Line #23 VideoGame/Schuld


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/schuld.PNG]]
2	''Schuld'' is a freeware horror-puzzle game created by Kelven, the same person who created ''VideoGame/DesertNightmare.'' A man named Aaron wakes up in the middle of a street with no memory of how he got there. All he has is a book, which is largely blank except for the last page, which has the seven deadly sins listed on it. After going into a town and discovering that, [[SleptThroughTheApocalypse while he was asleep]], the world has apparently taken a turn for the much worse- a disease that slowly rots peoples bodies is spreading, survivors are being captured to harvest their body parts, and the city is under control of a totalitarian nation going to war with its neighbors- he meets a mysterious man named Vergil who tells him he will not help him through this strange world, but he will guide him. It just gets weirder from there.
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4	The game was translated from German into English by [[http://rpgmaker.net/users/AznChipmunk/ Azn Chipmunk]], who also translated ''VideoGame/DesertNightmare''. The translation can be downloaded [[http://rpgmaker.net/games/4247/ here]].
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7	!''Schuld'' provides examples of:
8	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Technology hasn't advanced much beyond the invention of virtual reality.
9	* AbsurdPhobia: Aaron has the fear of becoming fat to the point of refusing food in a world where food is scarce. His fear is later realized after [[spoiler: being forced to eat Maria's corpse.]]
10	* AllJustADream: [[spoiler: The places Aaron goes to over the course of his journey are all false visions inflicted on him. In actuality, this whole time he's been held prisoner in a space station on the moon.]]
11	* AlternativeCalendar: A newspaper has the date 17.15.9999.
12	* AnArmAndALeg: Early on, Aaron meets a young girl whose arm has been destroyed by "rot". Other people suffer a similar affliction. And then his own arm gets cut off in order to give it to someone who lost all their limbs.
13	** And then it's revealed Aaron [[spoiler: is sentenced for the crime of cutting Williams's legs, as punishment for murdering Maria.]]
14	* AssholeVictim: Most of the cast can die, and a majority of them are major assholes, some even downright monsters.
15	* BigBad: [[spoiler:[[HangingJudge Judge Williams]]]] is behind the rot, war, and other horrors afflicting the world, [[spoiler:which is a simulation created to torment Aaron for breaking his legs in retaliation for killing Maria]].
16	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Vergil destroys the moon prison and its captives escape from the digital world they were tortured at. However, he lost his life on the process and Aaron throws away his chance of freedom to get payback on Williams once and for all.]]
17	* BenevolentAI: [[spoiler: Vergil, the artificial intelligence in charge of the moon prison.]]
18	* CantGetAwayWithNuthin: [[spoiler: Williams thinks he is above the law when he kills Maria due to him being the head of the moon prison, but he's certainly not impervious to an irate mourning lover that cuts his legs and later comes back with revenge.]]
19	* CrapsackWorld: Aaron is trapped in a post-apocalyptic world where there's constant war, a virus called "the Rot" is decomposing people's limbs and money has no value anymore. [[spoiler: The real world is no better, with a moon prison that tortures its inmates by trapping them in a digital world, with their suffering being broadcasted to people on Earth for fun. And the heavy implication that Maria is a sex slave.]]
20	* CruelMercy: [[spoiler: After Williams murders Maria, Aaron tries to kill him, before deciding that cutting his legs is a more fitting punishment. This causes Williams to lock him in the moon prison.]]
21	* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler: Maria was murdered by Williams some time before the start of the game, due to cheating on him with Aaron.]]
22	* ADeadlyAffair: [[spoiler: Williams kills Maria for cheating him with Aaron.]]
23	* DrivenToSuicide: Aaron and Vergil come across the aforementioned man who has lost all his limbs to the Rot smoking a cigarette. Vergil explains that smoking accelerates the Rot.
24	* EvilCripple: [[spoiler:Judge Williams lost the use of his legs after Aaron mutilated them, which is his motivation for revenge]].
25	* EyeScream: Rot can decay even the eyes; late in the first chapter Aaron meets a child who's been blinded from the disease. He gives one of his own to her, but it grows back when he's transported to the next world.
26	* EveryoneDiesEnding: [[spoiler: By the end of the game, every named character is dead or has been for a long time.]]
27	* {{Foreshadowing}}: There's a lot of focus on mutilation and lost limbs, to the point Aaron is forced to lose his body parts during his journey. [[spoiler: This is a hint of how Aaron cut Williams's legs in the past.]]
