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"…My Child…Your flesh is a debt, long overdue. I have given you all this gift of life And I shall so easily take it from you…Three days from now I will return to raze the Earth of all those who walk upon it. … Only then will the debt be repaid. …Three Days…."
—Deadeus, Deadeus
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Deadeus is a Top-Down Horror Video Game that was released in 2019. It was developed by -IZMA-, an independent studio, and published by Spacebot Interactive for the Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.
In a village with no name, a boy has a nightmare, but not just any nightmare. In this nightmare, a horrific entity resembling a giant eyeball surrounded by smaller eyeballs warns the boy that it will return in three days to destroy the world. When the boy wakes up, he finds out that the other children have had the same nightmare. Can he find a way to save his village, and by extension the world, before it is too late?
If you would like to see playthroughs of Deadeus on YouTube, please see the following videos:
- A Storm Is Coming: On the third day, the guard on the pier will tell the boy as much. Considering that Deadeus said that it would destroy the world by then, it is quite fitting.
- Adult Fear:
- In the case of the missing boy's father, the idea of a child hanging out with a cult and then presumably being kidnapped by that cult.
- For the parents, the fact that their children are having nightmares for several nights in a row. In fact, the boy's best friend is so traumatized by them that he declares that he will never sleep again.
- From the boy's perspective, the idea that his mother may be involved in some nasty business. As it turns out, she is a member of a cult that worships a being as a god and that sacrifices people, including children, to that being once every 15 years. She also locked her husband up in a cave in the mountains and left him there to die.
- In the Leave Ending, the boy decides to leave the village and run away. It is bad enough that a child runs away from home, but imagine that child running away because the state of affairs is that bad.
- The coffee shop employee killing everyone in her workplace and then herself should remind people that there are disgruntled employees who will go that far in real life.
- Adults Are Useless: For the most part, the adults in the village seem to dismiss the nightmares that the children are having and seem to be unable to do anything about it. Then again, a number of the adults are in a cult and have sacrificed children and adults in the past, so there might be a reason for that.
- Affably Evil: The Sons of Deadeus are on the whole quite friendly, as far as murderous cultists go.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: On the third day, the man seeking the Blank Book in the Library will outright beg the boy to place it on the pedestal, because he really does not want to die.
- All for Nothing: A number of characters believe that they will meet Deadeus when they die. The boy seems to have been the only one to die and meet Deadeus face-to-face, implying that the deaths of those other characters were for nothing.
- Ambiguous Ending: The Sleep Ending, the Leave Town Ending, the Dad Ending and (possibly) the Flower Ending qualify. In the Sleep Ending, nothing seemed to happen, but since the boy was asleep, there would be no way for him to know if he had died. In the Leave Town Ending, the boy is still alive, but it probably would not matter if Deadeus destroyed the world. The Dad Ending has the boy deciding to stay with his father's body, and it is not clear what happened after that. In the Flower Ending, Deadeus accepted the offering and spared the boy's life, but it implied that it would not do the same for everyone else.
- Ambiguous Gender: Deadeus is never given a third-person pronoun in-story. The Flower Ending and the Jump/Final Ending show Deadeus having a body resembling that of an adult human male, but since Deadeus is not human to begin with, gender might be irrelevant.
- Ambiguous Innocence: The boy seems like such a sweet and innocent kid. Not that it stops him from using a knife to kill 10 people (Flower Ending), 36 people (Thirty-Seven Ending) or 1 person (Push Ending or Jump/Final Ending).
- Antagonist Title: The title of this game refers to Deadeus, the being threatening to destroy the world in three days.
- Anyone Can Die: No, seriously, anyone can die in this game. The prisoner can escape on the third day and begin his killing spree, starting with the boy's mother. The coffee shop employee will carry out a murder-suicide in the coffee shop on the third day. The boy can kill as many people as he wants as early as the first day. In the Drowning Ending and the Jump/Final Ending, the boy himself can die.
- Arc Number: 37. In the Thirty-Seven Ending, you will find out that 37 is the population of the village, as well as the number of people that the boy tries to kill. No wonder the prisoner kept repeating that number.
- Arc Symbol: The ring on a person's forehead. On the third day, a book in the library will explain that The Sons of Deadeus wear robes adorned with rings on the forehead under the belief that it will let Deadeus into their very minds.
