Video Game / Lugaru

"There may be mothers and children in this den... And I'm not so sure that I care anymore."

Lugaru: The Rabbit's Foot is a shareware action game developed by David Rosen when he was in high school, becoming the launching game for Wolfire Games. The story follows a retired warrior rabbit named Turner, who, after finding his village destroyed by raiders and his family among the dead, swears to avenge his loved ones. Along the way, he finds a conspiracy that goes much farther than he expected.

Lugaru is a little bit like Usagi Yojimbo (with some nods to Watership Down and Redwall) in computer game form… Although there isn't much to the story^note Or so it seems, what really makes this game shine is the combat. Unlike most other fighting games, it relies less on button mashing and much more on timing your moves right: the position and range of the enemy and the direction you're moving all influences what Turner will do with each attack, and all of the possible attacks are linked to a single button. The result is a remarkably fluid and responsive combat system, as this video demonstrates.

It was originally made for the Mac, and has since been ported to Windows, Linux, and Amiga. On December 29th, 2008, a freelance graphic designer named Tim Soret updated Lugaru's graphical textures; the updated version of the game is currently sold as Lugaru HD. On May 11, 2010, Lugaru's source code was released under the GPL license, following the massive success of the “Humble Indie Bundle” charity drive. This opens the door to advanced modding capabilities and ports to new operating systems and portable devices. That being said, the game content is still closed, so you will have to register the game in order to play anything more than the Demo and downloadable mods.

After the unexpected success of Lugaru, David Rosen announced a sequel, then called Lugaru 2. However, his college work took up too much of his time, leaving the game's future uncertain. After finishing college, he, his brother John, and three friends began working on the game full-time and announced it as Overgrowth.

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Tropes:

• Adventure-Friendly World: Lugaru is a Low Fantasy world where sapient animals have replaced humanity and everyone knows kung fu. The society is loosely modeled on the Low Middle Ages.
• After the End: Though it's never explicitly stated in-game, it is very clear that the events of Lugaru are set after the fall of Humankind. The stone pillar in the starting village is referred to as "lookout ruins", and if you walk around the Old Camp in debug mode, you'll see the ruins of modern-looking concrete buildings. The ruins of other man-made structures are strongly integrated into the level design. The various◊ concept◊ artworks◊ reveal the structures to be made of concrete and rebar.
  • According to this development video the structures grow over time like "crystal or a coral reef". Considering that, and the the filename of this related concept art◊, "nanoarch", the ruins may be under constant reconstruction by some sort of nanomachines.
• Alliterative Name: Even though Lugaru island is clearly ruled under a feudal kingdom, Wolfire's own page describing the game refers to a "Rabbit Republic", which is never mentioned or even merely hinted in the game at all. Perhaps Lugaru actually was under a republican government before whatever war Turner participated in?
• Almost Lethal Weapons: Totally averted. Weapons are spectacularly lethal, regardless of whose hands are holding them.
• Ambient: With the exception of the battle music, Lugaru's soundtrack is entirely made of ambient background music, making a beautiful, yet haunting and foreboding atmosphere. It has been compared to David Julyan's score for the 2000 film, Memento. The tracks are freeware: three of them were composed by Justin R. Durban of http://www.edgen.com, and one was composed by a person named Rudy Vessup.
  • Main Theme
  • Grass Levels
  • Desert Levels
  • Snow Levels
• Antagonist Title: Here's a bit of Bilingual Bonus: "Lugaru" is French for "werewolf" - literally "Wolf Man". The antagonists of the game are evolved, humanoid wolves.
• Audible Sharpness: Every weapon that does cutting damage sounds like this, including claws.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Turner has one for King Hickory.
  Turner: "I can kill them with my bare hands, why are you so afraid of them? You even have a sword."^note  Since the wolves see weapons as cowardly, they are generally at a disadvantage against the rabbits, who wisely use any weapons they can get their hands on. King Hickory is scared of the wolves anyway and sold out his people to avoid having to personally fight them.
