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| 2 | %%Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1642316276090588500 |
| 3 | %%Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread. |
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| 6 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/alanwake.png]] |
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| 8 | %%Note: In most cases, work pages are limited to one pic only. The same thread also suggested this image for VideoGame.AlanWakesAmericanNightmare if it is split: |
| 9 | %% https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/9214cd2f_ee8e_42cf_b649_671d09a7d798.png |
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| 11 | ->''"Creator/StephenKing once wrote that 'Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear.' In a horror story, the victim keeps asking 'Why?' But there can be no explanation, and there shouldn't be one. The unanswered mystery is what stays with us the longest, and it's what we'll remember in the end.\ |
| 12 | My name is Alan Wake. I'm a writer."'' |
| 13 | -->-- '''Alan's OpeningMonologue''' |
| 14 | |
| 15 | A psychological action thriller for the Platform/Xbox360 from Creator/RemedyEntertainment, this game tells the story of Alan Wake, an author of popular and best-selling thrillers who suffers from a long case of WritersBlock. On a vacation to the peaceful town of [[TownWithADarkSecret Bright Falls]] with his wife, Alice, things start to get strange when his wife is kidnapped. Alan forgets an entire week and begins finding pages of a new book that he apparently wrote himself, but which describes the events that he is currently living. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | These events revolve around a terrifying force of elemental darkness possessing the townspeople and attempting to kill him. Alan must fight back against the darkness by using light to weaken its hosts, while attempting to save his wife and discover the terrible secret of Bright Falls. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | ''Alan Wake'' was heavily influenced by the works of Creator/StephenKing, Creator/DavidLynch (especially ''Series/TwinPeaks'') and Creator/HPLovecraft, as well as about a dozen other writers and specific stories whose fingerprints can be seen on the game and its plot. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Remedy released a remaster in 2021 on Platform/XboxSeriesXAndS, Platform/PlayStation5, PC and (eventually) Platform/NintendoSwitch. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | An Platform/XboxLiveArcade spin-off, ''Alan Wake's American Nightmare'', came out February 15, 2012. You can see the trailer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjle1amsR50 here]]. Rather than the first game's Stephen King, psychological feel, it was inspired by Creator/QuentinTarantino, pulp and sci-fi horror, and urban legends. Following the events of the first game, Alan finds himself inside one of his own ''Night Springs'' episodes and has to do battle with the darkness once again. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | Though not a sequel in the traditional sense, the supernatural horror action game ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'', also from Remedy, is [[SharedUniverse set in the same universe]] and features repeat appearances of Alan Wake at several points in its narrative, with one of its story [=DLCs=] revolving around him and the fallout of what happened in Bright Falls. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | A television adaptation of the first game, picked up by Creator/{{AMC}}, was [[https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/alan-wake-tv-show-1202938003/ first announced in 2018]], with Peter Calloway (''Series/CloakAndDagger2018'', ''Series/Legion2017'') initially signing on as showrunner and writer before leaving in 2022 due to scheduling conflicts. [[https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/alan-wake-amc-showrunner-exit-1235306033/ Jon Jashni and Jeff Ludwig]] serve as producers alongside Sam Lake. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | A proper sequel, ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII'', was released in October 2023. It makes a GenreShift from the previous installments into full-on SurvivalHorror. In other games, Alan Wake has also made playable appearances in ''{{VideoGame/Fortnite}}'' and ''VideoGame/DeadByDaylight''. |
| 30 | |
| 31 | The series has many [[ShoutOut/AlanWake pop culture references]] and is exceptionally meta; BreakingTheFourthWall is practically built into the plot and it sometimes goes several levels deep. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | '''Warning:''' Due to the game's [[StoryToGameplayRatio story-heavy nature]], some of the trope names below may be spoilers by themselves. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | ---- |
| 36 | |
| 37 | !!''Alan Wake'' Provides Examples Of: |
| 38 | |
| 39 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 40 | |
| 41 | [[folder:Tropes 0 - G]] |
| 42 | * OneHundredPercentCompletion: Collect all the manuscript pages, all the coffee thermoses, knock over all the can pyramids, kill enough birds, and kill enough enemies with each type of weapon. There's achievements for each individual task. Mercifully, progress is cumulative, so they can be done over multiple playthroughs. Coffee thermoses even disappear in subsequent playthroughs if you've collected them once before; manuscript pages don't, but don't need to be picked up again to unlock them. |
| 43 | %%* AbandonedMine: Bright Falls Coal Mine |
| 44 | * ActionGirl: Sheriff Sarah Breaker. Can't beat her infinite ammo shotgun. |
| 45 | * ActionSurvivor: Barry Wheeler. Alan himself only avoids falling into this role because [[spoiler:being a writer in this setting effectively makes him a RealityWarper, albeit one who has to work within the realm of NarrativeCausality]]. |
| 46 | * AdaptationalEarlyAppearance: In ''Remastered'', a letter from the [[VideoGame/{{Control}} Federal Bureau of Control]] can be found on Sheriff Breaker's desk, and an ad for [[VideoGame/AlanWakeII Coffee World]] can be found in the Oh Deer Diner. |
| 47 | * AdvancingWallOfDoom: When fleeing The Darkness in the form of a tornado across a dam near the end of the game. |
| 48 | * AerithAndBob: As revealed in supplemental material, the full lineup for the Old Gods of Asgard were Odin, Tor, Loki, and Fat Bob. |
| 49 | ** Although his full stage name was Fat Bob [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldr Balder]], so he's an Aerith and a Bob at the same time. |
| 50 | * AlasPoorVillain: |
| 51 | ** It's hard to stay mad at [[spoiler:Mott the fake kidnapper]] once you realize that the only reason he tried to wrestle a manuscript out of Alan was because [[spoiler:Hartman was manipulating him to]]. Additionally, he runs into the Dark Presence shortly before he and Alan meet for the last time. We don't see what the Dark Presence does to him, but by the time Alan catches up to him, he's broken and sobbing, begging for mercy. |
| 52 | ** This can also apply to [[spoiler:Agent Nightingale]] if you have access to ''[[AllThereInTheManual The Alan Wake Files]]'' from the Limited Edition. [[spoiler:He feels guilt over his partner's death and is taking it out on others on the job. Of course, Alan receives the full brunt of Agent Nightingale's behavior.]] |
| 53 | * TheAlcoholic: |
| 54 | ** Agent Nightingale is said to drink due to his stressful job. [[spoiler:Having lost his old partner probably doesn't help either.]] |
| 55 | ** Alan is a borderline one himself, thanks to the numerous parties in the wake (pun unintended) of his recent bestselling novel. |
| 56 | ** Walter, the drunkard locked up in the sheriff station. He later sneaks off to the Anderson farm to steal some moonshine. It goes badly for him. |
| 57 | * AllThereInTheManual: |
| 58 | ** You'll miss out on a ton of the backstory if you don't read the manuscript pages you keep finding, including certain characters' names and what was happening when Alan Wake was preoccupied or unconscious. |
| 59 | ** Even more can be found out about the characters, Bright Falls, and Alan's writing in ''[[AllThereInTheManual The Alan Wake Files]]'' book which comes with the [[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition Limited Edition]]. |
| 60 | * AllTheWorldsAreAStage: The DLC chapters follow this idea, being composed of pieces and segments from chapters of the main story that are haphazardly stitched together without rhyme or reason. This is caused by Alan being trapped in the Dark Place, which manifests itself as such due to being both an EldritchLocation and a MentalWorld due to Alan's own creativity shaping it. |
| 61 | * AmbiguousSituation: The exact nature of the relationship between Thomas Zane and Alan Wake. Did Zane write Alan into existence to fix his mistake and defeat The Dark Presence for good? Or did Alan write Zane writing Alan into existence so that he would have a way to defeat The Dark Presence? If trying to figure it out [[MindScrew makes your head hurt]], don't worry, you're not alone. |
| 62 | * AmuletOfDependency: Alan's flashlight fends off the Taken and Dark-touched objects. While his pistol and other weapons are important, they would be completely useless without using the flashlight to neutralize the Darkness first. The flares and flashbang grenades can also apply. |
| 63 | * ArmorPiercingAttack: Taken are immune to almost everything except light as long as the cloud of darkness surrounding them is still intact, being able to stop bullets and even stop a ramming Ford pickup in its tracks. However, they can still be electrocuted in this state, which serves as a OneHitKill. |
| 64 | * ArrestedForHeroism: If you listen to Walter, the guy locked up in the police station, he'll tell you a story that basically boils down to "I beat up a Taken, got shitfaced afterwards, and then got arrested because the police didn't believe my story." |
| 65 | * ArrowCam: If you hit a Taken directly with a flare from the flare gun, as opposed to simply nearby, the game goes into BulletTime and the camera follows the flare through the air until it hits the Taken. |
| 66 | * ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Alan's on his way to meet the kidnapper when he sends Alan a text message. What's the first thing Alan notices? The demands he hurry up? The insults? Nope. The ''spelling errors''. Possibly justified, as he ''is'' a writer, but still. ''[[SeriousBusiness Spelling errors]]'' in a ''text message''. |
| 67 | * ArtificialBrilliance: Taken will always attempt to spread out and flank you while you're distracted by another Taken, and [[EliteMook Elite Taken]] will constantly zip around to avoid your flashlight and attack from behind. |
| 68 | * ArtificialStupidity: |
| 69 | ** Even in cases where they should know better, your allies will unload on darkness-shielded Taken, even if there's an unshielded one available to kill. They seem to prioritize the closer targets regardless of viability. |
| 70 | ** On the enemy side, fallen power lines are like Taken bug-zappers. They are incapable of seeing them and will walk right into them. This is in contrast to path-blocking lines at the transformer yard, which are treated as obstacles the Taken will not attempt to cross. |
| 71 | ** Possessed objects are incredibly stupid, both hurling themselves off of cliffs and into chasms as well as getting stuck behind obstacles constantly. |
| 72 | * AttackOfTheKillerWhatever: The Dark Presence can throw small objects at you, or possess vehicles, like a combine harvester. |
| 73 | * AttackOfTheTownFestival: |
| 74 | ** The game begins just two weeks before the town's annual Deerfest and ends the night before it's scheduled with the final cutscene showing the festival going off without a hitch. |
| 75 | ** A more literal version of this trope occurs when the Deerfest float is temporarily possessed and tries to run you over. |
| 76 | ** An even ''more'' literal version occurs in "The Writer" DLC, where said possessed float breaks apart and ''throws itself at you''. |
| 77 | * AuthorAvatar: |
| 78 | ** Wake is loosely based on Sam Lake, Remedy's lead writer, and he writes a novel starring himself as the protagonist. And to top it off, Sam Lake also appears as... Sam Lake during Alan Wake's late show interview... See also the TakeThat since, for ''VideoGame/MaxPayne1'', Sam Lake did double duty as the basis for Max's face. |
| 79 | ** Also, for more MindScrew for your buck, the Dark Presence itself which defines and dictates much if not most of the plot of the game. |
| 80 | ** In ''Writer in the Cabin'', the author writes himself into his story in an attempt to save Alice. |
| 81 | * AuthorsSavingThrow: In-Universe, Alan's only hope to end the madness is to find a way to take back control of the story he's written, but there's a catch. [[spoiler:As he points out, a story ''must'' be true to its own internal logic, which is why he can't just sit down and write himself as an invincible MartyStu or that the [[DeusExMachina Care Bears show up and blast away the evil with beams of goodness from their chests.]] Trying to cut corners like that is how Thomas Zane got his girlfriend possessed by the Dark Presence.]] |
| 82 | * AutobotsRockOut: Nothing says: 'Let's kill some Taken' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPi5G7-Nwys&list=UUsvcxby9YSHl3i-eNu51kEQ&index=1&feature=plcp like a little rock and roll]]. |
| 83 | * BadassNormal: Most of the cast who survives anything more than a single encounter with the Taken. For instance, it is implied that the Anderson brothers had fought the Dark Presence before and were able to hold the Presence back for many years until Alan came. They didn't exactly get away unharmed, either; while not crazy (they never actually make up any thing that isn't true), they aren't exactly stable, either. Regardless of their involvement with the Dark Presence, their music, rock stage, and crazy banter definitely earn them this title. |
| 84 | * BadassUnintentional: For a writer on vacation, Alan Wake has a hell of a time fighting off the many forms of the Dark Presence, including tornadoes and bulldozers. |
| 85 | * BagOfSpilling: Between episodes, and sometimes even during them, Alan may lose his flashlight, his weapons, or both. In most cases it's justified. It doesn't make it any less annoying. While the weapons don't matter so much, losing a good heavy-duty flashlight or even a lantern for the basic crappy flashlight is a real kick in the pants. The flashlights also usually aren't justified - guns are stated to be lost or taken away, but he usually is stated to still have his flashlight, but it's somehow devolved on him. |
| 86 | * BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: [[spoiler:Both DLC are this, particularly when it's revealed that the 'Alan' the player controls is actually a manifestation of his own rationality, which has to physically fight its way to the emotionally-distraught and self-destructive Wake to help him.]] |
| 87 | * BeardOfEvil: In "The Signal", one of the flashbacks Alan has involves Alice suggesting he try to look more menacing for a dustjacket picture, because in the latest book, he was going to kill Alex Casey and ought to look "...like a murderer." As a result, she compliments his decision to grow a beard. |
| 88 | * BearTrap: All over the woods. They can be spotted with the flashlight, and triggered by shooting them. If you get caught in one, a Taken will spawn to try and score some cheap hits on the incapacitated Alan. Oh, and did we mention that there is one section in the game with a ridiculous number of them where ''you have no weapons?'' Tread carefully, because those Taken that spawn don't go away after you get free. |
| 89 | * BigApplesauce: Alan's apartment is in New York. |
| 90 | * BigBadEnsemble: The main antagonists are split between the Dark Presence, Agent Nightingale, and [[spoiler:Doctor Hartman]], but the first one has the most weight over the story. And because [[EvilIsOneBigHappyFamily evil is NOT one big happy family]], none of the three are working together. [[spoiler:In fact, it's the Dark Presence that physically kills Hartman (although in the Comic he survives) and possesses Nightingale.]] |