- Asshole Victim: Should you decide to kill at least 10 people, some of them will probably qualify as this. For example, the prisoner will qualify, because he intended to kill everybody in the village.
- Ax Crazy: The prisoner clearly demonstrates on the first day that he is psychologically unstable and presents a clear danger to everybody.
- Badass Boast: On the first day, the prisoner warns the boy that he will escape his cell in two days and kill everyone. If the boy visits the cell on the third day, the prisoner will prove it by escaping and then killing the boy's mother first.
- Bald of Evil: The prisoner is clearly as evil as they come and he does not have a single strand of hair on his head.
- Better to Die Than Be Killed: The coffee shop employee's motive for killing everyone in her workplace and then herself boils down to this. She decided that it would be better to die now than wait for Deadeus to destroy the world.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Played with in the case of the boy's mother. It turns that she is basically responsible for her husband's death. She does apologize to the boy on the third day for what is going through and tells him that she loves him. On the other hand, in the Jump/Final Ending, she asks a cult member if the boy had done it, and disturbingly seems to be fine with the fact that her son is dead.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Loved One Ending, Push Ending and the Jump/Final Ending. The Loved One Ending shows the boy and the girl sitting together to watch the end of the world, while making peace with the fact that there is nothing to be done. The Push Ending shows the boy waking up to find out that everybody is still alive, but he knows that he will have to deal with Deadeus again 15 years later. The Jump/Final Ending shows the boy dying, but he meets Deadeus, who is so impressed with his selfless sacrifice that it decides to spare the human race for the moment and make the boy the new Deadeus.
- Blank Book: There is a book whose pages are completely blank. You need to take this book in order to use it for a ritual and unlock the Push Ending and the Jump/Final Ending.
- Blasphemous Boast: The prisoner claims that when he gets out, no man or God is going to stop him from killing everybody.
- Blatant Lies: Some characters will engage in this. For example, on the first day, one child in the library will admit to looking for books about nightmares and then claim that they are doing it for no reason. That is an obvious lie, because just about every child in the village has had a bad nightmare.
- Blue and Orange Morality: In the Jump/Final Ending, Deadeus is ultimately revealed to operate on this.
- Body Horror: Deadeus's giant eye form is this. The Dad Ending shows the boy's father as a skeleton.
- Calling Card: In order to get the Flower Ending, the boy must kill 10 people and leave a flower with each corpse.
- Cassandra Truth: The boy tries to tell people about his nightmares, but only the other children seem to take it seriously. Given that some of the adults are members of a cult that worships the entity in his nightmares, there might be a reason for that.
- Catch Phrase: The boy's mother is fond of saying, "Who knows what tomorrow will bring!"
- Chekhov's Gun: The 10 sunflowers in the village will be very useful. The boy needs them to perform the Flower Ritual and get the Flower Ending. Alternatively, he can give them to the girl, which will result in getting a Special Flower from the girl and her getting a Full Heart.
- City with No Name: More precisely, "Village with No Name", but the same idea applies.
- Content Warnings: The game starts with this: "This game contains themes that may be disturbing to some players". The warning is warranted.
- Cosmic Horror Story: One image of the game shows Deadeus who is so huge it can easily wrap its tentacles around the Earth and the Moon. Beyond that, the Cliff Alone Ending strongly implies that Deadeus can destroy the world with very little effort. In addition, the Flower Ending and the Jump/Final Ending show that its motivations are not like those of a human. In the True Ending, it reveals that it does not take sides. Finally, in the Jump/Final Ending, the boy was unable to defeat Deadeus, but was able to impress Deadeus so much that it decided to make him the new Deadeus.
- Cross-Popping Veins: This symbol will appear above a character's head to indicate anger or outrage.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: If the prisoner escapes from jail on the third day, he will kill the boy's mother. It is not clear what he did to her, but he did not use a knife on her.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: If you want to get the Jump/Final Ending, you have no choice but to have the boy kill the girl and take her full heart, so that you can use it as part of a ritual.
- Cult: The boy will soon uncover the existence of a cult called The Sons of Deadeus that worships Deadeus and keeps it satiated every 15 years.
- Daylight Horror: While the boy and the other children experience nightmares at night, things like the boy stabbing people, the prisoner killing the boy's mother, the coffee shop employee killing people in her workplace and then herself take place in the daylight.
- Dead Man Writing: In the Dad Ending, the boy will find his father's corpse as well as writing intended for him.
