History YMMV / TheEternalCylinder

* NarmCharm: The designs of the Servants of the Cylinder clash ''very'' heavily with the Trebhum and other creatures of the planet, yet it manages to work in its favor and play up the dissonance: even managing to make a battle between long-nosed Q*Bert creatures against things straight out of ''VideoGame/SilentHill'' seem convincing and compelling.

** Comments of playthroughs bring up WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs a lot.

** Glickbols. They're basically sentient, mobile eggs that are easy prey for virtually everything else in the environment, and even Trebhums are fond of catching them and using them as bait for predators so they eat the Glickbols and not them. And once you discover that they make good bombs with the Mixer Body mutation, you're bound to start killing them on purpose...

* UncannyValley: The recognizably human body parts possessed by the servants of the cylinder are unsettling, to say the least.

* MemeticMutation: Comments of playthroughs bring up WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs a lot.

* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: A few rays of hope shine out in this game's bleak darkness.
** The Trebhum elders giving the young ones advice, knowing that they are too old to escape the cylinder and yet empowering the new generation to help save the future of their species.
*** Just before the desert biome, one cube-shaped Trebhum elder is clearly dying. He promises the Trebhums safe passage and tells them that his spirit will rejoice when they succeed where he has failed.
*** His brother in the lava temple grants the young Trebhum advice and expresses the eagerness of knowing that as the Cylinder approaches he will be reunited with his brother once again.
** There's something oddly adorable about how Glickbols try to defend one another when grabbed by Trebhum even if they only deal one HP of damage. Not bad for a group of rolling frogspawn.
** When the Trebhum first see a hologram of an Elder giving them advice, they try to convince it to come with them, not knowing it can't hear them, but also displaying an endearing childhood innocence of simply wanting to help.
** The Trebhum's idle animations sometimes show them cheering and playing with each other, even making high-fives with their trunks whenever they successfully complete a mission! D'awww.
** Mentions in flavor text give insights of the once-advanced Trebhum civilization, such as folk tales and oral tradition and even myths and legends, such as one plant that grants them a stomp ability being named after a Trebhum mythological hero, or stories about their native wildlife being told in folk tales and fables.
** [[spoiler: The reveal that the Narrator was a human all along: a human from the now-destroyed Earth who lingers on only as a memory, but struggles to guide the Trebhum on as best as he can.]]
** [[spoiler: Once the Trebhum finally get the Trewhaala mutation, they finally manage to converse with a Trewhaala: who reveals that their species had been friends long ago, and that the Trewhaala had fled their homeworld ages before but found hope upon meeting the Trebhum. They willingly assist the Trebhum in their journey, which, given that most of their previous interactions consisted of zapping them as intruders, is very satisfying to see-- and really, who wouldn't want a nigh-godlike whale-worm fighting for their side?]]
** [[spoiler: The determination of the Trebhum in saving the world at the brink of destruction hits its peak when the Mathematician spears one of the Trewhaala assisting them, causing them to pull of feats of bravery like never before.]]
--> '''Narrator:''' In a world where giants fought and monsters battled, sometimes it was the actions of the smallest of creatures that could make a difference.
** Also the final battle [[spoiler: against the Unifier holding the last Trewhaala memory.]]
--> '''Narrator:''' They had fought this creature before, and had beaten it. [[spoiler: And they would do so again: for themselves, for the Trewhaala, and for the future.]]
** [[spoiler: The Trewhaala, ferrying the Trebhum to the floating palace, tells them that they are a dying race, and that perhaps tomorrow, or in a hundred years, the Trewhaala will be gone. Still, they remain hopeful for a miracle that they may somehow rise again, for they may come a time when Trebhum and Trewhaala can live together in harmony.]]
--> [[spoiler: '''Trewhaala:''' We cannot know what the future holds for us. All we have, in the end, is this moment. And in this moment, all we can ask...is that you sing to us.]]
** [[spoiler: The Mathematician pulls off a HeelFaceTurn after his final defeat, sacrificing himself to destroy the Cylinder once and for all. It's implied that the Narrator was the Mathematician all along, and that he regained enough control of his humanity to take down his destructive master.]]
** The Narrator's final speech.
--> '''Narrator:'''[[spoiler: But even though the last of me fades away, even for a little while, I was part of this family. And that...gives me hope.]]
** [[spoiler: The credits montage shows us the world of the Trebhum before the Cylinder came, and we get to see more than a few shots of the adorable baby Trebhum singing with their parents. There's also a few shots of the Trewhaala and Trebhum living in harmony, and enjoying it like no other.]]
** [[spoiler: The very last shot of the credits implies that the deceased Elder seen at the very beginning was the one who had placed the Trebhum egg in the nest to safekeep it, little knowing the Cylinder would eventually reach it.]]

* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** Names like Zooshgarg and Tonglegrop can play off as FluffyTheTerrible considering the creatures they're named for.
** Some of the flora in the background can be amusing at just how ''weird'' they are, such as the trees in the Savannah looking like giant ''avocados'' and the odd growths in the Tundra looking like giant slices of cheese.
** Trebhum come with randomly-generated names, often just gibberish names. However, sometimes a Trebhum can have names that are literally just English words like "Who", "When" and even "Gun".
** While most mutations are useful, some are simply ''awful'', such as one that allows you to summon Glickbols, small, weak creatures who, when eaten, cause a ''legless'' mutation that leaves the poor Trebhum only able to roll around.
** There's also another mutation from the Tripoboosh that gives the Trebhum ''poor eyesight.''
** Eating a dropped item from the Omnogrom grants the Trebhum the Iracible Trunk, a mouth mutation that makes it endlessly babble annoyingly.
** The Storage Body mutation makes the Trebhum hilariously fat, and are especially hilarious to see waddling around as fast as they can (which isn't very much).
*** However, giving a Storage Body Trebhum the leaping legs or quadruped legs makes them look absolutely hilarious running and jumping as gracefully as they do with such a bloated body.
** Trebhum are unable to roll while carrying an egg, however, if they hold an egg, switch to another Trebhum and then roll, the egg-carrier will also roll-- but apparently the physics of this was not properly rendered, because Trebhum rolling with an egg ''absolutely spaz out,'' glitching all over the place and ''spinning into the air like helicopters at times.''
** The Odorous Body mutation makes the Trebhum very smelly, which apparently attracts some creatures and repels others. The Trebhum, however, "do not judge".
** Doubles as Heartwarming, but Trebhums will sometimes cheer and high-five each other with their trunks.
** The panicked reactions of Tonglegroplets when you blow the Deimatic Trunk horn at them.
** There's quite a bit of humor in the flavor text of the various items. The Blue Trebhumite, according to its entry, used to be a "popular cocktail ingredient" during the days of Trebhum civilization. Just imagine the little long-nosed fellows having drunken parties.
** Omoa the Elder, the discoverer of the Balloon Body mutation, is inflated to ''blimp-size'' and is so big that he's perpetually stuck above a geyser.
** Being blind and TooDumbToLive, Tripobosh are ''very'' easy to lure into traps, and will charge ''straight off cliffs'' if they catch onto a Trebhum's scent.
** The Elder found in the Tundra biome has a combination of red-and-white coloration and the insulating fur mutation, making him resemble a Trebhum version of Santa Claus.
** Another Elder encountered in the Desert Biome is casually hanging out inside a Trewhaala's stomach.
** The battle against the Frozen Sklaa can come off as this when you consider how the boss fight basically boils down to [[ItMakesSenseInContext giving an ice dragon cardiac arrest from heatstroke.]]
** While the creature itself is horrifying, the Hand of Fate is defeated by basically a ''pinball game'' where you roll around an entire ''Trebhum house on the lens to break all its fingers.''
*** As a cherry on top, when the Hand of Fate is defeated it doesn't die: it still angrily glares and hisses at you but can do little else as you've smashed all its appendages.
** There's something oddly hilarious about the first Grashtuub encountered being so greedily preoccupied with eating a dead Trewhaala that it absolutely refuses to budge-- even when the Cylinder starts rolling.
** While genuinely threatening, the Exonorators having baby lips on their motorcycle-like bodies is absurd enough to be amusing.
** The clumsy proportions of the Cleansers are equally amusing, as they move with the grace, or lack thereof, as one would be expected from half a truck with muscular arms.
** The narrator can sometimes come off as somewhat condescending, especially when you fail to pick up his hints during boss battles and he seems to be trying to point out the obvious solution if you ''still'' don't get it.
** When the Trebhum pick up the Mixer Body mutation, the Narrator warns them of using the power wisely and to not be cruel-- almost as if tempting the player to [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential test their powers by doing violent crimes against the local wildlife,]] especially Glickbols as they make great bombs.
** Speaking of Glickbols, the final Trebhum shrine has a puzzle that involves hypnotizing captive Glickbols to roll onto a platform, and later where you have to throw them onto bouncing mushrooms to ''shoot them into a smelting engine'' to progress. Whoever elder Trebhum who designed such a puzzle must have really ''hated'' Tonglegrops and their young.
** Meta example: Vinesauce's Vinny's playthrough of this game had him accidentally lure a Tonglegrop toward the first Cleanser encounter. The Cleanser was supposed to be lured to the bridge to lower it, but seemingly ''the Tonglegrop did it first'', leaving Vinny completely confused at what was supposed to be done next.

