Video Game / Feral

Feral (stylized as Fer.al) was a Massive Multiplayer Online Game developed by WildWorks (of Animal Jam fame) and released for closed beta testing in December 2019.

Players could create an avatar known as a "Spark" and take the form of one of several creatures from various cultures' mythology, which could be used to explore the world, participate in quests, craft items and chat with other players.

The game and its Discord community were abruptly closed on February 18, 2022, following the announcement in December 2021 that, unbeknownst to its playerbase, WildWorks had been developing a NFT blockchain-based game called Cinder, which reuses Fer.al's assets. However, not long after, the game was revived as a fan project known as Ferever, or Emuferal, though it must be downloaded via the game's Discord server.

Not to be confused with the 2024 zombie comic by Tony Fleecs.

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This game provides examples of:

• 30 Minutes, or It's Free!:
  • Such a policy is part of the backstory of the "Pizza Parkour" quest. Daryn delivers pizzas for a company where the pizza is free if it arrives later than twenty minutes after it was ordered. Cedrik attempts to exploit the policy by ordering from the roof of a building, but Daryn enlists the player to get the pizza to the Kobold in time.
  • The policy is alluded to in the follow-up quest "Pie in the Sky", as people are following Cedrik's example and ordering pizza from places that Daryn can't reach in time. Daryn's boss ends up buying delivery drones to stop having to give out so many free pizzas.
• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: You can customize your avatar with an assortment of accessories. Many NPCs wear clothing or accessories as well.
• Aesop Amnesia: Earnest is cursed to be a well after sending Granny Gertrude a repair bill for the wood her puppets chewed up in his house. Shortly after the curse gets broken, he says he’s going to demand she pays double the repair bill as payback for the time he lost as a well. The player character notes he sounds on-track to getting cursed again.
• Alien Sky: Feral's nighttime sky as seen from City Fera is filled with nebulas and shooting stars. The planet also has three moons, each glowing a different color.
• Allegedly Free Game: While Feral is free to play, there are season passes which can be purchased with the game's premium currency, Star Fragments. These passes unlock additional items to earn, as well as new avatar species. The revival, however, removes these paywalls, and Star Fragments are now free to obtain in quests and the like.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Your character can be any color you desire.
• invokedAmbiguously Related: Some optional dialogue from the end of the "Old Wounds" quest has Calliope mention a rumor about LaFayette's cousin going missing in the Blood Tundra. Vesta is the only Valkeri in the Tundra, never appears in any other area, and uses the same base model as LaFayette. The matter isn't elaborated on further in-game, but Word of God states that Vesta is indeed the missing cousin.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: It's not uncommon for the chests you find around the Expanse to drop accessories. Accessories are also a common reward for completing quests and are often given out by games.
• The Artifact: The main currency being called "Likes" is a holdover from when the game was intended to be more heavily themed around social media.
• Asian Fox Spirit: One of the playable avatars is a kitsune. They are described as being energetic, fond of mischief, and having a passion for living life to the fullest.
• Bird People: Valkeri are a species of NPC that are found within most of the game's lands. They are feathery humanoids with barn owl-esque faces and clawed hands. Some aspects of their culture are reminiscent of Egyptian culture, like their totems looking like sarcophagi.
• Black Widow: Implied with Malory the Myrefolk. Her past husbands have all vanished or died, and ellipses start showing up in her dialogue whenever she brings up the... accidents that left her single yet again. She's had at least six previous husbands; a quest where you light a memorial candle for a past husband in her stead has flavor text for the candle that suggests it came in a package with dozens of other candles.
• Born-Again Immortality: The game's Universe Bible states that Twiggles re-sprout when they reach the end of their life cycle with all of their memories intact.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: Mugmyre Marsh is a vast, swampy area full of mud.
• Character Customization: Practically everything about your avatar can be customized.