• Arrow Catch: Enemies can snatch a thrown knife right out of the air, provided they see it coming. They can also snag a misfired Leg Cannon.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: There seems to be a case of this from Turner when he faces the rabbit that ordered the raid on his village. In actual fact, the line is an early hint that Turner is a warrior, and connotes a certain amount of sentimental attachment.
  Turner: You killed my family! And my friends!
  Turner: (Looking at rabbit) You even stole my armor!
• Art Evolution: A very minor example occurred between the original game and the graphical update. While the new in-game textures were deliberately chosen to be similar to the originals while still having a higher resolution, the title screen was substantially changed. The original game's title screen features the word "Lugaru" written in blood, while the update features the title in capital letters and changes the blood to an orange Garamond font. The rabbit eye picture in the background was also replaced.
  • Original Title Screen◊
  • Rerelease Title Screen◊
• Awesome, but Impractical: the Leg Cannon. It requires a long run-up, therefore it can be seen from a mile away and easily countered. However, it's also very damaging if it connects.
  • The Bo Staff kicks major ass when used on enemies (can kill a rabbit in 1-2 hits, 3-5 on Wolves), but breaks after 3 or 4 hits (excluding hitting ragdolls). Use it wisely.
• Back Stab: This is one of the game's stealthy One-Hit Kill moves.
• Badass Adorable: The rabbits in general. Their faces are somewhat cute-looking, and they will absolutely take you apart.
• Bag of Spilling: An unusual and minor intra-game example: Turner begins most levels with a single knife, regardless of any other weapons he picked up during the previous level. The only exception to this is after Turner gets King Hickory's sword, which is an 11th-Hour Superpower against the wolves.
• Battle Theme Music: Whenever the player is attacked, the music changes abruptly into a Japanese inspired combat theme.
• Beast Man: Despite clearly being animal species, the creatures of Lugaru are not stand-ins for humans, though they are easily intelligent enough to behave in a very humanlike fashion. All of them can run on all fours, or in a bipedal stance at will. While Rabbits live in a loose monarchy, wear clothes, and use Iron Age technology including tools, primitive armor and weaponry, Wolves, in order to toughen their bodies, use no technology and wear no clothes under any conditions. In battle, they rely entirely on their own physical prowess instead of weapons, though they will use a weapon they somehow acquire through a reversal. Also, Wolves still eat Rabbits.
• Bittersweet Ending: Turner manages to successfully avenge his family and save the rabbits of Lugaru from being farmed for food. That said, he may or may not have gone too far in doing it. In addition, his family and friends are all dead and his former home is a graveyard, so his life as it was is over. It's not very hard to see why Turner decided to roam the island to find a new purpose in life instead of taking the crown he was offered... what would be the point? (Though that choice could easily create problems of it's own)
• Black Humour: The messages you get for some combat actions. "Nice aim" for Grievous Harm with a Body, "Tracheotomy" for Slashed Throat, "Bullseye" for hitting a target with a thrown knife.
• Boss Dissonance: Because combat in Lugaru in handled realistically, Conservation of Ninjutsu simply doesn't exist. As a result, the boss fights are often very easy compared to the regular levels. Generally, the player is both outnumbered and only lightly armed, so after killing over a dozen armed and/or armored raiders with only a knife, one unarmed raider doesn't seem all that hard.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Wolves.
• Breakable Weapons: The staff has a tendency to shatter when used. However, swords and knives are indestructible.
• Carnivore Confusion: Played with. The wolves in the game intend to enslave and farm the rabbits, claiming that before coming to the island the game is set in, they wiped out the prey population in their old home, leading them to seek more territory and food.
• The Champion/The Dragon: Fiver becomes this in the unused endings where Turner becomes the King, making him quite similar to Jack.
• Choice of Two Weapons: Turner can carry up to two weapons at any time.
• Cinematic Platform Game: Lugaru has this trope built directly into both it's level structure and game engine. That said, the platforming itself is very minimal compared to what the engine can actually do. The various officially supported mods often realize this potential and include levels specifically designed for platforming.