* NightmareFuel: A lot.
** The Eternal Cylinder itself. A massive, rolling structure crushing everything in its path, obliterating entire landscapes, and can only be delayed but never stopped. The worst part: it appears to be sentient and with an unknown agenda.
** The servants of the Cylinder are grotesque cyborgs with their fleshy parts appearing to be ''human''.
*** Cleansers, the most commonly encountered type, have the front half of a car, and the back half of a humanoid upper torso with muscular arms.
*** Unifiers are bacteriophage-like mechanical beings, which wouldn't be so bad, if their midsection wasn't ''a limbless, headless naked human torso''.
*** And there's the Mathematician, largest of the Servants and seemingly the leader of them all, which resembles a nude, Frankensteinian humanoid with a metal structure resembling an oil rig for a head, a left leg formed out of a smaller human lower body, glowing red-hot hands and feet, and what appears to be a human head ''inside its chest cavity''.
*** The Liberator is half a human torso that moves around using a pair of hula-hoop like wheels spinning them like a wheelchair of sorts. It also disguises itself as an eeriely earthlike ''playground swing.''
*** The Hand of Fate is a boss battle in the desert that resembles a ring-shaped hand with twelve fingers, and a tentacle-like head in the middle that resembles the Klaborok: but with ''multiple eyes and mouths.''
** There's also the fact that the Servants of the Cylinder were ''[[WorfEffect able to kill a Celestial Trewhaala.]]''
** The final "???" biome is a hostile wasteland filled with mutated-looking thorny plants and ominous green fog. Most unsettling are the various structures and ruins that litter the landscape, some of which bear unmistakable ''human faces''...
** Many of the native predators are equally frightening, especially from the perspective of a small prey animal such as the Trebhum.
*** Zooshgargs are flying predators that are essentially U.F.O.s that abduct Trebhum with a tractor beam and swallow them whole.
*** The Frozen Sklaa is a tundra predator that looks almost ''undead''. Its icy armor seems to conceal its apparently-decaying body, and most disturbing is its heart, which ''dangles down from its chest by a fleshy cord.''
*** The Omnogrom. It's basically a giant sideways mouth with four tiny legs, with its teeth and its eyes looking very disturbingly human-like.
*** The Tonglegrop is a giant lumbering apex predator that spews acid and has razor-sharp claws. And the biggest twist? It's the ''[[FromNobodyToNightmare adult form of the harmless, common Glickbol.]]''
*** And there's the Treghrum, an unreleased predator in the Desert Biome that mimics a Trebhum, imitating them almoat perfectly, until they wander too close and it reveals its centipede-like true form...
** The creatures of the final biome deserve a special mention, with the [[spoiler: implication they are not of this world and were unleashed by the damage inflicted onto the Cylinder.]]
*** The Grashtuub is a massive cylindrical carnivore with a ''hollow body and an exposed digestive system covered in rotating teeth.'' The first one encountered by the Trebhum is right in the act of greedily devouring a Trewhaala carcass, making horrid slurping noises as it goes.
*** The Grashtuub's entry mentions a now-extinct "Hypertonglegrop". Given that regular Tonglegrops are already nightmarish to begin with-- what could a ''Hyper'' version have been like?
*** Roondaslocks are living orbs of flesh covered all over in eyes and mouths. When defeated, they explode into a gruesome mess of chunks.
*** Squadaboo are PuppeteerParasite squids that can attach themselves to Trebhum and then forcibly march their unlucky victim to bodies of water to drown themselves.
** Some of the gentler creatures may still be quite disturbing, such as the Great Gaaahr, which resembles a sauropod or a giraffe-- ''until its entire neck peels open to reveal a Helicoprion-like mouth.''
** There's also the FridgeHorror that all the Trebhum Elders you meet are ultimately crushed by the Cylinder.
** The fact that all the player Trebhums are literally ''newly-hatched infants'' having to deal with an apocalyptic landscape and EldritchAbomination creatures running around the place, ''mere moments after just being born.'' Slightly made better by having a benevolent HiveMind guiding the hatchlings to the right direction, but still it's quite harrowing to see and many Trebhum hatchlings do indeed die.
** [[spoiler: The voice of the Cylinder itself, once the Trebhum enter its mind the third time. It is speaking about its end goal: that existence is suffering because of conflict, and it intends to resolve said conflict by destroying and assimilating all until it itself is all that remains.]]
** [[spoiler: While benevolent, the voice of the Trewhaala, once the Trebhum learn its song, is a raspy, snarling VoiceOfTheLegion, which, coming from a colossal space whale-worm measuring countless miles long, is certainly quite nerve-wracking.]]
** The final Trebhum temple has the decaying carcass of an Onkifurt lying beside one elevator, with its gaseous sac ripped clean off and all of its grisly innards in full view.

** The Mineral Processor. Like the Water Processor mutation, it allows you to convert items you've eaten into another resource. However, instead of converting food into water, this mutation converts minerals into leadership. There is ''no'' upper limit to how much leadership can be created this way, making it entirely possible to max out every stat in the game and recruit every single trebhum if you have the mutation and the patience of a saint.

** [[spoiler: The end credits depict Trebhum elders telling stories to young ones-- with the implication that the elders ''were'' the player Trebhums, telling stories of their adventures to a brand-new generation.]]
*** [[spoiler: The credits also depict the Trewhaala raising Trebhum palaces and interacting with youngsters, implying that their species continued to thrive once more and lived in harmony with the Trebhum.]]