Nothing Special is a Horror Visual Novel created by Pempille in Ren'Py. It's available for free on it's itch.io
page.
You've been kidnapped and held captive by a mysterious girl named Olivia. Will you find a way to escape or succumb to her?
Nothing Special contains examples of the following tropes:
- Artists Are Attractive: The MC is an online artist and Olivia kidnapped her because she saw her artwork and deluded herself into thinking the two of them had a connection.
- Bittersweet Ending: The good ending, despite it's name, is more this. The MC manages to free herself and kill her tormentor, but now she's probably looking at a murder charge once the emergency services arrive and find her holding Olivia's dead body. Adding on to that, Olivia's partner is still at large and once he finds out Olivia didn't make it, he'll come after the MC for revenge.
- Bound and Gagged: The MC spends most of the game gagged and with her limbs restrained by zip-ties.
- Deconstruction: Of Abduction Is Love Yandere visual novels. While Olivia is conventionally attractive, it does nothing to detract form her utterly rotten personality and how she constantly violates your boundaries. The kidnapping itself is also portrayed very realistically, with the MC constantly fearing for their life, trying to find ways to escape and not once perceiving Olivia's obsession with them as charming or flattering.
- The Dragon: Olivia's unnamed partner who assists her in holding the MC captive. In the Good Ending he becomes the bigger threat after Olivia's death.
- Evil Is Petty: In the bad ending route, Olivia becomes disappointed that the MC isn't living up to her high expectations and takes revenge by deleting the MC's social media account, effectively ruining and taking away all her hard work, and then killing her.
- Gaslighting: Olivia will constantly try to make you feel like you're being ungrateful for her efforts and unreasonable, when she's the one who kidnapped you and has been subjecting you to horrific abuse for who knows how long. The MC even remarks at one point that Olivia only hears what she wants to hear.
- In Medias Res: The game starts with you already having been kidnapped, with the narration implying you've been Olivia's captive for quite a while, to the point you've become somewhat accustomed to her frequent mind-games.
- It's All About Me: Almost all of Olivia's dialogue is her whining how hard it is for her to take care of the MC and how ungrateful the MC is for all the things Olivia does for her. Even the few times where she apologizes, she immediately swings back around into trying to gain the MC's sympathy by going on and on about her stressful life.
- Karma Houdini:
- Olivia in the bad ending. Not only does she get away with kidnapping and torturing the protagonist, the protagonist isn't even able to get her revenge in her last living moments, a fact that Olivia even takes time to mock before finishing her off.
- Olivia's partner in the Good Ending. He helped kidnap and torture an innocent young woman and held her at gunpoint when she fought back, but in the end he manages to escape with not a scratch on him and even threatens to come after the MC to avenge Olivia if she should die.
- Multiple Endings:
- Bad Ending - Nothing Special: Olivia becomes increasingly disillusioned with the protagonist, as she fails to live up to the idealized version of her Olivia built up in her head. After a string of nasty abuse, Olivia deletes the protagonist's social media account to "erase" her from the net, then proceeds to "erase" her in real life by stabbing her in the stomach. The protagonist attempts to fight back in her last living moments, but is easily fought off. To add insult to injury, Olivia then pulls out a gun and tells the protagonist that her art is actually nothing special before shooting her.
- Good Ending - Enough: After slowly getting back into her good graces, the protagonist manages to get the knife Olivia was previously using to threaten her and fatally wound Olivia. Olivia's partner enters the room with a gun, but through thinking on her feet, the protagonist tricks him into believing Olivia can still be saved if he calls an ambulance immediately. Olivia's partner retreats, but threatens to come after the protagonist if Olivia doesn't make it. The game ends with the protagonist waiting for the ambulance to arrive, immensely relieved that they managed to survive the experience.
- Yandere: Olivia is this toward the player character, to the point she kidnapped them from their home and forces them to stay with her and tries to emotionally and physically abuse them into loving her. Subverted in the bad ending where Olivia becomes disillusioned with the MC as she fails to live up to Olivia's expectations and first deletes her social media then stabs and shoots her to death out of spite.