• Civilized Animal: All mammals in the land of Lugaru are somewhat anthropomorphic bipeds with language skills, and most are clothed, but they're still part of an ecology that involves eating each other.
• Combat Parkour: Turner can jump, somersault, spring from walls, roll, and generally move aout during combat, and in some situations, it's encouraged.
• Combat Pragmatist: Turner can use everything from staffs and swords to the bodies of his enemies and the very walls as weapons. And he probably should.
• Confusion Fu: Certain moves will confuse enemies, possibly leaving them open for an attack.
• Cool Sword: Only one sword is available, late into the campaign - it's quite ornate, and it belongs to the rabbit king. While it is easily countered, it is by far the most powerful weapon in the game when properly used - it can kill a wolf in just two hits, effectively turning them from horrifically difficult foes into a cakewalk.^note comparatively speaking. It is also unbreakable.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: King Hickory, ruler of the rabbits has a problem: wolves have come to his island to enslave his people for food. Despite being a trained fighter himself, and having men under his command, Hickory is too scared to fight the wolves. Instead of using the local famed war hero in his kingdom to kill off the wolves and secure the island, he decides to kill the war hero's family in a gambit to make it easier for the wolves to take over his kingdom unopposed, to save his own ass. If only he'd stopped to think about the consequences, his kingdom would be safe, and he would not be dead.
• Counter-Attack: A core game mechanic. Pressing the Shift Key at the right moment and range will nullify and punish any melee attack. All enemies in the game can do this as well. Successfully countering an armed opponent generally results in the weapon changing hands. As such, it's not uncommon to see fighters trade weapons.
• The Coup: Once Turner reveals that King Hickory has been selling his people to the wolves out of cowardice, he immediately loses the respect of his his own guards. They force him to step down and start following Turner's commands, effectively making him King. After the wolves are defeated, the guards offer to make his kingship official since no one could challenge him, but he doesn't take the position and decides to wander instead. There are unused assets in the game's files revealing that the player was originally given a choice in the matter.
• Damage Reduction: Armor works this way.
• David Versus Goliath: Turner vs the Alpha Wolf.
• Deadly Lunge: Can be done at any time during an animal run.
• Doomed Hometown: Sets in motion the plot of the game.
• The Dragon: Two of them. Jack is this to Hickory, and Hickory is this to the Alpha Wolf.
• Elite Army: Hickory uses the Wolves like this in the campaign.
• Elite Mooks: In the story mode you'll occasionally find yourself facing a slightly more dangerous foe. Some of them are Lightly Armored Mooks, and at one point you'll face a rabbit named Jet who's significantly faster than his mates.
• Emergency Weapon: Knives are the most common weapon in the game by far, and can be used in the most situations. They can deal non-healable damage in melee combat, and can even cause someone to bleed out, which can be annoying in long levels. They can be used as throwing weapons for an instant kill^note usually against unarmored rabbits - wolves will only find this tactic slightly annoying, assuming of course that you actually hit them at all. Thankfully, enemies never throw their knives at you. Knives also have not one, but three attacks that are instantly lethal against any enemy in the game: attacking an enemy from behind cuts the enemy's throat, attacking a fallen enemy while crouching plunges the knife into their chest, and if you see any fallen enemy that has a knife lodged in them, you can somersault over them and rip it out.
• Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: The number of living things in this game that don't know martial arts can be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.
• Fantasy World Map: Turner's current location is tracked via one of these throughout the Campaign Mode.
• Flawless Victory: The Challenge Mode will acknowledge when you clear a level without damage this way.
• Fragile Speedster: Turner.
• Free-Floor Fighting: The terrain in Lugaru is always irregular, and has a large impact on any battle.
• Game Mod: Modding of Lugaru and Overgrowth is officially supported by Wolfire. You can find several of them on their own website at this link.
• Great Offscreen War: Turner is a retired war veteran. That's all we know.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Enemies can be used as weapons. This can be used very effectively, with the right choice of combos and a bit of luck.
