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The YAWHG will be here in six weeks. ...and no one expects it. Not a one of us. We just keep on living our lives, week by week, unaware...

A Story Branching game with RPG Elements, The YAWHG was created by Emily Carroll and Damian Sommer. The player can take control of up to four different citizens as they go about their lives, blissfully unaware that in six scant weeks the YAWHG will arrive. Depending on how they spend their time, and how they cope with the random events thrown their way, they can build up their Physique, Finesse, Mind, Charm and Magic, and earn Wealth.

But how will they cope when the YAWHG appears...? Will the skills they honed beforehand help them survive?

The YAWHG costs $10 on Steam.


This Video Game contains examples of:

  • Ability Required to Proceed: Many event chains won't continue if your stats aren't high enough, barring you from seeing certain encounters.
  • Aborted Arc:
    • Since events are randomly generated, you may trigger an Event Flag on the last week before the YAWHG's arrival and not get to see what happens next. Some of these are actually accounted for and still have an effect.
    • Alternatively, it is possible to trigger a location-specific Event Flag, only for that location to get destroyed in another character's event, thus preventing a return to see the resolution.
  • Ambiguous Gender: The few named NPCs have unisex names like "Kelly" and "Jean".
  • Bittersweet Ending: Saving your village doesn't necessarily mean your individual heroes will get a happy ending.
  • But Thou Must!:
    • If you encounter the patient in the hospital with the spiral sores, he will rudely ask you to get him a drink of water. Unless you have a high level of a certain stat, you can't refuse him, then you can only prevent becoming possessed by his magic by passing another stat-check after he spits at you.
    • Same goes for the vampire in the slums that will force you to come to her, whether you want to or not, unless you pass a stat-check.
  • Color-Coded Characters: Each of the four characters wears a signature color: Ms. Azure is blue, Mr. Aurum is yellow, Ms. Cerise is red, and Mr. Moss is green.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: You can focus on building up just one stat if you so wish; however, there's no guarantee that particular stat will be especially useful with any of the random events that character encounters.
  • Cruel Twist Ending: Some of the resolutions after the YAWHG arrives turn out this way.
  • Decided by One Vote: Your hero may be asked to act as a tiebreaker by a bunch of rats.
  • Domino Mask: Ms. Azure and Mr. Moss don these when fighting crime. By contrast, Mr. Aurum wears a black jacket over his usual attire, and Ms. Cerise goes full Little Red Fighting Hood.
  • Don't Go in the Woods: The Forest is naturally full of dangerous encounters.
  • Doomed Hometown: Definitely prior to the YAWHG — there's nothing you can do to keep it from coming — and potentially afterward, if you can't deal with the ensuing destruction, or actively make it even worse.
  • Downer Ending: Another very real possibility.
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • If you get a fighter banned from the Arena, they hang themselves. You can find the body in the Forest.
    • Similarly, if you defeat a bard at the Tavern in a lute playing competition, the bard hangs himself. The body can be found in the Forest, along with a broken lute.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Ensuring the town's survival post-YAWHG can be tricky, but that just makes it all the more rewarding when you do manage it.
  • Event Flag: A core part of gameplay. Every decision you make has consequences, and there are various little subplots that can unfold over the course of the game.
  • Fantastic Drug: You can start creating these if your magic stat is high enough, and if you couldn't manage to rebuild after the YAWHG. Alternately, if your physique stat is high enough, and you were unable to rebuild after the YAWHG, you can become addicted to a strength potion and eventually die of an overdose from it.
  • Fantastic Racism: This can pop up with the dancing dryad's subplot.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Over the course of six weeks, you may witness one of your heroes' Start of Darkness and not fully realize it until you reach the ending.
  • Gender-Equal Ensemble: Two males and two females.
  • Good Feels Good: Certain moral deeds give your character a feeling so good it increases all of your stats by one.
  • Jack of All Stats: What everyone starts out as.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's possible the YAWHG is just a disastrous but otherwise normal hurricane.
  • Multiple Endings: With variations almost as far-ranging as the events that can bring you there.
    • Does your hometown survive the ravages of the YAWHG and rebuild — and if so, can you regain any semblance of its former glories, or is it naught but a shell of its former self?
    • What fate does each of your heroes meet? Do they, in fact, become heroes, or choose only to look out for themselves — and regardless of their chosen path, do they succeed or fail?
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Poorly chosen or failed actions can have terrible effects for those around you.
  • Nothing Is Scarier:
    • Nobody knows exactly what the YAWHG is.
    • In an equal sense, the giant hand of the hedge.
  • Only the Leads Get a Happy Ending: Your character may get to enjoy a happy future, even as those around them suffer. In fact, your personal happiness may come at the expense of others.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Incredibly charming, but physically weak.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: Possess great physical strength, but your control of the supernatural withers.
  • Permanently Missable Content: It's possible for locations to be completely destroyed, making it impossible to visit them anymore on that given playthrough.
  • Power at a Price: Certain random events can result in one stat receiving a dramatic boost while another takes an equally massive hit.
  • Punny Name: All 4 of the playable characters' names (Ms. Azure, Ms. Cerise, Mr. Moss, and Mr. Aurum) are based on their color.
  • Purely Aesthetic Gender: All four characters start with the exact same stats — 5 across the board and no Wealth — and neither gender is more inclined to earning certain stats.
  • Raising the Steaks: One event at the alchemy tower has one of the alchemists create "the antidote to death", testing it on a lifeless ferret. You can either praise the man or promptly snuff out the undead ferret.
  • RPG Elements: Statistics are influenced by various events, being raised or lowered, and those statistics allow for different results in other events, like successfully persuading someone with higher Charm. Some events also provide Wealth, which can be spent to perform specific actions.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Your characters may decide to seek their fortunes elsewhere in the end.
  • Story Branching: The gameplay's formula. Each week, the player chooses a location, chooses which of two tasks your character does that week, and then a random event happens at that particular location, providing two options, one of which may be impossible based on your character's stats. After the YAWHG, you choose your character's contribution (or lack thereof) to the rebuilding effort.
  • Stripped to the Bone: The leeches can do this. Several times, actually.
  • Taking You with Me: If the poor dryad dies, they manage a final attack before succumbing to their injuries.
  • Thousand-Yard Stare: And given what your hero witnessed to get them to that point, it's no wonder.
  • Torches and Pitchforks: Depending on your ending, such a mob may come after you.
  • Voice Grunting: Each character has their own!
  • Video Game Caring Potential: Your characters can become pillars of the community, looking out for their fellow man...
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: ...or screw them over for their own personal profit. For that matter, the player can deliberately choose poorly just to see what happens to their hapless heroes.
  • What Did I Do Last Night??: This can happen to the player characters if they come across an event that involves heavy drinking, such as a contest at the tavern or a secret party in the palace wine cellar. They can even find out what happened by visiting the right place in the weeks to follow. This can include anything from putting on a performance that made you the talk of the tavern, to rocking out with an orc raiding party and catching the eye of their female leader.
    • This can also happen if you have your mind consumed by the powers of the wizard with the spiral sores, or if you are attacked by the creature in the woods and briefly become a werewolf.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: After learning the fate of the village post-YAWHG, you get to see what happened to each of your characters.
  • Where I Was Born and Razed: Make poor decisions and you can have a direct hand in destroying part of the city before the Yawhg ever gets there.

The YAWHG. It's almost here. Almost, almost...

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