Video Game / Mullet MadJack

Far into the future, MEN and INTERNET merged into a new being.
Humans need DOPAMINE every 10 SECONDS or else they DIE!

The world is now ruled by super rich A.I. robots called "ROBILLIONAIRES",
Those who dare to live every 10 SECONDS OF LIFE to kill these robots are called...

MODERATORS!

Mullet Madjack is an FPS in the vein of Post Void by developers HAMMER95 with an aesthetic heavily inspired by 80s anime. It was released on May 15, 2024.

In the year 2095 where robot billionaires have taken over the world and humans literally thrive on dopamine, there exist hired guns known as "Moderators" tasked with killing robots in exchange for that sweet dopamine. One of these Moderators, Jack, is tasked by Peace Corp. to rescue the "Influencer Princess" from a skyscraper filled with killer robots in exchange for a brand new pair of shoes.

Unfortunately he only has 10 seconds to make his way through each floor, with extra time given for kills. Between floors he's able to get new upgrades or weapons but whenever he dies he'll have to start from the last checkpoint with all of his upgrades refreshed.

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"Ready? GO MODERATE THESE DAMN ROBOTS!"

• Acid Pool: Acid is a common hazard found throughout the game.
• Alas, Poor Villain: One cannot help but pity Mr. Bullet. While he claims to have won by proving (or so he thought he did) Robillionaires the highest beings in existence, he was simultaneously driven to nihilistic despair knowing there is nothing save the hollow existence Robillionares such as himself had created.
• All for Nothing:
  • Mr. Bullet kidnapping the Influencer Princess for his plan turned out to be completely pointless, as it required a virgin, which the Princess was anything but.
  • As Streamer rubs into into his face, Jack's entire life is this. The prizes Peace Corp sets in front of him are meaningless and empty, but Jack will endlessly chase after them anyway, effectively a slave, because he's been conditioned to be addicted to the fleeting dopamine rush.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The world is ruled by Robillionaires - robot billionaires - who have created an oppressive hyper-consumerist society where humanity is literally addicted to cheap dopamine hits. It's implied that this was the intended purpose behind the forces controlling Peace Corp. introducing advanced AI.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Upon unlocking the ability to gain Level 2 or 3 weapons, said weapons will be permanently upgraded provided that you unlock them and reach the next checkpoint.
  • If you find the Peace Corp. Streamer really annoying, you can mute her.
  • Not a fan of the stress-inducing ten-second time limit? The "No Timer!" difficulty takes away the timer altogether.
• Anti-Villain: Mr. Bullet kidnapped the Influencer Princess because he's grown disillusioned with the system he's helped perpetuate and wants to use her blood to summon a greater being to free everyone from the Crapsack World they're stuck in. When the summoning ritual fails, he goes completely insane.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Jack's rampage to kill Mr. Bullet and rescue the Influencer Princess results in Peace Corp attaining record-high sales with no loss other than a few Robillionaires out of thousands, and Jack himself ends up signing himself over to the Streamer to continue getting his dopamine fix, ensuring Peace Corp only continues to profit.
• Benevolent A.I.: Mr. Dopamine, the AI assistant that Peace Corp. uses to resuscitate Jack from a headshot is perhaps the only non-evil AI in the game. Most notably, when encountering a checkpoint that blocks progress due to the boss already being killed, it decides to hack into the system to be the boss in the form of a Rock Paper Scissors challenge that poses no actual threat to Jack while being completely lethal to Mr. Dopamine.
• Big Bad: Mr. Bullet, a robot with a head shaped like a bullet who kidnapped the Influencer Princess as part of an arcane ritual to summon some otherworldly entity to see if there's anything beyond this world. Too bad for him that the ritual specifically called for a virgin sacrifice.
• Blatant Lies: "Humans need dopamine every ten seconds or they will die!" Except on the boss floors where you spend far more than ten seconds explicitly disconnected from your dopamine feed with zero ill effects... or during the car ride you took on the way to the building the game takes place in. This may hint that the dopamine dependency is something manufactured by Peace Corp. themselves.
