Video Game / OBAKEIDORO

Who wants to play Cops'n Robbers?

OBAKEIDORO is an Asymmetric Multiplayer Horror game released on the Nintendo Switch on August 8, 2019. In it, 3 players play as humans who must run from another player in the role of a monster trying to capture them before 3 minutes pass. The only defense the humans have against the monsters is Will-o' a tiny wisp in a lantern that can stun the monsters for a brief moment. It was later released on Steam as Bail or Jail on July 20th, 2022.

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Tropes in this game:

• Abandoned Warehouse: The Jump Warehouse stage. It's full of boxes, conveyor belts, vents, high platforms, and one hell of a guard werewolf.
• Abnormal Ammo: Since the whole point is to capture humans instead of hurt them, Hunt's blunderbuss instead shoots his pet ghost dogs to grab the humans.
• Achievement System: The game features numerous stamps to collect with some granting in game rewards ranging from upgrading a human or monster's speed to new lanterns and monsters to play with.
• Adaptational Villainy: Leon Belmont is supposed to be a vampire hunter, but being put on the monster team means he's hunting down helpless kids (and Alucard) instead. Similarly, fellow DLC character Hunt is based on the Huntsman/Woodsman from the tale of Little Red Riding Hood (who Maisy from the same pack draws inspiration from), the character who saved Red and her grandmother by killing the wolf... but here, Hunt is classified as a monster and actively goes after the children, Maisy included.
• Adaptational Wimp: Despite bringing his sword with him, Alucard is just as helpless against the monsters as all the other characters on the human team.
• Alice Allusion: Alisa wears a very similar outfit to the Disney interpretation of Alice and is always holding a white rabbit doll.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • While some of the Palette Swaps are confirmed to be the monsters wearing costumes, it’s not made clear for all of them. (An example would be Billy Kid and Mabel, or Krowe King and Swamperor.)
  • It’s never explained how Googly came to life, nor is it explained how Alisa can hold her Googly doll, yet Googly himself is alive.
  • Is Sharlie just a young monster, or a Living Toy like Googly?
• Asymmetric Multiplayer: It's 3 humans trying to run away from a solo monster that can jump higher, run faster, and sometimes even pass through walls trying to grab them before time runs out.
• A Twinkle in the Sky: Certain monsters throw the humans so hard that this happens to them both when thrown and as they come back down.
• Bald of Evil: Downplayed with Hunt. He appears to have a full head of hair under his hat, but when stunned it's revealed to be a wig.
• Barely-Changed Dub Name: The following names were changed in the English version.
  • Ares became Alex, Marie became Mary, and Lucas became Luca.
    • In what seems to have been a mistranslation Charlie became Sharlie and Thief Alisa became Thief Alice. (The latter of which is particularly odd, because they established her name as Alisa in the beginning.)
• Bed Sheet Ghost: Patches looks like one of these mixed with a Teru-Teru Bōzu. Why he decided to wear a ghost costume despite already being a ghost is anyone's guess, as is what he really looks like underneath it.
• Bookworm: Alex loves reading his favorite book, “Punishments Around The World” and Baphomeeko is stated as loving books and “borrowed” a book on magic.
• Brother–Sister Team: Played Straight and Implied. Luca and Mary are promoted as such in for the 2nd House of Greed event. Alex and Alisa are shown as such in the tutorial, intro, and in merchandise.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: Snagtongue Swamp is everything you'd expect it to be. Murky water that's hard to walk through, tall reeds for hiding in, and an evil frog ghost.
• Butt-Monkey: The NPC Thief Googly wandering in the House of Greed. Not only is there a chance he starts the round automatically captured, he's actually not even a real thief. He just got lost and the guards keep capturing him because they think he is one. On top of that, there's even achievements for capturing him enough times as a monster, so the game rewards you for bullying him.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Patches has a hole in his mask that shows a single human-like eye surrounded by darkness.
• The Caligula: Krowe King's bio claims that he likes to dance, but will devour anyone who makes him mad.
