History VideoGame / AfraidOfMonsters

* AnAesop: Don't do drugs.

* DropTheHammer: A ball hammer, the second melee weapon you can grab in ''DC''. It's more powerful than the knife but has a noticeable wind-up between swings.

Received a SpiritualSuccessor in 2012, in the form of ''VideoGame/CryOfFear''.

One of the more notable ''Half-Life'' mods, mostly because it's [[NightmareFuel quite frightening]]. Received a SpiritualSuccessor in 2012, in the form of ''VideoGame/CryOfFear''.

** Four, but the first three are actually a sequence, [[spoiler:they're showing David's discovery that he went on a psychotic rampage and killed 27 people, his interrogation by the police where he can't remember anything, and, ultimately, his suicide out of guilt]]. The fourth, however, [[spoiler:shows hope, where instead, he's suffered from an OD after taking more pills in the hospital bathroom and doctors are working to save him, and he survives]].

** In DC, the badly-skinned Vortigaunts are replaced with... hideous blob-things (they're actually glitched zombies, but purposely done). They poison you for a couple of seconds (accompanied by a red filter and a ringing effect in your ears).

* HearingVoices: More or less through the whole game, random voices start whispering. Sometimes one can understand what they say, but more often than not, it is gibberish. Also, they were made using Microsoft Sam. This is in contrast to our HeroicMime, and all human characters, whose dialogues are in text only without voicework. They also [[spoiler:are heard when you escape the police ambush near the abandoned hotels and then treated to hearing them whisper ominous gibberish as [[InvisibleEnemy rare invisible twitchers]] attack you.]]

* HearingVoices: More or less through the whole game, random voices start whispering. Sometimes one can understand what they say, but more often than not, it is gibberish. Also, they were made using Microsoft Sam. This is in contrast to our HeroicMime, and all human characters, whose dialogues are in text only without voicework.

* WhamLine: [[spoiler:In the final ending path, the way forward is marked with a note saying "My mother used to point at things she wanted me to destroy" and a painting of a figure pointing at part of the ceiling, telling you to break that to move forward. Do so, you find another note saying "Now, she is pointing at your enemy." A Twitcher then breaks into the room, you kill it and move towards a mirror, and the third note hits: "No, not the innocent. The enemy!" At which point a grotesque, evil version of ''[[TomatoInTheMirror you]]'' steps out of the mirror and attacks you.]]

* AnAxeToGrind: The best melee weapon in the Director's Cut is the axe. Unfortunately, the final boss has one, too — and to make it even worse, he pulls that axe ''out of his body''.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Or lack thereof. Director's Cut forces the player to press the Use key to pick up weapons and items, whereas in the original the player just had to walk over the items to collect them. The mechanic was most likely implemented so that players would not replace and re-replace their weapons every time they happened to walk over them (see HyperspaceArsenal).

* DontGoInTheWoods: The second half of the game takes place in a forest, which is much darker than much of the hospital or city and has even more places for abominations to ambush you from. The centerpiece is a large ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1''-like mansion.

* DeathTrap: In one of David's Nightmares, he has to send a chained man into a wall with spikes. If he's not careful before the hallucination entering the forest, he'll be dropped into a jail cell, and smacked by a zombie until he dies.

* DontGoInTheWoods

* DeusExMachina:
** When the boss battle with [[spoiler:David's doppelgänger]] begins, the only weapon capable of killing him, [[spoiler:a spear]], lies at the end of the room on a bench, waiting to be picked up. He thankfully averts becoming an AnticlimaxBoss, because even with the weapon, he is challenging.
** [[FridgeBrilliance It makes sense, though]], when you consider that David is basically thinking [[spoiler:"I am taking control of ''my own'' fate"]], and promptly [[spoiler:created the only thing ''capable'' of stopping himself; this was at the point he tried to be in control of his thoughts]].

* DropTheHammer: A ball hammer, the second melee weapon you can grab in ''DC''.

