The story starts when spoiled, self-centred cat Pud (Ben Schwartz) and hyperactive, naïve dog Ham (Ayo Edebiri) cause a severe chili spill that results in them getting admonished by their human. The following morning, they wake up to find that their human is missing without a trace – as is the rest of humanity. No sooner do they discover this than they come across I.T. (Lauren Tom), a robot from the Universe Corporation who has been isolated from her network due to a malfunction. Ham wants to go to the Universe Corporation Tower and find a way to fix the error, while Pud wants to run away and find a new home. But as they argue about what to do, a giant pigeon crashes into their building, causing it to collapse, and…
…Ham ropes a reluctant Pud into going to the Universe Corporation Tower, dragging him and I.T. into countless perils as reality comes apart around them.
…After getting separated from Ham and I.T., Pud decides to stick to his original plan and strike out on his own and find his own lot in life, unaware of the dangers of an unwinding multiverse.
In either case, Ham and Pud are forced to make a number of choices – some more consequential than others – as they try and figure out what to do without their Human. But will those choices really matter? And can anything they do really bring their human back?
Preview: Trailer
We Lost Our Human contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: For most scenes, Ham and Pud wear nothing but their collars, with exceptions being Future Ham and Pud, Ham after getting gear from her future self, Hermit Pud, and Evil Future Pud.
- Acid Reflux Nightmare: In Pud's route, if he opts for the "Exotic Fish," he gets poisoned by the fish and enters a surreal dream in a dungeon with Orc, who gives him one of two bows before being interrupted by Kitty. Later on, he's shown to still have the bow he chooses.
- And I Must Scream: In Pud's route, if Pud decides to abandon Ham and find Human, abandon Mousey Friend, and drag Ham off the cliff at the Centre of the Universe, then when the universe resets, he finds himself stuck in Mousey Friend's body, forced to be alone with Ham.
- Animal Talk: Ham and Pud can talk amongst themselves and with other entities they encounter like I.T., but when we're shown scenes from Human's perspective, they just talk in "woof-woof-woof," and "meow-meow-meow" respectively.
- Babies Ever After:
- Ham and Pud each get an ending where if they let each other go at the Center of the Universe, their future self will go back in time to bring Ham or Pud to their past self. Only, they go back too far and give them a kitten or a puppy version of Pud or Ham (or in Pud's case, a massive number of puppy Hams) instead.
- To a lesser extent, the Omega Ending, brings a number of infant Hams and Puds into the equation (and a number of other Hams and Puds), with one kitten Pud called regular Pud "Dad," much to regular Pud's consternation.
- Bring Me My Brown Pants: A running gag is made of Pud soiling his pants when the going gets tough… even when he's not wearing pants (lederhosen in the Bacon Witch path notwithstanding). In some scenes, the movie Lampshades this discrepancy.Pud: We got a Code Brown back here!
- Buffoonish Tomcat: Pud has his moments, especially when he's on the receiving end of some Amusing Injuries.
- Butt-Monkey: Whichever route the viewer picks, Pud is on the receiving end of the movie's Amusing Injuries more often than not.
- The Cameo:
- If Pud goes for the exotic fish in the seafood store, he'll have an Acid Reflux Nightmare where he encounters Kitty and Orc from Battle Kitty.
- If Pud decides to go help Ham at the tower, he bumps into Glendale, Durpleton, and Wammawink after coming out of Glendale's pocket universe, and then gets chased by Glendale across a few dimensions.
- Cats Are Mean: Pud is definitely the most self-centered of the main trio, and the routes if he abandons I.T. and Ham at the Tower are probably the most evil of the bunch, though you do get the option to make Pud change his mind at the last minute.
- Cats Love Laser Pointers: Close to the end of a Ham route depending on the choices the watcher makes, They save Pud from high speed volcanic rocks with a laser pointer to get Pud to move out of the way.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The Amulet. If it was acquired in the story, then depending on the choices made at the Center of the Universe, the Amulet will stop time long enough for Ham and/or Pud to go for the power switch, even if circumstances prevented them from reaching the switch anyway, and even if it isn't used, then its presence could affect the choice of ending. Not to mention, it turns out to contain the human genome, which is the key to finally reuniting with Human.
- The leash or the jingly bell, whichever is picked, ends up coming in handy later.
