Visual Novel / MysteryMail

Mystery Mail is a telephone-like series made by Groovy and Stolen Burrito presented as ROM Hacks of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. The mods will create an initial scene. This scene is sent to the next person, and they need to build another scene without knowledge of what the theme of the hack is. They will have 2 days to complete the scene. Once the time limit runs out, the next person will receive only the previously added scene, then attempt to continue the story. This continues until the last person finishes their scene. At the end, everything is compiled into one big hack for everyone to enjoy.

There are four Mystery Mail events, five if you count the test event. The series is still ongoing.

• Mystery Mail #0: The Thief (2021)
• Mystery Mail #1: Blooming Chaos (2022)
• Mystery Mail #2: Branching Chaos (2022)
• Mystery Mail #3: Broken Chaos (2023)
• Mystery Mail #4: Choose Your Chaos (2023)

The Mystery Mail events will be referred to as their corresponding subtitles down in the Tropes section.

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Tropes:

General

• Character Derailment: Played for Laughs. Because each participant only knows what happens in the prior scene, characterization falling through the cracks is inevitable, which adds to the humor and randomness.
• Crossover: It starts out mostly being contained to Pokemon, but as the events progress, there have become more characters from outside the Pokemon universe.
  • Blooming Chaos starts MysteryMail off as mostly containing Pokemon Characters, though The guy from Crundle Quest 5, a minor character from an old Vargskelethor Joel stream, appears in the event.
  • Branching Chaos Branch B does a lot more crossover, particularly with the Super Mario Bros. franchise, with Bombette, Fawfulcopter, and Bowser (as Bowsette) appearing.
  • Broken Chaos just goes wild with the crossover concept, with not just Mario characters and The guy from Crundle Quest 5 appearing once again, but also a wider variety of third-party characters such as Zniw, Rouxls Kaard, and even Mamels from Shiren the Wanderer.
  • Choose Your Chaos has more or less the same grasp on crossovers as the previous event, Broken Chaos.
• Easter Egg: In Branching Chaos onwards, after the credits, the player can input their name. If one of the participants' names is inputted, a unique cutscene will play.
• GIS Syndrome: There are a couple instances of this.
  • In Branching Chaos Branch B, this occurs quite a few times, such as an image of under a bridge being inside the Temporal Pinnacle.
  • In Broken Chaos this happens when John and Sylvy enter the stock image of a house to warn the latter about the end of the world.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Marcus's character arc through four events, starting at Blooming Chaos and ending in the Epilogue of Choose Your Chaos.
• Sequel Escalation: Although each event has more scenes than the last, the scenes also have become longer on average across MysteryMail events.
  • The Thief has only four scenes across an eight-minute runtime^note or about two minutes per scene.
  • Blooming Chaos has 21 scenes across an approximately 90 minute runtime^note meaning each scene lasts four and a half minutes on average.
  • Branching Chaos has 25 scenes^note 26 if you count the initial scene by the mods in total. Although each branch has less scenes than Blooming Chaos, with Branch A and B having 12 and 13 scenes, respectively, they both run for about two hours each.^note 25 scenes total across 4 hours, or 240 minutes, means each scene averages at over 9 minutes, or more than twice as long as the previous event. It also better embraces the playful telephone nature of the event, particularly in Branch B, with there being a multiple-scenes-long Super Mario Bros. crossover.
  • Broken Chaos has an astonishing 34^note 35 if you include Scene 0 scenes that last for roughly five and a half hours.^note 35 scenes across roughly 330 minutes again averages at almost 10 minutes per scene.It again doubles down on being Denser and Wackier with not just at least one new character added more scene, but more silly MSPaint-styled backgrounds, further crossovers with more franchises besides Mario, and more tangential mid-event plotlines that slowly disregard the original plotlines of Bwaix and Illumise until they've become sidelined.
  • Choose Your Chaos has four branches, with 11 scenes for each branch^note every branch has their own unique Scene 0, and a scene preceding all of them, making 45 scenes total. Each branch lasts about two hours and a bit on average, making for nearly eight hours of Mystery Mail 4's total scene time, with each scene's length being around 11 minutes on average, along with more crossovers than Broken Chaos has to offer.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Although the change never lasts for more than a scene, there are several instances of this.
  • In Blooming Chaos, the player must complete a quick-time event to attack Maractus at the correct moment to escape.
  • Also in Blooming Chaos, the protagonists face Shuppet and Ariane in a 3v2 turn-based RPG battle, complete with an "Attack/Item/Pokémon/Run" menu. Unfortunately, Shuppet and Ariane don't play along and attack the heroes out of turn.
  • In Branching Chaos, Skemple the Shuppet challenges the heroes to a game of Yu-Gi-Oh, complete with a board. The game doesn't last long, as on Shuppet's turn, they play four copies of Pot of Greed and draw Exodia to win.
  • In Broken Chaos, Professor Sinistea gives Bwaix and Theo a puzzle to solve to help them remember their boss. The puzzle, which resembles a Professor Layton puzzle, involves selecting the correct Pokémon using the touchscreen. There are even hints that can be unlocked (with no hint coin collection needed).

Test Event #0: The Thief

• Cute Is Evil: The Bad Guy Guild is being run by a Happiny.
  • Attending the BGG meeting are a Shinx, Riolu, and Eevee, who exploit their cuteness to pickpocket people.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Being much shorter then the others, has a pink textbox instead of the customary green, and no credits scene.
• Fatal Flaw: Weavile's is pride. After being dissed at a convention of bad guys, she becomes determined to rob a Kecleon to prove her team's worth, regardless of consequences. Multiple times Arbok and Drapion tell her that it's better to give up and not be bothered by what some kids have to say about her, but she ignores them.
• How We Got Here: The opening scene shows Weavile of Team AWD being chased by a Kecleon for robbing him. The other three scenes show the robbery itself.

Event #1: Blooming Chaos

• All Just a Dream: This event was revealed to just be Vivi's and Sulphur's imagination, as caused by Mew.
• Dream Sequence: Happens after Alexander, a Leafeon, drinks "V.I.P. Juice." ^note It was actually Girly Juice, but the labels were swapped around.
• Left the Background Music On: A literal example. Palkia carries the Sky Jukebox with him to change the music at his leisure compliant with the situation. Due to interference from the Diglett Clan, he is unable to edit the "Pokémon Exploration Team Theme" from being the eating sound effect on loop, which annoys Vivi and Sulphur.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: Blooming Chaos starts with a beautiful panning throughout Shaymin Village demonstrating how beautiful it is, alongside relaxing music. Then at the top, the music stops with Lily saying "Man, I hate this place so much."
• Supporting Protagonist: Lily and Tulip are later captured by Alexander and Ariane after Vivi and Sulphur are knocked out. After Vivi and Sulphur awake from their comatose adventure, Vivi becomes the main focus character for the rest of the event.

Event #2: Branching Chaos

• Accidentally Broke the MacGuffin: Regigigas destroys one of the 3 gold coins and consumes the Milk that Marcus was meant to deliver to the pirates in the span of a minute.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Happiny, a Baby Pokémon, manages to defeat the Regi Trio and Regigigas without breaking a sweat, not withstanding that Regirock and Registeel have type advantages over her. Downplayed, as the Regi Trio here are implied to be children and hence not used to combat.
• Hates Being Nicknamed: Toto in Branch B.^note Who is the fully evolved Scalejaw before entering the world of Super Mario 64. Bombette from Paper Mario calls him "Mario", much to Toto's annoyance.
• It Amused Me: Deino's apparent motivation for sending Marcus towards a dangerous forest and, later, knocking Marcus into a hole with a rock.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Marcus loses most of his memories attempting to open a treasure chest containing a Dhelmise, and has to find 3 gold coins in order to break the curse.
• Snipe Hunt: Scalejaw sends Marcus on a quest to deliver him a cup of milk in order to shake him off from being badgered to get in his crew. He has a fair point in stating it would be a daunting task, as a Regigigas later consumes it in Branch A.

