Video Game / Lakeview Valley

Welcome to the lovely little town of Lakeview Valley! As its name implies, it's a charmingly quaint little village where you can wile away the hours enjoying the scenery. Yes, this is a tight-knit little community where everybody knows each other well... save for you, newcomer. You just arrived, moving into the northernmost house. That place has been empty for a while, but it's sturdy. Well-built. A little TLC, some fresh coats of paint and new furnishings, and it'll be a sight to behold once again!

But every town has its secrets, and your arrival was a little bumpier than you expected. The streets aren't safe at night. What lurks under the surface might be best left alone... or maybe you'd rather prove yourself the scariest thing this valley has to offer.

Coming from the creator of Lakeview Cabin and Lakeview Cabin Collection, Lakeview Valley dropped on October 22nd, 2019. Billing itself as a "Murder RPG", it sets the player loose in a Life Simulation Game where they can set out to earn the regard of their new neighbors and become the most popular person in town... investigate the strange goings-on... or follow their darkest impulses.

Can be found on Steam here.

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Lakeview Valley presents the following tropes:

• Ambiguous Situation: Even the Big Bad isn't really clear as to what the exact plot of the Lakeview Cabin films meant.
• Animorphism: Members of the Upper League come Back from the Dead as monstrous human-animal hybrids. Even the Scarecrow is a centipede-like creature in his second form.
• Anyone Can Die: More like "anyone can be killed". The only character who you can't outright murder is the Sheriff, and you can dispose of him by letting Morgo banish him.
• Asshole Victim: Sure, the town's Dark Secret is that they lynched Morgo, but everything you learn about him indicates that, much like Freddy Kruger, the guy really had it coming. Morgo and the Witch would like you to believe this about the townsfolk to convince you they deserve their fate, but when you really dig into it, with a few exceptions most of them are somewhat flawed but still generally normal, and Morgo and the Witch are just vicious psychopaths trying to justify their own hatred and sadism.
• Attack of the Town Festival: Morgo will always attack on Lake Day, unless a different ending is triggered beforehand. This is possibly because Lake Day is the anniversary of his death.
• Badass Bystander: The townsfolk are surprisingly robust and won't go down without a real fight.
• Battle Bolas: These can be bought from Morgo and will prevent people from running away when you attack them.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The blood flies that occasionally appear around town are about as big as the protagonist's head. Morgo, the Preacher and the Scarecrow also count, being a human-sized fly, worm and centipede respectively.
• Big Good: The sheriff is a man that stands up for his village and won't let anything bad happen to them. God help you if he's on your tail.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Ruth, the sweet grandma is a secret Satanic serial killer, and Lil Bobby. the only child in town is a lot nastier than he initially appears. Instead of being tortured by demons after being killed, the two of them seem to be on the fast track to becoming high-ranking demons themselves.
• Black Bead Eyes: The character sprites have these, though their portraits are more detailed.
• Character Customization: Mostly revolving around your hair and facial features, as well as your basic attire and name.
• The Darkness Gazes Back: A pair of Glowing Eyes seems to nest in almost every tree hollow and grate, offering advice... and temptation. Urging you not to trust anyone, and to turn against them.
• Deal with the Devil: There's plenty of perks and upgrades to pick from in the grove. First one's free; after that, well... you'll have to earn your new tricks and toys.
• Diegetic Interface: One of the upgrades on offer provides an interface that shows your health, stamina, ammo and oxygen. Seeing as you obtain it through an in-universe Deal with the Devil, the protagonist is presumably aware of it, though of course they don't say anything about it.
• Driven to Suicide: After Big Bobby dies in the sauna, Frank blows his own head off with his shotgun.
• Drugs Are Bad: Take any drugs and the Preacher will deem you unworthy of his blessing.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: In the default ending, Morgo appears on Lake Day and slaughters all the residents except the player.
• Everyone Is Bi: Most of the NPCs will have sex with you, regardless of your gender.
• Eyes Always Shut: Ruth. Her eyes are actually yellow in color and have the power to wipe someone's memory or hypnotize them, as shown in her flashbacks.
• Fan Disservice: The NPCs are naked when they're being mutilated, raped and tortured in the underworld.
• Financial Abuse: When you first arrive in town, you haven't got a cent to your name. The Sheriff registers you for Valley Aid; however, the amount of money you qualify for hinges on your popularity, encouraging you to curry favor with the locals if you want to afford anything. Your Mysterious Benefactor with the Glowing Eyes is also willing to offer you free cash, suggesting that you should be frustrated by having to rely upon the local's help... while skating around how they're also trying to use money to tempt you into doing what they want.
• Foreshadowing: Morgo doesn't like it when you kill flies. There's a reason for this.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Once again, the protagonist can strip down and walk around in the nude, and attack others in this state.