- Determinator: The prisoner is this. The Sons of Deadeus can kick him out and confiscate his knife. He can get caught and locked up in jail. But make no mistake. He will escape and kill everyone if he is not killed first.
- Diary: The boy, the boy's best friend and the girl each have a diary. The diaries mostly talk about the nightmares that they are having.
- Dirty Coward: In the Push Ending, the boy pushes one of the cultists into the pit instead of jumping down himself. From the cult's perspective, the boy would be this.
- Disappeared Dad: The boy is living with his mother, but there is no father around. On the second day, the mother will unexpectedly ask the boy if he saw his father in his nightmares. In the Dad Ending, you get to find out that the boy's father is dead. He was locked up in a secret cave in the mountains, chained to a wall, and just left there to die. By the time the boy finds him, he is nothing but a skeleton.
- Dissonant Serenity: In the Jump/Final Ending, the boy's mother shows up at the pit asking the cultist if the boy had jumped into the pit. When the cultist tells her that he had done so, she simply turns around, says that she will see them again in the next 15 years and leaves. She seems to be taking the death of her son disturbingly well.
- Downer Ending: The Drowning Ending, Jail Ending, Cliff Alone Ending and the Thirty-Seven Ending. The Drowning Ending because the boy drowns himself. The Jail Ending because the boy will usually be locked up with the prisoner, who is almost certainly not going to let him live. The Cliff Alone Ending because the boy witnesses the end of the world, lamenting that he will never know what he could have done differently. Finally, the Thirty-Seven Ending because the boy kills almost everyone, goes insane trying to find the last human skin and it is implied that it was all for nothing.
- Dramatic Irony: If the boy stabs the Religious Studies teacher or stabs a man in front of the priest, the teacher and the priest will congratulate the boy for trying to perform the Flower Ritual. If you are actually trying to kill everybody in the village, then this trope will come into play.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: In the Jump/Final Ending, Deadeus explains to the boy that everyone has been doing this. They were supposed to just let Deadeus end the world, not kill people and offer them up to it like meat to a starving dog.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: The nightmares that the boy and rest of the children are having qualify as this.
- Driven to Suicide: In the Drowning Ending, the boy will go to the pier as soon as the second day after taking several heavy objects, jump into the water and drown. His reasoning is that it will stop the nightmares that have been plaguing him.
- Eldritch Abomination: Deadeus is essentially this. The Ending shows the creature shattering the sun as though it were a window, and poking its eye though the hole where the sun had been. The Flower Ending and Jump/Final Ending show Deadeus in the form of a humanoid with key-shaped markings covering its arms and having a keyhole for a face. The Jump/Final Ending also reveals that Deadeus lives at the edge of time.
- Establishing Character Moment: When the boy meets the prisoner in his cell on the first day, the prisoner is just repeating the number “37” over and over again. However, upon seeing the boy, he stops, goes right up to him and warns him in no uncertain terms that he will escape in two days and kill everyone in the village. A nasty piece of work, indeed.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Not that The Sons of Deadeus see themselves as evil, but they took the Sacrificial Knife away from the prisoner and his accomplice because they did want those two killing everybody.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: The coffee shop employee demonstrates this by poisoning everyone in her workplace and telling the boy that it would make a killing. Ouch.
- Eyeless Face: The boy's mother is shown with this face in his second nightmare.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: In its giant eye form, Deadeus has tentacles covered with eyes to go with the giant eye.
- Face Death with Dignity: In the Loved One Ending, the boy and the girl sit on the bench together at the mountain peak and calmly watch as Deadeus destroys the world on the third day. The Cliff Alone Ending is similar, except that the boy sits on the bench by himself and calmly watches the end of the world on the third day.
- Fade to White: Almost every ending in the game does this, except for the Loved One Ending.
- Finally Found the Body: You may have been wondering where the bodies of the people sacrificed to Deadeus have ended up. Well, when you perform a ritual at the headquarters of The Sons of Deadeus and go through the doors that open up, you will find a tunnel whose sides are filled with dozens upon dozens of human bodies.
- Foreshadowing:
- The Religious Studies teacher says on the first day that there is supposedly a series of rooms and tunnels that run beneath the church, even though no one has proven it.
- The church has a stained glass window depicting a circle with a keyhole in it. That is Deadeus's face.
- The beach has a cross on it, but it is an inverted cross. When you go into the secret room of the church and use the Mystery Key on the mechanism, the cross on top of it will flip over and become an inverted cross.
