Video Game / Ballpoint Universe Infinite

An average moment in Ballpoint Universe Infinite.

As a young doodle freshly spawned from the Idea Spring, you are thrust headfirst into a war against the hordes of the Logicians, cold and emotionless doodles intent on subjugating the whole land. But who really are the Logicians, and what is it they truly want? Up to you to find out.

Ballpoint Universe Infinite is an indie game created by Arachnid Games. It is primarily a horizontal shooter, but also has RPG Elements as well as some platforming. You explore a vast and gorgeous overworld (that's the platforming part), collecting golden sketches and speaking with various wacky characters. Some of them will have missions for you, which you accomplish using a fighter ship. As you destroy enemies and complete missions, you gain Ink, which you can use to buy and upgrade weapons and other ship parts.

The game was first released for PC on May 10th, 2013, and was then ported to iOS on November 19th, 2013, and then to Wii U on October 16th, 2014. It is mostly known for its unique art style, as the name implies everything is hand-drawn by pen and the result truly has to be seen to be believed. Expect copious amounts of Scenery Porn.

Ballpoint Universe Infinite provides examples of the following tropes:

• Annoying Arrows: Played with, the arrow projectiles don't do much damage, but Piercing Gaze shoots so many of them that most enemies who are not bosses will die anyways.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Melee weapons pierce shields. A few ranged weapons can do the same as well.
• The Assimilator: This is what makes the Logicians so deadly. Because they are so much more efficient than regular doodles, in order to fight them, doodles more often than not have to resort to logic themselves. In doing so, they in turn become Logicians.
• Asteroids Monster: The game features literal asteroids that fragment into smaller asteroids when they are destroyed. The Stone Dragon boss uses them as projectiles, so watch out if you try to destroy them.
  • One of the Elite Mooks protecting the Elder Palace is a fairy-like humanoid with butterfly wings, when they die, the wings attack you as butterfly Mooks that try to ram you.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Sure, you could equip a shield for defense, but in many cases just equipping two of your most damaging swords and shredding the enemies before they can even attack you can be the better strategy.
• Attack Deflector: Shielded enemies can reflect ranged attacks at you when their shield is down. You can purchase a shield that does the same too, though to get one that does so without a "fast overheat" drawback is very expensive.
• Audible Sharpness: Heard when Force Will arrives.
• Big Bad: The Observer, the first Logician.
• Birdcaged: The soldiers you break out from the capital.
• BFG: Pretty much anything you can attach to your ship will be one, but some are even bugger and bulkier than others. The Observer pulls a pretty enormous automatic gun on you in the final battle.
• BFS: Any melee weapon you attach to your ship.
• Bizarrchitecture: Every place seems to be designed purely to screw with the player's mind. Even the Logicians' homeworld, supposedly more efficient, is not immune.
• Broken Faceplate: As you whale on The Observer, his face gradually breaks, revealing the doodle underneath.
• Chainsaw Good: The Scorpion nose gives you a special move that creates a ginormous chainsaw in front of your ship. Anything that approaches you from the front will be torn apart, including most bosses.
• Collision Damage: If you run into an enemy, in most cases you can say goodbye to a life.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If you die in the overworld (something that can only happen if you fall into a bottomless pit, as it has no enemies), you respawn at the last save point, and they are absolutely everywhere. If you lose all of your ship's lives in a mission, you'll fail the mission, but that's about it. No other penalties.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Sergeant Boot, who gives you your first mission.
• Dual Wielding: If you want, you can dual-wield swords or guns, but you can never equip two of the same weapon.
• Dying as Yourself: Damage dealt to The Observer causes his face to fall apart, revealing underneath the doodle he used to be before he became a Logician.
• Eldritch Location: ...pretty much everywhere.
• Endless Game: Infinite Mode.
• Final Boss: Oddly, though the mission is called "The Monolith", the final boss is the Observer.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: There is a flamethrower weapon.
• Game-Breaking Bug: It is possible to get stuck in certain areas. This is not made any better by the fact that the game encourages you to explore, but some unconventional movements can force you to reset.
