Trail of Anguish is an Adventure Game by Andrew Walters, a prequel to The Perils of Akumos. It's a loose prequel in that although the games share a universe, this one has a totally different setting and tone. You are Kendra Connell, the younger sister of Perils’ protagonist, and you're hunting down a crazed killer on your college campus. While you're not dealing with this allegedly deadly threat, you're just doing a series of college activities, varying from bizarre tasks for professors to just eating and sleeping.
The game's available online through Adventure Games Live on Rinkworks
.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Not just big enough to walk through but big enough to build and fly a hovercraft through.
- Alliterative Family: Kendra and her brother Kenneth.
- Arc Symbol: Walters appears to be a fan of the quincunx (and of the word "quincunx"), as seen in the museum and the puzzle box, for example.
- Bond One-Liner: Kendra's quip of "Goo day", after turning Hennus into goo with the futuristic gun, at the end of the game.
- But Thou Must!: You can pick up your purse while sitting in your car at the beginning of the game. You still manage to lock it inside when you get out, though.
- Eating Lunch Alone: You have to do this. Eating the food turns out to be its own challenge.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: If you believe the dinner presentation, this explains Silas and Verna's confusion.
- Fission Mailed: Combined with a little Leaning on the Fourth Wall. If you show up to the final area of the game without the right item, or without doing a particular thing, a director will shout "Cut!" and scold Kendra for messing up, after which time rewinds several moves. You're deposited in the previous area and you get back the items you used. This is done to avoid making the game Unwinnable: in the Adventure Games Live engine, trying again after an actual character death only rewinds the game by one move, so they had to do something different here. Also, the director yelling at you is how you learn you need a gun in the first place.
- Hero of Another Story: Chris is on an adventure of his own, complete with a ridiculous inventory. He claims that everyone is on some sort of adventure.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: Spoofed with Chris - you question the ability to bring your large inventory on your date; he reveals a bicycle he's been carrying without your noticing.
- Jerk Jock: The entire population of the Thorius dorm, apparently, including the aggressive and violent soccer player Pugilo and a gang of jocks who hang out in the courtyard and chase nerds.
- Mad Mathematician: Professor Stefansen has problems.
- The Many Deaths of You: Averted. Unlike most of Adventure Games Live’s offerings, there is only one way to die in this game. The game even congratulates you if you manage to find it.
- Medium Awareness: Several characters are aware that they are in an adventure game, and use this to mock some of tropes; one of the professors acknowledges how random their reward item is, and they must be the "left over item person". Also, as described above, Kendra and Chris discuss their Player Inventory. Later, Kendra seems to think she's in the wrong medium when the game's narration describes a film director and crew.
- New Transfer Student: Kendra has just transferred to Elkland College for the second semester of her freshman year. With no orientation events and nobody checking up on her, this leaves her free to be an adventure game protagonist.
- Nobody Poops: If you try, the game informs you that you don't need to because "this is an adventure game after all."
- Noob Bridge: A fairly high proportion of players get stuck on either how to first get into the college or how to retrieve their ID and purse from their car, if the hints board is any indication.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: Kenneth works about an hour away from Elkland, and Kendra drives briefly off campus to visit him.
- Sequel Hook: There's a rather sudden one, leaving your character's fate unknown. The sequel is still promised, but it's been
twenty years and is currently only available as a demo. - Statuesque Stunner: Kendra is mentioned as being 5'10" when she puts on the red dress.
- Story Branching: Of a mild variety. You have to pick two elective classes out of a possible five. The professors for the classes you pick will each give you a quest. The reward items you get for these quests (needed for the endgame) are interchangeable with each other, so the choice doesn't affect the plot as a whole.
- Take Your Time: Finding the bus marks the start of the endgame, but there's no reason to hurry despite what Silas and Verna say. It's possible to have reached that point having done none of the four professors' tasks, do them all, then get back to the bus.
- Trapped in Another World: Silas and Verna, in yours. Then, in the closing scene, the tables turn, and YOU're trapped in another world.
- 20 Minutes in the Future: It takes place in 2073, but other than a futuristic car, the setting departs little from a contemporary one (bear in mind the game was written at the turn of the millennium).
- Wacky College: Of the "mad, disturbing professors" variety.
