The long second life of Noël Rousseau
Traumerei is an Western mystery/adventure game with horror elements by Veynn, using RPG Maker VX Ace as its engine. The game is focused on exploration, story and puzzles. The game is divided into five chapters (with 0 being considered non-canon but still referenced by later chapters) and you can find them here
. The games follow the life of reclusive vampire Noël Rousseau as he tries to come out of his shell, make friends, and track down his missing parents.
- Chapter 0 opens with Noël in his house, doing his daily chores. Ever since he lost a certain someone who was very special to him, he has lived alone in his house in the woods, with only dolls and pumpkins for company. That changes one night when he meets a strange and perky girl by the name of Annabelle Vamir, who wants to be his friend for some reason.
- Chapter 1 picks up after that, with Noël finally having left his house and off to the Afterlife Express to meet Annabelle and her family in person. He meets her brother, Azelle Vamir- who is every bit as quirky as her- and Rue Dietrich, a deceased hunter who is now living with them. Noël decides to stay with them and become part of the family. But that night, he, Annabelle, and Rue are dragged into a mirror by a mysterious enemy, and Noël soon realizes there was more to the death of his certain someone than he thought.
- Chapter 2 is a prequel following Noël, here a self-proclaimed exorcist, on his search throughout the country for his parents. At the height of the Witch Hunts, Noël ends up in a town that is overzealous about executing suspected witches. On his visit, he has a strange encounter with a spirit of an executed witch who begs for his help, and soon he finds himself suspected of witchcraft.
- Chapter 3 has Noël and his found family attending the Moonlight Circus, where they meet the Grim Reaper known as Wyvn, who approaches Noël with a game of sorts. All Noël has to do is go through the Funhouse and navigate the memories of his loved ones, and make it out. But this game is far more than it seems as Noël is soon confronted with an awful secret unknown to himself.
- Chapter 4 is the Grand Finale of the game series. Noël, at long last, has managed to locate his parents. Now, he wants to live a happy life with them. But the truth still lingers in his head, and he will soon have to make a big choice that will determine the course of the rest of his life.
After the conclusion of the game series, the creator announced that the series would continue in the form of illustrated novels.
This game provides examples of:
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: According to
Word of God, grim reapers take the shape of a person's loved one or a close friend. Wyvn takes the form of a composite of the Sauer twins, since it's been a long time and Noël can barely remember their faces anymore. - All There in the Manual: After a character is introduced, a CG depicting a bio of said character appears, such as their height, age, and likes and dislikes. Even of reappearing characters.
- Angsty Surviving Twin:
- Chapter 3 reveals Henrietta died in her late twenties while Adelaide cured herself from her tuberculosis and lived to old age.
- Rue and his brother Matteo, who was spirited away in their childhood.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Occurs very often. The whole game shifts perspective from a character to another frequently, in order to tell it's story.
- Asshole Victim: Father Diederich, after he hangs Ilia and tries to kill the Sauer twins when they were just small children, is himself murdered by Delia, who despises him for what he did.
- The Atoner: Alaine is very tolerant towards the antics of the Sauer twins, especially Henrietta. This is an attempt to make up for how his father executed Ilia, who was like a big sister figure to the girls.
- Bad Powers, Good People: The premise of the story. Most of the characters are monsters or are humans involved with the supernatural and they're mostly good or neutral. Of course they are some evil ones, like Delia.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Despite being a grim reaper, Wyvn is easily one of the nicer characters in the series. But messing with souls or the reincarnation cycle or is an easy way to get on her bad side. Her current goal is to make Noel face the circumstances of his second life (since as a vampire, he can't be killed) and put Lila's soul to rest.
- Bittersweet Ending: Thanks to Wyvn, Noel faces the circumstances of his parents' deaths and releases Lila's soul. He also loses his memories of all the events of the series. However, he has the feeling that things are better off the way they are and might have the chance to reunite with Annabelle once again.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Noel's father tried doing this to his son in order to commit suicide to be with his deceased wife. It ended up backfiring big time, with Noel being traumatized by the incident, forgetting all about it when he starts his second life and spending centuries trying to search for his "missing parents".
- Break the Cutie: Averted with Noel due to his amnesia after starting his second life trapped in the past....at least until the truth hits him like a landmine in Chapter 4, but played straight with many of the characters in the cast.
- Chekhov's Gun: The magpie.
- Cute Ghost Girl: Lila.
- Cynicism Catalyst: Ilia's death by hanging resulted in Delia's hatred towards humanity.
- Downer Ending: Every chapter ends with Noel worse than he was before. It's finally subverted in Chapter 4, which is a Bittersweet Ending instead.
- Chapter 1 ends with Noel killing the memory of Delia and happily reuniting with Annabelle, Azelle and Rue. Then Chapter 3 reveals the whole reason they reached Noel in the first place was so he could be judged by Wyvn.
- Chapter 2 ends with Noel living happily with Ilia and the Sauer twins, only for the twins to die of old age. Noel tries to seal Ilia's spirit in a mirror shard so she won't go to the afterlife, but this results in her losing her memories about her life and becoming Lila.
- Chapter 3 ends with Wyvn capturing and judging Noel.
- Fiery Redhead: Annabelle.
- Ghost Amnesia: Chapter 2 ends with the Sauer twins dying of old age after spending all their life with Noël. Ilia is forced to go to the afterlife, as she has no more attachments to the world. Noel decides to absorb her spirit into a mirror shard to prevent her from leaving, but this causes her to forget all about her life instead. This causes Noel a lot of conflict, as he comes to see the amnesiac "Lila" as a different person from the Ilia he used to know.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Annabelle is this to Noel, encouraging the bookish vampire to come out of his shell. Her brother Azelle is also this to Rue, encouraging him to loosen up a bit. Invoked, as it's implied they act this way on purpose in order to guide people to the afterlife.
- Misery Builds Character: As it turns out, it helps build Noël's character quite a bit. In Chapter 4, after he returns to the year his parents died, everyone points out how Noel is more wistful and mature than before.
- In Touch with His Feminine Side: Azelle. He's pretty cheerful, flamboyant, loves getting close to Rue and occasionally wears dresses and pink clothes.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- Ilia was hanged and labelled as a witch in front of the Sauer twins by the ungrateful populace of a town she cured because she received the help of a witch to do so.
- Noel's mother was murdered after she tried to defend his son, who was outed as a vampire.
- No Social Skills: Noël has a very difficult time making friends due to him being the son of vampires. The game is dedicated to him making new friends.
- Unreliable Narrator: The whole story is a (sort of) autobiography of the immortal vampire Noël. Even Noël himself states that some of the details may or may not be true. For example, Chapter 2 shows the Sauer twins dying of old age, but in Chapter 3 they apparently died in their late teens. And he hides the fact he's been chased by Wyvn a long time until she directly confronts him in Chapter 3.
- The Un-Reveal: In Chapter 1, Delia reveals Noel has a dark secret, mentioning ominously how "he is not so innocent" and how he murdered his father in cold blood. Cue Chapter 4 and we learn that Noel killed Mischa in self-defense and he was manipulated to do so (see Break His Heart to Save Him above) and albeit Noel possibly could have saved his parents from such fate if he wasn't outed as a vampire by humans, he in fact did nothing wrong.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: No matter what, Noel is doomed to never reunite with his parents again.
- Sins of Our Fathers: In their childhood Alaine and his sister Silvia were cursed by Delia in order to take revenge for their father's actions towards Ilia. At the end of Chapter 2 they're cursed again for trying to burn Noel at the stake.
- Soul Jar: Inverted - Lila being sealed in the mirror shard prevents her soul from passing on. The end result is still functional immortality, though.
- Tsundere: Both Noel and Annabelle towards each other.
