History VideoGame / AmericanArcadia

** Angela needs to steal the identity of someone whose name sorts out to be alphabetically late; she ends up using that of a coworker named Z.W. whom she dubs "Zazu [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Waluigi]]".

!!American Arcadia provides examples of:

* GildedCage: Arcadia looks like the most pleasant place to live in, but the fact that it's encased in a giant dome (that nobody except the people outside it are aware of) that its residents can't leave and not being popular among the viewers of a show centered around the place leads to death doesn't make the place sound any better. Arcadia is even referred to as a Gilded Cage on a few occasions.

** During the finale this is part of Vivian's rationale for her plan, [[spoiler:she was one of the first people to get out of Arcadia only to realize that people like her wouldn't be able to live on the outside due to it being a CrapsackWorld, not knowing anything about it and several other factors. Her "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff is meant to deal with the escapee problem ethically by making the unpopular characters celebrities and letting them keep their lifestyle, thus providing them safety.]]

* PaperTiger: Marcus behaves like a ScaryBlackMan but drops the act when [[spoiler:Angela shoots him with a taser gun. This, combined with the game cutting to him auditioning for the role, is actually one of the first clues that something is off.]]

* ScaryBlackMan: Marcus Javert is Arcadia's chief of security, and he lives up to it. He's {{Stoic}}, has a [[AuthoritySoundsDeep deep]] [[EvilSoundsDeep voice]], keeps Angela on edge when he personally visits her and may as well be TheAce when it comes to fighting and pursuing people. [[spoiler:Terry Robinson, the guy who's playing Marcus, is anything but.]]

** One travel agent in the Blue Fountain Mall refers to the Interceptors as the "''Franchise/{{Robocop}}'' Army".

-->'''Trevor:''' "Soar higher than ever before..." "soar higher than ever before..."?! YEAH! ''I'LL SOAR HIGHER THAN EVER BEFORE!'' ''(Cue his car going flying downward as he speeds off the ramp into an underground parking lot)'' AAAAAAAAAA- ''(Cue SmashCut to an interview)''

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Trevor's HowWeGotHere interview takes place on November 11, 2023. Arcadia is a metropolis with a 70's retro-futuristic aesthetic, while the world outside of it looks vastly futuristic in both appearance and the technologies used.
* TwoAndAHalfD: Sections where you play as Trevor are from a 2D perspective, though he can interact with objects in the background. This also applies to enemies, as they can use the background as a means of pursuing Trevor.

* YoungerThanTheyLook: Trevor is 28, but his choice of clothing and large mustache makes him look way older than he really is. Even Angela gets thrown off when she compliments Trevor for handling the physical stress "despite his age".

* BrownNote: "The Jingle". [[spoiler:It's a system of control buried in every Arcadian citizen to keep them from leaving the Dome, forcing their bodies to shut down unless they turn away from the transmitters broadcasting the signal. Trevor is in agony every time he's forced to endure the Jingle; it takes Angela remotely controlling a rental car for him to get out.]] [[spoiler:Trevor eventually gets an Antijingle instilled in him, which causes the effects of the Jingle to be inverted when he's affected by it.]]

* BondVillainStupidity: Vivian warns Trevor that, unless he accepts the Realignment, the only way to escape Arcadia would be to climb to the top of the heavily-guarded Arcadia Spire, enter her restricted quarters, and press the failsafe button to bring down the Dome. Trevor decides to do just that in the final act to free everyone in Arcadia. [[spoiler:The button is actually the finish line for fugitives on the "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff which Vivian is nudging him towards]].

** Besides ''American Arcadia'' having [[TrumanShowPlot a similar premise]] to ''Film/TheTrumanShow'', Angela's fake name when booking into the Cygness hotel in preparation for Trevor's escape, Sylvia Lauren, references Lauren Garland and her character, Sylvia.

* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Kovacs (the turtle) is shown happily living in Angela and Trevor's new home.]]

* HideTheEvidence: Kendra arrives at Angela's apartment looking for evidence that she's working with Trevor. Angela has to quickly hide the embarassingly large amount of incriminating evidence lying around the place before Kendra gets inside.

