Video Game / Amanda the Adventurer

Amanda the Adventurer is a horror game made in 2022 by jpgamedesign for a "Found Footage" Game Jam.

The Game Jam version, later dubbed the Pilot Episode, sees the player watching a series of VHS tapes of an old cartoon named Amanda The Adventurer. As the tapes go on, it becomes clear it's more than just a simple kid's show...

After the fourth update, jpgamedesign announced they partnered with DreadXP to make a proper full release of the game in 2023. The full version of the game was released on Steam on April 25th of that year.

Said full game has a bit more backstory to it: you play as Riley Park, exploring the house of their deceased Aunt Kate after inheriting it. Riley discovers a set of VHS tapes in the attic of an old 2000's show called Amanda the Adventurer, starring a brave little girl named Amanda and her trusty if shy friend Wooly. As Riley continues watching, they realize there are darker things lurking under Amanda's world, and are drawn to dive in further... whether they want to or not.

Pilot Episode can be played here, and the Steam page for the full release can be found here.

A sequel, simply named Amanda the Adventurer 2, was officially announced to be in development with a teaser trailer on October 19th, 2023.

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Pilot Episode contains the following tropes:

Pilot Episode Tropes

• Ambiguous Ending: The game goes straight to the credits after Amanda reveals her true form, leaving it ambiguous what she did to the player character, if anything.
• Art Evolution: The 1.4 update overhauls the framing device area into a full 3D Room Full of Crazy that can be walked around in.
• Berserk Button: Amanda gets angry if the player clicks or say something else than what she wants.
• But Thou Must!:
  • Choose the wrong answer enough times and you'll be forced to choose the right one. For example, click the wrong building enough times when Amanda tells you to go to a specific building and any other buildings will vanish.
  • In the secret tape, a previous holder of the tapes makes an attempt to destroy them upon Woolie's orders, but Amanda doesn't let him do so, manipulating his mind to force him to reconsider his choice.
• Control Freak: Amanda is very controlling and demands you follow her instructions to the letter, outright hijacking the game when you try to defy her. Notably, in the new update, when Woolie finds the courage to openly defy her and warns you to destroy the tapes, Amanda gets downright furious, briefly sporting one hell of a Nightmare Face before brutally killing him.
• Cowardly Lion: Woolie is very obviously terrified of Amanda. Nevertheless he puts his life on the line to warn you away from her at the start of episode 2. And gets killed for his troubles. In the new secret tape, however, he snaps after enough provoking and angrily shouts at Amanda, talking to you one last time to destroy the tapes and not let anyone else fall victim to them. However, Amanda still kills him for rebelling.
• Creepy Child: Amanda, to disturbing levels. Although the "child" appearance she takes is nothing more than a disguise considering she's an Eldritch Abomination.
• Death Glare: Amanda will give you a very intimidating one if you keep giving her wrong answers.
• Easter Egg: Typing "lamb" instead of "meat" at the butcher's shop nets you an extra tape before the third episode, which shows live-action stills of an outdoors area and a rack of (presumably) mutton. In Version 1.3, this is changed to a "Treasure Hunt" episode mixed with live-action footage. In 1.4, there’s a new addition to it, where if you type 2023, the tape will cut to a blue screen hinting of something to come in the year, well, 2023. Which is the full release of the game.
• Eldritch Abomination: Amanda. She seems to be able to control the reality inside the tapes so she can railroad the viewer, and in the final episode she pressures the viewer into "letting her in", causing her to reveal her true form of a spindly-armed, multi-eyed monstrosity.
