Video Game / Lorelai

Lorelai will never forget that day. The little she had, it was taken away. Her whole world disintegrated. She never really had a chance, but Lorelai refused to give up. She will fight. And not even death will stop her from getting it all back.

Lorelai is a side-scrolling Horror Adventure Game that was released in April of 2019 by Harvester Games, who are also known for Downfall (2009) and The Cat Lady.

Laura "Lorelai" Wood is a young woman with a difficult home life, to put it mildly. Her stepfather John is an unemployed and oftentimes violent alcoholic, her mother Miranda is completely unwilling to stand up to his abuse, and her baby half-sister Bethany is routinely neglected by them. She doesn’t have much support outside of her family, either; the only person she can really call a friend is Zack, the indie game developer who lives next door. Despite all of her hardships, though, she’s just begun her first job and has dreams of taking Bethany away and starting a new, better life — only for tragedy to strike and steal it all away in one fell swoop. Suddenly, Lorelai finds herself trapped in a surreal afterlife and must somehow return to the real world to save her loved ones with the help (?) of the enigmatic Queen of Maggots. What comes next is a very dark and poignant Coming of Age Story.

This is the last game of the Devil Came Through Here thematic trilogy along with Downfall (2009) and The Cat Lady.

Due to the game's very high Story to Gameplay Ratio, expect frequent spoiler tags below.

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Tropes present in this game:

• Abandoned Warehouse: The final confrontation between Lorelai and John takes place in the shut-down brick factory where he used to work. He's brought Bethany, Zack, and everyone else's bodies there in order to destroy all the evidence of his ongoing murder spree.
• Abusive Parent: John is Bethany's father and it's implied she's the only reason he stays with Miranda. He utterly resents her and eventually succeeds in killing her by drowning her unless Lorelai lights up her candle again.
• Accidental Murder: Judging by John's panicked swearing after the fact, it doesn't seem as though he meant to kill Lorelai the first time - instead, he just let his drunk anger get the best of him and reacted without thinking to her moving to attack him. Once he crosses that line, though, all of his other murders (including Lorelai again, multiple times over) become very intentional and a way of covering his tracks.
• Acid-Trip Dimension: As usual, the afterlife or other dimension where the shack of The Queen of Maggots is located. This time it features a factory where The real Queen of Maggots is located, a horrific man-eating giantess that is shown snacking on corpses.
• The Alcoholic: John, of course. Al, the cook, is shown to be a recovering one and goes to support groups. Whether he succeeds or not is up to you.
• The Apprentice: The Queen of Maggots seems to view Lorelai as this or some kind of heir, referring to her as The Princess of Maggots. If the player follows her orders and pushes Al towards drinking again, The Queen of Maggots reveals that while she'll grant Lorelai a second return to life to put John down for good and save Bethany and Zack, she fully expects her to return to the afterlife when the job is done and become the next Queen of Maggots. Lorelai isn't interested.
• Are We There Yet?: Lorelai can pester Jimmy the Traveler as they walk.
• As Long as There Is Evil: It is heavily implied that the Queen of Maggots, as the embodiment of evil and especially depression, cannot be truly destroyed, with her "death" being little more than an inconvenience. However, if one learns to cope with one's demons, as Susan and Lorelai do in their good endings, the Queen can be kept in check.
• Author Avatar: Possibly Zack for Rem Michalski. He's an indie game developer, not particularly successful, but with his heart in the right place and more concerned about making art than success. Not that he would mind both.
• Back from the Dead: Lorelai herself, given her dealings with the Queen of Maggots. Zack and Bethany as well, depending on your actions.