- One book in the library on the first day talks about Apocalypticism and it has "Hail Deadeus," scribbled on it.
- The missing boy's father mentions on the first day that his son was hanging around with a cult before he disappeared.
- On the second day, the boy's mother asks if his father was in his nightmare too. Interesting, considering that no one even mentioned the father until she did.
- On the second day, one book in the library will talk about a ritual called the Flower Blessing. The ritual requires the person invoking it to kill 10 people and place a flower on each corpse. The purpose of this is to satiate the deity known as Deadeus.
- In the third nightmare, a giant hand with key-shaped markings covering its arm comes through a hole and engulfs the boy and his bed. This is a hint of Deadeus's appearance as well as the fact that Deadeus wants the boy more than anyone else.
- Free-Range Children: The boy and the other children apparently can wander all over the village without adult supervision or concern.
- Friend to All Living Things: Deadeus is implied to be this, because it is holding a rooster in the Flower Ending and a fox in the Jump/Final Ending.
- Genki Girl: The girl in Geology Class is one. She enthusiastically cheers at getting a trowel to dig up meteorites. She also burst into tears when the boy digs up the meteorite first, much to his chagrin.
- Geometric Magic:
- In the Flower Ending, the ten flowers will form a decagram with Deadeus in the centre.
- There is a pentagram with a pedestal at each point in the headquarters of The Sons of Deadeus. The boy must place the Special Flower, the Blank Book, the Full (Human) Heart, the (Best Friend's) Remains and the Meteor on the pedestals. Performing this ritual will unlock the doors leading to the sacrificial pit, where you can unlock the Push Ending and the Jump/Final Ending.
- Giant Eye of Doom: Deadeus introduces itself in this form, complete with tentacles covered with eyes, at the beginning of the game.
- Girl Next Door: In the case of the girl, literally and figuratively.
- Gotta Catch Them All: There are 10 flowers in the game and you must collect them all. Doing so is essential to unlocking the Flower Ending, Loved One Ending, Push Ending and the Jump/Final Ending.
- Gotta Kill Them All: The boy tries very hard to invoke this in the Thirty-Seven Ending. However, once he has killed seemingly everyone, he loses his mind because he starts obsessing over the fact that he might have missed one.
- Green-Eyed Monster: One of The Sons of Deadeus reveals that he is jealous that the boy has actually seen Deadeus, while the cultist has never even caught of glimpse of the being. At the sacrificial pit, another one of The Sons of Deadeus admits that he is jealous that the boy gets to sacrifice himself and meet Deadeus and that he wishes that he could be in his place.
- Guide Dang It: A number of people have reported getting stuck at the part where you have to take the Sacrificial Knife while one of The Sons of Deadeus is guarding it. It turns out that you have wait until the cultist turns his back on the knife and then click on it.
- Happily Married: There is one couple in the village who have this dynamic.
- Harmful to Minors: The boy and the other children are having nightmares about the end of the world, being sacrificed by a cult and other disturbing things. The boy discovers the skeleton of his father in the Dad Ending. Not only that, but the boy gets to witness the aftermath of the coffee shop employee's murders as well as said employee drinking poison and dying.
- He Who Fights Monsters: In the Thirty-Seven Ending, the boy kills seemingly everybody in the village. In other words, he did what the prisoner was intending to do and ended up just as bad as him.
- Heart Symbol: This symbol will appear above a character's head to indicate affection or love.
- Horror Realism: If you take out the supernatural parts, you would get a story in which members of community will do anything, including murder, to save themselves from the end of the world, a coffee shop employee who carries out a murder-suicide at her workplace, a prisoner who intends to go on a killing spree the minute he escapes, and a cult that is not only willing to recruit a child as a member, but is also willing to convince the boy that he must jump down a pit and die to save everybody.
- Humanoid Abomination: Deadeus is revealed to be this in the Ending and the Jump/Final Ending. It resembles a human, albeit with key-shaped markings covering its arms and has a keyhole where its face should be.
- Hypocrite: If there are two men with the priest in church and the boy tries to kill one of the men, the priest will call the police on him. However, if there is only man with the priest in church and the boy kills that man, the priest will congratulate him for trying to perform the Flower Ritual. Clearly, the priest has inconsistent standards when it comes to killing.
