Video Game / Ugly

Look in the mirror.

Ugly is a Puzzle Platformer game developed by Team Ugly, and published by Graffiti Games.

Gameplay revolves around a "mirror image" mechanic. At any time, you can deploy a magic mirror shard, which will create an illusory duplicate of yourself that will mirrors your movements. While the clone is intangible, you can swap yourself with it image at any time. Using this ability, you will have to explore the mansion and traverse various puzzle rooms to collect various keys, which in turn will open up subsequent areas.

The story, described as a "psycho-dark fairy tale", centers on an ugly-looking nobleman who wakes up in a dilapidated castle. During his adventure, the man will be forced to confront the traumas of his past, and piece together the ugly truth of what happened to him.

---

This game provides examples of:

• Abusive Parents: The memories show that the father is a horrible person towards his child just because the child was born ugly, regularly abusing him, forcing him to wear a mask, and scalding said mask to his face.
• The Alcoholic: The nobleman wakes up surrounded by empty bottles, and the first thing he does is to chug down another. Also, whenever you reset a room, the nobleman will drink from a flask and promptly pass out.
• All Just a Dream: It's heavily implied that the game is a Dying Dream. The achievements for completing the first two parts are respectively named "The Dream" and "The Nightmare". The third part, "The Truth", seems to be the closest one to reality, since the nobleman regains his original appearance during it.
• Ambiguous Situation: We're not sure if the nobleman is ugly because of the fire he caused ruined his face, or because it's his true personality who is rotten and ugly to the core.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: A downplayed example. There's a couple of rooms where you still play as the nobleman, but he'll have a different appearance.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The nature of the true ending is framed as this. After the father hangs, everyone (which includes the son, his wife and their daughter) gathers to sing a musical number about what a horrible person he was in life.
• Animal Motifs:
  • The mother is subtly associated with green spiders, particularly through the collar she wears. Meanwhile, the father is heavily associated with red scorpions. Looking at backgrounds elements, it's implied that they came from two different countries bearing those insignas.
  • Their son is associated with butterflies instead.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Played With. The father is handsome but very cruel and abusive while his son is ugly but kind. The nobleman Player Character is ugly and while it's initially implied that he's the son, he's actually the father in his Mental World, and his looks represent his own ugly and cruel nature beneath his handsome exterior.
• Book Ends: You start the game waking up in the wine cellar. The normal ending shows the nobleman crashing to sleep in that same spot.
  • The true ending begins in the same way as the start of the game: the nobleman wakes up in the cellar, finds the mirror shard, and uses its power to climb on a wooden platform that crumbles under his weight.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: The son didn't exactly have a happy childhood, especially once his mother died and he was left solely in the care of his abusive father. But as the true ending implies, he broke away from such a cruel mindset and instead raised his daughter with kindness.
• Brick Joke: One of the son's memories is of being strictly forced by his father to take piano lessons. The true ending shows that he put this talent to good use. Namely to play the song dedicated to his father's death.
• Cerebus Retcon: The five bosses become this once The first ending reveals that not only are they the protagonist himself, but they each represent a more mundane and pathetic moment in the Father's life after the fire disfigured him.
• Completion Meter: A mural in the main hall depicts the entire castle, with icons showing which rooms have been completed and what memories have been discovered.
• Dark World: Part II, aptly named "The Nightmare", is set in an alternative version of the castle. There's Meat Moss and arteries everywhere, everything is tinted red, and the music is distorted.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: In life, the child's mother was a kindly woman who not only loved her son unconditionally, but protected him from the father's abuse, and also encouraged him to see he was a truly beautiful person. As such, it's strongly implied that the father eventually killed her, leaving the child with nobody in his corner.
• The Dog Bites Back: Due to the sheer amount of people the father abused in the flashbacks, it's no surprise that eventually one of them fought back - namely by poisoning him during a feast.
• Doppelgänger Spin: The main gimmick of the game is your ability to create an illusory clone of yourself. The clone mirrors your movements while ignoring gravity and most solid objects, and you can swap positions with it at the press of a button.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: As seen in the true ending, the son eventually managed to take off his mask. It's also heavily implied that he married the maid with the flower pin, having a daughter with her.