  • It's also possible that John keeps doing this, given how much abuse he keeps inexplicably surviving.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Zoe and Maria are an interesting subversion of this trope. While Zoe is a heavyset woman who is initially introduced as overly stern, cranky, and insecure, she is also the only person who tries to comfort Lorelai after a resident dies and compliments her to the owner at the end of the day as well. Meanwhile, Maria is very pretty and cheerful, befriending Lorelai right away and taking her under her wing, but eventually reveals a mean-spirited edge when she traps her in the same room as a corpse and gleefully calls it a prank. Later, you see her pull an even crueler prank on Al with no remorse.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The regular/bad ending has shades of this trope. As Lorelai herself says, she did get what she wanted in the end: her own flat, independence, and a new life. It just came at the steep cost of losing everyone she loved, leaving her alone and devastated.
• Big Bad: John is established at this pretty early on, but over time, the Queen of Maggots becomes the Bigger Bad who needs to be stopped along with him.
• Big Damn Reunion: If Lorelai lights Zack and Bethany's candles before eating the rest of the stew at the end of the game, she will awaken in the factory and walk outside only to find them alive again and waiting for her. She breaks into a run at the sight and happily embraces them. It's a unique example of the trope because they last saw each other only hours ago instead of months/years, but since they were all dead until just recently, their reunion in the real world is still framed as a very big deal.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Maria, the nurse. After seeming very nice and welcoming, she pulls a cruel prank on Lorelai out of nowhere by locking her in a room with a corpse to scare her and later locks Al, the recovering alcoholic, in the shed where the sherry is, filming giddily as he struggles and eventually sobs.
• Book Ends: The opening scene of the game and the last shot of the regular/bad ending work at this. In both, Lorelai is standing outside in the rain with her umbrella. It seems pretty symbolic, as in the golden ending, the weather is very nice and sunny.
• Breather Episode: After a harrowing opening, the first half of Chapter 4 works as this. It consists of Lorelai and Zack having a conversation that includes some possible fun moments (mostly regarding video games he's made) and development for their relationship, as well as a low-stakes objective to create a makeshift diaper for Bethany. Once you enter into the 2nd half of the chapter, though, the game gets intense again in a hurry.
• The Cameo: Susan Ashworth makes an appearance, working as a clerk where Al can (or not) buy alcohol.
  • After Lorelai completes a puzzle in a locked room on The Queen of Maggots' domains, Joe Davis can be seen on the other side of a mirror carrying an axe. The axe then appears in the adjacent room, allowing Lorelai to break the lock.
• Cannot Spit It Out: It's very obvious from their first interaction that Zack has romantic feelings for Lorelai, but he trips over the actual words on multiple occasions. Even if the player makes dialogue choices for Lorelai that push him to be honest with her, he still can't quite get it out before being interrupted. He finally confesses his love for her in no uncertain terms when he's about to die.
• Censored Child Death: Lorelai realizes Bethany has been murdered by John when she sees the beanie she was wearing as a diaper floating alone in deep water. You never see the actual act, though, or her body. It is possible to bring her back to life in the end if the player makes certain choices.
• Chekhov's Gun: The three skulls with candles (two lit, one unlit) in the Queen of Maggots' house. Lorelai can take notice of them very early on, but it isn't until well into the second half of the game when their significance is even explained to her. They end up playing an essential role in determining what ending you get.
  • In the first chapter, there is a set of knives noticeably hanging in the foreground of the kitchen, although you never see anyone use them. Much later, in the fourth chapter, you reenter the kitchen with the police officer while searching for a missing officer...and while the characters don't notice, the player can clearly see that one of the knives is now gone. John uses it to kill the remaining officer after tricking him into coming closer.
• Coming of Age Story: A dark take on the genre. Lorelai is trying desperately to get out of her sorry life by becoming independent, being the only person in her household that actually has a job (that she just started). Events push her into that independence very fast when her mother kills herself and John kills Lorelai and tries to kill Bethany. The game then becomes a test of how far she's willing to go and how much she's willing to sacrifice to get away and be her own person. Exemplified by one of the responses she can use to banish the Queen of Maggots at the end. As the Queen is currently in the form of Lorelai, it's possible to choose the option "Goodbye, Lorelai," which also represents her saying goodbye to her old life and starting anew.
