Second Wind is a flash-based Roguelike Video Game starring you as a dungeon adventurer who dreams of conquering the dungeon for riches, glory, and maybe even a shot at godhood.
It offers a wide variety of character classes, a keen sense of humor, and shout outs to NetHack and media in general. A key gameplay feature is the Second Wind, which lets you return from death once—once you die again, though, that's it.
The game can be found here
.
This game provides examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: The gods of the world are called Krillix, Armon, Spediphis, Zorom, and... Smith. This makes more sense when you realize Smith is actually a human.
- A God Am I: In the backstory, Randal Smith was this even among the other gods and betrayed them, rising above their influence.
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Shopkeepers regularly increase prices; this is dependent on weapon and equipment upgrades.
- Addictive Magic: The Blackguard's Demon ability temporarily boosts your Dex for the battle, while permanently lowering it for future battles. Thus, the more you use it, the more tempted you will be to use it again.
- Another Dimension: The third area is set on the astral plane, where the gods reside.
- Back from the Dead: The Second Wind allows you to come back once after you die.
- Blood Knight: Krillix is a god of this trope. His followers are encouraged to kill and spill blood in his name.
- Brown Note: The Avant-Garde Ball of Clay attacks by assuming abstract shapes that damage your mind when gazed upon.
- Cast from Hit Points: The Mercenary's Force attack deals 25% damage to himself if it hits. Both of the Oni's attacks deal 20% damage to himself if he attacked the previous turn.
- Cast from Lifespan: The Blackguard's Demon ability grants him a temporary accuracy boost and a permanent boost to his Aura, at the cost of permanently reducing his Dex and maximum health.
- Cast from Money: Both the Rogue and Mercenary can boost their attack strength by spending money. The Paladin can spend money either to heal himself or to buff a random stat.
- Chest Monster: Obvious Mimics can disguise themselves as chests, cages, or potions. Not that they're very good at it.
- Death or Glory Attack: The Darkfolk's Boom spell deals insane amounts of damage after a few upgrades, but also drains all of your mana. If you're going to use it, you'd better make sure it kills.
- Department of Redundancy Department: The enemy flavor texts are awfully repetitive, and will remind you about the nature of the enemy at every opportunity. You will never forget that Skeleton Soldiers are skeletal, Kosher Kubes are non-gelatinous, and Obvious Mimics are really bad at being subtle.
- Dungeon Maintenance: The first area is run by the Dungeon Master, who employs maintenance workers for his dungeon. If you meet a maintenance worker, he can grant you access to a maintenance shaft.
- Early Game Hell: The first area doesn't let you respawn when killed a second time.
- Easy Levels, Hard Bosses: Once you level up enough in certain areas, especially if you have good classes, random encounters become fairly easy. The bosses...are not.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: On Newgrounds, the achievement for beating the game on the lowest difficulty is called "Wimp".
- Eldritch Abomination: Monsters in the third area, especially Polite Flayers and Greater Miscreants.
- Equivalent Exchange: Making offerings at a church increases one stat and lowers another, depending on which god receives the offering. To wit:
- Krillix: Dexterity to Power. You deal more damage, but will land fewer hits.
- Spediphis: Armor to Dexterity. You will land hits more often, but so will your enemies.
- Armon: Health to Armor. You take more damage, but get hit less often.
- Zorom: Power to Health. You take less damage, but so do your enemies.
- Smith: The affected stats are chosen at random.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There: The Greater Miscreants are covered in them.
- Fallen Hero: Some enemies in the third area are evil versions of the playable classes.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Quilogist priestesses wear goggles, possibly to emphasize their focus on speed and action.
- Guide Dang It!: Getting the best ending, at least without getting the Average ending first.
- Have a Nice Death: There's unique battle messages for every enemy, including death messages.
- Kill the God: You defeat the pantheon of gods in the third area.
- Killer DM: You fight a literal killer dungeon master as the boss of the first area.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Easy, Normal, and NetHack.
- It Only Works Once: The Second Wind only works once per area, and dying again kills the run.
- Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair: The trope name is mentioned in the Average ending, when the player character realizes they have nothing left to rule over after having destroyed the other gods.
- Multiple Endings: Four of them:
- Really Bad: You accept Randal Smith's offer to rule together with him, but he betrays you and kills you.
- Not Good: You fight Randal Smith, but lose.
- Average: You fight Randal Smith and defeat him, taking his power for yourself. But since you also destroyed the other gods, the world is in ruins, making your victory a pyrrhic one.
- Great?: If you defeat Randal Smith but leave the other gods alone, you assume Smith's power and rule the world for ages to come.
- One Stat to Rule Them All: Dexterity is very important to classes that don't have any accuracy-boosting abilities. Even if your character has immense amounts of power and defense, it doesn't do squat if you can't land a single hit on the enemy.
- Plague Doctor: Necrogist doctors, found in churches of Zorom.
- Purple Is Powerful: Randal Smith is said to be the creator of everything, and his churches associate with the color purple.
- Purposely Overpowered: The rewards from killing the pantheon of gods.
- Shout-Out: To NetHack, Deus Ex, The Protomen, and many other works.
- The Three Trials: Seen in the second area, where you have to pass color-coded trials and equivalent guardians to pass.
- This Was His True Form: Obvious Mimics revert to their true form when killed. It's not that different from their disguise.
- Tom the Dark Lord: The terrible being that rebelled against the gods and nearly destroyed them? A human named Randal Smith.
- Torches and Pitchforks: The Angry Dungeon Mob is a stick figure mob armed with weapons.
- We Can Rule Together: Randal Smith offers this before you battle him. Accepting gets you a Nonstandard Game Over.
- When Trees Attack: Ent trees and various flora are fightable monsters.
