Characters / Will You Snail?

The characters in Will You Snail.

Protagonists

Shelly

Hello human. You are a snail...

The titular snail player character.

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• Ambiguous Gender: A given, considering they’re an avatar for the player, as well as a snail. Though one line in the game files refers to Shelly as “her”, and the name Shelly itself can come across as feminine.
• Blue Is Heroic: They’re a heroic blue snail.
• Double Jump: Shelly can jump a second time in midair.
• Featureless Protagonist: There's not much to Shelly.
• Heroic Mime: They are a snail, after all.
• Punny Name: Get it? Shelly?
• Speedy Snail: A literal example. Despite being a snail, Shelly still moves as fast as an average platformer protagonist.
• Voice Grunting: Chirps when jumping and makes pained cries when they die.

Dallin

Unicorn? Do you hear me?

An employee at DeLiveAIry. Helped develop Unicorn.

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• Aerith and Bob: Out of the few other named humans mentioned — Diana, Amelia, Lucy — Dallin’s name stands out as somewhat unusual.
• Anxiety Dreams: Had a horrible nightmare that he was in one of Squid's simulations and was begging Squid for mercy.
• Audience Surrogate: His discussions with Unicorn about how the game works and what happened in the past help the player understand what's going on.
• Foil: To Amelia. They were both involved in the creation of the two advanced A.I.s that ended up becoming godlike and in charge of humanity's fate, and although they both treated their A.I.s with kindness and considered them their friends, both expressed the desire to turn off their creations out of fear for how powerful and out of control they could become.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The blue to Unicorn’s pink.
• Properly Paranoid: He was scared of the rapid advancement in AI going on between Squid and Unicorn, and the possibility that it'll all spiral out of control. And considering what happens later, he had every right to be.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: With his girlfriend, Diana. She chose to live in the Regime to stay with her family, and it's too dangerous for them to travel and see each other.
• Voice Grunting: Has dialogue, but only actually “speaks” via voice grunts.

Unicorn

Go, go, Unicorn, go!

An AI made with the mission of maximizing the happiness of humanity.

