Video Game / Postal: Brain Damaged

Postal: Brain Damaged is a spinoff of the Postal series by Hyperstrange, supervised by Running With Scissors, designed as a throwback to 90s First Person Shooters in the veins of Doom and Quake.

Taking place in the strange, tormented mind of the Postal Dude as he falls asleep during a movie marathon, he finds himself shooting his way through surreal suburbia, a insane asylum full of clowns, and fan conventions, in his journey to grab a TV, get toilet paper, and poach an autograph from an entrepreneur.

The game is available on Steam, where a demo is available. The final game was released on June 9th, 2022.

Here are the games trailers: Realms Deep 2021 teaser, gameplay teaser, Steam Demo Trailer, and announcement trailer.

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This game contains the following Tropes:

• Abnormal Ammo: For the Penetrator, it's dildos. Said dildos are also used by the Dominatrixes.
  Dude: "I shoot dicks for a living."
  • Other abnormal ammo for guns include alarm clocks for the Nailbiter's time bubble alt-fire and cats for the Pussy Blower.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • All of the boss levels have vending machines that refill your whole loadout in the arenas, to decrease the chance of the player being left completely defenseless.
  • "Bozo's Race into Space" and "Duskstar" both feature some areas that have no gravity, in which the player is treated as if they're swimming. Presumably to make these sections less of a chore, and to make the combat easier, pressing the "crouch" button propels the Dude (via farting) in the direction the player is holding.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: The game's entire shtick is that it happens in a damaged brain. Specifically, the Dude's.
• Bedlam House: The second episode's first half takes place within a mental asylum that's been inexplicably spliced with an Amusement Park of Doom. The first level takes place within the asylum, while the following one is set outside in the asylum grounds, complete with a large ferris wheel that the Dude will have to traverse to progress through the level.
• Beware of Vicious Dog: Golden Retrievers, which are one of the first enemies encountered in the game. There are also tougher variants called "Golden Retrievers (But Meaner)", which initially hide in doghouses before popping out to attack you as soon as you approach them, and require much more punishment to put down than the normal variety.
• Bigger on the Inside: Quite literally named with the fourth level in "American Dream Gone Wrong", which is a massive complex hidden within a wall separating the US and Mexico.
• The Blank: The civilian NPCs have no faces and an incredibly low-poly style which is even more noticeable when putting them side by side with the many different enemies. It could be a metaphor but it's hard to tell with the Postal Dude.
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Hot sauce appears as a pick-up in this game. It's so hot that consuming it will temporarily allow the Postal Dude to pee fire, meaning that yes, it literally burns when he pees.
• Body Horror: A good few of the enemies encountered in the game look downright grotesque, with special mention going to the Arseface and Saxobone. And then there's the Goliath...
• Boss-Only Level: There are two levels that have only the boss to fight against: the Big Bad RONA for "S.I.P.", and Other Dude/Tesloborgelion in "Cruel Dude Thesis". Both serve as the bosses of their respective episodes ("Soulless Asylum" for the former and "No-Life Matters" for the latter).
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: One of the Dude's quotes in the demo is mocking Hyperstrange for thinking they can hide secret areas from him. There's also the Duck Amuck-invoking intro of the demo.
• Bullet Time: Like with the catnip in the main games, there's the quick pillz that, once used, will temporarily slow down time for Dude to run circles around enemies. In addition to that, doing a successful parry will also briefly slow down time.
• Central Theme: Each episode has at least one:
  • "American Dream Gone Wrong" involves America and what's wrong with it, with satire regarding how unwelcoming the populace is (from gun-toting hicks to a wall meant to keep foreigners out) as well as its consumerist culture, with the first episode being entirely about the Dude trying to get a TV.
  • "Soulless Asylum" uses the COVID-19 pandemic (albeit largely avoiding explicitly naming it), alongside mental health and conspiracy theories, as the basis for its settings and enemies. The entire plot of the episode is the Dude simply trying to find toilet paper to use, a common issue during the first months of the pandemic.
  • "No Life Matters" is about the Dude trying to get eccentric millionaire Leon Dusk's autograph with the first three levels taking place on a convention floor akin to the Electronic Entertainment Expo, with the first half largely making fun of nerd culture, and the second half directing most of its mockery toward insular billionaires.