* PointOfNoReturn: Escaping the Hospital via the air ducts makes it impossible to go back in. Director's Cut adds a few more after the branching point in the subway — while you can turn around and go back down a different path up to a point (which is how you get one of the endings), after that point, you're stuck with your choice. Particularly, in one path it is possible for David to take a car and drive away from the city, without being able to return [[spoiler:because he crashes into a tree]]. The final time this trope kicks in is during the final dream, when David must either type the code to heaven, or continue in the opposite direction to face a DownerEnding.

* RoomFullOfCrazy: The hospital has the toilet, and the corridor with the electric cables blocking the path. The toilet is not important to progress, but the second is.

** Music/NeutralMilkHotel's album cover is a painting in the hospital.

* SinisterSubway: Let's just say there is [[JumpScare lots]] to [[ZergRush see here.]]

** That one painting with the woman with a [[SurrealHorror slice of a banana for a head]]...

** The ''Director's Cut'' changes it up along with LimitedLoadout, you're now restricted to a melee weapon (kitchen knife, hammer, axe, or [[spoiler:spear]]), a small handgun ([=P228=], Glock 18, or Beretta [=92FS=]), a longarm (a Mossberg shotgun, an Uzi Compact, or an [=MP5K=]) and a HandCannon (a Desert Eagle or a Colt Python). [[spoiler:There's a fifth slot for the [=L85A2=] with infinite ammo.]]

* UncannyValley: Deliberately invoked with all the Twitchers.

* AbandonedHospitalAwakening: David starts the game checking himself into the local hospital about his addiction, but he just can't help himself and downs a few more pills in the bathroom - next thing he knows, he's the only living person still there.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: More often than not, you can find many good things in garbage cans and containers. Things like ammunition and bottles of painkillers that give health. That is standard in games, but sometimes you also find something rare, like ''functioning flashlight batteries'' (which itself justifies why they [[TenSecondFlashlight run out so fast]] - the batteries David keeps finding are old and leaking.

** Before that, there's the Glock David that finds in the cafeteria. More ammo capacity, but less stopping power than the P228 you find first. Pick it up, waste its magazine to kill a Twitcher or two, then go back for your P228.
** The hammer found in the sewer and parts of the city may count. It deals way more damage than the knife (enough to kill an enemy in one or two hits), but is way slower along with the fact that there's a notable wind-up delay when you press the fire button which means you have to time it to run up to an enemy right as you swing, and mistiming can mean a miss at best or unnecessary damage at worst. The axe, though, is a much needed upgrade, combining the hammer's ridiculous power with a much faster swing speed (still not as fast as the knife, but without a wind-up).

* BilingualBonus: Not in the mod itself as much as when digging into the game files. Many of the files are titled in Swedish instead of English, and as such, anyone knowing Swedish will have an interesting and somewhat creepy time reading the titles. For example, multiple soundfiles are named "Viskningar", which means Whispers. There is also "Brutalskrik" (Brutal Scream), and Karringskrik. Karring is slang, in this case spelled without the letter Ä, that is used in the same context nowadays as Bitch. In case you wonder what some of them are used for, it's ambiance [[spoiler:and some of the jumpscares.]]

** Another good example: David has to enter a subway, but to get there he needs to open up the door, the key to which is locked away inside a room only accessible by blowing up a pack of dynamite, which can only safely be detonated by entering a room which can only be entered by climbing through a small vent.

* CrateExpectations: As in the original ''Half-Life''. Some need to be pushed into position for you to jump on them and on top of or over something, others can be broken to reveal health, batteries and ammo.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Or lack thereof. Director's Cut forces the player to press the Use key to pick up weapons and items, whereas in the original the player just had to walk over the items to collect them. The mechanic was most likely implemented so that players would not replace and re-replace their weapons every time they happened to walk over them (see Hyperspace Arsenal).

* DoomedProtagonist: David, [[spoiler:unless you get the 4th ending.]]

** [[spoiler: The only ending in the original mod counts, in which doctors are attempting to revive David after he OD's in the bathroom, but, unlike the good ending in DC, he doesn't make it]].

