Fucking leeches are crawling all over this poor little town.
I can't show neck in a bar without someone tall, dark and anemic sidling up to me and staring at my breasts to keep himself from ogling my jugular.
— Lucy Sutton
16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds
is a interactive fiction game released in September, 2016. The game is available free online.
You play Lucy, a vampire hunter on her night off. She goes to McDonald's to enjoy some greasy food, and discovers a vampire slouching in a booth. The goal of the game is to slay the vampire before he exsanguinates the cashier.
The situation is complicated by the fact that Lucy isn't a fighter: her role on her vampire hunting team is The Bait. She lures vampires into traps so her teammates can slay them. So she can't confront the vampire directly and instead needs to be creative.
Gameplay is adventure game-ish. You have an inventory and use objects and talk to NPCs to progress. There are sixteen different ways of dealing with the vampire. Getting all the different ways unlocks special content.
This game provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Maggie, who fights with a machete and a stake, though she usually goes for ambushes, since vampires have Super-Strength. Despite this, she does fight them hand-to-hand during 16 More Ways, though she is both stronger than Lucy, she wraps her arms in rosaries, and she uses Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
- Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Luke wields his grandfather's holy musket. He tries to get it blessed by every preacher they come across, regardless of faith.
- And the Adventure Continues: One of the unlockables is about Lucy, Maggie, and Luke working together to clear out a McDonald's infested with 16 vampires, and the true ending has a chance of having Claire the adorable cashier becoming a vampire hunter herself.
- The Bait: Lucy has a history of serving as this.
- Big Bad: The vampire wants to drain the cashier's blood, and Lucy must find a way to kill him before he does.
- Busman's Holiday: Lucy encounters a vampire during her break.
- But Thou Must!: Some options just aren't options, for example, you cannot buy a salad.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Lucy will occasionally quip towards the player for the stuff they try to do, like stake a vampire with plastic straws.
- Cannot Cross Running Water: Lucy can drive the vampire out by flooding the place.
- Cassandra Truth: Lucy can try to warn the cashier about the vampire, but it won't work.
- The Cavalry: If you call one of your teammates for backup and lure the vampire into the alley, they will show up at the last second to kill him.
- Cellphones Are Useless: Inverted - Lucy's cellphone works and is essential for two different endings.
- The Cutie: The cashier is almost always described as adorable.
- Cute Bruiser: Maggie is described as being 5ft tall and looking like Tinkerbell. This description comes right after she beheads the vampire with a machete. She also fights vampires hand-to-hand.
- Damsel in Distress: The cashier.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lucy loves her asides.
- Defensive Feint Trap: Lucy can set one of these up in an alley.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: This is possible.
- Denser and Wackier: 16 More Ways, is just the three hunters going through a McDonald's and easily slaying vampires in a number of ludicrous and sometimes hilarious ways.
- Detect Evil: It's stated that, even if they aren't aware of vampires, the devout have an instinctive aversion to vampires.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: During the sequence where Lucy is seducing the vampire, the way that Lucy analyzes the vampire's attempts to get her alone sounds an awful lot like a description of how many Pick-Up Artists operate.
- Draw Aggro: Lucy has to put in some effort to get the vampire's attention off of the cashier and onto herself.
- Dumpster Dive: Lucy can do this in the alley as long as the vampire is not on her tail.
- Duct Tape for Everything: You need some to patch the crack in the bucket you find.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: You have to put considerable effort into getting an ending where you actually kill the vampire, which is the best ending as he won't attack anyone else. It's much easier to just chase him out of the restaurant.
- First-Person Smartass: I try to be a little more upbeat than some of my contemporaries, but I can help being a smartass.
- Flipping the Bird: Lucy can flip off the vampire. He doesn't notice. Jerk.
- Fourth-Wall Observer: Sufficiently weird commands will turn Lucy's snark against the player.
- Fun with Homophones: In 16 More Ways, the team steak a vampire. As in, the steak from a steak, egg and cheese bagel. They have to explain the pun to the vampire, but as soon as he understands it, he dies.
- Genre Savvy: Lucy is not only extremely aware of all the common media methods for dealing with vampires (sometimes actually mentioning how things usually go in movies,) but she displays a meta-awareness of the choices the player takes in the game as well.
- Golden Ending: The true ending, which can actually incorporate any other ending, but expands on them. It's the game, told from the point of view of Claire the cashier, with the events depending on the various things you did in your playthroughs, and can end with her becoming a vampire hunter.
- Guile Hero: Lucy. Enforced because trying to pick a fight with the vampire usually ends in failure.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Inverted by Lucy's teammates, with Maggie fighting vampires up close while Luke uses a gun.
- Have a Nice Death: If you get Lucy killed, the player gets to read Lucy's thought process as she blunders to her doom, ending with "Dammit." The Game Over screen afterwards will give you snarky hints along the lines of "Next time, don't do X" or "Next time, do Y before X."
- Hairpin Lockpick: Solution to one of the early puzzles, to unlock a locked supply closet.
- Heroic Seductress: Lucy's job is luring vampires into ambushes using her feminine wiles. She smiles and winks and exposes cleavage for the noblest of causes.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Some of Lucy's gambits can go horribly wrong.
- It is possible to go overboard when setting the place on fire, burning Lucy to death.
- Getting preparations slightly wrong before executing the Deliberate Injury Gambit will let the vampire drain Lucy to death.
- Make the vampire lose his temper and he'll rip Lucy's throat open without even drinking.
- Holy Burns Evil: You can kill vampires with crosses, holy water, bible quotes, a Christmas wreath, and a musket that's been blessed by every holy person Luke's come across who will agree to bless it.