• Expy: Amanda the Adventurer is one to Dora the Explorer.
• Fake Interactivity: Parodied; Much like Dora the Explorer, Amanda will sometimes stop the episode and talk to the audience, prompting the player to type in an answer or click on the screen. However, if you accidentally (or deliberately) get the answers wrong, Amanda will repeat herself until you get it right or she forces you to pick the right answer. In later episodes she reacts with increasing hostility to wrong answers.
• Foreshadowing: Amanda's true nature is alluded to in Episode 1, where after Woolie says that he's allergic to apples, her response is to brush off his concerns and tell him that you should never be afraid to try something new.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: You can see brief glimpses of the end credits for the first episode, which include messages ranging from amusing ("Huge McThankies from Alvin McSpankies") to ominous ("TURN THE TV OFF NOW").
• Kill the Cutie: Amanda's sidekick Woolie is heavily implied to have been butchered offscreen at the end of Episode 2. The secret tape, however, implies he suffered a worse fate for bravely taking a stand against her.
• Minimalist Cast: The only characters who show up onscreen are Amanda and Woolie, if you don't count the Featureless Protagonist.
• Must Be Invited: It's implied this is why Amanda has to force the player to open the door at the end. She gets angrier than usual if you refuse...
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Woolie attempts to warn you about something before the second episode starts. It's heavily implied that Amanda has him killed offscreen for this after the episode ends, as he seems horrified when Amanda tells the viewer to ask the butcher for meat and is nowhere to be seen in the next episode.
• No Plot? No Problem!: Inverted. There's nothing much you can do apart from watching the tapes and answering the questions Amanda gives you. You can get them wrong, but if you do one too many times, she will force the player to choose the correct answer.
• Oh, Crap!: Woolie is constantly in this mood since he is aware of Amanda's true nature, but he gets this big time when he understands Amanda will get him killed by the butcher. In the secret tape, he gets this feeling once Amanda begins transforming into her true form to finish him.
• Rage Breaking Point: Woolie undergoes this during the secret tape, as straight after the two questions, he snaps at Amanda, taking the risk of losing his life to warn a viewer to outright destroy the tapes before Amanda can continue to use them against said viewer.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Woolie is a literal example, as his attempt to warn the viewer about Amanda results in his death at the end of Episode 2.
• Sequel Hook: Of sorts. If the player types "2023" during the butcher segment, the screen turns blue as someone speaks through the TV. They tell them they were like them once and that the player should've listened to Woolie when they had the chance. The voice says it's too late for them now; they must prepare for what's to come and not let her in. Sure enough, by 2023, the game is getting a new, full release.
• Shout-Out: The "Special Thanks" section of the first episode's credits include "Senor Cardgage" and "Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen".
• Spell My Name With An S: At the part with the mutton carcasses, the game inputs for you "Woolie", though most fans tend to spell it at Wooley or Wooly. Possibly as a result, the full game has you spell the name as "Wooly", and the corresponding text input only have five spaces. Bizarrely enough, the itch page calls him by "Wooly" as well, but in game, the name is typed as "Woolie".
• Subverted Kids' Show: Obviously. It starts like a simple TV show for kids with a slightly unnerving style, and then Episode 2 starts, with Woolie trying to warn the audience about Amanda ("Whatever you do, don't...") before the episode glitches and starts like normal.

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The full game contains the following tropes:

Full Game Tropes

• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Water buckets usually take a while to fill up from a small leak from a ceiling. Using it as part of one of the puzzles makes it fill up a lot faster, mainly to ensure the player doesn't need to wait a long time to utilise it.
• Adaptational Personality Change: It's much more subtle than the other example, but in the pilot, Woolie was desperate to let you know something was wrong. Here Wooly wants to keep everything as normal as possible, taking over for Amanda as the guide in the second "In Your Neighborhood", and stating "Nothing is rotten here!" You sure about that, Wooly?
• Adaptational Heroism: There's hints that the consciousness of Rebecca Colton is somehow attached to Amanda as opposed to simply being a demon who wants your soul, and in the here she gets upset when you go to the butcher, the exact opposite of her pilot self.
• Adaptational Nice Girl: Amanda's still mean to Wooly at parts, but she doesn't brush off his apple allergy and her motives, while still questionable and involve trapping the player in the TV, seem overall less sinister and more tragic.
• Adapted Out: The siblings in the pilot and the vegetarian grandma aren't mentioned or seen here.
• Animation Bump: Between Pilot Episode and the full game, the animation has clearly undergone some vast improvements, with the environments and even Amanda and Wooly's models.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • In the complete game, any tapes you've already watched can be fast-forwarded to the key choices to save the player time.
  • Likewise, after obtaining any secret tape, they will be placed onto a shelf next to the TV for easy access in future playthroughs.
  • Speaking of those secret tapes, however you obtain them, they will always be obtained in the same order to prevent players from missing anything crucial early on.
  • For the console ports (like for Nintendo Switch), due to the lack of ability to type in-game, the verbal answer sections instead have different options presented for the player to select from.
• Art Evolution: Amanda and Wooly's looks have been improved somewhat compared to the Pilot version, mostly in lighting. Most notably, Wooly now has distinct ears. The logo also looks more professionally made as well.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: If you choose to help the supposedly lonely kitten, which could possibly be a representation of Amanda, she stands still in stunned silence as the tape statics and is eventually removed. This could be out of surprise that Riley is nice enough to help the kitten (her) and doesn’t know how to react.
• Bilingual Bonus: Once Amanda pulls out the knife during "In the Kitchen"'s demo version, the player can catch sight of some cipher code on the fridge. This is replaced with an image hinting at the oven in the full version.
• Blatant Lies: Amanda claims that Wooly tripped as they were playing, right after she pushed him.
  Wooly: I-I didn't-
• Break the Cutie: The theme of the game really.
• Breather Episode: In-universe for Amanda's show. One secret tape depicts nothing but Wooly sitting at a table, staring off into space and occasionally stretching or yawning. It's never stated what the tape would have been used for, but the title at the beginning seems to imply some sort of spin-off or mini-segment within Amanda.
• But Thou Must!:
  • Like Pilot Episode, Amanda forces you to select the correct answer by erasing the other options if you get it wrong one too many times. She also does this with typed responses; typing in the wrong response or nothing at all enough times during prompts will have you be forced to type in the correct response depending on the situation.
  • During the final sequence, the player must throw the brick at the television. Nothing happens upon waiting, and there's no actions that the player can do besides throw the brick.
• The Cameo: Skip and Chip from Chip's Tips appear at the end of one of the secret tapes.
• Cliffhanger: The demo ends with the player trying to watch the second tape, but it's heavily corrupted. They hear a banging sound, but they brush it off at first; they the sound again and realize it's coming from behind them as something is trying to break into the attic. The attic door swings open as a long, grey, clawed hand reaches inside and grabs the air, followed by a scream before cutting to black.
  • In one of the endings, you defeat the entity, but hear a noise behind you. Turning around reveals a figure in a trench coat (heavily implied to be a detective that's interested in what your Aunt was investigating) before the screen abruptly cuts to black and credits roll.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each of the tapes have different colours depending on their significance. All the tapes that have animations on are black, while the secret tapes have several different colors.
  • Orange = A Missing Child incident related to the show.
  • Light blue = A recording of Rebecca alongside two members of Hameln Entertainment.
  • Red = A news report concerning the disappearance of Sam Colton and the direction Amanda the Adventurer was going in since.
  • Lime = An episode of Coffee Break interviewing Sam Colton and info on his show.
  • Purple = An unknown person eavesdropping on the dodgy things going on in Hameln Entertainment concerning their direction of the show.
  • Dark blue = A unused tape that depicts Wooly sitting at table, and making some poses for 10 minutes.
• Cue the Sun: In the good ending, after Riley bricks the television, the storm outside the window clears up and the sun comes out.
