[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/camp_7766.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Fan art by Demon Allie]]
-> ''"I've never heard of this particular summer camp, but it was cheap and we were broke."''
-->-- '''Billy'''

A LetsPlay of ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingWildWorld'' by Chewbot, a DarkerAndEdgier version of the [[SugarBowl cute little game you know and love]].

This is the story of eight-year-old Billy and his [[BlatantLies wondrous adventures]] at "Camp". Arriving at what seems to be an innocuous summer camp with nothing but the clothes on his back (the driver took off with his things in the trunk), Billy quickly finds himself in an empty house with a dead land line and no way of escape. He's quickly informed that he's in debt for a house he didn't buy and then swindled into working for Tom Nook, a Mafia-like raccoon he suddenly owes money to.

...But there's more. Something is off about the camp; there are no other kids around except him, and the only company he has are that of animated talking animals. Everyone in the camp seems to be in on some secret, and Billy can't trust any of them. Some of them even disappear suddenly during the night, leaving without a trace. With his world spiraling out of control, Billy takes matters into his own eight-year-old hands and attempts to find out what [[TownWithADarkSecret dark, dirty secret]] [[SugarApocalypse this cute little place is keeping...]]

[[FromBadToWorse And it all goes downhill from there.]]

Can be found [[http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/Animal%20Crossing/index.html here]]. [[BlatantLies Happy reading]] and [[NightmareFuel sweet dreams]].

Other LetsPlay style stories he's written include ''LetsPlay/PlagueAndTreacheryOnTheOregonTrail'', which is ''much'' LighterAndSofter than this story, for those who might have trouble sleeping tonight.
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!! This provides examples of:
* ActingYourIntellectualAge: Billy acts '''way''' maturely for an eight-year-old. While a kid could, in theory, [[CrazySurvivalist still sneak and prepare himself for survival]], if he's smart and quick enough, what WOULD be uncommon for a child is to think ''too'' much about certain topics. Though granted, [[spoiler:considering this is being told by him almost 20 years later, some things may be spoken from a now-adult perspective.]]
* AdaptationalVillainy: [[spoiler:Of course, as you may've guessed, the residents, who are actually friendly in the games, are almost brain-dead assistants to Penny, the latter being specially notorious with this trope.]]
* TheAlcatraz: Much of the story is about Billy's attempts to escape the camp. [[spoiler:Towards the end, it is revealed that he isn't the first one to try to do so.]]
* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: InUniverse, about [[Franchise/AnimalCrossing the games]] themselves.
** Most of the characters are [[spoiler:living in fear of Penny]], and Tom Nook ''seems'' to be interpreted as a [[ManipulativeBastard bastard that won't let Billy leave]], but his ulterior motive [[spoiler:was that he was trying to ''help Billy escape'']].
** Even [[spoiler:the Gyroids]] get looked at from a different point of view. In the games, [[spoiler:they're innocent if weird statues of unknown origin that move and make funny noises]]. Here, [[spoiler:they're not-so-innocent weird statues of unknown origin that mutate those exposed for them for too long (as well as driving them temporarily insane)... [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking that move and make funny noises]]]].
* AndThenJohnWasAZombie: In the anti-box ending, [[spoiler:Billy gives in to the gyroids and turns into a rabbit resident]].
* ApocalypticLog: Nook's diary, which records [[spoiler:his and K.K.'s arrival on the island as normal humans, their discovery of the gyroids, and their slow descent into madness as they transformed]].
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: The description of Billy's "new" "cabin":
-->''No toilet, no sink, not even a goddamn chair. I get a cardboard box, a candle with no matches and a boom box that only plays one song. And it fucking '''skips'''.''
* ArtifactOfDoom: Those [[spoiler:gyroids]] aren't all that they seem...
* ArtShift: The LP slowly goes from screenshots to drawn artwork. Goes into full effect in the pro-box ending.
* AscendedExtra: Penny is only one of hundreds of villagers, but here? [[spoiler: She's the main antagonist]].
* AudioAdaptation:
** There's a full one-hour video about all chapters [[https://youtu.be/7Iwm9xQRNqU?feature=shared here.]]
** Only Chapters 1 and 12 were done. However, all 12 chapters have an audio adaptation in Spanish, including [[spoiler: both the box and anti-box endings]]. The playlist can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpK4usn1zAk&list=PLpwgztNZ4430Qr06TKV9xEFVbKwfceBjy here.]]
