History VideoGame / RainWorld

** It's easiest to start with the one ''exception:'' lizards. While they resemble salamanders more than lizards and have unusual capabilities, they are still lizard-shaped.
*** However, in a hilarious twist of irony, the actual named "Salamanders" are more akin to ''axolotls''.
** The "slugcats" comprising the player characters resemble rodents, and most frequently get compared to them, with Five Pebbles even outright calling Rivulet a "wet mouse". WordOfGod says they are neither furry nor slimy; they are naked.
** "Vultures" are floating black boulders with seemingly ornamental, tentacle-like wings, and no other limbs. They move mainly by gaseous propulsion, and while their faces are relatively bird-like, they wear individualized masks, apparently made of carbon fiber. "King vultures" additionally have a pair of retractable, laser-sighted harpoons they launch to spear prey.

** "Daddy long legs" are based in design on [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/HeLa-IV.jpg epithelial cancer cells]], being composed of fleshy, blob-like growths and extruding long, stringy tentacles to capture prey, which is drawn into the central mass to be slurped up.

** ''Downpour'' gives us "gooieducks", which are odd, crunchy fruits, named after a kind of real-life clam.

Gameplay can be described as a CinematicPlatformGame with SurvivalHorror elements in a {{Metroidvania}} style map. It also relies quite a bit on EmergentGameplay and ImmersiveSim elements, with the main gimmick being the ecosystem of the world, which is highly reactive and nonscripted, and the interaction between the different creatures frequently hindering and helping the player in unexpected ways. For starters, the game is segmented into "dry seasons" when the titular rain stops, forcing the player to return to shelter with enough food in stock to properly hibernate and survive. In addition, the game is further divided up into nonlinear "regions" rather than one cohesive map. To move forward, the player must accumulate enough "Karma" by successfully surviving regions enough times, and in doing so can move on. Graphically, the game's standout feature is that almost all creatures, including the slugcats themselves, operate on a system of procedural animation: rather than having premade animations, the game's physics engine determines the motion of every creature in real time and the character models respond accordingly.

Gameplay can be described as a CinematicPlatformGame with SurvivalHorror elements in a {{Metroidvania}} style map. It also relies quite a bit on EmergentGameplay and ImmersiveSim elements, with the main gimmick is the ecosystem of the world, which is highly reactive and nonscripted, and the interaction between the different creature both hindering and helping the player in unexpected ways. For starters, the game is segmented into "dry seasons" when the titular rain stops, forcing the player to return to shelter with enough food in stock to properly hibernate and survive. In addition, the game is further divided up into nonlinear "regions" rather than one cohesive map. To move forward, the player must accumulate enough "Karma" by successfully surviving regions enough times, and in doing so can move on. Graphically, the game's standout feature is that almost all creatures, including the slugcats themselves, operate on a system of procedural animation: rather than having premade animations, the game's physics engine determines the motion of every creature in real time and the character models respond accordingly.

Gameplay can be described as a CinematicPlatformGame with SurvivalHorror elements in a {{Metroidvania}} style map. It also relies quite a bit on EmergentGameplay and ImmersiveSim element, with the main gimmick is the ecosystem of the world, which is highly reactive and nonscripted, and the interaction between the different creature both hindering and helping the player in unexpected ways. For starters, the game is segmented into "dry seasons" when the titular rain stops, forcing the player to return to shelter with enough food in stock to properly hibernate and survive. In addition, the game is further divided up into nonlinear "regions" rather than one cohesive map. To move forward, the player must accumulate enough "Karma" by successfully surviving regions enough times, and in doing so can move on. Graphically, the game's standout feature is that almost all creatures, including the slugcats themselves, operate on a system of procedural animation: rather than having premade animations, the game's physics engine determines the motion of every creature in real time and the character models respond accordingly.

Gameplay can be described as a CinematicPlatformGame with SurvivalHorror elements in a {{Metroidvania}} style map. The main gimmick is the ecosystem of the world, which is highly reactive and nonscripted. For starters, the game is segmented into "dry seasons" when the titular rain stops, forcing the player to return to shelter with enough food in stock to properly hibernate and survive. In addition, the game is further divided up into nonlinear "regions" rather than one cohesive map. To move forward, the player must accumulate enough "Karma" by successfully surviving regions enough times, and in doing so can move on. Graphically, the game's standout feature is that almost all creatures, including the slugcats themselves, operate on a system of procedural animation: rather than having premade animations, the game's physics engine determines the motion of every creature in real time and the character models respond accordingly.