- I Did What I Had to Do: In the Thirty-Seven Ending, the boy will end up telling himself this after killing 36 people. If he did not, he would not be able to live with himself.
- It Can't Be Helped: If the boy talks to the priest on the first day about his nightmares, the priest will tell him this.
- I Have Come Too Far: In the Thirty-Seven Ending, the boy does not say it, but he does say that he has to find the last skin. Considering that he killed 36 out of 37 people, he clearly feels that he has come too far to stop.
- Jerkass: The man looking for the Blank Book at the library acts rude to the boy and everybody else. The librarian will even comment on the man's rudeness on the third day.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: In the Thirty-Seven Ending, the boy essentially does this by seemingly killing everyone in the village. While killing 10 people and putting a flower on each corpse to prevent the end of the world in the Flower Ending was questionable to say the least, killing everybody was unquestionably evil.
- Kill 'Em All: The Thirty-Seven Ending is the most unambiguous about this. In that ending, the boy has killed seemingly everyone and just has to find the last human skin.
- Kill the Cutie: In order to get the Jump/Final Ending, the boy has to kill the girl to get her Full Heart.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Smuckey's owner considered him his best friend and was very upset that he had to bury him away from the graveyard next to the church.
- Knife Nut: The prisoner is very fond of his Sacrificial Knife. So much, in fact, that The Sons of Deadeus had to kick him out and confiscate his knife. Meanwhile, the boy proves to be disturbingly proficient with a knife.
- Knight of Cerebus: Not that the game is happy and light-hearted to begin with, but the prisoner stands out as one. He warns the boy on the first day that he will escape his cell in two days and kill everybody. His warning is not a bluff. There is nothing funny about the prisoner at all.
- Laughing Mad: On the third day, the boy's best friend will start doing this as a result of the trauma from his nightmares.
- Legacy Character: In the Jump/Final Ending, the boy becomes the new Deadeus.
- Light Is Not Good: The cult called The Sons of Deadeus has its members wear white robes. However, this cult has sacrificed people, including children, to the being that they worship once every 15 years.
- Limited Special Collectors Ultimate Edition: There are 250 copies of the Collector Edition of this game, and each one includes a sealed collector box, a double CD music album with an obi-strip, a game box with alternative artwork, a clear game cartridge, a clear cartridge protector, an instruction booklet, an oversized sticker sheet, a 24x36cm poster (folded), a 44-page art book, a Deadeus enamel pin, an IZMA logo enamel pin and a hand-numbered certificate of authenticity.
- Madness Mantra: First, there is "Thirty seven…Thirty seven…Thirty seven…" uttered by the prisoner. The boy himself will starting uttering this in the Thirty-Seven Ending. Then there is the book in the library on the third day that simply repeats "Haildeadeus," over and over from beginning to end.
- Meaningful Name: "Deadeus" is essentially "Dead" and "Deus" put together. "Dead" is self-explanatory, and "Deus" is the Latin word for "god" or "deity". In other words, "Deadeus" is a "god of the dead" or "god of death".
- Mind Rape: The nightmares that the children have every night seem to have this effect on them. The boy's best friend, in particular, is so traumatized by them that he declares that he will never sleep again.
- Missing Mom: The girl's mother and the boy's best friend's mother are nowhere to be seen. If the fate of the boy's father is any indication, the two mothers may have been sacrifices as well.
- Motive Rant: The coffee shop employee gives one for killing her employer and the customer on the third day, saying, "You came!! I made my new drink! I dare say it's gone over well! You could say it will make a killing! …heh… Look… None of you would have understood. I was so sick of all this that I decided that it was high time to skip the line and join Deadeus early. You're sure I couldn't tempt you with a drink?… (Silence) No?… Well, I can't say I'm not disappointed… …but…Cheers!! *GULP* *GULP* *GULP* (Falls over) *ACCKKK* *Cough* *Cough* …Hail… …Deadeus… …."
- Mr. Exposition: The Religious Studies teacher talks about the Church on the first day, including the possibility that there is a series of rooms and tunnels that run beneath it. In addition, the General Studies teacher talks about the history of the village.
- Multiple Endings: There are 11 endings in this game. Unlocking all of them will take a while.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: In the Thirty-Seven Ending, the boy tries to kill everyone in the village out of the belief that murder is best way to solve the problem facing him. This is not played for laughs at all.