| 91 | * [[BigDamnHeroes Big Damn Hero]]: Alan gets a chance to do this himself late in the game. Sarah and Barry's helicopter has been taken down, so Alan decides specifically to leave the safety of the lit concrete pipe he's traveling in to go help. He arrives as Taken are swarming the other two. Sarah notes "You sure know how to make an entrance. Barry and I were just about to make like [[BolivianArmyEnding Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.]]" |
| 92 | * BigGood: The Light, aka the man in the diving suit, aka [[spoiler:Thomas Zane, though it's unclear if it's the real Thomas Zane, or a fictional version of him written by Alan Wake himself.]] |
| 93 | * BigNo: Alan yells three of these in succession plus screams after learning from the Dark Presence [[spoiler:that Alice drowned in Cauldron Lake]]. |
| 94 | * BittersweetEnding: Alan defeats the Dark Presence and saves Alice, but at a price. [[spoiler:He is stuck under the lake writing to appease the darkness... for now.]] |
| 95 | * BloodlessCarnage: |
| 96 | ** After Alan uses his [[AmuletOfDependency Flashlight of Dependency]] on the Taken to neutralize the Darkness and shoots them down, they crumple to the floor and fade away without a trace of their existence. |
| 97 | ** Alan himself can get hit by the Taken and Possessed's sharp weapons such as axes, knives, ''chainsaws and bulldozers''. Yet, blood will not be dripping out of him, nor show signs of visible damage. |
| 98 | * BloodstainedGlassWindows: |
| 99 | ** Although part of one level has you going through a church, the only fighting takes place in the rather small cellar. |
| 100 | ** "The Signal" turns the small cellar into a larger boiler room, with ''lots'' of boilers to take advantage of and earn the "Words Will Never Harm You" achievement in the process by blowing up every single one of them. |
| 101 | * BlownAcrossTheRoom: This tends to happen to the human Taken Alan encounters, especially after a good flashbang. |
| 102 | * BondOneLiner: When Barry one-hit kills a Taken with a flare gun, he says, "Guess that one saw the light!" |
| 103 | * BookEnds: Taking into account the main story and the [=DLC=]s, Alan begins and ends the game [[spoiler:heading for a lighthouse]]. |
| 104 | ** "Alan... wake up." |
| 105 | ** "My name is Alan Wake. And I'm a writer." |
| 106 | * BoyfriendBlockingDad: On the way to the Anderson farm, there is a secret stash in a house. After leaving the house, a Taken greets you with "You stay away from my daughter!" |
| 107 | * BreakTheCutie: |
| 108 | ** [[spoiler:Rose]] never quite recovers after being touched by the Dark Presence. |
| 109 | ** It's not just that, either. [[spoiler:Rusty, the man with whom she had secret feelings for (and vice versa), was murdered by the Dark Presence.]] And as if that and being MindRaped weren't enough, [[spoiler:she's apparently being haunted by a possessed Agent Nightingale, who had previously had a JerkWithAHeartOfGold moment when he comforted her during an interrogation]]. |
| 110 | * BrickJoke: Rose's joke about how Ranger Rusty "used to be human, but now he's just black coffee wrapped in skin", after you face him as an [[EliteMook elite Taken]]. One of the achievements [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this: "Under a Thin Layer of Skin". |
| 111 | * BrokenBird: Fittingly enough, [[spoiler:[[MeaningfulName Agent Nightingale]]. [[AllThereInTheManual Outside reading material]] reveals that he used to be pretty much the exact opposite of how he is in-game, but the loss of his partner to the Dark Presence turned him into the character we see]]. |
| 112 | * BulletTime: |
| 113 | ** Usually occurs with a ScareChord to warn of incoming enemy ambushes and to signal when the last enemy in a wave has been killed. |
| 114 | ** Dodging just before you get hit can also cause a brief spurt of BulletTime. You get [[CosmeticAward an Achievement]] for pulling off twenty of these. |
| 115 | ** Lighting up a flare while surrounded by Taken sometimes causes a sudden slowdown, with the camera dramatically spinning around Alan as the Taken recoil from the sudden light. It's pretty much pure awesome everytime this happens, because the ''only'' time it happens is when there's three or more Taken, and Alan is in serious trouble. |
| 116 | * CallBack: When you first meet the Anderson brothers in the Oh Deer Diner, one of them asks you to play "Coconut" on the jukebox. In Episode 5, at one point you pass the diner. It's unlocked, so you can go in and turn on the jukebox. Guess which song plays. ''And'' it's an achievement. |
| 117 | * CameBackWrong: Invoked by name, no less. [[spoiler:Thomas Zane attempted to rewrite his lover Barbara Jagger back to life, but she was corrupted by the Dark Presence.]] |
| 118 | * CaptainErsatz: Alex Casey, Alan's much-beloved hero in his best-selling book series, is a fairly clear parallel to Sam Lake's own grumpy detective VideoGame/MaxPayne. Some excerpts from a Casey novel are even read by Max's original voice actor, James [=McCaffrey=]. |
| 119 | * CarFu: You have a car with bright headlights and Taken on the road. You know what to do. |
| 120 | ** The Darkness also employs this at least once. |
| 121 | * CasualDangerDialog: Alan and Barry partake in this during the defense of the stage. |
| 122 | * ChainsawGood: A few of the Taken use chainsaws as weapons. |
| 123 | * CelebrityParadox: The [[FakeBand Old Gods of Asgard]], whose songs are performed by the real-life band Music/PoetsOfTheFall. Poets of the Fall also have one of their own songs in the game, and Pat Maine notes that [[LampshadeHanging they really remind him of the Old Gods, but he can't figure out why.]] |
| 124 | * CharacterInTheLogo: The hero is part of the "A" in "Wake". |
| 125 | * CheckPoint: The player hears a low "ba-dun" when one is reached, and a notice pops up in the top-left corner of the screen. Safe Havens are an automatic Checkpoint. |
| 126 | * ChekhovsGun: |
| 127 | ** [[spoiler:The "magic clicker" Alan used to have as a child to drive away the darkness]] turns out to be the only weapon that can hurt the Dark Presence. As with many things in the game, this is also a MindScrew because the only reason [[spoiler:the Clicker]] can do so is because it was written to do so and the Dark Presence made it so. |
| 128 | ** The standee of Alan Wake. It survives a lot and pops up during the plot in unexpected places. If you thought it would be important or at least play some sort of role, the devs got you. It's really a RedHerring. |
| 129 | * ChekhovsGunman: '''Everyone'''. Seriously, there are no characters introduced in the first chapter that do not turn out to be important in some way. |
| 130 | ** That quiet man at the back of the ferry? [[spoiler:He's the kidnapper.]] [[color:white:Or is he?]] |
| 131 | ** That cool old radio host who wants to interview Alan? [[spoiler:He helps Alan escape Agent Nightingale at one point.]] |
| 132 | ** That cheerful waitress who happens to be Alan Wake's biggest fan? [[spoiler:She drugs Alan and Barry under the influence of the Dark Presence.]] |
| 133 | ** That gas station owner who was supposed to give Alan the keys to the cabin? [[spoiler:He gets the honor of becoming the first known elite Taken.]] |
| 134 | ** That friendly park ranger who recommends the coffee? [[spoiler:He becomes the second known elite Taken.]] |
| 135 | ** Those two crazy, lovable old rockers who put de lime in de coconut? [[spoiler:They allow Alan to escape from the clinic, while pointing him towards the Lady of the Light.]] |
| 136 | ** That smug psychologist with the punchable face? [[spoiler:He tries to trick Alan into believing his wife was just kidnapped, then later kidnaps him and tries to convince him that he's clinically insane and that his wife is dead.]] |
| 137 | ** That sheriff who found Alan at the gas station? [[spoiler:She helps Alan find the Lady of the Light and may have known about the Dark Presence all along.]] |
| 138 | *** She's so central to the plot and so much aware of the ongoings that the implications are that [[spoiler:Alan created her, maybe as a backup plan in case he fails — just like Alan himself was Thomas Zane's plan B]]. |
| 139 | ** That harmless old woman Alan meets in the diner who seems to be afraid of the dark? [[spoiler:She's the Lady of the Light you keep hearing about.]] |
| 140 | ** That floating guy in the diving suit? [[spoiler:He's Thomas Zane, the light that has been guiding you through the game.]] |
| 141 | ** That creepy old lady in funeral garb who gives you the keys to your cabin? [[spoiler:She's the BigBad.]] |
| 142 | * {{Chiaroscuro}}: The Safe Havens act both as healing points and [[CheckPoint checkpoints]]. Any enemies in the area will also vanish once you reach them. However, vanish and defeat are two different things. Enemies you haven't killed may reappear after you've left a Safe Haven. |
| 143 | * ChristianityIsCatholic: Averted. The sign outside the Bright Falls Church mentions an upcoming visit by a Presbyterian congregation. |
| 144 | * CloudCuckoolander: |
| 145 | ** The Taken themselves say some pretty random things when they show up. ''"Omega 3 fatty acids are good for your heart!"'' |
| 146 | ** Humorously, the farmer Taken say something somehow unrelated, yet totally appropriate for their occupation: ''"Stay away from my daughter!"'' |
| 147 | ** Rose starts babbling like this too [[spoiler:once the Dark Presence is done with her]]. In her case, she goes through the rhetoric of serving a customer. |
| 148 | * CoolOldGuy: |
| 149 | ** Pat Maine, retired cop and current radio host. He gets a mention for calling out Agent Nightingale on his reckless pursuit of Alan Wake, especially after Maine very nearly got shot. |
| 150 | ** The Anderson brothers, of course. |
| 151 | * CosmicHorrorStory: Cauldron Lake is a portal to an EldritchLocation, which contains a powerful, godlike entity which has the capacity to MindRape people simply by them being in darkness, and wants to enter our reality to consume it. Even at the end, [[spoiler:Alan can't defeat the Dark Presence. At best, he manages to stop its plans temporarily and destroy its current avatar, but the ending shows that it's taken Agent Nightingale as its new face and is planning to try again]]. |
| 152 | * CowboyCop: {{Deconstructed|Trope}}. Agent Nightingale is a rough-around-the-edges, no-nonsense G-man who won't let regulations get in the way of ''justice''... [[KnightTemplar and has the personality]] [[JerkAss of actual cops]] [[RevengeBeforeReason like this]], and his trigger finger quickly gets everyone in town hating him. Ironically, the novel reveals he was previously the exact opposite of this trope alongside his partner, to the point where he didn't even touch alcohol. [[spoiler:His partner was either killed or abducted by the Dark Presence, which turned him into TheAlcoholic CowboyCop we see in the game.]] |
| 153 | * CrazyPrepared: |
| 154 | ** [[spoiler:Cynthia]] leaves behind a number of Safe Havens and supply caches as well as a secret way to find them in preparation for the battle against the darkness which the player can take advantage of. There's also the Well-Lit Room, which is so well-lit that there are ''absolutely no shadows'' inside it. To keep it that way, [[spoiler:Cynthia]] regularly replaces every single bulb and working part in the room. To add to the crazy part, she's memorized exactly which bulbs need replacing and when by serial number, manufacturer, and so forth. |
| 155 | ** Barry, when fighting Taken, grabs the biggest flashlight he can get his hands on, a headlamp, and wraps himself in Christmas lights for "protection. Like garlic against vampires". |
| 156 | * CreatorCameo: Sam Lake appears as a guest on the talk show that Alan also visits. |
| 157 | * CreatorInJoke: There's a QR code on the second level of Hartman's lodge. Scanning it opens a page [[http://www.alanwake.com/wp-content/uploads/constipation.gif on the Alan Wake website]] that is an animated GIF of the above cameo with the demotivator caption "That looks [[VideoGame/MaxPayne "Payneful]]". |
| 158 | * CreepyCrows: |
| 159 | ** They're everywhere. Some are possessed by darkness and will attack in swarms. |
| 160 | ** Odin and Tor used to have two ravens named Thought and Memory that the Dark Presence had taken. |
| 161 | * CreepyMonotone: Both [[spoiler:Rose and Alan]]'s voice actors try to do this when under the influence of the Dark Presence. |
| 162 | * CriticalExistenceFailure: Averted. If Alan's at low health, the screen becomes black and white and he walks around slouched down and holding his chest, but he does as much damage as ever. |
| 163 | * CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Barry. He's a boorish, slightly overweight New York literary agent. He's also Alan's best friend, and when things start getting trippy, he steps up to the plate with gusto. |
| 164 | * CuckooNest: Played arrow-straight where the protagonist awakens at an insane asylum and is told he has hallucinated everything prior. The protagonist does not believe a word of it. [[spoiler:And he is right.]] Later in the DLC chapters, [[spoiler:as he has been split in two personalities, the insane and suicidal part of him tries in a desperate bid to stop the rational and determined part in his attempt to do a SplitPersonalityMerge by suggesting this idea to him once again. It still doesn't work]]. |
| 165 | * DarkIsEvil: To contrast with the LightIsGood trope, where this game's theme is all about. |
| 166 | * DarknessEqualsDeath: Once a person has been ''totally'' taken by the Dark Presence, they are no longer themselves, and you may no longer consider them human. |
| 167 | * DeadpanSnarker: Alan isn't the best example of this, but he's got his moments. Special mention goes to a moment where Barry, after attempting to convince Alan he's nuts, hears the Dark Presence moving through the woods. |
| 168 | -->'''Barry:''' What — what the hell was that? I saw it from the window — I saw — I saw something. |
| 169 | -->'''Alan:''' Forget about it, Barry. It's just me going crazy. |
| 170 | * DeathSeeker: By "The Signal" until the end of "The Writer", [[EnemyWithin part of]] Alan has apparently decided that he wants out of the AndIMustScream situation he's in... by any means necessary. |
| 171 | * DeclarationOfProtection: Alan for his wife Alice, who is held captive by the Dark Presence in Cauldron Lake. |
| 172 | * DeconstructorFleet: Due to the events of ''Departure'' dictating real life, the game takes an in-depth look at fiction and what it must be like to live in a world governed by narrative causality. {{Plot hole}}s and {{deus ex machina}}s in the book have deadly, menacing causes in the real world, and [[ContrivedCoincidence coincidences that normally would go unremarked-on]] are lampshaded and eventually accepted as a part of life. And that's just the beginning. |
| 173 | * DegradedBoss: Most of the bosses show up again as common mooks, and there's usually more of them. |
| 174 | * DeusExMachina: Discussed and defied. The manuscript is written as such because the story has to progress in a believable way for the Dark Presence to be bound by it. Alan can't just say "then the Dark Presence died, The End," because then the how and why of it is left to the imagination of the Dark Presence, which could easily find a loophole. [[spoiler:When Zane attempted to write one for himself by bringing Barbara back with no reason and explanation behind it, the Dark Presence filled that bit in. It doesn't end well for him.]] |
| 175 | * DevelopersForesight: Some characters have lines that are only triggered by certain actions, like shining the flashlight in Barry's face. |
| 176 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: [[spoiler:Alan's master plan]] at Episode Six's conclusion. [[spoiler:"The Signal" shows Alan is a little too [[MindRape busy]] to enact this, but "The Writer" has Alan getting ready to go at it.]] |
| 177 | * DifficultyByRegion: The "Normal" mode of the PC version is actually the "Hard" mode of the Xbox 360 version. Apparently, this was to address the added advantage of the mouse-keyboard setup, as well as fan input that the original Normal mode was too easy. The achivement set-up for Steam, however, wasn't fixed, giving players an extra achievement for completing "hard" mode. |
| 178 | * DisappearedDad: Alan never knew his father. No reason is given for his absence. When Alan was seven years old and suffering from nightmares, his mother gave him the Clicker. She told him that his father gave it to her, making it more mythical in Alan's mind. In "The Signal", a raving Alan in one of the televisions admits his denial that he does not care that he never knew his father. |
