Video Game / Games Of The Killer

"Cor bloimey! Now this is a rum 'ow-do-yer-do!"

I wake up one night to a horrible scream outside my window.

It sounds like the Killer is at it again.

"___ of The Killer" is a series of short comedic horror games, created by garmentdistrict. The series revolves around BB, a young woman and Zine author, who travels around her hometown and documents the bizarre and strange goings-on in a self published magazine.

The series currently consists of 9 games, in order:

• Voice of The Killer
• Hands of The Killer
• Drool of The Killer
• Eyes of The Killer
• Flesh of The Killer
• Blood of The Killer
• Ears of The Killer
• Heart of The Killer
• Face of The Killer

While niche and obscure, the series has gained a small fanbase due to its unique style and humor, likable protagonist and cute MS Paint art style.

According to a post by garmentdistrict, the 9th episode will likely be the final one, though doesn't discount the idea of there being more.

The games can be downloaded on Gamejolt here, with an anthology version to release on both Gamejolt and itch.io upon the release of the 9th episode.

Tropes of The Killer

• Abominable Auditorium: The Immersive Theater in Eyes of the Killer certainly ends up being this.
• Academy of Evil: The Murder College, found underneath BB's apartment in Hands of the Killer. Downplayed in that they don't kill real people and practice on dolls instead. Unfortunately for BB, she just so happens to resemble the dolls and the members can't tell the difference.
• A Day in the Limelight: Ears of The Killer has BB's sister, ZZ, in a much bigger role than in previous games, to the point that she is a playable character with her own storyline.
• All Part of the Show: When BB is running from the cops-dressed-as-bears, she runs through Melmo the Wanderer while it is still ongoing. Unfortunately, everyone assumes that it's the audience participation part of the play, critiquing the complacency of the audience.
• Always a Bigger Fish: When the Killer shows up, no one is safe. Not even the antagonists. BB only survives encounters with him because he is too busy slaughtering someone to notice her.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: The characters possess a rainbow of skin colors, including green, yellow, orange, and pink.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: BB has her long bangs swept over her eye. Which eye they're over depends on where BB is looking.
• Ambiguously Human: It's unknown if the Killer is an actual bird-headed being or a person in a mask.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • Eyes of the Killer starts with the player controlling a random theatergoer in first-person view instead of BB. After the theatergoer is cornered by bears, the player controls BB as usual.
  • Face of the Killer also occasionally shifts from BB to another character in first-person.
• Art Shift: One section in Flesh of The Killer has BB trapped in a painting, where the game's textures gain more of a realistic painting look as opposed to the MS Paint scribble look.
  • Similarly, the Lion's Garden scene at the end of the game has a photorealistic environment.
• Back for the Finale:
  • Ray, Max, and Claude return in Face of The Killer, having graduated college alongside BB and go to an after-graduation party with her.
  • Other characters from the previous games also reappear in Face of The Killer. Even characters who died, somehow coming back from the dead.
• Back from the Dead: In Face of the Killer, several characters who died in previous games reappear alive, albeit mutilated and bloody. It's explained that a key moment in history is happening and history is forgetting that the dead are supposed to be dead.
• Bait-and-Switch: In Hands of the Killer, getting caught by one of the Murder College students may result in a closeup of BB getting her skull caved in by a mallet. Then the camera zooms out to reveal that it's actually a doll and the real BB is tied up in the background, allowing the player to escape.
• Battleaxe Nurse: Mandy and Handy from Blood of the Killer.
• Bears Are Bad News: Eyes of the Killer has BB get chased by the police in bear costumes. Bear costumes with alarmingly sharp claws, that is.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Max, Claude, and Ray, respectively. They're meant to represent the art student trifecta of himbo, nerd, and juvenile delinquent.
• Berserk Button: In Drool of the Killer, after fleeing from Tammy for most of the game, BB discovers that Tammy's swimming pools are not chlorinated. This causes BB to flip out, bashing Tammy upside the head while raging about how she could have gotten sick.
• Chase Scene: In every game, BB gets pursued by some baddie and all she can do is run away.
