, the game released on August 8, 2023. The game's official website is here.It’s about a woman named Faye and her band mates Ian and Briff, who sign up for a battle of the bands (of which is its 100th anniversary) and the winner gets to tour with a popular metal band called Pokalyps. But Faye gets more than she bargained for when she realizes this battle is to the death, and the only way out is to fight Pokalyps.
Tropes:
- 10-Minute Retirement: Briff leaves the group after realizing Faye and Ian lied to him about the true purpose of the tournament, but it really only lasts past your initial exploration of Hoho, as the three get kidnapped by Mutilla and have to work together to make it out. Briff is still mad at first, but ends up seeing it as a sign that everything will go very badly if he leaves the group for real. The trope is Played With a bit though, since he is clearly still mad about it, snipes that "the band loves lying to drummers" when they trick Headbanger, and Ian directly says that "the anger is still there, it's just repressed now."
- Ability Mixing: The Sampler class is capable of taking old samples and make them new, combining beats to take multiple actions per turn.
- All Drummers Are Animals: Eggie is a spider who can use his abdomen as a drum (mostly because his abdomen looks like a drum) with his legs.
- Attention Whore: The Show-off class tends to be flamboyant and use flashy moves, and Faye starts out in this class.
- Battle of the Bands: The main premise is Faye's band competing in one of these, taken up to eleven with literal battles. It's even the game's subtitle.
- Bird People: There are bird people alright, and most of them made a home in Claire's hair, as she is a tree goddess. One that's more notable from the rest is the bodacious duck-man K-Kwak.
- Bizarrchitecture: The bus to Hoho is many stories tall, has doors that don't actually lead to any rooms, a roof you can hang out on, and staircases on the outside of the bus itself that seem to carry the upper floors. Despite this, it also has an elevator. Did we mention it's a luxury hotel and has its own bar?
- Break the Cutie: Platinum, otherwise the nicest character in the game with the most sunny disposition, does not handle the idea of the fatal Battle of the Bands well and has more than one emotional breakdown over it. She lightens up a bit after her and Scrumtpious' fight with Deathbulge, when she becomes convinced their plan to fight Pokalyps just might work. And then that gets Double Subverted when you find her and Scrumptious horribly beaten and shaken at Hellblivion after trying to face Pokalyps on their own.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Briff's litlte brother pretty much just sits around and snarks at everybody all day, calling just about everything "lame". Exploring the house shows that he Used to Be a Sweet Kid since you can find a drawing he made when he was little of him and his mom Brioche holding hands, but Faye remarks that "this was before he discovered attitude."
- Bizarre Instrument: There's a lot of abnormal instruments, such as a hybrid vinyl record player-guitar.
- Cartoon Whale: This game has a whale who could sing. Because the Big Puff Ensemble recorded his songs without his knowledge, he wants payback. Ian can summon him by using the Zero Hertz mod.
- Character Class System: This game has 9 band roles, each with its own unique style. These classes are Headbanger, Show-off, Well-toned, Tuner, Avant-garde, Distorter, Busker, Goth, and Sampler.
- Combat Medic: Briff is this, starting in the Tuner class, which can fight as well as they can heal.
- Cast of Snowflakes: Aside from enemies, every single NPC, from shopkeepers to random people you meet have unique names, designs, character portraits and personalities. No re-used stock NPCs here.
- Damager, Healer, Tank: Faye, Briff and Ian in that order.
- Delinquent Hair:
- Faye has this and is quite the brash and short-tempered soul, whether she’s in her original class or another.
- The Headbanger class often has Ian and Faye with this kind of hair due to this class's aggressive style.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Congratulations, Pokalyps has been defeated... and the sheer musical energy of your battle has aided Daemos in resurrecting the horrifying demon God Maelstro like he was planning all along. Oops.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Iris, Ian's biological mother and Faye's adoptive mother, is a fitness-obsessed wrestling champion who constantly forces her kids to do absolutely grueling Training from Hell, though she seems to think her nastiness is just all in good fun. Ian, who is otherwise very proud of his physique, is terrified of her.
- Eldritch Abomination: Maelstro is a powerful demon who is the cause of the Battle of the Bands, which was a plot to revitalize demon music. Every year, demons would be selected to fight to the death with music, but all who tried to bring Maelstro down suffered the same fate (death). But after the 99th tournament, he felt jaded, as the 100th tournament was so much pressure, so he chose to retreat into a slumber.
- Expy: The band's drummer, Briff, is very similar to Brovil, the drummer of the webcomic's version of Deathbulge.
- Fish People: The folks in the studio under Bass Base are fish, from pufferfish to whale.
