeds to arrest the sole investigator on the grounds that it was "awfully suspicious" that he discovered all the bodies. She refuses to listen to him, even when she was given the "Look Behind You!" warning just before her death. She had also ordered him to investigate.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Simone survives the events of 5 Days, but a time capsule letter in the distant-future 7 Days reveals that the character was actually killed very shortly afterward. Trilby's Notes goes back and is set a few years after 5 Days, and its prologue/tutorial ends with the discovery of the character's body.
- Also, to the great shock of the player, the very first puzzle of "6 Days" results in the very gory death of an inexplicably present Trilby.Clone
- Surreal Horror
- Story to Gameplay Ratio: Although the games are very heavy on story, one instance where gameplay was chosen over story stands out because of the Fridge Logic it causes. To be more precise it is the "find the bodies" puzzle in 5 Days.
- In the Special Editions, Yahtzee admits to several instances where story was sacrificed for gameplay. Another example is how the days in 7 Days become ridiculously short towards the end, which creates plenty of Fridge Logic of its own if you think about it too much.
- Super Strength - The Tall Man can, among other things, gut people alive with his bare hands.
- Ten Little Murder Victims : The premise of all four games, to a certain extent, but since they have the largest casts 5 Days a Stranger and 7 Days a Skeptic fit it best. In the former, you're locked in a manor; in the latter, you are on a spaceship, which obviously prevents you from leaving it, save adrift in a vacuum.
- That Was the Last Entry: Both Roderick and Matthew Defoe's diaries. Also the diary in Trilby's Notes, which ends with the Arc Words "it hurts."
- There Was a Door: Trying to climb through a window on the ground level from the backyard in 5 Days results in Trilby remarking that "[t]here's a perfectly serviceable door."
- Timey-Wimey Ball: The premise of 6 Days. Its present is simultaneously (maybe the word is jointly? A little help, Dan Streetmentioner?) caused by the past and the future.
- Title Theme Drop: In 7 Days, the title theme returns at the start of the final day, where you are hiding in the maintenance shaft, the rest of the crew murdered save for the ship's doctor who on the previous day was all set to butcher you for body parts. It continues to play over the ensuing conversation between you and William, echoing the opening segment of the game.
- Token Minority: All the games bar 6 Days have at least one.
- 5 Days: Simone is the only female in a cast of five
- 7 Days: Barry Chahal is the only non-white character
- Trilby's Notes: Abed Chahal is the only non-white present-time character. Siobhan is the only significant female character, past or present (all of the flashbacks are male-centric), though the hotel clerk is female and Simone features briefly, though never alive.
- Too Dumb to Live: Imagine this: you're trapped on a spaceship with a psychotic murderer. Half the crew is dead. You've just gained access to the escape pods. What do you do? If your first guess is to have all the survivors go take a nap in separate rooms, please never end up in a horror movie with me.
- At least they are not alone in this regard. Almost everybody in the series is Too Dumb to Live except Chzo. Most of them do end up dying or suffering a Fate Worse Than Death.
- Who the hell designs spaceship escape pods that require hours of preparation before they can be launched?
- That could be blamed in the fact that the ship is described as being old to the point people wondering why it is still in service.
- At least they are not alone in this regard. Almost everybody in the series is Too Dumb to Live except Chzo. Most of them do end up dying or suffering a Fate Worse Than Death.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Chzo can't actually even enter the Realm of Technology, or he would die.
- Tragic Monster: John DeFoe and Cabadath both. John was tortured and abused from day one. Cabadath made a mistake while trying to save his people from the Roman invaders.
- Understatement: The intro to The Expedition. "Warning: LONG. Also not funny. One wonders why you'd want to read it at all. Oh well."
- Unwitting Pawn: Everyone. Except Chzo, of course.
- What Could Have Been: In the commentary for 6 Days, Yahtzee mentions he originally wanted every playthrough to be completely random: Every time a player started a new game, the order of days would shift so sometimes you'd play day 4 before day 3 and so on. He scrapped the idea because he wanted to be "ambiguous, not impenetrable."
- White Magic: Several times in 5 Days a Stranger.
- What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome??: Tilby's Notes gives you paragraphs of text for looking at the slightest thing. Is it really that hard to just say, "It's a door"?
- Window Love: Used oddly in 6 Days a Sacrifice. Dacabe does the rare "through an opaque wall" variation, trying to reach Janine. She's actually inside the wall, dead.
- You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Try looking at the doors in DeFoe Manor in 6 Days a Sacrifice.
Theo: It's a... I think it's a... it hurts... |
- This is actually a callback to two running gags: Trilby's issue with the doors in 5 Days, and the aforementioned Arc Words in Notes.
- You Can't Fight Fate
- You Fail Logic Forever: Angela arrests the only person willing to do anything because he finds the bodies after being told to do so. She also won't fall for the Look Behind You! trick from a unarmed person behind a laser fence.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: "And the Arrogant Man knew the name of the King."
- Happens to Will at the end of 7 Days, except for the eyes
- You Shouldn't Know This Already: In 7 Days, entering the Captain's password before getting the clue on what it is causes the computer to reply "This isn't the Olympics, cully. Cheaters don't prosper".
- ↑ it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
- ↑ Starts on Sunday, day one...then goes Monday (day two), Tuesday (day three), Wednesday (day four), Thursday (day five), Friday (day six), Saturday (day seven), then back to Sunday again for day eight.