* AxCrazy:
** [[spoiler: Penny]], who [[spoiler: rips off a boy's arm and digs through a different boy's chest for organs. Why? Because she thought one of them had [[DisproportionateRetribution stolen from her.]]]]
** [[spoiler: Billy]] in the anti-box ending. After the [[spoiler: [[ArtifactOfDoom gyroids]] cause a SanitySlippage, he tries to kill Tom Nook]] and is restrained by the other animals.
* BigBad: Tom Nook, [[spoiler:or so he appears to be at first. In reality: [[AxCrazy Penny]], and arguably [[ArtifactOfDoom gyroids]] as [[TheManBehindTheMan the Statues Behind the Mouse]].]]
* BodyHorror: If you consider [[spoiler:the slow transformation into an animal along with the loss of your sanity]] body horror, then yeah. It's revealed that [[spoiler:you get better from your loss of sanity]], but for real horror, [[spoiler:look at Penny's slowly decaying face]].
* BookEnds: The anti-box ending end with [[spoiler:Kapp'n ferrying another child to the island as the transformed Billy looks forward to meeting them]].
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Billy manages to put an end to Penny's tyranny once and for all, and saves the rest of the children while escaping from the island via a rescue from the armed forces thanks to a disteress beacon that's been set from the mansion. However, he remained [[TroubledChild scarred for life since his childhood]] (and a lot more of those saved children may've suffered the same, if not worse because of being on that island longer than Billy), and was took into custody and taken years of therapy from all his trauma to the point of becoming an adult and never returning home, probably worrying his mother sick, and had to write an official statement about all that traumatizing experience. This is not mentioning the fact that a lot of children died and a small number of gyroids were disposed of at the bottom of the ocean, with a high possibility of threatening the lives of aquatic sea creatures that live under the sea.]]
* CrazySurvivalist: Billy. Did we mention he's only eight years old?
* CrapsaccharineWorld: The epitome of this trope. Everything's all cute animals on the outside, hard-to-top horror on the inside. [[spoiler: And this was preferable to what they did at first. Tom says that they used to torture the new kids, and he's the one who came up with the idea to at least keep them distracted and happy until, and sometimes even after they cross.]]
* CreepyChild: Billy, of a sort, in the anti-box ending. Notice how [[spoiler:the tone becomes a ''lot'' more childlike after the Resetti segment]].
* CuteAndPsycho: [[spoiler:Billy crosses into a cute little bunny in the anti-box end, but becomes mentally insane.]]
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Franchise/AnimalCrossing'' is a lighthearted series, but this story is anything but light.
* DarkFic: It's darker than the average ''Franchise/AnimalCrossing'' story; featuring things like mutilation, manipulative lies, and horrifying transformations.
* DarkLordOnLifeSupport: [[spoiler: Penny has terminal cancer and steals the other residents' body parts as a stopgap measure.]]
* {{Deconstruction}}: More or less showing just how disturbing finding oneself in a WorldOfFunnyAnimals and not being able to leave would be. To say nothing about how most of us would react to being confronted by such creatures in RealLife.
* DespairEventHorizon:
** Billy shows signs of this a lot of times, but it really gets to its peak [[spoiler:in the anti-box ending, where he thought it was all over when he tossed the box containing his friend Penny's letter and something he wouldn't want to see into the water, making him [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone feel regret]] and [[DrivenToSuicide try to "join his only friend"]] by drowning, [[InterruptedSuicide before being saved by Resetti]]]].
** [[spoiler:Tom Nook]] crosses this towards the end. It's eventually what [[spoiler:[[DrivenToSuicide drives him to suicide]]]].
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The anti-box ending. [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie And then Billy was a rabbit.]]]]
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: Tom Nook]] kills himself after reaching his DespairEventHorizon. In the anti-box ending, [[spoiler:Billy also makes an attempt on his life, [[InterruptedSuicide but is saved by Resetti]]]].
* EarAche: [[spoiler:Tom Nook gets his ears cut off in the anti-box ending, presumably as punishment for sending a SOS signal to the mainland. Some of the island children are also noted to have their ears missing. ]]
* EarnYourHappyEnding: In some ways, [[spoiler:the pro-box ending. It's definitely more bittersweet than happy, but it comes about by Billy acting rather than turning away and refusing to open the box.]]
