Follow TV Tropes

Following

Video Game / Indecision.

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/indecision.png
Indecision. is a so-called "haiku platformer", developed by Bilge Kaan (who later developed stikir) and released for PC through Steam on February 8th, 2018.

The game's description is intentionally vague, and though commercial it is very brief; it can be comfortably beaten within 15 minutes. Thus, the spoilers present on this page are left unmarked.

Tropes present in this game:

  • Allegedly Free Game: Mocked in the "Resign" section, where, right as your character has to make a precarious jump, there's a pop-up telling you that you need energy to jump, and asking you to buy 100 energy for 99 cents. However, that pop-up itself becomes a physical object in the game's world, and so it completely blocks the pit the character would have fallen into without jumping, and allows them to complete the level anyway.
  • Character Customization: You begin the game in a character creator. While the character in question is Always Male, the other birth characteristics like skin, eye and hair color are fully customisable, and the player can cycle through a decent amount of outfits in the character creator as well. Then, you actually start the game, and it turns out you were customizing a random, silent NPC, who does nothing and never shows up again, while the actual player character is predetermined...for that section. You essentially cycle through different protagonists for (nearly) every new section.
  • Cut and Paste Environments: The level aptly titled "Same." is no different to "Home.", except that now, all the houses no longer have lights on, and instead of having to solve a "puzzle" to do with those, you just run to the edge of the screen.
    • There's also "Fly.", which is the level from "Skinner."...except that it is now dark, with the chute and the button broken and the screen reduced to showing static, while a single fly is buzzing lonesomely in the air. You still control the seagull, but can only ineffectively prance around the dark corners of the screen until the game lets you move on.
    • "End." literally consists of the same few background sprites (the chainlink fence, the rubbish bins, the lampposts, etc.) recurring endlessly in the same places...until suddenly, the lamp posts go out, then everything else gradually disappears, the screen goes completely black, and the game then thanks the player for their time.
  • Darker and Edgier: Invoked in the late-game "Edge." level. Practically all other levels are pretty random and often comedic, with only a few, like "Skinner." and "Fly.", possessing dark undertones, but "Edge" is on a whole other level. You start the level as a black-haired girl on top of the skyscraper's roof, with a red-haired girl standing near the edge. You don't really have any option but to approach her - at which point, she'll push the black-haired girl off the edge, and become a playable character herself instead, who can then successfully be taken to the end-level door.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: The graphics in "Return." consist of black backgrounds and characters, and purple lines that act as character and platform outlines. "Obey." shifts to pure black and white after you intentionally try to act opposite to the commands shown. "Disappear." has pure white backgrounds, and the protagonist there is a grayscale version of an earlier character. The following level, "Limbo" uses literal black-and-white silhouettes just like, well, Limbo. "Bait." has blue-and-black graphics.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: "Slow." is a level where the player character is already stuck in quicksand and can do nothing but die. "Fall." looks like this, as the player character starts off falling from a skyscraper, and can do nothing about it for a long time...except that the game suddenly allows her walk to walk on the air and out of bounds to the end-of-level screen at the last minute.
  • Funny Animal: In the "Skinner." section, you control a seagull with humanoid body proportions that wears a green coat. (And who has to press buttons to be "rewarded" with turds getting dispensed through the chute.) Owl has a dog, a chicken and an owl just like these, but you are actually controlling a normal human; he can pass through the "next level" door, while they try to, but clearly can't.
  • Nameless Narrative: Nobody in the game is ever named.
  • Platonic Cave: Played straight in "Cave."; literally a single-screen cave where a human sits with no way out. There is only a hole in the ceiling far out of reach, through which light falls, and which forms shadows on the walls. These shadows make up a platforming level, and you are controlling a boy trying to get through it.
  • Quicksand Sucks: The "Slow." section makes you "control" a character who is already hopelessly stuck in the swamp, and is rapidly sinking while you can do nothing but watch.
  • Random Events Plot: Every section of the game is completely separate from the subsequent ones. They have some relations with the level's name (like "Resign." apparently making you control an office worker in a burning office), but even then, it's practically impossible to predict what the next level is going to be about.
  • Shark Fin of Doom: In "Change.", you are on a lifeboat in the ocean when one of these shows up behind the boat. After a while, it gets essentially right next to it. However, land shows up soon after, and then you just jump onto dry land and complete the level.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World: "Control." is set in such a world, with the protagonist being a snowboarder who moves automatically.
  • Spikes of Doom: These appear rather late for a platformer, in the "Stop." level set near the end. Initially, they make up a huge gap that obviously cannot be jumped over. However, as the player walks up to the edge, the floor extends beneath their feet a step, and then again and again, until the spiked section is small enough to be jumped over.

Top