  • Inverted in Blood of the Killer, where BB chases after Concerned Citizen to question him. She admits that it feels nice to be the chaser for once.
• Close-Call Haircut: If BB gets caught by the knife-wielding Clarice in Blood of the Killer, Clarice will swipe at BB's face, but will only cut off BB's bangs. Clarice will swipe again, but BB will dodge this time and escape. BB's hair will be back to normal in the next scene, though.
• Close-Enough Timeline: In Face of the Killer, the Killer remakes the world, but the only difference is the color palette (something BB is not impressed by). The epilogue shows that there are more changes, with the initial color change apparently fading, Tammy's water park now being a fitness center, and cereals being rebranded.
• Cloudcuckooland: BB's hometown is definitely a bit...odd. When she travels to River Town in Blood of The Killer, it's not exactly much better.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: BB is remarkably unfazed by all the craziness she encounters on a regular basis, likely due to living in a Crapsaccharine World.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In Eyes of the Killer, Director Bosso mentions that BB met her acquaintances. While not mentioning them by name, it's clear from her description that she's referring to the Murder College from Hands of the Killer. She also says that the CCTV footage of BB being chased around the college was released as the next installment of the "Bloody Night" series, a franchise that is produced by the Murder College students, which was introduced in Hands of the Killer.
  • At the street market in Blood of the Killer, assorted paintings from the Museum of Moral Art in Flesh of the Killer can be seen among the wares. Most notably, a painting of BB by Lamassu.
  • The Bort doll introduced in Hands of the Killer shows up sporadically in random spots throughout the following games.
• Contrived Coincidence: BB's appearance and outfit happen to be nearly identical to a defunct doll line used by murder college members for practice. They unfortunately can't distinguish her from them.
• Crapsaccharine World: While the world of the series is colorful and cartoony, there's murderers around every corner, a serial killer on the loose and it's all pretty normalized to the characters in-game. When near a TV displaying the news "thousands of corpses found", BB casually comments "Same news as always".
• Creepy Doll: The "My First Strangle Victim" dolls. It's mentioned that they have plastic innards if opened up and their eyes bulge out when strangled.
• Dirty Cops: Cool Policeman and the other cops are shown to be severely corrupt, despite their general ineptitude around BB.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: In the play, BB's assigned character of Potsy the Mop Girl is randomly murdered offscreen for "contrived plot reasons".
• Eldritch Location: The Tammy water park in Drool of the Killer, which seems to absorb other buildings such as offices, and beckons people to come in and enjoy its waters.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Cool Policeman, Concerned Citizen, Director Bosso, etc.
• Facial Horror: The process that turned Clarice into a killer cyborg mutilated her face before covering what's left of it in a bird mask. BB sees Clarice's unmasked face in a dream and it's not a pretty sight.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When BB first arrives at the little town in Blood of the Killer, one of the background characters is a nurse hiding behind a newspaper. Later, a pair of nurses working for the antagonist stalk and pursue BB throughout the game.
  • A poster for Melmo the Wanderer can be found while running around the Murder College.
• Grand Finale: Face of the Killer. It is much longer than the other games and features a Continuity Cavalcade as many major characters return as events escalate city-wide.
• Heel–Face Turn: An odd variant. The Nurses that menace BB in Blood of the Killer assist her in Face of the Killer, but only because they've decided that they also like killing, still thinking BB is a murderer.
• Hero of Another Story: In Heart of the Killer, BB meets another guest in the Dream Resort named CC, who is a zine editor with a remarkably similar life story to BB (living in the city reporting on strange things related to an enigmatic murderer), and mentions others named "HH", "II", and "JJ", and CC seems certain that she's figured out what's going on in the resort. They're all dead by the time you get to the climax, with their corpses being strewn up in the sitcom area in the penultimate area of the game.
