Video Game / Pit People

Welcome, People...TO THE PIT!

"I find myself wondering what the world must have been like... before the bear crashed into our frail planet, transforming all we once knew into a colorful kaleidoscope of delicious chaos, and I love... it. The world was more hospitable, no doubt. More orderly, more sensibly sickening because it sounded BORING. And I HATE being bored! I can't imagine a world without the bear, or the storms, yes, the storms, beautiful waves of emerald blood cry down from the heavens promising death and lawless disarray, constantly upsetting the order. I get butterflies in my tummy just thinking about it. Yes. YES! Speaking of which..."

—The Narrator

Pit People (previously known as Game 4) is a Turn-Based Strategy game developed by The Behemoth (the indie game team behind Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, and BattleBlock Theater). The game was released on Early Access for the PC and Xbox One on January 2017.

One day, a space bear gets shot down and plummets into the World, forever changing the planet. It brought about peace, harmony, carnage and mayhem throughout the land, which isn't helped by the fact that the space bear's green blood frequently brings out storms that actually kill people. Making sense of it all is a humble blueberry farmer named Horatio. During an attack that coincided with a massive bear blood storm, his house gets destroyed and his son dies (no thanks to a certain sadistic and callous narrator,who claimed to have "butterfingers"). And now, Horatio brings it upon himself to bring order to the land… somehow. But the narrator wants to see to it that the lives of Horatio and his allies will become a living hell.

A character sheet can be found HERE.

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Pit People contains examples of these tropes:

• Action Girl: Princess Pipistrella and Sofia the Recruiter are certainly this. Other female characters you encounter also count, especially the Always Female Gorgons, Spidaurs, Vampiresses, and Troll Moms.
• Anachronism Stew: Spaceships are featured alongside medieval-looking castles and Roman coliseums. Suits of armor, swords and bows are used right next to machine guns and alien weaponry. This an explicit effect of the bear blood raining down.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can gain various cosmetic rewards from fighting enemies that change your clothes, hairstyles, heads and even weapons. Most of them are ridiculously silly.
• Anthropomorphic Food: Gluten, an anthropomorphic cupcake who heals your party by flinging bits of his frosting at them.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Princess Pipistrella demonstrates the point of maces and hammers — bashing in helmets! Also, The Speckled Horseman has twin Uzis which give him an armor-piercing attack.
• Awesome, but Impractical: There's a great unit variety, but quite a few of them have niche uses compared to the starting staples.
  • Most multi-slot units tend not to bring as much to the table as a pair of normal-sized units would, making their usefulness more limited outside of specific circumstances.
    • The Cyclops is a large two-slotter with powerful attacks, a lot of health, and a knockback effect on all their attacks. They're also the only unit that can use the powerful Heavy Mallet weapon type. That being said, they're slow and deal less damage than two heavy- or mallet-wielding normal units, and take up only one tile compared to two shield-wielding normal-slotters, so they're not terribly effective at tanking/blocking, either. They can be pretty powerful, but are pretty inefficient, too. Also, they get next-to-no benefits for being a Hero Unit.
    • Hair Trolls are tough and deal pretty good damage, and can heal themselves a little each turn. They can also toss enemies over their shoulders which, while having some practical uses, is also unpredictable, and can ruin a well-built shield wall. They also have mediocre defense and take extra damage from fire. While they're good damage-dealers, they're mediocre tanks, and most of what they can do (save the shoulder-tossing) can be accomplished by smaller units.
    • Mom Trolls. Takes a whopping three slots, but will spawn a free Cannon Fodder minion every turn, up to four each. The Mom Troll's damage and health are on the low side for their size, and the minions they spawn, while dealing good damage, are very squishy and can be easily killed in just a couple of hits. While they can be useful if backed up, if the Mom is cornered she'll go down without much fuss.
  • Units with AOE attacks are often not worth it, because they often have huge splash damage and no real advantages.
    • Mortars. High splash damage at long range sounds nice in theory, but they're slowed to a crawl, can only fire a single shot if they move, and are pretty much toast if cornered. What they need to work best, a solid front-line, will also be wounded by their splash damage, so their role ends up being somewhat contradictory. Regular ranged units can provide only slightly worse damage with much less risk of friendly fire.
    • Pixies unleash powerful explosions that set tiles on fire for extra DOT, they have high dodge, and they're immune to nets thanks to being a flying unit. Just make sure that none of your teammates are standing nearby. They also have pitiful health, especially against electricity, so you'll need to bring a Cupcake if you want it to last past the first wave in the Pit.
    • Shrooms have a great AOE poison attack all around them. Poison is an effective debuff, which is why it sucks even more when your allies get hit with it. It's easier to manage than pixies though, and they have more health and sometimes block projectiles.
    • Wraiths have minor splash damage that can affect adjacent units. More often than not, this will end up being one of your units.
  • Even worse is the Thousand Shards, which is hyped up as a Mortar of icey Doom... That turns out to be a heavy mallet with a AOE effect, making it imposssible to use if you want to keep the original five members of the team (Horatio, Pipistrella, Yosef, Sofia, Gluten)together.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Lampshaded multiple times whenever your team ends up... up there:
  Honey Kiss: How are you guys… breathing up here? I mean, I'm no scientist, but…
• Big Bad: The Narrator is shaping up to be this, based on his actions. It turns out that the narrator is another giant bear, similar to the one that crashed into the planet.
• Big "NO!": Horatio lets one out when he finds out that his son, Hansel, has died getting crushed by the giant paw.
  Horatio: Hansel!? NOOOOOOOOOooooooo!!!
  • Honey Kiss also screams one when Honey Hug is killed by Hatty's beam.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • Horatio is reunited with his son, and Honey Kiss finally manages to put aside his grief-induced madness, but not before he goes on a Cosmic Temper Tantrum that kills everyone in Horatio's party and destroys the rest of the universe. Things look hopeful when the Speckled Horse shows up to offer Horatio one wish, but by the look of it, Hansel wastes it on ice cream. It's fortunately averted, as the Speckled Horse takes both of them to the past, to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
  • The New Game Plus ending ends on a much sweeter note of the Earth restored and the Speckled Horse apparently granting Honey Kiss' wish and bringing back Honey Hug… but it's also paired with a really ominous sequence of the camera focusing too hard on Honey Hug's expressionless face as the screen flashes orange.
• Black Comedy: A staple for games by The Behemoth.
• Brick Joke: It all makes sense now! It all makes sense now! It all makes sense now!
• The Cameo: What happened to Hatty Hattington at the end of the previous game sets up the plot. He's briefly seen at the very end, when Honey Kiss picks Hatty out of the sea and uses his laser to chop just about everything but the protagonist and his son to pieces.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The Speckled Horse is a giraffe, although far smaller than most.
• City of Adventure: The city where Horatio and Pip make their base is the perfect place to hire mercenaries or test your skills in the fighting pits. They even have a bulletin full of job listings for aspiring adventurers.
• Climax Boss: Jerkimedes, who you finally get to fight in the second-to-last story mission.
• Connected All Along: The gigantic space bear that was killed by a Wave-Motion Gun that came out of Hattt Hattington's hat at the end of Battleblock Theater? That was Honey Hug, who was in some way related to Honey Kiss, this game's narrator and Big Bad. This is lampshaded by the song in the background of the cutscene showing this connection repeating the phrase "And it all makes sense now!".
