History VideoGame / VoidStranger

* CollisionDamage: If any of the playable characters collide with another enemy, they dies instantly.

* NotSoStoic: The leader of the demons is always wearing a mask, and treats things like pact-making with utmost seriousness. Upon learning Lilith's utterly humble desire to let her parents know she's grateful to them, however, she breaks out laughing so hard that the mask shatters.

* WasOnceAMan: The large round eggs seen throughout the Void turn out to be other people that ventured into the VOID and did not have the determination to reach the end, succumbing to despair. During Lilith mode, Lillie's EscortMission with Ninnie ends with them trapped in a room and Ninnie turning into an egg, and Lillie almost turns into an egg herself at the final floor due to Bee's goading and desire to eat her before Bee is stopped and punished.

** During one of the dream flashbacks, Gray and Princess Lily are accosted by a group of bandits. Gray is forced to unleash her "Gray the Destroyer" form, which results in a boss fight...from the ''bandits''[='=] point-of-view, as the bandits fail to even harm her at all. In other words, ''the protagonist'' is the Hopeless Boss Fight with this trope being PlayedForLaughs.

** This is how a Game Over works. Dying with no more locusts will have you visited by a little imp creature who offers you an orange saying "eating fruit from the mortal realm can recall the soul". Accepting the offer infects your character with the Void status which allows them to respawn immediately(up to 5 times a floor if Gray/Lillie die rapidly), but locks Gray into the Bad Ending, as the fruit is poisoned and saps her willpower. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it does teach the player to take notes and [[PlayerNudge nudges them towards solving the secrets of brand rooms]] before [[HereWeGoAgain resetting them back to B0001]].

* BittersweetEnding: Both successful runs (either completing all three character modes or the BrutalBonusLevel) end with Princess Lily saved and Lev's plans foiled, but not without sacrifices.

** If Gray ends up in the void due to messing with the HUD, then it is possible for her to find a giant broken sphere that triggers an ending where a scientist named Dr. Lily is busted by some kind of police force, only for one of the onion people from ''VideoGame/ZeroRanger'' to suddenly bust in through a tear in reality, ending the game and rolling the credits.

* NintendoHard:
** Many of the puzzles will seem impossible at first and will require you to think very deeply about your surroundings. It's rather telling that the game's store blurbs offer only these pieces of advice:
---> The game autosaves between each room, so take it easy \\
If a puzzle seems impossible, [[AntiPoopSocking get some rest]] \\
If that doesn't help, try asking someone for help \\
Good luck!
** Besides the puzzles themselves, another thing that makes the game very hard is that it can be extremely punishing due to the way some of its mechanics interact. And as there is no undo function in the game, one wrong move can result in the player having to restart a whole run, which is itself a rather complex an unintuitive process.
** There's also a ''finite lives'' mechanic in play here. Dying by falling into a hole or [[OneHitPointWonder getting hit by an enemy]] takes away a life, and you have to earn lives in the form of Locust Idols from treasure chests. Given that this game is focused around puzzles that can be made UnwinnableByDesign if you don't think your moves ''well in advance'', this makes the game much more punishing than it seems on the surface. If you run out of lives, you are given the option to come back with what ''seems'' to be infinite lives via the Void state...but doing so locks you into a bad ending!
** And just when you think Gray's runthrough is hard enough, Lillie has to traverse [[RemixedLevel the same dungeon, but this time littered with even harder puzzles]]!

* BrutalBonusLevel: v1.1.0 added in a special brand put together in an ARG that, when input at run star, will start you as Gray, pre-Voided and in an entirely new zone. This requires you to have seen the Developer's Room Ending and the new zones will push you to your limits on what you can do with each and every one of your items.

* ShmuckBait: The game's save file has an obvious "level" variable you can see if you open it with a text editor. Trying to change this to skip ahead leads to you being sent to ZERO Court, from which you can plead not guilty and will be put back on the floor you were just on. The game doesn't actually use that variable at all, [[NoFairCheating it's just there to screw with you if you try to cheat]].

** If you enter your file's Brand Room, touching the capsule at the top will cause the background to shimmer in TronLines and make a sound. Keep on pushing it and [[JumpScape Add's shadow will be quite upset with you...]]

* ItsAWonderfulFailure: If you die too many times in the same room after being Voided, Gray or Lillie will fall to their knees and the screen will dim. They will then appear in an empty screen of darkness. If you mash buttons, they will regain resolve and stand back up. Should you start tapping and then give up, she too will give up and eventually transform into a Void Egg. The opening notes of the Bad Ending song 'Voided' begins to play, almost as if in mourning for the fallen adventurer. This is treated as an ending as if you hold the Esc key to close the game, [End it all.] takes significantly longer to fill like other endings, and [[TearJerker the title screen will show their petrified form]]. This was added in later to serve as [[AntiFrustrationFeature an emergency abort for your run should you be unable to solve a room and with no other way to get out.]]

* ItsAWonderfulFailure: If you die too many times in the same room after being Voided, Gray or Lillie will fall to their knees and the screen will dim. They will then appear in an empty screen of darkness. If you mash buttons, they will regain resolve and stand back up. Should you start tapping and then give up, she too will give up and eventually transform into a Void Egg. This is treated as an ending as if you exit out of the game, [[TearJerker the title screen will show their petrified form]]. This was added in later to serve as [[AntiFrustrationFeature an emergency abort for your run should you be unable to solve a room and with no other way to get out.]]

** Gray and Lillie themselves can cross it and transform into Void Eggs should they repeatedly fail a room when VOIDed and fail to fully stand back up when the screen darkens. ItsAWonderfulFailure goes over it more in detail.

** If the player elects to not sleep at the final birch tree at B255 and goes down the stairs instead, they will enter a [[UnwinnableByDesign completely unwinnable puzzle.]] No matter what the player does, there is no way to open up the stairs and proceed down, as there is a single judgement statue in the room that will punish you for lifting a tile, and the button is misaligned. Closing and opening the game instantly starts up the ending sequence with Lillie crossing the DespairEventHorizon and turning into a void egg.

** If the player elects to not sleep at the final birch tree at B255 and goes down the stairs instead, they will enter a [[UnwinnableByDesign completely unwinnable puzzle.]] No matter what the player does, there is no way to open up the stairs and proceed down, as there is a single judgement statue in the room that will punish you for lifting a tile, and the button is misaligned. Closing and opening the game instantly starts up the ending sequence with Lillie crossing the DespairEventHorison and turning into a void egg.

* DevelopersForesight: The game has multiple ZERO Court scenes to account for different means of save-scumming, such as quitting the game right after dying without any Locust Idols, repeatedly reloading your game to try and horde infinite Locust Idols from the same chest, and repeatedly reloading when you get stuck.

* AlienGeometries: It becomes apparent early on that the Void's overall geometry defies Euclidian space. Entering stairs is the only way to move to the next floor; if you fall into a pit, you simply plummet to your death (and respawn if you have locust idols in stock or are voided). More strangely, you can pick out the stairs with your Void Rod, place it down somewhere else, and it still takes you down as usual.
* AnotherSideAnotherStory:

* MinusWorld: On a "rest" floor, it's possible to swap the tiles of the user interface without getting forced to a DeadEndRoom. By swapping the amount of Locusts you have with the last two digits of the Floor, it teleports you to that floor. Do this to warp to Floor 00, and you're sent to a special room before the game's beginning where Gray or Lillie (but not Cif) can obtain a more powerful rod that can store multiple tiles at once, but only if they had slain the right Void Lords beforehand.