History Main / GenreRoulette

* ''VisualNovel/{{Machi}}'' features seven routes, each in a wildly different genre (Keima's route is a humorous DetectiveDrama, Ichikawa's route is [[ParanoiaFuel pretty much horror]], Yoshiko's route is [[SlapstickKnowsNoGender slapstick]], etc). Notably there's no overarching plot at all, and compared to ''[[VisualNovel/BansheesLastCry Kamaitachi no Yoru]]'' (where the player could at least choose a route and play that until the end), in ''Machi'' the player has no choice but to jump between routes all the time in order to make progress, so the genre shifts become all the more noticeable.

* ''The Melancholy of LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya''. As a whole though, you can probably put it into MagicalRealism, though every piece has its own defined genre.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'': It starts out looking like a generic story about some youths (potentially a ComingOfAgeStory or part of the HaremGenre) before abruptly switching into PsychologicalHorror. Then the second arc begins, repeating the cycle. Over the course of the series, it becomes clear that the story is actually a {{Mystery|Fiction}} as well, and the last arcs add a dose of [[ShonenGenre shounen action]].

* ''{{Film/Troll}}'' can't decide whether it wants to be a horror film or a fantasy adventure. ''Film/Troll2'' can't decide whether it wants to be a horror comedy or straight up horror.

* Creator/GrantMorrison's ''Comicbook/SevenSoldiers'' does this deliberately with each of the miniseries exhibiting the traits of a particular style of comic genre. ''[[Comicbook/GrantMorrisonsBatman The Return of Bruce Wayne]]'' and ''Comicbook/TheMultiversity'' are also set up the same way, with each issue being a different genre based on the setting (time in [=RoBW=] and the worlds in Multiversity).

* ''Literature/{{Skulduggery Pleasant}}'' has, according to Word of God, a slightly different genre for each book:

* ''VisualNovel/{{Machi}}'' features seven routes, each in a wildly different genre (Keima's route is a humorous DetectiveDrama, Ichikawa's route is [[ParanoiaFuel pretty much horror]], Yoshiko's route is [[SlapstickKnowsNoGender slapstick]], etc). Notably there's no overarching plot at all, and compared to [[VisualNovel/BansheesLastCry Kamaitachi no Yoru]] (where the player could at least choose a route and play that until the end), in Machi the player has no choice but to jump between routes all the time in order to make progress, so the genre shifts become all the more noticeable.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

** SuperheroStories: ("The Masked Offender").

* Music/TheAvalanches' debut album ''Music/SinceILeftYou'' switches between Trip-Hop, Ambient, and HouseMusic, and even then these songs [[GenreBusting can't easily be identified as a single genre.]] Hell, even before their first album, they dabbled in experimental RapRock and Trip-Hop. Their follow-up ''Wildflower'' adds on to this with some heavy influence from soul, rap, and children's music.

When applied to video game genres (i.e. the style of gameplay), it's GameplayRoulette. When you are changing genres despite having worked exclusively with only one before, it is GenreAdultery. Compare/Contrast with GenreBusting, which has its story genres established from the very beginning, whereas Genre Roulette will continuously switch between genres as the story progresses.

* ''VideoGame/TheWitcher: Music Inspired By the Game'', one of two soundtracks packaged with the [[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition Enhanced Edition]] of the game, runs the gamut from Celtic-style folk music (e.g. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pnWs_iodDU "Skellige" by Duan]]) to folk-rock ([[http://youtu.be/cLHLjkru13E "Sapphire Waters" by Village Kollektive]]) to rock ([[http://youtu.be/51sZeFI-3Dk "Running Away" by Skowyt]]) to heavy metal ([[http://youtu.be/xrHqLmAU19c "Sword of the Witcher" by Vader]]) to just plain damn weird ([[http://youtu.be/cCxTt881T2U "They Want to Suck" by LAL]]).

* Given the nature of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, a catalogue of all sorts of detained paranormal phenomena, it's bound to end up as this. The website started towards it being more orientated towards horror, which is the common way to describe the site, but SCP entries are very varied in tone to reflect that the weird isn't always traditionally scary. The variation of the site includes SCP entities that are:

* Music/SoundHorizon is, in theory, a SymphonicMetal band. In ''theory''. The fact that [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]] has them listed under nine genres should tell you something about how they work.

* The ''Machinima/CPUChampionshipSeries''. With rulesets changing every season, you never know what to expect.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': The [[ShowWithinAShow in-universe movie trilogy starring Sarge]] (as featured in the non-canon [=PSAs=]) gets this during its second installment, thanks to Sarge and Donut trying to reach a broader audience. It starts out as the same kind of dramatic action movie as the first, before becoming a buddy cop movie when Tucker is introduced, then a romantic movie (Sarge ships himself with Lopez), then Sarge and Tucker have to go about SavingChristmas from the terminal disease that is the ZombieApocalypse... and there's a musical in there somewhere.

