Video Game / Annabelle (RPG Maker)

Annabelle is a short puzzle RPG where you must explore the mind of Annabelle as she tries to remind herself about the good things in life and deal with the terrible relationship between her and her father.
Four doors. Behind each door is a reason for Annabelle to live. Each of these reasons to live will help you as you explore Annabelle's mind.
Find all four of the reasons to live, and Annabelle's suffering is over.

Annabelle is a series of RPG Maker horror games in the vein of Yume Nikki and LISA: The First by Yoobii and is part of the Yoobiiverse with Annventure and The Brains And The Brawn.

The original game starts the titular Annabelle Sunray, a girl living under her abusive father Jason Sunray, as she bonds with her best friend Melody Moonlight and dreams of her reasons to keep living. The original game has four doors and four areas, with Effects used to traverse areas. It received a remake, The Dreams Of Annabelle Sunray, which expands on the original with two additional areas and improved graphics.

Followed up by an interquel, The Dreams Of Melody Moonlight, in which Melody has nightmares of her own involving Annabelle, and another interquel, Annabelle: Projection, focusing on Annabelle as she dreams about her school life before she met Melody, as she deals with the bullying from Riley and her cohorts, eventually gaining a friend in Ego (a recurring character from Annventure) who offers to help her fight against the bullies. Unlike previous games, this one has a purely linear world and instead adds RPG combat. Annabelle is also one of the main characters of An Annventure to End Them All.

Annabelle returns in the true sequel, The Exorcism of Annabelle Sunray, where she is sent to an abusive religious institution known as 'The Church', for troubled orphans, and must escape the clutches of The Preacher, a robed woman who serves as the head of the institution. It was originally intended to be the first of a new trilogy, titled I Am Annabelle Sunray, but the creator Died During Production.

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This series contains examples of:

General

• Mundanger: The Yoobiiverse is primarily rife with supernatural and inter-dimensional horrors, as well as crazy supervillains. But in this series, the horrors are entirely mundane in nature, with the surrealism present due to the nightmares suffered by the titular Annabelle.
  • The overall villain of the series is Jason Sunray, who has no fantastical powers and is just some guy with an apartment but is an abusive husband and father who molests his own daughter. His abuse is the very reason for all the nightmares and issues that Annabelle struggles with throughout the series.
  • Projection introduces a gang of school bullies, led by Alpha Bitch Riley, as the antagonists who cause Annabelle great distress and body issues, which are played fully seriously.
  • Exorcism has a religious Orphanage of Fear, The Church, and its fundamentalist owner, The Preacher, who abuses the orphans both physically and mentally, and instills in them a twisted philosophy that their suffering is punishment from God that they can only be released from by repenting.
• Shout-Out: Some references to popular games, both of which are explained by virtue of Annabelle and Melody being Gamer Chicks:
  • The original and remake have a section based on Slender, where Annabelle must collect eight pages in a forest area while being chased by her father Jason, who is dressed to resemble the Slenderman.
  • One of the songs from the original game's soundtrack is a remix of Megalovania. Although it resembles more the version from The Halloween Hack/Homestuck due to the lower pitch and the melody arrangement, rather than the more popular remix from Undertale.
  • The third area in Annabelle Sunray is a reference to Banjo-Kazooie. The entrance to the area heavily resembles the entrance to Gruntilda's Lair, and the music resembles the Gruntilda's Lair music as well. You also have to catch puzzle pieces blatantly resembling Jiggies, the main collectible in the Banjo series.
  • This is then followed by a Portal area, with Annabelle waking up in a similar room to the one Chell awoke in and getting out of it via a portal. There are even turrets in the area.
  • Annabelle: Projection has Toriel appear out of nowhere and say the lines she says to the Fallen Human. Later on, a skull with a blue right eye appears and makes the Sans Voice Grunting if you interact with it.
  • One area in Projection has as it's background music a rendition of Thriller.
  • Projection also has sprites of Pac-Man and Dig Dug in one area.
• Named in the Sequel:
  • The title heroine's abusive father was nameless in the original game, but the remake and subsequent games gave him the name Jason Sunray.
  • Melody's mother first appears in The Dreams Of Melody Moonlight, but her name — Tiffany — is not given until The Exorcism Of Annabelle Sunray.
• Surreal Horror: As a Yume Nikki-inspired game, this is a given. The games explore the horrible life of Annabelle, rife with abuse, using surreal and dark imagery.