| 179 | * DisconnectedSideArea: A few areas from the main game cannot be explored until "The Signal" and "The Writer". In The Signal, you get to visit the Oh Deer Diner's bathroom and kitchen. In "The Writer", you get to properly enter and climb [[spoiler:the lighthouse]]. |
| 180 | * DoNotTouchTheFunnelCloud: At several points, the Dark Presence takes the form of a tornado and chases down Alan, but he is still able to run away from it unless it gets too close. Near the end of the game, he must get close enough to one to shoot it up with flares. He even has to jump across several platforms to reach it, all while dodging the swirling junk. |
| 181 | %%* {{Doppelganger}}: [[spoiler:Mr. Scratch, Alan]]'s physical clone. |
| 182 | * DreamApocalypse: |
| 183 | ** One of the ''Night Springs'' episodes revolved around a group of imaginary people conspiring to keep the dreamer asleep forever. Then the dreamer woke up... |
| 184 | ** Invoked by imaginary Barry when he tells Alan that by waking up, everything in the imaginary world, including himself, will disappear. |
| 185 | * DrosteImage: A textual version, where Alan reads a manuscript page where he reads a manuscript page where he reads a manuscript page where... |
| 186 | * DuelingGames: Many people compared this game with ''VideoGame/HeavyRain'', although the only similar thing between them is that they're story-driven exclusives. The comparisons didn't stop Remedy from [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100751-Remedy-Recommends-You-Get-Heavy-Rain recommending their supposed rival game]]. |
| 187 | ** If anything, it's DuelingGames with ''VideoGame/DeadlyPremonition''. Both are third-person shooters that came out in 2010, which star an anti-social guy who knows way too much pop-culture. Both main characters travel to a ''Series/TwinPeaks'' {{Expy}} and battle {{Eldritch Abomination}}s while fighting off things that appear human but are not. |
| 188 | * EarlyBirdCameo: Some characters are actually first mentioned in the manuscript pages Alan finds before their proper introductions in the story. It is the case of Sheriff Sarah Breaker and Agent Robert Nightingale, for example. |
| 189 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Alan's character model doesn't really resemble Ilkka Villi that much in the original release; it wouldn't be until ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' where he'd really look like the same person. Notably, his face is changed most significantly in the remaster to remedy this. |
| 190 | * EldritchAbomination: All but outright stated to be the culprit throughout. Creator/HPLovecraft is given plenty of lip service. |
| 191 | * EldritchLocation: [[spoiler:The Dark Place at the end and in the DLC is really, ''really'' weird.]] Cauldron Lake, where the Dark Presence lives. Alan says at the end that [[spoiler:"it's an ocean"]], whatever that means. In the final episode, the Dark Presence starts throwing things at you that had fallen into the lake, including boats, an airplane, a boxcar, a deep sea fishing trawler... |
| 192 | * EliteMooks: Some of the Taken are more powerful than others. It takes much longer to burn off the darkness protecting them, some of them can turn invisible and run around you at high speed, and some are extra big and wield chainsaws. |
| 193 | * EnemyWithin: [[spoiler:Dark Alan]] from the "Signal" DLC is [[spoiler:Alan's psychotic JerkassWoobie]] side '''[[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds turned up]] [[DeathSeeker to eleven]]'''. |
| 194 | * EscortMission: |
| 195 | ** Played straight and inverted ''simultaneously''. At one point in Episode 2, Alan loses his gun but is saved by Mott, [[spoiler:the kidnapper]]. Mott has a gun, but refuses to give it to Alan, instead giving him flares. The next part of the level requires you to destroy the darkness on the Taken so Mott can blast them. |
| 196 | ** In Episode 5, Sheriff Breaker escorts you to a helicopter. She has an infinite ammo shotgun. Unlike Mott, she's frickin ''awesome''. |
| 197 | * EstablishingCharacterMoment: [[KnightTemplar Agent Nightingale]] in his first appearance tries to shoot Alan Wake, completely ignoring the risk of hitting the innocent bystander who stands right next to Alan. |
| 198 | * EternalRecurrence: |
| 199 | ** The Dark Presence has made numerous attempts to escape using artists to write its freedom before, holding their loved ones captive to control them. |
| 200 | ** The manuscript implies that the Anderson brothers know about the Dark Presence and have fought it before. |
| 201 | ** [[spoiler:It is implied that Zane actually wrote some of Wake's life before vanishing]]. |
| 202 | *** [[spoiler:It's more than that - it's implied Zane actually wrote Alan writing the events of the game. And just to turn things on their head, it's entirely possible to read the storyline in such a way that makes it so that ''Alan created Thomas Zane to help him''.]] |
| 203 | * EquivalentExchange: Alan buys Alice's freedom from the Dark Presence by [[spoiler:taking her place at the bottom of the lake]]. He even states that a lack of equivalent exchange is [[spoiler:what caused Barbara to [[CameBackWrong come back wrong]]]]. |
| 204 | * EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The [[spoiler:not]] kidnapper is merely referred to as "the kidnapper" throughout the game. You don't find what his actual name is [[AllThereInTheScript unless you find the relevant pages of the manuscript]]. [[spoiler:It's Mott.]] |
| 205 | * EverythingFades: Almost immediately. [[{{Deconstruction}} It really creeps Alan out.]] |
| 206 | * EverythingTryingToKillYou: Poltergeist objects, ordinary objects that are touched by the Dark Presence and are flung at the player. Those can range from regular tires to whole vehicles. |
| 207 | %%* EvilMeScaresMe: [[spoiler:Dark Alan]]. |
| 208 | * ExecutiveMeddling: InUniverse. The Dark Presence keeps editing and rewriting Alan's story to be more in line with its own desire to escape Cauldron Lake. Alan catches on pretty quick, however, and writes his escape from his 'editor' into the story. |
| 209 | * ExplodingBarrels: Propane tanks are one of the few things that hurt you as well as the Taken when they explode. |
| 210 | * {{Expy}}: [[spoiler:Agent Nightingale heavily resembles Agent Gordon Cole of ''Series/TwinPeaks'', who is himself in turn played by none other than Creator/DavidLynch, who's in addition to that one acting role also one half of the show's writing team and its occasional director alongside Mark Frost. However, unlike Gordon, Nightingale is a terrible person and an alcoholic with no control over his impulses.]] |
| 211 | * FaceHeelTurn: |
| 212 | ** In "The Signal" and "The Writer", [[spoiler:Dark Alan]] does this in regard [[spoiler:[[DeathSeeker to himself]].]] |
| 213 | ** Also in said DLC, [[spoiler:Imaginary Barry was initially disappointed that Alan chose to follow Zane instead of him in escaping his mind, then pushed over the edge when he realized that [[DreamApocalypse Alan's waking up would erase him from existence]].]] |
| 214 | * FalseFriend: |
| 215 | ** [[spoiler:Dr. Hartman]], since everything he tells Alan about himself is a lie to perpetuate his own hidden agenda. Somewhat subverted since Alan suspected this, although it was not easy since he was under the influence of [[spoiler:Dr. Hartman]]'s sedatives. |
| 216 | ** The Dark Presence can also count since [[spoiler:it tricked Alan into writing the horror story]], saying it would save Alice if he did what it wanted. |
| 217 | * FatalFireworks: Some of the fireworks equipment in the Anderson farm can instantly kill the weaker Taken. {{Subverted|Trope}} in the [=DLCs=] - You can light up words that cause firework explosions, or let sparks fly from spinning wheels, but they would only remove the Taken's protective shield. |
| 218 | * FinalBattle: |
| 219 | ** Alan faces the Dark Presence - as a tornado - dodging objects being hurled around by it while having to jump on planks to get close enough to shoot several flares into it. All the while, the Dark Presence tornado is flinging insults at him. |
| 220 | ** "The Signal" ends with Alan battling [[spoiler:an army of [=TVs=] with his face on them]] plus some Taken and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking a large boat]]. |
| 221 | ** "The Writer" ends with Alan battling [[spoiler:Imaginary Barry who has become pissed off that Alan is following Thomas Zane instead of him]], backed up by similar projections of [[spoiler:Dr. Hartman, the Anderson Brothers who wield their "axes" as weapons]], and an endless legion of crows. |
| 222 | * FlareGun: Against the [[LogicalWeakness light-hating enemies]], this is functionally equivalent to a rocket launcher, easily destroying whole groups of weaker enemies and producing enough light to drive away any survivors. You won't find much ammo for it ([[SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity outside of the sixth episode]]), but it comes in very handy when you get swarmed. |
| 223 | * {{Flashback}}: |
| 224 | ** Used to flesh out Alan's relationship with Alice. |
| 225 | ** The entire game can be thought of as one huge flashback considering [[spoiler:Alan's eventual fate]] as well as Alan's interactions with himself through the televisions. |
| 226 | * FlawlessVictory: "Night Life In Bright Falls", "The Signal", and "The Writer" all have achievements for getting through them in one go without dying or reloading a checkpoint. They are likely the game's most difficult achievements, with Signal's being the toughest. |
| 227 | ** The Signal gets extra asshole points for placing a bunch of the "tools" words next to bottomless pits, causing the supplies that fall out of them to most likely bounce or roll into the pit and possibly kill any players trying to grab them in time. |
| 228 | * FlingALightIntoTheFuture: Quite literally in the case of [[spoiler:Zane]]'s [[ThePlan gambit]] involving the Well-Lit Room and [[spoiler:his shoebox]]. |
| 229 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 230 | ** Odin and Tor constantly call Alan 'Tom'. |
| 231 | ** Also, there's a shoebox of books by [[spoiler:Thomas Zane]] in the cabin, and if you can read their titles, at least one says something related to the story of the game. There's also a poster of "Tom the Poet" in the prologue. |
| 232 | ** The woman who gives Alan the key to the cabin is standing in one of the darkest places in the Oh Deer Diner and is dressed completely in black. |
| 233 | ** There is also this remark: |
| 234 | --->'''Alice (to Alan):''' Can you believe this place? This would make a wonderful setting for a book. |
| 235 | ** Through use of the collectible manuscripts, the game also does this to the player, hinting at events that are about to come. It's both humorous and very unsettling. |
| 236 | ---> '''Manuscript:''' The flashlight was heavy in my hand, and each pull of the trigger sent a painful shock up my arm. But I was finally out of the woods and things were looking up. That's when I heard the chainsaw. |
| 237 | ** One of the episodes of ''Night Springs'' featuring a group of people trying to keep a person asleep due to them dreaming them into existence, with him waking up [[DreamApocalypse killing all of them]]. The second DLC episode, and final episode of the game, [[spoiler:features the dream incarnation of Barry trying to kill the rational part of Barry, dragging in some of Alan's other figments representing his friends to stop him.]] |
| 238 | ** You can come across maps of the area on walls before TheReveal at the end of the first episode, and if you look closely you'll notice [[spoiler:there is no island in Cauldron Lake.]] |
| 239 | * TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: After a big plot-revealing moment, the Dark Presence's avatar looks down on the protagonist and then briefly glimpses at the camera before suddenly teleporting right into the player's face! |
| 240 | * GainaxEnding: Arguably. It's deliberately ambiguous and open-ended. |
| 241 | * GargleBlaster: Two aged rockers created a bunch of moonshine using water from the decidedly mystical lake in the center of Bright Falls. Not only does it get you totally drunk, but there's a high probability of you tripping out on the stuff. As Barry puts it: "I feel like my brain is comin' outta my nose." |
| 242 | * {{GASP}}: This first happened in the beginning of the game when the hitchhiker Alan runs over disappears. Afterward this usually occurs after Alan wakes up from a nightmare. |
| 243 | * GenreShift: This happens indirectly in the game with direct consequences. [[spoiler:While Alan was writing his manuscript at the cabin under the influence of the Dark Presence, the Dark Presence heavily edited it to change the genre into a horror story, giving it more power]]. |
| 244 | ** This happened even more overtly in the backstory with Thomas Zane. Not only was he not a horror writer, he wasn't even a writer of ''fiction novels''. He was a ''poet'', and the Dark Presence still co-opted his writing. |
| 245 | * GeographicFlexibility: Bright Falls is apparently the kind of town where "everybody knows everybody", but the town and surrounding area have a dormant volcano, a logging camp, a national park, an abandoned mill, a radio station, a coal mine converted into a museum, a psychologist's lodge, ''two'' ghost towns, a decommissioned power plant, and a large dam. Given that the game is set in the Pacific Northwest this isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. |
| 246 | * GiantMook: Large Taken are burly, axe-wielding lumberjacks and firefighters who stand a good head taller than normal, can take more damage, and sometimes charge at you like a bull. Extra-Large Taken wield chainsaws and can take even more damage. |
| 247 | * GoodHurtsEvil: LightIsGood, and DarkIsEvil. Taken will cover their face and stumble back when hit with the flashlight no matter where you get them. Flashbang grenades will also [[OneHitKill kill normal Taken instantly]]. Played with using the flare gun; anyone would be seriously hurt if shot with one, but it is like the [[VideoGame/GoldenEye1997 Golden Gun]] when fighting Ravens or Elite Taken. |
| 248 | * GoodPolicingEvilPolicing: Sheriff Sarah Breaker is stern but ultimately a ReasonableAuthorityFigure. FBI Agent Robert Nightingale is a domineering RabidCop. Breaker constantly chews out Nightingale's methods and not one character has a single good thing to say about him. Come Episode 5, [[spoiler:Nightingale gets taken by the Dark Presence and is mourned by no one, while Breaker becomes a critical ally]]. |
| 249 | * {{Gorn}}: None in the gameplay, but near the end of the game [[spoiler:in his attempt to silence Barbara Jagger after she was Taken by the Dark Presence, Thomas Zane cut out her heart]]. |
| 250 | * GottaCatchEmAll: |
| 251 | ** Many collectibles here including manuscript pages, coffee thermoses, can pyramids, chests, radio shows, TV shows, and signs. Many of these require the player to stray off the obvious path. |
| 252 | ** "The Signal" DLC has you collecting alarm clocks and finding cardboard Alan Wake standees. |
| 253 | ** "The Writer" DLC has you picking up ''Night Springs'' video game copies. |
| 254 | * GotVolunteered: Barry often gets Alan to do all of the hard tasks between them. Then again, Alan really cannot complain since he is the protagonist [[spoiler:of the story he created that is coming to life in Bright Falls]]. |
| 255 | * GunsInChurch: Given a nod with a sign outside the Bright Falls Church that explicitly states, "No concealed firearms allowed." |
| 256 | [[/folder]] |
| 257 | |
| 258 | [[folder:Tropes H - P]] |
| 259 | * HarderThanHard: Nightmare difficulty, in which not only do enemies do and take twice as much damage, it takes over twice as long to burn their shadows away. Most of your time on Nightmare will be spent dropping flares and running like mad. |
| 260 | * HazardousWater: Cauldron Lake as the Dark Presence resides there, yet the Anderson brothers ''still'' put it in their moonshine. |
| 261 | * HealingCheckpoint: You have RegeneratingHealth, but Safe Havens make you regenerate more quickly. |
| 262 | * TheHeartless: |
