Video Game / Zelle Occult Adventure

A young boy, Emerada, wakes up in a small room, confined by a mysterious Reaper within a giant castle. Armed with a weaponized "rosary" given to him by a highly suspicious Goddess, Emerada sets off to explore the Old Castle and escape to his village nearby with the help of a mysterious green character, while meeting a variety of strange and often dangerous characters -namely, Demons- who've also made their home here.

Developed by Japanese dev Odencat [1] in RPG Maker and available on Steam, Zelle -Occult Adventure- is an odd Horror/Comedy hybrid of a first person Dungeon Crawling RPG and puzzle-based Action-Adventure game. You spend most of the game seeing things from Emeradas' perspective, and frequently encounter enemies who's eyes glow the colors of the rosaries' cross-bearing trinkets. Select the color, and the enemy receives a (usually) fatal blow, but as the game progresses this becomes tougher as the enemies gain tricks up their sleeves and stricter time constraints. Due to the nature of this combat, defeating said Demons as fast as possible rewards you with a ranking that culminates at the games end.

This is a odd, but good, one, and is getting a Spiritual Successor from Odencat in the form of a more tech-based horror rpg game, Dream Channel Zero, to be released in 2024.

Zelle -Occult Adventure contains examples of:

• Affably Evil: Zogzo, the Reaper in charge of the Castle is a fairly likable fellow despite keeping Emerada prisoner. however he still can't quite help sometimes almost giving into his instincts and making a threatening remark making himself come off as Faux Affably Evil in the process. His genuine attempts at making the Demon's stay as they are rehabilitated in the castle more bearable, in particular the younger children among them, push him into being more affable than not. A flashback in particular showcases it if the player has Emerada ask for something to do, such as play cards. Zogzo will be very happy to have the boy accept his offer to play, and later in his office you can find the activity you potentially chose on his desk.
  • The Moon-Faced Man is content sleeping in his room and explaining some things about the castle, despite also having very sinister moments. Once Emerada shows him his Rosary, something within him awakens and he goes into a private room. When Emerada disobeys The Moon-Faced Man's clear warnings against looking in there, that's when the demon attacks.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Very nearly all enemies have either yellow, blue, or red eyes to give the player/Emerada the tell of which of the rosaries charms to attack them with.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Aside from some extras, and a handful of enemies, hardly any two characters (and/or bosses) are the complete same to the point of Medium Blending.
• Cutscene Boss: Ironically the Final Boss, Lord Astaroth. In-universe it's a test of Emerada's resolve to keep fighting until the Dragon Kid is able to come in and help. In-game, its simply clicking through some unsuccessful "armored" rosary actions while revealing who the man in the Game Over screen is. It really is something of a Post-Final Boss, since Astaroth is simply Zogzo's ultimate summon to test Emerada.
• Deadly Game: Loki, a child with a creepy smile, challenges you for a dancing minigame for an item in his room. Losing has him summoning a nightmarish monster to chomp on you for a One-Hit Kill
• Disguised Horror Story: At first, the game seems surreal, and while creepy, it's typically in a surreal way (fighting gargoyles, skeletons, etc.) with a good deal of humor behind it. Then you get some glimpses of blood, some off-putting defeats of enemies, and the game slowly incorporates more and more intense traditional horror moments through its gameplay and story.
• Eldritch Abomination: Several, but special mention goes to "The Man In The Painting", a bird-faced demon that resides in a crudely drawn world and can survive part of it's head exploding and leaving its skull exposed, and Lord Astaroth, the demon who adorns the results screen, and appears on various iconography.
• Genre-Busting: The game combines A 2d first-person dungeon crawler with a Point-and-Click style adventure game. On top of that the combat is simple but very heavily reaction-focused. When Emerada finally arrives outside the castle, the first person exploration changes again for the last third of the game into a more traditional overhead RPG style.
• God Is Evil: Played with, The Goddess that provides aid to Emerada is fairly shady and fairly wild in her mannerisms and expressions, to the point that it's probably apparent she has some other angle for helping you. However, Emerada has little-to-no other options; when she crops up again she still does nothing evil until she kills Zamza for disrupting her order.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: A strangely more up-front and consistent example than most. As just one example, the Warm-Up Boss Gargoyle unfolds the background to surprise attack you with a knife. When you kill it, what immediately follows is The Goddess pulling apart the results screen with a crazed look on her face.
• Medium Blending: many many MANY examples. The characters, enemies and environments range from realistically shaded designs or filtered photos, to stylized anime-like charcters, to even more stylized characters that look like they were drawn in a base M.S.Paint-like program. One boss is a giant ghoulish cartoon rat, while another is some surreal technicolor orb athat opens up to reveal a single eye and has floating (realistic) hands.
• Multiple Endings: At least two, depending on your rankings after all the battles are done, considering how short that battles are due to the combat system, and how the times differ in them individually it may take some surprising effort to get lower than an A or S rank :
  • Getting an Overall A or S leads to Zogzo flipping the screen open like The Gargoyle to congratulate the player (with additional praise for an S rank). He notes that while the Demons may come back, he will watch over Emerada. He also questions the Goddess and explain that he will find out who struck down his friend and master, Zamza. After that, and S rank will have Zamza's scythe companion hop over to his grave and seemingly resurrect him so he can wave goodbye to the player.
  • on the worst possible rank end is the Z rank, which unlocks a particularly revealing secret ending. The Goddess splits the screen this time to meet you. She explains that to get a Z rank (which stands for Zelle ), she recognized that the player basically had to be trying to finish fights at the last possible second on purpose. She heaps some concerning praise on the player, before relaying a story from her past as a child, before she became a Goddess. The memories cause her to cry uncontrollably and question what's happened to her, until an entity splits open her face, says that it "FOUND YOU," and grabs the ''In-Universe Player's hands through their laptop screen before they can pull away.''
• Not Quite Dead: The Moon-Faced Man apparently survived being struck with the Rosaries despite fading away in the initial encounter. Once Emerada falls into the castles Dungeon, he pops up from the top of the hole he fell in to explain where the boy is and more-or-less admits that he lead him there for attacking him earlier.
• Our Demons Are Different: The castle is full of them, and they vary wildly in designs, better detailed in Medium Blending above. It turns out the reason many of them have their own rooms is because their lives were more complicated than being "good" and "evil," and they are taking part in an attempt to save themselves from going to Hell. Some have definitely fared better than others.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Red is a consistent Color motif to indicate danger here, and later areas in the castle are nearly completely covered in it, with black details. Once you play with Loki and he leaves, it's revealed why this is: Red rooms and sections of the Castle become this way when their Occupant either leaves by ascending, or can truly no longer be helped.
• Surreal Horror: The main plot of the game is Emerada exploring the old, strange-looking castle, seeing just how weird and threatening the Demons and situations in it are.
• Title Drop: A few times, each with their own interesting context:
  • as stated above, the worst rank you can get is Z, which stands for Zelle. An this leads to some major revelations
  • A demon in armor, highly implied to be a former warrior the Goddess employed corrupted by cursed armor, has "Zelle" written into its forearm, which it points out to you.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Lord Astaroth, a demon feared and foreshadowed all throughout the game is beaten as a Cutscene Boss when Emerada and the Dragon Kid both kick him once in his real bodies' eye.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: While exploring outside, Emerada eventually comes across a fat guy searching for a treasure in the castle. you only see him alive that one time, he doesn't notice Emerada and he seen dead when you catch up to him, cut into vertically by the Long-necked Demon's pendulum blade.