[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/title_screen_square512_1_1108.png]]

->''"Hello? ... Young? HEY! Listen, you are about to wake up…''"
-->-- ''Unidentified Voice''

''Anodyne'' is a 2D, Top Down ActionAdventure indie game developed by Marina Kittaka and Sean Hogan during their last years in college. The game was released on February 4, 2013.

Players take the role of a white haired human named Young who awakens in a strange world simply called The Land. Young is approached by a cloaked man named Sage, the village elder and is told he needs to save the [[MacGuffin Legendary Briar]] from the [[BigBad Evil Darkness]]. But all is not what it seems and you don't know who you can really trust..

''Anodyne'' takes clear inspiration from ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' series. Players will explore a huge, nonlinear world filled with very strange locations and people. There are various PlotCoupons you need to obtain by exploring the world and completing dungeons. You'll collect keys, complete puzzles and other ActionAdventure hallmarks.

What sets this game apart is the visuals, tone and atmosphere. The game's tone ranges from tense and frightening, to strange and surreal, to melancholic and sometimes very beautiful.

Anodyne can be purchased directly from the [[http://www.anodynegame.com/ official website]] for $9, and it also available on Platform/{{Steam}} for $9.99. Interestingly, Kittaka and Hogan themselves have uploaded the game onto Pirate Bay, making it available for free, so one may essentially pick one's price.

The same duo, under the name Analgelsic Productions have gone on to create two more games, ''VideoGame/EvenTheOcean'', and a sequel, ''[[VideoGame/AnodyneTwoReturnToDust Anodyne 2: Return to Dust]].''

