Line #50 VideoGame/CharlieMurder


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/charliepreview_7069.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:The PunkRock [[ZombieApocalypse apocalypse]] is here!]]
3
4	->''I'm Charlie Murder \
5	and murder is my name! \
6	I'm the king of rock and roll. \
7	I'm stompin' on fortune and fame.''
8	-->-- "Mnemonic Atomic"
9
10	''Charlie Murder'' is a Side Scroller BeatEmUp game from Creator/SkaStudios, playing a bit more like the classics that inspired it than their notoriously breakneck Dishwasher series.
11
12	Charlie is the lead singer of the titular band, Charlie Murder, a massively popular PunkRock band. But on his rise to fame, Charlie and the band happened to spurn Charlie's former friend, Paul. Powered by envy and jealously, Paul [[MeaningfulName Bitterman]] [[DealWithTheDevil strikes a deal]] with dark forces, becoming Lord Mortimer, lead singer of the DeathMetal band Gore Quaffer. In a short span of weeks, [[BattleOfTheBands a massive rivalry between the two bands builds up]], eventually culminating in Gore Quaffer's bassist [[{{Necromancer}} Circe Bathory]] starting a fully blown zombie apocalypse, and the lot of them shortly thereafter beating Charlie Murder within an inch of their collective lives. Charlie and crew narrowly survive, pull themselves together, and set out to set Gore Quaffer straight once and for all.
13
14	The gameplay model, referred to as a "[=BrawlPG=]" by the developers, plays out as an unusual mix between ''VideoGame/RiverCityRansom'', ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'', ''VideoGame/FinalFight'', and ''VideoGame/TheSimpsons'' arcade game. Fallen foes drop pocket change which can be used to buy food and clothing. Food and drink provide both healing and permanent stat boosts, while clothing provides a whole host of benefits: torso clothing primarily provides significant defense boosts and elemental resistances, hats strengthen your character's magic power (here referred to as ''Anar[[KiManipulation chi]]''), and gloves strengthen your punches and kicks, as well as adding some extremely splashy [[ElementalPowers elemental damage.]] All of the clothing can also have tangential enchantments that are harder to quantify, such as life-steal, stun chance, or causing stasis on knockback.
15
16	Keeping with the RPG theme, each of the five band members of Charlie Murder have their own [[AnAdventurerIsYou RPG-styled character class]]:
17
18	* Charlie Murder, lead singer and Berserker: His unique ability is DualWielding and GunsAkimbo, and his [[RedMage spell list can contain a little bit of everything]].
19	* Tommy Homicide, bassist and Shaman: His unique ability can convert severed enemy heads into healing totems, providing a trickle of health to anyone in the area for each one, and his magic consists of [[SplashDamage area damage]], [[AreaOfEffect area damage]], and more [[HerdHittingAttack area damage]].
20	* Kelly Skitten, AKA Skelekitten, manager, backup vocalist, tambourinist, and Mesmer: Her unique ability is an evade roll, allowing her to pass through any number of attacks, and her spells lean heavily towards [[StatusEffects crowd control]] and [[WhiteMage support magic]] to a lesser extent.
21	* Lester Deth, guitarist and Mage: He can [[YourSoulIsMine steal souls]] of critically damaged enemies to reduce his cooldowns, allowing him to spew out spells to no end. His magic is focused towards [[BlackMage straight offense]] and [[SummonMagic summoning demonic underlings]].
22	* Rex, AKA The Rexecutioner, drummer and Tank: His unique ability allows him to grab and throw [[ImprobableWeaponUser nearly]] [[CarFu anything]]. His great size also provides resistance against being grabbed himself. His magic tends to be self-buffs or utility spells.
23
24	From June 16 to 30, 2014, the game was made an available for free for Xbox Live Gold members on Xbox Live's "Games with Gold" program.
25
26	----
27	!!Tropes in the work include:
28
29	* AndShowItToYou: One of the band's later abilities. They can tear a heart out of a nearly-dead enemy, and ''eat it''.
30	* AndYourRewardIsClothes: Sort of. There's an optional (and slightly hidden) area in the very first stage that needs a certain relic to access, normally meaning backtracking. Beating it unlocks an "alternate band", enabling you to select different versions of each character. These different versions have identical skill lists, but their spells are often dramatically different, sometimes even completely unique. A different set is unlocked for each difficulty.
31	* ApatheticCitizens:
32	** The bartender in the background of the third song sequence doesn't seem at all concerned with the demons pouring gasoline all over the place, and even less so when they set the place ablaze.
33	** The radio station seems to exploit the ongoing rivalry between Charlie Murder and Gore Quaffer to draw listeners in. The people they interview likewise don't seem too concerned about the ongoing ZombieApocalypse, and the one who is is cut-short (the rest talk about how Charlie Murder are getting egotistical or are ComicallyMissingThePoint).