• Character Level: There's an EXP and level system in the game, the progression of which is tied to users. Rewards include furniture, ingame currency, and new parts to customize avatars, among other things.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Nicolaj the Kobold has some very strange ideas about the world around him, including that his hat protects him from being mind controlled by transmitters in the rival village's arrows, there are slime people that break into his house, and that birds don't actually eat seeds. The "Crowspiracy" quest has the player prove to him that yes, birds eat seeds. Another quest has the player help him investigate a well that appeared out of nowhere, which he thinks has no bottom; the well turns out to be a cursed Myrefolk, who changes back when coins are tossed in the well. This prompts Nicolaj to run away yelling that "wells are people".
• Creepy Child: Regina and Rosemary are a little too obsessed with breaking into the Queens' castle to steal their riches.
• Cut Short: The game was shut down while the Betwixt's pull on Feral was growing and the Queens were still trapped in their nightmares, with no indications of any intended resolution.
• Darker and Edgier: Due to being aimed at an older audience, Fer.al explores darker concepts in comparison to WildWorks' previous game, Animal Jam. Of particular note is Blood Tundra, a frozen Eldritch Location with a destroyed harbor, a lake of blood, and a violent history.
• Detonation Moon: One of Feral's moons, Attis, shattered at some point in the past. While the larger pieces stayed together, plenty of yellowish moon rocks have fallen to the planet's surface since then. One of the inspirations is such a rock.
  Feral has been littered with cool rocks like this ever since one of its moons broke.
• Easy Level Trick: Quests that require getting to a specific location can be rendered trivial by simply teleporting to another player who's already where you need to be.
• Eldritch Location: Blood Tundra is a frozen wasteland with lakes of blood that was formerly a major trading port, but a powerful curse turned it into the desolate place it is today. Additionally, it is implied those who stay in the Tundra for too long lose their memories of their lives before entering the Tundra. The accompanying music of the land ranges from strange to genuinely terrifying.
• Experience Points: Various activities throughout the game give out EXP, which go towards leveling up the user.
• Extra Eyes: Several species of wildlife sport three eyes, such as vexrats, pickens, and kiterays.
• The Fair Folk: Fae are a possible species for your avatar to be. They are described as being difficult to trust and fond of outwitting people, but valuable allies once one understands the rules they operate by.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Sparks can take the form of kitsune, shinigami, jackalopes, and others.
• Fetch Quest: Many quests have you retrieving a specific object or specified quantity of objects.
• Floating Continent:
  • City Fera is built on a floating landmass. The Universe Bible indicates it was built there to avoid getting damaged by the surface's shifting landscape.
  • All Sanctuaries are built on top of floating islands.
• Flying Seafood Special: One of the species of wildlife are kiterays, manta rays that are often seen flying around.
• From a Single Cell: Sparks can heal off any damage they receive as long as their gem of the same name remains intact. Damage to the actual Spark is stated to have the possibility of making healing difficult, along with other negative side-effects.
• Ghibli Hills: Lakeroot Valley is a grassy river valley with several small hills, with rockier terrain in the southern section of the map.
• Glowing Flora:
  • Mugmyre Marsh has Purelight Flowers, small podlike plants that softly glow. The marsh also has a variety of mushrooms that glow in an assortment of colors.
  • Several plants in Sunken Thicket glow.
• Green Hill Zone: Lakeroot Valley, a lush, green land with rolling hills and the first realm of the Expanse on the map.
• Guide Dang It!: There are some Enigmas that can only be obtained while a certain quest is active, but are not the quest's reward. They show up in the overworld using the same sprite that lockpicks use, making them easy to miss if the player doesn't realize that lockpicks don't normally spawn in the location they're in or see them at all because the lockpick sprite blends in too well with the background. Nowhere in the game does it say that Enigmas can be found in this manner.
• Heart Drive: Sparks are described as being the "essence" of all creatures with them. Sparks are stated to be able to persist indefinitely if they never get damaged; while they can retreat into themselves to heal damage sustained to their bodies, damage to the actual Spark can mess with their form and powers.