Annabelle, The Dreams of Annabelle Sunray, and The Dreams Of Melody Moonlight

• Band Land: The first area in the first two games is a series of hallways with music notes and dancing. It represents the dance hall where Annabelle snuck out to meet Melody.
• Big Bad: Jason Sunray is Anabelle Sunray's abusive father and the main figure in her nightmares who torments both her and Melody.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Melody in Annabelle Sunray outright refers to the game as a fangame (as in a Yume Nikki fangame) at one point.
• Broken Bridge: The first three games are actually rather linear despite being Yume Nikki fangames because you are prevented from going far in certain areas until you have a certain Effect needed to pass. The latter two even prevent you from going into an area unless you unlock it from the Hub Level.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The doors all have different colors, and Annabelle Sunray has different-colored keys to correspond to said doors.
• Dual-World Gameplay: The Theatre area has some doors and enemies that will not appear unless you press a light switch, and can be turned off by pressing the switch again.
• Four Is Death: The original game and Melody Moonlight have four doors of Surreal Horror and abuse to venture through.
• Hub Level: The Nexus, as usual, but the latter two games also have a door in the Nexus that leads to an area that is used to unlock all the other areas, depending on what abilities you have.
• The Maze: The first two games have one of the invisible variety, where the pathways are periodically revealed by green bars passing through them.

Annabelle: Projection

• Big Bad: Riley is Annabelle's toxic friend before she met Melody and the cause of her mental issues that she deals with in the game.
• No, You: Ego says this word-for-word in response to a bully calling Annabelle's clothes filthy and telling her she has greasy hair.
• You Are Fat: Riley calls the titular Annabelle fat among other insults.
  Just lose some weight, idiot. It's not that hard, and then you could look like me.
• You Fool!: An NPC says that Ego and Annabelle cannot possibly defeat the Intrusive Thoughts. When Ego claims otherwise, the NPC says "FOOL FOOL FOOL FOOL".

The Exorcism Of Annabelle Sunray

• Big Bad: The Preacher is the mysterious robed woman who runs The Church, an Orphanage of Fear where she abuses the orphans and plans to keep Annabelle under her thumb. It turns out that "she" is Jason, having returned from his supposed death and wanting to kill Annabelle.
• Bittersweet Ending: Annabelle has finally escaped The Church and gotten Jason arrested, so she goes to meet Melody again... only to discover that her mother already sold the house. To Riley and her dad, no less.
• Crime of Self-Defense: Annabelle ended up in The Church because she stabbed Jason in the first game, even though he tried to molest her at that moment.
  Annabelle: I'm not a danger to myself or anyone. It was self-defense.
  Roxanne: Yeah, but they don't care. No matter what happens to you they think it's your fault.
• Denied Food as Punishment: Roxanne recounts the first time she swore, and Father Martin commanded her to stop. She ignored him and was sent to her room without food or even water.
• Electric Torture: Upon capturing Frankie for stealing the Front Office Key, The Preacher ties him to a chair, takes out a taser, and repeatedly shocks him with it, demanding to know where he hid the key. He then shocks the kid to death just to stop him from interfering further in his plans.
• Food as Bribe: The Preacher offers candy to whoever finds and captures the escaping Annabelle.
• Foreshadowing: Roxanne, at one point, asks Annabelle if the reason she's locked up in The Church is because of her father, who abused her and whom she knifed in self-defense. That is indeed the case, far more than either realize- because her father is secretly running the place.
• Fostering for Profit: This turns out to be the real motive of The Preacher- by intentionally traumatizing the orphans/patients under his care, thus making sure they never recover and rejoin society, he keeps the state flowing money to him.
• Madness Mantra: One Unfortunate Youth is seen repeating "I'm not pure" after being forced to drink ipecac and vomit because he was told that only the pure would be able to handle it.
• Orphanage of Fear: The Church is a religiously-flavored one, as they take in orphans only to tell them that their traumas are their fault and abuse them both physically and emotionally. Yet somehow the institution won several humanitarian awards. This is because it did before Jason had come in control of the place.
• Permanent Placeholder: In-Universe, the orphanage known as The Church was originally going to receive a proper name, but it never did.
• Police Are Useless: The Preacher/ Jason Sunray, who runs The Church, got the job by lying to the police, saying that Tiffany Moonlight, who was supposed to get the job, was mentally unfit. Tiffany is a kind and stable individual while Jason is a known abuser and molester, but for some reason the police believe Jason, who then gets the job. Thankfully, the ending has the police arrest Jason and save the day.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: Used to punctuate a Bait the Dog moment. In The Preacher's Establishing Character Moment, she is warm and welcoming to the orphans under her care, and nice piano music plays in the background... then stops the second she says that they deserved every bit of suffering they went through.
• Wham Line: Just before the final battle, Father Martin reveals The Preacher's identity:
  Father Martin: You leave her alone, Jason!

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