• Continuity Nod: Jimmy the Crow will refuse to eat the pumpkins nearby because he thinks they might be filled with blood.
• Deal with the Devil: This trope makes up a huge part of the game and is even directly referenced in dialogue. It is strongly implied that the Queen of Maggots is the actual Devil.
  Greta: Don't make the same mistake that I did. When you make deals with the devil, the devil always wins.
• The Determinator: Bordering on Made of Iron. John survives being stabbed, hitting his head on a toilet and being actually squashed flat by a container. Justified, as he may be an actual Parasite.
  • Lorelai definitely counts. As the game's description says, not even death is able to stop her. In the golden ending, she notes that everyone has their own struggles and keeps getting closer to a breakdown, represented by seeing various bars above the heads of people in a store, showing their current mental states. But she notes that she just has to close her eyes and go to that special place inside and remember: she's a survivor. Queue her nearly empty mental health bar filling all the way up.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Lorelai actually kills the Queen of Maggots with a Molotov cocktail.
• Dirty Business: Depending on the player's choices and dialogue with Jimmy, Lorelai can view her orders from the Queen of Maggots about Al as this. She doesn't want to push him towards alcoholism, but she's also determined to protect Bethany and Zack, who have been directly threatened if she fails to follow through. If he does commit suicide as a result, she is remorseful and can even say to the Queen of Maggots during their final confrontation that she will never forgive herself for it.
• Disposing of a Body: John, who has racked up quite the body count by the climax of the game, has a uniquely gruesome plan for getting rid of the evidence: throwing them into a machine called the Cruncher at the abandoned brick factory where he used to work, which is meant to grind stones and clay into a pulp.
• Distressed Dude: While Zack and Jimmy offer Lorelai vital support and encouragement at times, they both end up in this role and need to be saved by her. Whether she actually succeeds in saving them is up to the player's actions.
• Driven to Suicide: John's abuse of Miranda finally breaks her, and she takes her life by hanging herself in the bathroom.
  • This is also Al's eventual fate if the player chooses to follow the Queen of Maggots' orders and push him towards drinking again.
• Dream Walker: Jimmy the Traveler. His real body is fast asleep, but his spirit wanders in the various afterlife dimensions and he tries to help Lorelai. Doubles as Spirit Advisor and Occult Detective, complete with stubble and trenchcoat.
• Dying Declaration of Love: After repeatedly failing to express his feelings for Lorelai throughout the game, Zack finally tells her he has always loved her after he's been impaled with a metal rod by John and is on the brink of death. In turn, Lorelai can either confess her love for him as well and kiss him or gently rebuff him, depending on the player's choice.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After being brutally murdered multiple times and having to experience the deaths of everyone she loves as well, Lorelai definitely earns the golden ending if the player makes the right choices to achieve it. She can finally kill her evil stepfather, destroy the real Queen of Maggots with a Molotov (at least temporarily), bring Bethany and Zack (and herself) back from the dead, and start a new life with her boyfriend and sister as a loving, functional family with a bright future ahead of her. She can also wake Jimmy up in the real world (after making sure not to feed him fertilizer) and help Al to fight his addiction, which allows both to be alive too by the game's ending.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even The Queen of Maggots who the game heavily hints at being the actual Devil thinks John is a piece of work. In various dialogue branches, she'll refer to him as "a miserable failure of a man," "a drunk lowlife," and "a real rat in the cornfield," among other things.
• Evil Counterpart: As a metaphor for depression, The Queen of Maggots shows herself one last time as Lorelai before dying, implying that she will never truly go away as man suffers and abuses each other.
• Extremely Short Time Span: Almost the entire game (save for the last chapter) takes place over the span of just 24 hours, from one early morning to the next. If you exclude all flashbacks to earlier in the day, the major action is compressed into roughly 6-8 hours at night.
• Forced Transformation: For interfering with Lorelai's ordeal, the Queen of Maggots turns Jimmy into a crow.
