The Freewill cycle is a Point-and-Click series of two flash games, developed by Wyloch's Armory in 2011.
The first game is set in an abandoned research facility, where something has gone terribly wrong and you woke up after it happened. With the entire facility surrounded by a weird anomaly in space-time, all you can do is discover what caused this disaster, and find a way to escape.
The second game follows up from the first, where you end up following the trail of a mercenary sent to sabotage the VeriTech supply depot, and discover what caused the events of the first game.
The Freewill Cycle contains examples of:
- Apocalyptic Log: The various emails and work logs in the first game, describing someone breaking in and tampering with the Beta lab's power before being taken captive by security.
- Applied Phlebotinum:
- Protectium, described by the base scientists as a substance made of four-dimensional molecules, which shield matter from the effects of space-time. You have to inject yourself with some in order to survive entering the wormhole.
- Another project involved Memory Alloys, which could change shape when in constant contact with a human hand.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Two characters, one in each game.
- Scott Ritner, director of the VeriTech research base, who has a desk made of rare cherry hardwood, refused his employees' warnings that his time travel experiment would go wrong, and listens to Barry Manilow.
- Matthew Kendrick, manager of the supply depot and lunar operations. He bribes his IT director to forward him the emails of his employees, and hired you as Mr. X to carry out the second game's mission.
- Epigraph: The first game ends on a quote from one of the VeriTech scientists describing the origin of Te-733.
- MegaCorp: Verified Technologies, or VeriTech, who own a research facility on the moon and a corporate office and supply depot, which you explore in both games.
- Multiple Endings: In the second game, when you receive a mission from Mr. Y.
- If you accept it, you'll travel to the Lunar colonies and sabotage the VeriTech research base, only to get caught by security and escape through the wormhole, creating an infinite cycle that eventually shreds the fabric of space-time.
- If you reject the mission, someone opens the office door and disintegrates. This was actually yourself coming out of the wormhole, only to be sent back in time to Volume 2 You're then free to live on, in a detoured, but unaltered timeline
- Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer: In the second game, your character terns out to be a member of MercNet, hired by various people to carry out corporate espionage jobs for enormous prices. The second game's premise is one of these missions, already accepted when you see it.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: Discussed in one of the research logs, explaining that everything has its own signature in space-time, meaning an object encountering a duplicate of itself would cause both to be erased from the timeline. This happens to you at the end of Volume 1 and your past self at the desk in Volume 2, but you survive wormhole re-entry due to your protectium, which the other figure didn't yet have.
- Our Wormholes Are Different: The anomaly around the station is an overgrown wormhole in Zeta Lab that will erase you from existence without proper protection.
- Power Crystal: Tellurium-733, a glowing yellow crystal which powers the Zeta Lab time machine and creates a local wormhole.
- Phlebotinum Breakdown: Matthew Kendrick's emails at the end of the second game reveal that Protectium can taint the Te-733 crystal and make it unstable.
- Wham Shot:
- In the first game, when you enter the wormhole, A brief flashback shows you being struck with a stun rod, just as the crew logs described happened to the intruder.
- In the second game, when you finally manage to get at the shipment crate Mr. X sent you to find, it turns out to contain Te-733 crystals for the research lab. And you have to inject a Protectium-filled sampling tool into it to progress.
- You Wake Up in a Room: In the first game, in an office between Beta and Zeta labs.
