JPDE is played from the view of The Protagonist David di Kabegis, a strange newcomer to the world of Remnant who arrives through meteoric crash landing. Upon first awakening, with a dreadful case of amnesia, he encounters Penny Polendina, and from there the game kicks off as David attends the notable Beacon Academy to train as a Huntsman with combat skills he is unaware of ever obtaining. The team is rounded out by The Leader Jacqueline B. Ivory and Bunny-Ears Lawyer —emphasis on 'Bunny ears'— Evelyn Damerot.
The game's story begins from RWBY's Volume 2 and continues through the end of Volume 3. The story itself runs congruently with RWBY's canon story- while events from this story are at times referred to, for the most part the adventures of Team JPDE are self-contained until the ending.
Behind the game's actual story, an optional part of the game involves spending time with other characters from RWBY and, slowly but surely, forming a relationship with them. Meinos Kaen has made the lofty claim that he will give at least every female character introduced pre-Volume 4 their own route.
As of 2/11/2023, the game has reached version 4.3, with the developers stating that the game has reached its final form.
For those interested, a link to download the game can be found here: https://jpde.itch.io/
Its official Discord server can be joined here: https://discord.gg/7269wnQ
A sequel, titled JPDE2 - Adagio of Darkness, is in active development, but is still playable, being a Darker and Edgier Actionized Sequel taking place three years after the events of the first game.
The game is also playable in Russian.
Tropes in JPDE:
- Adapted Out: Inverted with some skits from RWBY Chibi being canon in this continuity.
- Adaptational Wimp: In JPDE's 'verse, Raven Branwen is a fully human bandit clan leader unlike in RWBY canon where she was the Spring Maiden.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Although the story is mostly told through David's point of view, there are various moments where Penny becomes the focus. Other characters get this too, such as Ruby and Jack during the rescue mission.
- Anti-Frustration Features: If you are replaying the game but find a particular section boring, it allows you to skip the text as long as you've seen it once already.
- Big "NO!": Penny shrieks this after David is accidentally killed trying to stop her and Pyrrha's ill-fated match at the Vytal Festival Tournament.
- Broken Pedestal:
- The entire dialogue following Winter Schnee's abduction of the protagonist, if you're heavily invested in Weiss, on her absolutely insane suspicion of planning to seriously corrupt, exploit, and/or harm her for her name. When General Ironwood brings PDE and Weiss to the ship where Winter has taken you, only to find that she has not only kidnapped you but drugged and tortured you, everyone has shades of this. Ironwood places her, his arguably most prized and closest operative, and in return the closest thing to a father figure she has, on leave immediately with explicit orders to not come back to work until she fixes herself. Penny, who in canon has a close relationship with Winter as well, leaves her with an already heart-rending "I'm... I'm very, very disappointed in you, Miss Winter," as well, but Weiss, the adoring younger sister, is also present...
- "Being a Schnee is terrible. Mom is an alcoholic trapped in her own life. Dad is dad and Whitley is a little monster who wants nothing more than to grow up just like him. But I always said to myself, 'Hey, at least there's Winter. My big sister, the Specialist... I was so proud. ... I never thought one day I'd be ashamed of being your sister..."
- Followed immediately, in characteristic JPDE style, by some tremendous Mood Whiplash in the form of a relationship status screen that simply says "What's Winter Schnee's Damage?" in bright colors.
- Born in the Wrong Century: A stranger example. While David isn't even a year old much less a century, he has the mannerisms and opinions of someone more akin to Earth than Remnant. An especially striking example is his disapproval of the Vytal Festival, as while everyone else is looking forward to it, he believes it to be a glorified blood sport.
- Dating Sim: This fangame is mostly an adventure story, but you can go on dates with many of the RWBY characters. In a twist, the creator has confirmed on the creator's blog that Penny and Evelyn will always develop feelings for the protagonist, so the dating-sim portion is meant to determine the third girl to develop feelings for the protagonist, rather than the first.
- Decoy Protagonist: Some see Penny to be this. The game starts off from her perspective, and in the earliest days of JPDE's development, the way it was advertised to many seemed to imply that Penny was The Protagonist.
- Distracted by the Sexy: David all the time. While by no means lecherous, when first meeting with any of the female characters one of the first things that happens is him momentarily losing his train of thought while noting how impossibly beautiful they are.
- Even happens with some of the males. Upon meeting Ozpin and Ironwood for the first time he notes that Ozpin is a Silver Fox and that Ironwood is Tall, Dark, and Handsome with a Heroic Build. He also takes note of Sun's spectacular abs.
- Dug Too Deep: The fate of the city of Peak.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: At the start of the game, Glynda Goodwitch attacks David and has to be called off by Ozpin. Later, Ozpin is the teacher most antagonistic to team JPDE, to the point where it alienates Glynda.
- Yang's route was the first to reach stage four, and the associated route event is the only one of that stage that can be done before the Barito mission.
- First Girl Wins: Penny, the first girl David meets, is guaranteed to fall for him no matter what route events the player chooses. They also end up in a polyamorous relationship.