- The bows acquired in Pud's Acid Reflux Nightmare in the seafood store become this if Pud decides to go look for Human at the Tower. When Pud makes his way to the Center of the Universe, he'll make use of either bow to make himself cute enough or strong enough to trick or brutalize his way onto the Duck Boat.
- If Ham uses the salami to defend the party from the Bacon Witch, you get the Bacon Witch's sausage nose ripped off. Later, in the Great Jurassic Bake-Off, if Ham helps Phil the T. Rex make a new batch of chili, she can throw the nose into the mix. Doing this results in Ham being given the aforementioned Amulet.
- Civilized Animal: Ham and Pud are both (usually) bipedal animals who engage in Animal Talk.
- Companion Cube: Pud's stuffed mouse, imaginatively called "Mousey Friend."
- Creator Cameo: If Ham's route unlocks a particular ending (see World of Funny Animals), animal versions of creators Rikke Asbjoern and Chris Garbutt appear (as a horse and a squirrel respectively), trying to pitch the story of We Lost Our Human to Ham and Pud.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: If Pud has his Acid Reflux Nightmare with Orc from Battle Kitty, Kitty will burst in, accuse Orc of "seeing another cat," and chase Pud around until he wakes up.
- Dogs Are Dumb: Ham is a buffoonish, impulsive little puppy, though her future self seems to have become a bit smarter.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Ham and Pud's human is only ever referred to as "Human" – the audience is never told her real name.
- Evil Me Scares Me: Evil Future Pud scares the bejeezus out of regular Pud.
- Failed Attempt at Drama: In Ham's routes, when Pud is on the verge of being sucked into the void at the Center of the Universe, in either version, Pud urges Ham to go on without him and hit the power switch. If Ham decides to do so, she'll tearfully bid Pud goodbye and say she loves him. Either way, Pud fails at creating the requisite effect:
- In the "Ham Pushes Pud Away" version, Pud will say "I know," then at the last minute decides he wants his last words to be something else, but gets yanked away before he gets the chance.
- In the "Ham Drags Pud Home" version, Pud silently drifts away with a smile on his face, but then gets klonked on the head by a piece of debris and shouts in pain.
- Fantastic Aesop: Parodied. After three playthroughs and unlocking the Golden Ending, Future Ham and Pud pop up briefly to congratulate and thank the viewer, then tell them to remember…"Don't spill chili on the power outlet!"
- Fearless Fool: Ham tends to leap long before she looks.
- Female Feline, Male Mutt: Inverted – Ham is a female dog, while Pud is a male cat.
- Freudian Trio: Amongst our heroes:
- Ham is the Id – hyperactive and prone to rash decisions.
- Pud is the Ego – less rash than Ham, but still self-centred and prone to immature moments.
- I.T. is the Superego – a calm and methodical robot.
- Future Badass: Future Ham is a laser-and-jetpack-wielding badass who can take on countless plush zombies.
- Future Me Scares Me: In Pud's route, he can encounter versions of himself that unsettle him.
- One version encountered if he decides to eat at the seafood store is a future version of himself who has Gone Mad From The Isolation and deeply misses Ham and Human and has created countless sculptures, drawings, and other paraphernalia of them both. This leaves Pud unsettled.
- Then there's Evil Future Pud, who's encountered if Pud goes to save Ham at the tower.
- Gamebooks: Notable for being like Battle Kitty in that it's a Netflix example that's not tied to a preexisting intellectual property.
- Genki Girl: Ham is a hyperactive, optimistic little puppy.
- Golden Ending: Playing through the story three times will activate the Omega Ending, in which Ham and Pud are finally reunited with Human.
- Go Mad from the Isolation:
- If Pud goes to the seafood shop, he eventually encounters a future version of himself who's been driven insane from missing Ham and Human, and has created an obsessive number of Ham and Human artworks.
- Similarly, it's implied that Pud going off the rails and becoming an Omnicidal Maniac if he decides to go find Human at the Tower is due to this.
- Go Out with a Smile: In some routes, Ham or Pud will smile as they fall into the abyss if the other lets him/her go
- Green-Eyed Monster: Pud is immediately shown to be jealous of Ham, feeling that she's an interloper intruding on him and Human.