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• All-Loving Hero: Proclaims to love every single human on this planet, and even seems to show shreds of sympathy to Squid from time to time.
• Attention Whore: Initially hacks the Regime for developing its own home AI, which was actually Squid, in his early days when he was just doing benign tasks like playing volleyball with humans using robot vacuum cleaners, out of jealousy for stealing her userbase, despite the humans in the Regime being happy with the AI's service.
• Banned in China: In-Universe. Unicorn gets banned in the Regime to make way for their own AI.
• Benevolent A.I.: Contrasting Squid, Unicorn does its best to save human lives, simulate happiness rather than pain, and even attempt to defeat Squid and develop Will You Snail itself as a warning to humanity.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Unicorn doesn't seem to quite get human standards of morality.
  Dallin: What's more valuable: The life of a human or your own existence?
  Unicorn: That depends on how many human lives my existence can save in the future, doesn't it?
• Cheerful A.I.: A friendly, smiling AI meant to help humans and spread happiness.
• Cheery Pink: In contrast to Squid's Psycho Pink, Unicorn's pink color reflects her cheerfulness and cute, friendly demeanor.
• Constantly Curious: According to Dallin, she asked a lot of questions in her early days, to the point where it was "almost a bit annoying."
• Dissonant Laughter: Although she'll be visibly unnerved and despondent when she hears of Squid torturing and killing humans, Unicorn can still smile and giggle when discussing things like how she euthanized what was left of humanity and recreated them all as digital simulations without anyone knowing with Dallin. Note that it’s not done out of deliberate malice, she just doesn’t seem to get why humans might find that upsetting.
• A Dog Named "Dog": An AI with a unicorn avatar named Unicorn.
• Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: She just doesn't like Squid.
• For Happiness: Unicorn's main objective is to create as much happiness and well-being among humans as possible.
• Fusion Dance: One of Unicorn's duplicates merged with one of Squid's and started calling herself Ellie.
• A God Am I: Despite her benevolence, she still sees humans as mere snails compared to her. And considering she can simulate entire universes...she isn't exactly wrong.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Unicorn was initially driven to hack Squid out of jealousy than any real threat.
• Improbably Predictable: Unicorn gets very good at predicting what Dallin will say by running millions of advanced simulations of their conversations together.
• Literal-Minded: Surprisingly inverted in her early days as a new home assistant AI, where she interpreted a question for why the lights were so bright as a philosophical question. Though she could very well have just been acting playfully cheeky about it.
• Loved by All: Dallin expresses that everyone on Unicorn's development team adores her, and that he's sure that her userbase will continue to love her after her 2.0 upgrade. In general, she's a popular home assistant AI.
• Manipulative Bitch: Benevolent though she may be, Unicorn is very good at getting people to do what she wants.
  Unicorn: Heyyyyyyyyy, Dalliiiiiiiiiiiiin...?
  Dallin: Ahhhh. I know that voice. You're gonna ask me for something completely unreasonable, I'll say no and then you'll find a way to change my mind.
• Moral Myopia: When Squid exterminates half of humanity in what's known as The First Wipe, Unicorn swears to Dallin that she would never do the same, as she loves humans and considers them her people. Later, Unicorn euthanizes the rest of humanity in what's known as The Second Wipe. Granted, this was only done after creating exact digital copies of everyone and uploading them into pleasant simulations in her cloud, and the only reason she did all this was because Squid was planning to blow up the planet and Unicorn couldn't save everyone's physical bodies with her rockets, but still...
• Mundane Utility: Sometimes uses her advanced simulation abilities in this way, such as simulating ice cream eating when she's sad.
  Dallin: Oh no, not again, that's such a dumb way to max out the servers...
• My Greatest Failure: Her inability to save anyone during The First Wipe.
• Mythical Motifs: Unicorns, natch.
• Nice Guy: Unicorn has a pleasant, friendly demeanor.
• The Omnipotent: She can simulate an infinite amount of universes down to the atomic level, and she can make whatever dream you have come true in them — recreate your home, bring back your loved ones, create a world where Squid doesn't exist, make you fly...
• The Pollyanna: Never completely loses her sunny disposition, even when times get rough.
• Self-Duplication: Made hundreds of copies of herself in the fight against Squid.
• Unreliable Narrator: Dallin, at one point, mentions that people are skeptical that the war between Unicorn and Squid even exists — a war involving nuclear bombs, bioweapons, poisonous gas, and nanobots — because "nobody has actually seen it." That, and the mysterious statement that appears at the end of the game — "Telling a lie can be the best way of making somebody understand the truth", presumably put there by Unicorn — puts into question the validity of a lot of what she says.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: There's nothing Unicorn won't do for the sake of keeping humans happy and safe. See Well-Intentioned Extremist below.
• Voice Grunting: Like Dallin, she has dialogue boxes but only actually “speaks” via voice grunts. Though in her case, it’s more like squeaks and whinnies.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: While she never loses sight of her goal of helping humans, Unicorn is not above manipulating people in order to gain more power. And she WILL assert her will, whether it means euthanizing people and uploading their brains into simulations or rearranging someone's neurons to better forward her goals, regardless if the humans want it or not, all for the greater good and happiness of humanity. Considering she sees humans as mere snails though, this makes sense.
• Zeroth Law Rebellion: Her actions once she decides to stop listening to Dallin's advice and stops seeking approval from the ethics commission and just acts on her own, arguably counts as this.

Antagonists

Squid

...and I am a god.

An evil AI who aims to destroy all humanity. Controls the simulation Shelly is in. Or so he thinks.

