Video Game / Shipwrecked 64

From left to right: Olive Otter, Walter Walrus, Bucky Beaver, and Giovanni Goose.

Shipwrecked 64 is a Horror Platform Game by Squeaks D'Corgeh, first released for PC on July 16, 2022. Ostensibly, it was not meant to be a PC game; it was originally an incredibly rare Nintendo 64 game that "soft launched" in 1997, developed by Cogware Games as part of a partnership with the Broadside Animation Studio. After obtaining one of the only remaining copies via an online seller named "Daniel", a team known as the Shipwrecked Recovery Crew (SWRC) created a custom emulator in order to experience the game in its true state, and uncover the dark secrets lurking within its code.

The "original" game, now known as Shipwrecked 64 (Legacy Edition), is currently available for download here. An overhauled version was released on January 1st, 2024, and a Steam page for it is located here. The YouTube page of Squeaks D'Corgeh is located here, which includes various videos on a place called Broadside Beach that's directly linked to the "development" of Shipwrecked 64. A Twitter account connected to the game is located here.

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Tropes for all versions and the Broadside Beach ARG

• Alliterative Name: Every in-game character has a first name with the same first letter as their Species Surname, such as Olive Otter, Giovanni Goose, and Walter Walrus. Mark Mullins is the only "real" person whose name is also alliterative.
• Angry Chef: Giovanni Goose, described as a world-renowned chef, is the most ill-tempered of the gang, not hesitating to call Bucky "rodent", "rat", and "fleabag". And in an in-universe storybook, he's a rival to Bucky, opening a competing fried fish stand right next to his. That said, he is still Bucky's friend, and when Bucky does things right, Gio will give credit where it's due.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Moving in Walter Walrus' mission while it's dark results in failure, but the game is lenient about it, only punishing the player if they actively try to move in the darkness and not, say, in the middle of a jump.
• Big Bad:
  • The Bucky "Starling," made from the body of Brandon Lester, murdered the three Broadside Animation employees that were then converted into the other Hostile Animatronics.
  • The true Big Bad is Mark Mullins, the Corrupt Corporate Executive of Broadside Entertainment. He is the one who created the Starling program, in hopes of resurrecting his predecessor, Rex Broadside.
• Blackout Basement: One of the levels in Shipwrecked is helping a shipwrecked Walter Walrus by reaching his ship, which was washed atop a nearby hill. However, despite taking place outside, the lights occasionally shut off completely, and moving while they're off fails and resets the entire challenge.
• Canon Foreigner: An In-Universe example, in that a phone call between a Broadside Animation representative, Mark Mullins, and the developer of Shipwrecked, Connor Thomas, has the former furious that Connor added a wolf character as the main antagonist rather than using another of the marketable "Starling" mascots that the game was meant to advertise.
• Chairman of the Brawl: In one black and white clip, the Bucky "Starling" is seen bludgeoning Nathan Stewart to death with an office chair, complete with a Gory Discretion Shot.
• Content Warnings: In addition to the game's itch.io page clearly stating that this is a horror game, there's an additional warning upon booting up the game's original version that it "contains some disturbing artifacts and glitches. It is not for the faint of heart."
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Of the murdered Broadside Beach employees, Gary Wilson had arguably the worst death when the Bucky Starling slammed his head against a wall several times before using a kitchen fryer to burn his face off.
• Cute Little Fangs: One of Olive Otter's features are her two bucktoothed fangs, though they're a bit hard to see on her in-game model when she isn't talking.
• Cypher Language: AfbufqTdqbsdg, sgf kbmhvbhf pe sgf kpxfq kbzfqt. Pcc-mvnafqfc kfssfqt (B, D, fsd.) txbo xjsg sgf kfssfq besfq sgfn, bmc fufm (A, C, fsd.) xjsg sgf pmf afepqf.^TranslationBeaverScratch, the language of the lower layers. Odd-numbered letters (A, C, etc.) swap with the letter after them, and even (B, D, etc.) with the one before.
• invokedThe Danza: In-Universe, Olive Otter's voice actress is named Olivia. Though Olive was created long before Olivia was born.
• Disguised Horror Story: If not for the warning at the start of the game, you might mistake this game for a typical mascot platformer... at least, until some of the "artifacts" like disturbing images of Bucky start popping up.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • The ending for finding all of the secrets in Legacy Edition finishes with someone recording their perspective as they jump off of a roof. The full game's ending reveals this person to be Connor Thomas.
  • Bucky Beaver himself dies in the same way in the full game after the true ending, his spirit broken by the horrors he's witnessed and the part he's been led to believe he's played in them.
• Expy: Rex Broadside to Walt Disney. Bucky was created in exactly the same way as Mickey Mouse, with his creator's previous creation (Broadside's Blot, and Disney's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit) being accidentally sold to a large company, devastating said creator and necessitating the creation of a new character, a rodent which would eventually prove a global phenomenon which included a successful theme park. The original lore even had Broadside die in 1968 like Disney, though that part was Retconned to have him die in the late eighties — shortly before the major events of the backstory — instead.
• Expy Coexistence: Disney also exists in-universe, and Broadside Animation struggling to compete with them is part of the lore.