- Hairball Humor: If Pud is able to get the milk, he has a dream where a talking hairball tells him to look for the Amulet and gives him clues for which path to take to find it. Depending on the choices you make, the Hairball appears at the Center of the Universe to prevent Ham and Pud from pushing the universe's power button.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: The general vibe of Rainbow Happyland. There's even archway saying "No bad feelings, ever!"
- Have You Tried Rebooting?: Human tries fixing her computer this way. It turns out that the way to stem the effects of the Glitch is to hit the universe's power switch, turning it off and on again.
- Heel–Face Turn: If Pud compliments Evil Future Pud's chili at the Centre of the Universe, he can talk him out of his scheme to cause a Mega-Glitch, and if Pud decides to save Ham, then Evil Future Pud will push the Universe's power button himself.
- "Here's Johnny!" Homage: If Pud decides to find a new home first, he'll eventually be besieged by Living Toys and the creepy bunny will smash through his door as a reference."Here's Bunny!"
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Pud is quite a bit bigger than Ham.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The Bacon Witch, who is all too eager to bake Ham, Pud, and I.T. into a pie.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: At the Center of the the Universe, in either of Ham's Tower choices, and one of Pud's, the non-player character will be put in a situation where they'll get dragged into the void, and ask the player character to go on without them and hit the universe's power button. The player can either do as they say and let them get dragged away, or ignore them and pull them up. This choice – coupled with the factor of whether or not you have the Amulet – affects the ending the player character gets.
- Jerkass: The Hairball, if you attain the ending in Pud's route if you encounter them at the Centre of the Univere. It's disappointed that the universe hasn't imploded, and when Ham angrily attacks it for dragging Pud away, it just laughs in Ham's face.
- Karmic Jackpot:
- In Pud's route, if he helps out Steve the Octopus, Steve will give him the Amulet.
- Similarly, in Ham's route, if Ham helps Phil the dinosaur make a new bowl of chili (and has the Bacon Witch's nose), then the Amulet will be given to Phil as a bonus prize, and in gratitude he will give the Amulet to Ham.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: If Ham drags Pud with her at the Tower, she'll run into Panky Malanky, a meatball version of Pinky Malinky.
- Living Toys: In Pud's route, if he decides to find a new house, he finds himself in a dimension filled with them that becomes a nightmarish world of zombie-like toys.
- Multiple Endings: Influenced by a number of factors, chief among them being whether you pick Ham or Pud during the apartment collapse, whether or not you acquire the Amulet, which choice Ham or Pud makes at the Tower, and finally, whether Ham or Pud abandons one another at the Center of the Universe. Playing them once will give the player the chance to either make a different choice with the same character at the Tower or play as the other character, playing a second will give you the two choices that remain, and playing a third will unlock the Omega/Golden Ending
- Omega Ending: After three playthroughs, all permutations of Ham and Pud find themselves with I.T. at the very beginning of the Universe. Future Ham and Pud argue, resulting in them breaking the Amulet, which turns out to contain a copy of the human genome. I.T., and all the Hams and Puds form a tower, and assist the genome into the nascent universe, resulting in Ham and Pud awakening in their apartment, where they are finally reunited with Human.
- Omnicidal Maniac: In Pud's route, he encounters this in one of two ways.
- If he decides to go help Ham, he encounters a future, evil version of himself who's decided that the best way to be with Human is if he causes an even bigger Glitch that deletes the universe in the belief that this is the only way to be Together in Death with Human.
- Similarly, if he abandons Ham and I.T. at the Tower and goes to look for Human, he becomes one, as he decides to stop Ham from turning the universe on and off for similar reasons to Evil Future Pud, though depending on the player's choices, he can renege on this.
- Also in this route, if Pud got the milk before the character selection screen, acquired the Amulet, abandons Ham at the Tower, tries to eat Ham's pictures, and decides to help Ham at the Center of the Universe, the Hairball turns out to be one, judging by its disappointed reaction to the universe not being imploded.
- Or Was It a Dream?:
- After first encountering I.T., the fridge falls on either Ham or Pud (depending on the choice made earlier) and they have a dream where they're in a video game setting. There, they have a scene where they're presented with a choice that provides them with an item of some kind. Later on, if the character selected in the apartment collapse is the same as the one who had the dream, they're shown to have the item acquired in the dream (Ham has either the milk or the eggs, and Pud has either the ladle or the blanket).