• Chainsaw Good: The Dude's trusty shovel has been modified into a motorized saw on a stick.
• Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: The second half of the second episode is themed around nearly every single conspiracy theory in existence. As the Dude himself puts it in the Area 69 loading screen:
  "So, was it all true?! Every conspiracy theory there is - lizardmen, illuminati, kissing Lucifer's heel during freemason rituals, aliens, hell, even Mike Pence! It's true. All of it."
• Continuity Nod: The milk cartons scattered around the game, while not very detailed, are recognizably of the Jihad brand in Postal 2.
• Eagleland: The main theme of the first episode "American Dream Gone Wrong", which, going by the title alone, paints it as a very unflattering type 2. Enemies include flying Fat Bastards who throw burgers at you, paranoid military veterans who try and shoot you on sight, and trigger-happy gunslingers obsessed with killing "filthy liberals". Locations meanwhile include a Stepford Suburbia, a Hellhole Prison, a bizarre mish-mash of the US-Mexico border (here portrayed as a massive wall blocking filthy foreigners out) and D-Day, a level set within the aformentioned wall and a lone Wallmarkt in the middle of the desert. And the boss of the whole episode? A large, obnoxious Karen-esque woman who constantly demands to see the manager.
• Excuse Plot: The game takes place in the Dude's head, and each episode gives the Dude a very simple goal (trying to get a TV, trying to find some toilet paper, and trying to get Leon Dusk's autograph, respectively).
• Gainax Ending: After defeating the Final Boss, the Dude manages to kill his doppelganger (after they say killing him is impossible), and relieving himself in a toilet that fell out of the destroyed mecha, before waking up and wondering who peed all over his couch. The Dude also has a hexagonal indentation with the sigil of the Illuminati embedded in his head.
• Genre Throwback: To 90s First Person Shooters or as marketing calls them, "Boomer shooters", with emphasis on large, but linear, levels, combat that heavily rewards fast movement (complete with Quake style strafe-jumping), no need to reload, and key-card hunting.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Like Doom Eternal, the game features a shotgun with a grappling hook called the Super Hooker Shotgun, a strangely built double-barreled shotgun with a grappling hook ability. It's used both to hook onto enemies or traverse the level. Humorously the codex entry for the Super Hooker Shotgun admits it's a rip-off.
• Guns Akimbo: Like in the mainline games, the Postal Dude has a consumable that allows him to dual wield with all of his weaponry, even the bow. This also comes with the added bonus that when this power is active, ammo is infinite, so the worry of having to waste all the ammo a non-issue. The only drawback is that you cannot use the secondary fire while the power-up is active.
  "Double the fun!"
• Homemade Inventions: Some of the weapons seen in the game look like they've been cobbled together from bits of random junk. Examples include the Not-So-Smart Gun^note a handgun with some sort of computer device forcibly clamped down on it, the Super Hooker Shotgun^note a shotgun with a pair of soda cans serving as chambers and a hook attached to it, the Nailbiter^note a nailgun modified to act as an assault rifle, complete with duct tape holding it together and the Penetrator^note a bow made from bits of plastic junk held together with rubber bands and a fidget spinner.
• Loose Canon: The game takes place in the Dude's dreams, with no clear indication of where it exactly in the series' timeline. Hyperstrange, when answering the question, essentially stated the game is canon, but takes place in a "perpendicular" reality.
• LOL, 69: A few to go around from: "Not-So-Smart" Pistol MK69420, Brain Fucker Gun 69000, Area 69 and even the game's release date of June 9th.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Wouldn't be a Postal game and a 90s-inspired retro shooter without them.
  Postal Dude: Doc, I keep seeing mutilated corpses!
• Mathematician's Answer: This codex entry for Mr. Toot:
  -Do you want to build a tank or an orchestra?
  -Yes.
• Mega-Microbes: Area 69 introduces us to Li'l Ronnies, large, floating germs based on the coronavirus. They can clip through the geometry and act as Action Bombs should they get too close to the Postal Dude. They can only be damaged by shooting them in their eyes. The following level, "S.I.P.", has an even bigger one acting as the boss of the second episode.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: The Postal Dude's melee weapon in this game is not only a shovel but has been upgraded into a chainsaw shovel, essentially turning it into a chainsaw poleweapon.
• Mythology Gag: The game makes a lot of references to previous entries.
