Pictured from left to right: Reko Yabusame, Sou Hiyori, Kai Satou, Q-Taro Burgerburg, Jou "Joe" Tazuna, Sara Chidouin, Keiji Shinogi, Gin Ibushi, Kazumi Mishima, Nao Egokoro, and Kanna Kizuchi.
Not pictured: plot armor.
Not pictured: plot armor.
"Just a random question, but do you know what a majority vote is?"
Sara Chidouin is an Ordinary High-School Student who attends the same school as her best friend, Jou "Joe" Tazuna, but at one point Sara begins to be stalked by an unknown person every day on the way home from school. After waking up late from class one night, Sara makes her way home escorted by Joe, only to find her mother completely unconscious on the floor and her house broken into. While Sara goes upstairs to check if her dad's alright and Joe phones for the police, both are abducted. The next thing they know, they find themselves strapped to a table with only five minutes to find an escape - or be crushed to death by the tables folding on top of them.
After barely escaping from the death trap, Sara and Joe soon find themselves in a facility trapped alongside nine other people, and are given an ambiguous task to piece together the parts of a doll for their next assignment. Left with little alternative or escape, Sara and Joe discover that whomever brought them here wants them dead, and things very quickly turn out not to be as they seem.
Described as a 'retro horror talky-action game', Nankidai's Your Turn to Die -Death Game By Majority- (aka Kimi ga Shine) is a freeware game made in RPG Maker MV that follows Sara, Joe, and nine others who find themselves trapped in a mysterious place filled with puzzles, mini games and paranoia. The game can be best summed up in tandem as a nod to other Visual Novels featuring Deadly Games, such as Danganronpa and Zero Escape, with a smattering addition of Darker and Edgier coupled with plenty of Psychological Horror to it; as the eleven individuals soon end up learning, the people who brought them into this game have tasked them with playing a Social Deduction Game that inevitably ends with each round having at least two people dying at the end of it, if not more; one whom happened to draw the Sacrifice card, and the other whom happened to be voted by majority rule to be the one's whose turn it is to die. What soon follows beyond that is a gradual exploration about the gradually-degrading sanity of all whom continue to play the game, a massive-spanning conspiracy that set this kind of game up before, and the gradual realization among them that whoever their captors are, they're dead-set on forcing the survivors to decide who lives and who dies by majority rule.
A Spin-Off side-game called Your Time to Shine: Island Existence has also been developed, which is a resource managing Alternate Universe with Multiple Endings. The current version is a "test" version that only allows Mishima and Kai to be selected as playable characters, but more characters are planned for future versions. Please note that Your Time to Shine contains spoilers up to the end of Chapter 3-1B for the main game.
Both games can be found here
, where they can be downloaded or played on a browser for free. On 28 August 2022, it was announced that the game would be released on Steam, with it releasing in an early access state on February 20th, 2023. While the Steam version is paid, the original download and in-browser versions remain free, with the final chapter being added to those sometime after the Steam release.
Tropes found throughout this series include:
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Your Turn To Die
- Adaptation Expansion: The manga version of the game shows a bit more of Sara and Joe's school life before the game, and adding a bit of Sara's home life situation and more of the stalker she had been putting up with for some time.
- Aesop: Surprisingly for a game around murder, horror, and loads of trauma, it's Humans Are Good. Throughout the game, it does out of its way to show that even though Humans Are Flawed with the main cast arguing, misleading each other or plotting against one another, there is kindness. For example, Joe, who attempted a plan to only save himself and Sara, ends up unable to commit to it due to wanting to make sure the others are good people, and dies without any ire once he realizes they are. Sou spends most of the first two chapters being an antagonist only out for himself, only to switch gears once he finds a potential way out of the game and ends up begging for the life of his Morality Pet. Q-Taro, a realist who is willing to sacrifice the weak to save his own hide, later comes to protect others even at the cost of his own life. And many other examples throughout the game show that humans, even when put in terrible situations where their lives are at stake, can come to care for others and be their best selves for the sake of others.
- Always Close: Played with in Chapter 2-1's climax: while you can't run out of time for the first phases of the game, and will always end up with enough time to solve the final puzzle, this does not mean that you're free and clear. You can fail at that point by running out the clock if you aren't careful, resulting in a split that leads to Reko getting killed, but Alice surviving.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Inverted - Everyone's portraits have unnaturally pure white skintones, except in CGs, where they have more natural skintones, but remain extremely pale, in extreme contrast to their wildly varied hair colors and vibrant, almost EGA graphics-inspired color coordination.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different:
- The intro sequence, revisited at the beginning of Chapter 2-2, is from the point of view of Sou.
- You assume control of Joe for the first escape sequence.
- One part of 3-1B is played through the perspective of Keiji.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- There's a lot of save files and an ability to save at nearly any point of the game, which means it's very easy to perform Save Scumming and either undo mistakes or take alternate actions that wouldn't have been a thought before. Chapter 2-1 encourages the latter, as it's the only way you could either get personal information about Nao, Reko, Gin and Q-Taro, or do Alice's sidequest or social events with other participants that expands on their character.
- If you start Chapter 3-1B on a new save file, it will assume that Hayasaka and Anzu were saved in their respective "battles", so that the player is not locked out of any of their events or dialogue. It also gives players a chance to save Hayasaka at the Banquet that they might have missed had Hayasaka died in their original save for 3-1A.
- Since nearly all of the Dummies can be killed prior to the end of Chapter 3-1, their contributions to puzzles will generally be useless, making puzzles less noisy if they're dead. If their contributions are important, they will be reassigned to a living character. This is similarly applied to the cases of Mutually Exclusive Party Members in Chapter 3-1 by making Reko/Alice and Sou/Kanna have identical contributions to the puzzles, since by that point the player can only have one or the other in each pair alive.
- Anyone Can Die: And we do mean anyone - men, women, children, nobody is safe from this, especially not the protagonist who only lived this long thanks to Plot Armor flimsier than paper. And in some cases, your choices can determine who lives and who dies. It is majority rule, after all...
- Back from the Dead: In a way. In Chapter 3-1, all the players who died in the First Trial - sans Kugie and Megumi - are resurrected as dolls.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: A particularly cruel example with the reveal of how everyone came to the Death Game in Chapter 3-1. The real Sou Hiyori, who'd gone around and met with everyone, offered to grant their wishes in exchange for them signing their names on consent forms. For example, Kugie wished Kanna could meet her real family. Sou delivered on that by dragging the two of them and Shin Tsukimi, the brother who she'd never met, into the Death Game.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Serves as a final act of defiance for Kai, who slits his wrists rather than letting Sue Miley execute him.
