History VideoGame / LayersOfFear

* SpitefulWill: [[spoiler:The father flings flaming hatred at everyone and anyone he knows or might know. His only words of kindness are towards his daughter, and that involves inspiring her to be an artist like him.]]

* AllTheWorldsAreAStage: In the third act of the Writers story locations from the Painter's house and the Artist's ship start blending with the Lighthouse.

* AllTheWorldsAreAStage: In the third act of the Writers story locations from the Painters house and the Artists ship start blending with the Lighthouse.

* EvilPhone: The lightouse has a phone the Writer uses to call her son and the man behind the writing contest she won. It soon becomes obvious that the latter is up to something.

* LighthousePoint: The Writer won a contest and her prize was a stay at a writers retreat in a lighthouse.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The writers story leans a lot more toward the magic side, the light house starts out normal and the Writer initially reacts with panic to anything strange.
* PromotedToPlayable: The Musician from the new story is the Painters wife.

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The Rat Queen implies that the stories the Author wrote actually happened and that she [[BadSamaritan helped]] the main characters with their work in the past. At one point the Author can find one of the Artists film reels in the lighthouse and [[OhCrap realizes]] this is where they washed up after the ship disaster where their sibling died happened.

* MythologyGag: An early room you can visit has several untouched canvases, scattered art supplies, and a closet filled to the brim with alcohol bottles

A new game, titled ''Layers of Fear'' (2023) came out, this time with you playing as an author who isolated herself in a lighthouse to write a new book. It also lets you read her previous works, whose plot follows [[EmbeddedPrecursor the lives of several artists including a painter, his daughter and a pair of sibling actors.]]

A new game, titled ''Layers of Fear'' (2023) came out, this time you play as an author who isolated herself in a lighthouse to write a new book, it also lets you [[EmbeddedPrecursor read her previous works whose plot follows the lives of several artists including a painter, his daughter and a pair of sibling actors.]]

* TheAllConcealingI: Thanks to the first-person perspective, the identity of the Actor is left ambiguous from the beginning; as with the previous game, any articles and letters that refer to you have had your name scribbled out. [[spoiler: Your decisions over the course of the game eventually decide your true identity: if you follow the Director's instructions, you're James, the younger and more obedient of the siblings; if you rebel against him, you're Lily, the older and more independent of the two.]]

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: Played with. While Lily might ''seem'' to be a bit of a dreamer at first, it turns out that she's deliberately putting on a performance in order to keep her little brother from panicking, and generally serves as the nearest equivalent to a responsible adult in his life; meanwhile, though James is a rather meek and unassuming kid, he seems terminally dependent on his sister's support - [[spoiler: to the point he appears to descend into SanitySlippage in her absence and starts talking to rats.]] The ending plays this dynamic further: [[spoiler: if you obeyed the Director's orders and built the character around his instructions, the Actor is revealed to be James; if you resisted Direction and took responsibility for your own performance, the Actor turns out to be Lily.]]

* SchrodingersPlayerCharacter: [[spoiler:The final reveal of which one of the Burns siblings you've been playing as throughout the game will change depending on your actions: if you mostly obeyed the Director you'll get James; if you mostly disobeyed the Director you'll get Lily. You can also TakeAThirdOption and balance obedience and disobedience equally... but this nets you the bad ending, with the Rat Queen ordering your (still unidentified) protagonist to go back and try again.]]
** Also has shades of StaticRoleExchangeableCharacter, since [[spoiler:the sibling who isn't your character will still be present in the story, albeit not using their adult character model from the other ending; instead having died on the boat when they were still a child.]]

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: The Actor hates the sea, making the Director's decision to shoot the film on an ocean liner distinctly troubling - though as the Agent makes clear, the gig is "too good to pass up." [[spoiler: It's eventually revealed that the Actor is the adult version of either Lily or James, and their aversion to the ocean is due to their traumatic experiences as child stowaways - ending in the sinking of the ship and the death of the other sibling.]]

* SassyBlackWoman: The Author, after the first few hallucinations and a creepy phonecall implying she's been set up for whatever is happening her reaction is to [[ClusterFBomb swear at the caller while flipping him off.]]

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The Rat Queen implies that the stories the Author wrote actually happened and that she [[BadSamaritan helped]] the main characters with their work in the past. At one point the Author can find one of the Artists film reels in the lighthouse and [[OhCrap realises]] this is where they washed up after the ship disaster where their sibling died happened.

* CameraScrew: Limited and actually relevant. When the Artist walks, the camera moves like he is limping and on several occasions, the camera starts rotating like if he is having vertigo.

* SassyBlackWoman: The Author, after the first few hallucinations and a creepy phonecall implying she's been set up for whatever is happening her reaction is to [[ClusterFuckBomb swear at the caller while flipping him off.]]

* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The Rat Queen implies that the stories the Author wrote actually happened and that she [[BadSamaritan helped]] the main characters with their work in the past. At one point the Author can find one of the Artists film reels in the lighthouse and realises this is where they washed up after the ship disaster where their sibling died happened.

In 2023 a new game, titled ''Layers of Fear'' (2023) came out, this time you play as an author who isolated herself in a lighthouse to write a new book, it also lets you [[EmbeddedPrecursor read her previous works whose plot follows the lives of several artists including a painter, his daughter and a pair of sibling actors.]]

* OriginalGeneration: In adition to the Writers Meta-story and all the previous games we also get a new [[ShowWithinAShow book]] about a musician.
* PromotedToPlayable: It is heavily implied that the Musician from the new story is the Painters wife.
* ShoutOut: We have a writer, nightmarish hallucinations related to the horror story they're writing, [[ShowWithinAShow stories within stories]] and a [[LighthousePoint lighthouse.]] [[VideoGame/AlanWake Not exactly subtle.]]
* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: The Rat Queen implies that the stories the Author wrote actually happened and that she [[BadSamaritan helped]] the main characters with their work in the past.

* ShoutOut: We have a writer, nightmarish hallucinations related to the horror story they're writing, [[ShowWithinAShow stories within stories]] and a [[LighthousePoint lighthouse.]] [[VideoGame/AlanWake Not exactly subtle.]]

In 2023 a new game, titled ''Layers of Fear'' (2023) came out, this time you play as an author who isolated himself in a lighthouse to write a new book, it also lets you [[EmbeddedPrecursor read his previous works which whose plot follows the first two games and the inheritance Dlc.]]

* FictionalPainting: The plot is driven by the increasingly unstable painter protagonist's attempt to finish his last portrait [[spoiler: which he believes will bring back his wife, who he [[DrivenToSuicide Drove to Suicide]] with neglect]]. A few other paintings by him also make appearances, including ''Baby Face'', a portrait of a child with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis hypertrichosis]].

* TheLostLenore / MissingMom: The mother is this; her death caused the father and Lily much grief, and the father spends what little money he has on flowers for her grave over getting James a birthday present.

* AmbiguousDisorder: The Artist is implied to have PTSD induced schizophrenia, hallucinations and psychosis. You can find several medals tucked away in drawers early on as well a drawer full of them in the office with the phone puzzle and "Babyface."

* SpiritualSuccessor: Bears ''many'' similarities, both in atmosphere and story, to ''VideoGame/SilentHills'' (with some nods to ''PT'' in particular), albeit with a visual style more reminiscent of ''VideoGame/AmnesiaAMachineForPigs''.