** When the Boss battle with [[spoiler:David's doppelgänger]] begins, the only weapon capable of killing him, [[spoiler:a spear]], lies at the end of the room on a bench, waiting to be picked up. He thankfully averts becoming an AnticlimaxBoss, because even with the weapon, he is challenging.

* DistractedByTheSexy: A specific door leads to a changing room for men, that has posters on the wall featuring suggestively clad women. Enter the room for a closer look, however, and [[SchmuckBait three Zombies will smash out of the lockers next to David.]] Justified in the Let's Play Developer Commentaries made by ruMpel, where he states that it was supposed to be a changing room for workers there and the like.

* DropTheHammer: A ball hammer, the second melee weapon you can grab in DC.

* EverybodysDeadDave: At most, David finds three or four other normal people across the game - and all of them are already dead, or about to be.

* FadeToWhite: True to the trope, it occurs when you finally kill [[spoiler:the last boss]]. Also used in [[spoiler:the third ending - the one where David [[DrivenToSuicide hangs himself]].]] In the original mod, it occurs when you escape.

* GhostCity: Complete with angry ghosts AND zombies. And, occasionally, ghost zombies.

* GrimyWater: The sewer water. In the original version of the mod, there is a giant black fish swimming in it, but was removed in the Director's Cut.

* JumpScare: '''All over the place'''. In places where you expect it, and places where you ''least'' expect it. Some are enemies, and thanks to how fast and damaging they are, expect to die the first time around. The worst is the [[spoiler:subway attack. Hope you know where the turnstiles are.]]
* LimitedLoadout: In the Director's Cut version, there are four weapon slots that can only take one weapon each: a melee weapon (knife, hammer or axe), a pistol (P228, Glock, or Beretta), a heavy pistol (Desert Eagle or revolver), and a two-handed weapon (shotgun, Uzi, or [=MP5K=]).

* NotUsingTheZWord: The developers call them Twitchers, but for all intents and purposes they're just faster versions of ''Half-Life''[='=]s headcrab zombies.

* OurZombiesAreDifferent: Twitchy, Franchise/SilentHill things that get worse as David falls deeper into the hallucination (they later show up with hammerheads, claws, or tools for arms, as well as completely disfigured or injured faces if their head isn't some sort of hideous black shape). They can break through walls and burst through lockers when David walks close enough. A few of the Zombies hide behind doors and staircases. If possible, they will only show up when it is dark. Their running speed varies for each one of them, so fighting them with melee weapons can be very difficult - even when it's outright encouraged. Some of them walk on their hands and spit at you, as if they were scorpions. They even learn to duck, to avoid bullets while they attack. If this showcase of unique behavior was not enough, [[spoiler:some of them are invisible too.]]

* PointOfNoReturn: Escaping the Hospital via the air ducts makes it impossible to go back in. Director's Cut adds a few more after the branching point in the subway - while you can turn around and go back down a different path up to a point (which is how you get one of the endings), after that point you're stuck with your choice. Particularly, in one path it is possible for David to take a car and drive away from the city, without being able to return [[spoiler:because he crashes into a tree.]] The final time this trope kicks in is during the final dream, when David must either type the code to heaven, or continue in the opposite direction to face a DownerEnding.
* PrimalFear: The darkness. There is quite A LOT of it in the game. Lord help you if you run out of flashlight batteries.

* RuleOfSymbolism: The bad endings are all capped off with David running down a pitch-black tunnel towards a far-off light. The first two endings cut off to the actual ending cinematic partway through the trip, but the last one has David actually reach the light at the end of the tunnel before playing the cutscene - [[spoiler:the one where David has hanged himself out of guilt.]]

* ScriptedEvent: Like the game the mod was build upon, Afraid of Monsters uses scripted events a lot. Almost all of them in order to scare the player.

* SlidingScaleOfLinearityVsOpenness: The Level 3 variant; backtracking is allowed up to a point, though with each path having a couple points of no return that lock you into going forward. Getting one of the endings even requires you to take advantage of this - you have to play one route far enough to find a key that has no use on that route, then go back to the divergence point at the subway to switch to the other route and find a door that normally has no key to unlock it on that route.

