Video Game / Schwarzerblitz

In the background: Donner Misterkay. In the foreground, from the left: Renzo Rubecca, Tiger Sambiong, Aylin Mary Yang (Amy), Mystery Johnson, Shaz Aliart, and Cyphr Wolfchild.

"Let the Black Lightning strike!"

— Game tagline

Schwarzerblitz (almost German: Black Lightning) is a 3D indie Fighting Game inspired by arcade games from the '90s, like Tekken or Virtua Fighter, created by Andrea "Jens" Demetrio. Word of God says that the game is set in the same universe as Distortionverse, which is somewhat understandable since we are talking about the same author and there are some recurring characters in both works.

As its parent series, Schwarzerblitz is set 20 Minutes into the Future, in a sort of Crapsack World where the entire Fennoscandia has sunk into the depths of the Northern Sea, most of Ireland has been invaded by blood-sucking creatures, and seeing mutants and aliens around the streets in the U.K. is just everyday routine.

The plot of the game revolves around the so-called Black Lightning Disaster, which obliterated Italian capitol city Euterpe in 2064, and on how the various character are related to the accident.The cast of playable characters features some regular humans, a man without a face,a sadistic killer robot, a drunken Shark Man, and even a Raptor with a minigun, among the others.

The game is available for free on GameJolt or Steam. You can join the Discord Server for discussions on it. The game is completely in English.

The game was followed by a series of short stories, detailing the lives of the characters after the epilogue. The first collection, Tales from Schwarzerblitz contains six sequel stories and one prequel story. The second collection, Tales from Schwarzerblitz - Long Play of Flowers in the Night, is currently available in the Discord server of the game and contains fifteen additional stories.A canon spin-off Visual Novel, Tales from Schwarzerblitz - Drinking Shark Rhapsody has been released on itch.io in April 2023 and is set right at the end of Tales from Schwarzerblitz - Long Play of Flowers in the Night.

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This series provides examples of:

Schwarzerblitz (Game)