* WhoWantsToLiveForever: The central conflict of the setting. [[spoiler: All of the ancients are gone, leaving behind massive supercomputers called iterators, all trying to find a way to ascend without using the Void Fluid. One of them, Sliver of Straw, found it, but for whatever reason, was unable to tell the rest. This sets the events of the game in motion.]]

* PaintingTheMedium: As you approach the Void Sea, [[spoiler: the pixel art begins to warp and distort, the outline of your character becoming more and more abstract. This is used to show just how alien the whole place is.]]

* CompleteImmortality: Thanks to the cycle of life and death, nothing can die permanently, they will just keep reincarnating. [[Spoiler: The ancients tried using Void Fluid, but unless they rid themselves of desires, they were left behind as an Echo.]]
* ContinuingIsPainful: Dying lowers your karma by one level, which means you have go through another cycle just to get it back to where it was before.

* WarpWhistle: Surprisingly, you can use a Passage to warp to a previous shelter after hibernating. [[NintendoHard Less surprisingly]], it's enabled by a limited-use item unlocked by completing achievements.

Gameplay can be described as a CinematicPlatformGame with SurvivalHorror elements in a {{Metroidvania}} style map. The main gimmick is the ecosystem of the world, which is highly reactive and nonscripted. For starters, the game is segmented into "dry seasons" when the titular rain stops, forcing the player to return to shelter with enough food in stock to properly hibernate and survive. In addition, the game is further divided up into nonlinear "regions" rather than one cohesive map. To move forward, the player must accumulate enough "Karma" by successfully surviving regions enough times, and in doing so can move on.

* SillinessSwitch: [[spoiler: Playing as [[MyNameIsQuestionMarks ???]] makes an otherwise dark, atmospheric game completely silly and somehow even more ludicrously difficult, and ends with a dating sim that is played entirely for laughs.]]

*** As well, she generally needs to kill scavengers to use their bodies to pass through karma gates. To alleviate this, areas in other campaigns that don't have natural-spawning scavengers will have a few rooms with potential scavenger spawns, as well as the occasional kill squad, to make things easier.

''Rain World'' is a 2017 2D SpeculativeBiology-themed exploration game developed since 2011 by Videocult and published by Creator/AdultSwim for PC (via {{UsefulNotes/Steam}}), [=PS4=] and Linux. It is set in an [[AfterTheEnd abandoned industrial environment]] ravaged by a [[CrapsackWorld shattered ecosystem]].

* NintendoHard: Death means not only losing all your progress since your last hibernation (in version 1.00, even including any map updates), but losing some '''karma''' which is required to move between game regions, not to mention shuffling creatures around. The old-school game design choices aim to improve the player not based on his character leveling up, but on their understanding of the game, though the game doesn't want to make even that easy (see FakeDifficulty and GuideDangIt).

** The Gourmand's standard ending is to [[spoiler:unlock the Subterranean-Outer Expanse gate by consulting Five Pebbles, and then relay its findings to the slugcats at the end of the region. If the Gourmand's food tracker is complete, the ending cutscene will be expanded, and the Gourmand, Monk, and Survivor will be able to find and care for Slugpups]].

** The first is the Singularity Bomb, which when thrown will create a distortion radius that will one-shot anything within, including Guardians, Leviathans, and Rot creatures. It won't work on Five Pebbles, though, as he will teleport both the Slugcat and the bomb out in a panic.

* CombatPragmatist: Slugcat is encouraged to use all aspects of their environment in order to survive, and every creature operates on this trope thanks to their ArtificialBrilliance. For example, predators might leave Slugcat alone if it can hand them some food or can kill something in the vicinity for the creature to take. A vulture would rather prioritize the corpse of a lizard than go after the nimble slugcat, for instance. Since certain creatures get temporarily stunned if a spear can lodge itself in their torso, it's also possible to stunlock enemies to death.

[[PerpetualStorm Bone-crushingly intense rains]] pound the surface, making life as we know it [[HostileWeather almost impossible]]. The creatures in this world hibernate most of the time, but in the few brief dry periods they go out in search of food.