• Groin Attack: Happens whenever a Roundhouse Kick is successfully reversed.
• Guide Dang It!: Stealth is an important aspect of the game, but the tutorial tells you nothing except that crouch-walking is stealthy and that you can perform instant-kill attacks from behind enemies. It doesn't tell you, for example, that the forward roll is considered "stealthy," allowing you to sneak up on enemies extremely rapidly; one of the most common complaints about the game is that sneaking is too slow. Nor does it tell you that certain enemies (read: wolves) can detect you by smell, requiring you to stay downwind from them as you approach (subtle environmental cues will show you which direction the wind is blowing). Nor does it tell you that these enemies can detect blood, or that you can clean blood off your weapons by stabbing the ground.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Early builds left everyone virtually naked. Later ones gave the rabbits clothing, but left the wolves unclothed.
  • Except the Alpha Wolf, who wears pants.
• Heartbroken Badass: Turner, as a prerequisite of being a Crusading Widow.
• Hit Stop: Any direct player-to-enemy contact that KO's or kills an enemy outright temporarily slows down time. Environmental KO's - such as kicking an enemy headfirst into a rock or off a cliff - do not. This effect can be used to get a better bearing on your surroundings.
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Jack's motivation for betraying Turner and the entire rabbit race is his loyalty to the king.
  • In combat, wolves refuse to pick up weapons because they consider them cowardly, preferring to kill you with their own hands. This rings true even when you carry a knife or sword, and at no point do they decide surviving is better than dishonor.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Possible with both knives and swords in various ways.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: Attacking any sufficiently bled enemy from the front with a knife results in this. It kills instantly.
• In a Single Bound: Being an anthropomorphic rabbit, Turner can jump pretty darn high.
• In the Back: All of Turner's stealth kills are done this way.
• Killer Rabbits: That know Kung Fu.
• Life Meter: There's a complicated one, but in a strangely minimalist twist, it's invisible. When you've taken a lot of blunt force trauma, your character starts acting exhausted, the camera becomes wobbly and dark, and if you're seriously hurt you'll develop double-vision (provided blur effects are enabled). Fortunately, you regenerate this sort of damage over time. Damage you take from edged weapons, on the other hand, leaves visible wounds (if you've got blood enabled) and decreases your maximum health, which isn't restored until the next level.
• Lightning Bruiser: Wolves on Insane difficulty can run on all fours at a much greater speed than they can move on two legs. This renders them largely inescapable once they notice you.
• Limited Loadout: Turner can only carry two weapons at a time. The sequel increases this to four.
• Low Fantasy/Heroic Fantasy: With slightly anthropomorphic animals, no less.
• Mature Animal Story: Don't be fooled by the cast of humanoid talking animals. The story contains political corruption, betrayal, sexual assault, bloody violence, child murder, vengeance, and a lot of death.
• Medieval European Fantasy: To start, there's a king who wields an arming sword, as well as other trappings indicating a feudalistic system governed in an atypically loose fashion.
• The Mole: Jack, Turner's best friend and second-in-command of their village, is one of the members of the conspiracy.
• Mook Chivalry: Averted with extreme prejudice. With the notable exception of wolves, enemies in Lugaru have no qualms about running away and calling their friends to help deal with you, and even wolves will not go out of their way to fight you one-on-one. Also, in the challenge levels, which have no plot, and thus no race or faction affiliations, losing rabbits prefer to call nearby wolves to assist with fighting you instead of another rabbit.
• Moral Event Horizon: The raiders have several blatant examples of puppy kicking in a row. First, they destroy Turner's home and kill everyone there, including his daughter. Afterwards, one of them can be heard idly bragging to a friend about violating Turner's wife, going so far as saying he wishes Turner was there so he could see the look on his face. He doesn't last long. In addition, King Hickory is selling his own kind for food because he's too scared to fight against the wolves.
• Multi-Melee Master: Turner, being a trained warrior, can use knives, swords, staves, and his bare hands with equal alacrity.