* ''Film/HappyDeathDay'' and its sequel ''Film/HappyDeathDay2U'' are both supernatural murder mystery romcom slasher horror dramas, with the former having supernatural elements to it and the latter having a healthy dose of science firction thrown in for good measure.

* Due to the random nature in which events occur in ''LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemon'' and the fact that its plot comes from trying to interpret those events into something coherent, it has run the gamut of genres. Some things that it has been:
** [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonRed Reli]][[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonCrystal gious]] [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonHeartGold story]]
** [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonEmerald Police drama]]
** [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonFireRed Nature documentary]]
** [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonPlatinum Soap opera]]
** [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonBlack2 Reality]] [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonX show]]
** [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonRedAnniversary Cosm]][[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonCrystalAnniversary ic Hor]][[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonBrown ror S]][[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonPrism tory]]
** [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonAlphaSapphire Spy thriller]]
** [[LetsPlay/TwitchPlaysPokemonSun Political drama]]

** "The Witness" is a trippy and surrealist thriller that combines live-action and animation.
** "Suits" is an action packed mix of country scenery and Mecha Anime.

** "Good Hunting" is a Miyazaki-esque SteamPunk ("Silk Punk") romance story set in an alternate Qing-era China, with themes of Chinese identity and anti-imperialism.

** "Shape-Shifters" is an action oriented military story with werewolves and little to no comedy.

** "Fish Night" is a trippy animation about a GhostStory.

** "Zima Blue" is a deconstruction of TrueArtIsIncomprehensible. It's about a journalist who is following an enigmatic robot artist about to complete his secret final work.

** "Ice Age" is a comedy featuring live-action actors, a young couple who are stunned to find a tiny developing civilization in their freezer.

* Music/FloorJansen is best known as a SymphonicMetal singer (mainly for Music/AfterForever and Music/{{Nightwish}}), but she also loves HardRock and is trained in classical singing and musical theatre. Her collaboration ''Music/{{Northward}}'' with Jørn Viggo Lofstad ranges from PowerPop to TraditionalHeavyMetal depending on the song, and in her appearance on the Dutch music competition show ''Beste Zangers'' she performed everything from "Theatre/ThePhantomOfTheOpera" to [[Music/LadyGaga "Shallow"]].

** The genres the characters find themselves in are shaken up in subsequent seasons. For example, in Season 2 Joyce, Hop, Steve and the kids gradually find themselves in the sequel to the monster movie, only unfortunately for them it's now become ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' instead of "just" ''Film/{{Alien}}''; Jonathan and Nancy take over the GovernmentConspiracy plot-line; and Eleven goes on an epic quest to find out who she truly is and how to control her powers, similar to Luke in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', but which plays out in practice more like an UrbanFantasy reinterpretation of a grim urban TeenDrama based around urban decay in the inner city a la ''Literature/TheWarriors''.

* ''Series/{{Riverdale}}'' can switch between genres within a single episode (partly due to having an EnsembleCast in multiple simultaneous plotlines). It can go from being a TeenDrama ComingOfAgeStory to a AmateurSleuth DetectiveDrama to a CriminalProcedural and back again, with an occasional dose of TheMusical and all with a heavy FilmNoir influence. It isn't surprisingly to learn one of its main inspirations was ''Series/TwinPeaks'', which is also on this list.

* ''Series/NowAndAgain'' was ostensibly a sci-fi show, but no two episodes were the same. Superhuman Michael Wiseman was a miscellaneous man for hire when he wasn't a lab rat, countering threats ranging from spies to killer insects. Wiseman's supposed wife and daughter provided some family dramedy as well as they tried to get on with their lives in the wake of Michael's apparent death.

* Music/TheAquabats:
** Their album ''Charge!!'' has an InUniverse example, in the form of the movie (movies?) from the song "Stuck in a Movie!". The narrator, i.e. the guy stuck in a movie, describes it as a mish-mash of action, horror, and fantasy where none of the pieces seem to be connected to each other. It gives the impression of a montage.
--->''Comin' after you, and it's getting dark\\

* Music/TheAquabats have an InUniverse example, in the form of the movie (movies?) from their song "Stuck in a Movie!". The narrator, i.e. the guy stuck in a movie, describes it as a mish-mash of action, horror, and fantasy where none of the pieces seem to be connected to each other. It gives the impression of a montage.