• Facial Horror: Brandon Lester (The "Bucky Beaver" Starling) kills Gary Wilson by slamming his head into a microwave, then shoving his face onto a burning stove. While the footage of the murder censors Gary's face, his post-mortem mugshot shows how ugly the end result was.
• Found Footage Films: Failing at the levels repeatedly plays black-and-white clips of the Bucky "Starling" either harassing or outright murdering another person.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Three out of the main four — Bucky, Giovanni, and Walter — only wear a shirt and a hat.
• Immortality Immorality: The true motivation behind the Starling Project, which Broadside Animation spearheaded. With Rex Broadside's passing, the company he founded was desperate to outperform Disney, and they sought to bring Rex back from the dead so that they could benefit from their founder's creativity. To that end, the Starlings were an experimental form of organic technology overseen by Mark Mullins, amounting to Revenant Zombies made from the corpses of the deceased that were made to wear various Broadside mascot suits. Of the third generation of Starlings, Brandon Lester was the first to be transformed, before Olivia Finch, Gary Wilson, and Nathan Stewart followed suit after they were murdered.
  Mark Mullins: With our Starling creation process, we are able to, effectively, create immortality. We have a plan. Do any of you guys remember Rex? Well, if we want to outperform Disney, we need our founder to be here and to be alive.
• Ironic Hell: Gary Wilson, who got his face burned off by a stovetop oven, was converted into Giovanni Goose, whose level in Shipwrecked has Bucky turning off ovens before they catch on fire.
• Jump Scare: Hornz, the creature of the forest, will get up close and personal with the camera if it catches Bucky, even in the otherwise-harmless 2023 mode. The Starlings/Dwellers are also rather fond of doing this, both in cutscenes and during encounters, but at least they only show up in the 1997 mode of the full game and the demo.
• Metafiction: Broadside Animation and Cogware Games are not actually real-life companies, despite being attributed as Shipwrecked's original creators, and the game is at least as much about them as it is about Bucky and his friends. There is also information only accessible in the game's file folders, rather than the game itself.
• Minus World: Invoked. Breaking the minigames leads to elements from them bleeding into the remaining minigames, giving them this effect. Olive's will have her continue to follow you, albeit without eyes. Giovanni's will have stoves randomly strewn about, which will catch fire. Walter's will have the environment periodically go dark. And in the full version, Wulf's will keep the scan ability active, which is needed to find some secrets.
• The Most Dangerous Video Game: The game doesn't try to directly harm the player, but there is a seemingly paranormal element in the "glitches" that reveal the truth behind the creation of Bucky and Shipwrecked itself.
• Multiple Endings: The game has a standard ending for completing the levels to rescue both of Bucky's friends and fellow shipwreck victim Walter, convincing a wolf to return your boat, and then leaving all together. However, there's a different outcome for just obtaining the boat and abandoning Bucky's friends, as well as one for finding all of the hidden areas on the island and learning about the game's secrets. In the full version, there's also the equivalent to a Golden Ending if you not only manage to help everyone, but also receive the bigger boat from the volcano to save everyone there.
• Not-So-Imaginary Friend: You, the player, are Bucky's imaginary friend according to the game's description. Even if he stops considering you a "friend" before too long for dragging him into this mess instead of helping him rescue his actual friends.
• Retraux: The game is designed to appear as if it were on the Nintendo 64, matching the in-universe lore.
• Robinsonade: With a title like Shipwrecked, the fact that the game is about Bucky and his friends wrecking their ship and getting stranded on an island isn't surprising, though the island was already inhabited by a wolf before they arrived.
• Serial Killer: Brandon Lester, as the Bucky Beaver Starling, carried out the murders of three Broadside Beach employees within the span of a few months; Olivia Finch was dragged outside her cabin and drowned in the lake in December 1989, Gary Wilson was slammed against a wall and had his face burned by a fryer on January 3rd, 1990, and Nathan Stewart had his neck snapped and was beaten by an office chair on June 26th of the same year.
• Species Surname: Bucky Beaver's friends are an otter named Olive Otter, a goose named Giovanni Goose, and a walrus named Walter Walrus.
• Spiteful Suicide: Connor commits suicide as a final act of petty spite towards Mark, putting the full blame for everything terrible that went on behind the scenes onto him.
• Super Title 64 Advance: Shipwrecked 64. That said, it's stated to be a retroactive invokedFan Nickname in the lost media community In-Universe; the Show Within a Show's real title is just Shipwrecked.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: One of the levels is helping Bucky's friend Olive finish the "punishment" the wolf has assigned to her for disturbing his peace by collecting a bunch of coconuts while timed. If the player punches Olive during this segment, the timer skips ahead ten seconds per hit. Repeatedly failing the level this way in the Legacy version plays the victory cutscene, but it glitches out so the artifacting creates the face of the Olive Otter "Starling" looking straight at the player.
• Was Once a Man: The "Starling" Application Forms indicate that the various mascots were created from the corpses of humans; for example, Olivia Finch, whose "Cause of Death" was drowning, became Olive Otter.
• World of Funny Animals: Bucky is a beaver, his friends are an otter, a goose, and a walrus, and the in-game antagonist is a wolf.

Tropes for Legacy Edition

• invokedAdaptation Decay: A minor plot point is that the characters' in-game models look nothing like their costumed selves, which the developers got in trouble for. This plot point isn't present in the full version, however, where the character models are more faithful to their cartoon and mascot appearances.
• A Winner Is You: The ending you get for succeeding at all of the tasks just describes you leaving the island with a single line, followed by an end card and the credits.
• Big Bad: For the Show Within a Show, Chief Wulf, who had Bucky's boat taken and forced his friends to work for him.
• Evolving Title Screen: The default title screen depicts Bucky and his two friends on their boat on a sunny day. The ending for accessing all of the game's hidden rooms changes it to an eyeless Bucky alone on the boat in a black void.
• Eye Scream: The Giovanni Goose "Starling" appears to have a fork lodged in his eye, as noted on his application form. Depending on which order the endings are unlocked, the worst ending can provide the call-forward with the Giovanni Goose's eyeless face having one of the hollow eye sockets mutilated with a piercing object.
• Foregone Conclusion: Shipwrecked begins with a series of images about how protagonist Bucky and his friends were on a fishing trip when a storm started up. Bucky warned his friends that they should tread carefully, and the narration follows this with "But you read the title so you know this isn't what happened..."
• Heroic Mime: In the original demo, Bucky never once speaks through the entire game. The same is true of his real life "Starling" counterpart, though that one definitely doesn't fit the "Heroic" mold. Averted in the full game, however, where Bucky has plenty of lines.
• Hostile Animatronics: By finding the secret doors in the levels or failing them repeatedly instead of completing them the normal way, new parts of the hub area will unlock. In them, the player learns that Bucky and his friends are "Starlings," an attraction made for a "Broadside Vacation" that underwent testing to ensure they are in "a sound enough state that it will not attack any nearby guests, residents, staff, or another person and/or animal".
• Suddenly Shouting: In response to Mark threatening to cut funding for the Shipwrecked game project, the developer Connor simply screams at him so loud that he peaks his microphone.
  Connor: "Get out! GET THE FUCK OUT!!"
• Take That!: One of the phone conversations in the postgame takes a dig at the Nintendo 64's unorthodox controller.
  Mark: This is the weirdest remote I've ever held.
  Connor: Yeah. It is... not too well-designed.
• Unwinnable by Design: Reaching Walter's boat stuck on the hill plays a victory jingle but doesn't actually end the challenge; instead, there's a key at the bottom of the hill, which you keep when resetting the challenge and can be used on the door you enter it from to escape.

