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Lets Play / Spike and Barley Play

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Meeeeeester Maaaaaan!

Spike and Barley Play is a Let's Play series on YouTube starring the titular Spike and Barley.

The series began with GoldSrc and Source related horror mods like Nightmare House 2 and Afraid of Monsters and eventually began playing other horror games such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent as well as a slew of non-horror selection of games. The series gained a cult following since the beginning early in 2011, until the two parted ways over a dispute and started playing separate from each other, Spike creating his own comedic Let's Plays called Sass Patrol with Shadow, his long time Real Life friend, while Barley went solo with some of his own friends. Since then they have reunited and made up to create videos without a schedule.

A recurring theme in their videos is a bunch of verbal tics, to the point that it is hard to find a video where at least one isn't present.

    Games that they have played 

Tropes appearing in this tiny series of lil' ol' videos are:

  • Abandoned Hospital:
  • Aborted Arc: A couple of playthroughs are never completed, to list some: Silent Hill, Doom3: Resurrection of Evil, Portal2 and Dead Island.
  • Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: In some portions of the Amnesia: The Dark Descent episodes. Just like anyone else.
  • Artifact Name: In the earlier playthroughs of their Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut series, Barley referred to David Leatherhoff as "Zombie hoff."
  • Artificial Stupidity: Sjas from their Ghoul's World (Part 1), keeps accidentally flying into the house and then running into the fireplacenote . This is lampshaded by Spike and Barley:
    Spike: Look! It keeps exploding in the fire!
    Barley: Fuckin' stupid thing!
  • Bait-and-Switch: David does this during Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut Finale (Part 2) by having a TV play the Luxembourg Polka. The duo remark that the game is nice and they like it... Little did they know it was the song of a numbers station and they get creeped out by the voice generated from a Stasi "Sprach" machine.
  • Befriending the Enemy:
    • They seem to have a fondness towards some of the enemies they face. Such as 'Charles', 'Mr. Struts' and 'Old Yeller'. Old Yeller being one of the least friendly for obvious reasons.
    • David Leatherhoff from their Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut, on a few occasions, he spares them. Which may show his fondness towards the duo. To be fair, Coccyx is playing David in their playthrough.
  • Black Comedy Rape: Played straight at the end of the Garry's Mod map: Hell's Resort. Spike remarks that it made the sewer monster run away from them.
  • Blatant Lies: In Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut (Part 13), Barley hears David swing a knife, he asks if Spike swung his knife:
    Barley: "Dude... Did you just swing a knife?"
    Spike: "Yes."
    Barley: "You did?"
    Spike: "Yeah, see."
    Spike swings his knife
  • Big "NO!": They've let out many of them. A notable one is from Barley playing F-Zero.
    Barley: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-oh... I have one more lap.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: Colina's developer was Portuguese and the game was poorly translated into English. The reading of the notes was at first frustrating to Barley but then this happened:
    Barley: "I heard a horrible noise in the room dinner!" HAAHAHA! The "room dinner"?!
    Spike: I think they meant dinner room!
    Barley: It's not even dining room!
  • Brick Joke: In one of their parts of Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut.
    Spike: "I'm gonna cut your face off and wear it."
    Barley: "Don't cut my face off!"
    Spike: "I'M GONNA CUT IT OFF!"
    Barley: "DON'T CUT IT OFF!"
    Later, after Spike has pulled Barley's character into a ladder rope and hops on top of him.
    Barley: "Really, Spike?"
    Spike: "Eeeeyup!"
    Spike laughs
    Spike: "I cut your face off."
  • Bullying a Dragon: Spike annoys David Leatherhoff several times. In Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut (Part 9), Spike knifes the barrier between him and David.
    Spike knifing the barrier that's blocking David
    Barley: "I don't think that's gonna work."
  • But Thou Must!: At one point, Barley asked the people watching whether he should fetch Renny, who was stuck scared at the spawn, or leave without him. Everybody told Barley to leave Renny behind. The next clip is Spike dying and being forced to bring back Renny with him.
  • Car Fu:
    • Most of the Test Drive Unlimited 2 video (and some from Lost Levels II) involve the duo chasing and crashing into each other.
    • Spike tried "ATV Fu" on a deer in Hunting Unlimited 2008 and it killed him instead.
  • Catch-Phrase Spouting Duo: Both Spike and Barley spout out the strangest things, but notably recurring ones include "Lil' Ol' man!" "You tiny man." "Mister man!" "Laugh it up!" and "GET THE FUCK!". "Free Willy/Willeh!" exclusive for Spike.
  • Creepy Basement: In Under Hell.
  • Cool Car: Test Drive Unlimited 2, Barley has a Ford GT, Spike drives a Lotus Esprit S3 and igorek228 drove a Buggatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport that Barley couldn't push off the road.
  • Cryptically Unhelpful Answer: In their Q&A episode, one of the questions they answered was "Have you mistered a man before?" Barley was utterly confused, so Spike answered "I'm pretty sure that's when a man of the mister misters a man."
  • Cuckoo Snarker: The two are eccentric but like to snark at games or each other.
    • In Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut (Part 12), Barley snarks at Spike while he taunts David by knifing a door.
      Barley: Yeah, you keep taunting him, dude. That's gonna work out great for you.
    • In Ghoul's World (Part 2), after Barley claims that nothing can get them in the secluded room:
      Spike: You're funny. The Door's open.
  • Dirty Coward/Lovable Coward: RennyB, a guest in a few of Spike and Barley's videos, tends to be a total wuss when playing scary games, which the individual viewer may find lovable or annoying.