* ''Series/''ShadowAndBone'' falls under the fantasy umbrella as a whole, but switches between different genres/sub-genres depending on whose storyline we're currently following. As mentioned in its GenreMashup entry, the lines between them get increasingly blurred as the three main plotlines intersect more; by the end of the first season it's less Roulette and more Mashup.

* ''Series/StrangerThings'': Every group of characters (though some of those groups are only a single person) has its own genre. As the show progresses, some of these genres begin to bleed together, especially among the main characters.
** The kids are in a DarkFantasy coming of age story. When their friend goes missing, they look for him, only to find a girl their age who seems completely socially unaware. They continue looking for their friend, fighting to keep the adults from getting involved, and dealing with the tension caused by their repeated failures on every front.
** Joyce is in a psychological horror. Her son goes missing, and everyone initially assumes she lost track of him. She begins to believe that her son is talking to her by making lights blink, but they never do it when anyone else is around. Everyone in town--including the sheriff who lost a child of his own--assumes she is losing her mind due to stress. This gets worse when [[spoiler:her son's body is discovered]], and she still refuses to believe it.
** Hop is in a conspiracy thriller. He's living in a sleepy little town and a kid goes missing--the first major crime in decades. Then a local commits suicide after having been seen in the company of a kid. When he goes to investigate, the government gives him the runaround. When he [[spoiler:investigates the body, he discovers it's a fake]], and the government dump him at home surrounded by pills to make him think it was all a dream. His house even gets bugged. [[spoiler:In the end, he makes a deal with the government to get them to leave the town alone.]]
** Nancy and Jonathan are in a monster movie, complete with friends getting picked off. They join forces to find the creature, one of them gets a face-to-face with the monster, and they barely survive. They then set a trap in order to finish it off once and for all, in a sequence reminiscent of the climax of ''Film/{{Alien}}''.
** Steve is in a teen drama. He's known for one-night stands, but finally finds a nice, intelligent girl that he wants to spend time with. He gets her to come to a party, and they consummate their relationship, only for her to turn distant. He mistakenly believes she is cheating on him, and when he tells his friends, they start slut-shaming her around town. He eventually dumps his friends and starts making up for the things he let them do, then goes to apologize to his girlfriend... only to find that she's ''actually'' in the monster movie discussed above.
** Mrs. Wheeler is in a soap opera. She's having a nice and normal life then, one day, her son's friend goes missing and her daughter starts acting distant. Any attempts to connect with these family members backfire miserably, and the suspicion only increases when her son's friend's mom starts acting off as well and suddenly throws her out of the house. Then, her daughter reveals that she slept with her boyfriend, and she learns that her son is harboring a dangerous individual underneath her nose.
** Mr. Wheeler is in a sitcom. When everyone else storms out of the dinner table, he even looks at the little girl like he's expecting a cute one-liner.
** The genres the characters find themselves in are shaken up in subsequent seasons. For example, in season 2 Joyce, Hop, Steve and the kids gradually find themselves in the sequel to the monster movie, only unfortunately for them it's now become ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' instead of just ''Film/{{Alien}}''; Jonathan and Nancy take over the GovernmentConspiracy plot-line; and Eleven goes on a quest to find out who she truly is and how to control her powers, similar to Luke in ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack''.

* ''Series/SearchParty'' starts off as a BlackComedy with some drama and mystery elements in the first two seasons, before adding some LawProcedural elements in season 3 and a PsychologicalThriller in the fourth season. All of the seasons are highly satirical however.

* ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'''s exact genre depends on which comic/book/on-line serial you read or which animation/movie you watch. Its tone also shifts from kid-friendly fables that teach AnAesop at the end to highly violent, messed up, borderline-horror stories that make you wonder how they got Franchise/{{LEGO}} to approve them.

* All of ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' is made of this, dependent on which races are shown interacting. When only Terrans are present, it's a heavily character-focused UsedFuture SpaceWestern.
** All Zerg interaction with the other races is Horror genre, from monsters bursting out of the ground, to the grotesque [[BodyHorror infested terrans]], to a monstrous alien queen stalking through a spaceship and slowly consuming the crew.
** The minute Protoss enter the picture, it's high fantasy ([[RecycledInSpace In Space]]), with visions, [[PropheciesAreAlwaysRight ancient prophecies]], psychic links and the like.

*** ''VideoGame/FarCry3BloodDragon'' is an AffectionateParody of AfterTheEnd ScienceFiction movies of the 1980s, and 80s pop culture in general.
** ''VideoGame/FarCry4'' is the least different ''Far Cry'' game, compared to ''Far Cry 3''. It is also an action movie style shooter like ''Far Cry 3'', perhaps less serious than ''Far Cry 3'', with a ton of [[UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}} Tibetan Buddhist]] inspired MaybeMagicMaybeMundane moments that are possibly [[MushroomSamba hallucinogenic-laced]], but are so overtly magical that it is hard to believe that aren't really magic (unless the hallucigenics are just that strong and are everywhere).