* EyePatchOfPower: Well, it's more of a band aid, but it doesn't make little Billy any less badass.
* EyeScream: [[spoiler:The residents rip Billy's eye out and give it to Penny. Oh, but don't worry. He gets it back]].
* FaceRevealingTurn: [[spoiler:Penny]] does it [[https://lparchive.org/Animal-Crossing/Update%2011/5-Part11_02.jpg here (spoiler warning)]].
* FateWorseThanDeath: In hindsight, [[spoiler:slowly turning into an animal]] is bad, but [[spoiler:having to work with every single demand of Penny's or otherwise being slowly ripped apart]] is ''even worse''.
* FisherKingdom: [[spoiler: Human characters turn into animals on the islands.]]
* ForcedTransformation: [[spoiler: The gyroids are capable of turning humans in the half human half animal forms seen in the story]].
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Provided by the fanmade cover art on this very page. [[spoiler:Notice how all the other animals depicted have GlowingEyesOfDoom, but not Tom Nook? That's because he's actually Billy's only ally.]]
* FridgeLogic: In-universe; Billy wonders how Penny could send a balloon message every day without being noticed, how she stole Nook's notebook, and how she escaped from Nook. He ignores all of this in favor of allowing himself to believe that he's finally found someone he can trust, [[spoiler:but then you find out that Nook was the one behind the balloon messages all along...]]
* FridgeHorror: An in-universe example. [[spoiler:''What do the gyroids turn animals into?'']]
* {{Gamebooks}}: There's two endings to the story, diverging at part 9. It works out [[HaveANiceDeath about as well]], too.
* GenreSavvy: Billy, most of the time. For example, in the pro-box ending, [[spoiler:while Penny monologues about the ways she could dismember Billy, he attacks her while she's still talking]].
* HopeSpot: The early balloon arc. Billy gets messages in balloons from a girl named Penny, someone who might be an ally; from this he starts piecing things together about the camp, and he eventually figures out that there are other kids and they might even be able to escape all together... [[spoiler:then ''wham'', Penny apparently gets captured and it turns out it was actually Nook sending the messages. Penny is the one running the whole freakshow, and Nook is the only friend he's got.]]
* HumanResources: [[spoiler:Penny, who suffers from terminal cancer, uses the other residents' organs to restore her failing body.]]
* ImAHumanitarian: Upon reading Tom Nook's diary, Billy concludes that he eats his fellow animals. [[spoiler:He is wrong.]]
* IAmSpartacus: Played with. [[spoiler:Penny demands Billy to tell her who took her papers, or else someone from a crowd of kids gets it each time he lies. A boy in the crowd named Phillip claims it was himself. Penny takes him to the back of the house, and he gives her a gut wound with his sharpened crutch before she kills him.]]
* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: [[spoiler: After beating the crap out of Penny, she falls off the balcony, taking Billy with her. This is followed by Billy twisting his body around and executing a twelve-story body slam, then gets up and rips her eye out. The eye he rips out was his in the first place.]]
--> '''Billy''': This. Is ''mine''.
* {{Macguffin}}: Subverted with the Gyroids. [[spoiler: Collect enough and they'll turn you into an animal]]
* {{Metamorphosis}}: [[spoiler: The gyroids are responsible for turning humans into animals]]
* MultipleEndings: A rare non-video game example - Pro-Box or Anti-Box. Take your pick.
** Pro-Box Ending: [[spoiler:Billy opens Penny's final present, and finds out the truth about Penny, Tom, and the island. Not only that, but he manages to escape.]] The GoldenEnding, essentially.
** Anti-Box Ending: [[spoiler:Billy runs away from Penny's final present, attempts to kill himself, tries to kill Tom, and crosses.]] If Pro-Box is the GoldenEnding, then Anti-Box is the BadEnding. [[spoiler:Anti-Box is sort of a "what if" concerning Billy getting lucky with his victory, Billy taking a while to cross, and doesn't really make sense unless you know that plot twist from Pro-Box]].
* NecessarilyEvil: [[spoiler:Tom Nook undoubtedly acts like a JerkAss to Billy, but that's because if he did not, the other animals and Penny would do much worse than just that.]]
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: [[spoiler:What Billy does to Penny at the end]]. Chewbot states that he chose this because of how brutally raw beating someone with your fists is.