• Multiple Endings: Three possible endings were planned based on whether or not the player killed or merely KO'd their enemies, but they are not accessible in the final game. Their information is still in the game's code, but the player is always railroaded to the Neutral ending, which as of Overgrowth happens to be canon.
  • In the Golden Ending, Turner becomes a wise and respectable king after replacing Hickory, though he doesn't have a total lack of detractors.
  • In the Neutral Ending, Turner decides that he isn't fit to be a king and decides to wander the island to find new purpose.
  • In the Downer Ending, Turner becomes a caring but bitter and ruthless king who ruthlessly kills any and all of his detractors.
• Murderers Are Rapists: Cypress.
• Natural Weapon: Wolves fight with claws (and occasionally teeth at Insane difficulty). This means that most of their attacks will deal damage that can't be healed except between missions... their attacks are also extremely powerful. Turner, being a rabbit, can use his powerful leg muscles to perform the devastating Leg Cannon, which will send enemies flying if it doesn't kill him.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Fist Fight: Weapons are powerful and add range to your attacks, but they can be easy to counter and tend to reduce your combat options. Sometimes it's best to rely on Good Old Fisticuffs. Unless the weapon in question is a sword.
• Next Tier Power-Up: Turner's personal armor. While it's not a Unique Protagonist Asset, it certainly helps even the odds in later levels. Also, King Hickory's sword.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The raiders didn't kill Skipper the way Jack wanted them too, instead deciding to keep him for ransom. This goes on bite Jack, and King Hickory, in the ass.
• Nintendo Hard: This game will absolutely obliterate an unprepared player. There is no Mercy Invincibility, weapons are fantastically lethal, the AI can and will counter your strongest move, and wolves fit NEARLY ALL traits of the Boss in Mook Clothing trope.
• Nominal Importance: Averted, in an attempt to avert a certain other trope by giving some importance to the soon-to-be departed. Only two enemies in the game are referred to by generic terms instead of their names - Wanderer and Raider. All other enemies are given names and personalities unless they never happen to speak, and their dialogue isn't necessarily plot important.
• Notice This: Weapons will occasionally glint when dropped.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: Turner can survive very long falls. Fall too far, however, and this tends to happen.
• Offstage Villainy: King Hickory has been doing a lot of work behind the scenes, as have the wolves.
• One-Hit Polykill: Despite not featuring guns, this trope is entirely possible due to ragdoll physics. With a bit of timing and luck, a precise hit will send enemies flying into each other, possibly knocking out or killing several of them at once.
• One-Man Army: Turner. Notably averts several typical conventions of the trope, such as the tendency of fiction to ignore damage to the fighter's psychological state.
• One-Word Title: With a subtitle of "The Rabbit's Foot".
• Only a Flesh Wound: If there's any doubt that Lugaru takes place in a World of Badass, look no farther than the rabbit who, upon getting speared in the sternum with a thrown knife, yanks the knife out of his chest wound and stabs you with it.
• Optional Stealth: There's nothing that prevents the player from charging in and tearing their enemies apart... except the difficulty of doing so.
• Our Orcs Are Different: For all intents and purposes, the Wolves are orcs, combining some elements of both "traditional" and "revisionist" versions of the trope. They are quite big, immensely strong, are technologically primitive, exclusively carnivorous, and are all hostile on sight. Ash reveals that they are actually quite intelligent creatures who are only primitive on purpose, seeing weapons and armor as cowardly and preferring to train The Spartan Way.
• Player-Exclusive Mechanic: While the AI technically has all the same moves as Turner, they are quite mercifully programmed to not use all of them. As a result, the player has exclusive access to several moves:
  • Only Turner can perform the Leg Cannon move.
  • Apparently, only Turner can throw his knife at all. Or maybe, he's just that good.
  • The Animal Run can only be performed by Turner and the wolves.
• Polygonal Graphics
• Post-Victory Collapse: Bleeding damage can cause this.
