History VideoGame / TheHappyhillsHomicide

You play as a mysterious killer wearing a clown mask. Each victim has you find new and creative ways to end their life and bring justice to Happyhills.\\

* AngryGuardDog: The victim in tape 2 has one and it is ''very'' aggressive. [[spoiler: In order to get around it, the Clown has to use the regularly occuring thunderclaps as cover for his footsteps.]]
* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: In addition to playing as The Clown, you get to take control of the detective investigating the Clown's killing spree. [[spoiler:In the climax, you even get to take down the killer as him.]]
* AssholeVictim: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig Zagged]]. The trope appears to be the case with the Clown's victims at first. The first one who got viciously stabbed to death turns out to be a pedophile, the one the Clown burns alive in his shower was himself guilty of arson. But the one who gets pushed into his own hay bale maker turns out to have ''no criminal record whatsoever'', making it clear that the Clown isn't just a typical vigilante killer dishing out justice where the system failed, but has a much more selfish motive for what he does. [[spoiler:The people the Clown kills all turn out to have been either students or employees at Westpine High who bullied him when he was John Wade, before his near-death in a prank gone wrong. Funnily enough, the two jocks who accidentally "killed" John might have thought of ''him'' as this trope, since it's implied he was stalking Madison.]]

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:The Clown successfully gets his revenge, killing everyone who abused and bullied him in his old life as John Wade. The only loss The Clown suffers is when he accidentally kills Madison Carpenter, the one person he remembered fondly due to her being the only one who treated him well.]]
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: [[spoiler:Madison Carpenter]] is the only victim whose death the Clown shows remorse for, even calling her "the only kind one". [[spoiler:When he was still John Wade, Madison was the only one at Westpine High who treated him with any decency, which led to him developing a crush on her. It's even implied that her death was an accident and that he never intended to kill her to begin with.]]
* TheButlerDidIt: The Clown's real identity is [[spoiler:John Wade, a former janitor at Westpine High who was horrifically burned in the fire that destroyed the school in 1982. Even worse, the fire was set by two jocks who wanted to mess with John and then didn't bother to save him when it got out of control.]]
* CouldntFindAPen: After each murder, the Clown leaves messages in the victim's blood, venting his rage about the things they did and announcing that he's far from done.
* CreateYourOwnVillain: [[spoiler:The Clown was an unpopular janitor at Westpine High named John Wade who was mistreated by the staff and students. The only person who was kind to him was a female student named Madison Carpenter, who he developed an obsession with. One day two jocks played a prank on him by lighting a fire in front of his closet's door. When the fire went out of control, even though the jocks noticed that he was trapped, they chose not to save John, feeling that he was not worth saving. After narrowly surviving the experience, John snapped and went on a killing spree in his new persona, the Clown, murdering everyone who abused him, including the aforementioned two jocks.]]
* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The Clown's bread and butter. Each tape where you play as him has you prepare and carry out creative ways to get the poor victim gruesomely disemboweled, burned, stabbed and/or dismembered.
* DeadlyPrank: One that directly led to the events of the game. [[spoiler:When the Clown was still a janitor named John Wade, two jocks at the high school he worked at decided to mess with him by locking him into his janitor's closet and lighting a fire in front of the door. The fire got out of control and the jocks fled without freeing John, who survived but was horrifically burned and swore vengeance on all who had wronged him.]]
* FinalGirl: Seems to be set up with Madison Carpenter. She is the first and only victim to survive the Clown's attempt on her life, even getting police protection afterwards. [[spoiler:Sadly it's a subverted example in the end. The Clown simply finds out where Madison lives, kills the cop stationed in front of her house and breaks in. Though Madison does put up a good fight, she ultimately dies when the Clown throws a baseball bat at her, causing her to fall down the stairs and break her neck. What's even more tragic however was that the Clown seemingly was going to spare her, which would have played this trope straight]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Detective Pawalski's notes for the second victim point out that the torn cloth that seems to have come from the killer belongs to a janitor suit. [[spoiler:This is an early hint toward the Clown's true identity. Or former identitiy.]]
* FromNobodyToNightmare: The Clown, a OneManArmy SerialKiller [[spoiler:was initially just an unpopular janitor at a high school. Then two jocks decided to scare him by setting a fire, and it all went downhill from there.]]
* GenreSavvy: The more corpses pile up, the more your future victims will be on their guard. Some of them even actively arm and barricade themselves inside their homes. Too bad none of that helps them against the Clown.
* HeroAntagonist: Investigating and later seeking to out an end to the murders, Detective Bryan Pawalski fills this role in contrast to The Clown's VillainProtagonist.
* HopeSpot: The two victims in tape 9 are about to be decapitated by a fan the Clown lowered - when suddenly the wagon malfunctions and gets stuck on the tracks, stopping ''just'' short of the fan's blades. [[spoiler:The Clown simply repairs the haunted house and the victims die anyway.]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: [[spoiler:During The Clown's past life as John Wade, his coworker Gordon Barker called him disgusting for giving gifts to student Madison Carpenter. After John becomes the Clown and murders Gordon as revenge, the police investigation after the fact reveals that Gordon was a pedophile with a criminal record of producing and distributing underage pornography and stalking playgrounds.]]