* NotAfraidOfYouAnymore: Billy mentally gives one [[spoiler: before he kills Penny]].
--> [[spoiler: "But Penny had made a mistake. She was used to ruling with fear and it had served her well for a long time. Penny never knew fear, herself. She didn't know it the way I did. She didn't understand that she was a virus and that every shot she injected me with built up my tolerance. This was her last shot and it was a big one, but it couldn't kill me. ''I was the vaccine.'']]
* OnlySaneMan: Billy is the only one in the series who isn't a deranged lunatic. [[spoiler: Tom Nook was one at one point before his wife went insane.]]
* PrecisionFStrike: Invoked ''many'' times, despite the fact that [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehaviour the narrator is only eight years old]]. [[spoiler:Though he's thirty years old when he's writing all this down.]]
* QuoteMine: There's an instance of this to make Tom Nook seem more evil. Of course, most of the screenshots and dialogue is taken out of context (for example, in one of the endings, [[spoiler:Mr. Resetti appears to chew Billy out for trying to drown himself when he's really yelling at him for resetting the game]]), and some of it is just Chewbot and other players sending messages that are clearly ''not'' what the game intended the system to be used for.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: Tom Nook, a few times. Subverted in that [[spoiler: he's a pretty decent guy, trying to help others avoid his and the rest of the island's fate]].
* SanitySlippage: You get better, but the guilt of what you did stays with you forever.
* ShoutOut:
** [[WhamEpisode Chapter 10]] is called [[VideoGame/{{Portal}} "Weighted Companion Box"]].
** Chapter 8 is called "Literature/HeartOfDarkness". While this seems to be a coincidence at first, in this chapter, [[spoiler:Tom Nook]] acts very similarly to Kurtz from the novella.
* ShutUpHannibal: [[spoiler:Billy kills Penny while she's going into detail about how she'll kill him.]]
* SirSwearsALot: Billy, who happens to be 8 years old.
* SmugSnake: Tom Nook, or at least how Billy sees him. [[spoiler: Of course it's subverted.]]
* SugarApocalypse: The islands where the story takes place: It seems like a nice island where you spend your days living with cute animals. [[spoiler: Until the gyroids mess with you psychologically as you turn into a fucked up mutant creature.]]
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Subverted in the final chapter. [[spoiler:See ShutUpHannibal above.]]
* TheEndOrIsIt: In the epilogue, [[FridgeLogic Billy wonders]]... If the [[spoiler: Gyroids turn humans into animals, ''what do they turn animals into?'']]
* TitleDrop: Of the original game. [[spoiler: Animal Crossing describes the transformation from human into animal.]]
* TownWithADarkSecret: All the human residents? [[spoiler: Yeah, they all turn into animals.]]
* TwoFaced: [[spoiler:Penny. The contrast between the "normal" side of her face and the rotted side of it where Billy's eye has replaced her own is used to emphasize the contrast between her saner and completely insane moments.]]
* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler:Why do you think they call it ''Animal Crossing?'']]
* WhamEpisode: Chapter 8 as well, because this is when Billy finds out, [[TheReveal among other things,]] that [[spoiler:Tom Nook WasOnceAMan.]]
* WhamLine:
-->'''Tom Nook''': [[spoiler:"I sent you those letters, Billy."]].
** And then later in the same conversation:
--->'''Billy''': [[spoiler:"Then... there's no Penny? She was never real?]]\\
'''Tom''': [[spoiler:"Oh, she's real alright. She's the one running this freakshow.]]
** Also, in the form of [[WhamShot the picture of that Billy pieces together:]]
-->'''Billy''': [[spoiler: "A [[PrecisionFStrike FUCKING]] ISLAND!??"]]
** [[spoiler:"Nook called it Animal Crossing."]]
* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: [[spoiler: The very last coda reveals that the story is actually an official transcript to the US government that Billy wrote. He is now almost thirty, has had intense psychiatric treatment, and has never returned home.]]
* WorfHadTheFlu: [[spoiler:It's revealed in the epilogue when Penny used Billy's eye to replace hers, her body actively rejected it because of Billy having a natural resistance to the gyroids effect, leaving her weakened and half-rotten by the time we finally see her. Billy wonders if he would had been able to defeat her had she been in her prime.]]
* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:Penny doesn't have any regrets in taking the parts out of human children who crossed into animals, or in the case of Billy, his human eye.]]
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