History VideoGame / Grounded

* MagikarpPower: Your own two fists can become arguably the most powerful weapons in the game. While they start off as undoubtedly the weakest, there are several powerful upgrades and mutations for them. First, there's the Truffle Tussle mutation, which produces an explosion every now and then when you punch something, adding [[AreaOfEffect AoE]] to your attacks. Then factor in Lil' Fist, which at phase 3 adds a 2% damage bonus each time you land a hit until you either get hit or end combat, which stacks 100 times, with a side order of all of your attacks landing a second time. Finally, the Power Droplet trinket adds the Fury effect, which causes 25% of your attacks with fists to inherit all of the mutation and armor effects you currently have equipped.

* MagicAmpersand: A game of "Minotaurs & Myrmidons" is set up on the picnic table. A sourcebook serves as a ramp to reach the top of the table, and the game board has a maze that the player must navigate to find the Minotaur Chest.

''GET YOKED!''

* CosmeticAward: Tracking down lost SCAB bracelets gives you new color schemes for your own SCAB.

--> ''WORK THE CORE!!!''
--> ''GET YOKED!''
--> ''IT'S SWOLE TIME!!!'''

* MagikarpPower: Your own two fists can become arguably the most powerful weapons. While they start off as undoubtedly the weakest, there are several powerful upgrades and mutations for them. First, let's start with Truffle Tussle mutation, which produces an explosion every now and then when you punch something, adding [[AreaOfEffect AoE]] to your attacks. Then factor in Lil' Fist which at phase 3 adds 2% damage bonus each time you land a hit until combat ends which STACKS INFINITLY and HAS NO LIMIT with a side order of 75% chance of your attacks landing a SECOND TIME. And then finally, the power droplet adds Fury effect. Fury ''only'' causes 25% of your attacks with fists to inherit ALL the mutation and armor effects you currently have equipped.

* MouseWorld: TheGame. The entire point is to explore and survive in someone's backyard when you've shrunk to the size of an ant.
* MultipleEndings: Two of them in fact, with your ending changing whether or not [[spoiler: you cured Dr Tully’s raisining problem]]

* OptionalBoss: Of the game's five boss encounters, the only strictly-mandatory boss fights needed to finish the game are the [[spoiler:Assistant Manager and the Mant]]. To [[EarnYourHappyEnding get the best ending]], however, [[spoiler:Director Schmector's armored drone]] must also be defeated. The other two, the [[spoiler:Hedge Broodmother and the Mantis,]] are [[BonusBoss entirely optional]] and are fought solely for materials needed to craft powerful weapons and gear.

* {{Planimal}}: Muscle sprouts, one of the inventions of Dr. Tully, is a brussel sprout crossbred with meat fibers. Apparently it tastes like beef liver and goes great with onions. It’s used to make stronger potions, or as food in an emergency. [[spoiler: Dr Tully uses it to give his M.ANT creation extra muscles, Turning it into a bulky behemoth.]]

* SurpriseCreepy: The game is a bright, colorful MouseWorld survival game with the only bloody violence being the green goo of the bugs. [[spoiler:Then you find the camp of another survivor who died long enough ago that nothing is left but his skeleton…and another body surrounded by dozen or so ant heads mounted on toothpicks…and a macabre effigy crafted from ant torsos and the bones of another human being hidden in the pond…and then it begins to dawn on you: You were not the first one’s Ominent sent to the yard..]]

* MagikarpPower: Your own two fists can become arguably the most powerful weapons. While they start off as undoubtedly the weakest, there are several powerful upgrades and mutations for them. First, let's start with Truffle Tussle mutation, which produces an explosion every now and then when you punch something, adding AoE to your attacks. Then factor in Lil' Fist which at phase 3 adds 2% damage bonus each time you land a hit until combat ends which STACKS INFINITLY and HAS NO LIMIT with a side order of 75% chance of your attacks landing a SECOND TIME. And then finally, the power droplet adds Fury effect. Fury ''only'' causes 25% of your attacks with fists to inherit ALL the mutation and armor effects you currently have equipped.

* LifeDrain: The Mosquito Needle rapier heals you slightly as you deal damage with it.

* ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks: Or your rapier. Or your dagger. Or your club. Or anything that counts as melee weapons really. While you may have to retrieve your thrown weapon, if it lands it does massive damage, relative to the weapon in question.

** There's really no reason you should take fall damage from any height. And it's not some strange side effect of the shrinking, either; normal insects can take falling damage as well.