• Acid Pool: at the bottom of the aptly named Acid Symphony stage.
• Action Girl: basically, every female character in the cast.
• Action Mom: Cyphr's mother, the mercenary known as Der Wolf. Also doubles as Informed Ability since she dies even before the beginning of the game.
• A Dog Named "Dog": a tiger man called Tiger? Check.
• Aerith and Bob: compare Renzo, Feliz, Wally, and Kaya with Shaz, Graf, Krave, Cyphr, Donner and Evilobster. Aylin Mary Yang doubles as a combination of the two groups.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: H-168 Krave. In spades.
• Alien Sky: the sky of the Shadow Gallery is of a disturbing reddish hue. Imagine finding out THAT is what is left of the original planet Earth.
• Ambiguously Evil: what side is really Blade Aureal on, it's never fully explained. Sometimes he behaves like an ally to Shaz and Elena, sometimes he behaves like a villain - and his true plans and purposes are never explicitely revealed, just hinted at.
• Ambiguously Brown: Kaya and Skeleton (in his 3rd outfit). Both show a quite dark complexion with caucasian facial features.
• Apocalypse How: of the Local Area level (Euterpe's city centre - the event kickstarting the plot), the Regional level (all of Fennoscandia, in a relevant background event), and the Planetary level, as the formerly mentioned Regional event caused the world as we know it to end and all mankind to go extinguished... fifty years before the beginning of the game's story.
• Art Shift: Cyphr's story episode starts with hand-drawn pictures instead of the usual 3D CGI.
• Asian Fox Spirit: Kiyoko and Kaya.
• Awesome Aussie: Wally Alba, an Aussie raptor bounty hunter with a minigun.
• Babies Ever After: implied in Mecha Elena's climatic battle dialogue. Brutally subverted and inverted in the after-epilogue tales, at least for Elena.
• Badass Boast: "You won't remember my face, so why should I care?".
• Badass Normal: Renzo Rubecca, Skeleton Skallen, Cyphr Wolfchild (who doubles as Handicapped Badass) and Aylin Mary Yang are just regular humans; still, they are able to face Eldritch Abominations capable of summoning lightning storms by snapping their fingers without breaking a sweat.
• Beast Man: Tiger and his Cyborg counterpart Graf are tiger-human hybrids. Mono also qualifies as an oversized Cat Girl.
• Berserk Button: never tell Wally any Aussie joke - he will shoot you in no time.
• BFG: Wally's minigun. Mr. Daevka's plasma rifle qualifies as well.
• Big Head Mode: By inputing a cheat code in the title menu, no less.
• Bilingual Bonus: Mr. Daevka's night club is called Le Coq Heureux.
• Black Cloak: Donner Misterkay, a guy wearing what it looks like a monk robe, which additionally hides his face.
• The Blank: Johnson: his face keeps on oscillating between all possible features, resulting in a blurred image (portrayed in-game as a featureless black face with white eyes).
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Amy in her Lejl persona.
• Breakout Character: Shaz has quickly become a fan favourite, despite having only a small role in the overarching story. He doubles as an Ensemble Dark Horse.
• Bounty Hunter: Skeleton, Wally and Mono are making a living out of this.
• The Casanova: Renzo, with inconsistent results.
• Catchphrase: Bloody Moonfish!
• Cheat Code: several, including the aforementioned Big Head Mode, Moon gravity, wireframe mode and a couple others.
• Continuity Nod: some of them, referencing Distortionverse or related works:
  • One of Shaz win lines is "Have you ever been pummeled in a post office?". Guess what happened to him at the beginning of Uptune...
  • In the B.&D. Stadium stage, among the various advertisements, there are portraits of Eliphya and Veckert Rainer. You can spot them in the first 5 seconds of this video.
  • In the Dead Zone Desert stage, St. Patrick can be seen in the background. Also, it's the setting of the story Sabbie....
  • Le Coq Heureux is the same night club in which part of La Notte che Cammina is set.
  • Rosenmaester is clearly mentioned by Johnson in his story chapter.
  • The spaceships portrayed in both Dead Zone Desert and Delta Team Outpost are the same model shown in a previous game of the same creator, a space Shoot 'Em Up called ENiGMA.
  • Silman Simmerik a.k.a. Rosenmaester is a prominent figure in story mode and he's playable as an alternate costume for Renzo.
  • Mr. Daevka, the owner of Le Coq Heureux makes a playable appearance in story mode.
• Dead for Real:
  • Cyphr's mother, killed by Krave before the game even begins.
  • Krave himself, at the end of story mode.
  • Graf Shabeel too. Poor guy cannot catch a breath.
• The Don: Go Ottari, the boss of the Fishface Crime Syndicate.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Skeleton is a regular human but has access to a couple of energy blasters. Cyphr qualifies as well with her battle boots.
• Extendable Arms: Graf's gimmick and main attack pattern.
• The Faceless: General Heinz Harald Boost is named several times during story mode, but never shown. Even after apprehending Krave, a soldier is sent in his stead to bargain with him.
