Video Game / Hatfall

Without a doubt, the greatest interactive hat-putting-on simulator ever devised by man.

YOU HAVE NO HAT
RECTIFY THIS MATTER

Hatfall is the official Zero Punctuation game, developed by the series creator Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, with QA and porting done by Addicting Games, for browsers and mobile devices. It can be played here.

As the title implies, hats are falling from the sky. Yahtzee needs hats. Problem is, dozens of identical jerks are getting in his way, and other things are also falling from the sky, so your job is to make out Yahztee from the crowd of identical characters in a matter of seconds, and make sure he is under the right spot before the hat reaches the ground. Your acquired hats can be used to buy more NPC types and stuff to put on Yahtzee's desk, some of which may not actually be permanent, but will give you an opportunity to get more hats.

A sequel, Hatfall 2: Fedora the Explorer was in the works at some point, but considering that the series it's based on is now over, it can be safely said that the sequel is never happening either, though one can hope for a game based on Fully Ramblomatic...

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INCOMING TROPEFALL
GET IN POSITION:

• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Surprisingly inverted; you spend hats to unlock alternate costumes for the other people / imps.
• Artificial Stupidity: Nope. Players who think they can find themselves in the group of other AI (see Only Six Faces) by either standing still (to make them move while you don't) or move in one direction will find out that the AI counteracts those tactics by either waiting for you to move for the former, and moving in-sync (and sometimes in the other direction as well) with you for the latter.
• Berserk Button: The wizard doesn't like it when you take his hat. Thankfully, he chills out if you get the next hat, giving you a chance at a bonus at the end of a game.
  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
  WHAT DID YOU DO
• Cluster F-Bomb: The alternate-universe swear jar mainly just turns most of the gameplay text into random bleeped out swears.
• Creator Thumbprint: The out-of-the-blue Eldritch Abomination makes slightly more sense when you remember this game was designed by the same guy who made Chzo Mythos and The Consuming Shadow. But this time around, it's entirely played for laughs.
• Excuse Plot: The seemingly-epic "Hat-Story" is pretty much entirely a farce, with the only relevant bit is the last paragraph. It's also a Star Wars parody.
• Eldritch Abomination: Rondo Hat-Ton, Lord of Hats. Played for laughs like everything else in this game. Once summoned by collecting enough hats (which pile up in the background), pretty much everything starts revolving around him.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The shadows of non-hat objects shrink faster than the shadow of the hat.
• For Great Justice: Played for laughs. The game's internal name is "Catch hats for great justice!"
• Guilt-Based Gaming: If you fail, the game roundly insults you.
• Interface Screw: The end result of pissing off the wizard. Either it starts raining blood (making you slide around), imps start spewing forth from the ground (making it extremely difficult to see what's going on), or an earthquake happens (making it harder to see where you are and jostling you slightly out of position whenever you stand still).
  • The insurance paperwork minigame adds this with each question; as Yahtzee gets increasingly drunker, the answer checkboxes start swirling around and the pen gets increasingly harder to control.
• Limited Animation: The walk cycles are intentionally jerky, mirroring Zero Punctuation's lack of animation.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Catching something that isn't a hat (like a fridge, a TV, an anvil, a sign, or a car) results in being smashed into a flapjack.
• Meaningful Name: "Rondo", amongst other things, means "brim [of a hat]" in Polish. Fitting, considering it's the name of an eldritch god made out of hats.
• Mini-Game: Four of the gifts will unlock this at certain points while playing (though the second tyre requires the first tyre in order to be acquired). These can get you plenty of bonus hats depending on how you play. Note that you have to get these gifts again once you experience their mini-games in order to redo them.
  • Hat-Sassin's Creed (the Assassin's Creed knockoff) will cause the game to "crash", and instead reload as a Visual Novel parody. With a hat with anime girl eyes as your "girlfriend".
  • The solid gold desk, after being acquired, which quickly is stolen early on in your next play, forcing you to fill out an insurance form. The main problem is that Yahtzee is drinking heavily while doing thus, making it progressively more difficult to tick the right boxes.
  • Unlocking survival mode will cause a hunger and thirst meter to appear and go up with every stage you play, until you're forced to play a hunting mini-game, only for it to take an unexpected direction when you shoot a bear in a shirt and are forced to take control of his company...
  • Buying a tire unlocks... a second tire. Buying the second tire, however, will cause the desk to start rolling away with Yahtzee and down a hill, where he has to catch as many hats as he can before the ride ends abruptly by crashing into an imp at the bottom of the hill, while avoiding the imps that will temporarily get caught in his net and stop him from getting more hats.
    • And then, we cut to the narration sprawl, continuing the 'hat-story', which now has Yahtzee (at his desk) and a hat floating around. The goal here is to maneuver Yahtzee so that the hat "lands" on his head; or, in other words, it's "Hatfall" IN ZERO-G.
    • A variation of this game occurs after Rondo is summoned. The first half is identical, but the second half has Yahtzee piloting his desk towards Rondo, and you much make it to the end of the screen while avoiding obstacles before your desk gets destroyed by debris. Succeeding triggers a quite lengthy cutscene where Yahtzee dramatically floats towards Rondo… before he puts the entire thing on his head, and the game returns to normal (for now) like nothing happened.
  • Hatters Gonna Hat Edition has another one added into the pile if you own both of the horse pictures. You are invited to their boring wedding party and have to sneak out. Along the way you'll encounter annoying guests you don't want to deal with and have to get rid of them in a mock role playing game. Just don't use the fireball attack.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Admit it, putting on a hat in real life is something you wouldn't even think about.
• Only Six Faces: One of the core gameplay mechanics is based around this. Since Yahtzee looks the same as all the other NPC characters without his hat, a large part of the challenge comes from only having a couple of seconds to figure out who you're playing as by simply paying attention to what character moves when you press the arrow keys. Purchasing more NPC types with hats helps make things easier by adding in NPC characters with different clothing, expressions and a few imps.
  WHICH ONE IS YOU?
  THAT IS THE GAME
• Rain of Something Unusual: Hats (and cars, TV's, and signposts).
• Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: One of the messages after catching the hat is "DRAW DESK SPRITE / PLAY WIN SOUND"
• Schmuck Bait:
  DON'T CATCH THE HAT
  THAT WILL SHOW ME
• Shadow of Impending Doom: Though more often than not it's just a hat.
• Shout-Out:
  • The story scroll is clearly a Star Wars homage.
  • The alternate universe swear jar has a goatee on it.
  • The name of the hat god is a pun on Rondo Hatton.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: Every time you anger the wizard, the next round's music starts speeding up and slowing down.
• Take That!: "Hat-sassin's Creed". Its menu description makes fun of invokedthe games' tendency to be unfinished at launch date, and actually buying it takes it further; the game crashes after the first round, and is replaced with a minigame that is in its entirety a massive jab at dating simulators.
• Tarot Troubles: The Wizard's boons all take the form of a tarot style card.
• Title Drop: One of the round-finishing messages is "Hatters Gonna Hat".
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: The dating minigame allows you to do pretty horrible things to Hat-chan.
• Weird Currency: Collected hats are used as a currency. One of the minigames has pinecones, which will be converted to hats at the end of it.

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YOUR BEST
ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH