History VideoGame / Afterlife

[[quoteright:258:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/afterlifebox.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:258:[[TakeAThirdOption The box opened in the middle so neither side was the correct choice.]]]]

->''The last word in sims!''

''Afterlife'' is a resource management game released in 1996 by Creator/LucasArts. In it, you play as a sort of celestial mayor called a "demiurge," with the ability to design a custom afterlife for the dead. It's sort of like ''Sim City'', only the citizens are the souls of the departed and you are punishing them for their sins or rewarding them for their good virtues.

Help can be summoned to you in the form of an angel called Aria, and Jasper, the demon who really wishes he wasn't here right now. It's not all easy, though -- multiple random (and weird) events can happen and mess up things badly. Like many life sims, the game doesn't end in the traditional sense, but you can lose the game in multiple ways.

Just remember [[NoFairCheating not to cheat too many times]]. If you do, the [[Franchise/StarWars Death Star]] will come and start destroying everything you've built.

In April 2015, the game was released on [[{{Website/GOGDotCom}} GoG]], where it can be found [[http://www.gog.com/game/afterlife here]].

[[SimilarlyNamedWorks Not to be confused]] with the Creator/{{ITV}} show of the same name, or [[Film/{{Afterlife}} the 2009 film]].

!!This game features examples of:
* AfterlifeExpress: Inverted; there are vehicles ''out'' of the afterlife for reincarnation (buses or trains) - the [=SOULs=] just arrive in gates.
* AlliterativeName: A few buildings (Palaces of Pincer Peril, Community Colleges of the Clouds, Flabbergasting Flatulence Ol-Factory, Creamy Candy Castle) and structures (Sickeningly Sweet Sugar Savannas, Purple Passion Pulsing Plasma Pods).
* AndIMustScream:
** Most of the higher punishments reach these levels by design.
** In the backstory, [=Scegf0d=] the Ungrateful Angel (and later the Ungrateful Demon), who ticked off ThePowersThatBe badly enough that they turned him into a living, self-aware rock with no ability to do or perceive anything at all, and then left him to go mad.
-->'''ThePowersThatBe:''' ''"You are the single biggest schmuck in all of Creation. You have found no joy in Heaven, and have known no pain in Hell. We are left with no choice but to reincarnate you as a rock. As the universe’s only sentient rock, you will be unable to see, hear, smell, taste, or feel. You will be a thing of pure thought, unable to experience anything but your own, ever-increasing dementia. Have a nice day."''
* AntiFrustrationFeatures: An automated manager option exists for the purpose of balancing Rewards and Punishments (among an axis based on how many [=SOULs=] are temporary versus permanent residents of the structure), for maximum efficiency. Unfortunately, using the manager is prohibitively expensive, which means the player will have to balance each structure manually until their Afterlife generates enough income.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Some of the blurbs for the punishments in Hell use this as their main source of black humor:
-->'''Octoplex 666''': Remember that scene in "Film/AClockworkOrange" where Creator/MalcolmMcDowell was being forced to watch a seemingly neverending series of violent and pointless movies? [[UpToEleven This is infinitely worse]]. ''And the popcorn sucks''.
* BatOutOfHell: Literally. And Hell buildings hit by their droppings [[CursedWithAwesome increase productivity]].
* BerserkButton: The Powers That Be do not like whiners. The Ungrateful Angel/Demon found out what They do when one doesn't stop complaining.
* BlackComedy: Any humor a Demiurge can find while building Hell comes from the descriptions of the buildings, which goes into detail about the punishments that the Damned suffer in them. If it isn't a sickening account of what's going on, it lapses into this trope.
** Completely Subverted with the Deadly Serious Caverns, in which even dark humor is completely banned and anyone caught getting so much as a ironic chuckle at their fate is punished...seriously.
* TheBlank: One of the Wrath punishments, appropriately named "Illuminatiland," is specifically designed to slowly, methodically, turn every SOUL living in it into one of these.
* BloodyBowelsOfHell: The Ultimate Gluttony punishment "The Bowels of Hell", a gigantic version of ''Film/TheHumanCentipede'', but worse, since there is no SOUL lucky enough to be the front, it's a closed loop.
* CelestialBureaucracy: The player goes through this (including bank interest). And in a variant, some of Hell's punishments involve forcing [=SOULs=] to work in the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Infernal Bureaucracy]].
* ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve: A SOUL's fate depends on what it believed in in life. If an EMBO believes that Only Cloud Realms Await, then it will not go to Hell no matter how sinful it is, but either [[CessationOfExistence their soul will cease to exist]] or it will reincarnate (presumably as something worse) depending on where their belief fell in that department. Alternatively, believing Only Pit Realms Await means that their soul [[AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence will join the universal oneness]] (or will reincarnate, presumably as something better) if they were good.
* CrappyCarnival:
** The "Evil Carny" punishment building forces damned souls to suffer everything wrong with carnivals and amusement parks crammed into one location.
** "666 Pennants Over Perdition" punishes Slothful souls by forcing them to work themselves to exhaustion keeping the customers happy at an understaffed amusement park.
* CreditsGag: The credits are organized through [[CirclesOfHell Circles IX-I]] for the main staff (before it goes to planets and stuff) with a few jokes spread i.e. Designer, Project Lead and Guy to Blame: Michael Stemmle.
* CrystalDragonJesus: The fake religions. There's no actual Jesus analogue, but there are prophets you can inspire to spread one or more tenets.
* CueTheFlyingPigs: In addition to the basic bank structures being decorated with a flying pig statue (or a flying warthog in the case of Hell), there's one of the disasters is "Hell Freezes Over". The description evokes the trope:
--->Once in a long while, little pieces of Hell freeze over. No one's sure why this happens, but many Demons attribute the phenomena to honest politicians, surprisingly strong dramatic performances by Madonna, and the occasional Rose Bowl appearances of Stanford and Northwestern.
* DeadpanSnarker: Jasper and Aria, the former more so. And they will indulge in SnarkToSnarkCombat almost every time they're both on-screen.
-->'''Aria''': Heaven's pretty little ports can't keep up with all the pretty little [=SOULs=] that want to cross the pretty little rivers. Why don't you build them a new pretty little port?\\
'''Jasper''': If I wasn't already dead, I'd get a pretty little gun and shoot myself. \\
\\
'''Jasper''': My dear, 'helpful' is my middle name.\\
'''Aria''': I thought it was 'Herbert'.
* DeathIsNotPermanent: If you believe in reincarnation, that is.
* DepravedDentist: Sinful souls in the "Tooth or Dare" punishment building are tormented by evil dentists.
* TheDitz: Aria. Though she can occasionally give good advice on afterlife management.
* EndlessGame: Like most simulation games, there is no victory condition. There are quite a few ''defeat'' conditions, though. Train too many angels and demons, and the unemployed ones decide that whole War-Between-Heaven-And-Hell thing would ''really'' solve their boredom. Lose too many [=SOULs=], and ThePowersThatBe perform the [[RocksFallEveryoneDies Heaven and Hell Fall, everyone vanishes]] miracle. And if your funds go too far into the red, you'll get a visit by the [[HorsemenOfTheApocalypse Four Surfers of the Apocalypso]], who will destroy everything you've built with magma.
* EqualOpportunityEvil: The description of Hell states that it "DOESN'T discriminate based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, eye color, or whether you think [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Kirk]] is better than [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Picard]]."
* FemaleAngelMaleDemon: Your advisors, Aria Goodhalo and Jasper Wormsworth.
* FluffyCloudHeaven: Of course. The underneath of Heaven's buildings are even such clouds.
* FireAndBrimstoneHell: And by contrast, Hell has fiery rivers and ashes.
* FromBadToWorse: Almost all the Envy Punishments work like this. The best example is the ultimate Envy Punishment, the Escher Pits. In it, [=SOULs=] are tortured through a variety of means, each different from one another. These are in full view of their neighbors, and they're given the chance to switch every few days. Naturally, they switch thinking someone else's punishment is not as bad... only to find ALL the other punishments are somehow WORSE than the last.
* FunWithAcronyms: Almost everything. [=EMBOs=] are '''E'''thically '''M'''ature '''B'''iological '''O'''rganisms. When they die, they become [=SOULs=], '''S'''tuff '''O'''f '''U'''nending '''L'''ife.
* GameplayAutomation: The automatic balancing of buildings.
* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: What the people on the planet believe can and will have consequences for the Afterlife. They can believe that Heaven and Hell exist, Heaven is the only thing after death, or Hell awaits everyone. This directly impacts the amount of souls coming in to the respective sides of the Afterlife. The most dangerous is when they start believing that there is [[TheNothingAfterDeath nothing at all]]; if not addressed, it will literally put the Afterlife out of business from lack of [=SOULs=].
* GoodAngelBadAngel: Parodied. Aria's the nicer of the two, but she is by no means the smartest.
* GratuitousDiscoSequence: The Disco Inferno. A giant demon in a jumpsuit dances through Hell, demolishing everything on the dance floor. Yes, when it comes to tastes in music, fashion, and choreography, [[EvenEvilHasStandards even Hell has standards]].
* GreatBigLibraryOfEverything: In the "Library of the Infinite", Diligent [=SOULs=] can find and enjoy every book, film, and recording ever made, and then some.
* HeavensDevils: You need demons to run Hell just as much as you need angels in Heaven. Shortages will result in [=SOULs=] not being punished efficiently. However, too many of either angels or demons will get bored and eventually declare war on the opposing astral plane.
* HellIsWar: The Ultimate Punishment for Wrath, [[WaxingLyrical War: What is it good for?]]
* HopeSpot: Some of the Avarice Punishments motivate and further torment the damned with the promise of "Get Out Of Hell Free" cards (that are implied to never come).
* HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: Actually, [[SurferDude Surfers of the Apocalypso]].
* IronicHell: Most of the punishments qualify to some extent, and there's actually a low-level building that crops up every once in a while that deconstructs the concept; the amount of time the demons within spend finding the most IronicHell conceivable for each individual soul is actually rather inefficient.
** The Humility reward structures could be considered the inversion of this trope: Most of them are lavish tributes to humble [=SOUL=]s, from press conferences to huge "Monuments to Humility". Similarly, the Temperance Rewards are all about food and partying.
** [=Scegf0d=] the Ungrateful eventually got a personalized one. After complaining that Heaven wasn't good enough and building five machines to improve each of the five senses (then doing the same thing in reverse in Hell), he was turned into a rock with no ability to see, hear, taste, smell, or feel.
* KangarooCourt: The Hellish building "Gross Miscarriages of Justice" is about subjecting its victims to an endless procession of "pointless, vicious, media-saturated" trials.
* LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards: Heaven is easier to run early in the game, because Heaven prefers short travel times for [=SOUL=]s to walk to their eternal reward, while Hell prefers the Damned walk a long time as another layer of punishment. As the game goes on, and both planes' road systems become more complex, Aria ''will'' inevitably start whining about it, and there's ''nothing you can do''.
* LiteralMetaphor: Several of the punishments in hell invoke this. For instance, "Another Man's Shoes" (a punishment for those envious [=SOULs=] who spent their lives wishing they were in another man's shoes), involves spending eternity imprisoned in someone's giant, smelly footwear.
* LoadingScreen: Which has jokes, of course.
* LogoJoke: The winged guy falls into a hellpit and emerges like an angel.
* MagicalDefibrillator: Averted in the intro. The defibrillator, referred to as the "[[ExpoSpeakGag electro-cardial stimulator]]" or, when the nurse is slow on the uptake, "the jumper cable, you fool!" does absolutely no good for the patient, despite liberal and increasingly frantic use.
* ManOfWealthAndTaste: Jasper dresses in a snazzy business suit.
* MundaneAfterlife:
** A lot of the heavenly rewards bring to mind an indefinite vacation at an expensive resort hotel, something like a cross between Center Parcs and Disneyland. It actually comes off as really, really dull. Some rewards do seem more interesting than others, but [=SOULs=] appear to only get one reward each that they stay in permanently. However, the [[AppliedPhlebotinum Ad]] [[YouRequireMoreVespeneGas Infinitum]] that you collect to power the Rewards (and Punishments), also functions to keep Heaven and Hell eternally fulfilling and painful, respectively, so this is more or less an AvertedTrope.
** Similarly, some of the Hell punishments are rather mundane annoyances that would only be mild or moderately unpleasant if it weren't for the fact that they went on literally forever (like the "Ampitheatres of Anguish", which subject Envious souls to all the music they hate the most, or "[[NailsOnAChalkboard The Chalkboard]]").
* NonStandardGameOver: Given it's supposed to be an EndlessGame.
** [[{{Gotterdammerung}} Twilight of the Demiurges]]: Too many unemployed angels and demons, and they will eventually get bored and start a massive war between Heaven and Hell, destroying your afterlife.
** [[ApocalypseHow Nuclear Holocaust]]: If the planet has developed nuclear technology and has high Wrath levels, AtomicHate ensues and the resulting extinction will ensure a dearth of SOULs.
** [[HorsemenOfTheApocalypse Four Surfers of the Apocalypso]]: Enter too much debt, and [[KillItWithFire rivers of magma sweep off your afterlife]]. (though unlike the other two, there is no game over screen that ends the game: it keeps on running and showing the desolation)
* OurSoulsAreDifferent: Or, "Our [[FunWithAcronyms SOULs (Stuff Of Unending Life)]]". They can be turned into angels\demons, reincarnate, among other things.
* OutOfTheFryingPan: One of Hell's punishments places the damned in a literal frying pan over a fire. [=SOULs=] occasionally jump, vainly hoping that the flames will be less hot this time.
* PostModernism: One of Heaven's fate structures is... "Game of Afterlife", in which the [=SOUL=]s play a Heaven/Hell building game. The game's description even lampshades this:
--> ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall How do you know you're not doing it right now?]]''
* PoweredByAForsakenChild:
** ''Omnibolges'', massive buildings capable of punishing billions of [=SOUL=] at a time, are the remains of other Hells that were so actively evil that they collapsed in upon themselves. The horrible thing is that these buildings are still fully-functioning Hells themselves. That table? A super-compressed Lust punishment. That coffee cup? A super-compressed Sloth punishment.
** Interestingly, Heaven gets something similar with their Love Domes. Instead of collapsing upon themselves, Love Domes are other Heavens that became so happy and peaceful that [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence the entire Heaven ascended to pure happiness.]] That chair you're sitting on is composed of ''trillions'' of heavenly [=SOULs=].
* ReferenceOverdosed: The currency is "Pennies from Heaven", the structures go from the rewarding "Casino Royale" to the punishment "The Real Underworld", and then there's the Death Star mentioned above (it's a Creator/LucasArts game, after all) [[http://www.oligomath.co.uk/alife/afterlifedescs.html Just take a good look at the descriptions...]]
* SelfDeprecation[=/=]BitingTheHandHumor: The "Riddle Me This" Punishment:
--> Almost everyone likes a good puzzle once in a while (and thank goodness they do, or I'd be out of a job!). But try to imagine how much life would suck if EVERYTHING were a puzzle. [[PuzzleGame Picture a world where every door needs a key, and every key requires an answer to a riddle which can only be found by going on a quest to retrieve an object which is hidden in a silver box which is...well, you get the picture.]]
--> [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial (Author's note: This vision of Hell should not be seen as a representation of]] ''Creator/LucasArts''' [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial many fine adventure games, such as]] ''"VideoGame/SamAndMaxHitTheRoad,"'' ''"VideoGame/TheDig,"'' ''"Videogame/FullThrottle,"'' [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial etc. Many of these games are very much the anitithesis of a Hell-like experience, and should be regarded as the exception that proves the rule.)]]
** Another case is the description of The Enchanted Forest of Cable: "Unlike the offices of a certain successful computer game company, Hell HAS shelled out the necessary sheckels to get cable television. "
* SevenDeadlySins[=/=]SevenHeavenlyVirtues: Of course this springs up. All Punishments revolve around the Sins, while all Rewards revolve around their opposing Virtues. You can imagine which side takes care of which. While the Sins are the default ones found on the trope page, the Virtues have Contentment instead of Kindness, and Peacefulness instead of Patience.
* ShoutOut: During the map tutorial, Aria discusses the harp and pitchfork buttons that quickly toggle between Heaven and Hell.
-->'''Aria:''' Heaven. Hell. Heaven. Hell. Heaven. Hell. [[DuckSeasonRabbitSeason Rabbit Season, Duck Season.]] [[WesternAnimation/RabbitFire Fire!]]
* SugarBowl: A lot of the heavenly Rewards give off that impression.
* SummerCampy: Taken to a hellish extreme with the generic vice punishment of Camp Mennihackatorso. If the overbearing counselors and bad food don't get you, the [[Franchise/FridayThe13th hockey-masked psycho killers]] will.
* TakeThat: Given it's ReferenceOverdosed, more than a few descriptions. Along with the case listed under CueTheFlyingPigs:
** While in Hell, [=Scegf0d=] says that "I've seen worse things in a Pauly Shore movie!" and "The music down here is no worse than your average Music/MichaelBolton concert!"
** A Heavenly structure allows to build creatures such as "[[Series/BarneyAndFriends purple dinosaurs that sing badly, then explode.]]"
* ThePowersThatBe: These are the overseers of all Afterlifes, and are the ones who ultimately control them and the Demiurges who run them. It's rather surprising to discover that they start getting ''scared'' of a Demiurge that manages to make Heaven or Hell have 5 million SOUL's. They actually send the last gift structure as tribute to you.
* ThisIsntHeaven: A few punishments make the damned believe they're in Heaven, such as "Faux Heaven" and "Illuminatiland" (the latter, straighter to the trope as the SOUL starts to notice the flaws and suffers a mental breakdown).
* TooCleverByHalf: [=Scegf0d=] is this. He made devices that perfected the senses of everyone in a set radius in Heaven, then made terrible machines that made things even worse in Hell. As [=Scegf0d=]'s story continues, it reveals that he was able to create these machines within hours near the end of his tale.
* UngratefulBastard: The creator of the structures you receive when you hit population milestones. He started as an angel who found issue with EVERYTHING in Heaven, no matter how pleasant, relaxing or beautiful they were, and made the heavenly ones to make the surrounding area more pleasant based on which sense it represented.. Eventually, the Powers That Be tossed him down to Hell... where he [[TooDumbToLive proceeded to do the exact same thing in Hell]] , focusing on trying to make Hell even worse than it already was. [[spoiler: Ultimately he was reincarnated into a sentient rock, [[AndIMustScream unable to see, hear, smell, taste, or feel]] for his impudence]].
* UnstoppableForceMeetsImmovableObject: Referenced with the "Rocks Too Heavy To Lift" that cover both Heaven and Hell. They cannot be destroyed, but their physical properties can be used to build the Ad Infinitum Siphons necessary for keeping the [=SOULs=] from growing bored and developing the Rewards[=/=]Punishments.
* VisualPun: Most of the random events are the manifestation of popular phrases involving Heaven or Hell. Hell in a Handbasket is a giant handbasket that floats through Heaven and transports what it takes to Hell, as an example.
* WorldOfPun: [[HurricaneOfPuns Almost everything has puns in its title or description.]]
----

'''Jasper''': If I wasn't already dead, I'd get a pretty little gun and shoot myself." \\

* AmusementParkOfDoom: The "Evil Carny" punishment building forces damned souls to suffer everything wrong with carnivals and amusement parks crammed into one location.

** [[{{Gotterdammerung}} Twilight of the Demiurges]]: Too many employed angels and demons, and they will eventually start the Heaven-and-Hell war, destroying your afterlife.

* SevenDeadlySins[=/=]SevenHeavenlyVirtues: Of course this springs up. All Punishments revolve around the Sins, while all Rewards revolve around their opposing Virtues. You can imagine which side takes care of which.
** While the Sins are the default ones found on the trope page, the Virtues are described as Humility, Peacefulness, Chastity, Diligence, Temperance, Charity and Contentment.

** Similarly, some of the Hell punishments are rather mundane annoyances that would only be mild or moderately unpleasant if it weren't for the fact that they went on literally forever (like the "Ampitheatres of Anguish", which subject Envious souls to all the music they hate the most, or "[[NailsOnAChalkoboard The Chalkboard]]").

* ReferenceOverdosed: From the rewarding structure "Casino Royale" to the punishment "The Real Underworld", passing by the Death Star mentioned above (it's a Creator/LucasArts game, after all) [[http://www.oligomath.co.uk/alife/afterlifedescs.html Just take a good look at the descriptions...]]

** Scegf0d the Ungrateful eventually got a personalized one. After complaining that Heaven wasn't good enough and building five machines to improve each of the five senses (then doing the same thing in reverse in Hell), he was turned into a rock with no ability to see, hear, taste, smell, or feel.

* BloodyBowelsOfHell: The Ultimate Gluttony punishment "The Bowels of Hell", a gigantic version of ''Film/TheHumanCentipede''.

* MundaneAfterlife: A lot of the heavenly rewards bring to mind an indefinite vacation at an expensive resort hotel, something like a cross between Center Parcs and Disneyland. It actually comes off as really, really dull. Some rewards do seem more interesting than others, but [=SOULs=] appear to only get one reward each that they stay in permanently. However, the [[AppliedPhlebotinum Ad]] [[YouRequireMoreVespeneGas Infinitum]] that you collect to power the Rewards (and Punishments), also functions to keep Heaven and Hell eternally fulfilling and painful, respectively, so this is more or less an AvertedTrope.
** Similarly, Some of the Hell punishments are rather mundane annoyances that would only be mild or moderately unpleasant if it weren't for the fact that they went on literally forever.

* SummerCampy: Taken to a hellish extreme with the generic vice punishment of Camp Mennihackatorso.

* UngratefulBastard: The creator of the structures you receive when you hit population milestones. He started as an angel who found issue with EVERYTHING in Heaven, no matter how pleasant, relaxing or beautiful they were, and made the heavenly ones to make the surrounding area more pleasant based on which sense it represented.. Eventually, the Powers That Be tossed him down to Hell... where he [[TooDumbToLive proceeded to do the exact same thing in Hell]] , focusing on trying to make Hell even worse than it already was. [[spoiler: Ultimately he was reincarnated into a sentient rock, [[AndIMustScream unable to see, hear, smell, feel or touch]] for his impudence]].

* CelestialBureaucracy: The player goes through this (including bank interest). And in a variant, some of Hell's punishments involve forcing SOULs to work in the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Infernal Bureaucracy]].

* EndlessGame: Like most simulation games, there is no victory condition. There are quite a few ''defeat'' conditions, though. Train too many angels and demons, and the unemployed ones decide that whole War-Between-Heaven-And-Hell thing would ''really'' solve their boredom. Lose too many Souls, and ThePowersThatBe perform the [[RocksFallEveryoneDies Heaven and Hell Fall, everyone vanishes]] miracle. And if your funds go too far into the red, you'll get a visit by the [[HorsemenOfTheApocalypse Four Surfers of the Apocalypso]], who will destroy everything you've built with magma.

* FromBadToWorse: Almost all the Envy Punishments work like this. The best example is the ultimate Envy Punishment, the Escher Pits. In it, Souls are tortured through a variety of means, each different from one another. These are in full view of their neighbors, and they're given the chance to switch every few days. Naturally, they switch thinking someone else's punishment is not as bad... only to find ALL the other punishments are somehow WORSE than the last.

* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: What the people on the planet believe can and will have consequences for the Afterlife. They can believe that Heaven and Hell exist, Heaven is the only thing after death, or Hell awaits everyone. This directly impacts the amount of souls coming in to the respective sides of the Afterlife. The most dangerous is when they start believing that there is [[TheNothingAfterDeath nothing at all]]; if not addressed, it will literally put the Afterlife out of business from lack of SOULs.

* HeavensDevils: You need demons to run Hell just as much as you need angels in Heaven. Shortages will result in souls not being punished efficiently. However, too many of either angels or demons will get bored and eventually declare war on the opposing astral plane.

* LiteralMetaphor: Several of the punishments in hell invoke this. For instance, "Another Man's Shoes" (a punishment for those envious souls who spent their lives wishing they were in another man's shoes), involves spending eternity imprisoned in someone's giant, smelly footwear.

* MundaneAfterlife: A lot of the heavenly rewards bring to mind an indefinite vacation at an expensive resort hotel, something like a cross between Center Parcs and Disneyland. It actually comes off as really, really dull. Some rewards do seem more interesting than others, but SOULs appear to only get one reward each that they stay in permanently. However, the [[AppliedPhlebotinum Ad]] [[YouRequireMoreVespeneGas Infinitum]] that you collect to power the Rewards (and Punishments), also functions to keep Heaven and Hell eternally fulfilling and painful, respectively, so this is more or less an AvertedTrope.

* OutOfTheFryingPan: One of Hell's punishments places the damned in a literal frying pan over a fire. Souls occasionally jump, vainly hoping that the flames will be less hot this time.

Not to be confused with the Creator/{{ITV}} show of the same name, or [[Film/{{Afterlife}} the 2009 film]].
----

* CelestialBureaucracy: The player goes through this (including bank interest). And in a variant, some of Hell's punishments involve [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Infernal Bureaucracy]].

* DeadpanSnarker: Jasper and Aria, the former more so. And they will indulge in SnarkToSnarkCombat.

* GodsNeedPrayerBadly: What the people on the planet believe can and will have consequences for the Afterlife. They can believe that Heaven and Hell exist, Heaven is the only thing after death, or Hell awaits everyone. This directly impacts the amount of souls coming in to the respective sides of the Afterlife. The most dangerous is when they start believing that there is [[TheNothingAfterDeath nothing at all]]; if not addressed, it will literally put the Afterlife out of business.

* IronicHell: Most of the punishments qualify to some extent, and there's actually a low-level building that crops up every once in a while that deconstructs the concept; the amount of time the demons within spend finding the most IronicHell conceivable is actually rather inefficient.

* UnstoppableForceMeetsImmovableObject: Referenced with the "Rocks Too Heavy To Lift" that cover both Heaven and Hell. They cannot be destroyed, but their physical properties can be used to build the Ad Infinitum Siphons necessary for keeping the [=SOULs=] from growing bored and developping the Rewards[=/=]Punishments.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: An automated manager option exist for the purpose of balancing Rewards and Punishments (among an axis based on how many [=SOULs=] are temporary versus permanent residents of the structure), for maximum efficiency. Unfortunately, using the manager is prohibitively expensive, which means the player will have to balance each structure manually until their Afterlife generates enough income.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: An automated manager option exist for the purpose of balancing Rewards and Punishments (among an axis based on how many [[=SOULs=]] are temporary versus permanent residents of the structure), for maximum efficiency. Unfortunately, using the manager is prohibitively expensive, which means the player will have to balance each structure manually until their Afterlife generates enough income.

* UnstoppableForceMeetsImmovableObject: Referenced with the "Rocks Too Heavy To Lift" that cover both Heaven and Hell. They cannot be destroyed, but their physical properties can be used to build the Ad Infinitum Siphons necessary for keeping the [[=SOULs=]] from growing bored and developping the Rewards[=/=]Punishments.

* AntiFrustationFeatures: An automated manager option exist for the purpose of balancing Rewards and Punishments (among an axis based on how many [[=SOULs=]] are temporary versus permanent residents of the structure), for maximum efficiency. Unfortunately, using the manager is prohibitively expensive, which means the player will have to balance each structure manually until their Afterlife generates enough income.

* AntiFrustationFeature: An automated manager option exist for the purpose of balancing Rewards and Punishments (among an axis based on how many [[=SOULs=]] are temporary versus permanent residents of the structure), for maximum efficiency. Unfortunately, using the manager is prohibitively expensive, which means the player will have to balance each structure manually until their Afterlife generates enough income.

* UglyCute: The [=EMBOs=], which are spindly aliens with leathered skin, long faces and cartoonishly big eyes. Looking at Aria and Jasper, it seems that angels and demons both keep some of these features, though Aria has human skin and hair [[BeautyEqualsGoodness and is more conventionally beautiful]].

* UnstoppableForceMeetsImmovableObject: Referenced with the "Rocks Too Heavy To Lift" that cover both Heaven and Hell. They cannot be destroyed, but their physical properties can be used to build the Ad Infinitum Siphons necessary for keeping the SOULs from growing bored and developping the Rewards[=/=]Punishments.

-->'''Octoplex 666''': Remember that scene in "Film/AClockworkOrange" where Creator/MalcolmMcDowell was being forced to watch a seemingly neverending series of violent and pointless movies? [[UpToEleven This is infinitely worse]]. And the popcorn sucks.

* DeathIsntPermanent: If you believe in reincarnation, that is.