  • Enemies are referred to as "Hostiles" on the level results screens and pause menu, which the first game called its enemies.
  • "All Are Mad Here, Dude"'s loading screen has Dude briefly say the same quote from the original game's first level before quickly changing course.
  "The earth is hungry. Its heart... shit, wait, ok, we know, the earth is thirsty as well, but now it really, really needs to take a number two."
  • The map muzak from Postal 2 is elevator music in "Area 69".
  • The flavor text for the Shovel in the Codex mentions digging out dear Papa's bones. A reference to Postal 2 where one of the dude's errands is pissing on his grave.
  • In Episode 3, The Dude is trying to get Leon Dusk's autograph so that he can sell it online, similar to Postal 2's errand where the Dude has to get the autograph of Gary Coleman.
  • Arseface, Saxobone and Mr. Toot appear to be representations of the recurring marching band seen in the Postal games.
  • The Other Dude's outfit evokes the Dude's appearance from the first entry, wearing a Badass Longcoat with the sleeves rolled up and even wearing a pair of finger-less gloves.
  • As the Dude is trying to sleep in the second cutscene, he murmurs out "Only my weapon understands me," one of his one-liners from the first Postal game.
• Nail 'Em: The Nailbiter is the game's "Assault Rifle"/"Rapid-Fire Machine Gun" stand in, which also comes with an alt fire which creates a localized time stop bubble.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: The 'Fluffy Friend' enemies are not only very buxom, they also have their fursuits unzipped low enough for the player to get a very clear view of their generous tracts of land. That is, if they aren't too busy avoiding getting mauled by them^* The player can at least get a better look at their entry in the codex..
• No Animals Were Harmed: The Pussy Blower's codex entry would like to remind you that "no real cats were harmed during development of this weapon"^note which is probably just as well, considering that the entire game is set within a dream.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: The boss of the first episode, "American Dream Gone Wrong", is "Karen: The Manager Slayer", a large white woman who is constantly threatening to call the police or asks to speak to the manager.
  Karen: "My. Name. Is... KAREN!! Get me the manager, NOW!"
  Dude: "Oh shit. Is she gonna call the manager?"
• Oddball in the Series: The one after the very first Postal. Postal: Brain Damaged is a Genre Throwback to the nineties action shooter instead of an open world shooter / action adventure hybrid.
• Or Was It a Dream?: Though the game's events are blatantly a dream, when the Dude wakes up, he has a hexagon-shaped indentation with the Illuminati sigil engraved into his forehead, implying some of it really did happen after all.
• Parrying Bullets: The Postal Dude can deflect and reflect projectiles with either his shovel (there's even a button that instantly switches for the shovel doing the parry before switching back to the previous button) or even a kick, complete with a Bullet Time kicking in on a successful parry. The mechanic is lifted wholesale from Hyperstrange's earlier game, ELDERBORN.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The Health Pipes in the main games give The Postal Dude health, but eventually damage him if he doesn't take more within a short timeframe. Due to this game being a different genre (a "Boomer shooter" throwback), Health Pipes never cause any damage, allowing the player to stock up and/or use them as they please with no debilitating side effects^note of course, this could also be excused by the game being set within a dream. It's lampshaded in-game by the Dude in one of his quotes after using one:
  Dude: "This can't be good for me... But, yeah, it really is."
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Other Dude's defining feature is his glowing, red eyes. This, combined with the Dude's iconic Cool Sinisher Shades, makes him look Terminator-esque.
• Retail Riot: The climax of the first episode takes place within a dilapidated Wallmarkt, where the Postal Dude squares off against Karen the Manager Slayer.
• Revisiting the Roots: The gameplay structure is linear and level-based, which is less like the Wide-Open Sandbox 2 and 4, but more like the original Postal. While the game has the same pitch-black humor its later games are known for, it's also a bit more on the disturbing side with horrifying visuals and designs for levels and enemies, harkening back to the first Postal game which outright leaned into horror at times.
• Retraux: The visual presentation of the game is very blocky with low emphasis on details, making it similar to the "Boomer Shooter" games.
• Self-Deprecation:
  • The intro to the demo features the Dude complaining about the lack of an intro cutscene to Vince Desi over his phone, and saying that it was a bad idea to outsource the game to Hyperstrange, asking "haven't you learned anything?", referencing Postal III's development issues due to outsourcing the game to Akella.