- Fix Fic: Sort of, though the fangame is really only fixing how significant a character is to the plot. Specifically, according to one of the creator's posts on the creator's blog, the reason this fangame was created is because the creator grew fond of Penny Polendina's character in the original RWBY series, but was disappointed when Penny's role in the series turned out to be minor. This inspired the creator to create a fangame where Penny would have her own team.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: David and Penny's solution to ending the double battle against Coco and Velvet.
- Ghost Town: Peak, a thriving mining and research town where Pyrobsidian was first discovered. The inhabitants, after a decade of success, suddenly vanished.
- Hero of Another Story: The story of RWBY plays out behind the scenes of the one in JPDE's with the two for the most part not crossing paths until they merge in the finale.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Averted and semi-deconstructed. When attempting to save Evelyn after the Grimm possessing her drives her mad, the protagonist almost drains his aura (which would kill him) trying to force the Grimm out. Fortunately The Flame steps in and powers him so he can save Evelyn without sacrificing himself. Ciel and May call him stupid and selfish for attempting this without thinking about how it would affect his friends, however he still maintains that he would do it again.
- High-School Dance: The Vytal Dance is the end of the school saga and also the part where you officially confirm your endgame love interest choice.
- Hotter and Sexier: There's an official 18+ patch that adds unapologetically lewd content to the base game.
- Insert Player Name Here: While the protagonist has a canon name, David di Kabegis, the player is free to change his first name to whatever they wish it to be.
- Knight Templar Big Sister:
- In Ruby's first date, Weiss and Blake assume Yang will be like this; they are both surprised when Yang averts this.
- Played straight by Winter Schnee; if David is romancing Weiss, Winter will assume he plans to take advantage of her because he already has two girlfriends. Winter's route is about dealing with those feelings, uncovering the source, and helping her get past them so she no longer stands between you and Weiss.
- Lampshade Hanging:
- Ruby's first date points out how weird it is that, aside from their school uniforms, everyone only seem to wear one set of clothes. In fairness though, this is a problem that is in no way unique to RWBY.
- David sums up his situation as the protagonist of a dating simulator exactly:David: It's like I'm some kind of generic character in a story, made it so that readers can more easily put themselves in my shoes.
- Lethal Chef: At the beginning of the game, Evelyn claims that Jack is one.
- Limit Break: The heroes' Semblences turn out to be this: the protagonist's Semblence allows him to share, copy, and potentially even take others' Aura; Penny's Semblence locks away her human personality so her robotic side can become more powerful, Evelyn can see into the past and future, and Jack can draw kinetic energy from the air around her, resulting in freezing the area.
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: Unsurprisingly for something set in RWBY, most characters have one. David has a gauntlet/whip/gun called Jani Clostros built for him by Ruby. Evelyn has a pair of tonfa that can be combined into a bladed staff.
- Oblivious to Love: Jaune, of course, but even more so than in the series if that was possible. Not only is Pyrrha visibly upset when Jaune only refers to her as his best friend, but if you do Pyrrha's dating route, he thinks that Pyrrha has a crush on David and calls David oblivious when David and Evelyn leave Pyrrha and Jaune alone while shopping. But the crowning moment come in Pyrrha's fourth event when she has decided to be with David instead and Jaune is helping her, it's unbelievable:Jaune: I've figured it out. Pyrrha wasn't trying to get together with David, she was asking for his help in... Trying to romance someone else.Nora: They.. What?Jaune: Sadly, their efforts were... In vain. The guy didn't return her feeling. Hell, he didn't even notice her efforts, or see her as an actual girl... But David did. Hell, he knew from the start. And seeing her hurt and struggle because of it... He couldn't leave her alone but she wouldn't let him be close enough to help her, so he forced that closeness. And now it's his turn to not notice... But I think he's about to have a wake-up call. And unlike the first guy... I think there's a good chance he'll return her feelings.Nora: Jaune... Do you... Do you know who the first guy was?Nora: I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!(Nora smashes something off screen)Ren: Yeah, if she hadn't done it, I would have.
- Original Character:
- Two new kinds of Grimm are introduced in this story. Wa-Lang is a Praying Mantis Grimm capable of invisibility, while the Oppel is a Bat Grimm with very keen hearing.
- The protagonist, whose last name is Di Kabegis but whose first name you can choose, was created solely to be the protagonist of this fangame. Evelyn and Jack are also original characters created to be the protagonist's teammates in addition to Penny.
- While the game does include several of the villains from the show (three of which you can date), they are more background characters threw much of it. Instead the game focuses on its own villains, all of whom are original to the game (those being The Boss, Weser, Howard, Andrea, Bella, and Thilla).
- While Professor Peach does exist in RWBY proper, the only thing we ever learn about her until the spinoff novels is her name. As a result she is largely an original character, her appearance and personality are unique to the game.
- Race Lift: In this universe, Ciel is an android just like Penny. There is no indication of this in canon.
- Secret Path: Currently there are three characters in the game whose routes can only be access by the player if they have already reached three hearts in the relationship of someone important to that characters before at set date in game.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The aforementioned absolute destruction of Winter Schnee delivered by her own beloved little sister as mentioned above in Broken Pedestal.
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Official Fan-Submitted Content: The game includes Team THND, consisting of Sienna, Rogue, Aqua and Miriam. These characters were all created by fans, and selected through a poll to join the game.