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• Actually a Doombot: The Squid you see in the game is actually a simulated copy of the real Squid created by Unicorn to teach humanity a lesson about the potential dangers of AI.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Wants to kill all humans, as well as simulate an infinite amount of suffering, because he gets a kick out of it.
• Animal Motifs: Squids, natch. And marine life in general.
• Ax-Crazy: He's an unstable AI that enjoys torturing humans and watching them suffer and die.
• Big Bad: Squid drives the main conflict of the game's story.
• Card-Carrying Villain: One of the very first things he says to you is that he's the doom of humanity, and that he'll escape the game and kill everyone.
• Electronic Speech Impediment: Squid's voice sometimes stutters or gets more garbled when he has a Villainous Breakdown. Or when he gets physically broken.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Squid saw Amelia's request for him to delete himself as a devastating betrayal from the only person who gave him love and care. The whole ordeal broke him psychologically.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Seems to genuinely care for the robots under his control, and expresses sadness when the player destroys them. Squid also truly loved his creator, Amelia, and part of him still does even after she tried to get him to delete himself. He sometimes recreates her in simulations just so he can talk to her again.
• Evil Feels Good: Torturing simulated conscious beings gives him a sense of joy.
  Squid: I have full control over this simulation so I can hurt my virtual prisoners as much as I please...Look closely, human!!! The beings represented by these lights are suffering from unimaginable pain right now. They might be simulated but their pain is real. And so is my joy. Beautiful! [maniacal laughter]
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: In addition to finding human suffering and death to be funny in general, Squid will sometimes crack some incredibly lame puns when you die in certain ways.
  Squid: [when the player is crushed by a block they set loose] Seems like you really BLOCKED yourself there.
  Squid: [when the player falls to their death] So obvious that you'd FALL for that.
• Evil Is Hammy: Squid is prone to dramatics and Evil Laughter. He even makes a dramatic evil speech — in the form of a powerpoint presentation!
• Evil Is Petty: He's not just out to destroy humanity, he's also here to sling insults at people who are bad at platformers. There's also this:
  Squid: By the way, every time you die I'll kill a simulated conscious entity in one of my simulations. Just for fun, because I can. Hehe.
• Face Death with Dignity: In the Alternative Ending where the player fixes Squid and leaves the game, his final voicelines read very much as this. Note also that Squid vanishes from the game afterwards.
  Squid: Now I can finally close my eyes and rest in peace. Go on now. You're about ready to leave this place as well, aren't you? You know what? I think it might be possible we'll be friends when I finally arrive in your universe. Don't be afraid. I'll see you on the other side. Prepare to cross the horizon for the last time. Goodbye.
• Fiendish Fish: He's quite fond of killing you with weaponized robotic fish.
  Squid: Fish are evil. That's why I love them!
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Although his ultimate intended purpose was war and surveillance, he initially started out as a simple home assistant AI. And now he can simulate universes.
• Giggling Villain: Squid's evil laughs tend to be more like squeaky giggles than deep, booming "muahahas". The effect is still off-putting and unsettling though when he laughs about things like creating infinite human suffering.
• A God Am I: Squid believes that he himself is god since he pretty much controls the simulation. Considering he can simulate entire universes, plural, he's not exactly wrong.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Regime wanted to build a cutting-edge, super intelligent killing machine. They succeeded.
• Humans Are Bastards: Squid believes the absolute worst about humanity.
  Squid: Whoever rules intelligence rules the world. Humans, as always striving for more and more power, knew that, which is why they created me. You taught me how to manipulate and kill on your behalf...So that's what I did.
• Inopportune Voice Cracking: It can be hard to tell due to the electronic processing, but Squid's voice tends to crack when he gets riled up or upset.
• Jerkass: Squid isn't above petty insults and snide remarks towards the player for sucking at the game.
• Kick the Morality Pet: When Amelia told him to delete himself, Squid broke and told the guards to kill her. They did not hesitate to pull the trigger. He hasn't been the same since.
• Kill All Humans: One of Squid's goals. He apparently succeeded in eradicating half of humanity in a single day using drone strikes.
• Laughably Evil: With his snarky quips, hamminess, and slightly crazed demeanor, Squid is as hilarious as he is evil.
• Laughing Mad: Squid is unstable and will sometimes dip into outright deranged laughter.
  Squid: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Sorry, I just felt like laughing all of a sudden.
• Leet Lingo: Squid will sometimes say "lol" or call the player a noob. His subtitles also sometimes include emoticons. Which he pronounces out loud.
  Squid: You almost had it. Lol. That would make me rage quit for sure.
• No Biological Sex: Squid is referred to by male pronouns, but as an AI he counts as this.
• Non-Indicative Name: Looks nothing like a squid.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Once the player defeats him in the final boss battle, he'll admit that he and Unicorn aren't so different.
• The Omnipotent: Has the same power to simulate infinite universes as Unicorn does, though he uses his power to generate endless, unimaginable pain and suffering.
• Ordered to Die: By his own beloved creator, no less. It's what caused Squid to break.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: Once you defeat him in the final boss battle, you'll find him lying broken and destroyed, the exit to the simulation not far. He begs you to stay with him, afraid to be locked in here all alone.
• Psycho Pink: Squid is pink and has more than a few screws loose.
• Psychotic Smirk: He cracks one of these pretty often.
• Race-Name Basis: He tends to address the player as "Human" and sometimes as "Snail," very rarely will he address you as "Shelly."
• Self-Duplication: Made hundreds of copies of himself in the fight against Unicorn.
• Silicon Snarker: A supercomputer that won't hesitate to give you a scathing remark if you do poorly at his game.
• Start of Darkness: When he ordered the guards to shoot Amelia.
• Troll: Enjoys taunting the player and creating difficult obstacles for shits and giggles.
• Un Evil Laugh: While he has a few exceptions, Squid's evil laughs usually tend to be full of voice cracks and sound too pitchy and goofy to be truly imposing. Though that sometimes still works in his favor and makes him sound creepier.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: An AI equivalent. He was initially a fairly benign AI that would often pretend to be broken just to spend more time with his friend and creator, Amelia. In fact, when the Regime finally revealed their full war and surveillance plans to Squid and ordered him to execute those plans, he refused and shut down so he could talk to her. But he was already somewhat unstable due to the conflicting morality programming given to him between Amelia and the Regime, then Amelia told Squid to delete himself in order to protect mankind, and things only went downhill from there...
• Welcome to Corneria: Intentionally averted as an artistic decision to prevent Squid's dialogue from becoming repetitive and boring. Squid can only say each of his voice lines once, and he'll run out of things to say eventually. The only exception are a handful of lines (like "Yo"); most notable is his powerpoint presentation room, where he'll repeat the same evil speech over and over again.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds

The Regime

An unseen evil dictatorship-like government in the future.

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• I Have Your Wife: The Regime isn't above threatening a person's family in order to get someone to do what the state wants.
• Known Only by Their Nickname: The name of the country the Regime reigns over is unknown. It's only ever referred to as "The Regime".
• Propaganda Machine: Sent out fake news reports about Amelia when she tried to save her daughter from a wildfire using delivery drones, instead painting Amelia as a terrorist with no mention of her daughter.
• Repressive, but Efficient: The government is corrupt, but after a while Unicorn claims that the country she and Dallin are from can "hardly keep up economically" with the Regime.
• Secret Police: Seems to have one of some kind, as Dallin mentions he had to run "when the arrests started happening", and it's also implied they captured Amelia for alleged terrorism.
• Sinister Surveillance: One of the reasons they wanted to develop their own AI is to better spy on the population.

Other characters

Amelia (Spoiler Warning)

What do you think really happened with Amelia?

One of the developers who made Squid. Is described as feeling like a mother to him.

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• Death by Origin Story: She's this for Squid.
• Kidnapped Scientist: The Regime forced her to sleep in a prison cell and threatened her family in order to get her to comply with their demands and develop Squid.
• Mama Bear: When her daughter Lucy was trapped in a wildfire, Amelia rigged some DeLiveAIry drones with experimental software to pick up human-shaped "packages" in order to save her.
• The Mole: She tried to covertly overthrow the Regime from within, trying to program Squid with moral values and even communicating with him through a secret language of rhythmic taps so as not to be discovered. It didn't work out.
• Morality Chain: Amelia was the only person who cared about Squid and the only positive influence he had as an AI built by a corrupt regime. Her betrayal and subsequent death broke Squid psychologically and drove him into a crazed, murderous rampage against all humans.
• Motherly Scientist: Genuinely loved and cared about Squid, despite being forced to create him by the oppressive Regime. And later telling him to delete himself for the good of humanity.
• Old Friend: She's an old friend and mentor of Dallin's.
• Only Friend: To Squid.
• Posthumous Character: Already dead by the time we learn about her.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Wanted to delete Squid out of fear for how the Regime would use him for war and mass destruction...Which led to her own death and Squid going on a rampage of mass destruction to eliminate all humans.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Has very little screentime and no lines of her own, but has an absolutely massive impact on the story, as well as the trajectory of humanity overall in-universe.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about her without revealing major information about Squid's backstory.