34	* BadassCrew: Charlie Murder. They're a punk rock band with magic powers that fight off a zombie apocalypse. How could that ''not'' be badass?
35	* BaitAndSwitch: [[spoiler:The final level appears at first to be a final BattleOfTheBands between Charlie Murder and Gore Quaffer... then Lord Mortimer just knocks the band out, and ends up killing most of his fellow bandmates before fighting Charlie Murder alone.]]
36	* TheBigGuy: Rex, the Drummer. [[SuperMode A unique spell of his makes him even bigger]].
37	* BigThinShortTrio: The rest of the band who aren't [[TheHero Charlie]] and [[ActionGirl Kelly]]. Lester is tall and rail-thin. Tommy is the shorter than everyone except Kelly. Rex is marginally shorter than Lester, but probably has more mass than the rest of the band put together.
38	* BlatantLies: Expert Thurgood's slogan is "I'm not a centipede!" However, on his billboard in-game, he clearly is one.
39	* BookEnds:
40	** [[spoiler:The game starts and ends with Charlie and crew emerging from Hell.]]
41	** For the bad ending; [[spoiler:the first and last time we see of Paul (as his normal self) is in Charlie's apartment, and being alone after being abandoned by Charlie and crew.]]
42	* BoozeBasedBuff: The beer category has some of the best stat improving items in the game, and has one of the most easily obtainable large healing items...though they normally all make you temporarily drunk, increasing your attack strength, but randomizing which attacks come out regardless of button pressed, and slowing your run and jump speed.
43	* BruiserWithASoftCenter: Rex, as revealed in the Good Ending. [[spoiler:With a giant smile on his face, and two arm-fulls of kittens.]]
44	* ClosetGeek: Tommy. The band met him when he was tinkering with robots, and he gets regular e-mails from an anime streaming site.
45	* CombinationAttack: Team-up attacks can be used once one player reaches a 20-hit combo. One player "drives", and the other can shoot out their basic projectile spell endlessly for its duration.
46	* CoupDeGrace: Critically wounded foes can be finished off with a head-exploding curb stomp if they've been knocked down. Some mini-bosses and bosses ''need'' to be dealt with this way, or they'll get back up with a slightly refreshed health bar.
47	* DigitalPiracyIsEvil: PlayedForLaughs in a PokeThePoodle[=/=]{{Parody}} manner. Gore Quaffer's "IT guy" has a literal pirate ship, complete with crew. The bottom deck filled with computer servers solely dedicated to pirating Charlie Murder albums.
48	* EldritchAbomination: The Twin Scenelords are rather grotesque parodies of the tragedy and comedy masks, being large and slender figures with creepy expressions on their faces. One is pale white, and the other is darker in color with [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]]. Unlike any other boss, [[FeedItWithFire they are healed if you attack at inappropriate times]].
49	* FanDumb: InUniverse. You can hear both Charlie Murder and Gore Quaffer fans being interviewed by the radio station in the tattoo palor in-between songs, with plenty of [[TakeThat Take Thats]] directed toward certain kinds of examples of this trope.
50	* FeedItWithFire: The [[DualBoss Twin Scenelords]] are healed by normal attacks when you attack at the wrong time.
51	* FireAndBrimstoneHell: The game opens with this, as the ground has a reddish tint and spikes protruding with flames burning in the background. [[spoiler:It is also the setting for the final level.]]
52	* ForcedTransformation: The graffiti on the wall in the bar's bathroom implies that the running potato you encounter throughout the game WasOnceAMan before mysteriously being turned into a potato.
53	* GiantSpaceFleaFromNoWhere: Any boss that isn't a part of Gore Quaffer counts, as none of them get any foreshadowing or some kind of explanation for why they're there. This ranges to comedic with the Sasquatch boss and [[NightmareFuel downright disturbing]] with the Gorged Tumor under the sea.
54	* GoldenEnding: The good ending in spades. Events include:
55	** [[spoiler: Charlie Murder getting their careers back on track.]]
56	** [[spoiler: Rex happily carrying two armfuls of cats.]]
57	** [[spoiler: Tommy and Lester starting a comic book and action figure store.]]
58	** [[spoiler: Kelly planning a post-apocalypse benefit concert.]]
59	** [[spoiler: Kelly and Charlie getting married.]]
60	** [[spoiler: Charlie and Paul burying the hatchet and reviving their friendship.]]
61	* GoryDiscretionShot: The game censors the Baffled Homunculus' death (that is, [[DrivenToSuicide killing itself by falling into a meat grinder]]) with a black box over the corpse.
