History VideoGame / WeHappyFew

* MockMeal: [[spoiler: As the extreme food shortage starts to take hold of Wellington Wells]] Uncle Jack begins starting a show called "That tastes amazing! What is it?" where he cheerfully walks through how to extend your food supplies with things such as Lichens, wild weeds, your neighbours' flowers, [[NauseaFuel maggots and rotting meat]] and even ''sawdust'' to make bread.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: A policy of total isolation and mandatory happiness via psychosis-inducing drugs results in the complete and utter breakdown of civilization, and the inevitable death of everyone who can't tear themselves away from Joy's seductive teat.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Wellington Wells is essentially what a society completely dependent on drugs would actually be like. Nobody can function correctly, people display a shocking lack of self-preservation instinct, sympathy and compassion is at an all-time low, and the upkeep of society has fallen so badly that a total collapse is, at this point, almost inevitable.
** Joy is not some sort of perfect miracle drug - like any other pharmaceutical, different people react to it differently, some needing to take more than others, some getting no effect from it, and some having their depressive symptoms aggravated by taking it.

** Sally references Gwen's first name being derived from Guinevere of Myth/KingArthur mythos. Arthur and Percy (Percival) also have their names taken from King Arthur mythos.

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: While this is a major trope in the main game, this DLC takes it UpToEleven. Less than a quarter of the gameplay definitively happens, with Nick repeatedly popping pills and having wild hallucinations. It is safe to say that none of the story should be taken literally.

* MockMeal: [[spoiler: As the extreme food shortage starts to take hold of Wellington Wells]] Uncle Jack begins starting a show called "That tastes amazing! What is it?" where he cheerfully walks through how to extend your food supplies with things such as Lichens, wild weeds, your neighbours flowers, [[NauseaFuel maggots and rotting meat]] and even ''sawdust'' to make bread.

* SanityMeter: There is a meter to monitor how much Joy you have in your system. A full meter means [[BlatantLies that everything is fine,]] [[NonStandardGameOver and you aren't a Downer anymore]].

** Of course you can die by having the Wellies and Bobbies beat the crap out of you, but you can avoid this by ingesting Joy and blending in. Though you stopped taking the stuff for a reason. There is a separate bar that measures how much Joy you have in you. Fill it up and you completely succumb to the effects of Joy, everything will be fine, and you'll no longer be a Downer.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: The Bobbies may be willing to kill anyone who breaks curfew or refuses to take Joy, but when Arthur informs one that the butcher Reg Cutty [[spoiler: is [[ImAHumanitarian making V-Meat out of human corpses]]]], he is utterly horrified and arrests the Cutty for this heinous deed.

** [[InnocuouslyImportantEpisode An NPC sidequest]] reveals that the adults thought bringing their children to the train station was a good idea, as it would appease the Germans. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone It's an action they feel immensely guilty about]], [[AdultFear as it took their children away to parts unknown with no indication that they will ever come back]].

* AdultFear: Worse than being powerless to protect one's children is [[spoiler: having the power all along but being too afraid to do so. Wellington Wells was tricked into sacrificing their children for nothing.]]

"Sally's Story" focuses on Sally Boyle, mother to the only child born in Wellington Wells since The Very Bad Thing... which is not good, since one of the effects of Joy use is homicidal mania towards pregnant women and children. Whilst she has been able to use her skills as a chemist to escape attention so far, she is desperate to flee to safety with her daughter beyond the reach of the "Wellies".

* IAteWhat: Played for horror. As a result of everyone being too high on Joy to trade or manufacture food, people are eating anything that they think is edible. The Executive Committee is aware of this, too, as Uncle Jack has three episodes of a program called "That Tastes Amazing! What Is It?" where he gives tips on how to prepare food from things no sane person would think of eating. Best exemplified during "We All Fall Down", where a detained Wellie asks, "Were we eating LEAVES this whole time?"