| 263 | ** The Taken, the {{mook}}s of [[MadeOfEvil the Dark Presence]], fall into this category quite well: They're shells of people animated by darkness. One manuscript page suggests that their mind as well as body has been Taken from them. A TV episode suggests another possibility altogether. |
| 264 | ** [[spoiler:Barbara Jagger]] is literally this after [[spoiler:a distraught Thomas Zane, realizing that she CameBackWrong after writing her back into existence, carved her heart out. The hole in her chest even goes through her black clothing.]] |
| 265 | * HeavyMithril: The two songs by Old Gods of Asgard imply that they're this. Their name and their decorating tastes pretty much confirms it. Also, Music/PoetsOfTheFall, which even has a song that's playing in the middle of one of the more difficult fights in the game. Worth mentioning as well that the two songs by the Old Gods are performed by Poets of the Fall. |
| 266 | * HelpYourselfInTheFuture: The reason Alan keeps stumbling across weapons and supplies. |
| 267 | * HeroicSacrifice: |
| 268 | ** In order to save Alice and defeat the Dark Presence, [[spoiler:Alan stays behind in the lake to uphold the EquivalentExchange]]. |
| 269 | ** In order to stop the Dark Presence in his time, [[spoiler:Thomas Zane wrote himself and everything involved with him out of existence. He did, however, add a loophole...]] |
| 270 | * HollywoodDarkness: Semi-justified though; in the backwoods where the game take place away from the buildings and light pollution of the city and under the bright moon, you can actually see about as well as Alan can sans flashlight. |
| 271 | * HollywoodHealing: |
| 272 | ** Averted. Alan gets a small cut on his head near the beginning of the game, and for the rest of the game, he has a bandage on the cut. |
| 273 | ** In a rather subtle example, Dr. Hartman starts wearing a splint on his nose after Alan punches him (once that we see, then once more according to a manuscript page). |
| 274 | * HopeSpot: |
| 275 | ** Safe Havens are literally this. In the case of this trope they apply when some of them break ''just'' as Alan is about to reach it. This can be quite vexing when Alan has a horde of Taken on his tail, is at low health, and can't run any more. |
| 276 | ** One of the manuscript pages describes Alan leaving the dark forest behind him, and explicitly says that things were looking up. Then he hears a [[OhCrap chainsaw...]] |
| 277 | * HorrorStruck: Alan is speechless when he tries to show Sheriff Breaker where he and Alice were staying at Cauldron Lake, only to find that the island isn't there any more. |
| 278 | * HumanoidAbomination: |
| 279 | ** The avatar of the Dark Presence, which looks and acts like an old woman in mourning clothes but is anything but human. |
| 280 | ** The Taken are also this, once being people that are possessed/corrupted by the BigBad. They look almost completely human when you take out their shield though, with the only signs of their new nature being BlackEyesOfEvil if you look close enough. |
| 281 | * HyperspaceArsenal: |
| 282 | ** Though not as massive as some arsenals, Alan Wake will generally end up carrying a shotgun or hunting rifle with about thirty rounds, a revolver with more than forty rounds, a flare gun with up to ten flares, an additional twenty flares and ten flashbang grenades, along with his flashlight and twenty batteries for it. That jacket has got to have some ''deep'' pockets. |
| 283 | *** He also seemingly stuffs the shotguns and rifle into his pockets. |
| 284 | *** To be fair, he does have three jackets on. |
| 285 | ** Taken who throw weapons will ''never'' run out of hammers, axes, or knives. This is most likely due to being Taken, as they can readily teleport thanks to the Dark Presence. |
| 286 | * IdiotBall: Suuuuure, Alan, going into the ''very'' dark trailer owned by the monotone-speaking person who knows you're looking for manuscript pages even though you never told them is ''obviously'' the smart thing to do! |
| 287 | * IHaveYourWife: Spoken nearly word for word by the kidnapper and later by the Dark Presence. [[spoiler:As it turns out, the former was just trying to con Alan and never had Alice in the first place. The Dark Presence, on the other hand, really did have Alice the whole time.]] |
| 288 | * ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: |
| 289 | ** Agent Nightingale's not a very good shot. Granted, he ''really'' likes [[TheAlcoholic the sauce]]. |
| 290 | ** Subverted with Sheriff Breaker, who's pretty good with her shotgun but won't hesitate to pump rounds into Taken who still have darkness shields up. |
| 291 | ** Averted with the Taken and their thrown weapons. They are downright surgical with those things. |
| 292 | ** [[spoiler:The kidnapper]] is a terrible shot, to the point that you will agree with Alan when he shouts "GIVE ME THE GUN!" |
| 293 | * ImprovisedWeapon: Anything and everything that creates light, from flashlights to flares to military-grade searchlights to Christmas lights. Not to mention an entire stage of lights and pyrotechnics! |
| 294 | * ImYourBiggestFan: Rose, the waitress at the Oh Deer Diner. She's even got a life-sized cardboard cutout of Alan Wake right in her diner. |
| 295 | * IndyEscape: This occurs near the end of the game when Alan is on a car bridge dodging and destroying various objects as well as trying not to fall through loose planks. |
| 296 | * IndyPloy: "I had no real plan." Alan admits this to himself while on his way to meet the kidnapper for the third time. He also admits this while [[spoiler:traveling toward the final showdown with the Dark Presence.]] |
| 297 | * IneffectualDeathThreats: The kidnapper keeps issuing threats to Alan that he will kill Alice if he does not get the manuscript. It's later discovered that [[spoiler:the kidnapper never had Alice and was just working under Hartman's plan to take and publish Departure]]. |
| 298 | * InfiniteFlashlight / TenSecondFlashlight: |
| 299 | ** All of the flashlights will last forever in standard use, but can be boosted to deal more damage and daze foes. Boosting eats through the batteries quickly, but the power will actually regenerate if left to recharge or filled up with batteries to recover it faster. |
| 300 | ** The prequel series features the latter trope where someone shines a light on a Taken deer only to have the flashlight fail shortly thereafter. |
| 301 | * InformedAbility: The passages of Alan's writing we see are not terribly impressive -- certainly not for a bestselling author. We're possibly not seeing Alan at his best, since we don't really have any samples from the books that made him famous, but we still don't see any glimpse of real talent. |
| 302 | * InspectorJavert: FBI Agent Nightingale, at your service and [[JerkAss to your dismay]]. Subverted in the "everyone believes him" part - his CowboyCop tendencies quickly puts him in the AxCrazy bin for the townsfolk (even though he's [[CassandraTruth technically right]] about [[spoiler:Alan being responsible for what's going on, due to the latter writing the manuscript]]). |
| 303 | * InstantSedation: Very possible due to [[spoiler:Dr. Hartman]] sedating Alan at the [[spoiler:Cauldron Lake Lodge]]. |
| 304 | * TheInsomniac: After things start going weird, Alan gets ''very'' little sleep. He makes up for it by long unaccounted periods under sedation. |
| 305 | * InsurmountableWaistHighFence: Alan isn't acrobatic at all, but he can climb over any waist-high fences he finds. |
| 306 | ** However, while running for the helicopter with the sheriff, Alan must protect her while she unlocks the gate to a fence. The fence in question is at head-height, made of wood, has boards missing, and the sheriff has a shotgun. Even so, it cannot be bypassed until unlocked. |
| 307 | ** There are a lot of obstacles which look like Alan could easily climb over, or even move a nearby object in order to climb over, but you instead have to take a large detour in order to get past them. |
| 308 | * InterfaceScrew: Alan gets one during a flashback, simulating a hangover, in the form of a pulsing screen with over-saturated light and a persistent buzzing sound. Upon putting on a pair of sunglasses, the visuals clear up, and upon taking a few painkillers, the buzzing fades, too. |
| 309 | * InterfaceSpoiler: Before the reveal of who he is and why he jumped in to save Alan from the Taken, the game will tell you to "Follow the Kidnapper" as your goal. Thanks. |
| 310 | * InvisibleToNormals: According to a manuscript page, the words, directions and symbols left by Cynthia Weaver can only be seen by those who are "touched" by the Dark Presence and use light to reveal them in the walls. |
| 311 | * ItsUpToYou: Subverted, in multiple ways: |
| 312 | ** The few times you have allies, they help take out the Taken. |
| 313 | ** At the Old Gods of Asgard stage, Barry helps a lot with the stage lights. |
| 314 | ** In Episode 5, Alan and Sarah Breaker are looking for keys to a helicopter in the town hall. Sarah says she'll look for the keys and asks Alan to repair the fuse box, but Alan complains he already got electrocuted that day, referencing an event earlier in the level. Sarah relents, and Alan goes looking for the keys while Sarah fixes the fuse. |
| 315 | * {{Jerkass}}: |
| 316 | ** To some extent this applies to Alan. He's got a rather volatile temper. |
| 317 | *** And given the internal (or whatever) monologue given by both Alans in The Writer, he's aware that he can be this. |
| 318 | ** Agent Nightingale definitely qualifies, as the townsfolk can attest to. |
| 319 | ** The kidnapper practically goes out of his way to insult Alan and threaten to kill Alice. |
| 320 | * JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind: The first two DLC packs, "The Signal" and "The Writer", follow Alan's journey through the Dark Place... which is his mind. [[MindScrew Sort of.]] |
| 321 | * JumpScare: |
| 322 | ** The scenes where [[spoiler:Barbara Jagger]] appears right in front of the camera in a cutscene. |
| 323 | ** Unknowingly stepping on a bear trap is guaranteed to send most players leaping out of their seats. |
| 324 | ** Near the start of chapter 2: When Alan is making his way down to Lover's Peak from the cabin, as you walk down the road a bin to your right will, without warning, explode in the loudest way possible, which will make you absolutely [[BringMyBrownPants soil yourself]], even if you're prepared. |
| 325 | ** Also, in the same area, if you walk into one of the empty houses, you may randomly take damage. Made even scarier if it happens while watching the ''[[ShowWithinAShow Night Springs]]'' episode. |
| 326 | ** Any time you walk into a puddle of darkness you haven't seen yet counts too. |
| 327 | ** There is one instance where a Taken will appear the second you open a door, right in front of you. |
| 328 | ** Extremely frequent during the later part of the last chapter, [[spoiler:where the image of Barbara Jagger holding Alice jumps out on the screen, accompanied by a screeching noise, before every instance of her speaking to Alan.]] It gets old really quickly. |
| 329 | * KillItWithFire: One sequence in "The Signal" DLC allows you to incinerate Taken with blast furnaces. |
| 330 | * KingMook: Taken created from named characters (i.e. Stucky or Ranger Rusty) are probably the toughest enemies in the game, having the most health and the FlashStep ability of the EliteMooks type enemies. |
| 331 | * KnightTemplar: Agent Nightingale. |
| 332 | * LampshadedDoubleEntendre: Used in a non-sexual context, when a cop on a radio comments that Nightingale has a whiff of "Eau de Scotch" about him. |
| 333 | * LargeHam: |
| 334 | ** Stucky. For someone who gets barely a few minutes worth of appearance, he's very charismatic. And loud. |
| 335 | ** [[spoiler:The insane side of Alan]] in the [=DLC=] episodes. |
| 336 | * LaserSight: Played with. It's not perfect, but both Alan and the player use the flashlight's beam as a makeshift set of crosshairs. |
| 337 | * LeakingCanOfEvil: While the Dark Presence's goal is to escape its confinement beneath Cauldron Lake, it does posses some level of wiggle-room. It (in the form of Barbara Jagger) can interact with people in dark places in Bright Falls and it can possess people by turning them into Taken, though it is left vague if it always had this power or if it tricked Alan or Thomas into giving them to it. |
| 338 | * LensFlare: When you shine your light on one of the Taken, a lens flare effect pops up over them as a sort of indicator. It contracts in size as you burn away the darkness protecting them, leaving them vulnerable to conventional weapons when it vanishes. |
| 339 | * LighthousePoint: Alan's destination in his first nightmare, and again [[spoiler:near the end in "The Writer"]]. |
| 340 | * LightIsGood: And it's the only way you can destroy the layer of darkness around every Taken. |
| 341 | * LightningCanDoAnything: It's a bit hard to see, but a bolt of lightning saves Barry at the Anderson farm by striking the dragon spotlight and turning the stage lights on. |
| 342 | * LightEmUp: Alan doesn't have elemental powers, but nonetheless has to use light to make the possessed minions of the darkness vulnerable — usually flashlights. |
| 343 | * LittleNo: Alan says this in response to [[spoiler:Dr. Hartman]] telling him that [[spoiler:Alice died from drowning in the lake]]. |
| 344 | * LiveActionAdaptation: In addition to the Bright Falls prequel, there's the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIG1xnYdlFo music video]] for "War" by Music/PoetsOfTheFall, featuring Ilkka Villi, the model for Alan, as... [[ShapedLikeItself Alan]]. Interestingly, the video credits him as such, despite the fact that the song does exist in universe (see: ''Celebrity Paradox'' above), which would lead to the question of whether the man in the video is Ilkka Villi playing fictional character Alan Wake, a semi-fictional version of Ilkka Villi playing the real (in-universe) Alan Wake, [[MindScrew or both]]. |
| 345 | * LiveActionCutscene: Everything on-screen on any in-game TV is shot in live-action, including whenever Alan himself is on screen. Most notably, the ShowWithinAShow "Night Springs", which is an {{homage}} to ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone''. |
| 346 | * LockAndLoadMontage: Happens to Barry off screen (via a manuscript page) in the Bright Falls General Store. |
| 347 | * LoopholeAbuse: When [[spoiler:Zane]] wrote himself out of existence, he said that anything of his in [[spoiler:a shoebox]] would remain. This includes [[spoiler:[[ChekhovsGun his books in the cabin, the manuscript page, and the Clicker in the Well-Lit Room]]]]. Invoked since he made the loophole specifically ''to'' abuse it. |
| 348 | %%* LovecraftCountry: It's on the other side of America, though. |
| 349 | * MadnessMantra: |
| 350 | ** The Taken often growl rhetoric at you themed after their clothing or occupation. A handyman, for example, might babble auto repair tips to you. |
| 351 | ** Carl Stucky is ''[[AxCrazy very]]'' pleased to meet you. |
| 352 | ** You get TWO PILLS IN THE MORNING and then YOU'LL BE CALM ALL DAY LONG. |
| 353 | * MaleGaze: On occasion, the camera tends to give put female body parts significant screen real estate. That said, partially justified since it's implied that many of these instances (which involve Alice) are to suggest Alan's gaze. |
| 354 | %%* ManicPixieDreamGirl: Barbara Jagger for Thomas Zane. |
| 355 | * ManlyTears: As Alan leaves the Well Lit Room in the final episode, Barry gives him a hug goodbye and weeps openly. |
| 356 | * MarriedToTheJob: In a flashback, tension arises between Alan and Alice due to all of the time Alan dedicated to his book tour for his last Alex Casey novel ''The Sudden Stop''. Alan apologizes and suggests the two of them take a vacation after the tour ends. This, plus his temper over his writer's block, put him in his current predicament in Bright Falls. |
| 357 | * TheMaze: Alan has to go through a hedge maze in the garden of the Cauldron Lake Lodge, fighting Taken along the way. |
| 358 | * MeaningfulName: The initials of the protagonist (A. Wake) ([[MindScrew and his wife]]). But there's also Sheriff Breaker - as in the electrical component. |
| 359 | ** There's also the name of the town as compared to the town of the in-game TV show. Bright Falls, Night Springs. |
| 360 | ** Many, ''many'' more exist for the knowledgeable troper: Pat Maine (Maine being the location for many Creator/StephenKing novels), Randolph (as in Randolph Carter, Creator/HPLovecraft's AuthorAvatar), Barbara Jagger (a name reminiscent of Literature/BabaYaga, tying in with Bird's Leg Cabin and her being called a "witch") and even Thomas Zane (reminiscent of Lovecraft's Erich Zann). |