  • During the final boss battle, it is possible to end up fighting both him and various constructs spawning in the background that fire multitudes of projectiles at you (which were presumably intended to be part of the level). If this happens to you, you can kiss your run goodbye.
• Gatling Good: A lot of weapons, including one used by the final boss.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: This happened to The Observer when he beheld The Monolith.
• Guns Are Worthless: Unless you spend a metric crapton of Ink, you are not likely to find a gun that's worth using. Most early-game ranged weapons are peashooters compared to the much more powerful swords, which deal severe damage.
• Hitbox Dissonance: Only the very center of your ship takes damage.
• Homing Projectile: Homing missiles.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Among others, the Tablet Shield, which reflects shots and blocks collisions (the only shield that can do so).
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: You can equip a shield to block enemies' attacks, at the cost of not being able to equip a weapon into that slot. However, shields cannot block enemy collisions (except the outrageously expensive Tablet Shield).
• Macross Missile Massacre: There is a guided missile weapon, and several sets of wings which passively fire homing missiles as well, so...
• Mad Mathematician: Logicians give off this vibe, since they are composed of triangular or rectangular pieces of paper with various mathematical and geometric formulas on them.
• Money Grinding: Ink is in really, seriously, extremely short supply in this game. And honestly, you can beat the game fairly easily using just a couple of early-game weapons. However, woe to you if you happen to be a completionist or you just want to see every kind of weapon, nose and wings at work. Just the Tablet Shield costs a whopping '15000 Ink, that's without counting the two times you need to upgrade the damn thing to reach its full power. And there are dozens more items with comparable prices you need to buy. And even the most Ink-rich levels are going to give you something like 2000 Ink per run at most. Hope you're really, really patient - and enjoy replaying Counter-Attack over and over and over again!
• No-Sell: Enemies with shields are immune to ranged attacks when their shields are up. Well, most ranged attacks.
• Only the Worthy May Pass: Near the start of the game, you encouter a Guardian which judges all doodles and discards the worthless ones. You are deemed worthy, though.
• Orbiting Particle Shield: The special move of one of the ship noses you can get is a set of three barriers that spin around your ship, blocking shots and demolishing enemies in close range. The trope is also used by a few Logician bosses, though their shields are usually slow-moving and destructible.
• Owl Be Damned: Apparently the owls betrayed the doodles and joined the Logicians. They fight by carrying Logician-made guns in their claws, some of which are BFGs. And their leader carries around not just one gun, but an immense pillar full of them, many times his own size.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: You use one to infiltrate the Logician homeworld (literally, your character just hides behind a triangular piece of paper that doesn't even hide him completely). Oddly, it still fools all the Logicians but not The Observer.
• Practical Currency: Ink could have counted as a Weird Currency, but since the whole world is drawn, it makes sense...
• Precursors: The Elder, whose help you seek against the Logicians. And the Observer is one to the Logicians themselves.
  • Abusive Precursors: Before he lets you into his palace, you need to beat some very nasty enemies and one of the hardest bosses in the game. However...
  • Benevolent Precursors: Once you do that, he is actually helpful. He even attaches the "Fountain" onto your ship for the final mission.
• Prison: As you can see from the screenshot, the prison itself also acts as the warden...
• Rock Monster: You fight two serpents made of rock as bosses of two separate missions. The first one is rather pathetic, but the second one is fairly impressive.
• Rocket Punch: One of The Observer's attacks. Sometimes he may throw a bunch of them in a row.
• Scenery Porn: Everywhere.
• Single-Stroke Battle: When you summon Force Will (using the Quad Ball ship nose), it arrives in this way, slicing through all enemies in its path. And then it explodes, showering the field with a crapton of fiery bullets.
• Spin Attack: One of the available swords spins around your entire ship, tearing to pieces enemies even if they are behind you!
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Logicians became what they are to stop the impending threat of "The Monolith".
• Whip Sword: One of the early melee weapons acts like this. It does not hit hard, but has an impressive range.

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