Ann is an adventure-horror RPG Maker game created by Rong Rong and released in August 26, 2021.
Ann, a digital art student of the Delta Academy of Arts, comes back to school from home to grab a USB drive that she forgot. Deciding to do some work before going back home, Ann finds herself falling asleep while working, and when she wakes up, it's midnight; remembering that students and staff members aren't allowed on school grounds past 9 P.M., she immediately decides to leave.
However, Ann discovers a very dark secret about her school — when midnight strikes, the school changes into a nightmarish realm ruled by the ghost girl Hana Itagaki, with objects such as pianos, mannequins, and computers out to kill her.
Fortunately for Ann, she finds help in the form of a mysterious security guard (who insists on being called Security). The two decide to navigate their way out and uncover the secrets of the school before Ann becomes a permanent resident of the school.
A short
featuring Ann, Security and Myra about Taiko no Tatsujin has been released on 9th April, 2022.
Ann provides examples of:
- Art Shift: The character sprites and the animated cut-scenes are drawn pretty differently.
- Big Bad: Hana Itagaki, the evil spirit, is responsible for turning the school into a nightmarish landscape at midnight, turning simple objects into hostile entities and trapping unsuspected people before deforming their appearances. However, Hana turns out to be a Vengeful Ghost whom wants to get revenge on her killer — the principal — but sadly vented her anger at the whole school as well.
- Boring, but Practical: The Security Guard uses a baton to defend himself and Ann from hostile objects — while simple, it's pretty effective because he can destroy enemies with just one hit.
- Cast of Snowflakes: The NPCs are designed so well that you can't help but interact with them to see if they're important to the story or not.
- Chase Scene: A lot of times Ann gets chased by a lot from haunted pianos, an angry statue, and a non-lethal example in the form of the Security Guard.
- Chase-Scene Obstacle Course: Some chase sequences in the game involve pushing objects out of the way and sometimes using it to block the chaser's path.
- Determinator: No matter what the obstacles are, even if he has to fight an entire cursed school, the Security Guard will do everything to help Ann.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The principal is willing to use his position to sexually exploit students, and even killed a girl for threatening to expose this, but when the college begins to be haunted every night, he tries to get Hana to stop, places a hard ban on students lingering, and before realizing it changes back by daytime, tries to plead with people not to enter it. He also personally makes the rounds before closing time to make sure nobody is staying… Not that any of this has led to him taking responsibility for his actions, or even stopped him from continuing to make these arrangements with girls at the school.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: From haunted pianos to a creepy statues, they are all after Ann.
- Foreshadowing: In the beginning of the game, Ann is at an exhibition for the winners of a contest between the various art departments. While most of the winners deserve it, it is noted by two NPCs that the winning sculpture is very ugly, and they are confused as to how it was possibly chosen. Turns out the sculptor slept with the principal in exchange for getting her sculpture chosen.
- Missing Child: At the start of the game, there is a poster showing three students reportedly missing from Delta Academy of Arts. Two of them were cursed to stay in the school forever and the other one is dead whom became a Vengeful Ghost. If Ann gets killed, it will trigger a game over screen where she'll be reported as a missing person as well.
- Multiple Endings:
- Escaped: Ann manages to leave the school alive, but has no recollection of everything that she experienced, including her memories with the Security Guard.
- The New Resident of The School: Ann is trapped inside the school permanently as she finds herself stuck in a loop while walking endlessly inside one of the rooms of the digital arts department with no means of escape.
- The Painting's Sacrifice: Ann manages to escape the school, but the Security Guard gets burned to ashes by Hana because he helped Ann escape.
- Ann: After Ann helps appease Hana by letting the Vengeful Ghost get her hands on the principal, Hana apologizes and moves on afterwards, Myra and Charles gain their human forms back, and alongside Ann, they managed to go back to the real world. Sadly, the Security Guard stays behind and their memories about the event are wiped out, including their memories with the Security Guard. Several months later, all three of them go back to their normal lives, and when Ann comes across the portrait of the Security Guard, her memories come back and she cries in joy upon remembering him again.
- Parental Abandonment: Both Ann's parents left her when she was still a child, abandoning her in an orphanage after divorcing.
- Protagonist Title: Ann shares the same as the game's title.
- Sex for Services: A deal of this kind plays a major part of the backstory. The principal, as it turns out, coaxed various girls into sleeping with him in exchange for good grades and other favors. For example, the student who won the sculpture exhibition contest, who made a statue that is considered by the other characters to be ugly, only did so because she slept with him, while the genuinely better "Success" sculpture was rejected — and Hana Itakagi's death happened because she witnessed her friend Clara having sex with him in a car for good grades and was murdered by the principal to silence her.
- Shout-Out: To other RPG maker Explorer Horror games.
- The setting, premise and art themed enemies bear a resemblance to those found in Ib, with Security as a combination of Garry and Mary.
- There are also similarities to Misao, especially with the character of Hana. Like Misao, she's a black-haired vengeful spirit who was killed by a seemingly kind school authority figure (who is actually a predator) and decides to inflict revenge on the whole school. The good ending is achieved by 'sacrificing' said authority figure.
- Some traps also resemble those found in The Witch's House.
- Villains Out Shopping: One image in the artbook shows that, in between haunting the school and tormenting students who wander inside, the spirits play card games.
- Wistful Amnesia:
- Most endings ends up with Ann forgetting the horrific events that she experienced, including the times she spent with the Security Guard.
- Upon returning to the real world, both Myra and Charles lost their memories of being trapped in school, and both are unaware that they were missing for a year.