• Darker and Edgier: Well, Behemoth games have no edge and that's still true here, but the story just feels darker than the previous games, with the Black Comedy being played up as more serious and personal and the narrator being fairly grim all the time, with the only thing changing being how serious the narration is being played.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Horatio's continuous screaming after he discovers that Honey Kiss is holding Hansel hostage annoys the Narrator because he finds it difficult to continue his narration. Not quite a case of Do Not Taunt Cthulhu since, in the aftermath of the consequences of his actions, having the space shuttle thrown back at the planet, he remains determined to rescue his son.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Tinkletown sidequest will get you involved with a character named "Mayor Rumptrumpet". In the final part of the sidequest, you have to defend his supporters from an angry mob of protesters. To top it off, said protesters were paid by Rumptrumpet's political opponent to cause violence.
• Edible Bludgeon: There are skins for many of the weapons and shields that make them look like food items.
• Evil Is Hammy: Boy, is it ever. In the World of Ham that is Pit People, the Narrator out-hams everyone by a fair margin. They also imply that they invoke this trope and, in a bit of a deconstruction, admits that they're not usually this energized and find that "being evil is exhausting," lamenting that they really shouldn't have skipped breakfast earlier that day.
• Five-Man Band: While it is possible to field a team larger than 5 members, the mandatory recruits fit this archetype well.
  • Horatio is a straightforward sword and shield user who is the primary chew toy of the Narrator after his son is killed.
  • Yosef the demi-clops is second-in-command. He and Horatio become soul-bonded before entering the arena the first time, and within the existing story missions so far, he is most involved in helping Horatio.
  • Princess Pipistrella is similar to Horatio (at first) except that her weapon of choice — a ridiculously heavy royal scepter — allows her to deal extra damage to armored enemies.
  • Sofia's starting equipment allows her to capture the last remaining enemy, to add to your team, and her starting weapon is a light sword, which reduces enemy evasion chances at the expense of doing less damage against all enemies.
  • Gluten, is an Actual Pacifist and the group's healer. In fact, when Gluten joins the team, the entry on Cupcakes shows them as having distinctly cute anime eyes.
  • If you pay to unlock all team slots, you can also have Sixth Ranger, but it takes money.
• Freudian Excuse: Honey Kiss's evil stems from vengeance-fueled hate. The Space Bear that crashed into the world was its lover, and Hatty accidentally killing it inadvertently caused Honey Kiss to be evil.
• Gainax Ending: Beating the game a second time following the Cosmic Retcon has the Speckled Horse approach Honey Kiss as it laments everyone else got a happy ending. The next cutscene shows a resurrected Honey Hug ominously vibrating… while Honey Kiss dances happily.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: A non-boss example. The plummet of Honey Hug is what made the World what it is in the game. Even in context, it still doesn't make sense.
• God Is Evil: The Narrator really wants to see Horatio die.
  Narrator: Oh, the one with the mustache told me you guys were weak and stupid. I don't know why he'd say that, hmm.
• God of Evil: Chog, evidently. He requires human sacrifices to be given to him while he lounges in a giant pool of boiling blood. And all his worshippers are 50s-style Jerk Jocks.
• Gotta Catch Them All: You recruit different types of party members by killing the rest of their team, capturing them in a cage, and taking them back to base.
• Hardboiled Detective: The appropriately-named Detective Hardboil, who mixes things up by being a freakish hairy troll monster.
• Heel–Face Turn: Can be forced upon enemies by recruiting them, up to and including the major villains of main or side quests, such as Helmitor and Frostwaddle. A more normal example is Smarticus, who, upon being defeated, will beg to come with you rather than be forced to become Detective Hardboil's sidekick. All of these prove 100% loyal once on your team.
• I'm a Humanitarian: There's the Child-Eater Gang who raids Horatio's farm ("My parents ate my brother and I turned out alright."), and later there's Carbs the Cupcake's seminar to help you realize your inner cannibal.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: The debut trailer already makes clear that the game is a sequel to BattleBlock Theater and that its chaotic setting is a result of that game's nonsensical ending.
• Ominous Chanting: It's part of the soundtrack. Or at least an imitation of it is.
• Pistol-Whipping: Any character equipped with a gun-type weapon will smack any adjacent enemies with the gun instead of shooting them. There also is a heavy mallet named "Incorrect" that is just a shotgun held by the end of the barrel, only usable by striking the enemy with it.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Your party. There can be normal humans, a cyclops, an anthropomorphic cupcake, a unicorn, a hairy troll, the grim reaper, a mushroom man...
• The Reveal: The final mission of the beta reveals that Hansel is alive, and being held hostage by the Narrator, who is a second giant space bear…
• Shout-Out:
  • A lot of the male characters (particularly Horatio) sound an awful lot like Canadians if they were Speaking Simlish.
  • One of Horatio's hairdos turns him to a Super Saiyan.
• Speaking Simlish: Aside from the narrator, all the characters speak in gibberish. The latter is subtitled most of the time, except for (so far) one sequence where having to guess it from context is part of the humor.
• Starter Villain: Helmitor is the boss of the first major story mission.
• Sudden Downer Ending: This whimsical, lighthearted adventure ends with Honey Kiss accidentally slaughtering the party and destroying the entire universe with Hatty Hattington's laser, with the sole exception of Horatio and Hansel, leaving the two of them to spend the rest of their lives floating aimlessly in absolute nothingness… at least until the Speckled Horse shows up.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: There are many examples of certain units or equipment being particularly effective against others. Two specific examples demonstrated early on are shields being able to block arrows and other projectiles, and maces deal extra damage against helmets, which take less damage from swords.
• The Unintelligible: Everyone except the Narrator/Honey Kiss, Honey Hug, and the Speckled Horse just speaks in babble. They are sometimes assisted by subtitles when they say anything you need to understand, though.
• Villainous Breakdown: Honey Kiss does not appreciate Horatio continuing to survive in the first battle, retaliating by killing Hansel, starting Horatio’s quest to bring him back.
  Honey Kiss: I SAID HORATIO DIES! (crushes the house and Hansel) OOPS! BUTTERFINGERS!
• Wedding Smashers: One mission involves you raiding a wedding to rescue a Cupcake who's being held prisoner for the reception. You have to kill all the guests before the priest finishes his ceremony speech.
• World of Weirdness: Okay, so the fantasy creatures and talking cupcakes are one thing, but nobody bats an eye at a giant bear falling out of space and causing world-shattering storms out of its own blood. Or a guy dual-wielding uzis riding into the local gladiator arena on a giraffe held aloft by balloons. Or… well, you get the picture.

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