• Boom, Headshot!: An efficient way to kill enemies and a possible way to earn bonus time with the right upgrade. Jack eventually suffers this himself, requiring Peace Corp to take some time to repair up to 95% of his brain.
• Bottomless Magazines: The upgraded versions of the Handgun, the SMG, the Railgun and the Plasma Rifle give them unlimited ammo with no need to reload.
• Comically Small Bribe: Jack fights through a horde of enemies in a skyscraper all for a set of shoes. Mr. Bullet lampshades the ridiculousness of that premise, but empathizes with the choice of reward, especially considering he's wearing the exact same style shoes.
• Critical Existence Failure: Jack's physical health only has two states: "fine" and "dead". Even during boss battles, as long as he has 1% of his health remaining, he's in perfect condition to keep fighting.
• Cyberpunk: An example patterened after older-styled cyberpunk media, with massive conglomerates and ultra-rich CEOs controlling a world where technology is abused to control and dehumanize the public.
• Deadly Rotary Fan: Fans are a common environmental object for the Jack to kick enemies into, resulting a bloody mess.
• Deconstruction: Oddly, this game serves as one to Cyberpunk itself. Your protagonist is the stereotypical cool Cyberpunk hero fighting a cabal of evil billionaires, but it's all done at the behest of another equally evil corporation and the entire plot is a setup for them to profit off the footage of you murdering robots. The game even hammers in the futility of your actions with its Downer Ending and the fact that every time you kill a boss it shows a "Robillionaires Remaining" counter with over three thousand Robillionaires still alive. And the Big Bad himself is the only character who actually speaks out against the Crapsack World he himself created, but ends up losing all hope anyway when his plan fails.
• Defector from Decadence: Mr. Bullet sells himself as this. Despite being the fourth wealthiest Robillionaire in the world, he’s audibly contemptuous of the very system he perpetuates and benefits from, and the whole point of the ritual is to summon something, anything, that has the power to break that system. He doesn't take the failure of his ritual well at all.
• Degraded Boss: Two of the humanoid Robillionaire bosses become regular enemy types (albeit with considerably less health) later in the game.
• Despair Event Horizon: Mr. Bullet's alternate outcome for his rituals if they summon nothing at all is to break the collective spirit of his world with definitive proof of the meaninglessness of existence.
• Distressed Damsel: The Influencer Princess spends most of the game being captured by Mr. Bullet.
• Downer Ending: The ending has Jack collecting his shoes while the Streamer tells him about how Peace Corp and the Robillionaires have effectively enslaved humanity by keeping them enthralled via chasing their dopamine urges. She then declares that Jack is now her "boyfriend" and stuck in effective debt slavery.
• '80s Hair: All over the place, most notably with the titular Mullet Madjack as well as the Influencer Princess. Background materials state that Jack was born with his mullet, which necessitated a C-section for his birth.
• Expy: Jack has been stated by the developers to be visually inspired by Guts if he had a massive mullet.
• Game-Over Man: Whenever you die, the Peace Corp. Streamer will make a sarcastic comment about how they'll either harvest your organs or how they have no insurance.
• Gangsta Style: The upgraded version of the SMG has Jack holding it this way.
• Guns Akimbo: One of the upgrades will make it so that sodas will occasionally allow him to dual-wield his guns.
• A God Am I: Due to his ritual failing to work, Mr. Bullet declares that the only gods are billionaires like himself. He's not happy about his realization, though.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Robillionaires might be the ones oppressing the masses on the surface, but it's Peace Corp. and its founders who are ultimately the architect of the game's Crapsack World, creating and sustaining the very environment that allows them to constantly stream violent entertainment to profit off of humanity's addiction to dopamine. Despite the Peace Corp. streamer's direct claims of owning Jack's very being, even she is beholden to her superiors.
• Groin Attack: Shooting enemies in the robo-balls is the same as shooting them in the head and can even earn you extra time.
• Hannibal Lecture: Mr. Bullet gives a rather scathing one to the protagonist and the setting itself.