* AnachronicOrder: Each slugcats' journey are set in a different time from one another. You'll have Monk and Survivor unlocked first, then you'll unlock Hunter, whose story takes place before the previous two. The Downpour DLC also adds characters whose story takes place before the Hunter, but also after the Monk. The complete order is as follows: Spearmaster -> Artificer -> Hunter -> Gourmand -> Survivor -> Monk -> Rivulet -> Saint. [[spoiler:[[SecretCharacter ???]] is exempt from this timeline, since their campaign is designed to be exceptionally difficult regardless of its logical sense within the story.]]

*** Your first foray through the Outskirts inevitably leads you to your first predator, the Lizard. Conveniently, there are also many scattered poles you can climb and crawling spaces you can squeeze through that shows evading creatures is as much a strategy as fighting them head-on.

** Because Scavengers are invariably hostile to the Artificer, she cannot safely trade with them for a lantern. However, despite such not being an explosive, she can convert a food pip and a flashbang into said lantern.

** Most creatures will start to become frightened and will flee when near-death, albeit slowly due to being crippled.
** Lizards have a "rivalry system" of sorts whereby two lizards near each other will gradually get more and more annoyed with each other and eventually will fight to assert dominance. The differing lizard types even have different rates of getting annoyed, with green lizards being by far the most territorial, even showing with them being the only lizard type who will stand and fight a vulture.

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:The Echoes of the Ancients you meet are a result of botched ascendance procedure, members of the civilization whose ruins the game takes place in. Apparently, the members of the ruined civilization attempted to break the cycle of reincarnation by ascending/transcending material existence, using something called Void Fluid. However, if a person had too many vices, or was especially arrogant, it would get stuck between this world and the next. Your ultimate goal is to follow in their foot steps after maxing out your karma - strange creatures called guardians will chase you away once you reach the end of the game otherwise.]]

* BefriendingTheEnemy: Lizards can be tamed if fed enough squidcadas (2-3 does the job). Also, you can do very basic trade with Scavengers. They mainly deal using pearls, and can be traded to for items, safe passage through their tollbooths, or a free weapon depending on who you give it to.

* BorrowedBiometricBypass: One of Artificer's unique gimmicks is their (semi)permanently low karma, making passing through most karma gates impossible by normal means. To compensate, they can kill scavengers, who have their own karma levels exclusive to Arti's campaign, and drag their bodies to karma gates to "fool" it into opening.

** Red and sea leeches do not suck your blood like the majority of real-life ones; they simply attach to you in great numbers. Their weight pulls you to the bottom of water, and you drown. ''Downpour'''s jungle leeches, however, do fact suck away your food pips.
** "Kelp" is a single amphibious, omnivorous tentacle coated with what seem like dry, rustling vines. It captures prey by grabbing them with its tip, and then drawing them into its den. They hunt entirely by sound.
** Pole "plants" (also known as pole mimics) behave very similarly, with the difference being how they initially capture prey: they imitate poles, and any prey that tries to touch them will become stuck to them, and will be drawn into their dens to get eaten.

** ''Downpour'' gives us "gooieducks", which are odd, crunchy fruits, named after a kind of real life clam.

* CrapsackWorld: Civilization has died out? Check. Quasi-permanent deadly weather? Check. Almost everything in the world are out to kill each other? Double Check.

* DifficultButAwesome: The slugcat has a ton of difficult to perform moves, like slides and backflips, that can be used to gain a tactical edge on his predators or otherwise assist with exploration. Mastering these moves can turn the initially slow and plodding slugcat into an absolute terror on the battlefield as you leap and duck around your opponents.
** As for specific moves, the [[https://rainworld.gamepedia.com/Combat#Downwards.2Fupwards_throwing downward throw]] can be an exceptionally useful tool. Not only does it chuck a spear straight down, but it can pin enemies to the ground and either give you the chance to escape or follow up with successive spear throws. It can also be used in exploration to create miniature poles to stand on, giving you a little extra height to reach out-of-the-way paths and allowing you to jump over predators easier. Reaching certain midgame shelters requires using this technique, so master it as soon as you can.

