One stormy night at the onset of what should have been a nostalgic trip to the lake, Easter Mitchour and his friends make a pit stop at an old, abandoned house along the side of the road. What should have been a short-lived indoor camping adventure, however, turns into a hellish nightmare when something begins hunting them down one-by-one.
The house is not what it seems, and memories from the boys’ past could be the key to everything... if they can only make it through the night.
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Easter contains examples of:
- Accomplice by Inaction: Nester stood back and did nothing while Easter messed with his friends' lives for sick pleasure. In the True Ending, he states outright that because of this, he's just as guilty for his friends' suffering as Easter himself.Easter: You had every power to stop the things I did. But you didn't, did you? You wanted everyone to suffer just as much as I did.
- Aerith and Bob: Justified in that this is a rpg horror game, but ... in how many groups can there be a Totl, Mugwort and Easter alongside a Olie and a Monte?
- The Alleged Car: Mugwort's rusted truck, which gets them stranded in the abandoned house.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Easter treated Nester as this in their childhood.
- Big Bad: The masked man who's targetting the gang. Which turns out to be a representation of Easter.
- Big Brother Instinct: Olie, Mugwort and Totl feel this (in varying degrees) towards Easter. Ironically Easter had this towards Nester, until their father's abuse became too much for him.
- Big Damn Heroes: At some point, Easter and one of his friends is alone with the killer, resulting in them getting mutilated for trying to protect Easter. Then double subverted when Easter was the killer all along. Somehow.
- Big Little Brother: Nester, who looks bigger and older than Easter.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Easter has to be constantly protected by his friends and his stronger little brother. In reality, he's a sociopath who doesn't give a shit about anyone and is obsessed with making everyone as miserable as him.
- Broken Bird:
- Easter. Behind his cheerful smile, there's an emotionally and mentally broken boy as a result of years of horrific sexual abuse.
- Nester was a happy little boy in his childhood until he was raped by his father due to Easter's manipulations.
- Children Are Innocent: Sharply averted with Easter's childhood. He was raped by his father for years and set up Nester into getting raped as well. Played straight with Olie, Mugwort and Totl, who didn't understand what was going on.
- Cutting Back to Reality: At the end of the game, Easter knocks down Nester in order to save his helpless friends, but is knocked down himself. Cut back to reality: the whole adventure was a dream and they were institutionalized all along.
- Cool Old Guy: Monte Mitchour, who owns the arcade where his sons and their friends used to hang out. Or so it seems.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: You'd be forgiven if you thought Olie was a girl, but he's a guy according to
Word of God. - Eye Scream: The masked man tears off Olie's eyes. In the real world, Olie's own father did it during a psychotic break.
- Family Theme Naming: Easter and Nester.
- Foreshadowing: To simply name a few:
- There's a diary telling about a father telling his young son to "take over mother", because he's become impotent with her. At the end we found out it's talking about Easter.
- Nester doesn't like being called a big boy. Because stealing snacks to prove Easter that he was a big boy resulted in him being punished and raped by his father.
- Easter is shown to like violent and bloody videogames when he was young. He's the killer.
- Olie is often mocked for having bad eyesight. Guess what the killer takes away from him.
- There's a stuffed cat doll that often follows Easter around, but doesn't do anything. It's later shown the doll belongs to Nester, who silently watched his brother's misdeeds but didn't do anything. The doll is also stated to have a broken bottom. Nester was raped when he was young.
- The lobotomized patient Nester meets foreshadows Easter's final fate.
- Easter uses the same yellow outfit he wore as a child. It's easily put down as a case of Limited Wardrobe, but it actually foreshadows something much more important: Easter was a child when he mutilated his friends and was reliving his memories in a symbolic fashion.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: After Olie, Mugwort and Totl have been mutilated by the killer, Nester admits he didn't like them, feeling that they only hung out with him because he was Easter's brother. Similarly Easter secretly resents his friends for having happier lives, while he was sexually abused by his father.
- Laser-Guided Karma: In the Retribution Ending, Nester cuts down his brother's eyes, ears and tongue, just like Easter himself had done to his friends.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: The gang is forced to split up after the killer takes Olie's eyes and things go downhill from there.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight: After Monte's wife became an alcoholic, he became impotent with her. So he started to molest Easter.
