"It was a quiet evening... until it wasn't."
— The Intro Cinematic
Rikki & Vikki
is a 2D Puzzle Platformer game released in 2018 for Windows PC on Steam and the Atari 7800 by PenguiNet.
The titular husband and wife wake up one night to hear their daughter and son crying out for help. With Rikki rushing in out of terror and Vikki arming herself with a baseball bat, they discover that their children are in the claws of the Misery Dragon, the self titled "Demon Lord of Inconvenience". He invites them both to his secret base at the center of the Earth in order to get their kids back. The couple have to brave the trip down a perilous complex of floors in order to reach the Misery Dragon's base with the help of a large salesman named Dut to offer them extra chances in exchange for points.
This Game Contains Examples Of:
- Achievement Mockery: Enrolling in Direct Dutposit in the very first level of the Rock Cavern will award an achievement called "Get Good" in the Steam version.
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The more credits the player(s) has remaining with each visit to Dut, the more expensive extra credits become.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The Steam version creates a savestate at the start of each attempt at a level. If the player(s) closes the game during gameplay, they will be asked by Dut if they would like to continue from where they left off, which is very useful for players who don't want to play all the way through in a single sitting. The Atari 7800 version doesn't have this luxury.
- Bat Out of Hell: The co-op guardian of the Rock Cavern, Drill Bat, is a bat who attacks by drilling through the ground and tossing pickaxes.
- Blackout Basement: The main gimmick of the Sand Cavern, in which the lights are operated by switches that can be held down with boxes. Further into the Sand Cavern, Ghost Kittens will continously spawn when the lights go out, and controlling the lights is also important when fighting the solo and co-op guardians respectively.
- Boss-Only Level: The Final Cavern, which solely consists of the final battle with the Misery Dragon. It does feature a single room that requires the player(s) to collect a single key from a statue of Misery just before the battle, though.
- Boss Rush: Should the player(s) make it to the Final Cavern without losing or buying any credits or using warps, the Misery Dragon will challenge them to refight all the guardians.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The Irregular Cavern, accessible only via Dut's Discount Warps, which features 10 levels of tricky platforming filled with conveyor belts, warp bubbles and invisible terrain. Fortunately, there are no enemies nor is there a time limit, though the player's clear time will be tracked.
- Build Like an Egyptian: The Sand Cavern takes place in several haunted Egyptian tombs.
- The Cameo:
- In the official trailer, Michael Sawyer provides the voice of the Misery Dragon, using his ever-popular "Ridley voice."
- A background portrait in the opening sequence features the titular character of Zaku, a game previously developed by PenguiNet for the Atari Lynx in 2009.
- Card-Carrying Villain: The Misery Dragon loves being a generally terrible person, to the point where he considers it a dream job.
- Cats Are Mean: The Sand Cavern features Ghost Kittens as enemies as well as a boss version, the Ghost Cat, that appears in a solo playthrough.
- Eternal Engine: The Metal Cavern is an automated factory that's been left to its own devices for years on end.
- Exact Words: The Misery Dragon uses this to justify throwing you out if you get to the end of the game without a second player. He invited Rikki AND Vikki, not Rikki OR Vikki.
- Giant Enemy Crab: The solo guardian of the Bubble Cavern, Boss Crab, is a crab that jumps between platforms while throwing bubble-encased blocks around.
- Giant Squid: The co-op guardian of the Bubble Cavern, Humbulb Squid, is a squid with a lightbulb mantle who can attack with sparks of electricity.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Each level requires you to collect all the keys on that floor to advance.
- Hair-Raising Hare: The enemies of the Rock Cavern are construction worker rabbits. The Dum Buns mindlessly walk back and forth, while the Big Buns will charge after any player they see.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: After defeating the Misery Dragon's final form, he briefly comes back to boast that the battle isn't over and that his next form is "unstoppable", but ultimately leaves the fox family alone, claiming to have an important appointment to attend...or left the kettle on.
- Lethal Lava Land: The Flame Cavern, which is flowing with lava that powers Misery Land and has fires that can be put out using boxes.
- Mama Bear: Vikki. Her first instinct upon seeing the Misery Dragon is to seethe with rage as she prepares to club him with a baseball bat, with the only reason she doesn't lunge at him being he could hurt her kids.
- Maniac Monkeys: The co-op guardian of the Metal Cavern, Steel Simian, is a monkey who attacks Rikki and Vikki by activating the electrical floor panels while they're solving the pipe maze above.
- Mercy Mode: Get two Game Overs in a row and Dut will offer a service called "Direct Dutposit". Accept the offer, and you will have infinite credits at the cost of not being able to score any points. Doing this won't lock out any of the endings.
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Nintendo Hard: The game features many deviously-designed puzzles, and credits are a precious resource that can only be purchased with points from Dut at fluctuating prices each visit. Good co-ordination between both players is especially important when playing co-op. - No Fair Cheating: The Steam version generates a savestate right when a player dies, and will resume from that player's death animation when the game is restarted during a death. This is to prevent players from abusing the savestate system to avoid losing precious credits.
- One-Winged Angel: The Misery Dragon takes on a larger, skeletal form for the final battle with both players present.
- The Phoenix: The solo guardian of the Flame Cavern is a phoenix that dives in and out of the magma.
- Puzzle Boss: Some guardians require the player to make use of specific gimmicks in order to deal damage. Both guardians of the Sand Cavern, Ghost Cat and Lady Anubis, revolve around the light-switching gimmick, while the co-op guardian of the Metal Cavern, Steel Simian, involves putting boxes into pipe mazes.
- Retraux: The game was designed to look and act like an Atari 7800 game, to the point where the game itself can run on the system in question with little alteration.
- Shout-Out: The co-op guardian of the Flame Cavern, Hothog, has attacks that are similiar to the Spin Dash and Fireball Dash moves used by Sonic the Hedgehog.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: After beating the Misery Dragon and his Discomfort Dispenser, he proceeds to show that the "demon lord" part of his title isn't all bluster, morphing his face in horrific ways to emphasize how out of their league Rikki and Vikki are.
- Time Abyss: The Misery Dragon and Dut have been around for eons. The latter is even implied by the manual to have been around since the Hadean eon, as he had bought his entire stock of credits from a fire sale during that period.
- Under the Sea: The Bubble Cavern is an aquatic maze composed entirely of bubbles, and is populated with aquatic enemies.
- Warp Zone: Dut's Discount Warps, which is accessible by clearing all the levels of the Rock Cavern without killing any enemies.
- Wrap Around: There are no bottomless pits; falling off the bottom of the screen teleports you to the top.