- Bittersweet Ending: The first named ending in the game, fittingly titled Massacre, with a heavy emphasis on bitter. Sara and Nao escape the game, with Nao promising to always be by Sara's side from now on, but it comes at the cost of everyone else's lives.
- Blessed with Suck: Whoever draws the Sage card can identify the Keymaster and stop them from being sacrificed and taking everyone down with them, but there's nothing stopping the Sage themself from being sacrificed if everyone knows who they are. Sara deducing that Kai is the true Sage is what gets him killed.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Kanna becomes the victim of this after witnessing the death of Mishima, wetting herself in her terror, and needs to have clean clothes brought to her. Later, (in a blink-and-you'll miss it moment) at the end of Chapter 2, Nao ends up wetting herself during her execution. Given that her waist is being crushed in a vice, this is to be expected.
- But Thou Must!:
- At the end of Chapter 2, you theoretically have four choices on who to vote for: vote for Sou or Kanna and kill them, vote for Nao and kill everyone so the two of you can escape, or vote for Keiji and get both Sou and Kanna killed. The game will not accept you attempting to take the fourth option.
- In Chapter 3, after being offered tea by Maple (the Obstructor doll), you can choose whether to drink it or not. The situation does seem suspicious, but if you try not drinking it, Sara will state that she's unable to resist Maple's pressuring smile, and in the end you have no choice but to drink it. Thankfully, seemingly nothing bad occurs as a result.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: The name and percentage sheets acquired in chapter 1-2 keep becoming directly relevant to the rest of the game. First, they prove vital to identifying Alice Yabusame, in the process casting suspicion away from Sara as a potential murderer and onto Keiji as a possible liar. Then, in chapter 2-1, Miley comes into Sara's room late one night, giving her a more complete version of the list with more cards, all intact. These aren't important for the rest of 2-1, but come 2-2, are completely integral to the discussions of the second main game, including the motivations of several characters.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The bar lists off the names of which participants can legally drink versus those who cannot. There are more names listed there than people you meet in the main hall, and some of those individuals prove important later...
- Choice-and-Consequence System: Your choices can cause different people to die, leading to some parts of the story going differently.
- Whether you succeed at the Means of Rescue in 2-1 and push the Fake Reko to her death affects which of the Yabusame siblings dies. If Alice survives, you learn more about the real Sou Hiyori.
- In 2-2, your vote in the Main Game affects whether Kanna or Sou lives. After the Main Game, Sara will either get full closure with Joe or forget him entirely. The tone of 3-1 changes dramatically depending on your choice, and the surviving Yabusame sibling dies if Sou is still alive.
- In 3-1, failing the minigames can cause one of the dolls to die per game. In some cases, this makes subsequent minigames or discussions harder.
- Cloning Blues: No matter how they go, the Fake Reko's last moments alive after learning the truth of her existence are... not very good.
- Computer Equals Monitor: The Monitor Room includes the main computer and nine monitors that house A.I.s of the candidates. The investigation of a broken monitor reveals that A.I.s are directly stored on the monitor. Though you can buy candidates' A.I.s, that's implied to be a mere access key because disabling the security measures causes them to all appear.
- Controllable Helplessness: The game offers you a chance to save Joe through Button Mashing. However, this is only a Hope Spot. His life will still eventually drain to zero and Miley will taunt you for prolonging his suffering.
- A cruel twist on this trope happens later during Nao's execution; you're given an instant death switch that will immediately kill Nao and end her suffering, but Nao refuses to allow the player to push the button, so you're forced to sit there and watch Nao slowly be crushed to death by a vice.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: As expected for this sort of story, every execution is nothing short of horrifying, described and shown in excruciating detail.
- Cutting Off the Branches: If you start Chapter 3-1B on a fresh save, the game will assume you succeeded in certain fights in 3-1A that would have killed Hayasaka and Anzu if you failed, having them still be alive.
- Deadly Game: The Main Game is Exactly What It Says on the Tin: the group votes on one person who they think should die. It's divided into a 70-minute-long preliminary round, where they debate on and select a group that seems the most suspicious or least cooperative, then a 20-minute final round where one person of that group is selected to die. Of course, to make things harder, each member is also randomly assigned one of four roles.
- Commoner - A normal player. Has no unique abilities.
- The Keymaster - If the Keymaster is voted to die, then everyone else will also die with them. This will happen even if there's a tie for first, as the Keymaster role takes priority.
- The Sage - Knows who the Keymaster is through divination, but can't lie about the results. They can also use divination outside of the Main Game itself.
- The Sacrifice - Whoever is selected to die, the sacrifice will also die with them. However, if the Sacrifice is chosen or there's a tie for first (excluding the Keymaster), then they'll be allowed to escape the game with one person of their choosing at the cost of everyone else. They also get two votes during the game itself.
- Death of a Child:
- Multiple casualties of the First Trial were children, including Kanna's sister Kugie.
- It's entirely possible for the player to cause Kanna's death at the climax of 2-2.
- There's also the matter of Posthumous Character Hinako, whose death can be witnessed by watching the related footage.
- In the "Massacre" ending, Kanna and Gin die along with the others when Sara and Nao escape.
- Decided by One Vote: What the second Main Game ends up coming down to: Sara's vote can either break the tie between Sou and Kanna, or cause another tie by voting for Nao.
- Defiant to the End: Seen with how Kai responds to being sacrificed. Can also happen if the player chooses to vote for Sou at the end of 2-2.
- Dirty Coward: Q-taro, despite being the biggest and strongest member of the cast, is one of the quickest to distrust the others and suggest screwing them over for his own benefit, to the point of abandoning everyone else to die if he gets enough tokens to buy an escape ticket. He needs to be shamed for this at a few points in order to cooperate.
- Disc-One Final Boss:
- Early in the game, Sara's stalker is set up as a menacing figure and clear threat. However, not only does he die at the climax of 1-2, it's later revealed that he was Good All Along, and was thrown into the game after the villains discovered this. Meanwhile, over the course of the first Main Game, Sou Hiyori is revealed to be a far more active and dangerous threat... But he can also pull a Redemption Equals Death on one route. If kept around, however, he seems to declare Then Let Me Be Evil instead. Though even then, across the next half-chapter, he doesn't actually do all that much evil, while the route he's on, if anything, has circumstances that show Sara as the most dangerous player.
