Looks like a perfectly normal RPG to me.
Ever Play This Game (also styled as everplaythisgame) is a work of unfiction, created by Tumblr user campyvillain
and launched on November 23rd, 2021. Hosted on Tumblr, the story follows a man named Ron as he chronicles his experiences with a mysterious video game (titled "Nerves") he found in his mother's attic, which appears to be in some way possessed by another character, Ranvier. Ron interacts with both Ranvier and with another Tumblr user going by "Alex", who seems to know something about the game.Things go off the rails very quickly.
The series ran from November of 2021 to January of 2022, at which point it went on hiatus for several months. In June of 2022, it was announced that the series would be receiving a Lighter and Softer reboot, later revealed to be called Plainview, and that the original story would not be continuing.
The original everplaythisgame blog can be found here, although a lot of material for the story is found on another blog.
Ever Play This Game provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: Alex/Axon. His gimmick is love, and when they're first introduced they seem friendly and genuinely willing to help Ron... until he kidnaps Ron, and it's later revealed that they're likely responsible for most of what's been going wrong in Frayzend.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Zig-Zagged.
- Most of the characters can be defined as A.I.s in some capacity, and most of them are perfectly fine.
- Ranvier and Alex/Axon, though, are more unpredictable, threatening, and even actively malicious (especially in the case of the latter).
- Definitely played straight with the false President.
- all lowercase letters: Message 9 is written this way.
- All There in the Manual: A lot of information about the series was provided on the creator's Tumblr, Twitter, or in the Discord server for the story, including Angel's name, the President's design, designs and sprites for most of the characters, and that Cerebelle's mom was possibly responsible for attacking Maxilla.
- Alternate Reality Game: At least at first, the series frames itself as though it's actually happening to Ron, and acts as though he's a real person posting about his experiences. While it becomes increasingly obvious that the story is fictional as it goes on, the audience was still able to interact with the story even later on.
- Amusement Park of Doom: Maxfun.
- Animal Motifs:
- Chameleons for Ranvier.
- Horses for Alex/Axon.
- Wolves for Larynx / President's brother, going by the most common interpretation of The Bold Man and the Wolves. They could also be considered as a motif for Axon under the same interpretation.
- Berserk Button: Be a general menace to society and Mr. Maxilla won't care, but go after children and you'd better be ready to book a luxury villa in hell.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Mr. Maxilla spends most of his introduction mocking King Birthday with nonsensical riddles, turning into various shapes, and generally taking the situation with as little gravity as possible. He also threatens Battenberg with a gun and is responsible for possibly hundreds of deaths.
- Big Bad: King Birthday. Alternatively, Axon.
- Bittersweet Ending: The everplaythisgame blog itself ends on what’s pretty much a random post, but the note the ranvieranvieranvier blog leaves off on is surprisingly sweet. It ends with Mr. Maxilla affirming that Ranvier is his own person, and with them finally starting to believe it.For the first time, it feels like her anchor of hate has been lifted.If only for a little bit.
- Some later art expands on their friendship more.
- Body Horror:
- Mr. Maxilla. While most of the characters exhibit some level of Toon Physics, Mr. Maxilla takes it to the extreme, to a point where it's actively distressing for other characters to see. This is because of an attack he experienced prior to the beginning of the story, which led to him being able to assume inhuman shapes.
Mr. Maxilla: bodies don't curl, dear president. bodies don't curl.- Ranvier is capable of entirely removing her eyes.
- Cartoon Creature: While a lot of the characters are identifiable as being based on some sort of real-world animal, many of them are entirely ambiguous.
- Cast Full of Gay: Most of the cast is LGBT, especially factoring in the characters who had their sexualities confirmed in the reboot. Many of the characters use gender-neutral pronouns or use multiple sets.
- Ranvier and the President are both confirmed bigender and use several sets of pronouns, and are aromantic and gay respectively. Mr. Maxilla is confirmed to be a gay transgender man. Mayormom has a bisexual flag on her mug. Iris uses they/them pronouns, and Pupil uses it/its. Even Axon is confirmed nonbinary and uses he/they. And those are just the characters who show up in the ARG proper…
- Cigar Chomper: The President.
- Classy Cane: Maxilla has one. Turns out, it's a gun.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Bastion (as well as Axon and Ranvier) has their own text color representing them. These also line up with Tumblr’s default colors.
- Out of the ones that had a chance to appear: Axon is green, President and Ranvier are both pink, Maxilla is light blue, and Thalamus is purple.
- Cosmic Plaything: Arguably, the President.
- Creepy Circus Music: Can be faintly heard through the wall in the Zone. Justified: Maxfun is an amusement park, after all.
- Creepy Good: Mr. Maxilla is depicted as incredibly unnerving, at least at first- but he's also the closest thing to a comforting presence Cerebelle has for much of the story.