* FantasticNirvana: The {{Precursors}} became so advanced that they managed to find a way to achieve a state of nirvana free from the pains of reincarnation. In fact, they actually left behind a door to it so lesser beings like Slugcat can find it. [[spoiler:It's not actually a door, but a secluded underwater area where great beasts/spirits swim around and the only way to pass is to let one drag you down. However, unlike all the other predators in the game, it doesn't cause another death, and does indeed allow Slugcat's spirit into a paradise where they're reunited with their family. Similar endings happen with all the Slugcats but Saint, where after they take the ride, they briefly swim along with the many other Slugcat spirits before arriving to this paradise, with the only exception of red Hunter slugcat, who can't keep up with the other spirits and sinks deeper into the abyss where a mysterious being seems to catch them]].

* GoingCosmic: From the beginning, the game is about survival, and hopefully finding back your family, then you meet nigh-omniscient [=AIs=], echoes of {{Precursors}}, and [[spoiler:find yourself on the path to achieve transcendence. Near the end of the game, a cosmic worm leads you to the souls of your kin. Any questions?]]

** Chimney Canopy's bottom, entered from Industrial Complex, composes of flats and large tubes that are hospitable enough for the landbound Pink Lizards there. However, its heights are more dangerous to traverse, necessitating travel on more vertical and horizontal poles, and smaller platforms easily blocked by Vultures.

** The Outer Expanse is filled with tangled forest life, along with a damp climate and some patches of Worm Grass layed around.

** Ironically, the karma system does not count, and is instead a sort of lives system (at least in Expedition Mode)

* TheManyDeathsOfYou: Eaten by bigger animals, eaten by carnivorous plants, drowned by leeches, electrocuted, mauled by [[HostileWeather the rain]], fell into a bottomless pit, and every variations of the above...

** The Spearmaster's standard ending is to [[spoiler:deliver Moon's overwritten pearl to the top of the Communications Array, allowing her to send ler last message before most of her structure collapses]].
** The Saint's campaign downplays this into multiple variants of one ending. [[spoiler:Once they reaches Five Pebbles, their new powers allow them to ascend Pebbles and/or Moon. Once they traverse Rubicon in place of the Depths, they meet up with whichever Iterators they ascended, and then rise back from the Void, in order to become an Echo that helps other creatures ascend]].

* PerpetualStorm: Every day, a drought of up to 20 minutes occurs, during which the phases of gameplay take place. The player can keep track of how long until the storm restarts by checking the rain clock on the map screen. As the rain starts hitting the ground, the screen starts shaking and the lights grow dim. Water level rises by many screens, and in places exposed to the sky, the downpour will stun the player that tries to move through it. Should the player fail to reach a safe house before the main of the storm arrives, which takes about a minute, the player instantly dies, no matter where he is. It can be assumed that even if the player manages to find a place safe from the rain/water, the drop in temperature caused by the nearby flowing water will cause death by hypothermia.

* SpiritualAntithesis: The Downpour DLC, while providing additional survival gameplay, is one to the base game. The narrative at ''Rain World'''s launch evokes ''fear'' of a dying world: to live is to suffer, and the Survivor's only way of reuniting with its family is to transcend the mortal plane. The More Slugcats campaigns, however, show what it means to ''love'' a dying world. Ascension becomes an underwhelming alternative, [[spoiler:the Saint's only ending is to become an Echo out of selfless desire to put the world to rest,]] and the Gourmand's philosophy steers the farthest from the Survivor's: the former supports its mortal colony and is called an indulger of the simple things in life.

** The Hunter has a terminal illness plaguing it. It starts the game with 19 cycles of being healthy, and can have 5 more tacked on if you know where to look, but once those are up it begins to suffer seizures and penalties to its statistics, and if you're killed after the counter hits zero, your save file is rendered [[PermaDeath unplayable.]]

* WarpWhistle: Surprisingly, you can use a Passage to warp to a previous shelter after hibernating. [[NintendoHard Less surprisingly]], it's enabled by a limited use item unlocked by completing achievements.

''Rain World'' is a 2017 2D SpeculativeBiology-themed exploration game developed since 2011 by Videocult and published on Steam by Creator/AdultSwim for PC, [=PS4=] and Linux. It is set in an [[AfterTheEnd abandoned industrial environment]] ravaged by a [[CrapsackWorld shattered ecosystem]].