• Double Take: Amanda is seen glaring angrily at Wooly in the Accidents tape before noticing Riley and acting like Wooly just had an accident that she had no part in.
• Do You Trust Me?: At the beginning of the alternate "Oh no! Accidents!" tape, Wooly asks this question to Riley while he's alone, and the input for word answers is provided. However, Riley gets no time to answer before Amanda shows up.
• Easter Egg:
  • Typing in "lamb" or "mutton" when Amanda asks to state your favorite kind of pie will cause Wooly to express shock, but this doesn't affect anything else. He also does this if you get disturbing with your favorite pie type, like "hearts" or "people". Also, typing "colton" causes the tape to switch to the final one where Amanda tries sharing her secret.
  • Interacting with key elements when you're not meant to can uncover new routes to the game, and even uncover a set of secret tapes related to real-life happenings.
  • When Amanda and Wooly are in the butcher's during the alternate "In My Neighborhood", clicking on Wooly will have him simply remark "That's not funny!".
  • When Amanda asks "What's the daddy [chicken] called?" in the "What's A Family" tape, type in "Sam". Doing so will make Amanda stammer and ask where you heard that name, while the other characters (Wooly, the chickens and even the barn) turn to stare at you in shock. One of the secret tapes is also unlocked as a result.
• Emergency Broadcast: Several emergency warnings for flooding, a tornado, and a thunderstorm pop up in the "What's a Family" tape. If the player wants to continue, they must pause at each of these alerts and then interact with the weather machine on the table.
• Expy: Besides Amanda being a reference to Dora and Wooly to Boots, in "Everything Rots" Amanda shows you some things that are rotting: a rotten sandwich, a dead tree stump, and a dead fox, which Amanda takes great pleasure in pointing out his being dead and even draws a crayon picture of him later. It may take you a moment to realize that the devs might be referring to Swiper. "Swiper, no swiping" indeed...
• Fairytale Motif: The in-universe production company for Amanda the Adventurer is Hameln, whose logo is a mouse or rat with the slogan 'Follow us to fun!' This seems to reference the story The Pied Piper of Hamelin, which was about a piper luring away rats with music, then doing the same to the town's children when their parents didn't pay up. Quite fitting for a company who lures children away from their families for nefarious purposes.
• Fake Interactivity: This time played with. Outside of the tapes, the player can explore the attic they are in, which is needed to solve puzzles to advance the game. Amanda is still a bit restricting of the player's choices sometimes.
• Featureless Protagonist: Riley Park. The gender-neutral name doesn't help clarify anything either.
• Foreshadowing: If the player types "lamb" or "mutton" when Amanda asks them their favorite pie type, her tone becomes slightly lower (if not sinister) as she says that sounds delicious while looking at Wooly, who looks scared.
• For Want Of A Nail: Obtaining the different endings involves repeating the game from the beginning and performing tasks which cause the narrative to shift. For example, if Blab-Bot says "SEND MY CONDOLENCES TO KATE" during In Your Neighborhood, Amanda, upon hearing this, will become sad and end the tape prematurely. This sole alteration leads to a sequence of tapes that make the Golden Ending possible.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: In the We Can Share tape, Amanda hesitates before introducing herself as Amanda, something she's never done before. this happens just before Amanda confirms what the game's been building up to: she's a real person whose consciousness is simultaneously in the TV, and "out there, somewhere".
• Furry Confusion: The "Petting Zoo" episode has a sheep enclosure full of regular sheep. Wooly, an anthropomorphic sheep, tries to prevent Amanda from going there. By the time they do, Wooly has turned into a regular sheep.
• Interface Spoiler: Averted in the end credits. Any live-action videos that are not watched will have the people enacting them covered up until those tapes have been watched.
• Invisible Parents: During the "In the Kitchen" tape, Wooly mentions twice that he and Amanda shouldn't be doing the pie-baking themselves, and to ask a parent for help. Amanda does let it slip that she isn't sure where they are at present, meaning they may have a plot role later. While, in the full game, they're never mentioned again, it doesn't mean there aren't other parents present in the plot...
• Jumpscare: In the The End and The End? routes, after Amanda tells you her secret, we get this as the TV set goes berserk with flashes of red and random images appearing on it. Almost like whatever’s in the tape is trying to break out.
• Madness Mantra: "WON'T YOU HELP THE LONELY KITTEN?!"
• Meaningful Name: The entertainment company Hameln has a mouse as their logo. Or maybe it's a rat?
• Minimalist Cast: Has a larger one then the demo, but everyone who isn't Amanda, Wooly, and Riley never shows up in person.
• Medium Blending: Whilst the game is normally animated, the secret tapes all use live-action footage.
• Mood Whiplash: At the end of the third secret tape, the news reporter, after discussing the disappearance of Sam Colton and the unsettling direction Amanda the Adventurer is going in because of it, mentions that, after the break, they'll be discussing about Zappo the talking gerbil, and right after that is a snippet from a commercial by Skip and Chip. The tape ends right afterwards.