* SoftWater: In the same manner as ''Half-Life'' - any sort of water immediately breaks a fall from any height, even if it's so shallow you still hit the bottom at full speed.
* SpiritualSuccessor: ''VideoGame/CryOfFear''. Another ''Half-Life'' mod developed by Andreas Ronnberg featuring gameplay similar to [=AoM:DC=], new weapons, a new storyline, a new inventory and save system, and fully-voiced cutscenes.

* StandardFPSGuns: In two different ways for each version

** The ''Director's Cut'' changes it up along with LimitedLoadout, you're now restricted to a melee weapon (kitchen knife, hammer, axe, or [[spoiler:spear]]), a small handgun ([=P228=], Glock 18, or Beretta [=92FS=]), a longarm (a Mossberg shotgun, an Uzi Compact, or an [=MP5K=]) and a HandCannon (a Desert Eagle or a Colt Python). [[spoiler:There's a fifth slot for the [=L85A2=] with infinite ammo]]

* TenSecondFlashlight: The flashlight recharges slowly over time when it is not in use. In Director's Cut, however, it needs batteries to work. Hope you like wandering around in the dark if you like wasting energy. A LetsPlay [[http://lparchive.org/Afraid-of-Monsters-Directors-Cut/ by Mr. Sunabouzu]] actually had to mod the game so every battery fully replenished the flashlight's energy, just so the viewers could actually ''see'' the game as he played it - and even then, as the game went on, he found himself getting closer and closer to running out of battery power on several occasions ''anyway''.

* UniversalAmmunition: Much like the game it's based on. The Director's Cut at least does differentiate between pistol ammo and submachine gun ammo, but otherwise abuses this trope even more - 20-round Glock mags will feed just fine into the 13-shot P228 and 15-shot Beretta, just as the 25-round Uzi mags and 30-round [=MP5k=] ones exchange freely with one another. You can even get more mags for the Desert Eagle by picking up speedloaders for the revolver. The only weapon with a unique ammo type is the shotgun.
* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: David will make a remark whenever he tries to open a locked door or find usable objects in the game, but never says anything about all the hallucinations running amok around him - probably because he's used to seeing them by the time the game's events occur.

* FingerlessGloves: David wears them. [[spoiler:So does his EvilCounterpart in the final ending.]]

* StandardFPSGuns: About as standard as you can get, with melee, regular pistol, [[HandCannon heavier pistol]], shotgun, and submachine gun. Interestingly, it cuts itself off from the list past that - no even bigger machine guns, no marksman's weapons, no gimmicky projectile weapons, and (outside of the pre-Director's Cut version, which had hand grenades), no explosives.

* BottomlessPits: If you do not follow the red dots in the nightmares, you fall and die in a black void. Falling off the hospital, falling into the elevator shaft, etc.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The first three endings in Director's Cut, wherein David finds that he went on a psychotic mass murder spree, is questioned and can't remember anything about it, and hangs himself out of guilt in his prison cell.]]
** [[spoiler: The only ending in the original mod counts in which doctors are attempting to revive David after he's OD'd in the bathroom but, unlike the good ending in DC, he doesn't make it]].

* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:In both games, David manages to fight off his addiction and wake up from his overdose.]]

* HauntedHouse: The mansion in Markland Forest, with its flashing images of people and [[spoiler:Invisible Zombies]].

* HearingVoices: More or less through the whole game, random voices start whispering. Sometimes one can understand what they say, but more often than not, it is gibberish. Also, they were made using Microsoft Sam...
** ... In contrast to our HeroicMime, and all human characters, whose dialogues are in text only without voicework.