• Genre Shift: Like Lakeview Cabin, Valley is initially presented as a Simulation Game — in this case, a Life Simulation Game. It's also more upfront about its darker aspects than than the original game was.
• Graceful Loser: The Sheriff seems to be this: If you manage to kill all of the townsfolk without supernatural assistance from Morgo, the game ends with the Sheriff admitting defeat and giving you the slowest of slow claps.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: If your day isn't going well, or ends poorly for you, you can opt to reset and start over from the top of it. This is indicative of a much larger problem.
  • At the end of the week, you can choose to reset everything that happened, meaning that all the townsfolk will go back to normal and (mostly) forget what you've done to them in a previous game. Your money, items and reputation carry over, however.
• Hate Sink: The fiends are sadistic demonic monsters who mutilate, torture and rape innocent people with glee. There is nothing remotely likable about them and the game gets far darker when they appear.
• The Heavy: Morgo does most of the work and is both the primary tempter of the protagonist as well as the main threat to the town, but the real Big Bad is the Witch.
• Higher Understanding Through Drugs: Being high on mushrooms turns the Hermit's gibberish into meaningful information which provides a bit of extra lore.
• Hijacked by Ganon: At first it seems as though Morgo and the Witch are the Big Bads, but that is before we learn that "Uncle" is actually Red from the previous two Lakeview games, who is far stronger than them both. This is especially evident when he brutally murders Morgo after the other "upper league" members are killed.
• House Fire: This happened to Rebecca sometime before the player moved to the valley. During her side quest, its implied that she intentionally done so to kill Ra-Ra, her demon mother, but it isn't revealed what motivated her as to why.
• Implacable Man: Not even a shotgun blast to the face will stop the Sheriff from meting out justice to an obvious spree killer.
• Level-Up at Intimacy 5: Helping the townsfolk out and becoming more popular benefits the protagonist in various ways. Such as getting better financial aid from Easy Bank; the more well-liked you are, the more money you're granted every day.
• Love Potion: The Feather of Love will make an NPC follow you for a short time, which is useful if you want to lead them away to murder them.
• Moth Menace: After midnight, giant moths will spawn and attack the player.
• Multiple Endings: Depending upon how the player chooses to conduct themselves...
  • Downer Ending: There's no Golden Ending to this sad tale... The endings in which Morgo or the Witch are disposed of don't resolve the time loop, and the endings which do solve the time loop involve every villager other than the Sheriff being dead.
• My Beloved Smother: Its strongly implied that Ra-Ra's overprotective and possessive nature is that led to Rebecca trying to kill her by burning down her home.
• NPC Roadblock: Thanks to some pesky boulders, a giant cow has gotten stuck blocking the straightest path back to your new place. It will take a few days before they can be moved safely aside. Though it may be possible for you to speed up the process...
• Off with His Head!: Morgo's preferred method of killing people seems to be simply ripping their heads from their bodies. The protagonist can then pick up and wear these heads as a kind of grotesque mask.
• Optional Sexual Encounter: Some of the residents will agree to sleep with your protagonist under the right circumstances.
  • Alex will sleep with the protagonist outside her junkyard provided they are popular enough.
  • Martha will sleep with the protagonist after removing the weeds from her garden. Afterwards, she will do it again for $50 dollars.
  • Matthew will sleep with the protagonist when he is at the picnic blanket in the forest, or on Friday night if Donna invites you over to her house provided they are popular enough and have wine, but only if they haven't done it with him before.
  • Donna will invite the protagonist over to sleep with her on Friday (and Matthew if the player hasn't done it with him already) if they are popular enough and have wine.
  • Rebecca sleeps with the protagonist during her side quest.
  • Luanne will sleep with the protagonist once they have fully decorated their house and select the right tarot cards with her.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Somehow, wearing Amy's bloody, eyeless, severed head is enough to trick Morgo into thinking that you are Amy. Everyone else treats it as an Unusually Uninteresting Sight instead.
• Potty Emergency: Eating food will cause you to have the "need to crap" status the next day, allowing you to use toilets.
• Potty Failure: If you ignore the "need to crap" status for too long then you will soil yourself. This can actually be used to your advantage if Ra-Ra is stalking you, as it will disgust her and cause her to leave.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: There are 5 different gender options which have absolutely no effect on the game other than what you look like when you remove your clothes. Gender doesn't even affect your character's facial features or ability to have a beard.
• Record Needle Scratch: One of these occurs when Morgo interrupts the Sheriff's Lake Day performance.
• Retired Monster: Ruth, a satanic serial killer as well as Morgo's partner in crime is still alive. Due to her advanced age, she isn't able to be as dangerous and doesn't put up as much of a fight as other NPCs.
• Sex Is Evil: Having any sex will make you unable to obtain the Preacher's blessing.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The shotgun is probably the best weapon in the game, owing to it being ranged, reusable, and able to kill an NPC in one hit.