28	* ForceFeeding: [[spoiler: At one point, Aaron is forced to eat Maria's corpse. This is when Vergil realizes Williams has gone too far and releases him from the moon prison.]]
29	* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Vergil detonates the moon prison so that its prisoners could escape. Since he's an A.I, this is at the cost of his life.]]
30	* MeatgrinderSurgery: After talking with the man with no limbs, Aaron is captured and strapped to a surgery table. One of his arms is amputated by a doctor using a wooden saw, but it grows back when he's transported to the next world.
31	* MindRape: [[spoiler: Most of what Aaron experiences over the course of the game isn't really happening; he's being trapped by Williams in a digital world to be tortured for eternity.]]
32	* MindPrison: [[spoiler: There is such a prison, as it disposes of people by putting them in cryostasis and projecting their minds into a virtual world]].
33	* MoralMyopia: [[spoiler: Williams swears revenge on Aaron for cutting his legs and tampers with the digital world he's trapped in so he would suffer more. Conveniently ignoring that Aaron mutilated him as payback for murdering the love of his life.]]
34	* NobleTopEnforcer: [[spoiler:Vergil is reluctantly allowing the inmates to be tortured because he genuinely believes they can be rehabilitated, unlike Williams who only wishes to make Aaron suffer]].
35	* NoKillLikeOverkill: After killing the warlord who ordered Maria's death, Aaron continues to shoot the warlord presumably until he runs out of bullets.
36	* OneWordTitle: The word being "fault" in German.
37	* RainOfSomethingUnusual: Aaron comes across an area where money is raining. There's even a canal where money is flowing like a river.
38	* ResetButton: Things that happen in one chapter don't all carry over to the next one. There's a reason for this.
39	* RevengeBeforeReason:
40	** [[spoiler: Williams is in charge of overseeing Aaron's sentence, until he starts tampering with the digital world in order to make him suffer more. This is what convinces Vergil to turn against him and free Aaron.]]
41	** [[spoiler: Aaron decides to take his revenge against Williams at the end, even though the space station is going to self-destruct in a few minutes and if he takes his revenge there's no chance of getting out alive.]]
42	* RevengeByProxy: [[spoiler: The reason Maria keeps popping up in the visions Aaron is given is because Williams wants to torture him further by having to see Maria suffer.]]
43	* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: [[spoiler: After Maria is killed, Aaron immediately grabs a gun, heads to the warlord who ordered her death, and fights and kills him.]]
44	* RoboticReveal: [[spoiler:Vergil turns out to be an AI used to run the cruel rehabilitation program Aaron is a part of]].
45	* SevenDeadlySins: At the beginning of the game, Aaron has in his possession a book with empty pages except for the last page which has the Latin words for the seven deadly sins. [[spoiler: The places Aaron goes to each center around one of the sins.]]
46	* SexSlave: [[spoiler: It's heavily implied Maria is a "comfort woman", but poses as Williams's wife to avoid scandal. That's why he's unconcerned after he kills her, stating to Aaron that she was disposable.]]
47	* TongueTrauma: In the second world, Aaron meets a woman who looks like a woman he once knew, and she never speaks to him. He's told it's because her tongue's been cut out.
48	* TragicDream: Aaron meets a little girl whose eyes have decayed away, and she expresses a wish that she could have seen the ocean one last time. He tries to grant her wish, giving her one of his own eyes and taking her to the beach, but the ocean has by now become awash with corpses, and looks just as bad as everything else.
49	* UnexplainedRecovery: No matter how many times Aaron loses his limbs, he's shown okay when he's transported to another world. [[spoiler: This is a clue about how the world is not real.]]
50	* VillainInAWhiteSuit: Downplayed with Vergil, who dresses in a clean white suit and is stated to be very beautiful. [[spoiler:He is a WellIntentionedExtremist AI that tortures Aaron and other prisoners on the moon in order to rehabilitate them but does not enjoy his job and has misgivings about it.]]
51	* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler: Vergil goes along with the prisoners being mentally tortured because he genuinely believes they can be rehabilitated. However once he sees Williams tampering with Aaron's trail and realizes the prisoners were never meant to get better in the first place, that he decides to destroy the moon prison once and for all.]]
52	* WhamEpisode: The final chapter "Truth" lives up to its name by revealing that [[spoiler:everything Aaron experienced thus far was a machine-induced dream as part of his rehabilitation in a prison on the moon. The program is run and tampered with by Judge Williams who wishes to get revenge on Aaron for taking away the use of his legs as retaliation for killing Maria]].

Context VideoGame / Schuld