• Foreshadowing: At the care home, Lorelai has to get rid of maggots that are crawling all over the door of Greta, the elderly resident who died on her first day at the job, before entering to turn off a buzzer. That imagery, coupled with the corpse saying that "she" is coming, will no doubt set off some warning bells for anyone who's played the previous two games in the series regarding who Lorelai is likely to meet in the afterlife...
  • In a more lighthearted way, Zack says he's just an adept of lockpicking and, as anyone that has tried to pick a lock in Skyrim before can tell you, it's not that impressive.
  • It's mentioned in passing very early on (within the first few spoken lines of the game) that Lorelai's family's downward spiral really started when the brick factory shut down and John lost his job there. The abandoned factory ends up becoming the setting for the game's climax.
  • In the care home chapter, Maria will mention Al the chef to Lorelai and tell her to avoid him, as he drinks too much. While you're able to enter the kitchen and see him from the back as he works, you aren't able to interact with him at all at this time. Al ends up becoming a major character a few chapters later, with his fate left entirely in Lorelai's hands.
  • Also, After Jimmy is turned into a crow, he craves fertilizer found in the Queen of Maggots' garden. Lorelai can feed him with it until he explodes. She carries over some in the real world, with which she can upgrade her molotov cocktail, finally killing the Queen. Zack will also give her the hint to use fertilizer to upgrade the weapon if Lorelai doesn't make Jimmy explode, but that's a different trope.
• Good-Times Montage: Lorelai's first day of work goes actually well if you don't mind the talking corpse.
• Hope Spot: After Lorelai dies and comes back the first time, she manages, with Zack's help, to kill John and save Bethany. They're able to retreat to the safety of Zack's flat afterwards and catch their breath. The police arrive a short time later (either because of a call from Lorelai herself or a concerned neighbor), and they take her version of events seriously while also assuaging her fear that they'll immediately take Bethany away. It seems like the night's terrible ordeal may finally be over. And then Lorelai is asked to come back to her flat with the police officer to corroborate her story, and John and Miranda's bodies are both gone. It turns out John survived and killed the 2nd police officer. He then gets the jump on the remaining officer, kills him with a knife, takes his gun, and shoots Lorelai right between the eyes, sending her straight back to the afterlife.
• Humble Goal: As Lorelai herself states throughout the game, she doesn't really have any grand ambitions. She simply wants to escape her awful home life and have a place of her own where she's safe and free. In certain dialogue branches, she will also say that she dreamed of someday having a real family and children who could grow up in a place full of love, not fear. In the game's good ending, she gets everything she wanted with Zack and Bethany as her new family. In the regular/bad ending, she gets to start her life anew but has no one left to share it with.
• I Regret Nothing: Zack expresses this sentiment when Lorelai tearfully apologizes for coming to him for help in the first place - a decision that has led to his imminent death. This leads into his Dying Declaration of Love for her and a possible kiss, depending on the player's choices.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: John kills Zack at the factory by impaling him with a piece of rebar. He also stabs Lorelai in their final confrontation, culminating in a Mutual Kill.
• It's All About Me: Why John does what he does. He claims that 'you lot never loved me', but he made no efforts to inspire love, instead seeming to believe that he deserved love without giving it in return.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Zoe, the senior care assistant, is initially very disapproving of Lorelai's lateness on her first day of work (which wasn't her fault due to her bus leaving prematurely) at the Pinecroft Residential Home, and doesn't seem to ease up on her for the duration of the work until Lorelai proves to be efficient enough to work. However, Zoe isn't needlessly cruel nor petty in her methods of tutoring her co-workers, and she is also the only one of the staff to comfort Lorelai after one of the residents dies. Should Lorelai continue to prove herself as a capable worker, Zoe will happily grant her a positive feedback on her first day of work.
• Karma Meter: It seems like the game is setting up something like this with the "Karma +1" messages that come on screen when the player does something kind without any reward, like returning a starfish to the sea. As it turns out, it doesn't mean anything and the ending is not affected by how much karma you do or don't have. In the Al chapter, though, there is something like a karma meter at the top of the screen that reflects Lorelai's choices to help or hurt him. It starts out as a blue color; once it turns yellow or even red, it can't be reversed.
