Video Game / Standstill Girl

"The effect? I guess you just watch?"

lost fragment - Standstill Girl is a freeware turn-based RPG created by Sky Scraper Project using RPG Maker 2000. It tells the story of a girl with no memories named Alice who lives in the Land of Time, a place outside the normal space-time continuum, with a boy named Tiska, who serves the guardian of the Great Clock that administers time. Other than these two, the town is populated by friendly blob-like creatures called Shadelings.

One day, the hands of the Great Clock disappear, causing time to stop in the Land of Life (that is, the human world). In an effort to help her friend, Alice thus sets out to retrieve the hands, and as she recovers them she starts uncovering her past...

Battles are fought side-view, using an active time system of sort. You can equip up to 5 actions, including guarding and using items, to use during battle. There's a Mana system of sorts: each turn you get an Energy Core, of which you can hold up to 4 at time. Generally, stronger skills require more EC, though a lot of them are also Cast from Hit Points. Also, you don't gain levels, but use the "Force" obtained from defeating enemies to power up your three stats: Stamina (Health), PSY (Attack) and AGL (Speed).

It has been translated and can be downloaded for free here.

---

This game provides examples of:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: With stats, as you don't have levels. They probably go up to 999 each. By the endgame, if you never run from battles, you should have about 200 LP and the other stats at about 130, and be able to beat the Final Boss with ease.
• Action Girl: Alice, who fights throughout the entire game on her own.
• Ambidextrous Sprite: Surprisingly averted. Alice's ribbon is always on the left side of her hair.
• Amnesiac Hero: Alice again. This is combined with Death Amnesia since humans revived in the Land of Time lose their memories.
• Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: Order will take the form of the current POV character except in the Final Boss fight.
• The Atoner: Tiska. He saved Alice as a way to atone for being the reason Gulinello became a Shadeling.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Most high level skills are all flashy and powerful, but require 3-4 EC to use, meaning you have to spend some turns every time you want to use one.
• Ax-Crazy: The Millionaire is described as an anomaly who desires the destruction and death of those he loves.
• Back from the Dead: Chronola/Alice died before the start of the game. Tiska resurrected her and took her under his care, causing the abnormality that kicks the game plot. Tiska himself is also implied to have been brought back by Gulinello in the distant past.
• Battle Theme Music: 5 of them. They're all quite cool. Averted in the final dungeon, as the music doesn't change in battle.
• Beam Spam: The Innocent Rain skills looks suspiciously similar to Joshua's holy beam. May also happen randomly when using the "Just Watch" command.
• Big Damn Heroes: Alice during the True Ending. She punches God to defend her friend.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Human crimes such as theft and murder mean nothing to those living in the Land of Time. Creating a contradiction or defying the will of Order for your own purpose is considered the greatest sin, and those guilty of it are punished by losing their memories, body and identity.
• Boring, but Practical: The Self-Holocaust skill quickly evolve into this. It sacrifices a relatively high amount of LP to do massive damage to the enemy. It can pretty much one-hit kill any normal mob and defeat bosses in a couple of hit, and by the second half of the game you regenerates health so fast that you can use it every single fight.
• Boss Subtitles: Enemies and bosses don't have proper names. Instead, they are introduced with a word or a small sentence, which often has to do with what they represent.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The characters do this in Alice's Backyard.
• Break the Cutie: You will be sad for Alice once you learn her backstory, which ends with her death via suicide. And she will be Deader than Dead in the ending where she sacrifices herself.
• But Thou Must!: When asked to give up going to look for the clock Hands, your possible answers are "Nope" and "Nope nope".
• The Cameo: The aforementioned bonus bosses are apparently characters from Sky Scraper Project's previous games. Unfortunately, those don't seem to have been translated.
• Cap: Damage cap at 999. Reaching it is surprisingly easy.
• Captain Obvious: A random shadeling explains the "Just Watch" action:
  The effect? ...I guess you just watch?
• The Cameo: According to a Shadeling in Alice's Backyard, the two bonus bosses are characters from the developer's other games.
• Cast from Hit Points: Most skills require a certain amount of LP to perform.
• Conveniently an Orphan: Chronola lost her mother when she was 6. Nothing is known about her father.
• Counter-Attack: An accessory can give you this ability.
• Critical Hit: Another passive you can get with a specific accessory.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Losing a battle only results in you returning to the Land of Time with all your items and progress. Nothing is lost besides a useless title only obtainable after finishing the game. Completely averted story-wise.
• Developer's Room: Can be unlocked using a password. It gives some more details about the True Ending and some notes about the characters and the game development.
• Downer Ending: Arguably all three of them.
• The Ditz: Tiska shows some sign of this.
• Driven to Suicide: Chronola throws herself down a pit and dies in order to escape the Millionaire's abuse.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Yes, cat-eared Tiska is really a boy. Lampshaded if you read the journal in Alice's home.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: Not exactly "hard" to get, but the saddest ending is the only one that requires you to do the opposite of what you're expected to do, namely don't talk to Tiska and tell Order you intend to take punishment in his stead. Said choice ends with Alice dying and restoring the normal flow of time.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Alice wears a pretty frilly dress.
• Evolving Attack: You get most skills by using the ones you have multiple times.
• Fallen Hero: The second optional boss seems to be this.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: Happens with every area boss and obviously against the final boss itself.