* ArcWords: "Don't be a fool" from the in-universe song of the same name unintentionally becomes this for Trevor. While Angela used it on purpose to try and tip Trevor off to the unordinary, he begins to hear other people play the song in person and over the radio. [[spoiler:Angela also uses the line before Trevor signs a form while in captivity]] and [[spoiler:it is Vivian's use of the line at the end of the game that causes Trevor to refuse her offer.]]

** Marcus sounds genuinely shocked when Trevor makes a long jump onto a rickety ladder, only to recover and boast about how he will win. [[spoiler:This is obviously a moment when Trevor went "off-script", shocking Terry who then has to cover his lapse]].

** Angela repeatedly complains about how ineffective Breakout is, repeatedly calling them the "worst activist group". The finale reveals [[spoiler:Breakout sold out to Walton Media and now exists as a tool to locate and control dissidents]].

* SelfDestructMechanism: The Arcadia Dome has a failsafe which will bring down the Dome and end the Jingle if pressed, which is hidden atop the main Spire. [[spoiler:It doesn't actually exist]].

* SoulCrushingDeskJob: Double subverted. Trevor is actually quite content in his job at INAC, and what little we see of it just involves him typing whatever at a computer and sending files through pneumatic tubes. Then we find out that it was soul-crushing for the audience, who tuned out of Trevor's life from boredom and put him on the chopping block to be removed from the show. When he gets "backstage", we see that the tubes he's been sending haven't even gone anywhere, just collecting in a big pile to eventually be disposed of, so what work Trevor was doing was meaningless both in-universe ''and'' out of it.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: [[spoiler:At the end of the game, Walton Media evidently didn't expect Trevor to reject the offer of hosting Escape from Arcadia, because once he [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere calls it quits with the whole thing]], their backup plan is Steve Just... with a Trevor moustache. Both he and Angela are disgusted.]]

** Whenever Angela says anything along the lines of "Finally, you're going to make it" or "What could go wrong" to Trevor, something goes wrong moments later. It's gotten to the point where Trevor doesn't want to hear her say the former because of this trope.

* TrumanShowPlot: Everything that happens in Arcadia is part of the in-universe American Arcadia, which is a reality show. It focuses on several people within the metropolis who are constantly watched by an audience with the least popular characters getting {{killed off|ForReal}} from the show. [[spoiler:Then we learn that actually the network is only tricking the unpopular characters into believing that as part of the "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff, making it a [[RecursiveReality Truman show plot within a Truman show plot.]]]]

* WeAreExperiencingTechnicalDifficulties: During the game's finale, [[spoiler:Trevor's stream camera feed gets cut off with a card when Angela replaces the "Escape from Arcadia" trailer with footage showing how Trevor's life was put in genuine danger by Arcadia's security. It's also implied Trevor's earlier RousingSpeech was intentionally cut off by an advert.]]
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Arcadia security fields a flying taser-drone that is capable of detecting Trevor when visibility is poor, flying fast enough for him to be unable to outrun it, and incapacitating him instantly with no chance to fight back. But the drone only ever gets sent in if the player screws up a gameplay challenge, and as such most of the game is Trevor being (unsuccessfully) chased by human {{Mook}}s who can't take him down with anything but their own two hands. The ending [[spoiler:implies that this was all on purpose, as part of the ploy to get Trevor to escape Arcadia and pilot the new spinoff show]].

* YouJustRuinedTheShot: When Angela [[spoiler:tases Javert]], he complains she wasn't actually supposed to do that because it's not part of his NPC script.

* BenevolentArchitecture: Everything in American Arcadia seems to be purposely designed to enable Trevor's escape. When he runs to get out of the airport terminal, for example, a vehicle screeches to a halt perfectly such that Trevor can climb onto it to access the parking garage. Another instance of this happening comes when he's exploring the abandoned factory: one guard would be impassible if there wasn't a wooden plank bridge that Trevor can damage and trick that guard into falling onto. The final act [[spoiler:implies that all of this was deliberate on Walton Media's part, for it was all staged to get Trevor's story exciting]].
* BerserkButton: Because of Angela's use of it during the two week lead-up to him going on the run, Trevor hates the song "Don't Be A Fool" and grows increasingly furious whenever he hears it as the game progresses. [[spoiler:Vivian accidentally presses the button when she advises him to just play along and "Don't be a fool", triggering his AtomicFBomb]].
* BetterLivingThroughEvil: Walton Media is obviously corrupt and amoral, but it makes a lot of money, pays its staff well, and gives the Arcadians an idyllic life so long as they keep their ratings high. [[spoiler:The original Breakout members all eventually accepted money from Walton to build new lives, with one of them taking the guise of Vivian Walton. She in turn offers Trevor money and a new job in "Escape from Arcadia" if he plays along with Walton]].