• Implied Death Threat:
  • The ending of "Candlelight Vigil" has the player ask Mallory how many husbands she's had. After Mallory rattles off a list of ideal traits for a husband that include "wealthy" and "prone to... accidents", she tells them to not spread rumors about her because she doesn't want "any sort of accident" to happen to them.
  • After dealing with de-aged Kobolds, finding clues, and tracking down The Great Magician Leonardo in "Baby Blues", he tells the player to retrieve potions he left sitting out that should get the kobolds back to normal. He also admits the potions might make things worse because he's been too busy to refine them. The description of the potions say that they'd better work, or Conan will get to investigate a murder victim known as The Great Magician Leonardo.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Pretty much all the clothing falls into this category. Examples include but are not limited to: floating accessories, glowing sleeves, a literal bird to ride on your back, and floating rings that swirl around your avatar's tail.
• An Interior Designer Is You: Your Sanctuary can be decorated as you see fit. Items can be rotated and placed in the interior and exterior of one's Sanctuary. The interior can have various wallpaper and flooring styles placed, and the lighting can be changed between warm, natural, and cool tones.
• Item Crafting: The main way to obtain items in Feral is by crafting them with materials you gather around the Expanse.
• The Klutz: A few quests establish Halla to be very clumsy. "A Novel Romance" has him ramble to great end about things that have gone wrong for him; he starts off by mentioning he got a page of a book stuck to his arm with jelly while making sandwiches, then goes off on a tangent about breaking a plate while putting sandwiches away, only to knock over a jar of marbles while getting a broom to clean up the plate. He also mentions he's set far too many things on fire by accident that year.
• Lethal Chef: Karen's baking skills are implied to be awful because she keeps making enough substitutions to drastically change the composition of whatever she's making. Her nemesis Brenda once told her she "couldn't bake her way out of a paper bag".
• Letter Motif:
  • Most Twiggles have names that begin with T, such as Tully, Twigla, and Teagan.
  • Mallory's deceased husbands all have names that begin with the letter F: Ferdinand, Francis, Frederick, Fitzroy, Frankie, and Fischer.
• Loading Screen: These appear whenever you change location.
• Long Song, Short Scene: The music that plays on the map screen, "A World to Travel", is a harp piece that's three and a half minutes long. Most players are only at this screen for fifteen seconds or so, and the music stops playing when you get to an area's loading screen.
• The Lost Woods: Sunken Thicket, described as "a gathering place built into an ancient tree with roots that tap into ancient magic." The area also contains various Glowing Flora.
• Lovable Jock: Brody loves working out, and he refers to his friends as "bros."
• Loot Boxes: The chests found in the Expanse can contain likes, exclusive clothing, and exclusive sanctuary items. They range from a free metal chest, to bronze, silver, and gold. All except the metal chest must be opened with lockpicks that can be found in the expanse; the higher the chest, the better the reward.
• Mascots Love Sugar: The Twiggles love sweets. One quest has you help a Twiggle find some sprinkles for its burrito because even with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, brownies, and cookie dough, it still isn't sweet enough.
• Meaningful Rename: Teeter is a trans woman who chose her name because she's always loved stories about legendary warrior Theodora Swifthallow, "Teeter" being short for "Theodora".
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Kitsune avatar has head, tail, and leg options that make it look like a griffin. The Werewolf also has body mods that can make it look like a wendigo.
• Mordor: Blood Tundra contains mostly dead trees, harsh blizzards, a destroyed harbor with a large lake of blood, and a smaller spring of blood with a massive Wayfarer skeleton.
• Naked People Are Funny: One quest has the player being asked to convince the Valkeri LaFayette to put on some clothes, as the Valkeri thinks he's wearing invisible clothes and is strutting around Sporeville nude. One of the possible dialogue prompts to the questgiver is to briefly break into laughter when she explains what's going on. Although the point of the quest is to persuade LaFayette tactfully, all three dialogue prompt sections when talking to him have an incorrect option that consists of the player loudly commenting about the nonexistence of the clothes he bought and his current state of disrobe.