- If Pud visits the seafood shop and eats the exotic fish, he has an Acid Reflux Nightmare where he can acquire one of two bows. Depending on which choice Pud makes at the tower, either the player's Pud or Evil Future Pud will put on the bow briefly, either becoming baby-like or beastly as a result.
- Pet the Dog: If Pud goes back for Ham at the Tower and leaves Ham to hit the power switch at the Center of the Universe, then Evil Future Pud, realizing how much Ham meant to Pud, goes back in time and brings back a boatload of puppy Hams to regular Pud.
- Pint Sized Power House: Ham is rather strong for a dog her size.Pud (while being smushed into Human's leg by Ham's hug): How are you so impossibly strong?
Ham: It's The Power of Love! Also, I have been following along when Human does yoga. - Powered Armor: If Pud abandons Ham at the tower, he later runs into Ham at the Center of the Universe, where he sees that Ham now uses one.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Depending on the viewer's choices, Pud's story can become this if he abandons I.T. and Ham and goes back for Human.
- Reset Button: The climax of each playthrough involves Ham and/or Pud attempting to undo the Glitch by using the power switch at the Center of the Universe to reboot the universe. It doesn't work in the first two playthroughs, as the rebooted universe is altered. but after the third, they manage to insert the human genome into the rebooting universe, and finally succeed.
- The Reveal:
- The Glitch was caused by Ham and Pud causing the chili spill at the beginning.
- After one playthrough, it turns out that future versions of Pud, Ham, and I.T. are using the Amulet to try and examine possible paths to take in hopes that they can find one that brings back Human. Now they've been trying for 5,000 years – and they only have two tries left.
- After the second, it's revealed that the Glitch is expanding into a mega-Glitch that will erase all traces of all of humanity across the multiverse.
- Title Drop: Ham explaining their situation to a talking duck boat.
- Running Gag:
- Pud soiling his pants (even though he doesn't wear any).
- People calling Pud "Dad" (even though he isn't).
- Shout-Out:
- The Bacon Witch scene in Ham's route is a long one to Hansel and Gretel, complete with Ham, Pud, and I.T. wearing lederhosen for the duration of the scene.
- If Ham pushes Pud away, then goes for the power switch rather than save Pud, she'll tearfully say she loves Pud, to which Pud will say "I know," …before deciding he wants his last words to be something else.
- In Pud's "Find a House" route, when he's under siege from the Living Toys, the rabbit will break through his door with a cheerful cry of "here's Bunny!"
- Story Branch Favoritism: Downplayed.
- While both Ham and Pud's routes have a similar amount of branching paths, Ham has five or six endingsnote to Pud's nine.
- Similarly, there are two ways for Pud to acquire the Amulet, but only one way for Ham.
- Sugar Bowl: Rainbow Happyland, a cutesy world whose denizens seem to not take well to anyone having a bad mood or any negative feelings. There is even singing.
- Thanking the Viewer: After unlocking the Golden Ending, Future Ham and Pud pop up on a flying rocket turtle briefly to thank the viewer for their help, and to remind them never to spill chili on power outlets.
- Thin-Line Animation: All the characters are rendered in simplified, rounded, geometrically based designs. Ham and Pud don't even seem to have any toes.
- Time Skip: In Pud's route, if Pud abandons Ham at the tower, he spends a considerable amount of time ambling between dimensions before reaching his old apartment, by which point, he's lost both an eye and a leg, and apparently Ham has found a spaceship and a Powered Armor for herself.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It turns out that the Glitch was caused by Ham and Pud knocking Human over, causing her to drop her chili onto an already overloaded power outlet, causing a power surge that initiated a chain reaction, causing the universe to implode.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: In Pud's route, if you abandon Ham and I.T. and decide to screw over Ham at the Centre of the Universe, the endings you get are the most brutal.
- We Are Not Going Through That Again: When Human comes home with chili at the end, Ham and Pud quickly move to dispose of it by either throwing it out the window or down the sink drain
- Who Would Want to Watch Us?: In one of Ham's endings, she and Pud find themselves as executives at Petflix in a World of Funny Animals where they listen to a horse and a squirrel pitching the plot of We Lost Our Human to them. They decide that the idea is too weird and unrealistic and figure that the pitch will never get picked up.
- World of Funny Animals: In one of Ham's endings, she and Pud find themselves in one, where apparently they're executives at Petflix.