• Environmental Symbolism: Every main section of the mansion is themed after one of the bosses, although the meaning is only apparent after you complete Part I.
  • The secret areas available in Part II are themed after flesh and decay, symbolizing the death of the nobleman.
  • In the true ending, the last shot is a butterfly flying out of the castle into a wide open world, as though representing how the son succeeded where his father failed: moving on with his life.
• Eye Scream: In one of the hidden memories, we see the mother covering her own eye after the father had a particularly bad fit of anger. In subsequent memories, she's seen wearing an eye patch.
• Flower Motifs: It's subtle, but the maid that befriends the son is associated with flowers, and carries a flower pin on her apron. The pin is the only clue that allows you to identify her during the last memory flashback.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Some background details can subtly foreshadow later reveals. For example, in the butterfly hall, one room has a drawing of the child in a cage, with both the mother and the dog flying away, hinting at the fact that both left him during his youth.
  • If you pay attention during the hidden memories, you'll notice that the father is present in all of them, but the son is absent in some despite supposedly being the one witnessing those events.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: A variation. During the fight with the Flames, you cannot be defeated until your third escape attempt; after that, the boss will automatically grab and defeat you. So technically the situation is "Heads I Win, Tails Is Not Allowed".
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Implied. In the true ending, when the nobleman wakes up one last time with his original face, he spots a butterfly flying towards an opening to the outside world. For the first time in the game, he's aware of the world outside and decides to leave the castle. Unfortunately, the wooden platform that was supposed to grant him a way out crumbles underneath him and leads to him being accidentally hanged before he can leave the castle.
• Heel Realization: The father eventually sees the error of his ways after he dies, admitting that he deserves to be thrown in Hell and kept away from anybody else.
• Hope Spot: Part III starts out with one. The nobleman attempts to use the mirror shard's power to escape the castle. Instead he ends up hanging himself.
• Intangibility: Your mirror image can freely move through physical items - except for surfaces covered in mirror shards, which are impassable. It will also interact with the mirror images of other objects.
• Interface Screw:
  • Every time you reset a room, you will take a sip from a flask, pass out, and then wake up with your vision distorted for a few seconds. During the final memory, after drinking from that same flask (which has been revealed to have been poisoned), the distortion will be much worse.
  • If your mirror image is in front of a wall covered in pink paint, you cannot switch places with it.
  • In Part II, touching the fleshy surfaces in the secret areas will prevent you from jumping or using the mirror shard.
• Kick the Dog: Done literally by the father in one of the hidden memories, towards the son's pet.
• Magic Mirror: The main mechanic of the game involves a magic mirror and its ability to generate a mirror image/duplicate of yourself.
• Motifs:
  • Mirrors and appearances. The nobleman's main tool is a magic mirror that allows him to create an illusory clone. The father was a narcissist obsessed with beautiful appearances. In every picture depicting him, his face has been covered by pink paint. All the mirrors in the castle have been smashed or broken, and surfaces covered in mirror shards are one of the obstacles you must deal with. Finally, it's revealed that the ugly nobleman you play as is the handsome but very cruel and abusive father, and since the game takes place in his Mental World, his heart and mind are ugly to the core.
  • Butterflies. The first main section of the game is represented by a butterfly symbol, and butterflies occasionally appear to show you the way to proceed. Additionally, one memory shows the mother gifting a butterfly costume to his son.
• Multiple Endings: Two. You get the normal ending by progressing through the various levels and defeating the Final Boss; this will make several hidden rooms appear throughout the mansion, each containing a secret item. Collecting all of them will unlock the true ending.
• Narcissist: The father, big time. He is obsessed by his own beauty and the desire to gain a beautiful son, and reacts very poorly whenever he's denied that.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: The nobleman cannot die or be permanently hurt. Falling from a great height just stuns him for a bit. The bosses can either smack him around or trap him in some way (with the latter forcing you to reset the fight), but cannot actually kill him.
• Not Quite Flight: If you place the mirror shard horizontally and then swap with your mirror image, your momentum will be mirrored: if you were falling down, swapping will make you fly up instead. With proper timing, this can be used to "float" in mid-air, or to repeatedly fling yourself upwards to reach higher and higher heights.
• Nothing Is Scarier: You can find a couple of skeletons - one of which was a maid - hung by the neck in a crystal mine. The game never explains the circumstances of their death.