  Everyone likes a hero! Watching the hero's fall though? HAHAHAH! Ah, they like that even more. Your courage, your death...just another product to be consumed. A few seconds in a constant stream of bullshit. If you live or die...it doesn't matter. And what are you doing this for again? A stupid pair of shoes? I don't blame you. Many robots would do the same to cover their brilliant metal bodies with skin. They engineer needs we do not have in order to enslave us as consumers. This cycle, though, will end!
  • Streamer rips into Jack's entire existence as a effective slave owned by Peace Corp, willingly abandoning good things he could have had in the name of mindlessly chasing dopamine rushes and empty consumerist products, no different than a robot.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In order to help Jack progress to the end, Mr. Dopamine decides to hack into the tower systems so that he can be a "boss" in the form of a Rock Papers Scissors challenge. Upon defeat, he's deleted for good.
• Hollywood Acid: Acid is bright green and corrosive.
• Humongous Mecha: Mr. Bullet pilots one for the last two boss sequences.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Comes in both Fire and Ice varieties. It can also be thrown like a boomerang.
• Life Meter: During normal gameplay, Jack's life meter is a timer that also ticks down when taking damage. During boss battles, he gets a more traditional life meter.
• Machine Blood: All of the robots in the game visibly bleed when damaged or killed.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Mr. Bullet exhausts all possibilities for the ritual and, upon finding nothing (due to a flaw with his chosen sacrifice he wasn't aware of), affirms the absolute power of Robillionaires. However, this renders Mr. Bullet mad with despair knowing there is no greater power, and by the end of the game laments that there is nothing that awaits him after death. On the other hand, Peace Corp had lost nothing save a few Robillionaires out of thousands and gained sky-high sales streaming the events of the game, and is poised to gain more from Mullet post-game.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Starting a floor has Jack quip with a one-liner of some sort, though more often than not his lines tend to be common-sense advice for the player.
  "Go and touch some grass!"
  "Girls love basic hygiene!"
  "Sit up straight! Now!"
• Race Against the Clock: Your health is indicated by a timer that's constantly ticking down that can only be boosted via kills or drinking soda.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Zigzagged with the robots. While most of them are definitely sentient, only the most basic grunts and some of the Robillionaire bosses are human in appearance, to a somewhat disturbing degree. On top of bleeding and having visible muscular systems, they apparently also have functioning testicles (given that shooting them between the legs incapacitates them the way it would a human male). Mr. Bullet also mentions at one point that many robots yearn to cover themselves in skin.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: One of the weapons is a double-barreled shotgun. Upgrades for it make turn it into a quad-barrel shotgun as well as being able to load more shells into it via the reload button.
• Video Game Dashing: The player can dash, which doubles as a kick.
• Villainous Breakdown: Mr. Bullet suffers an existential meltdown upon his ritual to summon a greater being failing, seemingly affirming the Robillionaires' power over the masses and the lack of an afterlife. He spends the entire final battle alternating between screaming for Jack's blood and crying in despair over being trapped in a Crapsack World with nothing awaiting him after death.
• Virgin Sacrifice: The main reason Mr. Bullet kidnapped the Influencer Princess. Turns out he didn't check whether or not she actually was a virgin.
• We Have Reserves: There are thousands of Robillionaires, which the game makes sure to remind you of any time you manage to kill one.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Mr. Bullet's reason for kidnapping the Influencer Princess is to use her blood to try to summon anything - be it a demon or God Himself - to break the system that he's helped perpetuate and openly criticizes, and prove there is something higher than Robillionaires like him in the world.
• Zero-Effort Boss: Near the end, when coming across a floor where the boss was already killed to prevent you from progressing, your AI buddy Mr. Dopamine decides to hack into the system to serve as the boss. Specifically, he challenges Jack to Rock Papers Scissors where there's no penalty for losing and you can just keep trying until you win three times.