** An adult variant. If the Clown doesn't disguise himself in tape 7, the football player in the changing room will snap at him that mascots aren't allowed to enter.
** [[spoiler:Two of these end up being the UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom for the whole plot in the tape detailing the Clown's past. It's their constant bullying, coupled with a prank gone ''horribly'' wrong that ends up turning the unassuming janitor John Wade into the homicidal Clown.]]
* PoliceAreUseless: Zigzagged. Pretty much all of the cops, aside from [[PlayerCharacter Detective Pawalski]], are shown to be bumbling idiots, completely incapable of following the various clues the Clown leaves. Special mention goes to the officer assigned to [[spoiler:Madison Carpenter]] as protection. He just lazes about in his car waiting for his partner to get donuts and when the Clown gets onto the backseat he ''doesn't even bother to turn around to check who it is'' and just assumes his partner's back. [[spoiler:Detective Pawalski himself at least manages to completely subvert this as he succesfully tracks down the Clown and seemingly shoots him to death in the last tape.]]
* RefuseToRescueTheDisliked: [[spoiler:Part of The Clown's backstory. Though the jocks only wanted to mess with John, they chose to flee without putting out the fire, leaving him to burn.]]
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The Clown's murdering spree across Happyhills is this, as he seeks to repay an injustice done that seemingly all of his victims were part of. [[spoiler:It turns out that all of the victims (except for Madison) were his bullies when he was still a janitor at Westpine High named John Wade, with two of them even nearly killing him through a prank gone wrong.]]

* TheUnreveal: The Clown is never unmasked [[spoiler:in the present]], so his appearance remains a mystery.
* VillainProtagonist: Most of the game is played from the Clown's perspective as he commits his many murders in Happyhills.

** Several of the Clown's victims are women. The Clown doesn't show any hesitance to murder them at all.
** Madison Carpenter [[spoiler: dies when the Clown throws a baseball bat at her.]]

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: [[spoiler: John Wade was an outcast among his coworkers and the students. The teachers called him disgusting and a freak, and told him not to go into the teacher lounge. His fellow janitor called him an idiot. The students considered him creepy. The only person who was kind to him was Madison Carpenter, who he became obsessed with, leaving her gifts that she accepted and thanked him for. His gifts to Madison also drew further criticism from the teachers and students.]]

* AssholeVictim: [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig Zagged]]. The trope appears to be the case with the Clown's victims at first. The first one who got viciously stabbed to death turns out to be a pedophile, the one the Clown burns alive in his shower was himself guilty of arson. But the one who gets pushed into his own hay bale maker turns out to have ''no criminal record whatsoever'', making it clear that the Clown isn't just a typical vigilante killer dishing out justice where the system failed, but has a much more selfish motive for what he does. [[spoiler: The people the Clown kills all turn out to have been either students or employees at Westpine High who bullied him when he was John Wade, before his near-death in a prank gone wrong. Funnily enough, the two jocks who accidentally "killed" John might have thought of ''him'' as this trope, since it's implied he was stalking Madison.]]