- Cursed with Awesome: Maxilla is in constant pain, but being able to essentially shapeshift can come in handy and has helped in the story.
- Cuteness Proximity: King Birthday, upon seeing a poster of Shlubby, has to have Battenberg convince him that he's still evil (after he experiences Cuteness Overload)King Birthday: That… is… the… CUTEST IMAGE OF A CAT I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE! I JUST WANT TO PET IT… AND LOVE IT… AND TELL IT HOW LOVELY AND ADORABLE IT IS AND… BONK ITS SILLY LITTLE HEAD TOGETHER WITH MINE AND GIVE IT TRINKETS AND TOYS AND
- Dark and Troubled Past: Mr. Maxilla. It comes back to bite him in the ass.
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The fragments of the Wish.
- The Dragon: Battenberg.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In early art of Maxilla and the President, their relationship is much more antagonistic.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Angel. They only have two proper lines in the story, but the fanbase has latched onto them nonetheless. Given that they’re the only surviving member of the Birthday Troop after New Years, they were likely planned to play a larger role later down the line.
- Face Framed in Shadow: Ranvier and President.
- Fairytale Motifs: castletalearchive.
- The Birthday Troop have a few of their own.
- Axon also seems to have some knight theming going on, given their armor and horse motifs.
- Fake Memories: Gambling Man's entire personality? His backstory? His appearance? All invented by Ranvier to give Maxilla a shot at happiness.
- Foreshadowing: Why does Maxilla have such an aversion to Shlubby? Because he sealed the false President inside.
- That also explains why Shlubby eats the sludge found around Maxfun. The sludge is the remains of the people the false President killed, and the false President eats people.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Axon.
- Harmful to Minors: Cerebelle faces the bulk of this and witnesses (and partakes in) a lot of traumatic stuff, but Pupil also deals with it a bit.
- Made worse by the fact that, while Cerebelle is seemingly around twelve or thirteen, Pupil is eight.
- In-Series Nickname: Sarah Belle for Cerebelle.
- And Pizza Rolls/Party Rocker/PR, for a bit.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Gambling Man.
- Killer Robot: The False President.
- Madness Mantra: Happy birthday President!
- Missing Mom: Cerebelle's mother is kidnapped by the Birthday Troop, leading to her going over the wall.
- Mood Whiplash: On December 31st, a short comic was posted to the everplaythisgame blog, featuring King Birthday becoming enamored with a Shlubby poster. Shortly after, the normal update resumed, featuring the return of "Booboo Wheel", Cerebelle taunting King Birthday with his love for cats, and Maxilla ultimately succumbing to his guilt and sacrificing himself to the void in order to finally stop the False President and King Birthday, earning the update the
Fan Nickname "the New Years Tragedy". One of these things is not like the others. - Orphaned Series: Ever Play This Game in its original form stopped updating in January 2022. It was officially cancelled in June of that year.
- Overly Long Name: Max Maxwell Maxine Maxilla. Somehow, it's longer in Plainview.
- Parents as People: Mayormom genuinely seems to want what’s best for Cerebelle, but ultimately ends up being overprotective and stifling. Couple that with the possibility that her past isn’t as spotless as it may appear, and it’s pretty clear she isn’t exactly meant to be a paragon.
- Not that I’d blame her, either, given how the world outside Wheresville (especially Maxfun) is.
- Parody: Shlubby is one of Garfield. He loves alfredo, hates weekends, and has his own comic strip in-universe.
- Power Trio: Cerebelle, Iris, and Pupil.
- Replacement Goldfish: The false President is one for the real thing.
- Rotten Robotic Replacement: The false President. “Rotten” might be an understatement, given the scale of carnage it’s responsible for.
- Sanity Slippage: The unread messages are a pretty clear example, culminating in a lengthy and disjointed message that mostly just consists of "Happy birthday President!" repeated over and over.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Mr. Maxilla and the President both are wearing suits in their sprites. President also overlaps with The Fashionista in some art.
- Theme Naming: All the characters (with a few exceptions) are named after body parts. Whether this is overt (Iris, Axon, Larynx) or slightly better hidden (Cerebelle, Mandy Bill, Ranvier) depends on the character.
- Trapped in TV Land: Ron, after Axon kidnaps him.
- Villainous Harlequin: Battenberg.
- White Bunny: Cerebelle. In fact, her palette is entirely grayscale.
- World of Funny Animals: Most of the characters are animals in some way, or at least resemble them. Many of them, though, are ambiguous as to what kind of creature they exactly are, and a few characters (notably the President and Larynx) almost look human.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Just as things start to look up for Mr. Maxilla, the events of Christmas Eve and New Years play out, and everything comes crashing down.
