My Little Pony this ain't.
Image by TUWKA. Use of her work is permissible with credit.
D'LIRIUM
is an indie horror-shooter game made by B52 Development Team which was officially released in October 2023.
On New Year's Eve, Ada and her friends Claudia, Dismas and Gestas, are invited to a mysterious mansion by its enigmatic curator, Abel. There, Ada finds a present, the Demonic Casket. Opening it with apparently no consequences, when she goes to dinner with Abel, she discovers her friends have been suddenly killed and mutilated and the mansion has been turned into a hellscape. She must brave the horrors of the mansion with her magic powers to find her friends.
...also, did we mention that all the characters are adorable talking Ponies?
An expansion focusing on Dismas and Gestas was announced in August 2018.
D'LIRIUM contains examples of:
- Artefact of Doom: The Casket at the beginning apparently transforms the game world into a Dark World, and grants Ada a myriad of dark powers in the bad endings.
- Black Bug Room: The Personal Hell where you awaken if you die of too much shock, if the name is of any indication. You have to receive personality fragments to return to the Heart in order to escape before giant black tendrils engulf the whole map.
- Blackout Basement: The Very Definite Final Dungeon is almost completely pitch black, meaning the player must rely on their Infinite Flashlight for light alone.
- The Blank: At the end of the game, Ada encounters her friends, apparently alive despite finding their corpses before, but completely faceless and in a state of torment. Whether the player decides to kill them or not triggers the Multiple Endings.
- Dark World: The Casket at the beginning of a game is apparently some sort of portal to Hell. The manor is turned into a haunted wasteland filled with tormented souls.
- Degraded Boss: Like Heavy Hitters in Bioshock Infinite, Nightmares are introduced as a boss fight in the second level, but by the final level, they're just another (albeit very powerful) enemy.
- Didn't Think This Through: Sure, go to a mysterious mansion with a pony you barely know and open the strange gifts he's giving you, including that box with a pentagram, that will sure work well for you!
- Disproportionate Retribution: In one of the endings, Ada literally kills her friends when they don't believe her story of being transported into the Dark World. May be justified, as it's implied that she was corrupted by the Casket and by Abel's manipulations.
- Enemy Summoner: "Losts" added in the Beta-1 cut update don't attack the player directly, but summon ghostly Phantoms to assail them.
- Evil Overlord: In the Bad Endings, Ada becomes one after killing her friends. She resurrects them as Nightmares to serve as minions and spreads the darkness and horror of Hell across the land.
- Expy: Ada bears quite a visual resemblance to King Sombra. Given the bad endings, it is unlikely to be coincidental.
- Flying Mook: Howlings can fly about in voids inaccessible to the player and fire one-hit shots at them.
- Gainax Ending: In the two bad endings, Ada becomes an Evil Overlord who turns the entire land into Hell, either after killing her friends or ruminating at the tree where it all begins.
- Ghostly Gape: All the enemies have black, gaping voids in place of their eyes.
- Gorn: Everywhere. Of note is when Ada finds the mutilated remains of her friends across various levels.
- Haunted House: given an interesting twist. The house itself is fairly normal in the beginning, but once Ada opens the Casket...
- Interface Screw: If your Sanity Meter gets too high, the game begins to flash and become grainy for a second.
- Infinite Flashlight: Ada can shine a light on the cursor assuming the right button's pressed. By the final levels, it's the only source of light.
- Meaningful Name: Gestas and Dismas, two of Ada's friends are robbers. They are named for the thieves Jesus was crucified with.
- Mighty Glacier: Wraiths and Impendents are both slow, but extremely hard to kill.
- Mind Screw: The entire game. What was the Casket that caused everything to happen? Was the world actually corrupted, is Ada in a Dark World or something else? How did Ada come across the corpses of her friends twice and find them alive, albeit now as The Blank, in the final level? What caused her to become evil in the end?
- Mood Dissonance: The game stars cute, pastel-coloured Ponies. It's a completely terrifying Silent Hill experience.
- Multiple Endings:
- If Ada kills her eyeless friends at the end of the game, she goes to the tree where the game begins, ruminating on what Abel said before apparently becoming corrupted by the casket and becoming an Evil Overlord, resurrecting her friends as Nightmares and spreading darkness across the land.
- If Ada spares her friends, she returns to the dining room. Her friends don't believe her when she tries to explain the torments she received, before she goes berserk and kills them, resurrecting her friends, opening the casket and once more becoming an Evil Overlord.
- If Ada doesn't kill at all in the game, or saves the soul of every enemy she kills via Sorcery, the second ending occurs, but blood suddenly manifests over her, making her friends believe her story. They leave the mansion in peace.
- Necromancer: Ada in the bad endings resurrects her dead friends as undead Nightmares to serve as her minions.
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Nintendo Hard: There are LOTS of enemies in a given level, and most of them are either to kill given the labyrinth-like level design, or just plain hard to kill. - Pacifist Run: Not killing any enemy unlocks the secret good ending
- Sanity Meter: Measures damage to your Sanity, and is increased by killing enemies and by certain attacks. If it gets to 100 you die and awaken in a Personal Hell, where you must find Personality Fragments to give to the Heart in order to escape.
- Sugar Apocalypse: AND HOW! Ever wonder what Silent Hill with Ponies would be like?
- Trailers Always Spoil: The official store description as well as
Word of God imply Ada is actually a Decoy Protagonist and the real Big Bad of the story. The actual protagonist is the one who fights her. - Twisted Christmas: Everything begins on New Year's Eve.note The levels are decorated with the occasional festive tree, lights and presents juxtaposed against the violent and gory backgrounds. If you die, you get a shot of Ada's corpse hanging limply from holiday lights.
- Very Definite Final Dungeon: Pandemonium, the centre of Hell and final level is a labyrinth of dark, metal corridors and platforms raised from a seemingly infinite abyss.
- What the Hell, Hero?: At the end, Abel rants about the violence Ada inflicts on the monsters and how much suffering she's inflicted on them. When she points out they were attacking her, he says it was only because they were afraid, and concludes she's an Axe-Crazy Knight Templar for judging them immediately.
- Wrench Whack: The basic melee unit, the Knife, can be upgraded into a Wrench in Level 2.
- You Mean "Xmas": The game takes place on New Year's Eve, which in Ukrainenote and the rest of the former USSR is celebrated like Christmas is in more western countries (gift giving, trees, etc).
