YMMV / Dark Deception

• Ascended Meme: The "Dread Ducky Dance". Upon Devlog 4's arrival, one of the things it showcased was practice animation of a Dread Ducky moving, and people started joking about it actually dancing. Come Chapter 3's arrival, and said animation was inserted in-game at several points.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The hospital lobby doubling as a strip club definitely qualifies. It is so absurd and random and just so out of place. And the music that plays sounds nothing like the others from the rest of the game.
• Creepy Cute: All of the standard nightmare enemies encountered are undeniably creepy, to say the least. However, there is also something usually endearing about them in some fashion, especially if you look past their more questionable attributes. Agatha, the Dread Duckies, and the Joy Joy Gang are perhaps the biggest offenders, but all of them can fit the bucket somehow.
• Evil Is Cool: The Joy Joy Gang fit this trope like a gear. They're a laughably evil trio of mascots with a memorable combination of distinctive designs, personalities, and powers for each of them. It also helps that their appearance marks a turning point in the story, as they're the only monsters so far to actually capture Doug, complete with a full-on No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to boot.
• Game-Breaker: Upon Chapter 4's release, the Telekinesis power soon gained traction as a favorite amongst many players. The power collects all soul shards within its rather generous radius, even through walls, thus making Chapters 1 - 3 ridiculously easy to speedrun in a replay. The power isn't quite as useful in levels such as Crazy Carnevil where the shards are spread further apart, but even Vince himself admits that Telekinesis may be too broken and will most likely get nerfed in a future update.
• Nintendo Hard: Everything (save for those attacks that only stun the protagonist) is a One-Hit Kill, and the lives system lets the player only screw up so many times in levels where they're expected to collect hundreds of shards while dodging enemies. Expect to run out of lives several times until you learn the level layouts by heart.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: Prior to the Enhanced Edition buffing and nerfing some of the monsters you'll face, the game's difficulty wasn’t exactly consistent with what a player may expect based on the level progression.
  • Monkey Business (the first level, mind you) was known for being fairly difficult. You have to deal with three Murder Monkeys, all of whom become aware of your location the moment you collect a shard, so walking or staying in place for too long is guaranteed to kill you. They also have a nasty habit of trying to corner and cut you off if they're close enough, meaning you have to focus on either collecting power shards or predict their general direction via footsteps. Even after the Enhanced Edition nerfed the Monkeys' AI to lessen the chances of players getting cornered, each Monkey still spawns on a different part of the map, making it possible for the player to get sandwiched regardless. Thankfully, they don't move faster than the player, and if you do get away from them they will slow their movement speed (although you probably won't be able to tell anyways).
  • Despite the second level Elementary Evil being seen as easier than Monkey Business, the third level Deadly Decadence used to fling players right back to hell and then some. Similar to Monkey Business, you have multiple monsters chasing after you and they can corner you if you hit a corner of the map. However, the Gold Watchers are harder to get away from. You have to keep your eyes on them in order to avoid being killed by them and they move incredibly fast when you're not locking eyes with them. Even if you had your Speed Boost upgraded to the max, once the power wore off, the Watchers were fast enough to not take too long to close the gap. Once you complete the hedge maze, you have to continue the shard hunt inside the mansion, which has spike traps and swinging blades that you have to watch out for, especially with the Speed Boost you're likely to rely on. Also, if you're not careful, you can get killed by a Watcher if you try to teleport past it. Fortunately, just like the Murder Monkeys, the Enhanced Edition nerfed the Gold Watchers by decreasing their movement speed and adjusting their AI so they would bump into walls more often, but they were still the fastest monsters in the game until the confirmation that the Mannequins in Chapter 5 will be even faster.
  • Stranger Sewers was often considered to be less challenging than preceding level Deadly Decadence and succeeding level Crazy Carnevil. Not only were the Dread Duckies much slower than the previous monsters, but they only become active if the player comes too close to them. With enough time and patience, a player could use Telepathy to detect the real Duckies from the fake ones and use Teleport to get past them, making it possible to go through the entire level without activating a single Ducky. This becomes even easier once Primal Fear is obtained, allowing players to stun the Duckies while they’re still in their inactive state. While the slowing effects of the sewer water may have made completing the level an absolute slog (especially for those trying to achieve an S Rank), it could be counteracted using Speed Boost and is generally seen as more of an annoyance than a legitimate concern. The Enhanced Edition increased the Duckies' movement speed and added an already active Ducky to the map to rectify this, but the above strategy is still very much viable in this level.
  • Torment Therapy and Mascot Mayhem aren't exactly considered "easy", but Bearly Buried somehow managed to blow those previous levels out of the water, especially the first zone. The aim is to get the ring pieces and shards back, and the first zone involves getting one while sneaking past a group of sleeping Trigger Teddies. Doesn't sound too bad until you realize that you no longer have your powers at this point to help you. It doesn't help that the sleeping teddies will wake up at just the slightest noise, and escape is impossible since they move ridiculously faster than you could ever run (which is jarring compared to how fast they are most of the time). As if that wasn't enough, there's also the chance of a Trigger Teddy already looking for you, and while he's not as fast as the others you will be forced to run if he sees you, which is guaranteed to wake some of the other teddies up if they're nearby. The teddy also moves in an unpredictable pattern to your location, making encounters with him a matter of luck and heavy attention to your surroundings.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Switching between powers on the tablet. While this does allow you to use more powers simultaneously, the trade-off is that specific commands have to be used to switch each one out. This becomes problematic during Chapter 4, with the use of six powers meaning that the player can have trouble choosing/removing their unavailable powers, especially in the heat of a chase. Needless to say, it's not uncommon to find a frustrated player complaining about switching powers properly in the levels.
• That One Boss: The boss fight in Torment Therapy often leans into this, mostly due to the unique gimmicks it entails. The fight revolves around using Teleport to stay ahead of the Matron during an ambulance chase while at the same time fending off the Reaper Nurses accompanying her. Not only do you have a limited range to how far you can teleport, but you also have to plan the timing on each teleport round. Go too quickly, and the ambulances ahead will take longer to spawn. Go too slow, and both the Reaper Nurses and the Matron will catch up and kill you.
• Ugly Cute: The Trigger Teddies definitely qualify as this.

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