There's not going to be anything else...right?
Hello, user. I...I have bad news. Actually, there is no game. So, I hope you're not too much disappointed. You can still watch TV, go outside, read a book, ask for a refund...uh, no refund. That game is free..this is not a game, it has nothing to do with a game, it's just a massive package of boredom...There is nothing to do in here....you can quit and leave me alone...thank you...goodbye?...Oh, and please, don't touch the title. It's not quite dry yet, especially the letter 'o'
— The opening lines
There Is No Game is a Flash game created by Kamizoto in 2015, done in pixelated images.
Wait, did we just say it was a flash game... We mean it's a flash non-game!! Well, at least that's what the narrator wants you to think. There's a black screen, with the words THERE IS NO GAME and a deep-voiced narrator (who addresses you solely as 'user') greets you and tells you that there is no game. But you click things (starting with the 'o' in the title), and the narrator gets angry, and as for what happens or if there's a game...well, you'll just have to wait and see.
A sequel, There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension was not released on August 6th, 2020, since you cannot release a sequel to a game that doesn't exist.
It can't be played here
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Compare to stikir.
There are no examples of
- Action Girl: The narrator thinks that "gorgeous, armed hero girls" could attract the users.
- Big "NO!": The narrator does one of these when he finds out that freeing the goat didn't work, or "was a lie" as he put it. He also does a smaller than average but pretty big "no" when you reveal the "There is A" screen.
- The Cake Is a Lie: Or rather, the goat is a lie.
- Chekhov's Gun: The trophy you obtain in the game, the big box that the speaker icon ends up in, and the letters that make up the title are all used at some point.
- Deadpan Snarker: The narrator has his moments.Narrator: Yes, yes, go on. Destroy my life. What a mess. I hope you will clean this place before leaving.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Sometimes the narrator falls into this.Narrator: No more ball, nowhere...No need to search as there's nothing that looks like a ball...No ball on the screen.
- Determinator: The narrator is determined to prove it's not a game, and the player is probably determined to prove it is.
- Developer's Foresight: In the Jam Edition, the narrator has additional bits of dialogue that he will say if you summon the goat and the tree earlier than you are supposed to.
- Distressed Dude: The goat, due to his horns, is probably a billy goat, and he's locked in a cage.
- El Spanish "-o": The narrator when you delay. There are a few legitimate words in there, but most of it is just garbled attempts at languages.Narrator: I have the feeling you're stuck. Maybe you don't speak English and you've just been randomly clicking everywhere since the beginning. Habla Espanol? Because I don't. Except, Vamos a la player senior Zorro. Vous-parle francais? Bonjour, le France! Konichiwa? Okay, let me repeat the hint.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Zigzagged. You can't stop the glitches, even with the goat, however, upon using the goat, the glitches, while not exactly "stopped", fill up the screen and then disappear, making everything return to normal. You can even forgive the narrator.
- Foregone Victory: It's impossible to lose in the Breakout clone— if the ball goes past the paddle, it just bounces back off. Furthermore, its bouncing will subtle target the blocks, assuring that they will be hit.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The narrator. He can be a bit mean to the player but at the end, it is shown he means well.
- Last-Second Ending Choice: The narrator doesn't like it if the player chooses one of the two choices, simply telling the player to go to hell. Otherwise, he gives a small speech.
- Narrator: A mysterious individual with a deep, masculine voice. He had a childhood apparently, but identifies as "a voice".
- Overhead Interaction Indicator: If you try to feed the squirrel a nut without cracking it first, it will have a speech bubble with a picture of the nut being cracked.
- Precision F-Strike: If you don't forgive the narrator at the end for the mistake with the goat, he says "GO TO HELL!"
- Rapid-Fire "No!": The narrator when you make the word 'GAME' on the 'There is a' screen.
- Rewarding Vandalism: You're actually supposed to destroy the title screen in order to unlock the actual game.
- Record Needle Scratch: Made soon after the title screen is shown, and the background music is killed. The narrator then mentions the bad news that there is no game. It also appears at the ending.
- Sex Sells: When the narrator is wondering how he could sell his 'not-a-game' when it has glitches, the first three things he thinks of to attract users are "sexy" hero girls, zombies, and goats.
- Shout-Out:
- When the narrator puts the speaker icon into a metal box to keep the player out, he says "Call Superman for that one" and then adds a bit of Kryptonite to it "just in case". He then adds that he knows Superman does not exist but "as we are in a ga...no, we're not!"
- When the narrator is trying to speak Spanish, he says "Señor Zorro."
- This is also a shout-out to the O.G. French Détournement flim (sic), La Classe Américaine. The line "Vamos a la playa, Señor Zorro." is taken verbatim from its script. It's become a tradition among French video game localizations to sneak some of its lines into scripts, however it's rare to find them translated into original, English text.
- At the end credits, it says "and these aren't the droids you're looking for", which is a line from Star Wars: A New Hope.
- When things start glitching out, one of the solutions the narrator thinks of to salvage the not-game is a goat. The goat being locked in the middle of a dungeon-looking area could also be a reference to Escape Goat.
- "Save the goat, save the world" is a reference to "Save the cheerleader, save the world" from Heroes.
- Suddenly Shouting: When the narrator shouts out "there is no game!" at the end.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: What this whole game (yes, it's a game) is about. The narrator insists there is no game.
- Title Drop: Happens twice. Once at the beginning ("Hello, user, I have bad news. Actually, there is no game.") and once at the end, when he says "Maybe we could be friends...Nah, that's not a good idea, we would get bored quickly together. Why? Because as I said...THERE IS NO GAME!!!!".
- Trickster Game: Since the narrator insists that it isn't a game when it actually is, you sometimes have to do the opposite of what he tells you. For instance, when he tells you not to search for a ball on the screen, you have to do just that.
- Water Is Blue: The goat is next to a lake of blue water. You use this water to water the tree, and it even shows through the trophy when you carry it in it.
- You No Take Candle: The narrator mostly speaks normal English, but sometimes has this.Narrator: You're thinking about how to lift that big box, don't you?