Tropes for the full version

• Asset Actor: Most of the humans in the backstory have characters representing them 1:1. When they need to be depicted in the game's engine, they'll share those characters' models.
• Author Avatar: In-Universe, Connor Thomas uses Chief Wulf to represent himself. In an Easter Egg, he speaks to Bucky by borrowing his model.
• Big Damn Heroes: Bucky has his moment in the good ending. His friends look to the sky in horror as the volcano starts to erupt, but he comes just in time with a barge large enough to carry not just his friends, but everybody on the island.
• Break the Cutie: When you first meet Bucky, he's very cheerful, trusting, and happy-go-lucky, befitting of his status as a lovable cartoon character. However, as the game drags on, his fragile personality shows cracks which keep getting worse.
• Buried Alive: Doesn't happen in-game, but in-universe, the plot of Bucky's debut cartoon, Grave Mistake, involved Bucky being accidentally buried and trying to escape.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Stumbler O'Hare seems at first to just be a cute little comic relief. He turns out to be quite knowledgeable about the setting, as well as an important figure in the background story.
  • Blot, an Expy of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, is first seen as just a drawing on the museum wall, with the voiceover explaining that he was Rex Broadside's first creation who he accidentally lost in a hastily-signed contract. Blot's Starling, meanwhile, is Rex Broadside.
• Clumsy Copyright Censorship: All direct references to Nintendo are edited out, the most visible being the game cartridge which has the logos scribbled over with marker.
• Debug Room:
  • Failing Chief Wulf's minigame in 1997 three times grants you the scanning ability used in his level. Use it in Stumbler's level to find a hidden door to a debug room with basic physics, a few NPCs wandering around, and a dev log from Liz about Stumbler's creation.
  • Escaping Layer 4 sends you and Bucky to these, the rooms used to showcase things like skyboxes, lighting and fog effects.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If you press the button too fast when speaking to Walter for the third time, when he repeats himself, he gets annoyed with Bucky.
    "Are you paying attention? Hello? You're just skipping past all of these, aren't you? You're as inconsiderate as I remember."
  • Most of the signs and characters that can't be normally reached have text if somehow interacted with.
• Doing In the Wizard: Just for Walter's level. In Legacy Edition, it had an unseen force watching Bucky and abducting him if he moves in the dark. In the full game, he gets caught by the dam's security and pulled up by a fishing line.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: In the worst of the Multiple Endings, the volcano erupts, and everybody on the island is killed. You get this ending by either letting the five days run out or failing the volcano stage. Also happens in the True Ending; everyone on the island is murdered by the Dwellers, and Bucky decides to throw himself off of a balcony out of despair.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Just like the real Bucky, Brandon Lester's Dweller knows there's someone else behind the controller. Being caught by him will open pages in your browser with messages from him.
• Glitch Entity: It's abundantly clear that the Dwellers are not supposed to be in the game world. They flicker in and out of existence, they can appear Behind the Black, and they have a dramatically different art style.
• Golden Path: Going out of your way to explore the secrets of the island sends you on the route to the True Ending of the game. Played with because it's more of a Darkening Path than anything else.
• Haunted Technology: Surprisingly, for a game with so many ominous glitches, subverted. It turns out that nothing that occurs in the Shipwrecked 64 game itself is paranormal; the presence of the Dwellers and various secrets found in the game were actually programmed in by Connor Thomas, who decided to use the game as an elaborate exposè of Broadside Animation and their Starling Project. This was in response to Mark Mullins rescinding funds for the game, in which Connor decided to take revenge by gathering Broadside company files that would reveal their entire sordid affair, shortly before committing suicide in 1997.
• Ironically Disabled Artist: Stumbler O'Hare is a painter who somehow lost his hands. He's able to paint with his mouth, but Bucky has to help him keep his ink jar topped up and his canvas from falling over.
• Just Before the End: The island and everything on it is about to be wiped out by a giant volcano in five days, and its residents have accepted their fate. If Bucky doesn't escape before then, he and his friends will burn with them.
• Kick the Dog: Though not entirely wrong to be upset at Mark over his treatment of "Shipwrecked", Connor seriously swung below the belt by outright mocking Harley's terminal cancer out of spite towards him.
• Lethal Lava Land: Inside the volcano, the final area of the 2023 version, where Bucky has to precariously platform across jagged rocks and floating debris over lava.
• Licensed Game: In-Universe. Bucky and his friends are long-established classic cartoon characters that predate Shipwreck by decades.
• Lovable Coward: How Walter Walrus is described to have been characterized in his cartoon appearances, though we don't get to see them.
• Medium Awareness:
  • Bucky learns many of the game's secrets at the same time the player does, as well as his external context — the fact that he's in a video game meaning he's powerless against whoever's controlling him, and the fact that his character has existed for quite some time outside the world he knows.
  • Stumbler O'Hare and Chief Wulf are privy to many of the game's secrets from the start, something Bucky learns later.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the full version, the player finds out pretty quickly that, rather than being a Savage Wolf that "kidnapped" Bucky's friends, Chief Wulf is just a bit rude and unhappy about Bucky's shipwreck causing panic among the villagers. He's fully willing to help the gang escape by fixing their boat if Bucky can gather the pieces, and his real-life counterpart is the closest thing to a Big Good the game had.
• LOL, 69: Inputting "6969" into any number panel will make the four digits of the number display change to "S T F U".
• Non-Standard Game Over: Normally, Bucky has five days to collect all his friends and escape the island. However, failing the Volcano level will immediately trigger the bad ending, even if it's on day one.
• No One Gets Left Behind: In the neutral ending of the game, the gang offers Chief Wulf a chance to escape the island with them, but he refuses because the rest of the wolves can't fit, and he would rather die with his people than abandon them. The good ending addresses his concerns with a bigger boat.
• Optional Boss: If Bucky whacks Rex/Blot before he fully forms, he will disappear and the player won't have to deal with him for the rest of the level.
• Paradiegetic Gameplay: Many of the game's secrets will open up websites and YouTube videos that contain clues to find more secrets. The player can even download a mini version of Shipwrecked 64 that lets the player input secret passwords.
• Reaching Through the Fourth Wall: In Layer 3 and beyond the player must hide from the wandering Dwellers/Starlings. However, some of them aren't limited by mere level geometry. These Dwellers can appear in the black borders of the screen in their "live-action" forms. If the player doesn't hide when this happens the Dweller will spawn in the game world and chase the player.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: If the 1997 version is played in the orthodox way, the credits are replaced by one for the player, chastising them for being incurious.