| 361 | ** Despite it likely being a coincidence (it's a variant spelling of Thor), Tor Anderson's first name is also the name of a publishing company that specializes in science fiction and fantasy books. |
| 362 | * MediumAwareness: Played with. [[spoiler:The characters realize they're in Alan's book, but not that they're within a video game.]] |
| 363 | ** It gets even more meta once you notice the game is formed to resemble a season of a TV series. |
| 364 | ** And there's the DoubleMeaning in Dr. Hartman's line: |
| 365 | ---> "We don’t want you to have another episode." |
| 366 | * MediumBlending: The people you see on televisions are all done in live-action, including Alan Wake himself (who is portrayed by the physical model for his character with his voice actor dubbing the lines over). |
| 367 | * MetaFiction: |
| 368 | ** Alan's perusal of his manuscript allows him to read details of the game's plot before they occur. |
| 369 | ** It allows the player to find out about events that Alan wasn't/isn't/won't be there to witness. And some of the pages are so short that what will actually happen [[ProphecyTwist isn't clear until it does.]] |
| 370 | ** It provides a neat explanation for why there are guns scattered around for him to find - he wrote them there to help himself. |
| 371 | * MindScrew: The game very deliberately does ''not'' explain everything, because it's a horror story, and "in a horror story, the hero might not survive and not all your questions will be answered". There's a reason fans and the studio both have been aching for a sequel for over a decade. |
| 372 | ** Penny Arcade [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this: |
| 373 | ---> '''Gabe:''' Alan Wake is about a writer, writing about another writer, who is writing about himself and ANOTHER FUCKING WRITER! |
| 374 | ** Is Alan crazy? What is the Dark Presence? How can his manuscript describe events that haven't happened yet? |
| 375 | ** The ending is very hard to understand. Who/what is [[spoiler:Mr. Scratch]]? Why did the clock in the lodge start spinning backwards? And what does Alan mean when he says [[spoiler:"It's not a lake... it's an ocean."]]? |
| 376 | ** Nightingale has a lovely one himself. To wit: |
| 377 | ---> '''Alan Wake, Reading:''' "Nightingale tried to make sense of the manuscript. It was disjointed and strange. He didn't understand half of it, but it all rang true, impossibly true. He took out his hip flask when he reached the page that described how he reached the page that made him take out his hip flask. It wasn't the booze that made his mind reel." |
| 378 | ** The manuscript page titled "Wake Reads a Page". Here it is in its full glory: |
| 379 | ---> '''Alan Wake, reading:''' "I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page in front of my eyes and read it." |
| 380 | ** The ending has [[spoiler:Alan trapped in the cabin writing a manuscript...]] the same thing that happened at the beginning. Combined with the odd rewinding clock, this may mean that [[spoiler:Alan, upon finishing the manuscript, writes that he erases the whole thing and starts a new better manuscript, locking him and the Presence in a loop]] while the rest of the world can continue normally. |
| 381 | ** Let's not even get started on the live action prequel ''Bright Falls''... |
| 382 | * MinecartMadness: Only one of which happens with an actual minecart. Otherwise done with cable cars. |
| 383 | * MissingTime: One moment, Alan's diving into Cauldron Lake to save Alice, the next, he's in his crashed car hanging over a cliff a week later. He later finds out [[spoiler:he spent that week writing ''Departure'' under the influence of the Dark Presence.]] |
| 384 | * MoodMotif: In the [=DLCs=], a short track titled ''The Clicker'' plays every time a flashback dialogue between Alan and Alice is revealed, after lighting up the "memory" keywords. |
| 385 | * MostWritersAreWriters: The game is basically built around this trope, both in itself and in-universe. |
| 386 | * MurderBallad: "[[https://youtu.be/GLxb7m0j5Jg?list=PLjACqN5i5sDUo3MfGtqogz7P3u5JUm3c- The Poet and the Muse]]," a folky PowerBallad by HeavyMithril FakeBand [[Music/PoetsOfTheFall Old Gods of Asgard]], which tells a rather simplified version of the tale of Tom the Poet and his Muse. Tom used the magical properties of the lake he lived by to resurrect the Muse by RewritingReality when she drowned in its waters. When Tom discovered she CameBackWrong, |
| 387 | -->He took her in without a word for he saw his grave mistake\ |
| 388 | And vowed them both to silence deep beneath the lake\ |
| 389 | Now, if it's real or just a dream one mystery remains\ |
| 390 | For it is said, on moonless nights they may still haunt this place |
| 391 | %%* TheMuse: [[spoiler:Barbara Jagger was Thomas Zane]]'s, and Alice is Alan's. |
| 392 | * NarrativeFiligree: In between walking through dark forests and blasting away Taken, you can find signs and plaques scattered around Bright Falls that give a bit of backstory to the town - for example, when Alan enters the mine in Episode 3, you can read that Bright Falls started as a coal mining town, and a bridge you can cross later on was named after a police officer when he sacrificed his life to save people from a car accident. Additionally, there are radios for you to listen to, both giving updates on the non-Alan side of things and having unneeded stuff like Pat Maine interviewing a psychologist. |
| 393 | * NiceDayDeadlyNight: During the daytime, life in Bright Falls is fairly normal. Once night falls, things get dangerous in a hurry, with Alan having to fight large numbers of shadowy Taken. |
| 394 | * NiceJobBreakingItHero: Nice job for creating a story that would come to life, Alan. |
| 395 | * NiceJobFixingItVillain: Nice job for allowing your puppet to write his escape and your downfall into his [[RewritingReality reality-warping manuscript]], Dark Presence. |
| 396 | * TheNicknamer: Agent Nightingale, who derisively calls Alan by a different author's name every time they meet, once even giving him two different nicknames in the same sentence. |
| 397 | * NinjaPirateZombieRobot: The Taken are basically Zombie (unliving shells of the people they were) Demon (possessed by the DP) Vampires (supernatural durability, aversion to light, only come out at night). |
| 398 | * NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The ''Night Springs'' narrator does a near-perfect Creator/RodSerling. |
| 399 | * NoFlowInCGI: Remedy went to [[AvertedTrope great lengths]] to ensure that Alan's tweed jacket behaves like a tweed jacket. |
| 400 | * NoSell: The Taken will be immune to your firearms unless you remove the Dark Presence surrounding them first. |
| 401 | * NothingIsScarier: Most enemies will pop out of nowhere, or immediately sneak up on Alan from behind. The only probable indications to let you know of their presence are the ScareChord and BulletTime triggers than happen when they are around. Other areas are also scripted to endlessly spawn multiple Taken even after you cleared out the last wave, so you cannot guarantee that you are safe in an empty space after wandering around for too long. |
| 402 | * NoticeThis: |
| 403 | ** Weapons and supplies as well as coffee thermoses flash for easy spotting, while manuscript pages are simply lit up by an unknown light source. These may be justified given the nature of the game world. Alan's flashlight will also occasionally reveal hidden graffiti left by Cynthia that leads him to hidden chests or his goal. |
| 404 | ** Can Pyramids, on the other hand, do ''not'' glow or shine and are easily forgotten about. There's only twelve in the game, and odds are you'll only find or remember to shoot at least two of them. It's telling that while there are Achievements for getting 100% of all the other collectibles, the one for shooting tin can pyramids only requires five out of all twelve. |
| 405 | * ObviouslyEvil: Oh hi, evil old lady in the mourning dress! |
| 406 | * OhCrap: |
| 407 | ** Alan yells this one out loud when a boxcar drops in front of him only inches away. |
| 408 | ** Agent Nightingale gets such a moment upon realizing [[spoiler:that he is reenacting events from the manuscript shortly before the Dark Presence takes him away]]. |
| 409 | ** Even players aren't safe. The moment [[spoiler:Barbara Jagger]] suddenly jumps at the screen is sure to soil quite a few trousers. |
| 410 | ** Anytime a safe haven goes out. |
| 411 | ** "''The flashlight was heavy in my hand, and each pull of the trigger sent a painful shock up my arm. But I was finally out of the woods and things were looking up. [[ChainsawGood That's when I heard the chainsaw.]]''" |
| 412 | * OminousFog: You could be under attack at any given time, but once fog starts blowing through the surrounding area, you know you're in ''big'' trouble. |
| 413 | ** And in some cases, the fog will occasionally create silhouettes of things that aren't there, such as multiple-story-tall monstrous things, odd shaped people, or other weird things. |
| 414 | * OminousTelevision: All throughout the plot, Alan finds various televisions that turn on as he walks by them. Sometimes they will be showing the ShowWithinAShow ''Night Springs'', or Alan will see himself narrating the events happening to him, as though the PlayerCharacter is just a fictionalized version of a Horror author. During the DLC episodes, he will hear a maddened version of his narrating the events that are happening as though he is desperately trying to kill the PlayerCharacter, all the while flashing ominous footage of an eye, "[[Recap/AlanWakeDLCTheSignal The Signal]]" ending with Alan hunting down a floating TV. |
| 415 | * OneBulletClips: Justified, as none of the guns use detachable magazines, and so each bullet has to be loaded one at a time. |
| 416 | * OneHitKill: Flareguns, especially if fired at a group of tightly clustered Taken, next to shooting the propane tanks, flashbang grenades, and clearing the boiler room at the church's basement in "The Signal". [[spoiler:The lighthouse in "The Writer" on open spaces after clearing away the blocking boulders, and it's very satisfying to see a large group of Taken disintegrate as they try to bum rush Alan. The downside: it's a lighthouse, so the light sweeps. The upside: two beams, so Alan's fine as long he has extra flares, flashbang grenades, and batteries as backup.]] |
| 417 | ** The flare gun and flashbangs are so powerful they're essentially a "No, I don't want to partake in this encounter, thank you" button. |
| 418 | * OneHitPolykill: The two-round shotgun can potentially blow away two lined up Taken, but this usually only works with the weaker FragileSpeedster types. The standard knife-throwers will absorb most of the blast unless previously wounded and the axe-wielders take two shots to kill. |
| 419 | * OnlyTheAuthorCanSaveThemNow: InUniverse and {{Justified|Trope}}. [[spoiler:Alan wrote the story the Dark Presence is using, which allows him to rewrite the story to save Alice and Bright Falls.]] |
| 420 | * OntologicalMystery: In the first episode, you find yourself in your own wrecked car on the edge of a cliff, with no memory of what you've been doing for the last week. |
| 421 | ** [[spoiler:The meta-fictional narrative of the game leaves open questions like this all over the place. Did Tom Zane write Alan into being? Did Alan's story dictate everything that everyone in Bright Falls did, retroactively changing things? Did Alan write Zane writing Alan? Who knows?]] |
| 422 | * OpenSaysMe: Alan kicks at least a few doors/boards down. Luckily for him, the doors and their frames are usually old, and not as strong as they would be. |
| 423 | * OurZombiesAreDifferent: The Taken have a lot in common with traditional zombies, being former humans reduced to an undead puppet state. However, their ability to appear out of thin air and (as shown by Stucky) even teleport around gives them a phantasmal element as well. They're also crazy fast and a lot smarter in combat than most other survival horror zombie enemies. |
| 424 | * OverlyLongGag: The manuscript page entitled, "Alan Reads a Page". |
| 425 | --> '''Alan:''' I lifted the page up to my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page up to my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page up to my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page up to my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page up to my eyes and read it. In it... |
| 426 | * PassingTheTorch: The ending implies that [[spoiler:Rose]] has taken over for [[spoiler:Cynthia as the new Lady of the Light]]. |
| 427 | * PermaStubble: Alan. Notably, he's clean-shaven during the flashbacks. |
| 428 | * PetTheDog: During Agent Nightingale's interview with [[spoiler:post-possession Rose]], she suffers a breakdown. Nightingale, up to this point established as quite the {{Jerkass}}, stops the interview to calm her down. |
| 429 | * PlotHole: |
| 430 | ** One of these caused the entire thing. [[spoiler:Thomas Zane used the lake's "make stories come true" power to bring Barbara Jagger back to life, but he didn't give any justification or reason for her to do so]]. The Dark Presence was very eager to provide an explanation for this plot hole. |
| 431 | ** One of the ''Night Springs'' episodes also has a literal plot hole. In the short, the apparent writer of the story has conceived a scenario in which two old women enter their basement to check out something strange. What's there is a hole, an absence of plot because the writer cannot conceive just what he intended them to see upon arrival. He then shoos them away and contemplates ending the story, at which point the short ends. |
| 432 | * PluckyComicRelief: Barry Wheeler, Alan's agent. However, he grows a bit more involved in the fight as the game progresses while still being the comic relief. |
| 433 | * PopStarComposer: Finnish AlternativeRock band Music/PoetsOfTheFall are the real talent behind the HeavyMithril FakeBand Old Gods of Asgard, and play all of the original [[https://youtu.be/8-l_kbZbXRQ?list=PLjACqN5i5sDUo3MfGtqogz7P3u5JUm3c- songs]] that the band play in-game. |
| 434 | * PortalPool: Cauldron Lake, maybe. Local superstition says that it's a portal to the underworld. The Dark Presence lives within the lake, but we don't know much more than that. |
| 435 | * PosthumousCharacter: We learn far more about Stuckey as a Taken than we ever do as a real person. His extreme fondness for hot dogs, for one thing. |
| 436 | * PostModernism: Directly mentions and blatantly references authors and shows that have inspired it several times. |
| 437 | * PowerBallad: |
| 438 | ** "[[https://youtu.be/GLxb7m0j5Jg?list=PLjACqN5i5sDUo3MfGtqogz7P3u5JUm3c- The Poet and the Muse]]," the folky MurderBallad by HeavyMithril FakeBand Old Gods of Asgard, which reveals the terrible fates of the protagonist's predecessors, and offers a way for him to escape their EternalRecurrence. |
| 439 | ** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIG1xnYdlFo War]]" the sweeping epic devotional about unexpectedly finding someone you could fight a common enemy with, credited in an in-game cameo as a song by Music/PoetsOfTheFall, the real-life talent behind the Old Gods. |
| 440 | * ThePowerOfRock: One of the best parts of the game has Alan and Barry defending a concert stage from waves of Taken. With a kickass song blaring away. And ''very'' impressive pyrotechnics. And ammo everywhere. |
| 441 | * {{Prequel}}: Remedy created a 6-episode live action prequel mini-series to cover events before Alan arrives. Depending on fan feedback, this may be extended to a second season. The first season ends literally at the beginning of the game with Alan driving up to the wrecked car (the result of the end of the prequel). |
| 442 | * PretentiousLatinMotto: The phrase written on the sundial (created by [[spoiler:Thomas Zane]]) at Dr. Hartman's clinic says "In tenebras cadere", which roughly translates to "To fall into darkness". |
| 443 | * PreviouslyOn: The game is set up as if it was a television show, complete with both {{cliffhanger}} endings cutting to a relevant song and "Previously on Alan Wake" segments to explain the story so far. |
| 444 | * PrimalFear: This game plays up fear of the dark for all its worth. |