Compare to ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening Link's Awakening]]'' and ''VideoGame/YumeNikki'', which the game creators have cited as inspiration.
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!!The game provides examples of:
* OneHundredPercentCompletion: Interestingly, 100% completion is considered to be getting all the main game cards, fairies, and broom upgrades; you're not actually required to fight the final boss to get the 100% achievements.
* AcidTripDimension: The Land. Some places are trippier than others.
* AllJustADream: [[spoiler:Only you never wake up.]]
* AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield: Against the final boss.
* AnachronismStew: The Land's technology ranges from medieval to modern, depending on where you happen to be.
* AscendedGlitch: The intended way to get the secret post-game [[spoiler:49th card]] is to exploit a glitch where you rapidly shuffle back and forth between two horizontally connected screens while holding UP. A sign after the [[spoiler:49 card gate]] even praises the player for "trying new things".
* BigBad: The Evil Darkness is the mysterious entity that Young must save the Legendary Briar from. [[spoiler:The endgame heavily implies that the Darkness ''is'' [[LivingMacGuffin Briar]], actually Young's EvilFormerFriend.]]
* BigDamnHeroes: Played with. Mitra shows up dramatically in the late game just in time to [[spoiler:help you hold down a switch]].
* BigLabyrinthineBuilding: Two of them, the Apartment and the Hotel.
* BrickJoke: The gates "sense your cards and decide to open." The final gate in the main game [[spoiler:is altered by the Sage to require 92 cards, far more than the game actually contains. Despite his efforts the gate "decides" to open anyway]].
* CallARabbitASmeerp: Most animal enemies are named after what they are (Dog, Lion...), however bats are called [[GoddamnedBats Annoyers.]] (But still called "bats" on some other cards).
* ChosenOne: Young, apparently.
* CircusOfFear: The Circus, though players may be forgiven for initially mistaking the place for a generic cavern.
* ClicheStorm: InUniverse, several characters describe what [[spoiler:Sage]] tells Young as this. Most of them are statues.
* CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption: One of the dungeons requires you killing an innocent bystander to enter. Most players will accidentally do this by walking up to them and using the attack / action key to attempt to talk to them.
* DeadpanSnarker: The tree-like statue that always accompanies (and ridicules) the Sage.
* DeliberatelyMonochrome:
** [[spoiler:Young]] Town. The entire town looks like you're looking through a staticky television. It sounds like it too.
** A few of the post-game hidden areas use the effect as well. [[spoiler:Specifically the archives, as well as a section of BLANK.]]
* DevelopmentGag: The post-game [[spoiler:ARCHIVES and Debug Room contains beta sprites and, well, the debug room. The last card you get in the Debug Room also makes a pun off of the very early title, Intrast]].
* DungeonCrawling: Par for the course from a Zelda inspired ActionAdventure game.
* EldritchLocation: The Nexus, Space, the Red Sea, and the postgame areas.
* EnemyRollCall: During the credits roll, after the Special Thanks section, the game lists its entire Cast of enemies and [=NPCs=] alongside their sprites.
* EvilFormerFriend: It's implied that [[spoiler:Briar and Young were friends until something happened between them (hence the snowmen who rant about friendship), turning Briar into the [[BigBad Evil Darkness]]. [[HeelFaceTurn They go back to being friends in the ending]]]].
* ExploitingTheFourthWall: In an odd example where Young actually crosses the fourth wall, in the post-game location [[spoiler:The Archive]], Young can reach a house which is implied to be [[spoiler:his own, particularly because his card can be found within.]] If the player exits the house properly, the game abruptly quits to title without saving -- with Young effectively exiting the game.
** This is particularly amusing because if the player decides to quit the game at ''any time'', this is where Young 'wakes up', and the player in turn heads south to close the program. In that short vignette, you can ''see'' the chest, but without the Swap tool, you can't get there.
* FacelessEye: The Manager, the (literal?) boss of the Hotel. A giant floating eye that appears in various areas of the hotel and gains a spider-like body in the second phase of the fight against him.
* GainaxEnding:
** After receiving 36 cards, [[spoiler:Sage tries to stop you from going to The Briar, saying you aren't ready. He even fights you, but you overpower him. Then you have to do two relatively easy levels, one in which there are snowmen that tell you how friendship is an illusion and die, and another that lights on fire suddenly. Then, Briar is revealed to be a person. It fights you, then it teaches you how to swim, then you go off to get a sandwich. CREDITS ROLL]].
** In addition, the [[spoiler:secret "ending" for collecting all 49 cards and passing the 49 card gate. Instead of an ending, you're greeted with a 50 card gate (which can not be opened, even if you cheat in 50 cards), and a computer featuring a mostly unreadable email questioning something unknown and asking Young to wake up]].
* GogglesDoNothing: Young, though it isn't clear if they're goggles or unusual looking glasses.
* GuideDangIt: Some of the secrets, like the white square, the blue square, and the green square, are ridiculously difficult to find on your own.
* HellHotel: The Hotel, naturally. Collapsed floors, flooding, demonic maids, monsters and traps everywhere, and the less said about the Manager the better.
%%* HeroicMime
* HeroicSacrifice: Near the end of the game, [[spoiler:Young]] pulls one to save ... [[spoiler:Wares, Mitra's bicycle]].