  THERE'S NO FASHION YOU'RE IN THE NUDE
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Sparks are capable of living indefinitely, so long as they stay passionate and creative.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Falling off the map causes your Spark's body to break apart into wisps of spirit... and then reform on solid ground completely unharmed. To be fair, Sparks are able to teleport.
• Noodle Incident: Feral has apparently been doomed by cleaning products in the past.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Karen the Seraph is incredibly petty, often griping about other people's baked goods and on one occasion sending the player to gather as many apples as they can to prevent one of her rivals from baking a pie for a PTA bake sale. When she gets stranded in the Blood Tundra, she demands to see whoever's in charge of the place so they can retrieve her oars. She also refuses to accept that she's at fault for most things that go wrong for her. Her name is very much intended to parody the 'Karen' archetype.
  Karen: I don't deserve to be stuck in this boat all day just because I didn't feel like "learning how to sail" before I left.
• Odd Name Out:
  • Govan Vincent is the only Twiggle whose name doesn't start with the letter T, as well as being the only one with a surname. This is because Govan is a Shout-Out to Vincent van Gogh and the only other named Twiggle at the time of his first appearance was Twigla.
  • Attis is the only one of Feral's moons with a name that doesn't end with -oria.
• Otaku: Gladiolus and her girlfriend, Mikelle, are huge fans of the in-universe anime "Sakura Revolution."
• Our Angels Are Different: Seraphs are a species of NPC. They are tall, thin humanoids with pale faces and can have a third eye. Interestingly enough, not all of them have wings; those that do have either feathered or leathery ones. They wear robes that cover most of their bodies, with some individuals also sporting high collars. Seraphs have not been shown to have any special powers, though they're implied to be long-lived.
• Our Kobolds Are Different: Kobolds are a species of NPC that are humanoid, covered in fur that comes in several earthy tones, and have vaguely dog-like faces. Their eyes are also solid white. They are a widespread species, being found in every area except Sunken Thicket. The Blood Tundra has a subspecies called Blood Kobolds, which differ from the standard variety in that their eyes are red, they can have white fur, and have never been seen outside of the Tundra.
• Palmtree Panic: Shattered Bay is a beachside city that doubles as a Port Town.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • If you don't complete a Season Pass before the next one comes out, or if you don't purchase the Premium Pass in time, you won't be able to obtain any of the rewards from that pass unless you trade with a player who has them.
  • The "Blood for Blood" quest has an additional reward available besides the one that's automatically given out at the end. If you talk to the Blooderfly, you can receive either an Inspiration or a unique ingredient called "Bluddy". There is no way to repeat this quest, meaning the player can only ever get one or the other. While the ingredient version of Bluddy can be traded between players, Inspirations are tied to accounts, locking the player out of crafting any Enigmas that involve the Bluddy inspiration. It's also possible to miss out on getting either version of Bluddy if the player leaves the Blood Tundra without talking to the Blooderfly.
• Port Town: Shattered Bay is a major trading city. It was even called "Trader's Port" prior to March 18, 2020.
• Repeatable Quest: The daily tasks are all activities that have in-universe explanations for why they can be repeated:
  • "That's The Spear-It!"'s mud monsters are regularly formed by the ambient magic in Mugmyre Marsh.
  • "Vesta's Offerings" are given to the Blood Tree, which regularly demands sacrifice to feed it.
  • "Toboggan Trial" has you knocking down snowbolds that the children of the Blood Tundra keep building.
  • The koi in "Escape From Zen Island" keep jumping out of their pond, something that Teeter calls attention to.
• Retcon: With the introduction of the Quest Log allowing quests to be initiated at any time, some quests that were available beforehand had some alterations made:
  • The original version of "Loyal Spectre" stars a Rootkit named Squall whose model is made of Kitsune body mods from early beta testing. The new version changed the species' name to "Rootpup" and gave Squall a new model that looks like a nondescript canine.