• Child Prodigy: Baphomeeko is a subtle, yet exaggerated version of this trope. Baphomeeko’s implied to be a toddler at best given she wears a diaper, yet she’s able to read books at Whomp Library, and is able to competently play Obakeidoro.
• Chinese Vampire: Fu Lan is a Cute Monster Girl variant. True to form, her specialty is her massive jump stat, but she can also dig underground for bursts of speed.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Will-o will change color based off of the type of lamp equipped. Orange for balance, green for range, blue for stun, and pink for lanterns with special powers.
• Conspicuous Consumption: As if the House of Greed wasn't decadent enough, its Full Moon variant turns everything gold after the owner somehow got even richer.
• Creepy Cemetery: Delzo Cemetery. Not only is it home to Patches the ghost, but it's rife with classic mausoleums, crumbling statues, dead trees, and crumbling gates.
• Creepy Child: The main human characters, Alisa and Alex. Alisa wants to catch a demon some day while Alex is a huge fan of a book titled "Punishments around the World".
• Cute Monster Girl: Lizzy and Fu Lan have very few monstrous qualities to them (save Fu Lan's blue skin and bandages), but that doesn't make them any less dangerous.
• Double Unlock: The Shopkeeper won't sell certain lanterns or monsters until the player's human and monster ranks are high enough
• Dumb Muscle: Brutus Lupus. He's a big hulking beast of a werewolf but he constantly forgets everything and is described as having a "dull head". He once went on a massive workout routine to bulk up for the 1st Obakeidoro festival... despite physical combat not being allowed for the event.
• Expy: A lot of the cast shares general similarities in design and characteristics to older fairy tales and fables.
  • Alisa, of course, is heavily reminiscent of Alice, from the Disney interpretation of Alice in Wonderland. For information on that, please see Alice Allusion above.
  • Alex is essentially a Spear Counterpart to Alisa, so by such logic, he would also be an expy of Alice.
  • Sharlie, he has some resemblance to Cheshire Cat from the Disney Alice In Wonderland interpretation, such as having the same color scheme, stripes (albeit not on all of his body), and having cheeky, cat grins.
  • Maisy, is a Red Riding Hood Replica, who shares some traits with Capcom’s B. B. Hood particularly in how when Maisy “attacks” monsters and frees others from the cell, in which her eyes glow yellow and become angular, while she flashes a creepy smile.
  • Googly shares some traits with White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, both characters are Anixous Butt Monkeys, who wear a Waistcoat of Style, and are affable towards the protagonist. Googly’s even a white bunny in his doll form.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Shyna is so shy that she covers both of her eyes with her bangs. Downplayed in that they aren't fully hidden and can be fully seen (albeit closed) for some of her animations. By manipulating the camera at an angle to look up at her face, the player will be able to see that her eyes are actually yellow in color.
• Floating Limbs: All of the ghostlike monsters have these, and even have to wait for them to come back after capturing a human.
• Forced Tutorial: Upon starting the game for the first time, you'll immediately be thrown into the tutorials on how to play the game, which is also used to explain how Alisa and Alex got into the Demon World and met Will-o.
• Frog Men: Krowe King and his variants are ghostly versions of this trope.
• Fungus Humongous: Full Moon Snagtongue Swamp features large person sized mushrooms that can provide a handful of benefits from their spores... or stun you if they're poisonous.
• Funny Animal: Sharlie from the second DLC is a cat wearing a top hat and cloak. Whether he's meant to be a Living Toy like Googly or not is unclear.
• Ghost Town: Ghost Town, a quaint gothic town covered in fog that's empty save for a ghostly prowler still stalking the vacant streets.
• Golden Super Mode: Averted with Prime Patches. His stats are identical to his normal form and the game points out that if anything he's just made himself easier to notice.
  • Subverted with Golden Grumpkin who in fact has WORSE stats than ordinary Grumpkin but he also has an even further enhanced Trickster++ ability.
• Gorgeous Gorgon: Shyna is a rather pretty Medusa that doesn't mean any harm, unfortunately, between her paralyzing gaze and paralyzing shyness she has a hard time making friends.