* HurricaneOfPuns: The Slime card is a good example.
-->Jello there, Young! So goo to flanly meet you! Why don't you set for a minute? I was just pudding on some tea!
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Young is armed with a broom, which is even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by the Sage when you show him your prize.
* InnBetweenTheWorlds: What the Hotel is supposed to be.
* InterfaceScrew: The green gases of the Gasguys (the yellow exterminator-type enemies in the Hotel) reverse the player's controls for a few seconds. Especially annoying when you're near ledges.
** If the player glitches [[spoiler:or uses the swap tool]] to get out of map bounds, random graphical elements rapidly flash all over the place, overlaying the entire game (including the menus) until the player gets back in bounds. This is deliberately programmed in to spoof similar occurrences in 8-bit era games resulting from overflows, but it's completely harmless in Anodyne.
* LivingShadow: The Shadow People in [[spoiler:Young]] Town. Just run.
* MindScrew: Several locations, such as [[spoiler:Young]] Town and Space, the dialogue you receive from the bosses, and the main character's name Young (pronounced like [[UsefulNotes/CarlJung Jung]]), hint at a deeper underlying meaning.
* OrcusOnHisThrone: Played with. According to the Sage, it's ''very important'' that Young obtain the Briar because the forces of The Darkness will be coming ''any second now.'' [[spoiler:There is no evidence of this ever happening, and all of the various evils that you fight seem to have independent causes. There is, in fact, no evidence in the game that The Darkness even exists.]]
** [[spoiler:[[FridgeBrilliance Unless the Evil Darkness is]] ''[[FridgeBrilliance Briar]]''-[[MetaphoricallyTrue you're saving Briar from]] ''[[MetaphoricallyTrue themselves.]]'']]
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: The Cube King lampshades that he rules over nothing.
* PunnyName / StealthPun: The orange fishman says on his card something to the effect of "Leave me alone! My second name is not Sachs!" [[spoiler:the end credits cast roll reveals that he's named Goldman. Get it?]]
* RealityWarper: [[spoiler:The last broom power-up Young finds is named Swap, and is used only to swap colored tiles to complete a puzzle before the two final areas. However, after defeating the final boss, Young can use it to ''swap almost every graphic tile in the game'', essentially warping the fabric of his own world, for example by putting terrain in place of water, void, walls and so on. This ability is used to find secrets in the normal and post-game areas]].
* {{Retraux}}: Most of the game is in 16-bit, except for the appropriately-named 8-Bit Dungeon.
* SecretLevel: ''Plenty''.
* ShoutOut:
** In addition to the ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening'' and other adventure game references, several of the secret areas and items provide references as well. [[spoiler:For instance, there is a mini-dungeon featuring music and sprites from ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIssac'', and secret items such as Missingno and a heart from ''VideoGame/AnUntitledStory''.]]
** There's [[http://imgur.com/bxucohn a hidden]] ''VideoGame/MegaManClassic'' in the background of one boss fight.
* SinisterScythe: The weapon of choice of the Slashers.
* SuperDrowningSkills: Young slowly sinks in water and drowns if he's there for too long. Most of the time, riding on dust clouds is how he gets around it. [[spoiler:The ending shows that this is an actual character trait and the Briar has to teach him how to swim.]]
* TakeThat: Combined with a ShoutOut. The [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Link]] {{expy}} is seen perpetually hacking a bush to provide money for his family. While it is a funny reference to the Zelda games, where Link usually found rupees by destroying vases and bushes, the references to "bush cutting" and poverty can be construed as a reference to the economy cuts made by the Bush administration.
* UndergroundMonkey: The Slimes in the later dungeons look identical to ones found earlier but possess an annoyingly accurate projectile.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: You need 36 cards to complete the game, but there is a 37th card available if you [[spoiler:track down a fishman after you've scared him and clean up his house as an apology]].
* WaitingPuzzle: One of the secrets requires you to stand still while a rabbit inches from one side of the screen to the other. It moves absurdly slowly, so you have to wait for about [[spoiler:almost two whole hours]].
* WarpZone: All the areas of the Land except the very first are linked together relatively mundanely, but the Nexus provides a ''much'' faster way to get around (and indicators to tell you whether you've finished looting a given area).
* [[WhamEpisode Wham Level]]: [[spoiler:Young]] Town. It hints at some pretty dark secrets about [[spoiler:Young]]. It's also one of the most overtly frightening areas in the game.
* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: Discussed by the fishman, who directly accuses Young of siding with the cats because they're cute and fuzzy.
* WhatTheHellHero: Crickson calls you out for (of all things) scaring the other rabbits in the forest.
* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Young's weapon is an ordinary broom. There are various broom and dust related puzzles throughout the game.
* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: InUniverse, the NPC in the first section of the city waxes poetic about the cityscape and the lights, comparing the lights and the people to stars in the sky.
* YouAreNotReady: The Sage. Repeatedly.
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