** Additionally, depending on how many enemies you kill, the game can shift between a once-more quirky character comedy, to a bittersweet story about a lone child in a harsh world, to ''[[VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine Spec Ops: The RPG]]'', to [[SerialEscalation Genocide Simulator 2015]].
* ''Marathon'' and its sequels are as much a novella as they are shooters and much of the player's time is spent reading in-game.

* ''VideoGame/{{Bugsnax}}'' is a helluva thing to describe. While taking place from a strict first-person perspective (as "The Journalist"), the game manages to be:

** And finally, relationship counselor training, beause of how much of the game's content is intertwined with you figuring out the neuroses and emotional baggage of the ''deeply'' damaged cast of [=NPCs=] and helping them deal with their issues.

** The Distant Future chapter is a science fiction story, though later in the chapter it eventually turns into a SurvivalHorror game.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': The [[ShowWithinAShow in-universe movie trilogy starring Sarge]] gets this during its second installment, thanks to Sarge and Donut trying to reach a broader audience. It starts out as the same kind of dramatic action movie as the first, before becoming a buddy cop movie when Tucker is introduced, then a romantic movie (Sarge ships himself with Lopez), then Sarge and Tucker have to go about SavingChristmas from the terminal disease that is the ZombieApocalypse... and there's a musical in there somewhere.

* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': The story can easily move from ZombieApocalypse induced AfterTheEnd, to comedic character interaction, to horror, to pulling on the reader's heartstrings, to SadlyMythtaken fantasy, to "here's a page almost entirely dedicated to the TeamPet".

* Given the nature of the Wiki/SCPFoundation, a catalogue of all sorts of detained paranormal entities, it's bound to end up as this. The website started towards it being more orientated towards horror, which is the common way to describe the site, but SCP entries are very varied in tone to reflect that the weird isn't always traditionally scary. The variation of the site includes SCP entities that are:
** Conventionally horror SCP entities (as in the ones that are scary via a shock image or WhamLine) are what the site is mainly known for and are present in the likes of SCP-173, 087, and 106.
** Lovecraftian SCP entities that are scary via NothingIsScarier or through sheer ideas would include 093 (a universe gone horribly wrong due to God or an EldritchAbomination posing as God, returning) and 055 (an entity that makes you forget what it is and when you think of it).
** Straight up weird SCP entities that leave you more confused than anything, like SCP 500 which are pills that have miraculous healing properties or SCP 447, which for some reason shouldn't touch dead bodies, but is safe given how low the probability is.
** Then there are the comedic SCP entities like 1171, an EldritchAbomination that hates humans in a NOT Nazish way, but rather racist uncle way or his friend 2662, a Cthulhu parody that WANTS to be contained because he can't stand his own [[StopWorshippingMe cults]]. Let's not forget 261, a vending machine that can dispose anything with silent passive aggressive DeadpanSnarker tendencies.
** The site also has heartwarming SCP entities like 999 (a tickle loving blob buddy) and 2295, a healing teddy bear made by a grandmother for her relative.
** Finally, we have SCP creatures that are pretty much everything at once like the infamous hard to destroy lizard that is 682. It's straight up scary visually, scary in a Lovecraftian sense due to its invulnerable nature and pretty funny since it's so full of Narm and his testing logs reek of Foundation desperation and bad ideas.

** Nancy and Jonathen are in a monster movie, complete with friends getting picked off. They join forces to find the creature, one of them gets a face-to-face with the monster, and they barely survive. They then set a trap in order to finish it off once and for all, in a sequence reminiscent of the climax of ''Film/{{Alien}}''.
** Steve is in a teen drama. He's known for one-night stands, but finally finds a nice, intelligent girl that he wants to spend time with. He gets her to come to a party, and they consummate their relationship, only for her to turn distant. He mistakenly believes she is cheating on him, and when he tells his friends, they start slut-shaming her around town. He eventually dumps his friends and starts making up for the things he let them do, then goes to apologize to his girlfriend.

* Literature/{{Discworld}}: Is it a {{Deconstruction}} or a {{Reconstruction}}? An AffectionateParody of ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia'' or a [[MysteryFiction Whodunnit]]? About a BunnyEarsLawyer trying to make the best out of being a BoxedCrook, or is the protagonist a CosmicPlaything that falls from one WackyWaysideTribe into the other, or a ''Film/DirtyHarry'' {{Determinator}} who must fight for his family's survival? Silly or played straight? [[FanNickName Pterry]] goes all over the board with his books.