TV Tropes @tvtropes
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP [sic] is an iOS, PC, and Android game about the exploits of a female warrior.
TV Tropes @tvtropes
She is known only as the @Scythian and she quests to accomplish great deeds. She also like uses #twitter and talks with #dudes and stuff.
TV Tropes @tvtropes
Some of the people are like totally cool or whatever. Is now available on #Steam.
To be honest, that twitter-sized description doesn't tell you much
This game provides examples of:
- Action Girl: The Scythian.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: At times, in the same style as old epics poems, best shown in the title itself.
- The All-Concealing "I": The All Concealing We: The narrator always uses first-person plurals, which makes it somewhat difficult to tell who the narrator is, and even harder to find who s/he is addressing. The ending implies that the narrator is the Scythian, speaking about herself and the player. Never mind that while reading her own thoughts she catches herself speaking first-person singular and reverts back to plural.
- Anachronism Stew: You play as a Bronze Age European warrior monk who uses Twitter and slang to communicate. One character even talks about how he wishes video games existed.
- Anti Poop-Socking: The player is encouraged to take a break between sessions, and obtaining the latter two Trigons takes at least two weeks because they can only be found during the new and full moon. You're free to mess with your computer/phone's calendar, but the game will never allow you to achieve 100% Completion and, if on a computer, you'll get a Steam achievement so all your friends can know you cheated. Though if you do a little more exploring, there is a faster way that's still legit.
- Bittersweet Ending
- Bright Is Not Good: Rainbows are not a good thing in Scythian culture.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": They're "lagomorphs". Which rabbits are, but means the ones in the game might be hares or pikas instead or in addition. But then, they might be rabbits.
- The Scythian explicitly calls them "rabbits" when you kill them.
- Carl Jung: Heavily referenced, especially by the @Archetype.
- In the credits, his Red Book is mentioned as being obliquely referenced within the game.
- Creative Closing Credits: You can even tweet them!
- Creator Cameo: In the dream state you can find "The mysterious musical fellow known as Jim Guthrie".
- Dream Land: The Scythian travels to dream land to recover the last two Trigons, which effectively means half the game takes place in it.
- Easter Egg: Your reward for unlocking the "#moar" achievement.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Gogolithic Mass.
- Everything's Better with Rainbows: Incorrect. We Scythians loathe rainbows.Scythian: Ugh... rainbows...
- False Camera Effects: The view sways just a little, as if it were a carefully hand-held camera.
- Foreshadowing: The Monster Hunter achievement.
- Gainax Ending: The Scythian clearly dies at the end (funeral pyre and everything), but the way she speaks makes it sound as though she's still alive somehow. Possibly having transcended her reality into ours.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Scythian beats the Gogolithic Mass and dies in the process at the end
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The game is split into four "sessions".
- Incurable Cough of Death: The Scythian acquires one in the final session.
- Interactive Narrator: One possible way to describe the @Archetype, the man who is supposedly putting the player through the "S&S Therapy."
- Interface Screw: In the well in the dreamworld, you can't move the camera too far from the Scythian.
- Interface Spoiler: Clicking on the locked door in the stone wall reveals the fate of the key early.
- Magic Music: A significant part of the game. The vinyl record, presumably the titular "Sword & Sworcery EP" itself, seems to represent reality.
- The record also reflects the game's use of a dream land reality. The real world is Side A, the dream world is Side B.
- Moon Logic Puzzle: Quite literally.
- Mushroom Samba: Functions as the hint system. The mushrooms also heal you.
- Minimalist Cast
- Nature Spirit: The Scythian have to awake several sylvan sprites.
- No Fair Cheating: You can just adjust your computer/phone calendar instead of waiting for the appropriate real-world lunar phases, but if you do you can't get 100% Completion.
- No Name Given: The heroine is simply the "Scythian," the woodcutter is "Logfella," the dog is "Dogfella," and the shepherdess is "Girl." The Scythian's name is Ursula.
- The Power of Rock: Required to re-assemble the Trigon Trifecta.
- Redemption Quest: The Scythian steals the Megatome at the beginning of the game. A cursed thunderstorm goes on the land. The Scythian attempts to get rid of the curse during the rest of the game.
- Retraux: The graphics are intentionally pixel-looking.
- It's more accurate to say the game's artstyle is based around pixels. It's not exactly Retraux because it looks absolutely nothing like anything from the past generations of videogames.
- Scenery Porn: The gorgeous pixelated landscapes are often touted as one of the strongest points of the game.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the lands frequently referenced is Cimmeria.
- Trigon Trifecta = Triforce upside down
- There are a few Twin Peaks and Pink Floyd references as well
- The Trigon tamings could be described as doing battle with the album cover of The Dark Side of the Moon.
- Sinister Geometry: The Trigon Trifecta, a triplet of upside-down triangles which must be fought and tamed. Almost everything else in the game is done in a retro pixellated style, but the trigons are perfect triangles, which adds to the sense of their otherworldliness.
- This also applies to the giant vinyl record and the fog that makes up the Gogolithic Mass. The latter for the same reason as the Trigons, the former to emphasize its position as being in a slightly higher reality than the game, since it actuall contains the game.
- Tennis Boss: The first phase of taming a Trigon. In an interesting subversion, the balls don't become progressively faster when they're hit. Instead, after being hit a certain number of times they speed up once, and then dissapear completely after taking the same number of hits again.
- Totally Radical: The game makes extensive use of slang such as "AMIRITE?"
- Something between Totally Radical and Valley Girl, to be exact.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: In order to get the Moon Key, you have to chase down the Grizzled Boor in the dreamworld, corner him in a tree, and beat him into submission. Then you have the option of executing him while he is unarmed, beaten and gravely injured (you get the moon key either way). It comes across as a particularly Jerkass move considering the creature does nothing to threaten you (or anyone else), spends most of its time doing a weird little dance, will actively run away from you when you get too close, and only draws a weapon when you corner and attack it. You can also murder rabbits by making them explode, which you derive absolutely no benefit from.
- Wham Line: It was very brave and generous of you to offer to martyr the Scythian on top of Mingi Taw.