| 445 | * ProductPlacement: |
| 446 | ** Might be justified in that the game plays like a TV show. What do TV shows have? [[FridgeBrilliance Product placement]]. |
| 447 | ** One TV, instead of showing a ''Night Springs'' episode, shows [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79_OANOGFyY an ad for Verizon Wireless]] after a faux movie trailer. There's also a conspicuous shot of the brand of batteries Alan uses (Energizer) early on. |
| 448 | ** Later on, you start off staring at a billboard for Verizon. |
| 449 | ** Ford Motor Company provides some of the in-game vehicles, both drivable and non-drivable. The Wakes' Lincoln [=MKX=], a Ford Fusion in the Bright Falls [=PD=] parking lot, and a drivable Ford Super Duty pickup. |
| 450 | ** In the [[DownloadableContent DLC]], "The Signal", you get a Verizon phone at the start of the episode. The batteries, however, are not Energizer, but they appear to be some sort of in-game, generic brand. Plus, Thomas Zane asks, "Can you hear me now?" right after Alan gets his phone. |
| 451 | ** Alan used a Tivo to record his appearence on a talk show. |
| 452 | ** Averted in ''Remastered'', which removes all of the product placement in the game. |
| 453 | * ProductionForeshadowing: ''Remastered'' contains references to Watery, Washington, as well as Ahma beer and Coffee World, all of which would carry some plot significance in ''VideoGame/AlanWakeII''. In addition [[spoiler:[[https://youtu.be/XzJmrgIqvTo?si=wo6fT0v4cwNmkjAR Vision 03]], one of the hidden manuscript pages found there, [[https://youtu.be/37XSh81--iM?si=A8_noY_kFvZdhxCn perfectly describes the opening level]] [[AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent in which we play as Nightingale]].]] |
| 454 | * ProperlyParanoid: [[spoiler:Cynthia Weaver]] knows to be afraid of the dark, as Alan and the others eventually realize. |
| 455 | ** Barry as well. When he isn't able to contact either Alan or Alice for a week, he immediately heads for Bright Falls. |
| 456 | ** Generally, if someone survives an encounter with the Dark presence, they become afraid of the dark. |
| 457 | * ProtagonistTitle: Obviously, while ''American Nightmare'' is all about the hillbilly setting instead. |
| 458 | * PsychologicalHorror: One of the game's selling tags, or "Psychological Thriller" to be specific. |
| 459 | * {{Pun}}: In the game's slogan no less, "I am A. Wake." Used again at the end of the game with, "Alan, wake up." This veers into potential MindScrew territory. Alan's wife is named Alice, which also forms the initials A. Wake. Thus if one wants to be ambiguous, one can take any reference to A. Wake as referencing Alice and not Alan. |
| 460 | [[/folder]] |
| 461 | |
| 462 | [[folder:Tropes Q - Z]] |
| 463 | * RailingKill: While meeting with the kidnapper on a wooden viewing balcony, at one point Alan punches the kidnapper hard enough to break the railing he's leaning against and send them ''both'' falling to the ground below. |
| 464 | * RailroadTracksOfDoom: |
| 465 | ** Upon Alan's arrival in Bright Falls, a train crosses the railroad bridge the ferry passes under. |
| 466 | ** In Episode 3, when Alan looks down at the train depot, a train rolls out of it. When he's getting close and making his way under the bridge, ''another'' train crosses the bridge. |
| 467 | * RealLifeWritesThePlot: Inverted; in Bright Falls, the plot writes real life! |
| 468 | * RealIsBrown: You may notice that many objects are shaded brown during daytime scenes. |
| 469 | * RealityWarper: The Dark Presence targets artists, manifesting their creativity in reality while influencing their creations to make itself stronger. |
| 470 | * RealityWarpingIsNotAToy: Alan and his fellow creatives, granted MagicWriting abilities by proximity to Cauldron Lake, an EldritchLocation, all learn the hard way that they're unwittingly playing directly into the ambitions of the Dark Presence, its resident EldritchAbomination, which aims to become a {{Humanoid|Abomination}} one, using {{Plot Hole}}s and ambiguities in their works as a pretext. |
| 471 | * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Sheriff Sarah Breaker is pretty reasonable, especially considering the freakish events following Alan around. Her initial reaction to the Dark Presence [[spoiler:snatching Nightingale]] is to ask Wake how to fight the Presence, and she doesn't bat an eye once Wake tells her that they need to find [[spoiler:Cynthia Weaver]]. It's implied that this is because Bright Falls is something of a WeirdnessMagnet, so strange goings-on aren't really a new thing for her. |
| 472 | * RecursiveReality: One of the pages you find talks about Alan finding a page and reading from it that he found a page and read from it that he found a page and read from it that... |
| 473 | * RedundantParody: Somehow the game manages to do it to ''itself'', combined with SelfDeprecation. The two pages of Alan's novel "The Sudden Stop" you can read are clearly supposed to be an exaggerated spoof of Max's PrivateEyeMonologue from ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'', except that those were already so intentionally over-the-top that these would fit right in. (Then again, considering Alan's AuthorAvatar status...) |
| 474 | * ReverseEscortMission: |
| 475 | ** One mission has Alan escorted in the wood by Mott, [[spoiler:who kidnapped Alice,]] after a lift explosion caused Alan to lose his stuff. [[spoiler:As neither like each other, Mott only gives Alan a flare, so he must rely on Mott.]] |
| 476 | ** Another mission has Alan escorted by Sheriff Breaker, who wields a pump-action with unlimited ammo. She does give Alan two guns and a flashlight beforehand, along with ammunition and batteries. |
| 477 | * RevolversAreJustBetter: Or, in this case, the only thing available at all. While the double-barrel/pump-action shotgun and hunting rifle outstrip it in terms of firepower, they can't carry as much ammo as the revolver does and their shells aren't as plentiful (except in the shotgun's case during the final battle in "The Writer"). Flare guns are ridiculously rare, except at a certain boss fight. |
| 478 | * RewritingReality: Cauldron Lake allows anybody to do this, but the Dark Presence influences the writing to its own ends. |
| 479 | * RoomFullOfCrazy: At one point Alan enters a room completely scrawled with the strange graffiti repeating the name Tom over and over. If you look around the room even more, you'll find other phrases distinct from the normal glowy graffiti that suggests a more complex relationship between [[spoiler:Thomas, Barbara and Cynthia]]. |
| 480 | * RunningGag: |
| 481 | ** Agent Nightingale refuses to call Alan Wake by his real name, and instead keeps calling him by the names of other famous writers, like Creator/JamesJoyce or Creator/StephenKing. He never re-uses any of them, either. |
| 482 | ** The Alan Wake cardboard cutout, which Barry sees fit to drag along to the clinic. Heck, he even carries it to the farm and beyond! |
| 483 | ** Barry likes threatening to sue people. |
| 484 | ** People making fun of Alan's elbow patches and tweed jacket. |
| 485 | * SameLanguageDub: As with the protagonist of Remedy's ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' games, Alan's model and voice are [[http://remedygames.com/matthew-porretta-visited-the-remedy-office/ two different people.]] Finnish actor Ilkka Villi acted as Wake's live-action actor, motion capture actor, and even provided the character's model, but the character was voiced by Creator/MatthewPorretta; the reason given was that, while Villi speaks fluent English, his (faint, but noticeable) natural Finnish accent meant a professional voice actor was brought in due to Wake's American nationality. Only one of the FMV clips provide this trope though, as in the rest of them, Alan's narration is not synced up to his image on the screen. |
| 486 | * SanityHasAdvantages: |
| 487 | ** Inverted: |
| 488 | --->'''Tor Anderson:''' It takes crazy to know [[MindScrew crazy]]!\ |
| 489 | '''Alan Wake:''' That's the sanest thing I've heard in a while. |
| 490 | ** Played straight in "The Signal" and "The Writer" [[spoiler:where Alan has gone completely insane and self-destructive, and the protagonist is the rational part of his mind trying to bring him back to his senses]]. |
| 491 | * SceneryPorn: Washington's mountains and pine forests are beautiful, both during the day and at night. They're pretty [[ShownTheirWork accurate]] representations of rural areas of the Pacific Northwest too. |
| 492 | * SchmuckBait: At one point in Episode 4 that sticks Alan without weapons, he gets chased down a path by a trio of Taken toward a Safe Haven. Halfway to the Haven, there's a generator-powered light. However, the Taken are accurate with their weapons and fast enough that you won't have time to start the generator before they attack you; not that you'd know that on your first playthrough. |
| 493 | * ScrewTheWarWerePartying: After fighting off Taken people and vehicles, Alan and Barry make it to the Anderson house. Barry then finds the brothers' moonshine. |
| 494 | --> '''Barry:''' Hey, Al. Lots of hours before dawn. Might as well get some rest. And by rest, I mean drunk.\ |
| 495 | '''Alan:''' Come on, Barry. This is -- Yeah, what the hell. |
| 496 | * ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem: [[spoiler:Zane]] wrote himself and everything he created out of existence to stop the Dark Presence but purposefully put in a loophole to pass knowledge on. |
| 497 | * SecurityBlanket: When he was young, Alan was afraid of the dark, so his mom gave him a light switch called "the Clicker" to drive the monsters away. [[spoiler:At the end of Episode 5, Alan finds the Clicker in a shoebox with a page written by Thomas Zane that basically gives it the power to defeat the Dark Presence.]] |
| 498 | * SelfDeprecation: |
| 499 | ** Emerson, one of the patients in Hartman's clinic, is a video game developer. He tries to scare people by "sneaking" up on them in plain view muttering "Scary, scary, scary, scary, BOO!" You can find him again soon afterward, where he's babbling a series of amusing {{Take That}}s at producers and writers. Also counts as a TakeThat against practically all past horror games that use the slasher/gore style of horror where things are scary because they're gross and unexpected. Did we mention that his room has an Xbox 360 and a copy of the ''Night Springs'' video game? |
| 500 | ** Dr. Hartman's reaction to Emerson adds to the self-deprecation. His voice is full of disdain when he mentions that Emerson makes video games, and he says that Emerson is allowed to stay at his clinic for artists because making video games takes "some small creative effort". It is also a TakeThat against critics who say video games aren't artistic (if not art). After all, this is a game that draws heavily upon some critically acclaimed pieces of media as well as drawing from media that are huge {{Mind Screw}}s. So this is a MindScrew TakeThat SelfDeprecation joke. |
| 501 | * SequelHook: |
| 502 | ** "Alan Wake's journey through the night will continue." Also a ShoutOut since that same stinger was used in ''VideoGame/MaxPayne''. |
| 503 | ** [[spoiler:"Return", by Alan Wake]]. |
| 504 | ** In a more subtle example, the last image in the pre-DLC game is [[spoiler:an [[DramaticEllipsis ellipsis]]]]. |
| 505 | * ShortRangeShotgun: Actually a bonus in this case. If you're far enough away, one shotgun blast can take out multiple Taken. |
| 506 | * ShoutOut: Has [[ShoutOut/AlanWake its own page]]. |
| 507 | * ShownTheirWork: |
| 508 | ** Thousands of pictures were taken of the Pacific Northwest to ensure that the area would be accurately represented. |
| 509 | ** The ''Night Springs'' episode "A Quantum Suicide" is a remarkably concise, if somewhat simplistic, explanation of quantum suicide and quantum immortality, in addition to the many-worlds interpretation. |
| 510 | * ShowWithinAShow: |
| 511 | ** ''Night Springs'', a thinly veiled homage to ''Franchise/TheTwilightZone'', which was apparently inspired by events that transpired in Bright Falls. |
| 512 | ** ''Departure'', the novel Alan keeps finding pages of, also counts. One of the pages takes this and runs with it, saying nothing but, "I lifted the page up to my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page up to my eyes and read it. In it, I lifted the page up to my eyes and read it. In it..." and so on. |
| 513 | ** Alan's ''Alex Casey'' series is a ShoutOut to ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' in multiple ways. |
| 514 | ** In a flashback, we see an appearance by Alan on a talk show called ''The Harry Garrett Show''. |
| 515 | ** There's also the Anderson brothers' old rock band, "Old Gods of Asgard". |
| 516 | * SkepticNoLonger: Sheriff Breaker spends most of the game thinking that Wake is having a mental breakdown, and doesn't believe his stories of shadowy attackers and monsters. And then Agent Nightngale is stolen by the darkness right in front of her. One of the first things she says after she witnesses Nightingale's death is "Tell me how we can stop these things" with no hesitation at all. |
| 517 | * SkippableBoss: Birch, the only unique Taken you can simply run past. |
| 518 | * SmugSnake: Dr. Emil Hartman attempted to convince Alan that he is one of his patients in order to get him to continue writing the manuscript. Alan distrusted him from the get-go, so he never had a chance. |
| 519 | * SoundEffectBleep: In the beginning of "The Signal", Wake finds himself back at the Oh Deer Diner. But something is wrong about the other characters' conversations - some of the words will be replaced with a garbled distorted noise, which is even [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by the subtitles. |
| 520 | * SpookyPainting: Alan sees several of these around Cauldron Lake Lodge and many more stashed in Dr. Hartman's office, [[spoiler:after Alan is committed there]]. They were painted by a patient at the lodge, who tells Alan that he could not find inspiration to paint until Alan arrived. Earlier in the scenario Dr. Hartman tells Alan that the patient's paintings have been dark in theme since he started painting again. |
| 521 | * SprintMeter: An invisible one. Sprinting for too long causes Alan's speed to drop before eventually he's barely running. Standing still in this state causes Alan to put his hands on his knees and pant a while. |
| 522 | * StandYourGround: [[TacticalWithdrawal Unless at low health and/or a Safe Haven is nearby]], Alan will face Taken and poltergeists of all kinds. This especially applies to the battle at the Anderson stage. |
| 523 | * StealthParody: Maybe. Barry talking to Alan about Taken vanishing on death could be this at video games and enemy disappearing shortly after death. |
| 524 | * SteelEardrums: Averted through emphasis when Alan monologues on how his ears are ringing when he first fires a revolver (probably to remind players he's [[TheEveryman normal]]). Then played straight when it never happens again (undoubtedly to avoid annoying the player, but made kinda obvious through drawing unnecessary attention to it). |
| 525 | * StoryBreadcrumbs: Manuscript pages |
| 526 | * StoryToGameplayRatio: High, but lower than you might think considering that the game is ''very'' story-driven. While each episode has its own mini-story, plenty of it is given during gameplay. |
| 527 | * StylisticSuck: Arguably any narrative contrivance, plot hole or silly dialogue you might find has a very comfortable explanation. [[spoiler:Alan himself wrote the events of the game, and he's been struggling with feelings of insecurity about his writing for a while now. On top of that, the Dark Presence is forcing him to write a horror story instead of his normal spy thriller]]. |
| 528 | * SubliminalSeduction: When Alice and Alan are arguing at the beginning of the game inside the cabin, [[spoiler:Barbara Jagger]] briefly appears on screen in the darkness. |
| 529 | * SuperCellReception: In "The Signal", the GPS feature of Alan's phone works, despite being inside a mental world brought upon by the Dark Place. Alan himself [[LampshadeHanging mentions that there's no way it should work in those circumstances]]. [[spoiler:It turns out, Zane is guiding him.]] |
| 530 | * SuperDrowningSkills: Jumping into water results in instant death. This is even lampshaded in the first episode, and somewhat justified given that Cauldron Lake is the passageway to the [[EldritchLocation deeper, darker ocean green]]. |