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: The Clown successfully gets his revenge, killing everyone who abused and bullied him in his old life as John Wade. The only loss The Clown suffers is when he accidentally kills Madison Carpenter, the one person he remembered fondly due to her being the only one who treated him well.]]
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: [[spoiler: Madison Carpenter]] is the only victim whose death the Clown shows remorse for, even calling her "the only kind one". [[spoiler: When he was still John Wade, Madison was the only one at Westpine High who treated him with any decency, which led to him developing a crush on her. It's even implied that her death was an accident and that he never intended to kill her to begin with.]]
* TheButlerDidIt: The Clown's real identity is [[spoiler: John Wade, a former janitor at Westpine High who was horrifically burned in the fire that destroyed the school in 1982. Even worse, the fire was set by two jocks who wanted to mess with John and then didn't bother to save him when it got out of control.]]

* CreateYourOwnVillain: [[spoiler: The Clown was an unpopular janitor at Westpine High named John Wade who was mistreated by the staff and students. The only person who was kind to him was a female student named Madison Carpenter, who he developed an obsession with. One day two jocks played a prank on him by lighting a fire in front of his closet's door. When the fire went out of control, even though the jocks noticed that he was trapped, they chose not to save John, feeling that he was not worth saving. After narrowly surviving the experience, John snapped and went on a killing spree in his new persona, the Clown, murdering everyone who abused him, including the aforementioned two jocks.]]

* DeadlyPrank: One that directly led to the events of the game. [[spoiler: When the Clown was still a janitor named John Wade, two jocks at the high school he worked at decided to mess with him by locking him into his janitor's closet and lighting a fire in front of the door. The fire got out of control and the jocks fled without freeing John, who survived but was horrifically burned and swore vengeance on all who had wronged him.]]
* FinalGirl: Seems to be set up with Madison Carpenter. She is the first and only victim to survive the Clown's attempt on her life, even getting police protection afterwards. [[spoiler: Sadly it's a subverted example in the end. The Clown simply finds out where Madison lives, kills the cop stationed in front of her house and breaks in. Though Madison does put up a good fight, she ultimately dies when the Clown throws a baseball bat at her, causing her to fall down the stairs and break her neck. What's even more tragic however was that the Clown seemingly was going to spare her, which would have played this trope straight]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Detective Pawalski's notes for the second victim point out that the torn cloth that seems to have come from the killer belongs to a janitor suit. [[spoiler: This is an early hint toward the Clown's true identity. Or former identitiy.]]
* FromNobodyToNightmare: The Clown, a OneManArmy SerialKiller [[spoiler: was initially just an unpopular janitor at a high school. Then two jocks decided to scare him by setting a fire, and it all went downhill from there.]]

* HopeSpot: The two victims in tape 9 are about to be decapitated by a fan the Clown lowered - when suddenly the wagon malfunctions and gets stuck on the tracks, stopping ''just'' short of the fan's blades. [[spoiler: The Clown simply repairs the haunted house and the victims die anyway.]]
* {{Hypocrite}}: [[spoiler: During The Clown's past life as John Wade, his coworker Gordon Barker called him disgusting for giving gifts to student Madison Carpenter. After John becomes the Clown and murders Gordon as revenge, the police investigation after the fact reveals that Gordon was a pedophile with a criminal record of producing and distributing underage pornography and stalking playgrounds.]]