- Every time a probable Big Bad has been set up among the Floor Masters, they haven't lasted either. Gashu Satou, Kai's father, introduces himself at the end of chapter 2-1, is built up by his son's notes as a truly dangerous and cunning man in a very high place in the organization, and shoots himself during the second Main Game. The real Sou Hiyori, then, is also set up in 2-2, properly introduced at the very start of 3-1, where one of the most ongoing subplots of the chapter is learning that he not only faked his death, but has been a personally damaging part of basically every single player's lives in the game, proving himself rapidly as a shameless and deeply cunning Hate Sink. He's also killed at the end of 3-1, fatally Out-Gambitted by Q-Taro and Mai at the Banquet he'd thought he'd rigged to ensure his survival.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect:
- In order to save the life of Alice, you actually have to fail the final section of 2-1, though you do get one last chance in giving up without pushing Fake Reko to her death. This, however, costs the real Reko her life. Even more interestingly (and in the spirit of this trope), of the options, this "failure" route actually has a moderate amount more content and plot information revealed, with nothing comparable really given on the "success" route.
- Fittingly enough, in the same chapter as the aforementioned, a pretty strong in-universe example exists. The Final Attraction has the player who did the worst at the sub-game at risk of being shot up with increasingly lethal shots of deadly venom, with the highest-ranking able to switch themselves out for them to end the game, at risk of their own life. The three second-worst ranking players are placed in the Impression Room, where they need to potentially push one of their own to their death to end the game in the top-ranked player's spot. The safest place to fall during that game is between second and fifth place.
- Drowning Pit: The boxing ring puzzle in 3-1A seems to be a lava pit, but Sara can observe that the liquid isn't lava. The group will still drown if the liquid fills up the room, resulting in a game over.
- Dwindling Party:
- While the player's choices can influence who exactly lives and dies, the group's numbers continue to gradually fall. By the end of Chapter 3-1, the only survivors are Sara, Keiji, Gin, and the player's choice of Sou alone or Kanna with Reko or Alice.
- In Chapter 3-1, the minigames and/or the banquet lead to the Dummies getting picked off one by one. In the end, only one of Mai, Hayasaka, or Kurumada can remain intact but dormant alongside a Doll of the recently deceased Q-Taro.
- Dying Smirk: In the second Main Game, just when the characters think they've won an extension, Gashu shoots himself in the head to crush their hopes, flashing a smile at Sara and the others.
- Easily Forgiven: In-universe, this is an enforced trope for the most part, since the survivors need to cooperate with each other to have the best chance of at least one of them escaping alive.
- However, defied when it comes to Ranmaru, if you take a route that results in him murdering one of the Yabusame siblings. Everyone in the group chews him out for his actions, and afterwards almost none of them will even talk to him, let alone trust him.
- Episodic Game: Each of the game's chapters is released in two distinct "parts," released every six or so months since 2017. When the game is complete, there will presumably be three of these two-part chapters.
- Establishing Series Moment: Your Turn To Die's brightly colored character art and backgrounds are at odds for a story about a death game, and the story begins tamely with the characters all coming to be comfortable with each other. This is brought to a gruesome end by Mishima's death. The floor master Sue Miley asks everyone to participate in a practice version of the Main Game and assures everyone that this one won't be lethal. Everyone decides to vote for themselves just in case. Then it's revealed that Mishima got the most votes, and that Sue Miley was lying. As the first to be executed, Mishima is decapitated by virtue of his collar turning white hot and burning through his neck. The characters' trauma and horror from this is played completely straight while the player is left to wonder who voted for Mishima, the practice game thus setting the tone for the cruel executions and backstabbing to come.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- The optional "bath" scene in 2-1 features the gamemakers allowing the participants a bath and a change of clothes, since it's obviously been a while since the participants have had either.
- In the 2-2 Main Game, absolutely everyone is horrified at Nao's announcement that she and Sara can escape the game if Sara votes for her. But if the player actually chooses to go through with it, then no one directs their anger at Nao herself; they direct it at Sara for casting the vote that makes it possible, recognizing that while Nao's gambit was literally the only chance she had to live and thus born out of desperation, Sara choosing to vote for her is just Sara choosing to condemn them all to die so she can escape. If the player doesn't vote for Nao, then Nao herself even says that she didn't want to have to betray everyone, and the other survivors are understanding.
- Exact Words:
- The Floor Masters in general and Safalin in particular like to use this, since per their code, they aren't allowed to outright lie to the participants about information relevant to the game if asked directly. A few cases in point:
- During the introductions on the third floor, Safalin introduces herself as the "Vice Floor Master" for the floor. She never says that the co-Floor Master she's referring to is Ranger; she's actually referring to Gashu. If you read closely, Ranger never actually calls himself a Floor Master, either; he introduces himself as "The Dressup Doll" instead.
- When asked who ordered her to show hospitality to the participants, Safalin's answer is, "The Floor Master." She never says which Floor Master; again, she's referring to Gashu, not Ranger. Sara herself immediately lampshades it by expressing doubt that Ranger was the one who issued such an order.
- "The Sage knows who the Keymaster is via divination, but cannot lie about the results of said divination." Meaning that the Sage only sees who the Keymaster is, not what the Keymaster card actually looks like.
- When asked about the escape ticket during Chapter 2, the Reception Doll at the Prize Exchange will state that nothing like that is "here"; Sara immediately realizes the implications of that phrasing. Said escape ticket is actually in the vending machine that Reko shows to Sara later, although in most cases the player won't learn this unless they're on a route where someone else decides to make use of it...
- At the beginning of the second Main Game, the Floor Master moderating states that if their transgression is revealed, they will fulfill their duty as per the Floor Master's code. Unfortunately for the main cast, he fulfills his duty in the cruelest possible way.
- The Floor Masters in general and Safalin in particular like to use this, since per their code, they aren't allowed to outright lie to the participants about information relevant to the game if asked directly. A few cases in point:
- Exhausted Eye Bags: A clear sign that somebody's gone through emotional trauma. Kanna's sporting them upon introduction, thanks to what happened to her sister, and others naturally gain them as they go through their own horrors.
- Exorcist Head: Courtesy of the real Sou Hiyori, which helps prove that while still technically human, he has replaced much of his body with doll parts, allowing for the spinning head.