  • Since the Unity Treehouse was made a permanent fixture in Lakeroot Valley, the plot of "Treehouse of Hope" was changed to be about restoring the treehouse instead of building it.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Twiggles are small, enthusiastic about everything, and love sweets. Lampshaded in one quest where, while speaking to a Twiggle, you have the option to say, "Can't...focus...you're...too...cute..."
• Role-Playing Game: Feral is a MMORPG.
• Running Gag: Whenever Granny Gertrude is brought up, her creepy puppets are almost always mentioned as well.
• Scenery Porn: The Expanse is full of gorgeous fantasy landscapes.
• Series Continuity Error: It's established in several quests that airships cannot visit the Blood Tundra's harbor without crashing. When the Fera Air Mail airship rotates into the Blood Tundra, it docks in the harbor without experiencing any problems.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Regina and Rosemary spend most, if not all, of their free time plotting to break into City Fera's castle and plunder its riches. They are very disappointed that the castle opening up on its own means that all of their plans and efforts were for nothing.
• Shattered World: The yellow moon Attis broke at an unspecified point in the past. The big pieces have stayed together, though the giant crack is visible from the planet's surface.
• Shinigami: One of the playable avatars. They are lanky humanoids with jagged teeth and long claws, and are always floating.
• Shout-Out:
  • Several quests have you help a young detective Kobold named Conan.
  • Another quest is kicked off by a Valkeri purchasing nonexistent clothing and wandering around town in the buff because he thinks they're fashionable invisible clothes.
  • When freeing the feralbatross in "Poofy Poachers", the player character warns it to "stay away from old mariners".
  • There's a Twiggle artist named Govan Vincent. He's painted a portrait of City Fera at night that bears more than a passing resemblance to The Starry Night
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Blood Tundra is a snowy, mountainous wasteland. The upper right corner of the map has a permanent snowstorm, while the southern harbor has icebergs floating in it.
• Theme Naming: Vexrats have clothing-related names. Iver has a pet Vexrat named Pants, and Edge has a plush version named Shoes.
• Timed Mission: The player has to harvest five Ventvapor Plants within five minutes in "Ultimate Refreshment". The questgiver notes that Sparks such as the player should be able to handle the vapors the unharvested plants are emitting without suffering adverse effects, but still gives them five minutes to finish the task just to be on the safe side.
• Totem Pole Trench: Regina and Rosemary once stood on each other's shoulders under an adult-sized robe in an attempt to purchase high-grade explosives. The person running the store saw through it and refused to sell them the stronger stuff, but they still end up with explosives strong enough to launch Twiggles halfway across Mugmyre Marsh.
• Tree Top Town: Sunken Thicket consists mainly of treehouse-like platforms around a large tree.
• Weird Moon:
  • Feral has three moons named Attis, Astoria, and Visoria. Each of them is a different color: Attis is yellow, Astoria is red, and Visoria is blue. Their going into alignment causes the planet's magic to become volatile.
  • Attis is several times larger than the other two moons. It also broke sometime in the past, though the pieces have stayed roughly in place.
• When the Planets Align: When Feral's three moons are aligned, the planet's magic becomes volatile and unpredictable for the alignment's duration. The commemoration of this annual event provides the basis for the holiday of Cindernoct.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "The Actor's New Clothes" quest is one to The Emperor's New Clothes, as it has the player confront a Valkeri who was conned into purchasing nonexistent clothes under the assumption they were invisible and is wandering about nude. It also subverts a key plot point of the original; in order to complete the quest, at no point must the player tell the Valkeri he's naked.
• Yellow Snow: Alluded to in a quest that involves collecting different-colored snowballs for snowcones. The description of the yellow one notes that it seems less appetizing than the others for some reason.
• Youkai: Two of the possible avatars are a kitsune and a shinigami.

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