Video Game / Sincere Deceit

Warning: this page contains unmarked spoilers for the original OFF.

Sincere Deceit is an OFF fangame by Disparu-Gaming with help from FelixTheJudge of HOME (2013) fame, taking place after the Official/Switch OFF ending in which the Batter succeeds in destroying the world.

Now, the world has somehow been recreated. You — the Puppeteer — and The Batter are called forth by a mysterious blue voice belonging to the God and creator of this new world. He has brought everything back to the way it once was, and also created a new Zone, The City of Arbela, to serve as a safe haven should everything repeat, overseen by him, his church, and his four Elsens-turned-Guardians, who he has assigned to watch over the four Districts.

Unfortunately, events are indeed repeating — the Spectres have returned, the Guardians have once again fallen to sin and are fighting each other for power, and the Queen has locked herself away again. To make matters worse, a mysterious force known as The Serpent is spreading The Corruption, afflicting Spectres, Elsens, and Guardians alike and turning them into grotesque monsters while bringing the fabric of the world into decay.

Thus God has called upon you and the Batter to purify the world of the corruption so the paradise may return. But also speaking to you is the red voice of the Serpent — and he claims that this God is not to be trusted, for he is a wicked and deceitful false god. As you and the Batter venture throughout the Zones, you will have to decide which of the two is telling the truth, and whether to purify the corruption or help spread it... or perhaps you can Take a Third Option and discover the truth yourself.

Gameplay is the same as the original, with a time-based turn battle system, Competences, Objects, and the like, with three major changes.

• First, while you will need to go through the three Zones of the original game, they have been altered by the corruption, and thus contain things like new puzzles and new versions of enemies; in addition is an entirely new Zone, The City, split into four Districts that are each as big as an individual Zone and contain entirely new enemies and puzzles.
• Second is the addition of Story Branching — instead of a single Last-Second Ending Choice, your actions will place you on either the Blue Route (where you obey God and purify the Zones) or the Red Route (where you obey the Serpent and spread the corruption), and which route you are on will change certain events and determine which group of endings you will have access to.
• The final change is a choice you are given at the start to disable Add-Ons invoked (the Batter's three fellow party members in the original), essentially serving as a Hard Mode where you have to go through the game with just the Batter. This radically changes how you play the game as you will now have to pay more attention to elemental weaknesses and cannot use revival items.

Can be found on GameJolt here and on itch.io here.

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This fangame contains examples of:

• Adaptational Badass: The Elsens in general were, in the original game, a species of perpetually-neurotic and helpless Red Shirts at the mercy of the Spectres and Guardians. Here, the four new Guardians of the world are themselves Elsens, and while many Elsen NPCs behave the same as in the original, some ordinary Elsens become warriors for God's church or the Serpent's cult, or band together to form La Résistance against the Serpent's forces, or join Lady Magdalene and her counter-resistance who manage to successfully overthrow the Resistance leaders. All of them are far from helpless and are capable of holding their own and presenting a threat.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: In Outside, after you feed the giant two people, he says that “two tasty treats titillate my tongue”.
• After the End: Double example, as the game takes place after the already post-apocalyptic world of OFF was completely purified by the Batter, with God having recreated it and brought it back to the way it was before. Unfortunately, the return of the Spectres, and the Serpent and The Corruption, have brought it back to the brink of the end, and in an even worse state than before.
• Alignment-Based Endings: Both the Red/Corruption and Blue/Purity Routes have a Last-Second Ending Choice with three endings each, plus additional White endings available on both routes.
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: Layer 2 of the Tower has you revisit the original four Zones, and depending on whether you purified or corrupted them will make them rather different.
• Amusement Park of Doom:
  • Zone 2 has the Park, which like everywhere else has fallen to The Corruption and now has Spectres and Burnts haunting it.
  • The Entertainment District, built by Jadon with the Park as inspiration, has become a death-trap set by a corrupted Jadon. The staff are creepy, corrupted Elsens with Nightmare Faces who will try to kill you, the attractions are infested with Spectres, and there is even an attraction where patrons can risk their lives fighting Spectres.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The Serpent/Abram and God/Zaphkiel are the entities fighting for control over the remade world, with the Serpent being the source of The Corruption turning the Guardians, Elsens, and Spectres into his monstrous minions and trying to destroy the world, while God seeks to eradicate them to assimilate everyone and become the supreme ruler of the world. Depending on the route you choose, you can help or defy either of them.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Not only is there even more carnage and dead bodies, but The Corruption turns everyone it infects into grotesque, fleshy monstrosities.
• But Thou Must!: When first encountering Jadon the Entertainer, he will ask you if you are ready for his stage show. But if you pick no, the choice will simply keep repeating until he flat-out tells you it’s not a real choice:
  Jadon: Oh, [playername]. It’s like you think you actually have a choice here. That’s so cute. Well, that is enough of that. Let me just...fix that real quick. I am sure you won’t mind at all.
• Checkpoint Starvation: Most areas have a save box nearby so you can go to one if you need it. Entering Outside, however, is a different story — the area is split up into two parts, and only the second one has a save box. The first one is an area with several puzzles and enemies far stronger than those in the final dungeon, including a particularly nasty surprise encounter with eight of them at once. In addition, you can also wind up accidentally trapping yourself in the rock puzzle with no way to leave, and the way to the second area is blocked off by a somewhat-tricky boss. And if you lose at any point, you have to go through the entire area all over again.
• Crapsaccharine World: If you go the Blue Route, the world becomes this under Zaphkiel's rule. Everything is a serene, calming blue and everyone is safe from The Corruption and the horrors of the old world. Except everyone is slowly becoming a mindless, assimilated slave to Zaphkiel who must worship him as their god 24/7 and even regularly sacrifice themselves to him in Zone 1. And Abram and his corruption are still screwing up the world and making people go crazy.
• Darker and Edgier: Believe it or not, this game manages to be even darker than the already-bleak original game. The addition of The Corruption has turned the remade world into even more of a Crapsack World than it already was with everyone turning into grotesque monsters, the Zones becoming darker and more corrupted, and the Surreal Horror being turned up massively.
• Developer's Room: The Test Room, available after getting any ending, has six rooms with a handful of optional content, as guest characters who were in the game appearing and explaining their origins, a room full of Judges running around that can be petted, an Undertale reference, and a memorial to the deceased FelixTheJudge (who helped work on the game).
• Duality Motif: All over the place, with the colors red and blue used to represent it. They are the colors associated with the Serpent and God, respectively; their text has their respective color, areas under their control will be either entirely red or blue, and the two routes of the game are also called the Red and Blue Routes, depending on which of the two entities you obey.
• Easter Egg:
  • In the first area of Zone 3, there is a hidden room in one of the bedrooms that leads to a hole triggering an animation of a dancing lemon.
  • Sometimes, the title screen will change to have one of two symbols appear, red or blue. Moving your cursor to them and picking them will play a brief cutscene of either Abram lying in blood or Zaphkiel hiding while Abram forms.
• Establishing Series Moment: You are given your first taste of just how Darker and Edgier this Fan Sequel will be when you and the Batter go to Zone 0 and find the Judge... who has fallen victim to The Corruption and sports a Nightmare Face with Black Eyes of Evil and sharp teeth, then fights you as the Warmup Boss against his will.
• Eternal Engine: The Industry District is a much lighter area where Gaius and his employees produce all five elements and ship them to the other Zones as well as distribute it for themselves. It consists of a barn where Meat is produced, an aquarium to fish out Plastic, some mines to get at crystals, and Gaius' factory where everything else is produced.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: The Tower, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, is a tall tower where Abram and Zaphkiel lie, awaiting the Batter to reach the top.
• Foreshadowing:
  • An apartment in the Residential District has a poster regarding a theatre restoration where “the main actor is wearing a baseball tunic and is surrounded by faceless women”. This foreshadows the theatre event in the Entertainment District where Jadon sends four puppets to fight the Batter.
  • An Elsen follower outside the church in the Blue Route says that “It shall rise from the pool and reach for the Heavens hove. Like the sword of God, it will pierce the sky and bring fourth prosperous rains”. She is referring to the Tower, which rises from the pool in the churchyard.
• Hellhole Prison: The Prison District, which is under the control of a militia organization, is run like a concentration camp. The militia throws Elsens in it for no real crimes; instead they throw them in there to use them as slave labor mining powerful crystals. The warden and staff are shown to be sadistic, abusive, and contemptuous toward the prisoners, uncaring for their safety, and are outright using them as Guinea pigs for horrific experiments. Lady Magdalene forms a resistance unit within the prison and works to free everyone from it.