• Fish People: All the fish mutants who are part of the Fishface Crime Syndicate have been produced by a MegaCorp for a TV show, and suddenly released when said show flopped.
• For Science!: Krave use this sentence as an excuse to justify some rather gruesome murders - like throwing a soldier in a pool of acid.
• Fun with Acronyms: Aylin Mary Yang introduces herself as Amy/A.M.Y. instead of using her real name. It qualifies since Amy is a proper first name and it's conveniently an acronym for her complete name.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: many instances of them, mostly throughout story mode.
  • in Shaz's story episode, his punches are too weak to deal damage to the sadistic Killer Robot Krave. Enters the match and you can't damage him with normal attacks. Also, you can't win by time out. The solution? Throw him out of the ring (a train moving at high velocity inside a tunnel)!
  • in Tiger's episode, a recorded message warns about the safety doors of the lab shutting down in 60 seconds. Cue a "win before the time runs out fight" with a 53 seconds timer, taking into account a brief exchange before the match starts.
  • in the 'Hunting Ground' story episode, Krave cannot be hurt by either Tiger or Cyphr, but a character armed with a plasma rifle is able to deal huge damage to him during the fight.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: at the end of the same story episode, Krave boosts through the tunnel using what appears to be a pair of plasma engines mounted on his shoulders. No such things appear in his moveset and he has no access to them in a regular match. Maybe because they are not so useful in close-range combat?. Subverted and made into Gameplay and Story Integration in the most recent build: not only Krave has access to the boosters as a special move, but it is also explained in his Origin Story that he can't waste power, as he has a defective engine which needs constant refueling.
• Generic Ethnic Crime Gang: the Fishface Crime Syndicate, a mob exclusively composed by mutant fishmen.
• Genki Girl: Amy, in her first appearance in Tiger's story episode. She got better in a later revision of the very same episode.
• Gratuitous Foreign Language: Cyphr's moveset uses only German names, while Renzo's moveset uses only Italian names. Maybe it has something to do with their country of origin...
• Gratuitous German: the game's own title.
• Guest Fighter: Sir Rattlebone from Duels of Fortune is playable as a guest character. Conversely, Mystery Johnson is playable in Duels of Fortune too.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: literally, "Metallic" Mayer's backstory. He got the left part of his body incinerated during an experiment at CERN.
• Handicapped Badass: Cyphr Wolfchild has lost both her arms, her right ear and some of her internal organs when she was a child. Despite this, she's one of the strongest characters in-game.
• In Da Club: where Amy and Elena are on the receiving end of a flirtatuous Renzo in story mode. Unsurprisingly, the guy gets wrecked.
• Interspecies Romance: Tiger, a - well - a tiger man and Amy, a human girl.
• Karma Houdini: at least two:
  • Silman Simmerik, the guy who killed one city worth of people, reactivated Krave, and is one of the most irredeemable in the whole extended game lore, walks away with his own legs at the end of the story and opens a flower shop in New Langdon.
  • Elena Marea, a former assassin who - by her own admission - killed innocents on commission, ends up hooking up with Renzo and living a quiet, happy life. Though she remarks that she's sure her past will come back to hit her at the worst possible moment.
• Kamehame Hadoken: Donner has several energy beam moves that qualify for this trope.
• Killer Robot: H-168 Krave. It's useless to point out that he doubles as Robotic Psychopath.
• Lampshade Hanging: some in-universe examples.
  • Mono's arcade ending, where she critiques the clothing choices of many characters, is this in spades!
  • Also, many of Shaz's quotes. He likes to point out how other characters look weird or out of place, especially in story episodes. His intro and win quotes have also shades of this.
    "Why are ya dressing like a B-movie monk?!" (addressing Black Cloak Big Bad Donner Misterkay)
    "Your costume is horrible. I wonder who designed it." (speaking with Skeleton Skallen - who wears an elaborate skull-motive armor)
• Laughing Mad: Lejl, in her arcade ending. This is unsettlingly used during story mode to signal her Sanity Slippage.
• Love Triangle: Shaz, Elena, and Blade. With the latter dating both the former at the same time, unbeknownst to them.
• Mind Screw: good luck understanding what actually happened to the world after the sinking of Fennoscandia and the resulting creation of the Shadow Gallery.
• Moveset Clone: several characters, such as Blade Aural, Feliz Harracido, Metallic Mayer, Silman Simmerik and Mr. Daevka, are only available as alternate skins for existing characters.
• Mutants: the whole Fishface Crime Syndicate, Tiger, Wally, Graf, Mono, Johnson... Heck, there are so many of them around that it almost looks like a world of mutants!
• Official Couple: Several, as the game ends.
  • Renzo and Elena, confirmed by the epilogue;
