Video Game / Ultra ADHD

"We require your shooty-shooty-bang-bang services. Meet us at the forest."

— Motherland

Ultra ADHD is a Unity game released in October 2016 by Alon "DancingEngie" Karmi. An evil God has brought forth the END TIMES - the apocalypse. The few humans who are left alive hide behind walls, ruled with an iron fist. An ancient prophecy tells of a legendary hero, who defeated God long ago, brought peace and prosperity to the people, and then mysteriously vanished.

You are the hero, who is sent on a grand adventure to bring down the evil god and free the people from his reign.

A self-described "game about things", Ultra ADHD is a 2.5D First-Person Shooter, featuring mouse-drawn pixel art, French noise rock, and a lot of dialogues.

The game is offered for free/pay-what-you-want on itch.io and GameJolt.

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Note: As the game takes less than an hour to complete and features a lot of twists and turns, expect unmarked spoilers.

Ultra ADHD contains examples of:

• Affectionate Parody: Of video game conventions as a whole, but the game also pokes fun at Ace Attorney, Undertale, EarthBound (1994), and Fallout 4.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: The game's title, in reference to its Gameplay Roulette.
• Author Avatar: The developer plays an exaggerated version of himself as the Big Bad.
• But Thou Must!: Lampshaded. Fatherland understands early on that since The Protagonist is silent, he can tell them to do whatever he wants and The Protagonist will have no choice in the matter.
• Badass Normal: The Protagonist is a completely normal being.. who is still able to take down zombies and put a formidable fight against a God.
• Big Bad: The evil God is the one who brought the END TIMES, and the protagonist is recruited by Fatherland and Motherland to slay him and save humanity. He is actually the game developer himself, DancingEngie. Interestingly played with in that, according to Engie, Motherland and Fatherland were originally supposed to serve as the Big Bad Duumvirate, but went against their programming and decided to rebel against him.
• Brick Joke: At the end of the forest level, Fatherland refers to his plans as "going full JRPG here: using the power of friendship to kill God". The final battle is a JRPG battle against, essentially, God. Even the chapter select screen admits it.
• Buffy Speak: As Motherland demonstrates in the opening quote, "shooty-shooty-bang-bang" to describe FPS action.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite her audacity, tenancy to swear, and gung-ho attitude, Motherland can tell the player how to navigate a court of law, and it's implied she's smart and intrepid enough to hijack the game and help the player remotely.
• Deadpan Snarker: Fatherland and DancingEngie tend to mock each other, everyone else, and game conventions in general in a sarcastic, dry tone.
• Fiery Redhead: Motherland beats her brother up at the start of the game and is arguably the most chaotic and outspoken character in the game.
• Fission Mailed: After losing the Hopeless Boss Fight against DancingEngie in the ADHD Ending, a Game Over screen is shown, and “press any key to restart” shown below. Then the message gets hijacked to show that Motherland and Fatherland are rescuing the player, who then goes into God Mode. Cue Zero-Effort Boss.
• Featureless Protagonist: The Protagonist is completely silent for the majority of the game, and doesn't have a pre-set name.
• Gallows Humor: Played quite straight with the likes of strangely giddy suicidal businessmen spewing random infodumps about local pastries.
• Gameplay Roulette: It's called "Ultra ADHD" for a reason. It starts out as a first person exploration/combat game, becomes an Ace Attorney-style court trial, then a Text Adventure, and finally a JRPG battle.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Motherland beats up her brother at one point, tends to act rude, and somewhat manipulates the player for the sake of her and her brother's freedom. However, during the ADHD Ending, she revives the player in the final battle against DancingEngie and genuinely apologizes to them for her behavior and all the trouble she caused.
• La Résistance: The Protagonist, Fatherland and Motherland form one against the evil God causing the END TIMES, who is the developer himself.
• Local Reference: There are a few Israeli references in the game:
  • In the starting town, there is a sheep called "The 16th Sheep". Its backstory, as well as its name, is a reference to a popular Israeli children's book of the same name.
  • In the forest section, you can speak to suicidal businessmen who will tell you about Borekas, an Israeli-Turkish pastry, and Borekas films, an Israeli film genre.
  • The reversed speech in the forest section is a radio broadcast from the start of the Yom-Kippur War.
  • Some zombies might throw Hebrew insults at you, while DancingEngie mutters "kus emek" (an Arabic curse word) after his shotgun is taken away from him during the Cut Ending.
  • One of the endings (the lamp ending) even mentions the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the two-state solution.
• Multiple Endings: The game features 3 endings, depending on the player's dialogue choices, and an Omega Ending unlocked after getting all 3.
  • The ADHD Ending is awarded after defeating Engie in a JRPG-esque Final Boss fight. This triggers a Blue Screen of Death, though Motherland hijacks it to say some parting words to the player, apologizing for her Jerkass behavior and thanking them for their help.
  • The Pretentious Ending is awarded after decrying the plot of the game for being 'pretentious' at the end of the court section. The others, including Engie himself, agree with the player, and unanimously decide to let them shoot zombies for fun again. The game ends with the now-invulnerable player in a field, shooting up a massive hoard of zombies.
  • The Lamp Ending is awarded for trying to speak to a lamp over and over again in the text adventure section. It is not exactly an "official" narrative ending, so much as the monitor/Engie getting tired of your repeated attempts to converse with it and calling you out on your stupidity.
  • Finally, the Cut Ending has Engie give up and refuse to fight the player in the final sequence, instead whisking them away to speak with them personally. Engie then attempts to strike a genuine conversation with the player about his feelings towards the game years after its initial release, before slipping back into character after Motherland and Fatherland pinpoint his location and give the player his shotgun.
• No Fourth Wall: The game breaks the fourth wall within the first five minutes, and keeps it that way for the entirety of its run.
• Overly Long Gag: The Lamp Ending, in which the player repeatedly tries to talk to a lamp, with the text growing more and more frustrated with the player.
• Rage Against the Author: The entire premise of the game.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Motherland's Red Oni to Fatherland's Blue Oni.
• Self-Deprecation: The game constantly makes fun of its own writing, art style, plot, characters, and developer.
• Shout-Out:
  • A soldier quotes "Tell Me Lies" by Fleetwood Mac before taking the main characters to court.
  • The court section is a huge shout-out to Ace Attorney trials, complete with "Objection!" bubbles (albeit more obscene).
  • During the court section, the prosecutor DancingEngie says "Tell them, [Name]" at one point, a reference to Byakuya Togami from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, who would constantly say "Tell them, Naegi/Makoto" to protagonist Makoto Naegi during Class Trials.
  • Referring to JRPGs as "using the power of friendship to kill God" is a reference to a similar comment made by Yahtzee in Zero Punctuation.
  • The phone booth in the beginning of the game is a reference to "The Phone of the Wind".
  • The phrase used to exit the space prison is "Schadenfreude", and you can ask the AI if it's "some kind of Nazi word" in reference to Avenue Q.
  • The final battle against the God/DancingEngie is a shout-out to the final battles of Undertale and EarthBound (1994).
• Sibling Team: Motherland and Fatherland. During the court section, Engie reveals they were supposed to be boss characters before they gained self-awareness and derailed the game.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Applies to all characters, but Motherland especially gets in on the act.
• Stylistic Suck: The entire game is comprised of two-dimensional, mouse-drawn sprites.
• Surreal Humor
• Who Writes This Crap?!: In the Pretentious ending, The Protagonist, Motherland and Fatherland complain about the game's writing and plot. DancingEngie even agrees.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: An apt description of the entire development process according to the developer himself, to the point that the trope name is even mentioned in passing.