* MultipleEndings: Four, but the first three are actually a sequence, [[spoiler:they're showing David's discovery that he went on a psychotic rampage and killed 27 people, his interrogation by the police where he can't remember anything, and, ultimately, his suicide out of guilt]]. The fourth, however, [[spoiler:shows hope, where instead, he's suffered from an OD and doctors are working to save him, and he survives]].
** Moreover, to get the fourth ending, [[EarnYourHappyEnding you actually need to see the other three endings]].
** To be more precise, you have to find scattered letters with numbers in the game, which are combined into a single long code. But after leaving the hospital and getting to the subway, the levels branch off in different multiple directions. Depending on which route you take, he ends up with a different ending. In all of the locations, these scattered pieces of the code exist, which the player has to memorize. Close to the game's finale, there is a room in David's last nightmare in which he is supposed to press in this code, and a new path opens to the fourth and happy ending. Assuming you dare to replay the game two times more.

* OneManArmy: David, being the only human alive against his living hallucinations, kills many of them through his journey.

* ParkingGarage: More Jump Sc'''[++BEEEEEEEEEEEP++]'''

* PointOfNoReturn: Escaping the Hospital via the air ducts makes it impossible to go back in. Director's Cut adds a few more after the branching point in the subway - while you can turn around and go back down a different path up to a point, after that point you're stuck with your choice. Particularly, in one path it is possible for David to take a car and drive away from the city, without being able to return [[spoiler:because he crashes into a tree.]] The final time this trope kicks in is during the final dream, when David must either type the code to heaven, or continue in the opposite direction to face a DownerEnding.

* PurpleProse: ''"Don't let the Devil torture the God. Kill the Devil, and let the God show you the way."'' This is a hint given in order to progress in the game, so what does it mean? [[spoiler:Destroy the columns holding up the ball-shaped statue. It will fall and break through the closed well under it, which you can climb down. One path replaces the statue with a person, and has much more succinct "'''KILL ME'''" scrawled over the prose [[CouldntFindAPen in blood]].]]

* SinisterSubway: Let's just say there is [[JumpScare lots]] [[ZergRush to see here.]]

* AliensAndMonsters: Are in the city. David's drugs being the reason.

* UnwinnableByMistake: To get in the bottom floor of the hospital, that could be described as another basement, David has to jump down a broken elevator. Then he can press the button in a room a few meters away that unlocks the other door that leads out, and the door to the next button across the building. The thing is that the door out of the bottom floor closes after him when he walks out, with no way of opening it again. So if the player jumps down the elevator again after pressing the button, he is stuck. He cannot get out because the door is locked, and he cannot get out the way he came. This was fixed in Director's Cut, when the whole hospital was redesigned.

* BugBuzz: You can hear insects and frogs in the forest, depending on which route the player has taken in the apartment complex.

** The fully-automatic weapons are all cool but mostly not used. The AK-47 in the original had very little ammunition, though this was mitigated since you didn't need to drop the shotgun to pick it up. Director's Cut plays this much more straight, however, with the [[MoreDakka MP5 and the Uzi.]] Both have very little ammunition to be found, they burst away a whole magazine worth of bullets [[RealityEnsues in less than a few seconds,]] and it is easy to overkill a enemy if the player gets startled, getting rid of even more ammo. But worst of all: unlike the original version, weapons have to be swapped because of the weight. Which means that you have to get rid of the [[BoringButPractical very useful shotgun]] for one of them. Powerful guns are tempting, but not useful in the long run.

* DummiedOut: Director's Cut removed the grenades, the monster fish, and the body armor from the original version. One can also find many unused Music/AphexTwin tracks in the files that were apparently supposed to play while the mod loaded the next area.

* BilingualBonus: Not in the mod itself as much as when digging into the game files. Many of the files are titled in Swedish instead of English, and as such, anyone knowing Swedish will have an interesting and somewhat creepy time reading the titles. For example, multiple soundfiles are named "Viskningar", which means Whispers. There is also "Brutalskrik" (Brutal Scream), and Karringskrik. Karring is slang, in this case spelled without the letter Ä, that is used in the same context nowadays as Bitch. In case you wonder what some of them are used for, it's ambiance [[spoiler:and some of the jumpscares.]]
* BrokenBridge: Several paths are locked or not possible to take unless a key has been found.
** In Director's Cut, David needs to open a car trunk with a key to find a rope, which he uses to climb a stone fence surrounding an apartment.
** Another good example: David has to enter a subway, but to get there he needs to open up the door, the key to which is locked away inside a room only accessible by blowing up a pack of dynamite, which can only safely be detonated by entering a room which can only be entered by climbing through a small vent.

