Don't disappear like the smoke into the night.
An Outcry is a narrative-driven Psychological Horror indie game released on January 5th, 2022 made using RPG Maker 2003. Development of the project was led by Quinn K. and Kitet with full credits on the game's Itch.io page.
The game follows a nonbinary protagonist, known as the Unnamed, who hears a hellish noise after asking around for a smoke and chooses whether to investigate it. Meanwhile, strange birds are mysteriously flocking around them.
A demo of the game was featured on the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc 2021, and the game was fully released on Steam
and Itch.io.
This game provides examples of:
- Action Survivor: The Unnamed is clearly out of their wits and are stated to be reluctant to fight at the beginning of every encounter. A lot of in-game narration goes out of its way to say that they are not too physically strong, are non-confrontational, have a laid-back personality, and are struggling financially. Should they literally heed the call, they have a chance of gaining confidence to stand up and surviving to the end.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: At the end of the Enabler path, the Unnamed has a beak growing out of their face and the orange eyes of the birds.
- Animalistic Abomination: The giant-bird monster that Birdness turns into certainly qualifies, if he didn't count beforehand.
- Asshole Victim: Discussed. In the Ignore route, Anne points out that even though Schmitt and Eisen are thoroughly unpleasant, neither of them deserved to die over their behavior. And even if they did, Yildirim was an innocent victim.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: In the "Suicide" ending, the Unnamed decides to fall to their death over confronting the monstrous Birdness.
- Bird People: Some birds take on a more anthropomorphic appearance. And the Unnamed starts to turn into one in one of the endings.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- The Ursa Minor ending has the Unnamed, Anne, Yildirim, and her children survive. But it's at the cost of their apartment burning down, the presumed deaths of everyone else inside including Eisen, and with an uncertain future.
- The Remorse ending has the Unnamed, with the help of Anne, be freed from the player's control and able to act of their own freewill. This is after the player had led them on a traumatizing path of leading nearly everyone else to their deaths and almost ruining their friendship.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Overlaps with Must Have Nicotine, as the Unnamed is neurotic and depressed, so they light up in order to de-stress themselves.
- Color-Coded Characters: Each of the characters have distinct coloration to them. The Unnamed is purple, Anne Pierrot is a yellowish green, Horst Schmitt and Gertrud Eisen are a pinkish red, Esma Yildirim is blue, and the shrikes are a darker shade of green-blue.
- Content Warnings: The game gives content warnings that the game deals with depictions of transphobia, mental health, suicidal themes, and animal abuse. With the option of opting out on the last one.
- Cowardly Lion: As mentioned under Action Survivor, the Unnamed is explicitly stated that they do not want to fight, and they are anxiety-prone. Doesn't stop them from confronting the head shrike and saving the group in the Bittersweet Ending of the Follow path.
- Creepy Crows: More specifically, shrikes, but with usage of this trope in mind.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: How each of the characters die in the Enabler ending. Schmitt and Anne are left to bleed out slowly and painfully after being impaled and attacked offscreen respectively. Yildirim dies when the apartment's elevator has the support wires cut and comes crashing down. Eisen is eaten from the inside out by a shrike.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The Unnamed has a doozy of a one involving being emotionally and sexually abused by their ex Alex, to the point where they were Driven to Suicide but ended up not going through with it.
- Deadpan Snarker: The Unnamed and Schmitt often go back-to-back on snarking at each other in a less friendly manner, but Anne exudes good-natured sarcasm whenever she invites the Unnamed over to her apartment.
- Driven to Suicide:
- As part of their backstory, the Unnamed recounts how they imagined themselves walking into busy traffic in graphic detail, before being able to pull themselves out from that brink.
- The Suicide ending is a Better to Die than Be Killed example.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: The Enabler ending has the ensemble cast dead, and the Unnamed transforming into another shrike.
- Evil Laugh: The shrikes adorn their speeches with variants of "keh keh keh" and "kay kay kay".
- Extreme Doormat: The Unnamed starts the game wanting to avoid confrontation and accepting Anne's kindness and warmth eagerly. While they are a Deadpan Snarker and have limits for how much harassment they take from others, they prefer to ignore insults than try to argue with the aggressor. They can undergo Character Development to take an active role and try to save the others when things go awry, depending on player choice.
- Faux Affably Evil: The shrikes that speak often have an air of pleasantness to their tone when addressing the Unnamed, treating them at times like an old friend. They still mean to kill or convert them, often dropping the affable part when doing so.
- Feathered Fiend: In addition to being embodiment of general Creepy Crows stereotypes, the shrikes are also quite bloodthirsty, otherworldly, and dangerous.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: In the Follow path, at one point, a demonic shrike takes over the game's narration with less than helpful advice.