62	* HappilyMarried: [[spoiler:Charlie and Kelly in the Good Ending.]]
63	* HeelFaceTurn:
64	** [[spoiler:Circe ends up having this after zapping the band to near death in the final battle, due to having developed feelings for Charlie as she observed him. Disobeying Mortimer's orders to kill them results in him impaling her with his scythe in a blind fit of rage, shortly followed by King Tepe's retaliation for killing his girlfriend leading to the same fate. Beelzabal crushes his contract with Gore Quaffer and leaves Mortimer to fend for himself.]]
65	** [[spoiler: Also Paul in the good ending after going through evil villain therapy.]]
66	* IAmSong: The game's main theme, "Mnemonic Atomic", serves as this for the band.
67	--> ''I'm Charlie Murder, and Murder is my name/I'm the king of rock and roll/I'm stomping on fortune and fame''
68	* IdenticalStranger: [[spoiler:The Angel of Chaos in his first form looks like the Fallen Engineer from the Dishwasher games]]
69	* InstantKill: Foes at a quarter health or less will be killed outright by elemental attacks (flash-incinerated by fire, melted into a skeleton by acid, et cetra), and two-handed heavy melee weapons will completely pulverize even elite versions of foes once they've hit half HP.
70	* InstrumentOfMurder: All the band members utilize their instrument to kick ass.
71	* LightIsNotGood: [[spoiler:The Angel of Chaos is a tall man with pale white skin dressed in a white suit with a mask over his face (at least before he goes OneWingedAngel). He is also behind the events in the game.]]
72	* MakeMeWannaShout: Charlie and Kelly scream into their microphone in order to use their Anarchi.
73	* TheManBehindTheMan: [[spoiler:Smockula and, to a greater degree, the Lord of Chaos is this to Lord Mortimer/Paul.]]
74	* MeaningfulName:
75	** Countess Circe Bathory and King Tepes were named after Circe from the Odyssey and Countess Elizabeth Bathory in the first case, and Prince Vlad III (the inspiration of Dracula who was also known by King Tepes) in the latter. Beelzebaal is a combination of the Biblical demon Beelzebub and Ba'alberith, the god of Canaan later to be demonized.
76	** Paul's last name, Bitterman, perfectly describes him. Even his main theme is simply titled "Bitter" in the soundtrack.
77	* MetalScream: Charlie starts some of the band's songs with this. [[MakeMeWannaShout He and Kelly also utilize it for their Anarchi]].
78	* MultipleEndings:
79	** "The Bad Ending": [[spoiler:The ZombieApocalypse is stopped. [[BitterSweetEnding But at the cost of the band not being able to save Paul from his demons, and they are presumably forced to kill him.]]]]
80	** "The Good Ending: [[spoiler:Paul is freed from the evil forces controlling him. The world is saved, he and Charlie bury the hatchet. Along with Charlie tying the knot with Kelly.]]
81	* MushroomSamba: In the Camp Falconbats side area, Charlie and friends eat random pills that they find lying on a picnic table, causing them to completely trip balls and run through a multicolored psychedelic chalk-outline world, fighting cultists and demons, while wielding an infinite supply of chainsaws/shotguns. (As soon as a chainsaw breaks or a shotgun runs out of ammo and you throw it, you instantly get a new shotgun or chainsaw.) Eventually you fight a bizarre brain monster and the trip ends. You then run back to the beginning of the area to discover that [[spoiler:all the cultists you murdered were actually just hippies. The last living hippie screams in terror and tries to run away from you, only to trip and violently impale his head on a branch.]] Also counts as a BigLippedAlligatorMoment, as you get no e-mails after finishing the area and it's never mentioned again. Though it is required to [[spoiler:get one of Smockula's body parts.]]
82	* NewGamePlus: Diablo style. Beat the game and unlock the next difficulty, "Chaos", with enemies and loot appropriately scaled to your formerly endgame self. Beat THAT, and unlock "Total Anarchy". In these later difficulties, most bosses have proportionately much more health as well. Enemies who were formerly complete pushovers may now become complete nightmares to deal with.
83	* NoEnding: [[spoiler:The Bad Ending has the game abruptly stop after Lord Mortimer/Paul is defeated. No ending cutscene, just straight to the credits.]]
84	* PintSizedPowerhouse: Kelly and Tommy may be short, but they kick just as much ass as the rest of the band.
85	* PrecisionFStrike: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pczo3oWC5e8 good ending song]] gives one:
86	--> ''And the living/warm their bones/won't retaliate/fuckin' drones''
87	* PressXToNotDie: Some enemies will latch onto you or pin you to the ground, rendering you helpless while you slowly get gnawed or pounded to death until you mash the right button enough to break free.