- Malevolent Masked Man: The killer has one.
- Morality Pet: Nester is this to Easter. He's the only person Easter does not want to die and his death in the True Ending and his betrayal in the Retribution Ending breaks him hard.
- Multiple Endings:
- Easy Ending: Easter doesn't find the music box and he and the gang spend an uneventful night in the abandoned house. They leave the next day, but Easter has the feeling he forgot something.
- Normal Ending: Olie, Mugwort and Totl are mutilated by the killer. Nester mocks their fates, saying he never considered them friends and rapes Easter in revenge for tricking him in the past. Easter knocks him down and tries to save his friends, but Nester knocks him again. Then it's revealed the whole adventure was a dream and everyone was institutionalized as children. Nester grabs a pair of pliers with the intent to finish his brother for once and for all.
- Retribution Ending: Same as the Normal Ending, but Easter's past is shown, revealing that he's been raped by his father for years and caused trouble for his friends and Nester out of spite. Nester wakes up in the insane asylum and tortures Easter for his misdeeds, cutting his ears, eyes and tongue, just like he had done to his friends.
- True Ending: Same as the Retribution Ending, but Nester doesn't have the heart to kill his brother and tries to convince him to move and forget the past. Unable to get over his demons, Easter has a psychotic break and kills Nester. He's later taken by the doctors and lobotomized, but he's happy because he isn't suffering anymore.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: A running gag is that Nester tends to be excluded from the gang's activities, such as forcing him to take the backseat in the beginning or Mugwort forgetting to include him in his birthday toast. And not only Nester is horribly aware of it, he resents them. To the point that he does nothing to help when Easter mutilates them.
- Nervous Wreck: Olie.
- Nightmare Fuel Coloring Book: The Happy Easter minigame, featuring Easter ruining his friends' lives when they were young, all to the format of a children's storybook.
- Nothing Is Scarier: At some point, Easter is forced to tiptoe in the dark to evade the killer, only guided by the sounds of Totl and Mugwort's footsteps.
- Ominous Music Box Tune: Nester is unnerved by a music box that sounds like the jingle of the Monte Arcade. Justified, as it happened to sound when his father raped him.
- One-Word Title
- Rape and Revenge:
- Easter provoked Mr. Fishborn into killing Monte, as revenge for being sexually abused by the latter.
- Nester was tricked by Easter into getting raped by their father, forcing him to steal snacks to prove he's "a grown boy". Years later, with their friends mutilated and Easter at his mercy, Nester proceeds to brutally beat and rape Easter to show he's a grown boy.
- Red Herring:
- While inspecting Olie's memories, there's a newspaper of how his father used to work for Monte but he was fired. It's later stated he killed Monte, but it had nothing to do with the firing, he killed him for sleeping with his wife.
- Nester was the only one of Easter's gang who didn't get mutilated and he later ties Olie, Mugwort and Totl while stating he never liked them. While his resentment is genuine, he didn't mutilate them. Easter did. In the real world.
- Self-Made Orphan: After putting up with years of sexual abuse from Monte, Easter decides he has to go. He's very methodical about it, sending Olie's father pictures of his wife cheating him with Monte (knowing that he'll kill him) and ensuring that Nester isn't at home by the time it happens.
- Shout-Out: The killer wears a white mask made of paper and glue.
- Stepford Smiler: A recurrent theme of the game is about smiles. Under that ditzy face and mannerism, Easter hides the twisted mind of a psychotic killer. When he's lobotomized, it's pointed out he's now smiling forever...
- Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: In the insane asylum, Easter tries to goad Nester into killing him. At this point Nester is on the road to recovery due to therapy and Easter wants to prove his brother is as twisted as he is. While he goes along with it in the Retribution Ending, in the True Ending he tries to talk him down instead but things go bad.
- Tongue Trauma: The masked man cuts off Mugwort's tongue. In the real world, Mugwort lost his tongue after accidentally drinking bleach as a child.
- Unreliable Narrator: Unreliable because the events as depicted in the story are a conglomeration of half-recalled events and traumatic incidents.