• Praetorian Guard: The Rabbit King's personal guards.
• Pragmatic Hero: Turner. His only goal ^note  at first is exacting revenge on the raiders for the deaths of his loved ones, but as seen with the raiders' second base, he refuses to kill anyone who doesn't attack him, even if that person is a raider. Once he is aware of the wolf threat and effectively King of the land, Turner proves that he's willing to put his life on the line for the greater good by ordering his men to guard the Rocky Hall while he deals with the wolves himself. He later gives a speech to Hickory, the former King explaining why he was able to defeat the wolves, including a direct jab at his cowardice.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: The wolves are an entire race of them. The rabbits also have their fair share of these, most notably the royal guards, raiders and Turner.
• Punched Across the Room: The Leg Cannon dropkick has this effect, although if it misses it leaves you vulnerable. Wolves can do this with some of their most simple attacks.
• Puppet King: Hickory is one of these, serving under the Alpha Wolf.
• The Quisling: Hickory, the ruler of the rabbit kingdom, betrayed his people to the wolves in fear for his own life. He claims that his motives are more complicated than they seem, but that is highly unlikely.
• Ragdoll Physics: Part of the fun is sending other rabbits into walls, off cliffs, or into other rabbits.
• Real-Time Weapon Change
• Regenerating Health: Blunt-force trauma heals over time. Damage from cutting weapons remains until the next mission, and causes bleeding.
• Retired Badass: While it's never explicitly stated, There's more than enough Subtext to assume Turner was already known for his combat skills before settling down to raise a family.
• Reverse Grip: Turner always holds knives like this.
• Rewrite: The sequel to Lugaru contains an adaptation of this game's campaign. A lot of the plot was streamlined - many fine details were left out, and entire subplots completely removed in the rewrite.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The main motivation of Turner. It is eventually revealed that Jack counted on him wiping out the raiders so the wolves would not have trouble enslaving the rabbits of the island.
• Running on All Fours: The Animal Run.
• Savage Wolves: The wolves are a brutal race out to conquer and enslave.
• Scoring Points: There is a totally unnecessary scoring system that gives the player more points based on the variety and difficulty of the moves performed. This means that defeating your enemies swiftly and efficiently scores less than openly fighting them with flashy kung-fu.
• Shout-Out: One of the minor characters you meet in Rocky Hall (the capital of the rabbit kingdom) is a young rabbit named Fiver.
  • Another one of the guards there goes by the moniker Basil, what what.
  • At the beginning of the game, Turner comments to his daughter that “these silly tricks (climbing the implausibly rectangular stone spire in the middle of their ‘village’) are for kids.”
  • Also, the background of Lugaru's main menu screen might be a Shout-Out to the Animated Adaptation of Watership Down — where the first time we see a rabbit is after the opening credits, via a close-up on his eye. The background of the menu screen features nearly the exact same image◊. This might be just unintentional though, since such a image is cool on its own.
• Shows Damage: Lugaru's damage effects, especially blood, are very well detailed. Notably, the developer avoided the common temptation to greatly exaggerate the amount of blood shown despite putting so much detail into it.
  • If severely injured, enemies will breathe heavily and hold themselves.
  • Impacts from bladed weapons cause blood sprays◊, and wounds are animated onto the bodies in the direction of the strike◊. Blood from open wounds actually flows in the direction of gravity◊ and pools under dead bodies◊. A hard punch to the face will break the nose and cause a noticeable trickle. Bladed weapons drip for a few seconds after use, and each drip can stain the terrain.
  • Enemies who are merely unconscious will visibly breathe. Dead enemies don't breathe, and they have open mouths.
• Slashed Throat: Another one of the stealthy One-Hit Kill moves.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil/It Gets Easier: By the end of the game, Turner is cold and angry enough that he kills all the wolves, including mothers and children. Turner brings this up himself while Thinking Out Loud.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Skipper. He has few lines and does almost nothing at all in the plot, but it's through him that Turner learns about the larger conspiracy. Which is why Jack tried to have him killed.