- Explosive Leash: All of the participants are wearing collars, and Sue Miley teases the group by making it appear that she's setting one off, only to claim that they won't explode. They're just capable of heating up enough to burn through your neck until you succumb. Much better. Reko's fake is also equipped with an explosive collar in Chapter 2 Part 1.
- Face Death with Dignity: Comes up a lot and is almost always painfully subverted, since remaining calm and accepting in the face of a brutal execution is a lot easier in theory than in practice.
- Failure-to-Save Murder:
- Kanna grapples with the makings of a Guilt Complex over this due to her inability to prevent her sister from getting killed by their First Trial.
- Later on, poor Sara struggles with similar sentiments, though in a different way. Joe's pain was only prolonged by her attempts to save him, while she couldn't bring herself to overcome Nao's begging for life to kill her instantly and ease hers.
- Gin will express this as well in certain game overs, or if Hayasaka is killed before the Banquet.
- Faint in Shock: While learning the rules for the first Main Game, Sara comments that there is the sound of somebody fainting in a different room. Given the circumstances, this would likely be either Joe or Kai, who have at this point learned that the cards they received, the Sacrifice and Sage respectively, are likely to result in their deaths.
- Fanservice: Chapter 2-1 includes an optional scene of Sara, Reko, Nao, and Kanna all bathing together.
- Flash Forward: There is one at the start of 2-1 to an event near the end of the chapter, featuring Gin and Q-Taro laying on the ground next to one another, fading from consciousness. Curiously, the story branch where you succeed in completing the argument and sacrifice Fake Reko contradicts this scene. Q-Taro never has to risk his life and never ends up on the ground unless you fail or refuse.
- Foreshadowing:
- A couple of puzzles in Chapter 1-2 require the use of life-sized dolls you find that are dead ringers of Kanna and Sara. Come 2-1, more of these appear, and you learn their apparent purpose.
- For most of the characters whose personal info you can buy during attractions in Chapter 2, this information is given to you in the form of AI versions of them in the Monitor Room answering your questions. The exception is Nao, whose information is contained in documents instead. This is because Nao doesn't have an AI, which turns out to be because she was never supposed to make it to the Main Game at all.
- During one of the token negotiations between Sara and Q-Taro, the latter mentions trying to collect a lot of tokens in the hopes of purchasing the "exit ticket" that Ranger told them about. Sara privately wonders about what would happen if Q-Taro did get the ticket, specifically whether or not Q-Taro will think about the rest of them. Accepting Q-Taro's final trade gets you a bad ending in which he does exactly what Sara worried about: buying the escape ticket and leaving everyone else to die.
- A related example comes up if you get enough tokens to buy Q-taro's personal info; the Q-taro AI will offhandedly wonder if his real self will try to "win within the rules of the game" when asked. Unfortunately for the player, the only way to get enough tokens for Q-taro's info locks you into a bad ending in which Q-taro does exactly what his AI speculated he would do.
- While you're investigating with Keiji in the second chapter, the first person you get to test Keiji's partner ability on is Nao. Keiji and Sara can both tell that Nao is hiding something, but with a three-hour time limit before the second Main Game starts and a variety of more pressing issues to investigate, they're forced to set the matter aside. It's that she started the game with the Sacrifice card and (initially) doesn't have enough tokens to trade it away.
- During one portion of the second Main Game, when it looks like the group has decided on someone to vote for, Nao becomes very insistent on continuing the discussion before they cast their votes, even though it's pointed out to her that she's a candidate for the final vote herself and could end up getting selected. It's partly because she trying to figure out who it was that traded her back the Sacrifice card, and partly because having said Sacrifice card means that she's going to die if the group votes for Sou instead of her.
- In contrast with the game, the manga shows that Sara has a very selfish way of thinking when both she and Joe are trapped, which shows how she can really be when not hindered by emotion. In contrast, this wasn't fully shown until 2-2 in the game.
- Go Out with a Smile: Played straight with Alice in 2-1 if Reko survives and the player completed Alice's sidequest earlier in the chapter. After she rejoins the group, Alice temporarily regains consciousness long enough to learn she's okay and hear her say she wants them to be siblings again. With that knowledge, Alice smiles and closes his eyes one last time.
- Genre Shift: During Chapter Two the game shifts from a Thriller to full on Psychological Horror, In Kanna’s route the game goes back to being a Thriller in chapter 3 but in Sou’s Route the game remains a Psychological Horror with Sara becoming more and more unhinged.
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: In the end of 3-1A, regardless of whether you succeed in helping Keiji to defeat Sou/Midori, the fight will end the same way: Keiji ends up getting trapped in a coffin and Midori gives Sara a Sadistic Choice to save him.
- Heroic BSoD: Kanna starts out in the middle of one. She's only the first of many who suffer from these as the game wears on...
- I Never Said It Was Poison: In Chapter 2-1, during The Arbitration Game, when questioning whether or not the real Reko broke the Mishima AI's monitor, they suggest that Ranger could've disguised as her. He says that he'd never wear the clothes of a living human and that the Reko they saw was the real deal. Keiji then takes the opportunity to point out that the Floor Masters don't seem able to lie about important information, as Ranger could've easily said there's no fake. This proves vital in exposing the Fake Reko and saving Gin and Q-Taro.
- Happens again during the second Main Game when discussing who knocked out Q-taro. Sou offhandedly comments about how dangerous stun guns are; Sara immediately points out that she and Gin were the ones who discovered Q-taro and they took the stun gun from the scene without telling anyone, meaning that the only person besides them who could know the weapon used is the culprit.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
- This fate befalls the fake Reko should Sara opt to push her into the spike pit during the Sub-Game in Chapter 2.
- A potential game over during one of the Attractions in Chapter 2.
- Happens to Anzu Kinashi during the First Trial.
- Also a potential fate for the doll version of Mai Tsurugi, should you fail to defeat Maple during her second boss battle.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Ultimately played straight by Gin in Chapter 2-1, who will survive no matter what you do during the game. Potentially subverted by Kanna in Chapter 2-2, but played straight as well if Sou is sacrificed. Then, subverted hard again by Hinako not only being a scripted death towards the end of 3-1, but an abrupt and nasty one that reveals she, unlike the dolls present, was Human All Along. The game primes you slowly for a nasty Sadistic Choice that might force you to personally kill Gin, only for But Thou Must! to kick in, playing it straight again and avoiding the choice by revealing Q-Taro died some time ago. Gin is damned lucky.
- Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: In the second puzzle of 3-1A, the group is stuck in a boxing ring with lava pouring in all around. If Sara examines the source of the lava, she realizes that the lava isn't emitting light, which means it's just a harmless liquid that's colored like lava. This gives one person the idea to wade through the liquid. Realistically, the group should have been able to tell that it's not lava simply because it wasn't cooking them alive. (Practically, they probably just saw what ''looked'' lava and immediately panicked without stopping to logically think about whether the substance actually could be lava or not.)
- Limited Wardrobe: After Kanna's Bring My Brown Pants moment, Sara finds her a replacement outfit... which looks exactly like her last one. And was being worn by a life-sized doll of her. The creepiness of this doesn't go unnoted. Later, it's noted that the captors have copies of more or less every part of people's default outfits prepared.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Zig-zagged.
- The story could be seen to invoke this trope, as almost all of the unpreventable deaths of the first two chapters are male and when a choice is offered, the first time there's a choice between a male and female character in Alice vs Reko has elements supporting each in the moment, while the route where Sou Hiyori dies could be seen as the "better" outcome: Reko's survival is presented as the "win" condition to the imitation room puzzle and directly contrasted as dealing with Alice's death better than the reverse, but then again, Alice's survival is based on a version where nobody dies until they leave the final attraction, refusing to kill Reko's doll being in line with the themes and forcing Q-Taro into Taking the Bullet, a karmic moment for him he recovers from anyway, and Kanna's death over Sou triggers a worse immediate outcome in the evil Joe AI, as well as harsh consequences for the player down the line and a much darker tone for Sara's character.
- That said, the victim videos reveal this is partially due to many female participants having already died in the first trial, offscreen; Alice's route eventually picks up in tone and contains more information on the real Sou omitted from Reko's route, and the possible (and eventually unavoidable) deaths in Chapter 3 are more evenly split by gender. By the start of the final half-chapter, two out of three of the only characters unable to die under any circumstances (Sara, Keiji, Gin) are male, meaning it's possible to reduce the cast to a sole female but not vice-versa. In fact, it's the circumstance with the most possibilities, as even if Reko and Sou are brought into 3-1, the circumstances of that route kill the other Yabusame off, while no such thing happens with Kanna.
- So overall, out of 20 participants 9 are girls and 6 of them always die by the end of 3-1. Out of 11 male participants, 7 always die. And if you consider the Floor Masters, all male ones die and all female ones survive; however, fake Hinako dies as well, while Gin, in her age group, has managed to survive despite constantly ending up in perilous situations.
- Motivational Lie: In Chapter 2-1, Sara comes across a phone in Kanna's trial room, which contains an apparent Dying Declaration of Hate from her sister. She tries to hide it and later goes to retrieve it, only to find Sou has stolen it. He surmises that it's a fake that Sara must've planted, and when she wrestles the phone back from him, she finds he's changed it to a loving message encouraging Kanna to keep moving forward. One he shows her later on and moves her to tears.
- Multiple Endings: Various Bad Endings can be reached, such as by failing certain mini games. In other cases, Sara's decisions at key points can result in different survivors making it past that point. So far, Alice/Reko and Sou/Kanna are connected to one another.
- While not a numbered ending, the first definitive way the game can end comes in chapter 2-1. By accepting Q-Taro's token trade on the third and final morning, he'll have enough to buy an escape from the game. Sara will watch Ranger tell him that leaving will kill everyone else still alive, and with a heavy heart, he'll do so anyway. The last thing Sara can even think to pay attention is the sound of her collar beeping. Accepting this trade is actually the only way you can afford to view Q-Taro's character file.
- Ending 1: The first "real," labeled ending, Massacre, comes at the end of chapter 2-2 should Sara choose to vote for Nao and escape with her rather than killing her as the Sacrifice. Everyone else dies, and the two escape together, implicitly living out the rest of their lives together with this guilt.
- Non Standard Game Over:
- In Chapter 1-2, Sara can opt to defy her captors by refusing to leave the waiting room to the Main Game, hoping that it's All Just a Dream and that she'll wake up soon. She's presumably killed as a penalty.
- In 2-1, one can be triggered by overusing Safalin's services. If she erases the hallucination level more than twice, the process destroys Sara's mind and completely erases all her memories of Joe. Mentally broken, Sara begs for the device again like an addict. Safalin gently refuses her, but promises to do so if Sara does everything she says from now on.
- In 2-2, getting the code for the pink room wrong leads to Sara being pricked by poison needles and collapsing as Keiji tries to find her help.
- In 3-1, while the party is searching the library, Gin will find a firecracker and Mai will suggest using it. Choosing to do so sets the entire library ablaze and the party along with it.
- Obvious Rule Patch: The second Main Game changes how the role cards work, turning them from physical cards into data displayed on their voting tablets. This is partly to facilitate the introduction of card trades and partly so that the cast can't use any knowledge of the designs to reason out the roles, as they did in the first Main Game.
- Odd Friendship: Happens all over the place, given how different from each other most of the characters are.
- Nao initially finds Alice terrifying, and Alice isn't particularly interested in working with anyone else in the group at all, but during Chapter Two, they each independently seek the other out for help (Nao needing help with Clear Chips and Alice trying to collect Reko's tokens) and grow closer afterwards. Especially apparent if Reko is the Yabusame sibling who dies in this chapter; Nao will be the one to comfort Alice afterwards, and during the later Main Game, Alice will vouch for Nao's trustworthiness despite seemingly having no particular reason to do so.
- Deconstructed with Sara and Keiji, respectively a charismatic but emotionally traumatized teenager and a charming but quietly calculating police officer. Sara is quietly aware that Keiji refuses to put his trust in Sara but tries to manipulate her into putting her trust in him, and there are multiple instances throughout the game where he demonstrates this unapologetically. She also notes from the beginning of the game that when they first meet, Keiji has absolutely no reason to trust her over anyone else in the group, especially given her age and the situation they're in, but it doesn't take him long to start subtly pushing the cast towards trusting Sara to be the unofficial group leader. In addition, he eventually shows that if cornered, he will prioritize the safety of himself and Sara over everyone else (including Kanna and Gin, both of whom are younger than Sara). All of this, combined with Keiji's overall secretiveness, gets some raised eyebrows from some of the other characters.
