When Tails Gets Bored: Special Edition
is a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame released in 2000 by Matt of Sonic Vegemite. Unlike most other fangames, it's got a sense of humor to it, with a plot based on a series of joke hoax screenshots which revolved around Tails being bored and bothering Sonic.
Its age is rather obvious, as the corny jokes, MIDI music, and awkward controls from an early Clickteam software show. Nonetheless, it's still held in good regard by people who were in the scene back then for its innovations and depth. Even now it is worth a look.
The game was supposed to have a sequel named When Team3 Gets Bored, featuring a trio of Tails clones as the protagonists, but only a demo was released before the project was cancelled.
You can get the two games from this link.
This game provides examples of:
- A Winner Is You: The reward for completely clearing the game is a cutscene where the author congratulates Sonic. When told that he should have given a infinite lives reward, he responds that he enjoys playing with people's expectations.
- Abnormal Ammo: Among the things Amy fires at you include Sonic and Amy dolls.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Downplayed - you play as Tails for Another Doomsday Zone.
- Animated Actors: The first cutscene implies this.Tails: Back to the script - Oh, I know!
- Anticlimax Boss: Invoked at the end of Lunch Base Zone.Tails: Hey, you beat me!
Sonic: Just by finding you at Kitsune HQ?
Tails: Hey, noone [sic] said it had to make sense.
Sonic: It didn't, that's for sure. - Big Bad: Tails is the main antagonist who sets Sonic into a Random Events Plot for his own amusement.
- Big "WHAT?!": Sonic says this when Tails reveals he'll be finding more clones in the next act of Clone Valley Zone.
- Big "NO!": Sonic does this in the cutscene before Lunch Base Zone. A more downplayed version is also done by Sonic when Robotnik and Tails start volleying quotes at each other.
- Blackout Basement: The second act of Minimalist Madness Zone. There are various colored circles to guide you, however.
- Bottomless Pits: Clone Valley Zone is the most annoying level because of those.
- Brick Joke: Launch Base from Sonic 3 lost an "A" and became the food-themed "Lunch Base". Later, Tails returns the A as a bomb to explode Amy.
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: Used in the second act of Minimalist Madness Zone.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Dialogue matches up with the color of the character that says it.
- Credits Gag: The true ending has Sonic, Tails and Amy talking over it.
- Driving Question: Why is Tails bored?
- Emotion Bomb: Parodied with Tails, who is mind controlled by Amy to... be bored.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Really Bad Plot Developer's Trade Show.
- Fission Mailed: The last level starts with a replica of the game over screen, as part of Sonic's attempt to escape the game.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Dying in Kakashta no Kyuuden Zone Act 2 respawns you in the ground, requiring a reset. Also, as an effect of being developed in MMF1.5, whenever a song loops the game screen freezes for an instant while the gameplay is still running.
- Game-Over Man: Sonic in the continue screen. Sonic and Tails in the actual game over screen.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: Certain levels have you chasing after Tails.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Sonic, Tails, and Robotnik have a three-way race in Resort Island.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Kakashta no Kyuuden Zone, which translates to Hidden Palace Zone. It technically translates to "Palace of Failure". The correct word would be Kakure no Kyuuden, though the name "Palace of Failure" fits well due to the Game-Breaking Bug you can find there.
- Internal Homage: The true ending is a recreation of Sonic the Hedgehog 2's ending... except Tails decides to land the plane and get pizza instead of catching Sonic, and he crashes through the roof of the house.
- Idle Animation: The Tails clones are vulnerable while they're yamning.
- It Amused Me: Tails' entire motive is annoying Sonic for no reason.
- Level Ate: Lunch Base Zone is Launch Base Zone decorated as an Australian picnic with Vegemite everywhere.
- Long Song, Short Scene: When Tails arrives at the convention, the final boss theme from Sonic 3 & Knuckles briefly plays before he exclaims, "NO! Not that music!" Unlike the rest of the soundtrack, this music is not in the Sound Test.
- Medium Awareness: A lot of it. For example, Knuckles tries to find a lightswitch, only to hit the edge of the screen.
- Me's a Crowd: Tails clones himself after Resort Island, and Sonic has to go to Clone Valley to get rid of them.
- Multiple Endings: The Golden Ending can only be reached by getting through four special stages.
- No Fourth Wall: To the point that the very first cutscene has Tails chastising Sonic for not reading the title, and also complaining that he talked to the author about better cutscenes.
- In the ending cutscene, Amy can't escape from Tails's bomb because she has no sprites for getting out of her vehicle.
- Obligatory Swearing: In the first cutscene alone, both Tails and Sonic use the word "damn".
- Officially Shortened Title: The name is usually shortened to "WTGB".
- Other Me Annoys Me: Tails and Robotnik's habit of quoting other works annoys not just Sonic, but one of Tails's clones.Tails: "The fastest way is by train. Come on!"
Tails clone: Now you're even annoying me.
Tails: Yeah, I'm good aren't I?
Tails clone: Yeah, not bad really. - Out of Focus: Part of Amy's motive for making Tails bored is because of this.
- Pun: Lunch Base Zone is a riff on Launch Base Zone.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Minimalist Madness Zone uses Ice Cap's assets.
- Take That!:
- Tails attends the Really Bad Plot Developer's Trade Show partially because he "might get to throw things at the Archie Comics people".
- At the convention, there's a sign saying "Meet the AoStH writers!"
- Time Skip: The cutscene where Sonic gives Knuckles his shoe back has a rather unnecessary "later..." time card, since all that's changed is that Knuckles is wearing his missing shoe again.
- True Final Boss: Amy.
- Unexplained Recovery: Lampshaded - Sonic says that Amy will escape a seemingly unavoidable trap because she was the villain, like Robotnik.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: The true villain escapes Tails' death trap without explanation because so did Eggman in every previous Sonic game.
- Wham Line: The reason for Tails' boredom:Sonic: Someone's messin' with your mind.
- Wolfpack Boss: The fight against the three Tails clones.