* IAteWhat: Played for horror. As a result of everyone being too high on Joy to trade or manufacture food, people are eating anything that they think is edible. The Executive Committee is aware of this, too, as Uncle Jack has two episodes of a program called "That Tastes Amazing! What Is It?" where he gives tips on how to prepare food from things no sane person would think of eating. Best exemplified during "We All Fall Down", where a detained Wellie asks, "Were we eating LEAVES this whole time?"

* IAteWhat: Played for horror. As a result of everyone being too high to trade or manufacture food, people are eating anything that they think is edible. The Executive Committee is aware of this, too, as Uncle Jack has two episodes of a program called "That Tastes Amazing! What Is It?" where he gives tips on how to prepare food from things no sane person would think of eating.

* DrugsAreBad: Joy is a notably unkind and cartoonish take on anti-depressant medication and what the narrative director described as "[[https://web.archive.org/web/20160817231747/http://popramennews.com/weekly-dose-1/2016/4/10/compulsion-games-is-making-a-comeback-with-an-eerie-1960s-twist prescription drug culture]]". Joy brings medicinal relief to the traumatised populace of Wellington Wells, but is a ''ridiculously'' destructive and unhealthy drug: [[FantasticDrug it's an addictive hallucinogenic with side-effects so severe, numerous and consistent it would never pass an ethical clinical trial]]. It inflicts significant short-term penalties to health upon use, and practically destroys your mind in the long-term. Nearly all of the populace are too addled on Joy to notice the literal collapse of societal functions (piled-up paper works, broken pneumatic-tubes, and [[spoiler:people starving to death because the food supply has run out]]). To top it off whether you're allergic, developed a resistance or they simply screwed up the recipe will make the effect worse.

* ButThouMust: Averted in the beginning. You can decide to take your Joy, but the game ends since Arthur decided to uphold TheMasquerade and this there's no game.

** Also, you can [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QLiUPmoG_c choose to take your daily Joy at the beginning of the game.]] [[PressXToDie This ends about the way you'd expect.]]

** In one of the letters in Arthur's story, the writer compares what they've seen to something out of Dante.

** [[spoiler: In pre-Alpha, one of the Pre-Alpha endings was the player beaten down by [[ViolentGlaswegian Ollie]]. But [[https://youtu.be/nkaUF5ckEzc?t=2m6s this]] might have turned the ShaggyDogStory ending into a CliffHanger since the assailant was revealed to be a ShellShockedVeteran and knew the player character. At least based on his Scottish accent that both of them share.]]

** Of course you can die by having the Wellies and Bobbies beat the crap out of you, but you can avoid this by ingesting Joy and blending in. Though you stopped taking the stuff for a reason. There is a separate bar that measures how much Joy you have in you. Fill it up in the Early Access version and you completely succumb to the effects of Joy, everything will be fine, and you'll no longer be a Downer.

* NoodleIncident: The Very Bad Thing that inspired the Wellies to start taking Joy, which happened during the occupation from the German Empire. The player is led to believe it was an act of resistance so terrible that the whole society threatens to collapse from guilt. It's revealed that [[spoiler:it wasn't an act of resistance at all. It's the fact that the Wellies ''gave in'' to the Germans when they could have actually fought them off.]]

* PoliceBrutality: Bobbies have only one job and it's beating Downers or suspected Downers to death with their clubs. There is a conversation where one suggest that the other should leave a stun rod or something next to the person he broke the trachea of in case he was someone important.

* RealityEnsues: Wellington Wells is essentially what a society completely dependent on drugs would actually be like. Nobody can function correctly, people display a shocking lack of self-preservation instinct, sympathy and compassion is at an all-time low, and the upkeep of society has fallen so badly that a total collapse is, at this point, almost inevitable.

* RealityEnsues: A policy of total isolation and mandatory happiness via psychosis-inducing drugs results in the complete and utter breakdown of civilization, and the inevitable death of everyone who can't tear themselves away from Joy's seductive teat.

''People won't face facts. Not until we take their Joy. And when we do that...they'll murder each other in the street.''