• Stealth Sequel: Red from the previous 2 games is your father, as well as the frog-human creature that calls itself your "Uncle". The Lake Gods also seem to be ultimately behind everything.
• Stat Grinding: You normally can't see your stats, but performing certain tasks builds them up.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: If you die, you normally have the option to either restart or continue the day. Killing the doctor will remove this second option, because there's no longer anyone around who can heal you from near-death.
• Toilet Humor: As is traditional for the series, you can use any of the toilets around town at your leisure.
• Unexplained Recovery: The game begins with Reginald the bus driver running over a naked and delusional Amy Cooper, leaving her dead in the street. Minutes later you run into her seemingly completely fine at the diner. The Sheriff even makes note of this odd discrepancy when examining Amy's body. It's implied she made a deal with Morgo, possibly involving time travel — and, given his parting insult, that when she tried it in another timeline, he sent her back just in front of the bus the protagonist was in, hence Reginald not seeing her even if he finishes his conversation with the protagonist before the collision. Morgo is incredibly petty.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Aside from a couple of exceptions, the townsfolk don't react at all if you leave decapitated heads lying around the place.
• Vagina Dentata: The Lake Gods seem to have these for mouths. One of the fiends in Hell even comments about how some humans have the face of a god on their bodies.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Get to know all your new neighbors! Help them out! Earn their respect and regard, and with it a place in the community!
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: ...Or maybe you'd rather dig up their deepest secrets. Screw up their lives. Or just end them.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Be aware, though: if the locals don't care for you much, they'll make sure you don't feel welcome. And the Sheriff is no slouch; he takes his job quite seriously.
• Walking Spoiler: The primary threat to the Valley is Morgo, a demonic fly monster who drags souls to the underworld. They appear fairly early on, but said appearance changes the game significantly.
  • An ever bigger spoiler is the witch, the main antagonist of the game. She's the queen of the demons and the driving force behind Morgo.
    • Old Ruth, the token evil teammate, is a satanic serial killer who assisted her husband in horrific murders.
• Was Once a Man/Demon of Human Origin: The animal-human hybrid demons like Morgo are apparently the "upper league" of the Witch's deceased followers who were allowed to return to the human world in that form. The Witch herself used to be the Preacher's wife, and somehow managed to become Queen of the Underworld after she and the Preacher disappeared from the town.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Midnight is when things start getting really weird. The scarecrow starts walking about, the Dweller appears, the living turn into butterflies while the dead rise again as zombies, giant aggressive moths attack you, and so on.
• You Lose at Zero Trust: If you're not popular, you get treated accordingly. Don't expect any help from Easy Bank's Valley Aid program, for instance...

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