Described by some as ''Film/HoneyIShrunkTheKids'' [[JustforFun/XMeetsY meets]] ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', it involves a group of teenagers waking up, only to find themselves [[IncredibleShrinkingMan the size of ants]] and stranded in a backyard. The players must gather food, water and supplies, build shelter, and fight off [[BigCreepyCrawlies hostile insects]] and [[GiantSpider spiders]] as they work to return to their normal size.

However, as the players explore the backyard, they soon discover that they are not the first to be reduced in size, and that the reason for their shrinkage may just be a small step in something far more sinister..

** An unlockable tool called the ZIP.R was introduced and placed behind a locked door in the Oak Lab accessible after defeating the Assistant Manager. It allows you to go backwards up zipline ropes, negating the need to make multiple ziplines for traveling between areas. It also counts as an upgrade, and therefore doesn't take up any inventory slots.

* AppliedPhlebotinum: Raw Science, a physical manifestation of scientific research, is awarded for analyzing crafting materials and finding rare pickups in the overworld, and is used as currency to trade with BURG.L for crafting recipes, mutations and upgrades to your equipment.
* ArtificialBrilliance: While their pathfinding leaves a little to be desired overall, passive insects will attempt to run away from you if you try and shoot them with arrows from a distance, and ants, termites and larvae that are near-death will stop attacking and retreat to alert other enemies. If a ''hostile'' non-flying insect cannot reach you, and they have enough room to do so, they will attempt to jump to your position, preventing easy kills with the bow and arrow. If you happen to be on top of a structure that can be destroyed, such as a blade of grass, they will attack it and knock it down to try and bring you back down into melee range.

** There are the standard violations of the SquareCubeLaw usually found in MouseWorld settings, but in particular the concept of chopping grass with an axe. Even if we assume the shrunken humans could still put enough force behind their chop, grass and weed stems are simply too flexible to be chopped in the same way that a tree trunk is chopped. A slicing implement like a knife would be far more useful. Of note, the koi pond update added a slicing tool in the form of the dagger... that also is animated with ''chopping'' motions.

* BenevolentArchitecture: Several backyard tools, twigs, leaves and branches are deliberately placed in areas to keep the player from getting stuck in crevices they can't otherwise get back out of, most notably in the Haze area, which features dozens of steep chasms that are otherwise insurmountable from within, if not for some conveniently-placed rock piles and twig branches.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: Ants, weevils, mites, aphids, and ladybugs wander around the backyard. They're actually normal sized creepy crawlies, but you've been shrunk down to their level so they appear huge to you.

** Exploring the labs and progressing with the main quest reveals a rather nasty side effect of the shrinking process called [[spoiler:'Raisining.' While it only appears to affect older subjects, it's an advanced form of dehydration that causes skin, limbs and tissues to shrivel up and waste away over time. Dr. Wendell Tully has suffered from a severe case of this, to the point where when you finally meet with him, he's reduced to nothing more than a dried-up head in a floating container. He gets better if you get the GoldenEnding, however.]]
* BoringButPractical: The full release added an accessory slot to your inventory, allowing you to equip trinkets with passive benefits such as an infinite food resource, sizzle protection or stat changes. Many of these are rare drops from bosses or resource nodes, or found tucked away in hidden areas, but the ones you'll probably be equipping most often are the simple Dandelion Tufts[[note]]Or the rarer Fluffy Dandelion Tuft, which has enhanced durability[[/note]], which are found almost everywhere throughout the yard just by chopping down dandelion stems. They act somewhat like manual parachutes, and can be pulled out in midair to slow your descent and prevent fall damage; considering a lot of the game's locations involve platforming on top of large structures, you'll likely always have one equipped just in case, or at the very least kept in your inventory for when you need it.

* EverythingTryingToKillYou: There are over 50 distinct insects and creatures in the game. ''More than two-thirds'' of those creatures will attack you mercilessly on-sight. Depending on what biome you're in, some previously-neutral enemies become hostile on-sight as well, such as bees on the picnic table or black ants on the porch of the shed.

* FiendishFish: It's a koi fish, and actually it's just regular size... which means it's basically a megalodon compared to you, and is more than happy to dine on tiny human meat.

* GentleGiant: Ladybugs, Moths, Bees and Roly-Polies - sickly or otherwise - will only attack you if you attack them first. The crow, hundreds of times your size, won't attack you at all.
* GiantFood: Discarded normal-sized food and drink is scattered around the backyard. Players can slurp up drops of discarded soda and juice, but will need upgraded tools in order to harvest any solid food.
* GiantSpider: The spiders are normal sized, but compared to you, they're the size of trucks. [[LightningBruiser They move just as fast and hit just as hard as trucks too]].

* ImprovisedArmor / ImprovisedWeapon: The players can craft clothes, armor, tools and weapons from grass, acorns, and even bug remains.