- Murder Makes You Crazy: In the Thirty-Seven Ending, after the boy seemingly kills everyone in the village, he becomes obsessed with trying to find the last remaining person, and starts repeating "Thirty seven…," just like the prisoner.
- Murder-Suicide: On the third day, the coffee shop employee reveals that this was her plan all along. The boy comes into the coffee shop to find the owner and the customer dead. The employee rants about her motives and offers the boy her new drink (actually poison). The boy refuses, resulting in the employee shrugging, drinking the poison and dying.
- Musicalis Interruptus: When the boy stabs someone with the knife, the theme song playing in that area will halt suddenly.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In the Thirty-Seven Ending, the boy has this reaction after he has killed 36 people. Unfortunately, it is too late for him to stop at that point.
- Necessarily Evil: The Sons of Deadeus do not enjoy sacrificing people to the being that they worship, but if they do not, then Deadeus will destroy the world.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the Flower Ending, the boy has killed 10 people and expects that it will appease Deadeus. Unfortunately, Deadeus is tired of this entire cycle of killing and sacrificing, so it spares the boy…and takes everyone else. Oops.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The prisoner's accomplice gives the boy the Mysterious Key on the first day and shows him the entrance to the headquarters of The Sons of Deadeus, which is what the Mysterious Key is for. This would allow the boy to infiltrate The Sons of Deadeus and get his hands on the Sacrificial Knife. It seems that the accomplice was hoping that the boy would get the knife and give it to him or the prisoner, which would enable them to kill everybody in the village. However, as the endings show, the boy can turn the tables on those two or even kill them off. The accomplice probably should not have given the boy that key.
- Nightmare Face: In the boy's second nightmare, his mother appears with a face that is missing eyes and and has a bright ring on her forehead.
- No Name Given: Apart from Deadeus and Smuckey (a cat), none of the characters have a name.
- Not the Fall That Kills You: In the Push Ending and the Jump/Final Ending, it is revealed that The Sons of Deadeus sacrifice people by pushing them into a very deep pit. It turns out that it is deep enough that anyone who falls in it will die when they hit the bottom.
- Obliviously Evil: The Flower Ending and the Jump/Final Ending reveal that Deadeus is this. It created the world and thought that the human race would be fine with it destroying the world when the time came. Unfortunately, it did not take into account that humans would do all sorts of things to avoid such a fate.
- Offing the Offspring: In the Dad Ending, the boy has killed his mother and discovered his father's remains. The boy wonders if his mother had planned to do to him what she likely did to his father. Having said that, the mother never tries to kill the boy herself.
- Oh Crap: In the Push Ending, that one cultist will have this reaction should the boy decide to push him into the sacrificial pit.
- Outliving One's Offspring: This will happen to the mother if the boy dies in the Drowning Ending and the Jump/Final Ending.
- Passing the Torch: In the Jump/Final Ending, Deadeus hands its position over to the boy, calling him the new Deadeus.
- Pet the Dog: The coffee shop employee does not force the boy to drink her poison after killing everyone in her workplace. She just asks him if he wants some, and when he refuses, she respects his decision and drinks the poison herself.
- Police Are Useless: The police are shown to be rather incompetent. For example, a father is trying to find his missing son, and the police have not made any progress at all with finding him. However, there is the possibility that some of the police are members of The Sons of Deadeus who have sacrificed the son and are trying to prevent the truth from coming out. In addition, when the prisoner escapes the jail, the police make no effort to go after him. Considering that the prisoner is armed with a knife and stated that he wants to kill everyone in the village….
- Posthumous Character: In the Dad Ending, the boy's father is confirmed to be this.
- Precision F-Strike: The boy's deceased father is the only character to write down "Fuck Deadeus."
- Properly Paranoid: One of the adults in the church is convinced that something terrible is happening underneath the church and even points out a wall where he hears an odd noise. He is right. There is a series of rooms and tunnels under the church that serve as the headquarters of The Sons of Deadeus.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The prisoner warns the boy that he will kill everyone in the village, and emphasizes his point with "ALL. OF. YOU."
- Pyrrhic Victory: The Flower Ending seems to be this. The good news is that the boy successfully convinced Deadeus to spare him. The bad news is that Deadeus decided not to spare anyone else. It may be a victory in the sense that the boy is still alive, but he is not happy that it is all gone.
- Rage Against the Heavens: On the third day, the girl will declare that Deadeus can shove it. In addition, the stained glass window in the church has been damaged by someone. Finally, the boy's deceased father wrote in his last message, "Fuck Deadeus."
