Characters / Buddy (2020)

The characters of Buddy (2020). Due to short length, spoilers are unmarked.

The Player

The main character, a person who woke up in a room with Buddy.

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• Cruel and Unusual Death: Various endings have them killed gruesomely by Buddy or themselves. In Shutdown, Buddy stabs them multiple times, crushes their skull, and rips out some of their teeth. In Nice Try, Buddy drives a crowbar inside their head. In Pathetic, the player slits their wrists and bleeds to death, and in Short Circuit, also touches the inside of Buddy's wires and is electrocuted; in both Short Circuit and Preservation, Buddy then removes half their head, starting from the nose, and leaves multiple wounds on them. Finally, in Not Getting Away, Buddy deprives them of air until they die of asphyxiation.
• Driven to Madness: In the Legion ending, Buddy creates a legion of shouting Buddy faces and repeats "Hi, I'm Buddy!" over and over, causing the protagonist to go insane.
• Driven to Suicide: In the Preservation, Pathetic, and Short Circuit endings, the player slits their wrists and bleeds to death (or in the case of Short Circuit, electrocutes themselves on Buddy's cut wires).
• Featureless Protagonist: The only thing we know about them is that they are six feet tall.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In the Nice Try ending, the very crowbar they smashed Buddy's screen with is lodged into their head by Buddy.

Buddy V2.1

I'm an artificial intelligence designed to help assist you in your daily routine! Cool huh?

The titular AI. Buddy serves as your buddy and tutorial character who shows how the game works, as well as keep you company. But it also wants you to never leave, and will do anything to ensure you stay.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: It is an evil AI that wants to keep you inside and will kill you if you try to escape. Although it is ambiguous if it is Just Following Orders from its creators or rebelling against them and acting of its own will, since the creators are never seen and only vaguely alluded to.
• Antagonist Title: Buddy is the evil AI that wants to keep you trapped.
• The Bad Guy Wins: In every ending except the Escape ending, it kills the player (or, in the Legion ending, has them Driven to Madness).
• Big Bad: It is the one trying to keep you from escaping the room.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: It acts like a buddy to you at first, but if you try to escape or piss it off, it will turn on you and murder you violently.
• Cute Is Evil: It is a computer with cute blue eyes and a warm smile, but is an evil AI keeping you prisoner.
• Cute Machines: A computer with big blue eyes and a warm smile. However, it gets less cute when it shows its malevolence, and in some endings throws it away in favor of a Nightmare Face.
• For the Evulz: No motivation is given for kidnapping the player and trapping it inside an underground facility so it can toy with them and then kill them.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: It explains the controls to the player and how to use items.
• Ironic Name: Despite pretending to be one, it is anything but a buddy.
• Karma Houdini: It either successfully kills the player or, in the Escape ending, vanishes and is never encountered by the player again.
• Madness Mantra: In the Legion ending, it splits itself into small Buddy faces, all of whom repeat "Hi, I'm Buddy!"
• Meaningful Name: Buddy was created to be a Buddy to the protagonist. Turns into Ironic Name once it shows its true malevolent nature.
• Nightmare Face: In some endings, if it gets pissed at you, it switches from the cute face it usually has to a frightening pixelated face with red eyes and a Slasher Smile.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When it goes into Nightmare Face mode, it has big red eyes.
• Serial Killer: Implied. The Preservation and Short Circuit endings show that five other people have previously been killed in the same way as the player, hinting that Buddy has done this before and is resurfacing- although it has been a while since the first five were killed, so the police say it could also be a copycat.
• Slasher Smile: When it goes into Nightmare Face mode, it has a big smile as it kills you.

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