  • Tiger and Amy, hinted at and confirmed several times during story mode;
  • Kaya and Kiyoko, confirmed by their arcade ending;
  • Cyphr and Lejl, hinted at in a bonus arcade ending, in the epilogue, and in a canon short story published by the author.
• Older Than They Look: Amy and Renzo.
  • Amy is 22, but according to some characters, she looks like she's in her teens.
  • Renzo is 20, but Elena thinks he's still a teenager.
• Parasol of Pain: Kiyoko's umbrella qualifies for this.
• Raptor Attack: Wally Alba. He's literally a freakin' sentient raptor. With a minigun.
• Ray Gun: Mr. Daevka has one. And, apparently, he's pretty well versed in using it.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: apparently, the fact that some players did not recognize Cyphr as a girl became a minor plot point in-game.
• Ring Out: many stages have this option, including a Lava Pit, a Traintop Battle, and the top of a skyscraper. This sometimes borders into the No One Should Survive That! territory.
• Robo Speak: as in the parent series, each time Krave or Graf speak, their lines start with a ">" command line symbol.
• Robotic Psychopath: H-168 Krave. It goes without saying that he doubles as Killer Robot.
• Schrödinger's Cat: invoked, played with and name dropped in the second to last story chapter.
• The Scrooge: Mr. Daevka. In spades.
• Shameful Strip: Cyphr is on the receiving hand on this after her first confrontation with Krave. Cue Heroic BSoD.
• Shark Man: Shaz Aliart, Blade Aural, and Feliz Harracido qualify for this.
• Shout-Out: Plenty of them!
  • Johnson calls out Shaz's Super Mario Italian accent while speaking with him in the former's story chapter (see here).
  • Jonhson's choice of clothing is probably a shout out to The Mask.
  • Johnson's 3rd outfit is aptly named Smooth Criminal.
  • Johnson's 4th costume ("Dust Collector") is a reference to Roman Torchwick.
  • Shaz's throw is called Sharknado.
  • Tiger's throw is called Star Platinum Dance.
  • one of Cyphr's moves is called RosenkreuzStilette.
  • Cyphr's 3rd outfit is also a homage to Yang from RWBY.
  • Renzo's winning pose is reminescent of a certain Johnatan Joestar's. If it wasn't enough, three of his win quotes reference Yoshikage Kira ("If you just wanted a quiet life, that was not a great start." / "Guess I should call an ambulance..." / "And, signore e signori... another one bites the dust!").
  • Renzo seems to have become a living Jojo reference: in his story chapter he has to remark that "German science is the best in the world"!
  • One of Graf's win lines is "... like tears... in rain.". Additionally, one of his moves is called Batty Punisher.
  • One of Krave's moves is called Frogger was a poser.
  • When Krave is chasing Shaz on the train in the latter's story chapter, Krave starts talking like Dio Brando (see here).
  • Also, one of his moves is called Za Warudo ~ Road Roller Dab. While he has no real road roller, he punches his grounded opponent repeatedly after striking a Jojo pose and yelling a WRYYYYYYY-like scream. Then, he dabs.
  • Krave is actually a fountain of references: his intro song lyrics in Cyphr's story chapter are a shout out to Mr. Perfect Cell introduction in Team Four Star's Dragon Ball Z Abridged, at least according to Word of God.
  • Light! Camera! Bloodshed!
  • Two of Elena's moves are called Old Rod and New Rod.
  • A couple in Donner's moveset: Belmont Vanquisher and Chozo Kick.
  • Browsing the game files, one can see that Shooting Star Aquarium is internally referenced as Manten. As the original aquarium from the visual novel, it is marketed as a dating place for couples.
  • Skeleton Skallen's costume "Skreamn Red Skull" is a reference to the streamer of the same name, who is a big fan of the game.
  • Jenn's arcade ending is partly a tribute to Ghost in the Shell, recalling the iconic opening "skyscraper dive" scene of the 1995 movie. Jenn and Tiger's dialogue via radio contains an additional nod to the English version of that scene.
  • Krave has a costume called PREDICTABOT that is openly inspired by Geese Howard's in Fatal Fury.
  • Evilobster has a costume inspired by Heihachi Mishima and one inspired by Kenshiro.
• Stripperific: Amy's first outfit qualifies, showing both Underboobs and Sideboobs and coupling with bared midriffs. Some characters comment on it in-game.
• Sunglasses at Night: Evilobster. Partly justified, since he mainly uses his antennas to orient himself - as pointed out in Johnson's story episode.
• Survivor's Guilt: apparently, Tiger suffers from this (as seen in his story episode).
• The Power of Friendship: Krave mocks this trope in the story chapter Hunting Ground.
• The Unintelligible: SBLAGALAGALAGALASH! (Evilobster's "speech" pattern). Not even his colleagues from the Fishface Crime Syndicate understand him.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: mixed with Les Yay and Foe Romance Subtext. Cyphr and Lejl share several ambiguous moments, with Tiger remarking how likely is that at least one of the two has a crush on the other, if not both.
• You Are Already Dead: invoked and spelled out verbatim by Jenn in her arcade ending.