• Kill and Replace: Bosso is subject to this in Face of the Killer. In the epilogue, their replacement can be seen on TV, mentioning how they're more youthful than before.
• Lyrical Dissonance: While BB is exploring the Immersive Theater, she finds a cut musical number from an earlier draft of the the play, where the cast celebrates the murder of the Sun. The production note describes it as a "big, heartwarming musical number (...), kind of like 'Tomorrow' is in Annie"
• Making a Splash: Tammy the water ghost from Drool of the Killer. After being drowned by the Killer in 1992, she came back as a watery ghost bent on flooding the world and transforming buildings into twisted water parks.
• Marshmallow Dream: Implied to have happened to BB after her nightmare in Voice of the Killer.
• Mask of Sanity: Bosso comes off as calm and cheery in Eyes of the Killer, if somewhat creepy and always smiling. In Face of the Killer, she flips out when her city-wide performance plans have been interfered with. She accuses BB of being the one responsible and goes on a murderous rampage to try and kill her with a cleaver.
• Mind-Control Music: Ears of the Killer has BB get mind-controlled by a music record when she investigates the jazz music that has been playing in her apartment nonstop for three days. Under its spell, she performs at local music joints to promote the Crime Wave music genre.
• Mistaken for Murderer: Happens to BB several times in Blood of the Killer. Apparently, it's because of the coat she's wearing. Or in Handy and Mandy's case, her zine.
  Handy: "Also, we've been reading your zine. A truly heinous document that records your many crimes."
  Mandy: "July 3rd - Cannibal Blood Feast. July 10th - More Knife Murders. July 13th - Decomposing Corpse."
  BB: "Those are BANDS!! It's called a 'scene report'!"
• Mood Dissonance: A common theme throughout the series, highlighting the contrast between the bright, cartoony visuals/snarky humor and the dark subject matter.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • When BB is first exploring River Town, she comes across a sign welcoming vistors and inviting them to enjoy the local sights. This is immediately followed up by a statue dedicated to "The 200 workers incinerated by the great drinky bird factory fire of 19XX".
  • "In 1992, a shadowy figure held Tammy's head beneath the still surface of a lake. Ever since then she has been committed to excellence."
• Nightmare Fetishist: Dr. Zoo became obsessed with the concept of murder after witnessing a death by the Killer. When he meets the Killer in person, he fanboys over him and asks to join forces. It doesn't end well for him.
• Older Than They Look: Despite her short, child-like appearance, BB is apparently old enough to be attending community college. The same goes for Claude, Max, and Ray.
• Only Sane Man: BB tends to come off as this, considering the chaos happening around her on a daily basis.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The students of Murder College don't actually murder anyone. They only practice their techniques on dolls, with Dr. Zoo even claiming that the school's interest in murder is purely symbolic and that real death is too kitsch.
  • Averted in game though as, due to her resemblance to the dolls, the faculty is out to murder BB.
• Precision F-Strike: "FUCK YOU AND YOUR HAUNTED SWIMMING POOL!!"
• Promoted to Playable: After making only small appearances in previous games, ZZ is one of the playable characters in Ears of The Killer.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Killer's piercing red eyes are a dead giveaway of his homicidal nature.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • BB attempts to do this at some point throughout all of the games, usually because she's fed up with all the nonsense going on around her or because the situation is getting too dangerous.
    BB: "I'm getting sick and tired of being chased by murderers all night and am not going to look into this any further!!"
  • When Concerned Citizen sees that Clarice has turned against him and killed his nurse cronies, he immediately stops trying to kill BB and runs for his life.
    Concerned Citizen: (to BB) "...You deal with it." (runs away with Clarice hot on his tail)
• Shout-Out: Many of the characters and locations are inspired by/references to certain art pieces or artists:
  • The Killer was inspired by Max Ernst's Loplop series, and Alfred Kubin's Forgotten, Lost.
  • Claude, Max and Ray are named after surrealist artists Claude Cahun, Max Ernst and Raymond Roussel.
  • The play Melmo the Wanderer is modeled after the Russian futurist opera Victory Over The Sun. Several lines from the opera are also quoted multiple times in the game.
  • Prisonman was inspired by Jean Benoit's Costume for the Execution of the Testament of the Marquis de Sade.
