History VideoGame / TheEternalCylinder

* The Great Gaaahr's mouth could also qualify: closed, it appears to look like a sauropod-like "neck", but then opens by peeling upward into a spiral like some sort of upside-down ''Helicoprion''.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The planet is left in ruins, many biomes and species are gone forever, and countless Trebhum and Trewhaala had died. But in the end, the Cylinder is destroyed when the Mathematician pulls a HeelFaceTurn and destroys itself along with the Cylinder: ending its threat for good and giving the Trebhum and the Trewhaala a chance at a hopeful new future.]]

** At the very start of the game, near where the first Trebhum hatches, therr is an easy-to-miss lake containing Pouchfish, which grants the Storage Body mutation that will come very useful in the earliest parts.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Some of the more interesting mutations have little use outside puzzle-solving in shrines, such as the Entomophilous Skin that attracts Sack Flies or the Hypnotic Trunk that makes Glickbol follow you. The eye mutation allowing the player to control Trebhum statues probably takes the cake, as it is used ''once ever'' in the game for the Desert shrine puzzle and then never again.

* CuttingTheKnot: [[spoiler:The Trebhums eventually manage to escape the Cylinder's reach by jumping over it... only to now have to face the Mathematician.]]

* SingleBiomePlanet: Averted, the levels take place in various biomes that the Trebhum must adapt to. That said, the biomes are far from their earthly counterparts: the Savannah is filled with avocado-pinecone-like flora the size of tall trees, the Tundra harbors massive fungus-like red structures and the Desert contains bizarre alien ruins of unknown origin. [[spoiler:The final biome, known only as "Infected" according to screenshots, has strange glowing green flora and humanoid forms dotting the landscape, with the implication being that this is the result of the Cylinder's actions]].

* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: After it is defeated by the Trewhaala, the Mathematician turns on its master the Cylinder and pounds it with its fists: destroying them both and ending its destruction once and for all.]]
* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: The Mathematician, after his HeelFaceTurn, destroys himself and the Cylinder to end the threat once and for all.]]

** You'll eventually run into the corpse of a Trewhaala, which is clearly dead due to the efforts of another party. The narration states that your Trehblums are trying not to think about what could have killed said Trewhaala. A close examination of its corpse, however, reveals the corpse of one of the servants of the Eternal Cylinder, [[OverarchingVillain leaving the cause of death fairly obvious]].

** The Zooshgarg bears some resemblance to the Qu from ''Lkterature/AllTomorrows''.

* {{Mordor}}: The final, ??? biome appears to be a hellish landscape with mutated plants and toxic fumes. The presence of various humanoind rock formations in the area implies it is a result of HostileTerraforming conducted by the Eternal Cylinder. [[spoiler:This isn't actually an intentional example on the Cylinder's part, instead being a desperate effort to stop the Trebhum after they manage to kill the Mathematician, which also does a number on the Cylinder.]]
* MorePredatorsThanPrey: {{Averted|Trope}} on the Savannah, which has multiple different herbivorous creatures who outnumber the carnivores by a fair margin. Even the carnivorous tonglegrop gets around this, as while their juvenile forms are fairly common, the tonglegroplet is explicitly stated to be herbivorous at this stage in its life, while glickbols feed via absorption. Only the uncommon adults are predators, and are omnivores as opposed to obligate carnivores.

** The landscape behind the Eternal Cylinder is a burning wasteland which, oddly enough, is completely devoid of''anything'', with not even the crushed remains of the trees it flattens being visible. [[spoiler:This explained as the Cylinder harvesting things that interest it, meaning that the area behind the Cylinder has literally been picked clean of anything c of value]].

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When players first encounter the Cleanser, they find it sleeping by a human hand formed out of earth near a toxic pit. [[spoiler:The final biome of the game is an area filled with toxic plants and human-like rock formations, with the implication that it was created by the Cylinder]].

* HostileTerraforming: [[spoiler:The damage the Trebhum inflict on the Mathematician using the focusing lenses causes some of the assimilated organisms within the Cylinder to spill back out into the Trebhum's world. The result is a biome filled with toxic plants, [[MisplacedWildlife a mix of animals from the three previous biomes]], and rock formations ''shaped like human faces''. That being said, there's some implication the biome naturally had lots of toxic gas, but the terraforming made it much worse.]]

* IWillOnlySlowYouDown: Elder Trebhum in Trebhum shrines will refuse to leave even though this will mean that they will be crushed by the cylinder, as they are too old to keep running and too large to fit through the doorways. The second one is also implied to be stuck where it is as it is found inflated above a geyser.

** The Servants of the Cylinder are some pretty bizarre and horrific beings all of whom are disturbing fusions of human body parts and machinery. One of them, the Cleanser, has the front half of a car and the back half of a humanoid upper torso with a pair of muscular arms, and an even bigger one glimpsed in the trailer (the Mathematician) is a Frankenstein-esque humanoid with a mass of metal shards for a head and an entire human lower torso for a left leg.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: Foosh are said to gain energy by ''heating rocks'', even though doing so actually means they ''lose'' heat energy by doing so.

** Foosh gain energy by igniting rocks. Somehow they ''absorb'' energy by ''expelling heat''.

* JustBeforeTheEnd: The game occupies an interesting place between this trope and AfterTheEnd -- the Trebhum civilization has already fallen, but life on their planet is still around, if teetering toward collapse.

** [[spoiler:Trebhum Shrines (at least those encountered from Chaoer 2 onwards) provide you with recipes that permanently unlock mutations. The first recipe you receive, for the Filter Trunk, is acquired when you are trapped on an island surrounded by toxic gas, with a servant of the cylinder looking down on you, meaning you NEED to get that mutation permanently to escape.]]

* ChangingGameplayPriorities: Initially, you will want to avoid the Servants of the Eternal Cylinder, as they inflict high amounts of damage and can remove your mutations with their yellow light. From Chapter 3 onwards, though, ypu're more likely an able to light them, [[spoiler:as by now you should have several mutations shielded from the Cylinder, including at least one offensive mutation]]. In fact, you're actually encouraged to fight them later in the game, [[spoiler:because defeated servants drop Chaos Amber which can instantly shield one mutation from being stolen]].

* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: Played with, in that it wasn't planned on their part while they were still alive, but what's left of the consciousness of [[spoiler: humans]] after being absorbed by the Cylinder gladly do whatever is possible to help give the Trebhums a future, in spite of their own destruction in the past.

''The Eternal Cylinder'' is due to release on September 30th, 2021, and its early gameplay trailer can be viewed [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y5-Mc8QX2w here.]] Its main site can be seen [[https://eternalcylinder.com here.]]

''The Eternal Cylinder'' is an upcoming Playstation 4/Xbox/PC surreal survival game developed by ACE Team and published by Good Shepherd Entertainment.