- Q-taro and Mai grow close over the course of Chapter 3, although Q-taro is initially put off by Mai's upbeat and flirty attitude. On Mai's part, it's initially a ruse to aid in her task of killing her partner, but it becomes more genuine later.
- Keiji and Q-taro develop one as well, to the point that they're willing to trust each other with their lives in order to pull off a Batman Gambit or two.
- Gin develops a brief one with Mishima in Chapter 1 and a longer, more developed one with Hayasaka in Chapter 3. Hayasaka initially thinks that Gin dislikes him because he's constantly bossing him around, but Keiji explains that Gin is protective of Hayasaka because he associates him with Mishima and doesn't want to see Hayasaka share Mishima's fate; Gin's reaction if Hayasaka dies before the banquet would seem to confirm this.
- One Degree of Separation:
- Kai and Hayaska were both employed by the organization Asunaro. Kai was an assassin whose job was to infiltrate and observe the Chidouin family, while Hayasaka was tasked with gathering medical profiles on all the participants for the Death Game. "Asunaro" was also the name of Q-taro's orphanage.
- The real Sou Hiyori was not only killed by Alice, but he was friends with Shin Tsukimi in high school, who later took up his name during the Death Game, and he was also the one who manipulated Keiji into shooting an unarmed man, who it turns out was also his childhood hero. In fact, he played some recurring part in the lives of every single member of the cast, building up to getting them to sign their lives away to the game.
- Kanna, who was raised in an orphanage before being adopted by Kugie's family, is also Shin Tsukimi's biological sister.
- Once More, with Clarity: The very beginning of the visual novel has a "tutorial" in which a shadowy figure cruelly explains what voting by majority is, by having you vote between two people and killing one of them based on how you voted. Players will be on guard when Sou appears as a result, since the silhouette matches his character portrait. In Chapter 2-2, the game starts with a twisted dream showing Sou's first trial, and the shadowy figure appears not to Sara, but to Sou himself, asking him if he understands majority voting yet—the first hint that Sou is not really sadistic, but haunted by things he has yet to explain.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The participants of the Death Game are a very eclectic group, made up of several teenagers and children, a college student, two members of the police, a job-hopping hacker, a high school teacher, an office worker, a baseball player, a boxer, a singer, a baker, and even a convict. And all but four of them are listed as "candidates," not simply participants.
- Red Herring: The First Trial sequence at the start of the game has a code "3141" ("1374" in the original Japanese) written on the wall, and a code lock on the wall. However, it plays no role in the puzzle; inputting the code into the lock will just play a sound and do nothing. It's actually a Stealth Pun: 1374 in the original Japanese is pronounced similarly to the phrase "there's no meaning". Vgperson's English translation changes it to 3141, because the number, compared to the first few digits of pi (3.141), is... "pointless".
- Ridiculously Human Robots: What Dolls essentially are - near-perfect AI duplicates of the group in visually indistinguishable robot bodies, right down to their hair and clothes. They're so ridiculously human that they may not even be aware that they're robots. The only true indicator is that they don't bleed.
- Sadistic Choice:
- The climax of Chapter 2-1 stands out as one, and not for the characters one expects. You are completely guaranteed to have enough time left to solve the puzzle with one fairly simple item presentation. Succeed and Alice dies, while failure leads to Reko's death. Gin and Q-taro, who appeared to be the ones you were choosing between, will always survive the game.
- 2-2's Climax offers even more of a doozy: do you sacrifice Nao and Sou? Nao and Kanna? Or save Nao and yourself at the cost of everyone else?
- A defied example at the end of 3-1. Keiji is about to be executed for a rule violation, but Midori offers to let Keiji live if Sara is instead willing to sacrifice Gin. Keiji refuses to even consider allowing Sara to choose him, and the choice ends up being moot shortly after regardless.
- Sanity Meter: Hallucinations are a Type 3; let your level get too high, and it'll lead straight to a Bad End. Fortunately, they can be managed with proper treatment. Just don't use it more than twice.
- Saying Too Much:
- Played for Laughs when questioning Alice, as he responds to Sara commenting on his prisoner garb by describing how normal attire for Japanese prisoners differs from his outfit.
- Played much more seriously in the climax of Chapter 1-2, as this is a vital thread to spot: the Sage sees who has the Keymaster card, not what the card actually looks like.
- Schmuck Bait: One of the items you can find and use during the library puzzle is a set of handheld fireworks; doing so leads right to a game over.
- Schrödinger's Gun: In the banquet in 3-1, whoever is in each coffin is determined whenever the player or the enemy uses a hint or selects a coffin without a hint. Since the player has some freedom in selecting, this can affect part of the outcome. Hayasaka is in the coffin with the first hint, and if the player doesn't select it right away, Kurumada is in the selected coffin. Mai is in the coffin with the second hint.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The hosts offer a few different opportunities for participants to pull this; allowing this to happen naturally leads to Bad Endings. Most notable are 2-1 where Q-taro can leave the rest of the group to die as he escapes alone, and 2-2 allowing Sara and Nao to do so for the Massacre ending.
- Senseless Sacrifice: It's revealed late in Chapter 1-2 that Mishima ensured he'd get more votes than Nao in order to protect them. Unfortunately, what nobody realized at the time was that if they'd forced a tie in the test vote, nobody would have had to die.
- Can also happen in the second Main Game with Kanna. She begs the other players to vote for her so that Sou can continue helping the group, since his skills are a lot more helpful than her own. Unfortunately, going along with this results in Sou swearing revenge on the ones responsible for Kanna's death and outright refusing to cooperate with the remaining survivors unless absolutely necessary.
- Shout-Out: The physically largest character's name, Q-taro, was the alias used by the similarly immensely swole, mixed-race Jotaro Kujo in one arc of part 3. Not to mention it's a name already in use.
- Smoking Is Not Cool: A Running Gag involving a cigar and related materials early in the game has several of the other participants telling Sara that she shouldn't even think about smoking. In Mishima's case, this is paired with Suspiciously Specific Denial, as it becomes clear that he'd like to light up himself, but can't because he's a teacher and has to be a good role model.
- Spoiled by the Manual: In-universe when the rules for the second Main Game are explained. Gashu makes a point of clarifying what happens if the final vote ends in a tie, implying that it's going to become relevant.
- Story Branch Favoritism: Both parts of Chapter 2 have you decide between the lives of two other participants at the end.