• Morton's Fork: At the end of Tape 4, "Everything Rots," Amanda is trying to work out whether or not everything rots, with Wooly telling the viewer that this isn't a mandatory question. If the player answers "no," Amanda simply looks to the side, saddened while Wooly tries to reassure her; if you say "yes," Amanda will respond in a dejected tone as Wooly looks down; if you refuse to answer enough times, she throws a fit and makes Wooly disappear and forces you to answer "yes," sadly responding that it "might be too late." After this the entity bursts in to attack, no matter which answer you give.
• Multiple Endings: There are seven endings in total, depending on the tapes you find and in a few answers you give to Amanda.
• Mythology Gag: The "mashup" tapes start with a clip from one of the Pilot Episode tapes
• Named by the Adaptation: The player went unnamed in Pilot Episode; they go by "Riley Park" in the new version.
• Ominous Knocking: The player hears a knocking sound as they try to watch the second tape, and turn around to see something bursting through the attic hatch right as the demo ends.
• Offing the Offspring: At the petting zoo, shortly after Amanda says "Some mommies eat their babies!" A mother hen suddenly swallows a chick.
• Player Nudge: Entering the first code into Blabbot if the required tape isn't playing prompts him to instead say "Yes, but where did you get that?" Prompting the player to have the code visible on the TV before entering it in.
• Quote Mine: A couple of tapes leading to the best ending consist largely of spliced clips from the episodes, arranged to form new codes and puzzles.
• Retcon: The room from Pilot Episode shows creepy red scribbling of what is implied to be Amanda's past victims, clearly stating that there was no cast and crew, the tapes simply appeared out of nowhere. In this version, however, the creation of the show is clearly documented - and absolutely crucial to Amanda/Rebecca's backstory.
• Rule of Symbolism: For most of the game, the windows to the outside is dark and stormy. After listening to Amanda's secret and destroying the TV, the rain tapers off and the first light of early morning can be seen - a clue that the good ending has been achieved.
• Sadistic Choice: At the end of the alternate "Oh No! Accidents!" tape, Amanda tries to make you choose between helping her or helping Wooly during their struggle against one another. Regardless of your choice, Wooly will get killed anyway.
• Sanity Slippage: The show seems like your average kids show affair at first with a few minor blips, but it quickly becomes clear that everything is not as it seems.
• Shoot the Television: The good ending has Riley put a stop to all the madness by smashing a brick right through the television that played the tapes.
• Sibling Team: Wooly and Amanda are essentially this.
• Slipping a Mickey: In the alternative version of the "Oh No! Accidents!" tape, Amanda gives Wooly a spiked drink that causes him to pass out upon drinking it, where he later wakes up inside a surgery room where Amanda plans to kill him.
• Shout-Out:
  • The achievement you get when baking the apple pie is named "Pie Flavored."
  • The secret tape of a news report about Sam's disappearance is followed by a few seconds of another show featuring a live-action man and his dog in a simplistic animated world.
  • The final tape replaces the Show Within a Show's usual theme tune with Amanda humming part of the theme to Happy Tree Friends.
• Smash to Black: The demo ends like this right as a long, monstrous arm breaks through the attic door, followed by screaming.
• Summoning Ritual: Possibly: In the purple secret tape, Hameln has Rebecca chant: Bye-yell, Pie-man, and Baa-lamb. Or is that Bael, Paimon, and Balam?
• To Be Continued: The demo ends with the second tape all glitched out and incomplete. Then the player hears something banging close by. Cue the attic door opening, a sudden scream, and a Smash to Black, before the demo concludes. Possibly in the full release as well, if the hint that Amanda is out there, somewhere, is any indication...and that a detective might be looking for her.
• Unwinnable by Design: If you play the tape "Everything Rots!" you are going to die. Downplayed in that, while playing the tape leads to a no-win scenario, this is actually one of the game's endings.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • While the apple pie is needed to advance the game properly, making a meat pie instead generates a version that goes Off the Rails, surprisingly FAR more than even Amanda is okay with.
  • To get the good ending and defeat the entity, you have to throw water on the robot, all the while him begging you not to do it.
• Weather-Control Machine: One of the toys created by Hameln, which resembles a See-And-Say, allows its users to change the weather of their current position.
• Wham Line: The final ending of the game. After you complete the incredibly lengthy process of unlocking the chest and getting the final tape, Amanda offers to tell you her biggest secret. Her secret? She’s out there. Somewhere…As a bonus, throughout this point, her voice actually becomes increasingly clear as if she really is speaking to Riley.
  • If you refuse the secret, she will respond with a What the Hell, Hero? before the tape cuts out. This causes an altered ending with all of the furniture gone, with only a note bluntly stating "LEAVE."
    Amanda: Oh...I thought you were different.
  • A secret tape in the game shows a mother and father trying to get their daughter, Lauren, away from the tv with birthday cake and her favorite ice cream, mint chocolate chip. At the tape's end, it looks like the little girl wandered outside and the parents go looking for her. But then Amanda says....
    Amanda: Mmmm. I love mint chocolate chip!

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