Tales from Schwarzerblitz

• Babies Ever After: Tiger and Amy are this trope in spades.
• The Bartender: Vincent Jackson himself.
• Boom, Headshot!: twice in Tales from Crossbones - the Problem with Encorp. Like father, like daughter.
• The Champion: Evilobster, with the stage name of Mr. Claws, has become the People's Champ of the American Wrestline Assocation - AWA.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Jerediah "Red" Horowitz and Chai Constantine are serious serial offenders.
• Eldritch Location: every night, Lejl's mind is sent to the Shadow Gallery, which retains all the nightmarish features shown in the game.
• First-Person Perspective: Tales from the Night - A Fleeting Existence is told in first person by Lejl.
• Handicapped Badass: Chai Constantine, a blind member of Crossbones who's high enough in rank to be chosen for a mission by Skeleton except she isn't blind at all: her eyes simply paralyze everyone who sees them.
• Human Weapon: Chai Constantine as Medusa.
• Interspecies Romance: as a source of angst for Tiger, who thinks Amy and he will never be able to be happy because of the prejudices about it.
• Meaningful Rename: Mystery Johnson now goes as Vincent Jackson, as a way to show that he has moved on and accepted who he is.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Quoted almost word for word as the title of one of the story.
• Parental Substitute: Jerediah "Red" Horowitz for Chai.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Sayonara, motherfucker. And take my greetings to LeJarme."
• Show Within a Show: Eliphya makes a return from the base game and Distortionverse, but this collection ups the ante by introducing the adult cartoon Puffi, the Happy-Go-Lucky Drug Addicted Rabbit

Tales from Schwarzerblitz - Long Play of Flowers in the Night

• All Girls Like Ponies: Cyphr is a secret fan of the cartoon series Magical Unicorn Friends.
• And I Must Scream: the Donners sent through the portals in Tales from the Bat - Beyond the Rift. Some of them have such faulty anatomies that they can't even breathe.
• Animal Lover: Paddy O'Rilley qualifies, as a staunch member of the Agency for the Protection of Wildlife. However, she takes the "lover" part a bit too far, especially when talking about haemophages - pardon, hematophages. Al del Toro qualifies too, as he loves his herd of sheep. In which way, is left ambiguous.
• Apocalyptic Log: Marin's diary in Tales from the Bat - Dive Through Hell.
• Back from the Dead: played with. Krave comes back thanks to an old brain backup, but I.N.A.B.A. is not the same person as them. The whole core of the Tales from the Backstage - Cognitive Dissonance story revolves around this.
• The Bartender: Shaz - pardon, Gaetano - works as a part-time bartender at Jackson's. Of course, Vincent Jackson qualifies too.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: Paddy O'Rilley, a genius biologist, is found out to have been too attached to her search subject and immediately, publicly shamed. She got better and eventually wrote a book on her experience.
• The Bus Came Back: Veckert Rainer and EiN, two prominent characters in Distortionverse who were more or less Put on a Bus, come back with a bang in Tales from the Night - His Inflorescence
• Cat Girl: and not just one - in Tales from the Backstage - Heaven Shall Burn, we get to know the whole Gattonero family, comprising of annoyed dad Reno Gattonero and his three cat girl daughters.
• Dead All Along: Silman Simmerik is revealed to be this in Tales from the Night - His Inflorescence. And not for a short time - this applies retroactively to their appearances in Distortionverse too!
• Despair Event Horizon: in Tales from the Bat - Chain of Command, General Boost lays down on his bed, incapable of reacting to the sudden emergence of an eldritch, city sized plant that is threatening to turn the world into a even more twisted version of the Shadow Gallery.
• Eldritch Location: the Shadow Gallery makes an appearance again, and we finally see more extensive parts of it, including what look like the ruins of London.
• First-Person Perspective: all the stories in the Tales from the Night category are told in first person by Lejl.
• Fun with Acronyms: I.N.A.B.A. stands for "I'm Not A Bunny, Asshole", while at the same time being the name of a rabbit from a Japanese legend.
• A God Am I: Reiner Greschnik in a nutshell. He founded his company Stratosphere with the motto "Above the clouds, we found no God", uses religious imagery and has a cadre of elite bodyguards called Angels.
• Hotter and Sexier: both compared with the main game and with the first collection of stories, thanks in no small part to the new characters of Chai Constantine and Paddy O'Rilley.
• Interspecies Romance: Marin O'Rilley's doomed love story with the shoiga Raida.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Elena's past actions finally caught up with her, causing her to have to flee and break up with Renzo.
• Killer Robot: the Chaingear, which also doubles as a bona fide mechanical {Kaiju: a biomechanic dinosaurs with dual chainsaws and a plasma beam!
• Madness Mantra: O flowers, o flowers, o flowers!
• Show Within a Show: in addition to the ever-present Eliphya and Puffi, the Happy Go-Lucky Drug Addicted Rabbit, this collection adds Schwanzerblitz, an In-Universe porn parody of the events of the first game, Chronoslasherz 3090, a pulp sci-fi movie, and Magical Unicorn Friends, a cartoon about - well - cute magical unicorns.
• A Threesome Is Hot: Cyphr, Lejl and Chai share one right before the even of Tales from the Night - Sharing Nightmares.
• Took a Level in Badass: Renzo turned over a new leaf and is described as a Bishōnen. He's the leader of a band and a career investigator too.
• Urban Legend: The Man with the Hat. Except he's real.
• Verbal Tic: Claire and Corinne Gattonero keep on distorting their words unconsciously with nya sounds. Their father Reno went to a speech therapist to get rid of that. They have a tip jar in his office where the girls have to put money every time a nya comes out of their lips.