• Last Kiss: Lorelai can give one of these to the dying Zack. If the player doesn't relight his and Bethany's candles with his lighter, they will remain dead, fulfilling this trope. If this DOES happen and they are resurrected, the kiss becomes a Now or Never Kiss instead.
• Love at First Sight: Zack admits this happened for him when he first met Lorelai. He even remembers several specific details about the moment; she was sitting on the stairs while he was moving in, listening to her headphones and wearing the very same dress she is in the present day. Tragically, he doesn't get around to telling her this until he's about to die.
• Moment Killer: While in Zack's flat, he and Lorelai finally start to broach the subject of their feelings for one another...only for Bethany to choose that moment to start wailing about an extremely dirty diaper.
• Multiple Endings: The game has two possible endings, with variations that can happen in each one depending on the player's choices.
  • What differentiates the golden ending and the regular ending from one another is whether Lorelai was able to save Zack and Bethany or not. If Lorelai tells Zack the truth about what's happened to her in the afterlife, he will give her a lighter, which can be used to relight Zack and Bethany's candles later on and bring them back to life. This leads to a happy reunion in the real world and the three of them becoming a little family. (There is also a rare alternate version of the good ending available if Lorelai rejects Zack's confession, where they go their separate ways.) If she keeps the truth to herself, she won't get the lighter and Zack and Bethany remain dead, resulting in an ending where a devastated but resilient Lorelai ends up alone. It's additionally possible for the player to get the lighter and then simply not light the candles in the end. This sequence of events ends up as a "regular ending" route too, but the final scene is slightly changed with Lorelai sadly wondering what would have happened if she'd done so.
  • If Lorelai goes along with the Queen of Maggots' orders and drives Al to drink during Chapter 5, he commits suicide and is not seen again. If she refuses to lead him astray and helps him instead, she sees him while waiting in line at Susan's store at the end of the game and notes that he's still fighting every day. While it's not technically the ending, it's also worth noting that these choices also both lead to an entirely unique scene with the Queen of Maggots following Chapter 5. If Al dies as intended, the Queen of Maggots will be pleased and present you with your own dream house; you also find out a lot more about her endgame, including the major reveal that she doesn't intend to let Lorelai return permanently to the real world and instead expects her to become the next Queen of Maggots after killing John. If you save Al, she's furious instead and attacks Lorelai, banishing her from her home. The player wakes up outside of the same house (surrounded by dark, thundering weather now) and is able to proceed through the story in the same way, but they never learn the significance of what it is or what the Queen of Maggots was really planning.
  • At the dream house, Lorelai will encounter Jimmy after he's been captured by the Queen of Maggots and transformed into a crow. He will talk about how hungry he is and beg Lorelai to feed him fertilizer. The player can feed him multiple times in a row, or they can walk away at any point, ignoring his cries for help. If you give him fertilizer three times, he will explode...and Lorelai will find his mangled remains in the real world later on. If not, he'll be sleeping and she can wake him up, after which they'll have a conversation about their lives and what comes next. What they discuss will change depending on which ending you're in as well. In the golden ending, Lorelai tells Jimmy all about her new life with Zack and Bethany, while in the regular ending, her inner monologue reveals that she avoids talking about them because her heart is shattered and she can't bear to.
• Mutual Kill: Lorelai finally succeeds in killing John with a broken bottle to the neck, but only after he's stabbed her, which results in her dying shortly after he does. Thankfully, she had unfinished business in the afterlife anyway.
• Non-Standard Game Over: A traditional "game over" screen is not possible, but you can trigger one of these if the player acts stupidly during one specific moment. In Chapter 2, when the pig/John monster springs to life and starts closing in, the player is prompted to run away. If they instead run TOWARDS the monster or fail to move at all, it will grab Lorelai by the throat and gruesomely jam the key its holding right through one of her eyes. You're then presented with a black screen and a prompt to go back to the last checkpoint.