- In 2-1, Alice gets a far more fleshed-out death scene than Reko being stabbed with minimal fanfare, and the sidequest only grants a slight bonus if Alice dies. The apparent preferential treatment winds up subverted slightly, as Reko dying gets an extra moment Together in Death with Nao in 2-2, while having her alive leads to missing out on info about the real Sou, Alice continuing to have significant character change and development afterwards. Ultimately, the writing's favoring of him is slight enough, though, that he and Reko can occupy identical narrative roles.
- 2-2 is much more substantial; not only is the negative option outright called "the worst possible choice" by Sara afterwards, the creative attention and consequences very heavily skew in one's favor. Voting for Kanna doesn't end well for all 3 people involved; Kanna dies an agonizing death, Sou is left deeply vengeful, and Sara ends up suffering Trauma-Induced Amnesia after being blamed for it by Joe's malicious AI. Voting for Sou, on the other hand, has Kanna disavow her Martyr Without a Cause mindset, Sara managing to get closure with Joe, and even Sou dies peacefully and with dignity. In addition, Sou's death prevents Ranmaru from Jumping Off the Slippery Slope in 3-1B, thus ensuring the spared Yabusame's continued survival.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Face Death with Dignity is a lot easier said than done, especially when all of the deaths are designed to be as horrible as possible. As badly as most of the characters want to invoke the trope, they nearly always react exactly how you'd expect during an execution: panicking and frantically begging not to die.
- Although several parts of the game are deliberately designed to encourage trust and cooperation among the participants, and although the power of trust is a recurring theme, at the end of the day, the characters are still trapped in a game where they have to vote each other into their horrible executions, and also play side games in which they could all die at any moment. None of them want to die, which means they all have incentive to establish trust and work together so that they have a better chance of surviving the votes...but at the same time, everyone has motive to lie, steal, and hide things. At the end of the day, however, the characters are almost entirely motivated by just wanting to live, and not by malice.
- Poison takes different amounts to fatally affect people depending on their size and build; there's no such thing as Perfect Poison. The poison injections in the Final Attraction of chapter 2-1 had to be built so gradually increasing dosages would be enough to kill Q-Taro, yet smaller amounts would be survivable at least in the short term for people much smaller than him. About half of that is enough to become potentially life-threatening for someone Gin's size... But at the same time, a fraction of the dosage is something that Q-Taro can survive.
- The Hades Incident involved the higher-ups of multiple crime rings engaging in a killing game in order to unify under one criminal leader. It collapsed soon after, as it turns out having a Death Game on top of the numerous losses from slaughtering each other didn't leave much in the way of members.
- At the end of chapter 2-2, you're seemingly presented with the choice between "logic" and "emotional" choices, in voting for Sou or Kanna. Kanna is under the childish impression that sacrificing herself is the right thing to do, allowing Sou to keep helping the group. However, voting for his Morality Chain as he begs you not to pisses him off, having him swear to kill everyone who voted Kanna and immediately prove himself as truly antagonistic to the group now with a cruel message to Sara through a Joe AI's mouth. Turns out the "logical" choice presented by a naive, self-loathing child backfires really hard.
- Even if he is built like a professional wrestler and has been poisoned and tased in the span of a few hours, Q-taro being stabbed in the back and having little, if any time to seek medical attention causes him to eventually bleed to death.
- Taking the Bullet: In 2-1, one participant is given the option to do so for another. Not quite the perk Q-taro was hoping for...
- This Is a Drill: The banquet in 3-1B marks coffins that were previously chosen by a giant drill poking through the top of them. Since the drill has no blood, even when a human gets hit, it's uncertain if the drill actually killed those inside, or if it's just an intimidating marker. However, it is noted by the characters that if the drills did have blood on them, it would make it a lot easier to reason out the contents of each coffin, so it's just as likely that the game hosts deliberately planned for that.
- Together in Death: After 2-2, Mishima and Nao can reunite after her death. Her spirit bemoans that she could never finish her painting of him now, and he assures her warmly that now she has all the time in the world to do it. If she died in 2-1, Reko is there too with them.
- Torso with a View: A potential fate for Alice, courtesy of an exploding Doll head.
- Tragic Keepsake: The dog keychain can end up as one. Meanwhile, on the story branch where she dies, Reko's gloves become this for Alice and Nao.
- Video Game Perversity Potential: When you rename the real Sou Hiyori, the only restriction is that you cannot use the name of existing characters. Cue the characters saying wildly inappropriate things as a result of the player's input.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: If the Keymaster receives the most votes in the Main Game (even if they are tied for first), everybody goes down with them.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
- The Fake Reko runs headlong into this after their Tomato in the Mirror moment. The game in which they appear even makes a point of this trope: the correct "solution" to the game is to realize that the Reko on the platform is an AI duplicate in a doll and thus the players can sacrifice her to save Gin without hesitation. In practice, however, everyone involved is horrified and upset by this, feeling that she may as well be human if she can think and even feel fear. The player can even refuse to kill her after revealing her, and isn't chastised for risking Gin's life like this... Not that she lasts much longer anyway, thanks to Ranger.
- Inverted with Rio Ranger, whose creator destroys him stating that his envy made him too human and ruined his supposed "perfection", making him disposable.
- Averted with the doll versions of the deceased players, whom the survivors treat with humanity. They consider everyone to be victims of the game, regardless of them being human or doll.
- Wham Line: During the second Main Game. "Do you remember the conditions for the Sacrifice to win...?"
- A World Half Full: Despite the bleak situation of the characters and a cruel game that actively pits them against one another, the story is ultimately one with a lot of faith in the human spirit under duress. Even the resident self-serving Jerkass and loner-types earnestly desire and find themselves willing to work alongside more good-aligned characters for the sake of their mutual survival, and the overwhelming majority of the characters are quick to forgive one another and keep their topmost priority from the start as toppling the very forces that pit them against one another. It's a cast where just about every character is a Determinator fueled and encouraged by the rest, no matter how small and hard-won their victories may be.
- World of Technicolor Hair: There's a veritable rainbow of hair colors, from Sara's orange to Q-taro and Nao's vivid reds, Kanna's light green and Sou's teal... The absolute standout of this has to go to the convict Alice, however, who has natural blue bangs with a green and pink-striped buzzcut. Second place may go to Naomichi, whose hair is something of a gradient from dark blue to light green.
- Would Hurt a Child: The kidnappers targeted Kanna, a middle schooler, and Gin, who's still in elementary, and threw them into the deadly game along with everyone else. There's also Hinako, another middle schooler who didn't make it past the first phase.