** [[spoiler: Two of these end up being the UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom for the whole plot in the tape detailing the Clown's past. It's their constant bullying, coupled with a prank gone ''horribly'' wrong that ends up turning the unassuming janitor John Wade into the homicidal Clown.]]
* PoliceAreUseless: Zigzagged. Pretty much all of the cops, aside from [[PlayerCharacter Detective Pawalski]], are shown to be bumbling idiots, completely incapable of following the various clues the Clown leaves. Special mention goes to the officer assigned to [[spoiler: Madison Carpenter]] as protection. He just lazes about in his car waiting for his partner to get donuts and when the Clown gets onto the backseat he ''doesn't even bother to turn around to check who it is'' and just assumes his partner's back. [[spoiler: Detective Pawalski himself at least manages to completely subvert this as he succesfully tracks down the Clown and seemingly shoots him to death in the last tape.]]
* RefuseToRescueTheDisliked: [[spoiler: Part of The Clown's backstory. Though the jocks only wanted to mess with John, they chose to flee without putting out the fire, leaving him to burn.]]
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: The Clown's murdering spree across Happyhills is this, as he seeks to repay an injustice done that seemingly all of his victims were part of. [[spoiler: It turns out that all of the victims (except for Madison) were his bullies when he was still a janitor at Westpine High named John Wade, with two of them even nearly killing him through a prank gone wrong.]]

* TheUnreveal: The Clown is never unmasked [[spoiler: in the present]], so his appearance remains a mystery.

The game is available for free on its [[https://gamejolt.com/games/thehappyhillshomicide/570127 Gamejolt]] page.

* FinalGirl: Seems to be set up with Madison Carpenter. She is the first and only victim to survive the Clown's attempt on her life, even getting police protection afterwards. [[spoiler: Sadly it's a subverted example in the end. The Clown simply finds out where Madison lives, kills the cop stationed in front of her house and breaks in. Though Madison does put up a good fight, she ultimately dies when the Clown throws a baseball bat at her, causing her to fall down the stairs and break her neck.]]

* PoliceAreUseless: Zigzagged. Pretty much all of the cops, aside from [[PlayerCharacter detective Pawalski]], are shown to be bumbling idiots, completely incapable of following the various clues the Clown leaves. Special mention goes to the officer assigned to [[spoiler: Madison Carpenter]] as protection. He just lazes about in his car waiting for his partner to get donuts and when the Clown gets onto the backseat he ''doesn't even bother to turn around to check who it is'' and just assumes his partner's back. [[spoiler: Detective Pawalski himself at least manages to completely subvert this as he succesfully tracks down the Clown and seemingly shoots him to death in the last tape.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: [[spoiler: During The Clown's past life as John Wade, his coworker Gordon Barker called him disgusting for giving gifts to Madison Carpenter. After John becomes the Clown and murders Gordon as revenge, the police investigation after the fact reveals that Gordon was a pedophile with a criminal record of producing and distributing underage pornography and stalking playgrounds.]]

** The victims in tape 9 are women. The Clown doesn't show any hesitance to murder them at all.

* AngryGuardDog: The victim in tape 2 has one and it is ''very'' aggressive. [[spoiler: In order to get around, the Clown has to use the regular thudnerclaps as cover for his footsteps.]]

''The Happyhills Homicide'' is an indie horror/puzzle game in the style of an 80's slasher movie. It was created by Copperbolts. It was released on December 28, 2020.\\

* FromNobodyToNightmare: The Clown, an OneManArmy SerialKiller [[spoiler: was initially just an unpopular janitor at a high school. Then two jocks decided to scare him by setting a fire, and it all went downhill from there.]]

* PoliceAreUseless: Zigzagged. Pretty much all of the cops, aside from [[PlayerCharacter detective Pawalski]], are shown to be bumbling idiots, completely incapable of following the various clues the Clown leaves. Special mention goes to the officer assigned to [[spoiler: Madison Carpenter]] as protection. He just lazes about in his car waiting for his partner to get donuts and when the Clown gets onto the backseat he ''doesn't even bother to turn around to check who it is'' and just assumes his partner's back. [[spoiler: Detective Pawalski hismelf at least manages to completely subvert this as he succesfully tracks down the Clown and seemingly shoots him to death in the last tape.]]

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: In addition of playing as The Clown, you get to take control of the detective in numerous aftermath scenes of the game. [[spoiler:In the climax, you even get to take down the killer as him.]]

* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: [[spoiler: Madison Carpenter]] is the only victim whose death the Clown shows remorse for, even calling her "the only kind one". [[spoiler: When he was still John Wade, Madison was the only one at Westpine High who treated him with any decency, which led to him developing a crush on her.]]