| 531 | * SupernaturalHotspotTown: Bright Falls, a town in the Pacific Northwest with a caldera lake at its center; said lake houses [[spoiler:the Dark Presence, an entity capable of bringing creative works ranging from writing to paintings to life. It actively attempts to use the protagonist to free itself from underneath the lake and wreak havoc on reality.]] |
| 532 | * SuspiciouslyAproposMusic: During the set piece where you fight on a stage in the middle of the field as music plays. Without spoiling too much, let's just say that this is one of the few cases that this is a JustifiedTrope. |
| 533 | * SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity: Outside supply caches, resources are pretty sparse throughout the game. When you find plenty of ammo and batteries it's a good sign you're in for a tough fight. |
| 534 | ** [[spoiler:Justified, eventually; Alan probably wrote most of those in to give himself a fighting chance.]] |
| 535 | * TakeThat: |
| 536 | ** The game as a whole can perhaps be taken as a TakeThat from Remedy to past publishers it has worked with. |
| 537 | ** A manuscript page has Rose saying Alan should ignore the trolls online who say Departure will never be released. Given that a certain game was in Development Hell , this could easily be seen as a TakeThat against the gaming community. |
| 538 | ** In Dr. Hartman's clinic, you meet a game designer by the name of Emerson. Hartman explains his role and describes video games as "trash," but took him in since they require "some small creative effort." Considering the game has a high story-to-gameplay ratio with many {{Shout Out}}s to famous books and films, and how art plays a role in the game's plot, it seems to be a likely TakeThat towards detractors of the Video Games As Art argument. |
| 539 | * TalkativeLoon: Plenty of Cauldron Lake Lodge's inhabitants fit this description. |
| 540 | * TentativeLight: Some Safe Havens break when Alan reaches them, plus he constantly has to change batteries for his flashlight. |
| 541 | * TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: Episode 1 reveals [[spoiler:there was no cabin on Cauldron Lake.]] |
| 542 | * ThemeNaming: A couple of the characters are named after authors. Agent Nightingale? Florence Nightingale. The crazy game designer Emerson? Ralph Waldo Emerson. There's probably others that haven't been picked up on too. |
| 543 | ** The members of Old Gods of Asgard are named for deities in Norse mythology: Odin, Tor, Loki, and ([[OddNameOut Fat Bob]]) Baldur. |
| 544 | * TheoryOfNarrativeCausality: [[spoiler:If you don't come up with a good reason why things happen while writing in Cauldron Lake, the Dark Presence will come up with a reason for you.]] [[spoiler:Thomas Zane learned this the hard way.]] |
| 545 | %%* ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight |
| 546 | * ThisIsGonnaSuck: |
| 547 | ** When locked in a cabin, upon hearing a bulldozer start up, Alan comments, "This is bad." |
| 548 | ** "Oh, great, another [[RopeBridge cable car]]." |
| 549 | ** From "The Signal": "As Alan entered the trap..." |
| 550 | ** Also, after hearing a chainsaw rev up: |
| 551 | --->'''Barry:''' That's never a good sound |
| 552 | --->'''Alan:''' No. No, it isn't. |
| 553 | ** Alan groans "You've got to be kidding me!" when he hears the combine harvester spring to life. |
| 554 | * ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself: Driven by his desire to save Alice, Alan [[spoiler:leaves the safety of the Well-Lit Room]] in order to confront the Dark Presence once and for all. He says these words almost exactly. |
| 555 | * ThoseTwoGuys: The Anderson brothers. Also the two deputies you only encounter via the radio and a single cutscene. |
| 556 | * TimeTravel: After drinking the Anderson Brothers' moonshine, Alan somehow [[spoiler:travels back in time to the point at which he blacked out after jumping into Cauldron Lake]]. |
| 557 | ** More in the sense that Alan's [[spoiler:finally able to remember what happened during the week while trapped under the Dark Presence after Alice was taken.]] |
| 558 | * TitleDrop: Interestingly, not to the game, but to Alan's book, ''Departure''. During the TV interview in Episode 6, Alan mentions that his next book will be "a departure from the old for me." Well, [[GenreShift it was...]] |
| 559 | ** An episode of ''Night Springs'', the show Alan started his writing career with, drops the name of another book Alan would later write, ''Sudden Stop''. |
| 560 | * TookALevelInBadass: Arguably Barry from Episode 4 onwards. |
| 561 | ** Also, Alan himself. In Episode 1, he spends a lot of time running from the first Taken he comes across. In Episode 5, he deliberately leaves the safety of a well-lit pipe to [[BigDamnHeroes save Sarah and Barry from a horde of Taken]], and upon defeating several poltergeist objects, lets out a snarky, "[[BondOneLiner Down, boy.]]" On a more subtle note, if one pays attention, Alan's ability to sprint improves over the course of the game, allowing him to run longer. |
| 562 | * TooAwesomeToUse: Generally averted, as at the start of each episode Alan's gear from the previous is lost for one reason or another (i.e. being arrested by the police). This means that hoarding those flashbangs and flare guns instead of using them won't help. If you're hitting the climax of an episode, burn through that ammo! |
| 563 | ** Unfortunately, that doesn't stop players from hoarding them just in case. Flare gun ammo and flashbangs are hard to come by in some levels and it's difficult to predict when you are going to lose all your gear. |
| 564 | * [[invoked]] TorchTheFranchiseAndRun: Alan is planning to end his popular ''Alex Casey'' series by killing off the titular character. |
| 565 | * TownWithADarkSecret: In the literal sense. It's ''so'' secret that most of the town doesn't know about it! |
| 566 | ** Breaker all but outright states that [[spoiler:she knows about the weirdness going on around the town when she has Barry issue the "Night Springs" order.]] |
| 567 | * {{Troperiffic}}: |
| 568 | ** Of the LightIsGood and DarkIsEvil tropes, or basically ''anything related to Light versus Dark''. In this game, these are even manifested physically. |
| 569 | ** This game also gives off an impression that leaving a PlotHole in any work of fiction can lead to "disastrous" effects, [[spoiler:as explained by Alan in TheReveal during the climax. Poor Zane was a victim of this, writing Barbara back without detailing how.]] Such as that, when a question remains unanswered, or if there is no logical explanation as to why the plot suddenly jumped to another distinct point, a meta "wild mass guessing" ensues, allowing others, such as the fandom to fill in the gaps by making theories or fanfic. [[spoiler:The "others" in this game is no other than the Dark Presence, taking advantage of the plot holes to free itself from the lake.]] Only then when the [[WordOfGod creators of the work declare what is canon]], would the "wild mass guessing" and theories stop. [[spoiler:Like how Alan defeated the Dark Presence by going back to the cabin and finish the manuscript he started.]] |
| 570 | * TruthInTelevision: Notice Sheriff Breaker's right hand when she first meets Alan - it's hovering near her gun. This is before she assesses that Alan is not an intruder or about to attack. |
| 571 | * UnusualWeaponMounting: In Barry's case, to deflect Taken he mounts a light on his head and wraps Christmas lights around his torso. |
| 572 | * UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: [[spoiler:Dr. Hartman]], who knew of the lake's power and planned to use Alan's writing skills to create a better reality. |
| 573 | * VaguenessIsComing: Spoofed. In the opening level, Zane relays an incredibly cryptic prophecy to Alan, then asks, "Do you understand?" Alan replies with a very confused, "No." |
| 574 | * VillainousRescue: |
| 575 | ** After the cable car crashes, Alan loses his gun and flashlight and is surrounded by numerous Taken. Suddenly, a flare is dropped into their midst, and the Taken are destroyed in a hail of pinpoint gunfire. Who is Alan's savior? The kidnapper. [[spoiler:Even though technically he's just a con-man.]] |
| 576 | ** After escaping Nightingale in the trailer park, Alan is fleeing from the police at night with no flashlight and no gun. Gradually, the Dark Presence takes over the officers, and when Alan is fleeing from a helicopter along a narrow cliff, Taken crows cause it to crash. Of course, soon the Taken officers attack Alan, but by then he's got a new toy - [[ImprovisedWeapon flashbang grenades]]. |
| 577 | * ViolationOfCommonSense: Not in the plot, but grabbing some of the collectible items involves this. Examples include ignoring an AdvancingWallOfDoom and running in the wrong direction, and ditching the character you are supposed to be escorting during a MultiMookMelee. |
| 578 | * TheVirus: The Dark Presence can take any living creature, human or animal, and twist them into shells of their former selves filled only with hatred. |
| 579 | * VoiceOfTheLegion: Taken voices fluctuate from strained to normal to a really deep and creepy voice. So they kinda ''sound'' like '''this'''. |
| 580 | * VomitDiscretionShot: Barry in the jail cell at the beginning of Episode 5. |
| 581 | * WakingUpElsewhere: When Alan wakes up in the crashed car in Episode 1. |
| 582 | * WalkItOff: Avoiding taking damage for a while will cause your health to gradually regenerate. Standing in the light of a Safe Haven makes it come back faster. |
| 583 | %%* TheWarRoom: The Well-Lit Room. |
| 584 | %%* TheWarSequence: Defending the stage at the Anderson farm. |
| 585 | * WeakenedByTheLight: Alan has to use his flashlight to get rid of the shadows protecting the Taken before he can take them down. Flashbang grenades will kill the normal Taken and most Poltergeist Objects while softening up the stronger ones such as the Elite. |
| 586 | * WeirdnessCensor: |
| 587 | ** The people of Bright Falls don't seem to notice that scores of people are constantly disappearing, that there are dozens of abandoned cars choking the roads, and several buildings are completely demolished by what can only be supernatural forces. One of the manuscript pages does describe two deputies investigating an abandoned logging camp with tons of collateral damage caused by the Dark Presence attacking Alan, and both of them [[BystanderSyndrome basically agreed that it wasn't their problem]]. |
| 588 | ** In the prequel, one of the two above deputies, Deputy Mulligan, is called in when the protagonist of the mini-series has trashed his motel room while under the influence of the Dark Presence. Mulligan notes that the wreck was caused by a 14-point stag and even points out some telltale signs of antler pierces in the debris. |
| 589 | * WhatHappenedToTheMouse: A Mouse is subverted in Episode 1. A caller on a night radio show says that his dog Toby had run after something rustling in the bushes and is now missing. This is a WhatHappenedToTheMouse until you play again on Nightmare Mode and unlock an extra manuscript page. [[KickTheDog Toby's fate is not happy]]. |
| 590 | * WhatYouAreInTheDark: Believe it or not, Agent Nightingale gets such a moment. At the Anderson brothers' farm he has the opportunity to murder an inebriated and passed out Alan but chickens out at the last minute, despite having tried to gun him down twice before. |
| 591 | * WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: Tor, literally. His standee in "The Signal" contains the quote "You're all nails to me!" |
| 592 | * WildWilderness: The whole setting has a feeling of this just like the GeographicFlexibility entry states, but the main portions of it are in fact that Bright Falls is deep in the mountains, hidden away from view of the 'normal world', and no one outside of it even knows it exists. |
| 593 | * WhoWritesThisCrap: Walter's last words after being killed by his Taken best friend. He comments that it's like a really bad sequel to a good movie where [[FaceHeelTurn the hero's best friend has become the bad guy for no reason]], which is most likely a [[SelfDeprecation self-deprecating]] ShoutOut to the ''VideoGame/MaxPayne'' series, in which [[spoiler:Max's ally from the first game, Vladimir Lem, becomes the villain of the second.]] |
| 594 | * WordsCanBreakMyBones: Literally near the end, in "The Signal" and "The Writer". Alan takes damage if he runs into the Typewriter words that hasn't been been cleared by light yet. On the flip side, "boom!", "roll", "flash", "tools", "drive", and "red box" helps him out against the Taken. |
| 595 | * WordSaladHorror: Taken can only mindlessly repeat phrases that were relevant to them before [[spoiler:the Dark Presence]] took hold of them. Sometimes this is funny. Other times, it makes it worse. |
| 596 | * WreakingHavok: The game's physics engine becomes increasingly obvious in the last part of the last level, where the darkness starts throwing really big things at you like a school bus or a boxcar. |
| 597 | * YouAreTooLate: In this case, after Alan finds an injured Rusty in the dark, he attempts to find the generator to put the power back on, only to find an ax has been put through it. |
| 598 | --> '''Alan:''' I was too late. |
| 599 | * YouCantThwartStageOne: Especially since [[spoiler:Alan wrote it that way]]. |
| 600 | * YouCantFightFate: Wake saving the day [[spoiler:has been written into the manuscript from the beginning]]. Player fumbles aside, [[spoiler:he's basically predestined to succeed]]. |
| 601 | * YouOweMe: Barry says this to Alan while driving. Alan tells him that they have to go to the Anderson farm when Barry would rather leave town after [[spoiler:Alan fought Taken in the Cauldron Lake Lodge garden [[TheMaze hedge maze]], while Barry kept tabs on their whereabouts for Alan]]. |
| 602 | --> I am done with darkness! You're gonna buy me a tanning bed, and I'm gonna ''live in it!'' |
| 603 | * YourMindMakesItReal: Or any forms of art. [[spoiler:The Dark Presence takes advantage of artistic and creative minds like Alan and Zane to allow it to escape from the lake and wreak its havoc towards the town.]] |
| 604 | [[/folder]] |
| 605 | |
| 606 | !!''Alan Wake's American Nightmare'' Provides Examples Of: |
| 607 | |
| 608 | [[folder:Tropes A - Z]] |
| 609 | * ActionizedSequel: More guns, more common ammo and batteries, and the flashlight recharges far quicker. |
| 610 | * AlternateRealityGame: Remedy launched a well-hidden (to the point that ''very'' little documentation of it exists outside of the ''Alan Wake'' wiki) ARG alongside this game, titled ''This House of Dreams.'' Players could find it by searching the internet for the [[SdrawkcabSpeech backmasked]] message in "Balance Slays the Demon", leading them to a CharacterBlog by a woman who finds a collection of Thomas Zane poems in an old house she's renovating, and is subsequently plagued by dreams about Alan, Zane, and the Dark Place, as well as various paranormal encounters. It ended fairly abruptly after five months, but is referenced in an EasterEgg in ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'', Remedy's subsequent game set in the same universe as ''Alan Wake.'' |
| 611 | * AmbiguousSituation: The ending. [[spoiler:Did Alice and Alan actually reunite? Is it permanent or just a temporary reprieve from Alan's exile in the dark place? Was it a dream? One never knows...in Night Springs.]] |
| 612 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Control}}'' seems to establish that [[spoiler:Alan remains in the Dark Place, and all of the events that occurred within ''American Nightmare'' were either the product of Wake's imagination, or the fake Thomas Zane's cleanup of Mister Scratch[[note]]Seeing as how fake Thomas is a movie director and ''American Nightmare'' takes place in a movie, along with fake Thomas claiming he took care of Scratch, it seems to be the latter[[/note]]. One of Wake's pages recovered by the FBC reads: "For ten years I've tried to write my escape, only sinking deeper. I used to know where fiction ends and reality begins."]] |
| 613 | * AmericanTitle: Also a PunBasedTitle from the phrase "American dream". |
| 614 | * AndYourRewardIsClothes: The game comes with several avatar awards and even a few gamer pictures to unlock for various accomplishments such as unlocking the first nightmare arcade level. |