  • The Codex for "Straight outta Suburbia", the first level, calls the level design janky and pokes fun at its identical house interiors, echoing early impressions criticizing those aspects.
  • The lyrics for "Take Your Hand To Hell", a vocal version of the final boss's theme, have "The developers of this game,/ don't even know Japanese. / No matter how stupid the lyrics are, / They won't know." sung in Japanese.
  • The codex entry for the Super Hooker Shotgun admits that it's a blatant rip-off of a popular weapon.
• Shout-Out:
  • The game wears it's Doom influences on it's sleeve.
    • The demo's intro features the Dude talking about a dream where he had power armor, a space castle ship fortress thing, and is about to fight demons before Vince Desi calls him up to tell him that's the "wrong dream".
    • The Dude's newest shotgun is the "Super Hooker Shotgun", a weapon that is outright stated in the in-game codex to be a blatant rip-off, albeit it has some faux soda product placement and is clearly cobbled together.
    • Many of the enemies take inspiration from classic Doom enemies, from the "Clown Elementals" and "Lost Clowns" being obvious parodies of the "Pain Elementals" and "Lost Souls" to "Nurse Joy" being a "Mancubus" stand-in but with the resurrecting powers of an "Archvile".
  • When Dude picks up the Super Hooker Shotgun, one quote that he might say is "Get over here!"
  • Picking up the Gun Goes Brr will have Dude say "Dakka dakka!"
  • The first level, "Straight Outta Suburbia", could be seen as this to Psychonauts' Milkman Conspiracy level, since both are twisted Stepford Suburbias taking place within someone's mind.
  • The following level, "The Bareback Redemption", is this to The Shawshank Redemption, complete with escaping from the prison through a sewer pipe filled with shit.
  • Both "Bigger On the Inside" and "Definitions of Insanity" have points where you jump off a ledge into a pile of hay below, in a manner similar to the Assassins of Assassin's Creed.
  • One line the Basement Dweller might say before attacking is "In the Name of the Moon, I will smite you!"
  • One secret found in the first level is graffiti of the Dopefish on a wall.
  • The loading screen for "Bigger on the Inside" has Dude namedrop both The Incredible Machine and Quake.
  • Another loading screen, this time for "Black Friday Showdown", has Dude singing some lyrics to Rebecca Black's infamous Friday. In addition, starting the level will also have him say "Gotta get down on Friday".
  • The aptly named Holier-Than-Thou Launcher has a Holy Hand Grenade attached to a mechanism that acts like a slingshot, which is also used for it's alternate fire. Before it explodes a choir sings "Hallelujah!" and if that wasn't enough a cross from Neon Genesis Evangelion appears in it's holy explosion.
    • Other Evangelion shout-outs include the achievement name for defeating Other Dude's mecha ("Third Impact"), the mech's name ("Tesloborgelion") and the name of the final level ("Cruel Dude Thesis").
  • The Penetrator not only shares its name with the weapon from the Saints Row games, its codex entry also references both it and the Dubstep Gun.
  • One of the Dude's many one-liners references a certain hot blooded chef^note It can also be a reference to a running gag from Civvie 11.
    Postal Dude: Looks like you're just fucking raw on the inside.
  • One quote Other Dude might say before running off is "Beep Beep".
  • Throughout the suburbs, you can find scattered red and green plumbobs, some of which are embedded directly in the heads of some corpses. You can also find swimming pools with no ladders or stairways out, and people drowned at the bottom or floating at the top.
  • One of the Easter Egg secret areas in the first level is in the large decrepit house, which involves a huge mannequin wearing an equally huge, white 1930's dress with a tall hat rack that has a large wide-brimmed black hat, beside it a massive dildo.
  • The 5G tower enemies look extremely similar to the infamous internet monster named Sirenhead.
  • Mr. Toot is a reference to the infamous "cursed" meme images involving people wearing pieces of brass instruments as armor and holding certain instruments as some kind of weapons.
  • Leon Dusk is an obvious reference to not only a certain eccentric billionaire but also to a certain protagonist of a game that was also made as a love letter to retro first-person shooters.
  • The Xenotwats are pretty much people cosplaying as Xenomorphs.
  • There's also the Pink Eye Towers, who are people cosplaying as the Eye of Sauron.