• Gruesome Goat: Baphomeeko may look like a baby version of Baphomet, but she's just as much a danger as the rest of the monsters. Billy the Kid and his variants also play into this, but are ghosts with goat-skulls for heads.
• Guest Fighter: Alucard and Leon Belmont from Castlevania are available as free DLC characters, with Alucard being a human while Leon is ironically in the monster role.
• Halloweentown: Decked out with giant bowls of candy big enough to hide in, more jack o' lanterns than can be counted and giant pumpkin scarecrows, Prank Square is this.
• Harmless Villain: Loading tips imply that the monsters don't intend to hurt the humans, they just want to play a game with them. Unfortunately that game is scaring them silly and throwing them in a cell for fun so...
  • This is especially the case for Fu Lan and Shyna, they genuinely like and want to befriend the humans. Unfortunately they try to achieve this by wrapping them up in their bandages and snakes so the result is all the same.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: A more kid-friendly version of this trope than usual. Hunt is a human, but he's playing on the side of the monsters, treating the act of chasing and capturing the children as if they were elusive prey for him to hunt down with his ghost dogs.
• Jack the Ripper: Jack Ripley and his variants are all ghostly Expies of the famous murderer, though given the premise of the game, they're unable to kill the human characters and are vaguely referred to as "prowlers" instead of clear cut murderers.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hans may be the prideful son of a noble family, but there's nothing he cares about more than his friends.
• King Mook: The Warehouse Owner is this to the Lupus monsters. He's a massive electrically charged werewolf that scares even the Ghouligans.
• Lightning Bruiser: Lacking the ability to go through walls, Brutus, Leon, and most of the other non ghost monsters are instead some of the most mobile monsters.
• Living Toys: Googly is Alisa's toy rabbit and an unlockable playable character for the human side. There's no explanation as to why he's alive though.
• Mad Scientist: Victor gives off these vibes, with a constant wide grin, a white labcoat, and vials of unknown liquids that he can mix together in one of his animations. His character description says he's searching for rare ingredients in the Demon World to use in medicine.
• The Man Behind the Man: A loading tip says that the shop owner is rumored to be behind the success of Obakeidoro, which if true would mean he's the reason why so many monsters are dragging people off to be players.
• Mascot Mook: Patches, the first monster, is plastered all over the box art and menus.
• Magikarp Power: Hunt's "Whose Next?" operates on this logic. At the start of the round it does nothing, but every time he catches a human he gets faster.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter: Unlike most monsters, Shyna's grab will bring up a targeting circle that can be aimed freely instead of the usual swipe in front of the character.
  • Leon Belmont provides a heavily downplayed example, as unlike other monsters his grab has a “1-2-3” type swinging motion, and both of his jumps are far more stilted than the other monsters. What this means is that unlike most other monsters who can simply repeatedly grab and then keep moving soon afterwards, Leon will have to stand still entirely and only move barely, and if his first attack misses, chances are the human will escape while the rest of attack is going on.
  • Alucard is the only character on the human side to have a button to help him “backdash” from monsters, the ability to transform into a bat to move faster, and the inability crouch, ^note He can crouch in the cell. thus making him the only human to not be able to dim his “lantern” without using it.
• Mighty Glacier: Stun type lanterns can daze monsters for a long time, but they usually come at the cost of slowing the player down.
• Monster Clown: DLC character Lulu the poltergeist wears a jester outfit and their special ability is literally called "Showtime!".
• Ms. Fanservice: Shyna, her outfit is skintight and shows her curves, the outline of her butt can actually be seen through the outfit somewhat.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Mary and Victor's reactions to getting caught are a bit... happy, for someone who just got grabbed by a monster.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: Most of the monsters are some type of ghost or poltergeist though outside of all of them having Floating Limbs and the ability to walk through walls (albeit slowly) they're all wildly different from each other. There's also the Ghouligans which resemble the traditional cartoon ghost.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Draco and Lizzy are of the elegant noble variety and use bat familiars to catch humans. Draco can even turn into a series of bats to increase his speed and go through walls.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Brutus and Sheepshearer are best described as a mix of a body builder and a guard dog. They're violently protective of their territory but very very stupid.
