Just a girl heading off to sing her heart out... right?
The Karaoke is a horror game created by Chilla's Art.
You play as Mira, a girl in the high school basketball team, and one late night, you and your friend Moeka practice some shots before being told by the coach it's past the school's closing time. You decide to go to the local karaoke place that's open 24 hours a day to have some fun with Moeka, but Moeka left her keys at the school and goes back for them, telling you to go ahead. As you head towards the karaoke place, Moeka texts you that she got stopped by the coach and won't be able to make it, promising to catch up with you later.
As you sing your heart out, you can't help but wonder what exactly happened to Moeka...
The game was released on February 3, 2023.
The Karaoke contains examples of:
- Apathetic Clerk: The receptionist of the karaoke place is rather apathetic and rude, and acts all pissy when Mira enters the staff room to rightfully complain about her order. She is nowhere to be found when the coach invades the karaoke place, making her fate unknown.
- Asshole Victim: The Stab ending has Mira kill the coach by stabbing him from behind, putting an end to the string of rapes he's committed.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The 'Not Caught' and 'Victim' Endings see the Coach get away with his crimes without being punished and by the end he's made either Moeka or Mira his latest victim. Even the Karaoke ending is a victory for him, as even if neither of them are endangered that night, it means his hidden camera is never discovered and he's still free to make more victims later.
- Creepy Gym Coach: The main antagonist is the high school's basketball coach, and he has been preying upon the female students. Play your cards wrong, and Moeka and/or Mira will be victimized by him.
- Dirty Old Man: The coach turns out to have been spying on/molesting girls, and will actually try to rape Moeka and Mira (successfully, in several endings).
- Driven to Suicide: In Ending 3, Moeka kills herself as a result of the coach raping her and Mira ignoring her. There’s also the implication that his past victims took their lives because of how traumatized they were from his actions.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The Golden Ending requires Mira to willingly put herself at risk to the coach in order to protect Moeka, discovering his dark secrets, then running for her life towards the police station while the creepy bastard is hunting her down. The result is a happy ending where neither Mira or Moeka have been harmed, and the coach is now behind bars.
- Have You Told Anyone Else?: In the route where Mira sees the hidden camera in the girls’ locker room and tells the Coach, who set it up, he asks her if she told anyone else and, when she says no, asks her not to tell anyone “in case they get scared”.
- Irony: For a game called The Karaoke, choosing not to go to the titular place is how you obtain the game's Golden Ending.
- Multiple Endings: The game has six endings:
- Ending 1 - Stab: Moeka calls Mira in a panic, saying that the coach is heading towards the karaoke place and coming for her, forcing Mira to hide from him. If Mira finds the knife, she manages to sneak up behind the coach and stab him in the back. He dies in the hospital, and Mira is not charged due to only attacking him in self-defense. The series of rapes comes to an end, but Moeka is still a rape victim and Mira suffers PTSD from having killed someone, and has hallucinations of the coach still stalking her.
- Ending 2 - Survive: Mira manages to evade the coach in the karaoke place long enough for the police to arrive and arrest him. The coach's crimes are exposed to the school, but Moeka is still reeling at the trauma of what happened to her and refuses to go near a man.
- Ending 3 - Caught: Mira decides not to join Moeka in practicing free throws at the start of the game and goes to the locker room to change before the coach shows up. In the locker room however, she notices a camera hidden under one of the benches, when the coach suddenly enters the room. If Mira chooses to inform him about the camera, he takes it and claims he will report it to the school, offering her a ride home. If Mira checks the glove compartment in his car, she discovers a folder containing photos of all the girls changing to her horror, and immediately runs off to the police while being pursued by the coach. She successfully reports it, and the coach is caught. The school hires a counselor to talk to those affected, with Mira wishing something like this never happens ever again.
- Ending 4 - Not Caught: Branching off from Ending 3's route, if Mira chooses not to inform the coach about the camera, he doesn't offer her a ride home, claiming he still has things to do. Mira continues to take the camera to the police while still being chased by the coach. But when she hands it in, the police cannot find any link that connects the coach to the photos taken. All the while, Moeka had sent a lot of texts to Mira, which went unanswered due to the investigation at the time, all but outright stating that Moeka was raped, culminating in her committing suicide. Meanwhile, the coach continues to remain at large.
- Ending 5 - Victim: If Mira does not investigate the coach's glove compartment and waits for him to arrive, the coach does not drive Mira home and rapes her.
- Ending 6 - Karaoke: Mira manages to find Moeka's keys and hands it back to her, ensuring she doesn't have to go back to the school. The two girls have a wonderful time singing in the karaoke place and go home just fine. Of course, considering what the player very likely now knows about the coach...
- My Greatest Failure: Ending 3 is a Downer Ending that results in not only the coach getting away with his crimes, but Moeka also kills herself due to her being the coach’s latest victim. Mira is deeply distraught by her friend’s death and wonders how different things would have been if she had just answered Moeka’s calls.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: It may seem like not telling the coach about the camera is the smarter choice, as it shows that Mira is rightfully suspicious of him and simply wants to get the camera to the police as soon as possible. However the camera ends up not having enough evidence to prove he's responsible and it actually leads to one of the worst endings with the Coach being unpunished, still getting to Moeka and causing her to commit suicide from the trauma. The correct thing involves telling him and getting in his car to find the files there, but puts Mira at risk instead of Moeka.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The "Stab" ending is the only one that ends with the wretched coach dead, permanently ending his crimes, but unfortunately, it comes with both Mira and Moeka suffering, the former having developed PTSD from her kill, and Moeka still reeling from her rape.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The police are quite competent and reasonable, and they prove instrumental to bringing the coach to justice for his crimes. In the "Stab" ending, they fully acknowledge that Mira's killing of the coach was done purely in self-defense, and do not charge her for any crime. Even in the "Not Caught" ending where they're unable to catch the coach, they still express enough concern for Mira to investigate the camera she brought.
- Red Herring:
- As you sing in the karaoke, a creepy guy suddenly barges into your room and leaves just as quickly. He also leaves his email address with the order of fries that you never actually ordered. While he is creepy and is heavily implied to have drugged Mira, he ultimately doesn't do anything beyond that, with the coach being the real threat.
- Mira at one point sees Moeka take on a more disturbing appearance, crying Tears of Blood and asking her why she didn't come and save her, before lunging at Mira. This turns out to just be a Nightmare Sequence; there are no supernatural threats in this game, the main threat being entirely human.
- Slipping a Mickey: It’s implied that the creepy guy at the karaoke bar has been giving Mira drugged food and drinks. While nothing appears to have happened to Mira after consuming the food, she does have a feverish dream about Moeka demanding to know why her friend never came to help her.
- Timed Boss: When the coach invades the karaoke place, Mira has to escape his grasp for 4 minutes until the police arrive. Alternatively, she can grab a knife and kill the bastard.
- Too Dumb to Live: While at the karaoke bar, Mira doesn't quite react to the large creepy guy who keeps barging into her room. She also assumes the drink that suddenly showed up on her table is one she already got despite having just left to go get one, so she drinks that one first instead of the one she had in her hand when she got back, and ends up getting drugged. She also completely disregards Moeka's frantic calls to keep singing (while she states that she didn't hear what Moeka was saying, it oddly raised no red flags for her) and later eats the food the same creepy guy left for her despite it not being the food she ordered. Luckily, the stalker isn't the main threat, and she wisens up in time once the real threat (the coach) shows up, calling the cops immediately and planning to hide until they get there.
- Uncertain Doom: The receptionist and the stalker are nowhere to be found when the coach breaks into the karaoke place, and what happened to them is never touched upon.
