The short starts with let's player Blair Trigger playing a walkthrough of Final Deployment 4, where he plays as a soldier named Scourge fighting in an Alien Invasion Bug War. After defeating the final boss, the war ends and Scourge has to return to ordinary life. To deal with his anger and PTSD, Scourge starts playing his own walkthrough. From there, the story starts to get a little more complicated.
See the whole short on Adult Swim
or YouTube.
Keep those tropes and comments coming...
- Achievement Mockery: The end of the video gives the viewer the achievement "20 mins You'll Never Get Back".
- Alien Invasion: The game Final Deployment 4 is about a war with alien bugs that invade earth, and its aftermath.
- Big Bad: Xanzicon, who is mind controlling everyone.
- Boom, Headshot!:
- Scourge kills Xanzicon with a headshot.
- Featured in the first-person shooter game after the credits.
- Broken Record: Most of the characters after they're freed from Mind Control, though Fire Quacker and Moonwalker keep quiet.
- Bug War: See the entry for Alien Invasion.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Blair Trigger's roommate interrupts Blair's "sexy time".
- Chameleon Camouflage: The first-person shooter apparently has this.
- Cosmetic Award: All of the in-game "achievements" appear to be useless. Lampshaded at one point by Unicorn.Unicorn: If the takeover happens sooner, you can get a platinum achievement! It's pretty meaningless, but gives you the illusion you're doing something with your life.
- Death Is Dramatic: Garcia's death in the game Final Deployment 4, though at the same time Blair Trigger mocks the scene.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: All the characters play video games to escape the depressing reality of an apparently pointless life."All I know is, when I play video games, I feel like I have a purpose. Why can't life have that?"
- Domestic Abuser: The Big Bad mind controls his girlfriend to make her do the dishes.
- Easter Egg:
- Blair wears a Unicorn Bust shirt, and there's a Blair Trigger post in Unicorn's room.
- Scourge has a picture of Anya on his helmet.
- Excuse Me While I Multitask: Scourge plays Moonshaft on his smartphone while he goes out to save his ex-girlfriend.
- First-Person Shooter: Two are featured after the credits, but they both crash.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- When Unicorn starts her walkthrough, you can briefly see the outline of the Chameleon Camouflage first-person shooter who appears later.
- You can see the ping-pong table loading when Blair Trigger starts walks to the kitchen.
- Gainax Ending: The universe crashes when The Maker kills itself, and the Blue Screen Of Death is the ball in Pong.
- The Game Plays You: The game Blair Trigger plays has an alien bug which controls all the characters (including Blair Trigger).
- Gamer Chick: Fire Quacker.
- Game Within a Game:
- The main story arc features seven layers of game walkthroughs within each game.
- There's even a couple more after the credits with First-Person Shooter characters The Maker. Lampshaded by The Maker:God: So, the biggest take away here is not to run too many simulations within your simulation. You run the risk of not only getting nesting simulations, but an increasing chance you're a simulation yourself.
- Gasshole: Boobfart.
- Given Name Reveal: Scourge's mother calls him Lawrence.
- God Is Dead: The Maker apparently shoots and kills themself.
- Good Bad Bugs: In-Universe example, where Blair Trigger demonstrates a glitch where Scourge is able to hide in a wall to be safe from acid.
- Hallucinations: Scourge has quite a few, including seeing lips telling him to kill himself, a "PTSD attack" where his room turns into a battlefield, and seeing his ex-girlfriend have sex with a bug while in a hospital waiting room.
- Heh Heh, You Said "X": More like Heh Heh, I Said "X". During the credits, Unicorn laughs when she says she's "horny".
- Heroic BSoD: When Blair Trigger sees himself through the Recursive Reality.Blair Trigger: Here, you press "X" to have your alien press "glarp" to have Fire Quacker press "X" to have... Holy shit, is that me?
- Hot Coffee Minigame: Firequacker accidentally picks "Masturbate" out of a list of activities and awkwardly helps Blair Trigger do this.
- Hurricane of Puns: Blair Trigger has quite a few puns.