* FootprintsOfMuck: Leading to one of the toilets. More varied examples appear latter on.

* JumpScare: '''All over the place'''. In places where you expect it, and places where you ''least'' expect it. Some are enemies, and thanks to how fast and damaging they are, expect to die the first time around. The worst is the [[spoiler:subway attack. Hope you know where the turnstiles are.]]

* InterfaceScrew: Being hit by an Abomination turns the screen red and only white noise is heard for a few seconds as you continue taking damage over time.

* MalevolentArchitecture

* MindScrew: The beginning of the end. You go through the hospital from the first level, that has in fact been turned sideways, and all the rooms are spinning in their own directions. The chairs and tables are your new substitute for platforms, and do not even '''dare''' to follow anything but the red dots. And then you get to the drawings, with sentient-drawn eyes and prison bar drawings actually holding [[EldritchAbomination questionable beings]] in them...
* MonsterCloset: So many of them.
* MonoGenderMonsters: Almost all the Zombies/Twitchers are men. The only exception being two female figures with smashed faces that can be encountered in the city section of the game. The rest of the monsters are far too twisted to say for sure, although the flying launcher ghosts appear to have a woman-like face.
* MultipleEndings: Four, but the first three are actually a sequence, [[spoiler:they're showing David's discovery that he went on a psychotic rampage and killed 27 people, his interrogation by the police where he can't remember anything, and, ultimately, his suicide out of guilt]]. The fourth, however, [[spoiler:shows hope, where instead, he's suffered from an OD and doctors are working to save him, and he survives]].
** Moreover, to get the fourth ending, [[EarnYourHappyEnding you actually need to see the other three endings]].
** To be more precise, you have to find scattered letters with numbers in the game, which are combined into a single long code. But after leaving the hospital and getting to the subway, the levels branch off in different multiple directions. Depending on which route you take, he ends up with a different ending. In all of the locations, these scattered pieces of the code exist, which the player has to memorize. Close to the game's finale, there is a room in David's last nightmare in which he is supposed to press in this code, and a new path opens to the fourth and happy ending. Assuming you dare to replay the game two times more.

* NightOfTheLivingMooks
* NeverBringAKnifeToAFistFight: Inverted. When one has run out of ammunition, the knife is the must-use weapon against the punching zombies, until you find either the hammer or the axe.

* SniperPistol: All the handguns have very good accuracy. You do not get to take advantage of it often, though.
* SinisterScrapingSound: The Nightmare David experiences early on has this, with the noise apparently coming from the walls.
** Hey, what's that noise in the elevator shaft? [[EvilElevator OH SHIIIII-]]

* SinisterSubway: Let's just say there is [[JumpScare lots]] [[ZergRush to see here.]]
* SplashDamage: The grenades in the original had splash damage.

* TheManBehindTheMonsters: [[spoiler:Leatherhoff himself.]]
* TheMaze: Director's Cut has a second Nightmare sequence, when David [[spoiler:falls asleep while driving a car]], that is a labyrinth. In order to get through it, you have to follow the roadsigns while defending yourself from zombies. If you go the wrong way, the ground crumbles under David and he falls into a prison to get torn apart by zombies. When you have finally reached the end of the labyrinth, [[spoiler:David wakes up to the sound of the car crashing into a tree]]. Welcome to Markland Forest...

* TheReveal: Two. The first is: [[spoiler:the monsters you've been killing? People and dogs who [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness just look monstrous because you're high as balls]]]]. The second: [[spoiler:your enemies in the game were never the "Monsters", it was yourself and your addiction to the pain pills]].

* TheWallsHaveEyes: All the nightmares have them.

* MindScrew: The beginning of the end. You go through the hospital from the first level, that has in fact been turned sideways, and all the rooms are spinning in their own directions. The chairs and tables are your new substitute for platforms, and do not even dare to follow anything but the red dots. And then you get to the drawings...