Event #3: Broken Chaos

• Berserk Button: There are a few of these:
  • When Hungrybox mentioned NFTs to Heon, he called Hungrybox the dumbest creature on earth and began ranting about how cryptocurrency is a farce.
  • Beeg Aron's is being reminded of his grammar mistakes. He also threatens to kill Marcus and kill him again for it.
• Bland-Name Product: Zig-Zagged in that we have "Wall mart"^note Walmart and "Ster bucc"^note Starbucks, but we later straight-up get Wendy's and Taco Bell, and even Illumise is retconned mid-story to have worked at Starbucks instead of Ster bucc.
• Brought Down to Normal: Dialga, deity of time, somehow got transformed into a simple Weedle and has to figure out how to change back to normal. It is implied that if he doesn't return back to normal, time will freeze.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Hungrybox, a jigglypuff, kills W4-LL, an ultra beast with a type advantage over him. Double Subverted with Dialga. Normally killing him would qualify, but he was a weedle at the time. However, Hungrybox later reveals in his secret scene that taking him down was more difficult then he expected.
  Hungrybox: (On Dialga) Was almost like dealing with your average Bowser...talk about unexpected heavyweights...!
• Dissonant Laughter: Bwaix is forced to constantly laugh in the Mario Party scene by Hammer, despite her suffering.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The Mario Party dice has a Crewmate from Among Us appear as one of the numbers cycling on the dice, though it never lands on it.
• Helpless with Laughter: Bwaix is forced to constantly laugh in the Mario Party scene by Hammer, and she can't even do as much as pause and say what's on her mind.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Theo's fight at Level 24 against a Level 80 Ghost-Type Arceus. They only have four Normal- or Fighting-type moves^note Neither of which affect Ghost-Types, and must wait until Arceus charges up to defeat Theo. Strangely, they also cannot damage themselves with Jump Kick, one of the moves they have in the scene, and a move that deals damage should it not affect the target.
• Interface Spoiler: Dialga's textbox identifies him before he explains to the party he's not really a weedle. Downplayed since the group is told pretty quickly after he's introduced.
• King Mook: Beeg Aron is just an Aron that is larger and stronger.
• Konami Code: John inputs this code in an attempt to get him and Sylvy both into the medium to avoid the oncoming danger of meteors.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Hungrybox the Jigglypuff is obviously based on the Super Smash Bros. Melee legend of the same name, yet he denies any association with the esports player in his secret scene.
• Popular with Furries: A Riolu character is named Furry. Riolu is the pre-evolution of Lucario, one of the most iconic furry Pokémon. He also calls out Bwaix as furry bait in Broken Chaos.
• Severely Specialized Store: The Wall mart at the start of just sells walls. And W4-LL. The signage particularly explains it well.
  Wall mart (we sell walls).
• Strange-Syntax Speaker: W4-LL starts each of their dialogue with what kind of sentence they are about to say.
  W4-LL: Question: Why are you looking at me like that.
  • This first statement is later replaced with random programming languages.
  W4-LL: JAVA: That was unexpected... I did not notice that huge tower right in front of us...
• They Call Him "Sword": The Tinkatink is called "Hammer". Also inverted in that she said that she named the weapon after herself.

Event #4: Choose Your Chaos

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In Branch G Autopilot rebels against the original quest of the characters involving finding the Eastern Forest. So they crash them into the desert and then they become Autopilot 2 and later Autopilot 3.
• Bizarrchitecture: In Branch K, of the Giant Objects category. Happiny's lair is shaped like a giant Among Us Crewmate.
• Cool Plane: Branch G introduces Autopilot, which is a talking fighter jet and one of just a few characters to not be from a preexisting franchise. Also applies to its Autopilot 2 form, which has muscles.
• Curse Cut Short: In Branch B, "Green Grass Eat My A" appears on the map.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: During Branch G, scene 7, you are forced to confront Celebi, whether that may be setting them on fire, turning them into an item, or just putting them to sleep and promptly leaving.
• Deflector Shields: In Branch K, a force field protects Happiny's Lair.
• Drunk on Milk: Played straight and literally, Tepig in Ster Bucc from Branch B.
• The End of the World as We Know It: In Branch G, caused by God bringing down a Glec that is capable of creating a black hole from its minor spelling mistakes.
• Fast as Lightning: In Branch K, Izumi has the power to teleport, thanks to "Lightning Effects".
• Fun with Acronyms: In Branch K, The Celesteela is named the A.M.O.G.U.S., or the Aerial-Monitoring Overkilling Guardian Sentry.
• Grand Finale: The epilogue. It starts where the four branches left off, lasts around 50 minutes, and wraps up the loose ends.
• Just Plane Wrong: In Branch G, Autopilot is able to lift off immediately while flying backwards.
• Morton's Fork: The ending of Branch G involves the characters making the difficult choice of letting Autopilot 3 destroying the world, or unleashing a Glec with so much silliness that it's bound to engulf the universe into a black hole.
• One-Winged Angel: During the final scenes of Branch G, Autopilot becomes Autopilot 2, which is a muscular aircraft, and then Autopilot 3, which is a grey rectangle that can fill up the entire screen and is capable of effortlessly killing off the main cast.
• Playable Epilogue: Takes place after all four branches, as well as wrapping up the character arc for Marcus. Playable since there is a boss fight between two protagonists from previous events.
• Prolonged Prologue: The first three scenes plus the zeroth scene of Branch B take up roughly half of the entire runtime, attempting to set a lot of plot, yet the remaining scenes move much more quickly.
• Purple Prose: In Branch K, A.M.O.G.U.S. tends to speak like this. All their lines take up multiple full text boxes of rather formal dialogue.
• Rapid DNA Test: In Branch Y, a Seaking can figure out people's heritage by sniffing people. This only takes a few seconds.
• Sentient Vehicle: In Branch G, Autopilot is capable of not only talking in response to the characters, but also betraying them when they don't believe in autopilot.
• Silicon Snarker: In Branch G, Autopilot is prone to taking characters to the wrong place and reacting to them with Your Mom jokes.
• Too Dumb to Live: Exaggerated In Branch G. The Glec introduced in Scene 10 has so much silliness energy that them making even a minor spelling error will envelop the world—not just itself—into a black hole.
• Your Mom: Autopilot in Branch G makes many of these jokes.