- When he introduces himself:Blair Trigger: What up, y'all? It's your boy Blair Trigger. (Blau Blau Blau Blau). AKA Blair's Waldo, AKA Blairly Legal, AKA The Trigga Man.
- Also while he's playing Final Deployment 4:Blair Trigger: Now, here the Queen's tail sac bursts open, spreading ASS-id juice — see what I did there — everywhere.
- When he introduces himself:
- Insectoid Aliens: The aliens in Final Deployment 4 and Alien Invasion 5: Revenge of the Insectoids, which appear to be in a Shared Universe.
- Interspecies Romance: Scourge's fiance starts dating an alien insect after the war.
- Lampshade Hanging: The "Achievement Earned!" banner starts lampshading what's happening in the story, like "Moment of Reflection" or "Multi-Task Master trophy".
- Law of Alien Names: The named aliens are Xaxikromph and Xanzicon.
- The Maker: The God-like creature who apparently runs all the simulations.
- Mind-Control Device: Xanzicon has a mind-control chip implanted in Anya and later, in Fire Quacker.
- Mind Screw: The main storyline features multiple nested simulations which are run by a God-like creature who kills itself.
- Motor Mouth: Scourge's mother.
- Nerf: Discussed by the first-person shooters while they're complaining about the game update.
- Not Good with Rejection: Scourge finds his girlfriend has started dating an alien bug, and whenever he starts thinking about them his jealousy and anger meters rise.
- Parody Video Games: Most of the video games are parodies, either of certain genres or specific games.
- Final Deployment 4 parodies the Gears of War franchise.
- Moonshaft is a parody of Minecraft.
- Unicorn Bust is a parody of Angry Birds.
- Captain Lion is a parody of Batman: Arkham Series.
- Play Every Day: Boobfart Jumpflop, being a parody of freemium mobile games.
- Poor Man's Porn: Blair pulls up cartoon images of mostly naked furries for his sexy time.
- Recursive Reality: Fire Quacker plays Blair Trigger, who plays Scourge, who plays Moonwalker, who plays Captain Lion, who plays Unicorn, who plays Boobfart, who plays Xanzicon, who Mind Controls Fire Quacker.
- Running Gag:
- The characters asking for likes and comments.
- In the post-credits scenes, characters advising the audience to save often.
- Sanity Meter: Scourge's depression meter.
- Self-Deprecation: One of the chat room comments remarks that the film is just a poor man's Too Many Cooks. This short film was made by one of the same creators, Casper Kelly.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Scourge has to deal with PTSD after fighting in an Alien Invasion Bug War.
-
Spiritual Successor: Casper Kelly calls this short film his "sorta sequel" to Too Many Cooks. - Stylistic Suck: Some of the segments in Final Deployment 4 have obvious clipping errors and stiff animation, some of which can commonly be seen in real major releases.
- Suicide Dare: Scourge sees a pair of lips in the ceiling which say, "Why don't you just kill yourself?" Scourge tells the lips to shut up.
- Tame His Anger: Whenever Scourge gets angry or annoyed, Blair Trigger advises players to watch his rage meter.
- Two Scenes, One Dialogue: When the characters start each making their own walkthroughs, their conversations start to overlap as they give the same advice. At one point, they all share a moment of depression over The Meaning of Life.
- Vanity License Plate: The chef's van has the license plate "L!CNZ PL8".
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Blair says it's possible for Scourge to kill his mom, though he discourages doing this because that means you lose the game.
- Video Game Time: Subverted. Blair says most of the video game activities happen in real time, even waiting at a spaceport for 30 minutes or in a lobby for a couple hours.
- Virtual Danger Denial: Xanzicon doesn't seem to think Scourge can really kill him.Scourge: You're going down!
Xanzicon: But you're just a game.
Scourge: Your mama's a game! [shoots Xanzicon in the head] - Wallbonking: Blair Trigger does this as he's wandering around his house controlled by Fire Quacker.
- Your Mom: "Your mama's a game!"