• Foreshadowing: One of the book in the Info Hut gives a one-sentence hint to the nature of Alice's past.
• Global Currency: Exaggerated with Force: you can use it to increase your stats, buy items and... grow flowers! Somewhat justified in that it's not really a currency, but a sort of energy released from monsters.
• Golden Ending: It is the only one that involves a final boss fight, but it's not exactly happy. Sure, both Alice and Tiska are alive, but killing Order means the Land of Life and the Land of Time will soon cease to exist, along with every living being.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Tiska joins you during the final boss battle. He'll cast the strongest healing spell in the game every few turns.
• Hate Sink: Despite losing his wife, the Millionaire loses all sympathy when it's revealed that he buys slave girls to act as Replacement Goldfish, only to abuse them to death via his sadistic form of "love."
• Heroic Sacrifice: Alice during one of the endings.
• HP to One: The second optional boss has an attack that does this. However, you can actually guard against it, and then it will only halve your current health.
• Hulk Speak: Red Shadelings talk like this.
• Identity Amnesia: A plot point. Not only Alice, but everyone living in the Land of Time has this, as giving away your past and future is the only way to get there to begin with.
• Ironic Echo: May the new love you find be genuine.
• Karma Houdini: Unless you count the destruction of the world in the true ending as a form of Karma Houdini Warranty, the Millionaire gets no comeuppance for his atrocities.
• Limited Move Arsenal: You can only equip 5 commands at once. This includes skills, items, guarding and fleeing.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Again, Order. Killing her essentially means dooming the whole world.
• Made a Slave: What happened to Chronola after her mother's death.
• Magic A Is Magic A: Some enemies use the same skills the player possesses. They have to stock up EC and sacrifice LP to use them, just as you do.
• The Maker: The unseen god who created the world and gave it its balance. It never appears phisically, but you get to talk to and eventually fight his emissary.
• Meaningful Name: Chronola. May also doubles as Punny Name, at least in the developer's intention: he thinks she seems like a "wild black cat". In Japanese, her name is read as "kuronora", which can mean "black stray".
• Multiple Endings: 3 of them.
  • The Golden Ending, which involves a final boss fight, but it's... not exactly a happy one. Sure, both Alice and Tiska are alive, but killing Order means the Land of Life and the Land of Time will soon cease to exist, along with every living being. Lampshaded in the Developer's Room:
    Order: Are you heroes or villains!?
  • The saddest ending has Alice sacrificing herself to restore the normal flow of time.
  • The remaining one has Tiska atoning for his sin and becoming a Shadeling. Alice then presumably takes his place as the warden of the Great Clock.
• Pamphlet Shelf: You can only read the books in the Info Hut, and they are ridiculously short. They're also missing words and letters...
• Plot Coupon: The Clock Hands are basically this, as they even give Story Breadcrumbs in the form of Memory fragments. To a lesser extent, the cogs you have to destroy in each area to advance.
• Random Encounter: Every battle besides the boss and the miniboss ones occurs in this manner.
• Regenerating Health: You recover a good chunk of LP at the end of any battle and walking around also resotes some of it. The Cat-eared Cape accessory and Centifulword skill give a similar effect in battle, and you can stack them to increase their power.
• Replacement Goldfish: Chronola (and at least two more girls before her) were this to the unnamed millionaire. It doesn't end well.
• Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Tends to happen in the endgame. Since there is no defense stat, late game enemies and bosses will often do high damage with every attack, but you will be able to kill everything in 3 turns top. The exceptions are the Optional Bosses, who put more emphasis on reading their attack pattern and guarding.
• Shout-Out:
  • The final boss has an attack named "Dream of electric sheep".
  • The first bonus boss uses an attack named Dogra Magra, which appears to be a reference to a Japanese novel written in 1935.
  • The half-eaten ice cream may also be a reference to another plot-important ice cream.
• Silent Protagonist: Similar to Chrono or the main character from the Megaten series, Alice only talks through the player's answers. She does speak during the good ending, though.
• Single-Use Shield: The Element Wall skill, which nullifies the enemy's next attack.
• Sound of No Damage: The "miss" sound.
• Sound Test: Can be unlocked with a password.
• Stat-O-Vision: You can always see the enemy's health bar and you get to see their skill list when they attack.
• Status Effects: Weak (Poison), Blind, Dizzy (can't use skills) and Instant Death. Slow is aslo used by the first bonus boss.
• Taking You with Me: One of the Red Shadelings will use a suicide attack when cornered. Surviving it is quite impossible, so to win the fight you have to defeat it before it gets the chance to use said attack, or block it with an equippable item or move.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Averted. Just watching wastes a turn. Its only purpose is probably to let you stock EC even if you unequipped the Guard command.
• Time Stands Still: What happens to the human world when the hands of the Clock disappear.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Garden of Creation.
• Video Game Tutorial: Taking it is optional but recommended, as the monsters in the first few areas would be quite hard otherwise.
• Was Once a Man: Gulinello. And most likely every single Shadeling.
• Welcome to Corneria: With the exceptions of the Shadelings that gives you the tutorial, all other NPC never change their lines of dialogue.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Order reasonably tells you this in the Developer's Room. Thinking about it, destroying the world along with yourselves isn't exactly the best outcome right?
• You Can't Fight Fate: The reason for the whole mess in the Land of Life. As Alice died in the past, her being alive contrasts with God's intended harmony, creating a contradiction that influences the flowing of time. It actually makes a bit more sense than it sounds.

---