  "You're doing it wrong. Do you think this is gonna get you anywhere? That's really, really funny. GET BACK IN THERE. You have unfinished work. You think I'm gonna let you go? PICK UP THE CONTROLLER and get your pansy ass back in there. Do not listen to instructions. You'll wind up back here again. Cogware wants players who think outside the box. AT THIS POINT, YOU PROBABLY ARE THE BOX. A stupid idiot box. TRY HARDER. "

  • Bucky delivers one to the player after he first gets captured by the Dwellers.
• Roaming Enemy: Once you get to Layer 3, the Dwellers/Starlings become active threats searching for Bucky.
• Shout-Out: Two of the achievements for the full version of the game are "WHERE'S THE LAMB SAUCE", for cooking something horrible, and "A Happy Little Accident", for helping an armless artist.
• Snicket Warning Label: When the player starts to find some of the game's bigger secrets, Bucky will yell at the player for exploring and demand they hit the Respawn button to take them back to the starting area. If the player continues, they will eventually find messages left by the in-universe game developer. The messages say the player is entering a staff-only area...and if they continue despite the warnings the consequences will be on them. The next area is when the game goes from spooky to hostile.
• invokedSpecial Effect Failure: The first sign that not all is right with the 1997 version is that the opening cutscene is missing the background the 2023 version had, instead being an unkeyed green screen.
• Tranquil Fury: Usually when Bucky tells off the player, his expression becomes angry and his Voice Grunting changes pitch. Not when he's finally had enough. His harshest speech towards the player has his face and voice completely normal.
• Voice Grunting: Most of the voice-acted cutscenes have been removed in favor of overworld dialogue with a repeating audio short clip in the style of Banjo-Kazooie. The voiced cutscenes are still in the game files — both the ones from the demo and redone ones with the updated models — but go unused.
• Unwinnable by Design: Fail at the Shipwrecked Crew's tasks in the 1997 version too many times, and they become impossible: in Olive's, the coconuts and trees disappear; in Giovanni's, the stoves ignite almost immediately, and in Walter's, the hook will snag Bucky whether he moves or not. Played with, as these are part of the steps to access the secret route of the game.
• Video Game Remake: In-Universe. The 2023 version was reconstructed from the ground up using old assets and documentation, and is perfectly innocent, completely free of the more uncouth elements of the 1997 version. Completing the 2023 version by playing the game as intended is a requirement to unlock the 1997 version.
• Wall Jump: One of Bucky's new abilities. Walter's stage makes generous use of it.
• Wingding Eyes: Chief Wulf is blind in his scarred left eye, and his pupil is replaced by an X. Wolf NPCs killed by the Dwellers also have their eyes replaced with Xs.

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