* {{Antepiece}}: If you follow the Overseer (the small yellow worm), the game makes extensive use of these to teach you essential survival skills.
** The first area doesn't have any rain come until you're right next to a shelter, so you can TakeYourTime learning the Slugcat's controls, how to hunt bat-flies, and eat fruit to survive.
** When you are introduced to the rain, you are right next to a shelter, so you can immediately learn where you should go when you can see the earthquake that indicates the imminent rain. In addition, a curious player can witness the effects of the rain both outside and inside (crushing rain and flooding respectively) with relative safety.
** To teach you how Scavengers value pearls, the first 2 times you need them (getting past a Scavenger Toll and buying a lantern respectively), you are able to find a free pearl on the way.

** Because Scavengers are invariably hostile to the Artificer, she cannot safely trade with them for a lantern. However, despite such not being an explosive, she can convert a food pip and a flashbang into said lantern.

** The "slugcats" comprising the player characters resemble rodents, and most frequently get compared to them. WordOfGod says they are neither furry nor slimy; they are naked.

* Ironically, the karma system does not count, and is instead a sort of lives system (at least in Expedition Mode)

** [[spoiler: If you can get to the Depths with maximum Karma unlocked, but are currently not at maximum Karma (something likely to happen considering the hell that is the Filtration System), the Guardians will let you pass and ascend anyway. This makes it so that entering the Depths, which is the PointOfNoReturn, does not result in an UnwinnableByDesign scenario for the player.]]

* ApocalypseHow: [[spoiler: Class 3a, originally intended to be Class 5 or 6. As part of their belief that all living things were trapped in the Great Cycle of [[{{Reincarnation}} reincarnation]], the Ancient civilization strived to find [[CessationOfExistence a way out]]; to allow all living beings to ascend. Their attempts ultimately failed, and in the end they all left the world and their creations behind in their own global ascension via the old flawed method of Void Fluid.]]

** "Leeches" do not suck your blood; they simply attach to you in great numbers. Their weight pulls you to the bottom of water, and you drown. [[spoiler:This was retconned somewhat by jungle leeches in ''Downpour''; those do in fact suck away your food pips]].
** "Kelp" is a single amphibious, omnivorous tentacle coated with what seem like dry, rustling vines. It captures prey by grabbing them with its very tip, and then drawing them into its den. They hunt entirely by sound.

** ''Downpour'' gives us [[spoiler:"gooieducks", which are odd, crunchy fruits, named after a kind of real life clam]].

* EasterEgg: [[spoiler:Moon's Submerged Superstructure is normally explored as part of the Rivulet's campaign. With clever use of jetfish and/or bubbleweed however, the region can be entered & explored as Hunter, Gourmand, Survivor, Monk and Saint, albeit at great risk and difficulty. The Gourmand, Survivor or Monk can then find a torn white Cloak which can be given to Moon, [[CallForward the same one she wears during the Rivulet & Saint's campaign]]. Meanwhile, the Saint can find an extra Echo in the Bitter Aerie with unique dialogue [[LampshadeHanging noting how difficult reaching it is]].]]
* EldritchAbomination: [[spoiler:The Void Worm, an extremely disconcerting creature found in the void sea at the end of the game is a stand out even by the typical examples of this trope.]]

* NameThatUnfoldsLikeLotusBlossom: The Ancients have names like this. Some Echo examples are "Four Needles Under Plentiful Leaves", "Six Grains of Gravel, Mountains Abound", and "Droplets upon Five Large Droplets". Downplayed with the Iterators who have names like "Looks To The Moon", "Five Pebbles", or "No Significant Harassment", which aren't as long and descriptive as the one the Ancients has.

* {{Precursors}}: The Ancients. You get to meet them too when you get a special upgrade!
* SeaMonster: At the Shoreline, you can sometimes encounter an enormous worm/serpent creature called the Leviathan. It's one of the deadliest creatures in the game, capable of consuming just about anything- even vultures!

** [[spoiler:After gaining maximum Karma, the Saint can slowly ascend any creature, including Leviathans, Five Pebbles[[note]]who is in a ''very'' decrepit state in a Saint playthrough compared to others[[/note]], and in the ending, the Void Worm itself. The only enemies that can survive a single use are Guardians, which take three for it to work.]]