  • And as for the Gojira Wankers, well... take a wild guess.^note King Kong is also mentioned in its codex entry.
  • The Duskstar level is a dead ringer for the Death Star from Star Wars.
  • When encountering Leon Dusk in "Sniffing in the VIP Area", he'll briefly imitate Darth Vader's iconic Vader Breath while running for his rocket.
  • Other Star Wars shout-outs include the Storm Poopers (a rather obvious parody of the Stormtroopers) and the Mobile Battle Goober (a guy cosplaying as the Death Star).
  • The Other Dude does Omni-Man's memetic "Think, Mark! Think!" pose while gloating. He also says "I am you, and you are me", the Arc Words of the entire Persona series, which he lampshades by outright comparing himself to a Jungian persona.
  • When the Dude wakes up from his insane dream he has a a hexagonal indentation on his forehead like a certain cyborg who didn't ask for his augmentations.
• Shock and Awe: The Brain Fucker 69000 is the game's lightning gun and it's codex entry mentions that it could be Nikola Tesla's brain inside of it. Which could be their way of explaining why it has a brain and also why it can shoot lightning.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: The codex entry of the Super Hooker Shotgun, asks if there's anything better than a double-barreled shotgun, the answer is yes and it happens to be a double-barrel shotgun with a grappling hook attachment.
• Shovel Strike: The iconic Shovel returns as the main melee weapon and has even been given a good dosage of Chainsaw Good at that.
• Smart Gun:
  • Partially parodied with the game's primary handgun, which is the "Not-So-Smart" Pistol MK69420. It looks like a normal handgun with a strange contraption forcefully clamped on top of it. It still works like a regular Smart Gun with it's alt-fire ability to lock onto enemies (about three to be exact).
  Postal Dude: Is this gun smarter than me?
  • A variant of it also appears in the alt-fire for the "Gun Goes Brr" weapon, which replaces the main minigun with an advanced golden minigun that has a tiny radar dish, and can fire a tracker that will make the rest of the bullets home in on the designated target, no matter where the Dude is facing or the target is going.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The final level, "Cruel Dude Thesis", gives the player a room full of weapons and ammo before they start the fight. What follows is a two-phase fight between the Dude and the Other Dude, where he has access to all your weapons, with the second phase having him going into the Tesloborgelion.
• Stealth Pun: The game is part of a subgenre colloquially known as a "Boomer Shooter". What's one of the enemies in the first level? Actual Baby Boomers that you can shoot. It's literally a boomer shooter.
• Stepford Suburbia: The first level takes place in a surreal version of one of these, with numerous identical houses (interior and exterior) and pastel colors, with a 50s style aesthetic. Looks like something straight out of the Milkman Conspiracy from Psychonauts.
• Take That!:
  • The Codex entry for "Straight Outta Suburbia", while joking about the repetitive design of the houses, also says that the idea is pretty close to reality.
  • "Fluffy Friends Festival O' Fun" has a secret room featuring a Press Release Stand for Postal III, with a copy of the game in a toilet that you can flush.
  • The description of Leon Dusk and talking about electric cars is not-so-subtle jab involving an eccentric billionaire and his company that creates electric cars.
• Toilet Humor: Lots of jokes involving piss, shit, farts and other gross stuff abounds.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Played With. When you start the fight with the final boss, the instrumental version of "Take Your Hand To Hell" plays. After you beat the first phase, it changes to the vocal version, as the boss starts piloting his mech.
• Unique Enemy: Lil' Ronnies, small flying enemies that can phase through the level geometry to attack the Dude, are introduced in "Area 69" and only appear in that level.
• Voice Change Surprise: The demo's intro starts out with the Dude speaking in a text-to-speech voice much to his dismay, for a while before he coughs up and gets his Corey Cruise voice back.
• Weapon Twirling: When using the Akimbo powerup for the Super Hooker Shotgun, instead of putting shells into the double-barreled shotgun the Dude spins it around with the shells flying in as they spin.
• Weapons That Suck: The Pussy Blower not only resembles a vacuum cleaner attached to a cat caddy, but its alt-fire allows it to suck up any cats that were already fired (up to three, to be specific), allowing them to be reused as ammo. Also, any enemy that gets caught in the path of a sucked-up cat will take massive damage.

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