* BondVillainStupidity: Vivian warns Trevor that, unless he accepts the Realignment, the only way to escape Arcadia would be to climb to the top of the heavily-guarded Arcadia Spire, enter her restricted quarters, and press the failsafe button to bring down the Dome. Trevor decides to do just that in the final act to free everyone in Arcadia. [[spoiler:The button is actually the finish line for fugitives on the "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff which Vivian was nudging him towards]].
* BreakoutCharacter: [[spoiler: Trevor's escape becomes the most-viewed event in all of AA history, making him more popular than anybody else ever on the show. Unfortunately for Vivian and Walton Media, he walks out at the end, forcing them to recast the now-unpopular Steve Just [[SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute as a Trevor-esque lead]] for the Escape from Arcadia spinoff.]]

* BrownNote: "The Jingle". [[spoiler:It's a system of control buried in every Arcadian citizen to keep them from leaving the dome, forcing their bodies to shut down unless they turn away from the transmitters broadcasting the signal. Trevor is in agony every time he's forced to endure the Jingle; it takes Angela remotely controlling a rental car for him to get out.]] [[spoiler:Trevor eventually gets an Antijingle instilled in him, which causes the effects of the Jingle to be inverted when he's affected by it.]]

* CelebrityParadox: Walton Media is an obvious stand-in for Disney, but at one point WesternAnimation/WallE is mentioned, a film made by the Disney-owned Pixar.

** When Angela travels to the entrance to Arcadia to bring an [=AccessBadge=] to Trevor, she sees a replica of the Waltonmobile in the lobby, musing that nobody knows where the real one is. [[spoiler:But the real thing shows up later in Old Arcadia, along with Arpad Kovacs' "Architects of Tomorrow" piano, in perfect working order, meaning there was never any mystery there to the Arcadia staff and Trevor was meant to encounter and use them.]]

** During the finale this is part of Vivian's rationale for her plan, [[spoiler:she was one of the first people to get out of Arcadia only to realize that people like her wouldn't be able to live on the outside due to it being a CrapsackWorld, not knowing anything about it and several other factors. Her "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff was meant to deal with the escapee problem ethically by making the unpopular characters celebrities and let them keep their lifestyle, thus providing them safety.]]

* GoneHorriblyRight: The procedure to [[spoiler:remove the Jingle]] from Trevor includes elements of reducing his fear and increasing his desire for freedom. [[spoiler:It succeeds, but his newfound courage and desire for freedom lead him to storm the Spire rather than flee the Dome as intended. Given who Number 6 [[BigBad really is,]] this was [[AllAccordingToPlan most likely intentional.]]]]

* GreaterScopeVillain: Donald Walton is the one responsible for turning Arcadia into a massively commercialised ImmoralRealityShow and had a direct hand in it's more unethical aspects, but he has no direct influence in Trevor's escape attempt.

** [[spoiler:Inverted with the new "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff, since it is supposed to be an ethical way of dealing with people trying to escape, they're led to believe they'll be killed for being unpopular and their escape attempts are filmed to boost their ratings.]]

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Ultimately Vivian and the company settle with Trevor and Angela out of court and are free to continue running "American Arcadia" and its new spinoff. The fact that the whole ReleasedToElsewhere thing was a lie helped a lot with that.]]

* MortonsFork: When Vivian offers to [[spoiler:remove the Jingle from Trevor]], none of the protagonists trust her and try to do it themselves. [[spoiler:Since "Number Six" is actually Vivian and is the one who makes the plan to install an "anti-jingle", they would have made the exact same realignment changes to Trevor had he agreed; his subsequent rampage to activate the failsafe button was all scripted as a pilot for "Escape from Arcadia".]]

* NearVillainVictory: Despite Trevor and Angela's best attempts, Walton Media ultimately get what they want: [[spoiler: A launchpad for a new spinoff and a huge ratings boost for American Arcadia.]] The only reason they don't win completely is because [[spoiler: Vivian accidentally quotes [[BerserkButton "Don't be a Fool"]] before Trevor was supposed to give a speech to the AA audience. Had she not, Trevor would have likely become the host of "Escape from Arcadia" instead of being released.]]