- Reality Ensues: The Jail Ending is the result of this trope. As the boy finds out the hard way, when you pull a knife on someone with intent to kill in front of multiple people in church, you will get caught and you will get sent to jail.
- Reality Warper: There are hints that Deadeus is this. The biggest one is that it can shatter the sun like a window and come through the resulting hole to destroy the world.
- Religious Horror: There is a cult called The Sons of Deadeus that worships Deadeus as a god and engages in human sacrifice to keep it satiated. In addition, these sacrifices include children and they are performed once every 15 years.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Smuckey's owner is right to be distrustful of the church, but not because they refused to let him bury his cat in the graveyard as he assumes.
- Room Full of Crazy: When the prisoner escapes on the third day, the boy can go into his cell and find that the wall is covered with scribbles of the number 37.
- Rule of Three: The game takes place over three days and the children have three nightmares.
- Sanity Slippage: The boy's best friend starts out as sane and frightened from his nightmares. By the third day, he becomes a shut-in, declares that he will never sleep again, and breaks into mad laughter.
- Save Point: The diary in the boy's room acts as this.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Leave Town Ending is this in a nutshell. The boy can choose to leave the village as soon as the second day, and will comment that he does not have a particular destination in mind, but figures anywhere else has to be better.
- Seen It All: In the Jump/Final Ending, Deadeus reveals this sort of mentality. Then again, that is the natural conclusion of living for eons and seeing what humans will do to survive so many times. However, Deadeus is very impressed that the boy willingly died for everyone, implying that this is the first time that it has ever seen this.
- Self-Made Orphan: The boy can kill his mother once he has acquired the knife.
- Serial Killer: The prisoner states from the beginning that he plans to kill everyone. In the Thirty-Seven Ending, the boy will become one himself. Of course, technically speaking, that would make both of them spree killers, but the idea is clear.
- Shoot the Dog: From a narrative viewpoint, the boy killing the girl and taking her full heart was probably intended to be this.
- Slept Through the Apocalypse: The boy can simply go back to bed and sleep on the third day. This leads to the Sleep Ending, where he will sleep peacefully for the first time in days. However, it is implied that he died with everyone else.
- Smash to Black: The Loved One Ending uses this before Deadeus breaks through the sun.
- So Proud of You: Disturbingly, the priest will say something along these lines when he witnesses the boy stabbing and killing someone in church.
- Stage Whisper: On the second day, the priest will start doing this when the boy talks to him. It reveals that he knows a lot more than he is telling.
- Suddenly Shouting: On the first day, the prisoner says to the boy, "Who are you…WHICH ONE OF 'EM SENT YOU!……I get out of here in two days, kid……and I'm gonna kill of you…Y'HEAR!? ALL. OF. YOU. Two days, kid…. You best get out of here. Cuz when I get out…ain't no man or God who'll stop me…."
- Surfer Dude: The beach house guy seems to have the attitude down pat.
- Sweat Drop: This symbol will appear above a character's head to indicate confusion, exasperation, embarrassment, and so on.
- The Cutie: The girl is sweet and adorable, and she really likes it when you give her flowers.
- The Dreaded:
- Deadeus causes everybody to shake in their boots. Being able to destroy the world with very little effort will do that.
- Everybody is scared of the prisoner – at least the ones who know about him. The Sons of Deadeus reveal that they had to take the Sacrificial Knife away from him, because they do not want him killing everybody in the village. When the boy swipes the knife, one of the cultists will express great fear that it might have ended up back in the hands of the prisoner.
- The End of the World as We Know It: This is what Deadeus wants to do, and everybody has a different reaction to it. The game does not go into detail, but several endings do show Deadeus shattering the sun like a window and causing the ground to shake. All but two of the endings show or imply that Deadeus destroys the world.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy:
- When the boy goes into the headquarters of The Sons of Deadeus for the first time, the first cultist that he meets will be alarmed and then breathe a sigh of relief when he sees that the boy has a Mysterious Key. According to him, only inductees may carry that key. That is a strange assumption to make, considering that The Sons of Deadeus are all adults and have no child inductees.
- One of The Sons of Deadeus is in charge of guarding the Sacrificial Knife and making sure no one takes it. However, he has a habit of turning his back and giving someone an opportunity to swipe it, which is exactly what the boy does.