• One Degree of Separation: Jimmy's real body is located in a flat right next to Susan's. It's also the same flat where Joe and Ivy used to live.
• Only Known By Her Nickname: Lorelai's real name is Laura. Why she prefers Lorelai is unknown, but only Zoe calls her Laura in the context of the game.
• Pater Familicide: While John is not responsible for killing Miranda, his abuse did drive her to suicide, he kills Lorelai (not that she stays down), and drowns Bethany.
• Police Are Useless: Played With. Officer Manley does come to investigate a domestic violence case or is outright sent because of Lorelai's call to the police. He listens to her and approaches a difficult situation with professionality, even giving her the benefit of the doubt while also asking her to come with him to look at the bodies for proof of her story. Too bad John is much smarter than he seems and outwits him and his partner, killing them both.
• Pervert Dad: John, as Lorelai's stepfather, definitely fits the bill. He has a "no locked doors" policy in their flat, barges in on her with no warning while she's in the bath, and even offers to "help" when he thinks she's using a vibrator.
• Pet the Dog: Lorelai can feed a cat, return a starfish in the ocean and use Jimmy's change coins in the electricity box, earning her good karma. Karma has no effect on the game at all. It's just...good karma.
• Promoted to Parent: In the golden ending, this happens to Lorelai (and Zack too, although he's not related to her) when Bethany is allowed to stay with them. In fact, you could argue that Lorelai had already achieved this status at the beginning of the game, considering how neglectful Bethany's real parents are. It's only made official at the end.
• Refusing Paradise: If Lorelai makes Al drink again as intended, the Queen of Maggots will present her with a beautiful house from her dreams as her own personal afterlife. However, Lorelai already knows that this "paradise" has a very dark underbelly to it; she also doesn't want to leave Bethany and Zack, who will certainly be killed by John if she doesn't come back to life in time to stop him. As it turns out, the Queen of Maggots isn't actually giving her a choice in the matter, only offering a temporary return to tie up loose ends...so Lorelai has to refuse much more forcefully by killing her with a makeshift Molotov's cocktail later on.
• Remembered Too Late: If the player does receive Zack's lighter but forgets to light the candles to bring him and Bethany back to life before eating the stew themselves, this trope comes into play. You even get a unique ending scene of Lorelai sadly staring at the lighter, wondering what would have happened if she'd done so...but now she'll never know.
• The Runaway: Lorelai's original goal in the game is to become this. While she's 18 and an adult, she would be essentially stealing her baby sister Bethany too in order to save her from a life of neglect.
• Sadistic Choice: In Chapter 5, Lorelai is presented with one of these by the Queen of Maggots. She can either follow orders and ensure that a recovering alcoholic who is a virtual stranger to her fails at his efforts and doesn't get a happy ending (the implication being that he will certainly end up dead as a result), or she can defy the orders and try to help the guy instead, but in doing so, will put Zack and Bethany in grave danger, as the Queen of Maggots threatens to take one of them in his place if Lorelai doesn't go along with her wishes. The decision is entirely left up to the player. It doesn't change much about the overall trajectory of the story in the end, but you will get a unique scene with the Queen of Maggots afterwards depending on the path you took.
• She's Not My Girlfriend: Lorelai can immediately set the record straight when a police officer assumes Zack is her boyfriend. Funny enough, there is also the option to answer "yes" to the question and avert the trope entirely, which prompts a Wait, What? reaction from Zack and Lorelai reassuring him that they'll talk about it later.
• Shipper on Deck: In a very dark example, the Queen of Maggots herself refers to Zack as Lorelai's "goofy boyfriend to be" right before threatening to kill him (or Bethany) if Lorelai dares to step out of line.
• Sole Survivor: If you exclude the ladies at the care home (who aren't really connected to the main plot anyway), it's possible to end the game with the entire main cast dead save for Lorelai, making her this. Of those characters, only three deaths (Miranda, John, and the Queen of Maggots) are set in stone. Zack, Bethany, Jimmy, and Al can all be saved under the right circumstances.