• Hub Level:
  • The Nothingness, as in the original, connects the four original Zones and the new one, The City, as well as the Outside.
  • The City itself has a center area consisting of a church and town square that connects to the four Districts and the Tower.
• Hub Under Attack:
  • After completing the Industry District, Zacharie informs the Batter that some thugs have taken over his shop in The City and asks you to drive them out. However, they knock the Batter out and send him to the Prison District before he can do anything.
  • If you are on the Red Route, then Lugosi will attack the church in The City and kill everyone there, forcing you to fight him.
• It's All Upstairs From Here:
  • The Residential District has three tall apartment buildings that you will have to climb in order to reach Malachi at the top of the third one.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is the Tower, which you must climb through several different layers.
• Joke Ending:
  • “Congratulations”, outright called the Joke Ending in the walkthrough. If you find all Grand Items and keep them, then give them to the white pedestals in the Tower and to the Arbela Guardians, you are treated to a recreation of Neon Genesis Evangelion' infamously bizarre “congratulations” scene (where the whole cast just says congratulations one-by-one for seemingly no reason), a A Winner Is You screen, and the Batter calling the ending stupid.
  • “The Strongest Boy”, while not marked as such, is another non-serious ending achieved by beating Azathoth as Jericho. After beating the Fusion Dance of two powerful gods, Jericho ultimately befriends Azathoth, who congratulates him on his victory. Then the Batter shows up, gets mad about the others doing the ending without him, and attacks them while fake end credits with names like Todd Howard and Hideo Kojima roll, and Zacharie turns out to be watching the whole thing on his TV. The Batter also calls this ending stupid in the Test Room.
• The Lost Woods: The Outside is a deep, dark forest with a somewhat-branching layout.
• Malevolent Masked Men: The Puppet Elsens, the workers of the Entertainment District, wear creepy theater masks with a black mouth and Black Eyes of Evil, and are killing the patrons of the park to serve them as food.
  Worker Elsen: I-I don’t trust the ones wearing the masks. They seem... too happy to me...
• Metropolis Level: The Residential District is the first of the four Districts and is full of buildings where the Elsens of The City live. You have to go through three apartment buildings and several smaller houses teeming with enemies.
• Monster Arena: A small-scale one where you can fight four groups of Spectres and not leave until you beat them all is one of the attractions in the Entertainment District.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Subverted in Zone 3. Zacharie appears to be wearing his cat mask disguise and badly pretending to be the Judge, to which the Batter figures it out much like in the original. Except, as later revealed, that's not Zacharie either — it's the shapeshifting Mimic Slug.
• Painting the Medium: In the Prison District, while the Batter has his equipment stolen from him, he is referred to by Lady Magdalene as “Slick”. Despite his protests, he is referred to as Slick in the menu screen until he gets his stuff back.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • Anything in the four original Zones, since you cannot return after beating them.
  • The optional fight against BrainPlagueRewind is hidden inside Layer 1 of the Tower, and once you complete the area, it is replaced by the next layer.
  • Similarly, the Grand Items in the four districts can alter parts of some endings, but if you do not have them by Layer 3 of the Tower, you cannot give them to the Guardians, and advancing past there will render this unobtainable.
• Plot Tunnel:
  • Entering each of the three Zones is this, as you will not be able to return to Arbela until you have beaten the Zone, which can be troublesome if you neglected to stock up on items as there are no shops in them.
  • In the Industry District, before you go onto the giant pedalo to travel to the mines, you are outright warned by Roland that you will not be able to return until you have traversed the rest of the District.
  • The Prison District is a particularly nasty one as you are given no warning it will happen. After beating the Industry District, Zacharie will ask you to clear out some thugs who have taken over his shop, but confronting them leads to them capturing you. The Batter is then sent to the Prison District and has to complete it in its entirety, with no shop around, before you can return back to Arbela.
  • The first part of Outside completely blocks you off from being able to return to the Nothingness and Arbela, as the first red save block that can take you back is guarded by a boss and several puzzles.
• Shout-Out:
  • One area in the Test Room has the first few notes of Megalovania play and an image of Sans briefly appear.
  • In the Outside Tower, you can see Zacharie watching a show on TV. Examining the TV enough will have him explain the show is a talk show hosted by a man named Murray Franklin (complete with the version of the Frank Sinatra song “That’s Life” from the film as the background music).
• Solo-Character Run: invoked The game has the option at the beginning to disable Add-Ons so you have only the Batter as your party member, save for when you have Jericho as a second Guest-Star Party Member during a certain point in the Prison District. Beating the True Boss Rush at the endgame with only the Batter will earn you a special, shinier trophy then the one you would earn with a full party.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The second half of Outside, the Outside Tower, is the true final area of the game, an arena containing a brutal Boss Rush of all of the major disturbing bosses in the game. The background music for this climactic area? An instrumental of Frank Sinatra's “That's Life”, which is playing from the TV Zacharie is watching.
• Story Breadcrumbs: Exactly what happened that caused the recreated world to go to hell again is told to you in the beginning (The Corruption and the return of the Spectres), but the exact details, such as the backstories of the corrupted Guardians, are primarily found in scattered notes and optional flashbacks that can be found after beating each Arbela Guardian.
• Story Branching: There are two primary routes, the Red Route (where you help the Serpent spread his corruption) and Blue Route (where you obey God and find the secret items needed to purify the Guardians and the corruption). Which ending you do will change certain events and lead to two different Last Second Ending Choices with their own Final Bosses.
• Underground Level:
  • The Industry District mines, a short Mini-Dungeon where you traverse an area with some water to fix the elevator needed to get out. The Elsens mine crystals here.
  • The Prison District has a similar mine area with a similar purpose, but a different layout and different enemies.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Tower is the equivalent of The Room from the original, being an area with several Layers in which you go through similar hallways and solve various puzzles to advance to the next layer. Layer 2 also has you go through the Zones all over again, now massively changed by either The Corruption or the influence of Zaphkiel.