• Offing the Offspring: The Father slept around with most of his maids to somehow procure an heir far more handsome than his homely son. Unfortunately, every one of his offspring are born just as homely as their half brother, if not more-so. In response, he cruelly tosses all the babies into the furnace.
• Only Friend: A memory aptly named after this trope strongly implies that the son's only friends during his early years was his mother and dog.
• Puzzle Boss:
  • The Bandaged must be tricked into attacking the ropes that keep it suspended.
  • The Covering is an Advancing Boss of Doom that must be outrun until the end of its own level.
  • The Crystal can be defeated simply by pressing a switch at the end of a corridor. The problem is that the boss will forcibly activate your mirror, and then attack your mirror image by sending out waves of glass that will push it backwards; meanwhile, the Crystal will try to trap you by summoning crystal traps.
  • The Gatekeeper is the most straightforward: reach its lock-shaped eye whenever it peeks through a door and "attack" it once by opening it.
  • The Poisoned will periodically pour a bottle of wine, and you will have to position a giant glass in order to fill it. Succeed, and the Poisoned will drink it; fail, and it'll trap you under the glass. Make the boss drink enough times, and it will fall asleep
  • The Flames must be "defeated" by reaching the exit. However, the first couple of times you do that, the Flames will block out your escape route, and a new one will open up in the process.
• Rage Against the Reflection: The father hallucinated during the feast and saw his own reflection as an ugly, cruel man. He had a single moment of regret, but then he Ignored the Epiphany and instead furiously smashed the mirror with a candelabra. This started the fire that destroyed the castle and (possibly) ruined his own appearance.
• Red Herring: There are a few of them concerning the protagonist's identity. For one, he wears blue like the son in them memories, as opposed to his father who wears red. In reality, he's just not wearing his iconic red coat - but he's still wearing the blue suit he usually wore under said coat. For another, the entire game plays it up as though the father's abuse really did get to the son and he's grown into this alcoholic, bitter nobleman. On the contrary, the true ending reveals the son moved on and made something of himself, while his father's the one who spiraled into bitterness. Next, all of the protagonist's flashbacks are displayed in crayon-fashion, framing it as childhood memories. In hindsight, it has less to do with being early memories and more like an indication of the father's immature mindset. Lastly, the memories indicate that the son's face was further disfigured when his father scalded the mask onto his face. After it's revealed the player character is the father, it turns out he was disfigured by an accident in a fire.
• The Reveal: Both endings have one, triggered when you reach the big mirror.
  • The first time, you discover the final memory of the nobleman. He isn't the abused boy, but the abusive father. The memory shows the fire that ended up destroying the great hall and scarred him, as well as the aftermath and his spiraling fall into insanity.
  • The second time, you get to find the final secret item: a noose. After that, you get to play a scene where the nobleman ends up hanging himself.
• Stylistic Suck: The hidden memories look like they have been drawn by a child.
• Til Murder Do Us Part: Heavily implied. In one hidden memory we see the father and son mourning the death of the mother; but in the memory chronologically before that, we see the mother threatening the father with a knife, and two guards approaching...
• Tomato Surprise: The game tricks you into believing that the player character was the abused son, while in reality he's the abusive father.
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: Explored. The father was a rather handsome man before the accident that disfigured him, but was a horrible, monstrous brute who was cruel to everyone, especially his own son. Speaking of which, the homely son was a kindly and sweet soul who found passion in music and art. As such, one memory shows the mother bringing her son before a mirror and telling him he's beautiful, all the while the mirror displayed a handsome child to reflect the boy's inner beauty. The maid with the flower apron even grows to like him in spite of his homely looks and even marries and has his daughter, as shown in the true ending.
• Villain Protagonist: At one point, it's eventually revealed that the nobleman you're playing as is the abusive father, not the abused son.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: The hidden ending plays song about the abusive father. Also counts as a Villainous Lament, as the father himself joins in the song.
• Womb Level: Most boss battles happen in areas full of blood, decaying muscles and exposed bones. The same applies to several secret areas.
• Would Hurt a Child: The nobleman father, shown by the hidden memories. Repeatedly demanding his son to wear a mask to hide his "ugly" face, becoming violent when he refused, beating him up with a cane for messing up his piano lessons, scalding the mask in an attempt to permanently fuse it to his son's face, burning his illegitimate infant children in the furnace...