• Palette Swaps: A good amount of the monsters look the exact same, just with one or two different details. The best examples are Patches and Ransack, Grumpkin and Pumpking, and Krowe King and Swamperor.
• Phantom Thief: The third character DLC made for the House of Greed event gives Alex and Alisa costumes that turn them into this. The Full Moon House of Greed event would allow Luca, Mary, Mel, and Hans to also obtain their own costumes through stamps(Luca and Mary) and DLC(Mel and Hans).
• Punch-Clock Villain: The Officer variants of Patches, Jack, Brutus, Krowe King, Draco, and Lizzy are just guards doing their jobs of hunting down intruders in the House of Greed. Officer Krowe King however has shades of Corrupt Cop.
• Red Riding Hood Replica: Maisy of the first character DLC couldn't be a more blatant example of this with her bio even mentioning she has more hoods than she can count.
• Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Alucard can't equip any lanterns, only his sword which gives him the very useful Soul of Bat that lets him make mad dashes away from monsters, but replaces his ability to crouch with his iconic Back Dash, meaning he can't easily hide in certain areas or dim the glow of his sword.
• Satellite Character: Will-o is introduced being bullied by Ghouligans, is saved by Alisa and Alex, and thanks them. Afterwards, Will-o is relegated as a lantern light to the kids for the rest of the game.
• Shadowed Face, Glowing Eyes: Jack Ripley's "face" is little more than black smoke with bright yellow lights for eyes.
• Show Within a Show: Obakeidoro is both the name of the game and, well... the name of the game the monsters are playing with the humans. Its popularity in universe has supposedly led to monsters abducting humans just to play it more.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: The music will change to a frantic theme when the monster is near a human player, signaling that it's time to close in and finally capture them. Averted when playing as the humans, it's just wacky chase music for them.
• Spooky Silent Library: Whomp Library, at least, when one of the bookshelves isn't crashing to the ground...
• Stingy Jack: Grumpkin and his variants fit the bill of being based off of him by being pumpkin headed ghosts with a ball of flame hidden in their cloaks. Their ability Trickster even revolves around lanterns.
• Tagalong Kid: Baphomeeko is this to the monster side, being drastically younger than the other monsters.
• Title Confusion: The game is called OBAKEIDORO! on Nintendo Switch, Bail or Jail is appended on its Steam listing, and, oddly, it's referred to as Bogeyrun! in a few parts of the Nintendo eShop description.
• Token Adult: Alucard is the only confirmed adult on the human side.
  • Inverted with Baphomeeko, she’s only the baby on the monster side.
• Token Human: Ignoring Leon, Hunt is the only human monster.
• Updated Re-release: “Bail or Jail,” increases the frame rate to 144 per seconds, adds sound effects, lighting effects, uses smoother, more high quality models, and seems to use a new fog engine. Additionally, all DLC is free.
• Vague Age: Downplayed with Mary and Sharlie;
  • Mary is apparently slightly older than Alisa, however, considering her choice of clothing and her, ahem, excitement from the monsters, it’s possible Mary is a late pre-teen or early teen. (Say, 11-13).
  • Sharlie, noticeably, has a job working for the shopkeeper as an apprentice, and considering he’s meant to keep an eye on the kids, it’s possible he’s in his teens or even his early adulthood.
    • In both cases, the gothic-chibi art style has made their ages harder to determine.
• Video Game Caring Potential: On the human side, the NPC Thief Googly is this. He can't open the jail, can't stun the monster, and has no stealth skills whatsoever in a game all about stealth meaning he'll probably be back in the cell in about 10 seconds upon freeing him... But you can at least try to help the poor guy by letting him out. You'll even earn stamps for it.
• Villain Team-Up: The Full Moon event doubles the amount of players to 6 humans and 2 monsters, causing this by proxy.
• Will-o'-the-Wisp: Will-o is a benevolent one that likes to stay in a lantern, though he isn't very strong.