Your Time To Shine
- A Day in the Limelight: Currently the game is only this for Mishima and Kai, but it will eventually become this for all of the other selectable characters (other than Sara).
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Due to the dynamics of being trapped on an island to survive being different than a death game and enforces far more cooperation than paranoia, the protagonist is going to have a different relationship with certain survivors. For example: Mishima initially had Kanna be unwilling to trust him unless Sara and Joe backed up his lie; Kanna now looks to Mishima as someone to go to for personal issues. Similarly, the tense and antagonistic relationship between Kai and Sou is replaced for genuine bonding between the two.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- A few of the endings reveal that the entire game is an AI simulation being monitored by someone who looks identical to Sara, who is apparently rerunning and then deleting the same simulation over and over again. The purpose behind this and the identity of the Sara-lookalike haven't been revealed yet.
- A good part of the premise is that without the "everyone-has-to-kill-each-other" rule inherent in a Deadly Game, the characters have a lot more incentive to trust in and cooperate with each other. Despite this, Alice and Shin are still using their aliases of Gonbee Yamada and Sou Hiyori, respectively; the reason why has not yet been revealed.
- The opening of Kai's story reveals that he was still assigned to follow Sara "for a certain reason" and in fact was doing so when both of them were abducted and brought to the island. It's unclear if the island takes the place of the Death Game in this universe or if Kai simply had a different reason for following her.
- Anti-Frustration Features: In Normal mode, enemies that attack the base will have their maximum health reduced for each dead character.
- Birds of a Feather: Comes up in some fondness events, but noticeably subverted for Keiji and Kai; despite being very similar people, their shared events only serve to highlight how little they actually get along.
- Demoted to Extra: All the Floor Masters are hit with this to a degree, but Ranger is reduced to being the game's tips, and Gashu is now the Island's DJ. Midori thus far has only been offhandedly mentioned by the Sunnies if you're doing their events; from what little they say, he seems to be the one who brought them to the island and basically serves the same purpose to them that Miley does to the main group.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Enforced, due to the island erasing the existence of anyone who dies. Also justified by The Reveal that the entire cast is A.I.s; they're literally having their memories of their fallen friends removed.
- Thankfully ends up being subverted for Jin, who still remembers his friend. If the protagonist learns this, he explains the island's curse to Jin and proposes that if Jin still remembers her, that means that she can't be dead. Jin is obviously unsure on whether or not to believe this at first, but ultimately chooses to trust the protagonist and look for his friend, who turns out to be Touko.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: This side game, in addition to expanding on the protagonists of the game, has the added benefit of averting this, as it guarantees at least six significant one-on-one conversations for every character once both sides take the spotlight. Notable, as Your Turn To Die did have a fair share of participants who never saw much opportunity to interact with one another due to the nature of the whole Deadly Game thing.
- Lighter and Softer: While the game can have its bouts of
Nightmare Fuel and Fridge Horror, Your Time To Shine is far more relaxed and softer than its Main Game counterpart. This is emphasized by both the large absence of Floor Masters and the existence of Fondness Events, the latter of which serve as either heartwarming moments or hilarious moments, with often times it being both. - Multiple Endings:
- The Tested Ones: Escape with Miley on Day 30 with all survivors alive. On the mainland, the protagonist will suddenly notice that they're being watched, revealing that they're actually an AI. The people monitoring them decide to defer to someone who appears to be Sara, who says to delete everything and start over.
- Existence in Tragedy: Escape with Miley on Day 30 with some but not all of the survivors dead. The protagonist will make it back to the mainland and immediately rush home, but their senses cut out just as they make it there.
- Solitary Escape: Escape with Miley on Day 30 with no one but the protagonist alive. The protagonist will be happy to be home at first, but gradually realizes that they once had allies and can no longer remember what happened to them.
- Normality Regained: Escape on the boat with Jin and Touko on Day 34 (requires completing their all of their events, giving them food and materials when prompted, and buying the fuel from Safalin on Day 28) with any number of survivors. Everyone escapes on the boat, but the narration seems to imply that something else is going on...
- Island's Collapse: Stay on the island until Day 40, and either fail or ignore the Sunnies events. The island collapses, but right before it does, the protagonist finds a diary from the creator of the island, who claims that someone else has taken it over and is using it for their own purposes.
- Sunnies Endings: Succeed at all of the Sunnies events and stay on the island until Day 40. As the island begins collapsing, the protagonist rushes to the Sunnies' hut and finds them all safe. Afterwards, the protagonist will help the Sunnies' rebuild their hut and then stay with them from then on. Each protagonist's story has a different version of this ending, with an extended "Reunion" variant if certain characters significant to the protagonist also make it to the end.note
- New Game Plus: Completing the game allows the protagonist to carry their crafting and foraging stats into a new game.
- Non-Indicative Name: Played With. "Fondness Events" tend to involve two characters getting closer together in some way, but it can easily involve Comical Overreacting, Rule of Funny, or characters simply being confused about the other. A particular stand out is Kai's Fondness Events with Keiji, which not only lack anything resembling warmth, but also shows their complete incompatibility with one another.
- Ret-Gone: Anyone who dies on the Isle of Memories is immediately erased from existence. The survivors eventually notice a bag of personal belongings that none of them can identify, causing them to realize that they likely had another companion who met this fate. This is eventually justified by The Reveal that the entire game is an AI simulation; when a character "dies", the programmers can remove all memories of them from the other characters.
- Super Move Portrait Attack: Each character has a special cut-in portrait that appears when their special skills are triggered. While most of them only occur during daily tasks, Q-Taro and Gonbee's skills (defending the base and attacking twice, respectively) specifically happen in battle.
- Tomato in the Mirror: In "The Tested Ones", the protagonist will eventually begin to realize that they're being watched, and then that they're actually an AI. It's lampshaded by the people watching him, one of whom states that A.I.s becoming self-aware is more common than one might think.
- Video Game Caring Potential: On Day 28, Safalin will show up, being pursued by a Man-Eating Bird. You have the option to fight the bird off for her; if you do so, she'll open up her shop for you. Conveniently, this is also the only day she'll be selling Fuel, which you need to buy to unlock the "Normality Remained" ending.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Conversely, if you refuse to fight the bird, you'll miss out on your last chance to use Safalin's shop and also lock yourself out of "Normality Regained" for that playthrough.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: If the selected protagonist dies, the game ends immediately.