- The Hero Dies: In the Drowning Ending and the Jump/Final Ending.
- The Insomniac: On the third day, the boy's best friend is so traumatized by his nightmares that he declares that he will never sleep again.
- The Library of Babel: The Library has many different types of books, such as books about nightmares, books about Apocalypticism, books about black holes and so on.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: The boy basically has to do everything himself. None of the other children, who are suffering from nightmares like he is, help him out. Certainly, they give advice and ideas on where to go and what to do next, but that is the extent of it. The boy ends up having to perform the Flower Ritual and the Offering Ritual himself.
- The Runaway: The boy becomes this in the Leave Town Ending. He is so desperate to escape the situation in the village that he does not care where he ends up.
- The Starscream: The prisoner and the Mystery Key giver were members of The Sons of Deadeus, but they wanted to kill everyone in the village instead of just sacrificing a few people every 15 years. Because of this, The Sons of Deadeus kicked both of them out of the headquarters and confiscated the prisoner's Sacrificial Knife. However, both of them are still plotting to achieve their goal.
- Time Abyss: Deadeus is revealed to be this in the Jump/Final Ending. It explains that it has been alive for eons.
- Town with a Dark Secret: The village may look nice on the surface, but it has a dark secret. Part of it is that the village has one of highest mortality rates of all the villages. The other part is that the village has a cult called The Sons of Deadeus that not only worships Deadeus, but also sacrifices people, including children, to it. On top on that, the sacrifice takes place once every 15 years.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The boy winds up engaging in this over the course of the game. He can kill his own mother with a knife, and call her death a small price to pay. As a matter of fact, he can kill everybody in the village with said knife, if you so choose. He can also dig up a grave and take the remains of a cat with him.
- True Neutral: In the Jump/Final Ending, Deadeus reveals itself to be this. It turns outs that it is on nobody's side, and that it just wanted everybody to let it destroy the world so that it could move on to other things. Since it has been stuck in a never-ending cycle, it has decided to make the boy the new Deadeus so that it can finally retire.
- Visible Silence: The ellipsis symbol will appear above a character's head to emphasize that they are not speaking.
- Walking Spoiler: The very existence of the boy's father, or rather what is left of him, is a spoiler.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Sons of Deadeus qualify as this, because while sacrificing people, including children, is a heinous thing to do, it figures that if they do not do this, everybody else will be killed.
- Wham! Episode: The short version is that the third day is this in a nutshell. The longer version is that a number of major events happen on the third day. First, if the boy visits the prisoner in jail, he will escape and he will kill the boy's mother first. Second, the coffee shop employee will kill her boss, the customer and finally herself. Finally, the boy's decisions will decide the ending, which may result in the end of the world or even becoming the new Deadeus.
- What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: After witnessing the death of the coffee shop employee on the third day, the boy can look over the bodies of the employee, the owner and the customer, and remark, "What a waste."
- What the Hell, Hero?: In the Jail Ending, the boy ends up in jail, and the policeman will ask him what he was thinking.
- While Rome Burns: This happens in the Cliff Alone Ending and the Loved One Ending. One big difference is that the boy seems more regretful in the Cliff Alone Ending, whereas the boy and the girl seem more at peace with themselves in the Loved One Ending. In both endings, they have decided to watch Deadeus destroying the world without panicking.
- White Void Room: The boy meets Deadeus at this sort of location in the Flower Ending and the Jump/Final Ending. Deadeus calls it the edge of time in the Jump/Final Ending.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: In the Jump/Final Ending, Deadeus reveals that it is suffering from this. Considering that it has lived for eons, watching the cycle repeat itself every 15 years countless times, that is quite understandable. In fact, it wants to retire so badly that it is happy to appoint the boy as the new Deadeus.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: In the Loved One Ending, the girl demonstrates this. She points out that if the world was going to end, letting it take its course might be better than trying to stop it by doing awful things. She clearly has more wisdom than many of the other adults.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: In the Thirty-Seven Ending, the boy becomes this. He kills seemingly everybody in the village, believing that he is saving them from Deadeus. He then loses his mind trying to find the last human skin.
- Would Hurt a Child: Not only would The Sons of Deadeus sacrifice at least one child to Deadeus, but they have also done it more than once.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The coffee shop employee on the third day was willing to kill the adults in the coffee shop, but does not force the boy to drink poison.
Hail Deadeus