| 615 | * ArbitrarySkepticism: Alan remarks that "Just because I say crazy things doesn't mean I believe everything." when explaining why he doesn't put a lot of credit in Emma's New Age beliefs, despite his own talk of reality alteration, monsters made of darkness, and time travel. |
| 616 | * AsteroidsMonster: The Splitter, a new type of Taken. Unlike other Taken, it doesn't have a darkness shield which needs to be burned away. Instead, exposing it to light causes it to split into two smaller, weaker Splitters, each of which can split once more for a total of four. It thus becomes a tradeoff of fighting one strong Taken or several weaker ones. |
| 617 | * AwesomeButImpractical: You can unlock some serious weaponry, including a fully automatic rifle and an automatic shotgun. However impressive these may look, however, they still require you to take the darkness shield off the Taken you're fighting to even work, and need a considerable amount of pages to unlock. By comparison, the crossbow requires no pages to unlock and is found in the third level, penetrates darkness shields, does more damage than any weapon in the game, has as much relative ammo (per DPS), and only suffers in reload speed. There is simply no good reason to use any other weapon except pistols, which fire much faster and are useful for certain enemy types. |
| 618 | %%zce* AxCrazy: Mr. Scratch. |
| 619 | * BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:Emma, at least twice. She starts to remember her deaths by Act 2, and she and Alan finally figure out how to prevent it in Act 3 by keeping the Taken from knocking out the fuse box to her garage.]] |
| 620 | * BatmanGambit: [[spoiler:Mr. Scratch has Alan in a time-loop trap at the beginning of the game, knowing that eventually Alan's odds will run out and Scratch's Taken will get Alan. However, Alan's manuscript notes that Scratch is trapped in the time loop too, which means Alan now knows exactly where he'll be at any given time, and had in fact counted on this, using it as part of his plan to finally escape the Dark Place.]] |
| 621 | * BigBadWannabe: Mr. Scratch is certainly dangerous but even Alan thinks he's got his {{Doppelganger}} outclassed. An odd fact may be that Mr. Scratch is aware of this too and is deeply annoyed by the fact. |
| 622 | * {{Brainwashed}}: Serena, who's been Darkness touched by Mr. Scratch into being an unabashed slut. She instantly gets better once you turn on the lights to her building, but still retains full memory of it. It's implied that she may have had sex with Scratch, which would make it effectively supernatural date rape. |
| 623 | * CardCarryingVillain: Mister Scratch is aware he's one of these. Bizarrely, he seems to resent it on some level. |
| 624 | * ColonyDrop: Alan's first mission is to set things up so that reality matches the story in his manuscript. This causes a satellite to drop out of orbit and smash through the oil rig spawning Taken. |
| 625 | * {{Consistency}} / RuleOfDrama: Brought up between Alan and Dr. Meadows, when she asks why Alan can't just give himself superpowers. |
| 626 | * CueTheSun: When you finish a Fight Till Dawn session, the sun rises incredibly quickly and destroys all the Taken still around. |
| 627 | %%* CutsceneBoss: [[spoiler:Mr. Scratch.]] |
| 628 | * DifficultyByRegion: Averted. Unlike the original ''Alan Wake'', ''American Nightmare'' doesn't have its base difficulty increased for the PC version, so you'll be killing enemies faster if you use the classic ''Alan Wake'' weapons such as the revolver or shotgun compared to the original game. |
| 629 | * DiscOneNuke: |
| 630 | ** The crossbow, which you can get on your first visit to the Drive-Thru, and doesn't even require any manuscript pages to unlock. It's a one-hit-kill against every single enemy except for [[GiantMook the Giant]], and even penetrates through darkness shields. |
| 631 | ** The magnum, which only requires ten manuscript pages to unlock and can be found at the Motel. It's got the fire power of a hunting rifle, but carries more ammo and is carried in your sidearm slot. |
| 632 | * {{Doppelganger}}: Mr. Scratch. |
| 633 | * DriveInTheater: One of the three main areas Alan visits. [[spoiler:Its also the location where he finally corners and destroys Mr. Scratch with the light of a film projector.]] |
| 634 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Maybe? The ambiguity is lampshaded by the narrator. After all, nothing ever is as it seems... in Night Springs.]] |
| 635 | * EliteMooks: The game has four special types of Taken; Grenadiers that throw grenades at you, Splitters which have enhanced health and divide into multiple Taken when hit with the flashlight, Spectres which also have enhanced health and can "teleport" around by turning into a flock of birds, and the GiantMook Giants... 12 foot tall monsters wielding concrete saws and capable of surviving eight times as much damage as a standard Taken (requiring a full mag and a half of assault rifle fire to bring down). Alan remarks that the more varied forms of Taken are a result of the more human-like Mr. Scratch being more creative than the alien Dark Presence from the original game. |
| 636 | * ForTheEvulz: Mr. Scratch: |
| 637 | -->(after killing someone on camera and pointing to the body) "This? Just for kicks." |
| 638 | * GaidenGame: The gameplay is more of an arcade survival shooter than the original's psychological thriller. |
| 639 | * GenreShift: In-universe for Alan: he mentions in a manuscript page that the nature of one of the new Taken that he's encountered since entering Night Springs makes him think that the genre has been switched from horror to pulp fiction. |
| 640 | * GiantSpider: One of the new enemy types. They're "only" about the size of a puppy, but that's pretty damn big for a spider. |
| 641 | * GreaterScopeVillain: Alan mentions that Mr. Scratch is just a tool of the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s living inside the Dark Place (of which the Dark Presence was just one), whose purpose is to open the doors of reality to let them into the real world. |
| 642 | * GroundhogDayLoop: The "game" Mr. Scratch plays with Alan. [[spoiler:He ends up reliving the same sequence at least three times, and the confrontation between Alan and Mr. Scratch we see at the start of the game is probably the end point of an earlier loop.]] Subverted in that [[spoiler:the memory of anyone caught in it gets better and better as the loops occur, which is why in the beginning no one knows each other or anything about what's going on, but by Act 3 Alan and his allies start performing beneficial tasks long before they originally happened. Examples include Emma setting up the oil derrick and Dr. Meadows repairing the telescope before Alan even arrives.]] |
| 643 | * GroundhogPeggySue: [[spoiler:Everyone, really. This kind of makes Mr. Scratch's defeat utterly inevitable, since he'll soon be dealing with a small army of four individuals who know the lay of the land and the nature of the enemy, and are coordinating with each other, to boot. Mr. Scratch's whole "game" isn't looking so fun in hindsight. Special mention goes to Emma, who after two loops of violent deaths decides she's tired of it and ''does your entire job for you''. All you have to do is turn a wheel and throw a switch.]] |
| 644 | * HandCannon: The Magnum is one of the few one-handed weapons capable of one-shotting a normal Taken. |
| 645 | * HandWave: In one manuscript page, Alan admits that he has no idea how he boosts his flashlight beam. |
| 646 | * HeadsIWinTailsYouLose: It's certainly Mr Scratch's opinion of the situation. |
| 647 | --> '''Mr Scratch''': You die, you lose. You quit, you lose. You make it to the end of the loop, you ''still'' lose! |
| 648 | ** What fails to realize is that [[spoiler:he can't escape the loop either.]] |
| 649 | * HealingCheckpoint: Safe Havens in ''American Nightmare'' heal you. |
| 650 | * LampshadeHanging: During a radio interview, the Old Gods of Asgard take offense to the observation that their comeback album sounds drastically different from their speaking voice. This is because it's actually being sung by Music/PoetsOfTheFall. |
| 651 | * LargeHam: Mr. Scratch. The guy makes [[Film/ReservoirDogs Mr. Blonde]] look like a stiff. |
| 652 | * LightningBruiser: Birdmen have a surprisingly large amount of health for being skinny, quick guys, being able to survive a hit from the crossbow. |
| 653 | * LiveActionCutscene: This game uses live-action for cutscenes and other in-game videos. |
| 654 | * MediumBlending: With the exception of one or two brief appearances, Mr. Scratch is shown as a real person. This includes when he shows up on TV screens to taunt Alan AND when he shows up physically for confrontations during cutscenes. |
| 655 | * MightyGlacier: The "King Hillbilly" Taken. Gigantic and slow with lots of health and a nasty circular saw that is bigger than Alan. |
| 656 | * MindScrew: How did Alan get from [[spoiler:the Dark Place]] to this desert town? |
| 657 | ** By taking one of his old episodes of Night Springs and tweaking it slightly, replacing whatever town it actually is with Night Springs and allowing him to slip into the real world. |
| 658 | ** He mentions that it was really difficult and took a lot of finagling, so presumably TryEverything was in effect. |
| 659 | * MissionPackSequel: ''American Nightmare'' is basically a simpler, budget priced arcade-like combat game made using the assets and engine from ''Alan Wake''. |
| 660 | * MoreDakka: Alan can get his hands on various automatic weapons now. |
| 661 | * MultiMookMelee: Fight Till Dawn in a nutshell. The Nightmare levels take it even further, constantly throwing enemies at you. |
| 662 | * NailEm: One of the new weapons is a nailgun, described by the developers as a semiautomatic SMG. |
| 663 | ** Unfortunately, it's OvershadowedByAwesome: It's the most basic full-auto sidearm you can get, but by the time you're able to collect it, you can just as easily collect three manuscript pages, which will unlock the first weapon box and give you access to the Micro-Uzi, which is more powerful and has more ammunition than the nailgun. You're unlikely to use the nailgun for more than a few minutes. |
| 664 | * {{Nerf}}: Flashbangs and flareguns have been drastically reduced in power, now only insta-killing Taken that are right at the center of the blast. In the first game they were basically the end-the-fight-now button. |
| 665 | ** On the enemy side, the main Taken enemies no longer throw axes like crazy. This makes them a lot less annoying. |
| 666 | * NintendoHard: The Nightmare Fight Till Dawn levels. As opposed to waves, like in the normal version, Taken simply spawn constantly. On top of that, they have increased health. Getting access to the higher-powered weapons is absolutely required, which means collecting manuscript pages in the story mode. By the last two minutes, there are so many Taken that you barely have time to shoot one before another one jumps on top of you; you're better off simply dodging their attacks. |
| 667 | * NoArcInArchery: Averted with both the crossbow and the nailgun. With these weapons, it's perfectly possible to hit Taken on the other side of a wall that's otherwise just too high to shoot over. |
| 668 | * NoSell: On your side for once. The crossbow shoots right through the darkness protecting the Taken, and is even powerful enough to kill most enemies in one hit. |
| 669 | * NothingIsScarier: Instead of linear stages that are almost always sending Taken your way to run or fight from, a great deal of ''American Nightmare'', especially if you're after all the manuscript pages, is spent wandering large, open and eerie environments with rarely a Taken encounter to be had. |
| 670 | * OneHitPolykill: The Magnum and hunting rifle are capable of shooting clean through one enemy and killing one behind it; both kill most enemies in one shot on Normal difficulty. |
| 671 | * OneToMillionToOne: A special Taken in ''merican Nightmare'' can turn into a flock of crows as a means of teleporting and moving towards Alan. The crows can then combine again to return to the Taken's humanoid shape. |
| 672 | * RealityWarper: Alan can now change reality by changing things in the environment to resemble his manuscript pages. |
| 673 | * SelfDeprecation: The narration notes that the Dark Presence in the first game "lacked imagination", and that Mr. Scratch is not so limited, hence the more diverse types of enemies. |
| 674 | ** The "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cEXYWJPMIA Super Effective Sales Trailer]]" ends with Scratch mocking the GainaxEnding of the first game. |
| 675 | * SequelHook: "Balance slays the Demon" has a section with [[SubliminalSeduction backwards speech]]. When reversed, the message says: |
| 676 | --> "[[spoiler:It will happen again, in another town. A town, called [[VideoGame/{{Control}} Ordinary]].]]" |
| 677 | %%* SerialKiller: Mr. Scratch. |
| 678 | * ShownTheirWork: |
| 679 | ** The stars in the night sky are based off of actual star maps, and constellations can even be picked out. |
| 680 | ** Due to frequently-clear nights, there are plenty of observatories in the Arizona desert. |
| 681 | %%* SlasherSmile: Mr. Scratch. |
| 682 | * SmugSnake: Averted. Mr. Scratch seems partially aware he's a ''[[Franchise/TheTwilightZone Twilight Zone]]'' rip-off villain. Some of his conversations also indicate that he's aware Alan might be more than he could handle. He just can't help himself. He was written that way. |
| 683 | * TheSomethingSong: "[[https://youtu.be/BAh6ay9QDtE?list=PLjACqN5i5sDUEienDV52g85W6J7chzLXV The Happy Song]]" an ode to psychopathy, and VillainSong of Mr. Scratch, HumanoidAbomination antagonist of ''American Nightmare.'' |
| 684 | * SoundEffectBleep: Whenever Alan refers to Mr. Scratch by name on the Manuscript pages, "Scratch" is drowned out by a burst of static. |
| 685 | * SpiderSwarm: Some of the new enemies Alan faces are small hordes of giant spiders. Luckily, they can be killed fairly quickly with just the flashlight. |
| 686 | * TheStoner: Emma Sloan's method of dealing with the Taken and [[spoiler:dying twice in a time loop]]? "Herbal supplements". |
| 687 | * SubliminalSeduction: The Old Gods of Asgard's "[[https://youtu.be/b6RKKCQt82Y?list=PLjACqN5i5sDUo3MfGtqogz7P3u5JUm3c- Balance slays the Demon]]" has a small section with reversed and sped up lyrics. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRcLYeuK8ZU Play it the right way round]] and you get [[spoiler:"It will happen again, in another town. A town... called [[VideoGame/{{Control}} Ordinary]]."]] |
| 688 | * ThatCameOutWrong: On the first go when you have to fetch Dr Meadows' camera for the telescope, she tells to you to be careful, it's quite expensive and they don't have a replacement. Fortunately, she's quick to realize that that was a lot more callous than she intended and meant for you to be careful. |
| 689 | * VillainousRescue: The Dark Presence intervening to save Alan Wake from the cops in Episode III. |
| 690 | * VoluntaryShapeshifting: "Birdman" Taken can transform into a flock of birds and reform somewhere else. Thankfully they do not attack you as birds. |
| 691 | %%* WolverineClaws: Some of the new Taken sport these. |
| 692 | * WrenchWench: Emma Sloan, being a girl who fixes up cars in Night Springs, Arizona. |
| 693 | * WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: InUniverse, this is how Alan traps The Darkness. He locks it and himself in a constant duel, where he writes stories that it tries to corrupt. It's unclear whether he's locked The Darkness in a loop, reliving the week we've played, or if he's writing new stories the whole time, but we know he's sacrificed himself for eternity? to hold it at bay. |
| 694 | * YinYangBomb: {{Discussed}} in HeavyMithril FakeBand Old Gods of Asgard's "[[https://youtu.be/b6RKKCQt82Y?list=PLjACqN5i5sDUo3MfGtqogz7P3u5JUm3c- Balance Slays the Demon]]", as an in-universe attempt by the band to steer Alan toward defeating Mr. Scratch via lyrical metaphor. |
| 695 | -->''Ever the light casts a shadow''\ |
| 696 | ''Ever the night springs from the light''\ |
| 697 | ''In the end, it's never just the light you need''\ |
| 698 | ''When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace''\ |
| 699 | ''In the end, it's never just the dark you seek''\ |
| 700 | ''When balance slays the demon, you'll find peace'' |
| 701 | [[/folder]] |
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