Tales from Schwarzerblitz - Drinking Shark Rhapsody

• Arc Words: Don't trust the man who speaks with flowers.
• Bad Ending: two of them. In one, the player character is eaten by a lamppost monster while on their way home. In the other, the player character becomes a host for the flowers, triggering a second Rekashiza emersion, which kills Vincent in the process and severely cripples Lejl.
• The Bartender: the player character, Lejl and Vince all qualify as one.
• Bittersweet Ending: all main endings qualify as this. Yes, the player character is still working at Jackson's and might have scored with one of their colleagues, but this doesn't change the fact that the city of Shard has been destroyed by a Eldritch Abomination in the form of a giant plant and that - whatever the flowers are - are still at large.
• Dating Sim: the game might qualify as this, mixed with a healthy does of existential horror and comedy.
• Dine and Dash: during the first night, Shaz leaves Jackson's paying with a Monopoly bill. The player character isn't amused. Subverted when Vincent explains that all of Shaz's drinks are on the house.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • the man-eating lamppost. Fortunately, it's just a Urban Legend. Or are they?.
  • the ominous talking flowers and, in particular, the Rekashiza that emerges in Shard towards the end.
• Gargle Blaster: apparently, Jackson's serves glasses of antifreeze to whomever asks for them.
• Going Commando: Lejl is still forgetting to wear underwear at times, as lampshaded by Shaz.
• Go-to Alias: Gaetano Trasimeno for good ol' Shaz Aliart. In this game, he's consistently introduced as Gaetano and - while Vincent and Lejl call him Shaz, the player character always refers to him as such.
• I'm a Humanitarian: Shaz is going to open a fishmonger together with another fish mutant. The player character is puzzled by the implications.
• Madness Mantra: O flowers, o flowers, o flowers!
• Mood Whiplash: Comedy antics! Eldritch cosmic horror! Comedy antics!
• Multiple Endings: three of them, depending on the gender of the character and whether or not they maxed out the affection towards one specific cast member.
• Naked People Are Funny: in a certain dialogue tree, it's revealed that Lejl lost a bet with Cyphr and was forced to get to the bar in her birthday suit, much to Vincent's chagrin.
• Parallel Porn Titles: Schwanzerblitz is mentioned once again and is the subject of a running gag.
• Too Dumb to Live: the player character, depending on some of their choice during the last night.
• A Threesome Is Hot: Lejl's ending is literally called Sharing is Caring. Guess why.
• Urban Legend: Lejl tells the player character several urban legends of New Langdon, which works as Foreshadowing for a certain Bad Ending.

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