* CreateYourOwnVillain: [[spoiler: The Clown was an unpopular janitor at Westpine High named John Wade who was mistreated by the staff and students. The only person who was kind to him was a female student named Madison Carpenter, who he developed an obsession with. One day two jocks played a prank on him by lighting a fire in front of his closet door. When the fire went out of control, even though the jocks noticed that he was trapped, they chose not to save him, feeling that he was not worth saving. After narrowly surviving the experience, John snapped and went on a killing spree in his new persona, the Clown, murdering everyone who abused him, including the aforementioned two jocks.]]

* PoliceAreUseless: Zigzagged. Pretty much all of the cops aside from the PlayerCharacter detective are shown to be bumbling idiots, completely incapable of following the various clues the Clown leaves. Special mention goes to the officer assigned to [[spoiler: Madison Carpenter]] as protection. He just lazes about in his car waiting for his partner to get donuts and when the Clown gets onto the backseat he ''doesn't even bother to turn around to check who it is'' and just assumes his partner's back.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: [[spoiler: John Wade, when he was a janitor at Westpine High, was an outcast among his coworkers and the students. The teachers called him disgusting and a freak, and told him not to go into the teacher lounge. His fellow janitor called him an idiot and told him to clean the toilets. The students considered him creepy. The only person who was kind to him was Madison Carpenter, who he became obsessed with, leaving her gifts that she accepted and thanked him for. His gifts to Madison also drew further criticism from the teachers and students.]]

* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:[[ZigZaggingTrope Zig Zagged]]. The trope appears to be the case with the Clown's victims at first. The first one who got viciously stabbed to death turns out to be a pedophile, the one the Clown burns alive in his shower was himself guilty of arson. But the one who gets pushed into his own hay bale maker turns out to have ''no criminal record whatsoever'', making it clear that the Clown isn't just a typical vigilante killer dishing out justice where the system failed, but has a much more selfish motive for what he does.]] [[spoiler: The people the Clown kills all turn out to have been either students or employees at Westpine High who bullied him when he was John Wade, before his near-death in a prank gone wrong. Funnily enough, the two jocks who accidentally "killed" John might have thought of ''him'' as this trope, since it's implied he was stalking Madison.]]

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler: The Clown successfully gets his revenge, killing everyone who abused and bullied him in his old life as John Wade. The only loss The Clown suffers is when he accidentally kills Madison Carpenter, the one person he did not want to kill because she was the only person that was kind to him when he worked as a janitor in his old life as John Wade.]]
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: [[spoiler: Madison Carpenter]] is the only victim the Clown shows remorse for, even calling her "the only kind one". [[spoiler: When he was still John Wade, Madison was the only one at Westpine High who treated him with any decency, which led to him developing a crush on her.]]

* CreateYourOwnVillain: [[spoiler: The Clown was an unpopular janitor at Westpine High named John Wade who was mistreated by the staff and students. The only person who was kind to him was a female student named Madison Carpenter, who he developed an obsession with, leaving her gifts that she accepted and thanked him for. One day two jocks played a prank on him by lighting a fire in front of his closet door. When the fire went out of control, even though the jocks noticed that he was trapped, they chose not to save him, feeling that he was not worth saving. After narrowly surviving the experience, John snapped and went on a killing spree in his new persona, the Clown, murdering everyone who abused him, including the aforementioned two jocks.]]

* FromNobodyToNightmare: The Clown, an OneManArmy SerialKiller [[spoiler: was initially just an unpopular janitor named John Wade at a high school. Then two jocks decided to scare him by setting a fire, and it all went downhill from there.]]

* RefuseToRescueTheDisliked: [[spoiler: Part of The Clown's backstory. John Wade was an unpopular janitor at Westpine High who was mistreated by both the students and teachers. One day, two jocks pulled a prank on him by locking him into his janitor's closet and lighting a fire in front of the closet door. Though the jocks only wanted to mess with John, they chose to flee without putting out the fire, leaving John to burn.]]