• Starts with a Suicide: The first chapter of the game is focused on establishing who the main characters are and what their relationships with each other are like. At its end, the actual plot kicks off with a bang when it's revealed that Miranda, Lorelai's mother, has given into despair and hung herself.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Unusually for a game with so many fantastic elements, the game heavily emphasizes that actions have consequences.
  • When Lorelai gets the dog to chase the cat so that she can get out of the alley, the cat and dog run out into the street, causing a car crash. It ends up being her new boss's car.
  • Lorelai tries to kill John, and is quickly overpowered and killed. He's bigger than her and much more capable of violence. Every time she tries to confront him directly, she dies.
  • Al had a tough time at work and turned to drinking, which eventually led to him hitting his pregnant fiancée, who fell and miscarried as a result, leaving him soon after. He tries to clean himself up by admitting he has a problem and going to Alcoholics Anonymous, and with Lorelai's help, he can stay on the path to recovery. His fiancée, while delighted at his gradual recovery, has no intention of getting back together with him, specifically because she cannot forgive the fact that he hit her. If he's on the mend, it's implied that he might be able to start a new relationship with Susan, the Cat Lady, but even his good ending leaves his life ambiguous.
  • Even in the good ending where Lorelai has basically gotten everything she wanted (a new life, a family with Zack and Bethany, etc), she still talks about struggling with mental health on a regular basis and often having a hard time with the difficulties of daily life - but she's strong enough to overcome them.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In the care home chapter, Lorelai will find out from Zoe that the owner was in a car accident that morning caused by a dog chasing a cat into the street – which is unfortunate, because Lorelai caused that very accident and had mentioned a dog to Zoe as her reason for being late. When Zoe accuses her of being behind it, one of the possible responses fits this trope. The player can say that there surely must be more than ONE black dog in the city...which just makes Zoe more convinced because she never said anything about the dog being black in the first place.
• Take That!: Zack talks about the mundane object simulator craze as if it was the worst thing ever.
• Video Game Caring Potential: You can literally be the good conscience for Al as he struggles with his addiction.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can also drive Al back to drinking despite his efforts to turn his life around. He ends up dead as a result.
• When It Rains, It Pours: The main plot of the game (save for some flashbacks and the flash-forward ending) takes place over one very stormy night, with no relief from the rain until morning.
• Will They or Won't They?: The decision of whether or not Lorelai has the same feelings for Zack as he does for her is left up to the player. Thus, the game can end on either side of the question.
• Wicked Stepfather: John is definitely this, as the rest of the page implies.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Time clearly moves very differently in the Queen of Maggots' realm, although it's not clear if there's any actual internal logic to it or if it's just her personal whims. The first time she arrives, Lorelai is there for several hours, but when she revives, only minutes have passed in the real world. The second time, Lorelai spends what seems like weeks helping/hurting Al; when she comes back to life, a few hours have passed at most.
• You Are Too Late: When Lorelai is finally able to return to life a second time, she is determined to kill John once and for all and save Bethany and Zack. Unfortunately, she's a little too late and he's already murdered both of them, drowning Bethany and impaling Zack with a metal rod (although the latter hangs on long enough for them to have a conversation first before succumbing to his injury). She does succeed in killing John, but in the regular ending of the game, she's left all alone and is clearly devastated by how everything played out. Thankfully, it is possible to bring Zack and Bethany back to life if certain actions are taken.
• You Wouldn't Believe Me If I Told You: Lorelai says something along these lines to Zack about her adventures in the afterlife. His retort is that he already spends half of his life in a fantasy as a video game developer, so she should try him anyway. If the player chooses to tell him the truth, he does believe it and even gives Lorelai great advice on how to kill the real Queen Of Maggots, which ends up working. He'll also hand over his lighter, which is a crucial part of determining which ending you get.