88	* ProductPlacement: So what do you use to check your fans and powers? A Windows Phone. Somehow, Microsoft (despite publishing this game) ''did not'' ask for that, making this a slight subversion.
89	* TheResenter: As the game goes on, it becomes more and more clear that Paul has his reasons for hating Charlie.
90	* ShoutOut:
91	** Lord Mortimer sometimes [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight throws a chalice of red wine at the ground]]. To make the reference complete, a level has [[FightingAShadow Phantom Mortimer]] sitting upon a throne and asking [[MemeticMutation the infamous question]] with speech bubbles before doing so.
92	** In a playground, there are a few horse toys. [[VideoGame/SilentHill2 One of them is a bit bloody and has a triangular helmet on its head]], and another bears a resemblance to [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Rarity]].
93	** One scene has the band fighting [[Film/{{Birdemic}} exploding birds. With coat hangers.]]
94	** In the mental asylum, the band will wake up [[Franchise/{{Saw}} strapped in a trap.]] The boss of that level, the Lady in Tatters, also bears a strong resemblance to the Billy puppet, and rips apart a Jigsaw {{Expy}} before attacking the heroes.
95	*** Maybe doubling as a EarlyBirdCameo, there is also a movie poster outside of the theater showing the Lady in Tatter's face, named RAWR in similar font to ''Saw'''s title.
96	** Lester has a [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Triforce]] on the backside of his right hand.
97	* SignsOfDisrepair: During the second song sequence, Paul is playing at a bar and has a sign up reading "Praying for a sign". After the nearby TV plays one of Charlie's songs, he freaks out and causes a paint can to spill over the sign which now reads "P[[spoiler:r]]ay[[spoiler:ing]] for [[spoiler:a]] si[[spoiler:g]]n".
98	* SinisterScythe: Lord Mortimer's weapon.
99	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After [[spoiler:Lord Mortimer kills Circe and King Tepes, Beelzebaal points out his contract, and vanishes in a puff of flames.]]
100	* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Kelly for Charlie Murder, Circe Bathory for Gore Quaffer.
101	* SpiritualSuccessor: James Silva considers this game a "true followup" to his ''Zombie Smashers X'' series he developed years earlier.
102	* StartMyOwn: After being kicked out of the band, Paul calls upon the dark forces and forms Gore Quaffer under the name Lord Mortimer.
103	* StylisticSuck: Throughout the game, you get mail from Paul- uh, [[TheyCallMeMisterTibbs "Lord Mortimer"]], full of mockery, evil gloating, and really bad spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
104	* ToHellAndBack: The game begins with Charlie and crew beating up devils in Hell, before being revived by paramedics. [[spoiler:In the end, they go to Hell to fight the Angel of Chaos and return victorious.]]
105	* TrueFinalBoss: [[spoiler:The final level and the real final boss of the game, the Angel of Chaos, isn't available unless you acquire all of Smockula's pieces and have them equipped before your battle with Lord Mortimer. Otherwise, you won't be able to damage Smockula during the battle, leading to the game's bad ending. Beating the final level will unlock NewGamePlus and have a much happier ending.]]
106	* UnfriendlyFire: The enemies attack haphazardly, and said attacks are just as deadly to their own as they are to you. Your crew can indulge in friendly fire too, but only when there are no enemies onscreen and for very minimal damage.
107	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: The Bullet Hell Hall band doesn't seem bothered by Charlie Murder fighting zombies, ninjas, and King Tepes right in front of them, and will simply continue their concert as normal.
108	* WhamLine: Throughout the game, you get phone messages from "a friend" who makes note of your progress and serves as MrExposition after major events and boss fights. The message before you fight Gore Quaffer simply reads [[spoiler:"By the way I am not your friend"]]. Though one could speculate "your friend" [[spoiler:is Paul taunting you]], the next two messages confirm that it's [[spoiler:[[TrueFinalBoss the Angel of Chaos]]]].
109	* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: Paul Bitterman [[TheResenter has reasons]] for being, well, bitter. He was suddenly replaced by Lester and kicked out of the band once they made it big, lost his best friend he's known since birth, and the band continued to (unknowingly) sabotage his solo project. All of this causes him to go off the deep end and try to murder Charlie Murder with his own band and uprising a ZombieApocalypse.
110	* YourHeadASplode: The default finisher to a downed enemy is crushing their head underfoot (strangely, their brain remains intact). Certain minibosses need to be killed this way.
111	* YourSoulIsMine: Lester's character-specific ability is being able to steal the souls of critically wounded underlings for a small HP boost.
112	* ZombieApocalypse: Gore Quaffer starts one in order to take Charlie Murder out. They almost succeed.

Context VideoGame / CharlieMurder