  • The last painting BB gets sucked into in Flesh of the Killer, Garden II is a pastiche of Henri Rousseau's Jungle With Lion.
  • There's also several references to indie developer Lilith Zone with one of the pieces in the Museum of Moral Art in Flesh of the Killer being a screenshot of the game within a game from The Virtual Museum of Dead Wifery, and Dendegar has a stall at the convention in Ears of the Killer.
• Show Within a Show:
  • Melmo the Wanderer from Eyes of the Killer, a 1,441 act long avant-garde interactive stage play.
  • There's also the "Bloody Night" movie series that was created by the Murder College to covertly influence people to their murder-based philosophy. From what BB says, it doesn't seem to be too effective.
    BB: ""Bloody Night"?? Aren't those the shitty direct-to-video horror films everybody watches to make fun of?"
    MC Student: "EVERYBODY WHAT NOW?"
• Skewed Priorities: When BB is confronted by the murderous nurses, Mandy and Handy, they admit to reading her zine. Even though she's aware that the nurses want to kill her, BB sheepishly asks them their opinion of her zine.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Ray, when he tries but fails to defend everyone from Lamassu:
  Ray: "Gonna getcha maaaan. I was the Number One Delinquent of my Hans Obrist reading group!"
• The Spook: The Spook from Heart of the Killer is an exaggeration, as so little information on his appearance is known that his physical form has vanished and requires a trash bag to contain what is left.
• Take That!:
  • In Ears of the Killer, BB at one point remarks on "dumb fads", mentioning unboxing videos (to the point of saying that when people started getting body parts in them, it was an improvement).
  • In Face of the Killer, should BB get caught by Bosso during the first chase sequence, the pursuer will say that they've "maimed more theatre kids than Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."
• Theme Naming: Of the body part variety for each episode title:
  • The first game, Voice of the Killer involves BB getting a job selling life insurance at a call center, which heavily involves speaking and using her voice.
  • Drool of the Killer has a water theme, with BB investigating a mysterious aquatic recreational center.
  • Eyes of the Killer has BB participating in an interactive play, with much of the narrative involving being observed by the audience. There's also the events being funded by the Art Appreciators Club so they can watch, or BB stumbling across a secret seating area deep in the theater and realizing that her solo actions were being watched.
  • Ears of the Killer is about a new genre of music taking over the city where all the songs are about homicide. This "Crime Wave" genre also gets to BB when she is hypnotized into performing in the local music scene.
  • Heart of the Killer is about BB going to a hotel centered around matchmaking and finding love with questionable methods.
• Took a Level in Badass: Most of the series has BB running away from any danger she comes across. While she still mostly runs away in Face of the Killer, she has her moments where she fights back and takes the upper hand.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: Clarice from Blood of the Killer gets turned into a mindless wind-up murder machine by Concerned Citizen. Concerned Citizen nearly does the same to BB before the Killer uses Clarice against him. In the end, it's implied that Clarice is starting to remember her original personality and helps BB escape the burning mansion.
• Vague Age: BB's age was said to be "older than Tintin", whose age is already not clear. Fans have generally considered BB to be in her early 20s or late teens.
• Vile Vulture: The titular Killer, who has a vulture-shaped head curled into a creepy grin and wears an inky black cloak. He's responsible for many of the killings in the series.
• Weirdness Magnet: BB gets into all sorts of crazy adventures and attracts the strangest of characters.
• With Catlike Tread: When Handy and Mandy are stalking BB in the record store, they give away their presence by loudly discussing how to follow her without being noticed.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Flesh of the Killer implies that BB seems to be afraid of elephants. After seeing an elephant art print that she had when she was younger, she tells Max that it used to give her nightmares. Of course when BB is trapped in the painting world, the elephant from the print shows up and begins chasing her.
  Elephant: "Nice hands let me eat yum yum"
  BB: "Shriek!!!"

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[Press ESCAPE to close the report]