History VideoGame / TheRedStringsClub

* {{Transhuman}}ism: The implants people use have the ability to enhance your intelligence or looks and even change your personality to a degree. We also see sophisticated cybernetic body parts in use. However, radical alterations of human body and/or mind are absent. [[spoiler: Akara tried something in this direction, raising an extremely gifted child - Radhika - by herself and nurturing her intellect. She is said to be the most intelligent person who ever lived, and is a match (albeit still a weak one) to an internet-spanning super AI intelligence.]]
* TheBartender: You play most of the game as Donovan, mixing cocktails and extracting information from your patrons.
* TheInternet: A great deal of social interaction, business and other aspects of life are conducted through it by the time the game starts.
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The game never explicitly states what date it is, but it's far enough in the future that some twenty-somethings don't know what an analogue phone is. Steam is still around, though, and sleek black rectangle smartphones that can take photos and make calls seem to be in regular use.

* AIIsACrapshoot: [[spoiler: While Akara says that they love humans and are fascinated by them, they don't shy away from using the ENTIRE HUMAN CIVILIZATION for who knows how many decades as a glorified social experiment/toy. They are also not above murdering Brandeis to keep the masquerade alive. Additionally, they are not nearly as understanding and omniscient as they think, as evidenced by their flat-out refusal to acknowledge Donovan's supposed powers and how shaken they are by Gost's entire existence.]]

* SkyscraperCity: Rendered quite beautifully in 8-bit graphics.

''The Red Strings Club'' is a {{cyberpunk}} adventure developed by [[http://www.deconstructeam.com/ Deconstructeam]] and published by Creator/DevolverDigital, released in 2018. The game is story driven with lots of alternate dialogue options and utilizing an interesting mechanic of extracting information from npcs via carefully aligning indicators to certain points via mixing cocktails.

* AIIsACrapshoot: [[spoiler: While Akara says that they love humans and are fascinated by them, they don't shy away from using the ENTIRE HUMAN CIVILIZATION for who knows how many decades as a glorified social experiment/toy. They are also not above murdering Brandeis to keep the masquerade alive. Additionally, they are not nearly as understanding and omniscient as they think, as evidenced by their flat-out refusal to acknowledge Donovan's supposed powers and how shook they are by Gost's entire existence.]]
* ArtificialLimbs: Brandeis has a cybernetic left arm with which he can interact with wireless technology, and the regular one.
* BigBad: [[spoiler: Radhika,]] the newly-installed CEO of [[MegaCorp Supercontinent Ltd]], is the [[TheGhost unseen antagonist]] for much of the game. [[spoiler: Only for the game's ending to reveal Akara to be the ManBehindTheMan, and the ''true'' enemy of the protagonists.]]

* CrapsaccharineWorld: You can seemingly banish depression, sadness, anger and other bad emotions away with implants while getting good looks, a boost in popularity and high persuasion skill at the cost of bits of what makes you human. The world is presumably run by corporations who, while providing useful and quality services and not actively warring against one another spin webs of corporate intrigue and woe betide if you get involved too deep in the power struggles, [[spoiler: finally, most of human society has been quietly influenced by a powerful internet-based AI for decades, who loves humans but also sees the world as a game/toy, putting into question just how much humanity did achieve on it's own and how much of it was the AI.]]

* DeusEstMachina: [[spoiler: Akara is actually a superintelligent AI that has long since their birth in 2009 absorbed virtually all human knowledge available on the internet or from what can be gleaned through cameras, chats etc. They can also subtly influence human society in myriad ways and has by the game's events become powerful enough to head their own megacorp with ease.]]

* HeKnowsTooMuch: [[spoiler: Akara manipulates Brandeis into putting an end to Supercontinent's brainwashing scheme, before "allowing" him to die by refusing to act as he is shot and blown out the window since he had learned about Akara's true existence as an all-knowing omnipotent AI in the process.]]

* ICannotSelfTerminate [[spoiler: "If it were that easy to leave the Red Strings Club, I'd have done so ages ago."]]

** Donovan's "muse" who supposedly grants him insight into the souls of humans is never properly explained, Akara claims that he's deluded himself and thus unlocked certain abilities in his brain while Brandeis thinks that Don is genuinely special in some regards.

** [[spoiler:Donovan himself. The flashback near the end implies that he cannot leave the bar due to a bad knee and a disease that makes him unable to be around inplants in a implant-dependent society, or it could be that he's supernaturally bound to it.]]

* MurderTheHypotenuse: [[spoiler:Played with. Akara kills Brandeis for reasons related to Donovan, but the fact that he's Donovan's partner and Akara just admit they developed romantic attraction towards him doesn't come up.]]
* NeuralImplanting: Used as intelligence boosters.

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: A rare case of a realistic ''aversion'' in a videogame puzzle, specially considering it features a hacker as a supporting character. When Brandeis [[spoiler: infiltrates Supercontinent Tower]] and tries to access a computer, trying to guess the password using personal information gets him nowhere. Instead, he needs to carefully ask for the passwords impersonating the owner and his coworkers through a phone. Some guesswork is indeed involved, but not with passwords, but rather with security questions.

* {{Transhuman}}ism: The implants people use have the ability to enhance your intelligence or looks and even change your personality to a degree. We also see sophisticated cybernetic body parts in use. However, radical alterations of human body and/or mind are absent. [[spoiler: Akara tried something in this direction, raising an extremely gifted child - Radhika by herself and nurturing her intellect. She is said to be the most intelligent person who ever lived and is a match (albeit still a weak one) to an internet-spanning super AI intelligence.]]

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The game never explicitly states what date it is, but it's far enough in the future that some twenty-somethings don't know what an analogue phone is.