  • Downer Ending: Lost Levels II (supposedly) ends with Barley uninstalling GTA IV, and removing Chris from his friends list in frustration.
  • The Dreaded: David Leatherhoff throughout Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut, and he can do far worse compared to what he can do on a regular AOM server.
  • Game-Breaking Bug:
    • SCP – Containment Breach tends to suffer many memory access violations, Spike even once fell through the floor into nothing before crashing.
    • Mission Impossible 1997 on the N64 crashed Spike's emulator and produced several incredibly loud screeching beeps. To be fair, the video gave a fair indication of it.
    • Something happened to their Skype call during Lumber Island that reduced the other party's voice to a series of pops and hisses for several minutes.
  • Genre Savvy: Both Spike and Barley are relatively up to snuff about things the games might throw at them.
  • Griefer: Spike during their let's play of Portal 2 co-op mode, to deliberately make the game longer, and because it's funny. Here's a minor example.
  • Hell Is That Noise:
    • A lot of the noises David Leatherhoff emits.note 
    • The noises in Silent Hill disturb Spike multiple times. Part 5 is when Spike is at one of his most freaked out. The caption even states: "This is where Spike is really gets freaked out as highlighted by his lack of words."
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: They bicker, they troll and they laugh at each other so the audience can get their laughs out of their poor cooperation skills. They still (mostly) pull through in the long run, even if it's a long, miserable run through hell and back.
  • Hiccup Hijinks: Grand Theft Auto IV (Part 3), he hiccups every time before he can even laugh and results in him nearly suffocating when Spike starts crashing into everything at high speeds.
  • The Hyena: Barley doesn't just laugh, he screams.
  • Hysterical Woman: Both of the times Spike, Barley, and Renny played on gm_ghosthunt, Renny's character model was a woman.
  • Intentional Engrish for Funny: This happens in the 2000 Subs Video, when Barley reads one of them out:
    Barley: "Why is sexy such as-, what is that."
    Spike wheezes
    Spike: "Why is sexy such as Barley?"
    Barley giggles
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: Barley becomes this in Dead Island (Part 1), collecting an unnecessary amount of paddles.
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • Barley especially is fond of this. In the Skulltag Golden Eye Mod, Barley acknowledges the odd design of the shotgun.
      Barley: "The shotgun looks like a fucking 70's station wagon."
    • Another one is from Silent Hill (Part 1):
      Barley: "Always conveniently the phone and the radio."
    • Spike mentions the duration of their session in Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut (Part 9):
      Spike: "Something that should only take fucking 5 minutes is taking us a goddamn hour."
  • Laser-Guided Karma: In Doom³, Spike kills barley with an explosive barrel. And then a Trite attacks him.
  • The Nicknamer:
    • Many of the more common characters they face get nicknamed. Listing them all here would take unnecessary space, but the more notable ones include:
      • The wheelchair zombie from Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut is named 'Charles.' He is later used as a censor image and part of one of their intros.
      • The Servant Grunt and Brute from Amnesia: The Dark Descent were called 'Mr. Struts,' and 'Anti-Struts,' respectively.
      • In SCP – Containment Breach, no doubt that SCP-106 would get the nickname of Little Old Man. SCP-137 got the nick 'Peanut', naturally.
      • Harry Mason from Silent Hill is nicknamed 'Mr. Sub,' since they went along that he is a substitute teacher.
  • Noodle Incident: Since the videos are recorded from Barley's perspective, Spike will usually get into some kind of trouble after Barley looks away for a few seconds. For example, the Mothman video where Spike pops the front tires and breaks the headlights in the 20 seconds Barley takes to walk to the mission objective.
  • Not So Stoic: Spike starts out making fun of Barley when he only had to watch him play Amnesia: The Dark Descent. When they both start playing at the same time, Spike loses his composure.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Spike is the defiant, wild, and impulsive Red Oni to Barley's more rational and controlled Blue Oni.
  • Running Gag:
    • There are certainly some, one to note is in Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut with Spike bringing up Barley's boots.
      Spike: "Your lil' ol' boots."
      Barley: "They're not little, they're like size 12."
      Spike: "No, they're lil' ol' boots."
    • "Barley Is Dead" is one done by David Leatherhoff, though it's more like Arc Words.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: Most of their videos have a warning for strong language.
  • Straight Man: Often, Barley will play the straight man. Spike is great at hitting out of the park when it comes to punch-lines.
  • Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Spike shows his fear of this numerous times, all because of The Grudge. Starting with Nightmare House (Part 1), he expresses how the setup is reminiscent of the film:
    Spike: "Dude! This atmosphere is reminding me of the grudge, and I hate that fuckin' movie!"
  • Suspicious Videogame Generosity: From the beginning of Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut, they both get pistols.
    Barley: "Oh I got a gun!"
    Spike: "That's not good."
  • Tempting Fate:
    • This has happened a few times.
      • Here's one from Afraid of Monsters: Director's Cut (Part 2):
        Spike: "Be careful when you open that door, dude."
        Barley: "What is it gonna be a zombie?"
      • Spike knifes the door that was emitting horrifying noises, nothing happens:
        Spike, knifing the door: "Hey. Hey Mr. leather-man. Hey."
        Beat
        Spike: "No one's home, dude."
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: If their Portal 2 co-op videos are any indication.

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