* ReleasedToElsewhere: You do not go to Fiji if you become an Edge Travel Grant winner. This is also how American Arcadia makes people within Arcadia not suspect anything is wrong when someone is never seen again, as they'll assume they're on vacation and not dead. [[spoiler:Except they really aren't dead and the network intentionally makes the unpopular characters think that as part of the "Escape from Arcadia" spinoff.]]

* TheReveal: [[spoiler:Vivian Walton is actually Emily Garland, one of the six Breakout members who escaped from Arcadia years ago. After realizing how terrible she found the real world to be, she returned to the dome and agreed to assume the identity of Elijah Walton's "lost granddaughter" and took control of Walton Media.]]

** "Soaring higher than ever before", the catchphrase of Cosmo and Walton Media as a whole. [[spoiler:It's used just before the credits to describe the ratings of American Arcadia.]]

* MrAltDisney: Elijah Walton created multiple cultural touchstone movies and had big plans for a big utopia-esque retrofuture city he called Arcadia, as parallels to Walt Disney's own highly-successful career in animation and his inception of EPCOT.

** All of Marcus' interviews are set in front of the same black curtain with him being fairly brightly lit as compared to Trevor and Angela's more homey settings. [[spoiler:It's obvious all the clips are taken from Terry's audition for the role.]]

* SwitchingPOV: Trevor's gameplay is down in third-person TwoAndAHalfD; Angela's gameplay, whether she's looking through security cameras or doing something physical, is in first-person.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: During the climax of the story, as [[spoiler:Trevor is making a beeline towards the Spire to take down Arcadia]], he sees a billboard saying "Soar higher than ever before" while driving, which he tries to turn into a BadassBoast IronicEcho:
-->'''Trevor:''' "Soar higher than ever before..." "soar higher than ever before..."?! YEAH! ''I'LL SOAR HIGHER THAN EVER BEFORE!'' ''(Cue his car going flying as he speeds into an underground parking lot)'' AAAAAAAAAA- ''(Cue SmashCut to an interview)''

** A lot of the dialogue and actions of side characters come off differently after learning [[spoiler:the entire escape is staged with all of Trevor's pursuers being paid actors with a strict speech]].

** Angela needs to steal the identity of someone whose name sorts out to be alphabetically late; she ends up using that of a coworker named "Zazu [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Waluigi]]".

** While walking through the Arcadia bus terminal, Angela describes the modern era to Trevor, noting how it's not terribly different, but it shows a much uglier and nastier side; Trevor laments that it sounds like there's no ''reason'' to leave, if he wasn't being actively hunted. [[Exactly the same conclusion Emily came to, leading her to reinstate her Arcadian life as Vivian.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Marcus seems to love repeating himself. [[spoiler:That's because he's reciting lines, as an NPC; he's not actually any chief of security.]]

* AnAesop: From the final act of the story: don't overvalue your consumption of media, seek what really matters in the people around you. [[spoiler:During the dream sequence, there's a point made of the eyeball-stalk creatures (stand-ins for the InUniverse American Arcadia audience) only caring about Trevor for his existence as entertainment. At the end of the story, Walton Media's popularity continues to skyrocket thanks to an apathetic viewerbase who don't really care about the actual people who have to deal with American Arcadia. By contrast, Trevor half-jokes that [[DrivenToVillainy he could have become exactly like Vivian Walton]] if he escaped without the help of someone who genuinely cared for him like Angela.]]

* DevelopersForesight: [[spoiler:The live AA Live! stream chat of Trevor's final push to the Spire is timed off of your system clock, so for the player, it really ''is'' a live stream.]]

* MeanCharacterNiceActor: [[spoiler:Marcus behaves like a ScaryBlackMan but drops the act when Angela shoots him with a taser gun, this, combined with the game cutting to him auditioning for the role, is actually one of the first clues that something is off.]]

* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: [[spoiler:At the end of the game, Walton Media evidently wanted Trevor to take the deal and host Escape from Arcadia, because once he [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere calls it quits with the whole thing]], their backup plan is Steve Just... with a Trevor moustache. Both he and Angela are disgusted.]]