- Foul Waterfowl: K-Kwak, being a prideful duck, really doesn’t take it well when Faye and Ian beat him, so he takes it out on Briff for being a member of Deathbulge. Even though Briff wasn't there when he was defeated, plus he quit.
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Eggie is a drumming spider who's suffering from creator's block, and mentors with Deathbulge's drummer, Briff, who can summon him anytime he pleases.
- Genki Girl: Platinum - at least, when the idea of killing her friends in a fatal Battle of the Bands isn't hanging over her head.
- Glitch Entity: Babby Bass becomes this when he was experimented on to "reach his full potential" only for it to backfire and turn him into a glitching monster, much to Ian's dismay.
- Goth: The goth class fits this look perfectly, being Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
- Heavy Sleeper: Briff spends pretty much the entire tutorial stage and first dungeon asleep regardless of any attempt to wake him up.
- Hell Hotel: Hoho is home to all sorts of ghosts, friendly or otherwise.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Good news, Rona managed to trap Maelstro's body into a machine. Bad news, it wasn’t gonna hold him for long, so she was willing to sacrifice her own body and life just to give Deathbulge a fighting chance.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Pokalyps is based on this trope, as they are all horses. There's Malnora the lead singer, Deadbone the guitarist, Pesto the bassist, and Klöpp the drummer.
- Improbable Hairstyle: Faye alone has her guitar-body-shaped pink hairdo that might be able to pass for Anime Hair, but almost every important character and even most NPCs have incredibly absurd, colorful haircuts.
- Instrumental Weapon: Due to the curse, any instrument or music can be used for either offensive, defensive, or even healing purposes.
- Deathbulge is known for using their own instruments to battle. Faye is on the offensive with her guitar, Ian is defense with his bass, and Briff is a healer with his drums.
- Mutilla not only have instruments, but they are instruments. Rona has an organ within her arm, Headbanger has a drum for a head, and Trista can turn her hands into trumpets.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: for reasons unknown humans live together with sentient fish, Bird People, and demons.
- Magic Music: Most all combat moves involve helping or hurting others with the power of somewhat cursed music.
- Metal Head: There wouldn’t be any if this wasn’t a game about rock n roll. Most folks; like Faye for example are the kind of people known to Headbang, shred, and make horn hands.
- Mighty Glacier:
- Ian is this because he is all about defense, not only because he is in the Well-Toned class.
- The Headbanger class is the most aggressive class compared to the others, plus they're heavy hitters.
- Must Have Caffeine: Sid often drinks energy drink after energy drink, much to his ex-mate's worry.
- Mythology Gag: There's a hidden boss called WIP, that seems to bear a great resemblance to the comic's version of Deathbulge but after the victory fakeout you can see the names of the individual components, which makes it a lot more apparent who they are, or rather, who they used to be.
- "Open!" Says Me: Every door in the game, even the unlocked ones, gets kicked open. The more doors you kick open, the better you get at it, which lets you kick open tougher doors.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The ghosts the crew fight on the bus to Hoho are actually the inflated and corrupted egos of departed musicians, whose real souls cannot move on until said ego-spirits are defeated. Most of them split up into several identical spirits, but Glamourella's ego was so massive and skewed that it became a singular, incredibly powerful spirit.
- Pocket Protector: A horrifying example. When Maelstro is resurrected and kills Pokalyps, K-Kwak steps up and seemingly takes a bunch of massive laser blasts to the chest without being any worse for wear and starts to gloat... only to find out that it's because K-Kwak was inside his jacket and was taking every blast.
He doesn't make it. - Plant Hair: Claire, being a tree-goddess, has long locks more likely than not made of plant matter. She wears it in a Motherly Side Plait, which is fair enough for the mother of the Tonewood Forest.
- Prehensile Hair: Some of Faye's battle animations have her playing the guitar with her hair.
- Protagonist Title: "Deathbulge" is the name of the main protagonists' band.
- Shamu Fu: Due to Ian's love of fish, his bass has a design of two basses which he uses to attack his enemies, he can also summon a bass for healing, or a whale for offense or healing.
- Status Effects: There are all sorts of attacks that can cause all sorts of effects from burning to healing. The Distorter class specializes in dishing out afflictions, while the Busker is good at giving out buffs.
- Summon Magic: Some attacks allow Deathbulge to summon allies to help out.
- The Lost Woods: The Tonewoods are this as it’s home to creatures that look like arms working out.
- The Power of Rock: Deathbulge is a rock band who use music to strike down their foes.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Platinum is the Girly Girl to Faye's tomboy, although it's less that Faye is all that tomboyish outside of her temper and more that Platinum is just that feminine, what with her heavier makeup, much flashier outfit, fancier hairstyle and so on.
- Treants: Claire is a giant tree woman with hair the size of her... well, size. That makes it so anthropomorphic bird people made a home in there.