• Super-Strong Child: Turner's lack of remorse towards killing children is somewhat tempered by the fact that the cubs you encounter are perfectly capable of defending themselves with the same amount of kung-fu training as the adults, including lifting you and slamming you onto the ground full force.
• The Sneaky Guy: It's never explicitly stated, but it's implied, since Turner fits most of the trope's description. In any case, playing this way is necessary to win the game.
• Too Happy to Live: Turner's family and friends.
• Sole Survivor: Turner is the only one who survives the raider attack on the village. Actually averted: Jack feigns death and is actually The Mole, while Skipper is kept as a hostage by the raiders.
• Speaking Simlish/Animal Talk: Both rabbits and wolves “talk” in their natural range of sound expressions and gestures, which they can all understand but not in any language understandable to the player. Instead, their conversations are accompanied by Translation Convention subtitles.
• Stealth-Based Mission: Although the game doesn't make it obvious — see Guide Dang It! above — stealth is a vital part of how you play through the game. Ironically, it's most useful if you're trying to Speed Run the challenge levels; taking out an opponent with a sneaky One-Hit Kill is often much quicker than straight-up combat.
• Subtext: Lugaru has an interesting amount of Worldbuilding and subtle details for a game with such a simple plot.
• Suplex Finisher: The aptly named "Spinecrusher" move.
• Sword Fight: Given the Low Fantasy trappings, this trope was bound to show up. That said, any notion of Hollywood "swordplay" is averted with extreme prejudice. Your opponents will not aim to miss, bother with trying to push against you, or make highly telegraphed swings with their swords: they will simply cut you to ribbons as fast as they can. Any individual cut is very likely to kill you immediately. Even if you're somehow standing after the first hit, you're likely to bleed out anyway. As this video demonstrates.
• Teeth Flying: Any strong enough blow to the head will knock out teeth on impact.
• This Is Unforgivable!: "I swear, I will kill all of them."
• Three-Point Landing: Turner will do this if he lands from a steep angle after a long fall.
• Tranquil Fury: Turner, whenever he gets angry. He could be confronting a person who conspired to kill his wife and child, and you'd never know it if not for the words actually spoken. Also shown in the sequel.
• Tyrannicide: Both King Hickory and the Alpha Wolf are killed by Turner to save Lugaru. (Though Hickory wasn't the king anymore at that point)
• Unwitting Pawn: Turner himself, who is manipulated into killing the raiders to make room for an invasion.
• Updated Re-release: Lugaru HD
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can leap off of a ledge onto an opposing rabbit and knock him down. Then you can steal his staff, and beat the crap out of your enemy while he's down, until he dies. Or until your staff breaks. Or both.
  • Not to mention that you can stab a person to death while they're knocked down by crouching and attacking while holding a knife/sword. And indeed, you're encouraged to do that. The timing is very difficult, however.
  • You can throw a knife at someone, then knock them down, roll over them, and rip the knife out of them for extra damage and get your knife back. This is extremely useful against wolves, who otherwise mostly ignore your knife attacks.
  • If there is a campfire, you can burn your enemies. You can even set yourself on fire and torch your enemies. Extinguishing oneself is easy, though.
• Wait Here: Turner tells his wife and daughter to stay at the village while he goes to kill the raiders. Guess what happens.
• War Is Hell: This trope is present in Subtext. The Rewrite of this game's plot included with Overgrowth makes that subtext much more obvious.
• Weak, but Skilled/Bigger Stick: Turner, especially against the wolves.
• Why aren't they attacking?: The raiders in the Old Camp will not fight you, since you've already killed most of their gang (including the boss) and they know they stand no chance.
• World of Badass: Every living thing in this game. Even the wolf cubs apparently know martial arts.
• Would Hurt a Child: The raiders kill Turner's daughter early on. Turner kills the Alpha Wolf's children later.
• Wreaking Havok: Lugaru contains some wacky physics fun — see Grievous Harm with a Body above — but Overgrowth looks to take it to the next level.

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