* MoralGuardians: Joked about in game. Apparently they're not fans of the crime-and-punishment-themed Punch-O brand juice boxes. Finding the Lemon Crime Punch-O box prompts the player character to exposit that this flavor in particular got a lot of complaints. The kids don't seem to be happy about that fact.
* MouseWorld: TheGame. The entire point is to explore and survive in someone's back yard when you've shrunk to the size of an ant.
* MultipleEndings: Two of them infact, with your ending changing whether or not [[spoiler: you cured Dr Tully’s raisining problem]]

* NemeanSkinning: The player can make armor out of the parts of various backyard critters, and gains special abilities from doing so, and even more [[SetBonus for wearing a matching set]].
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It is possible to plug up the hole in the weed killer canister with gum, eliminating the deadly hazy fumes surrounding it, but doing so [[spoiler:causes the [[ThePlague Cordyceps fungus strain to spread throughout the yard, infecting more bugs]] and causing new types, such as [[OhCrap Infected Wolf Spiders]], to start appearing. This is hinted at through several or Dr. Tully's audio logs and readable files in the Haze lab - he [[GodzillaThreshold purposefully had the canister punctured to trap the fungus within the haze so it wouldn't spread.]]]]

* RareCandy: Milk Molars can be brought to BURG.L to increase your health and stamina, lower the rate of food and hunger drain, and increase the amount of mutations you can have active at once. The rarer Mega Milk Molars are used to increase stack sizes for crafting resources, consumables and ammunition.

* SanitySlippage: Between his family leaving him, losing his job,multiple failed experiments at both normal and shrunken size, [[spoiler: and his ever growing Raisining problem]] Dr. Wendell Tully's audio logs suggest he's been going through quite a lot of this.
* ShiftingSandLand: The Sandbox biome, accessible via an entryway from the Black Anthill. You constantly suffer sizzling damage in this area during the day, which is mitigated by finding shelter, crafting gear out of Antlion parts or consuming specific meals.

** Wolf spider bites poison the player, which is one of the most deadly things about them, since poison damage ignores defense. After killing one, the player can poison their arrows, allowing them to poison foes (excluding spiders). Killing five wolf spiders unlocks the Mithridatism mutation, which grants poison resistance (and makes the Broodmother fight much easier).

* UndergroundMonkey: Various insects have hardier, texture-swapped variants in different parts of the yard. For example, there are three varieties of ant - red, black and fire ants. The latter two are exclusive to the more advanced parts of the map, and have more health and deal more damage than their red counterparts.

** Axes are required for chopping down grass, but can be thrown as a last ditch effort.
** [[DropTheHammer Hammers]] are needed to smash apart tougher resources, like acorns, sap and rocks, but also have the highest stun chance of any weapon or tool.

* ArtificialBrilliance: While their pathfinding leaves a little to be desired overall, passive insects will attempt to run away from you if you try and shoot them with arrows from a distance. If a ''hostile'' non-flying insect cannot reach you, and they have enough room to do so, they will attempt to jump to your position, preventing easy kills with the bow and arrow. If you happen to be on top of a structure that can be destroyed, such as a blade of grass, they will attack it and knock it down to try and bring you back down into melee range.

* ArtificialBrilliance: While their pathfinding leaves a little to be desired overall, if a harmless non-flying insect cannot reach you, it will attempt to run away from you if you try and shoot it with arrows from a distance. If a ''hostile'' non-flying insect cannot reach you, and they have enough room to do so, they will attempt to jump to your position, preventing easy kills with the bow and arrow. If you happen to be on top of a structure that can be destroyed, such as a blade of grass, they will attack it and knock it down to try and bring you back down into melee range.

* InUniverseGameClock: There is a day/night cycle, and players can build shelters/beds to sleep through the night, but you can only sleep if you're tired, and if you attempt to sleep at a time where you’ll wake up between 11pm and 5am (ie. while it’s still dark out) the game will warn you of the fact.

* UndergroundMonkey: There are three varieties of ant, red, black and fire ants. The latter two are exclusive to the more advanced parts of the map, and have more health and deal more damage than their red counterparts.

* GentleGiant: Ladybugs and Sickly Roly-Polies will only attack you if you attack them first. The crow, hundreds of times your size, won't attack you at all.

* OptionalBoss: Of the game's five boss encounters, the only strictly-mandatory boss fights needed to finish the game are the [[spoiler:Assistant Manager and the Mant]]. To [[EarnYourHappyEnding get the best ending]], however, [[spoiler:Director Schmector]] must also be defeated. The other two, the [[spoiler:Hedge Broodmother and the Mantis,]] are [[BonusBoss entirely optional]] and are fought solely for materials needed to craft powerful weapons and gear.