- Given Name Reveal: Throughout the game, the protagonist is only ever referred to as the Unnamed by the text. Toward the end of both branching paths, their name is revealed to be Aster Steinschaden, either after finally introducing themselves to Yildirim and her family in the Follow path, or as part of Anne's "The Reason You Suck" Speech in the Ignore path.
- Guile Hero: In the Follow path, the player is encouraged to withstand attacks and exhaust opponents to make an escape rather than staying to fight them. And it is how to win the otherwise Hopeless Boss Fight.
- Hey, You!: Schmitt almost always refers to the Unnamed as "boy", misgendering them to get under their skin.
- Hidden Eyes: There are shadows over the Unnamed's eyes in both their overworld sprite and character portraits. There are a few points where the shadow goes away, later revealed to be as an effect of being the Player Character.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The final confrontation with Terrific Birdness is unwinnable. The player has to survive long enough to escape the fight.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In the Ignore path, Schmitt has the model ship he was working on impaled through his chest by the shrikes, and is left bleeding out before expiring.
- Important Haircut: The Unnamed has a shaved head. They shaved their head bald to be less conventionally attractive to avoid continued sexual harassment from a man named Alex.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Played straight in the Ignore path regarding Yildrim's children, as Anne saves them off-screen after the shrikes attack the family whereas nearly everyone else dies in that path.
- Innocently Insensitive: In comparison to Schmitt and Eisen, it's clear that Yildirim is trying to be more respectful about the Unnamed's gender-identity, but her lack of knowledge surrounding it can make her fall into this trope.
- Multiple Endings: There are a total of five endings.
- Murder by Inaction: In the Ignore path, the Unnamed allows the other characters to die around them without lifting a finger to help.
- Must Have Nicotine: The plot is started by the Unnamed going around their apartment complex looking to bum a cigarette off from their neighbors, a habit which is called out on. Saving is also represented by the Unnamed taking a smoke break using collectible cigarettes.
- The Nameless: The Unnamed themselves, of course. It is later revealed to be Aster Steinschaden.
- One Last Smoke: In the "Enabler" path, a dying Anne sits next to the Unnamed as she slowly bleeds to death while they smoke together.
- Orifice Invasion: The shrike that Eisen was keeping in the Ignore path eventually kills her by somehow eating her from the inside out, and exiting her corpse through her mouth.
- Player and Protagonist Integration: Of the Controller type, with the Unnamed having enough details (such as Hidden Eyes and gender-neutral pronouns, although justified in the latter case) that players can latch onto them in some way. The Remorse ending however reveals that this is a case of an Advisor example, where the Unnamed confesses to Anne that they're not fully in control of their actions and words, and she recognizes this and aids in freeing them of the player's control.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Horst Schmitt is a piece of work. Not only does he frequently harass the Unnamed for being nonbinary, but he calls Yildirim a slur in an argument. It's also possible for him to burn the apartment down at the request of the birds, putting him into villain territory. Eisen meanwhile avoids this: as unpleasant as she is, she doesn't directly cause any harm.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: At the end of the Enabler route, Anne rips into the Unnamed hard for being a bystander to the birds killing everyone and no matter how rude the neighbors ever were to them, none of them deserved to die for it.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The birds have eye colors ranging from a bright orange to red.
- Shy Blue-Haired Girl: Played with, and deconstructed. While the Unnamed is nonbinary, they used to have long blue hair with pink highlights until they gave themselves an Important Haircut. Because of their demure nature, they were taken advantage of by Alex until they shaved their head, in part to try to get him to be less attracted to them.
- Suddenly Voiced: The game delivers narration as text on screen with characters having their own personal talking portraits, but partway in the lead bird suddenly begins to speak with proper voice acting.
- Title Drop: The noise that the Unnamed hears after they go outside for a smoke is referred to as the titular outcry, and the games gets a proper drop with the nearby suddenly-talking shrike asking them if they followed or ignored an outcry after making the branching choice. In the Remorse ending, another title drop occurs when Anne finds the manuscript of the game itself.
- Trans Tribulations: The nonbinary Unnamed faces a lot of tribulation from their neighbors who, intentionally or unintentionally, don't understand what they are going through or intentionally misgendering them or dead-naming them to try to provoke a reaction.
- Villain Protagonist: The Unnamed is arguably this in the Ignore path, as they encourage or ignore everyone else to die to the shrikes knowingly or unknowingly. The player can subvert this if they go for the Remorse ending rather than the Enabler path.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: It's unknown what happens to Schmitt after he sets fire to the apartment and bails in the Follow path, although the bird narrator says that he didn't make it far.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Anne doesn't mince words when she finds the Unnamed is allowing their neighbors to die to the shrikes around them if they ignored the outcry. Going as far to ask them if their friendship was ever real or if they saw the others as people. Her tone changes if they reveal that their actions are not their own.
- Withholding Their Name: To the point where the game's narration withholds the main character's name from the player. The Unnamed is a shut-in, and it is later revealed that they haven't given their names out to most of their neighbors.
