History Creator / ZapDramatic

* CatSmile: Duke Crabtree, unintentionally due to being OffModel.

* HeroesWantRedheads: Yale and Angie.

** The games often fail in their goal to teach you anything about negotiation, in the fact that nobody really comes to an agreement on anything. You mostly just end up telling people what they want to hear, or offering decisions that really make no sense. Episode 9 of ''Ambition'' even allows you to sit back and let ''someone else'' do your work.
** ''Ambition'' seems to excuse Ted's atrocities just because he's the supposed victim of an immoral wife. Despite the fact he ''tried to blow up an office building and essentially commit a mass murder''. Made worse by the fact that, in a psyche evaluation after he's caught, despite how much he clearly demonstrates otherwise, you are supposed to write him off as perfectly sane.
*** They try to explain off the above example by saying that Ted was under the effects of a drug that made him unstable, however, Ted never expresses any real remorse for the action (in fact, he tries to justify strapping a bomb to himself and holding up an entire office building as something anyone would do). And later, while in his 'sane' state of mind, he continually does extreme things like threatening or even enacting violence against people who act under the impression he might be a touch crazy (threatening Angie in the intro to part 3 and beating the player character to death whenever they fail the actual interrogation), escaping police custody ''multiple'' times, and forcing you to help him by holding you at gunpoint, claiming he has nothing to lose.

* CallBack: A minor one in episode 10, when the first day of the trial ends with the player getting into an elevator with a pair of burka-wearing Muslim women, who end up as victims in an attempt on the player's life. At the end of the second day, a Muslim man shows up at the courtroom asking Jim if he's seen his wife and daughter.
* CardboardPrison: Ted escapes from police custody ''twice'' over the course of the series. Bridget even calls the police out on their incompetence when the second one happens. It's bad enough that [[spoiler: if you double-cross Duke on Day Three of the trial after he threatens you, the power to the courtroom is cut and the blame is pinned on Ted escaping again.]]

* TrialAndErrorGameplay: Is pretty much a staple of the series, but most notable in Episode 10. When the player is walking out to his car, the only way to survive is to decide that your car has a bomb in it and go back to take a taxi instead. The thing is, ''there is absolutely no way to know this'' aside from trying to it once and dying.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In one of the game over scenarios in Episode 1 of Ambition, Ted asks you to feed his dog Bingo before detonating his bomb and blowing himself, and (presumably) everyone else in the building, to HELL! First of all, this raises the question of who will feed Bingo since the person Ted told to feed him has been killed. Secondly, Bingo is not mentioned at any other point in the game, so it's not known what happened to him.

** In ''Move or Die'', [[spoiler: Mrs. Grimm and her butler]] are taken to jail, but [[spoiler: the nursing home guy]] is not. Perhaps he was to return in the future installments of the series, which never came to fruition.
*** Presumably he couldn't be arrested at the time because he's [[OffscreenInertia still out on the highway,]] searching for that dropped envelope...

** Ted Hartrup appears as a math teacher in another game. Said game also includes Angie's neighbour as a vice principal, and someone who looks can notice Angie's coworker as her apparent assistant.
** The bailiff from episode 10 plays a history teacher in [[http://www.zapdramatic.com/swf/sportethics.html "The Track Meet"]] and [[http://www.zap.ca/pike/ "Sir Basil Pike Public School"]] as well as a supervisor at a consulting firm in the [[http://www.zap.ca/casestudy1.htm Professionalism and Ethics Simulation]]. Murray Farmer from that last simulation also makes cameos in episode 10.

* CardboardPrison: Ted manages to escape from prison not once, but twice. In one of Episode 10's game overs, it is stated that he escaped a third time, but it is unknown if he actually did. [[spoiler: Justified, as it is stated that Ted is repeatedly allowed to escape so that he can be framed for murders committed by the villains.]]

%%* DaChief: Superintendent Frank Crabtree.

*** They try to explain off the the above example by saying that Ted was under the effects of a drug that made him unstable, however Ted never expresses any real remorse for the action (in fact, he tries to justify strapping a bomb to himself and holding up an entire office building as something anyone would do). And later, while in his 'sane' state of mind, he continually does extreme things like threatening or even enacting violence against people who act under the impression he might be a touch crazy (threatening Angie in the intro to part 3 and beating the player character to death whenever they fail the actual interrogation), escaping police custody ''multiple'' times, and forcing you to help him by holding you at gunpoint, claiming he has nothing to lose.

* SaltAndPepper: Two examples. Yale and Helen, Yale and Angie.

* TheChessmaster: The best outcome for the girl's plot makes you into an AlphaBitch version. You volunteer to be the one girl in the clique who doesn't get to go to a popular girl's party, make the other girls feel sorry for you, and then get them to abandon the party altogether so they can spend time doing something else with you instead. The conclusion is that [[MagnificentBastard you get the other girls to blame the mom hosting the party]] for limiting the guest list to three people instead of four.