- In 16 More Ways, Maggie wraps her arms in rosaries to allow her to fight vampire hand-to-hand, and it's shown that an extremely devoted McDonald's employee can use their "Employee of the Month" placard as a holy symbol.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Lucy knows to avoid the vampire's gaze, but the cashier doesn't.
- I Call It "Vera": Maggie has two knives she calls John and Mina. Fittingly, when she uses them in 16 More Ways, she kills a vampire the exact same way as they killed Dracula in the book (which Lucy lampshades).
- I Warned You: After a Cassandra Truth moment, Lucy muses, "And maybe I'll get to say 'I told you so' to her corpse. I hope not."
- Improvised Cross: You can make them out of spilled drinking straws.
- In-Universe Game Clock: Seen in the upper-right corner. Time doesn't advance unless you take action or press the "wait" button.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: If Lucy survives but the cashier dies, this is what the Non-Standard Game Over text will treat you to.
- Kill It with Fire: The extreme option.
- Kiss of the Vampire: Deconstructed. Vampire bites literally drug the victim.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Lampshaded during the Hairpin Lockpick scene.
- Last Ditch Move: Lucy has a unique choice available only at midnight.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Required to get the aforementioned hairpins. Subverted in that it makes the vampire less likely to pay attention to her.
- Lighter and Softer: 16 More Ways, has no game overs.
- Lured into a Trap: There are a few variations on how Lucy can prepare a trap in the alley for the vampire.
- The Many Deaths of You: There are lots of ways to get Lucy killed. See Hoist by Her Own Petard and Press X to Die.
- Morton's Fork: Simple two-pronged example. Lucy can booby-trap the door and then manipulate the environment to drive the vampire towards the door. The vampire is doomed regardless of whether he stands his ground and succumbs to the Supernatural Repellent or gets herded into the booby trap.
- Multiple Endings: Depending on how you get rid of the vampire; trying to get each ending is part of the gameplay. Unfortunately, Lucy's deaths don't count as different endings.
- Must Be Invited: One of many weaknesses the vampire has. Public places like the McDonald's have an open invitation to anyone, which is how the vampire got in in the first place. There is a way to get the cashier to revoke the implied-by-default invitation.
- Nicknaming the Enemy: Lucy called vampires leeches and mosquitoes.
- No Name Given: The vampire doesn't have a name. It's for the best since he's a murderer.
- "Number of Objects" Title
- Press X to Die: Lucy can go straight up to the vampire and hug him without any preparation. Of course he drains her to death.
- Protective Charm: The cross necklace you can make with straws. A pamplet from the homeless woman is required to complete it.
- The Christmas wreath can be used to block the vampire's movements.
- Puff of Logic: Normally, the vampire melts or turns to ash when killed. However, if you manage to get his invitation rescinded (which forces him to leave), but put the wreath on the door (which prevents him from leaving), then he explodes
- Red Herring: Only three food items on the menu are useful. The rest just waste time and can lock you out of certain endings.
- Salt Solution: You can't make holy water without salt.
- Shout-Out:
- The name of the ending where the vampire is beheaded? Snicker-Snack
- The description on the ending list for successfully burning down the McDonald's says "BEL/S would be proud", a reference to the player character in one of the author's other games, Open Sorcery, who is a fire elemental.
- In 16 More Ways, one of the options for killing a vampire is locking it inside a walk-in freezer and letting it starve. If this option is taken, then after the team locks the vampire in, they put a sign on the door that says "DO NOT ENTER. DEAD INSIDE". In an aside, Lucy admits that they're all Walking Dead fans. Then they drill off the door handle, because that's more effective.
- Silk Hiding Steel: Lucy puts up a shy, flirty front to lull the vampire into a false sense of security before bringing out a surprise stake/bucket of holy water.
- Silver Has Mystic Powers: In 16 More Ways, one of the ways the team can kill a vampire is by using pre-1964 US dimes and quarters, which were 90 percent silver.
- The Snack Is More Interesting: When the vampire has the cashier pinned next to the french fryer, Lucy has the option of snagging a french fry. She burns herself trying.
- Time for Plan B: You can have Lucy prepare multiple gambits within the same play-through. If you miss one opportunity, you can probably recover with another partially complete plan.
- Timed Mission: The vampire will only loiter for so long before making his move on the cashier. You have until midnight before the cashier dies.
- Turn Undead: The devout homeless woman standing outside can slay the vampire by reciting verses of the Holy Bible.
- Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object: Killing the vampire by trapping it between the holly wreath on the door and a plethora of drinking straw crosses is described this way.Trapped unable to move between the immovable object of Christ and the unstoppable force of Christmas, he slowly melts.
- Vampires Are Sex Gods: Played with. This vampire is a slimy pickup artist who is significantly less effective against people who know how to avoid his Hypnotic Eyes.
- Vampires Hate Garlic: You can kill the vampire by noshing a ton of garlic fries and letting him drink your blood.
- Vampire Hunter: Lucy and her teammates. There's a chance of Claire the cashier joining them in the True Ending
- Video Game Caring Potential: The first time you talk to Bess, a homeless woman who can help you defeat the vampire, you can offer her a dollar. She takes it and thanks you.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Be mean to the homeless woman, and she refuses to help you with dealing with the vampire.
- Walking the Earth: Lucy and her crew lives out of a van.
- Weakened by the Light: The vampire is made uncomfortable and eventually killed by an anti-bacterial UV light that emits the same quality of light as the sun.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: Luke has one of these.
- Wooden Stake: One of many ways to destroy the vampire. Make one out of a toilet plunger.
- Your Vampires Suck: Vampires are susceptible to pretty much every existing weakness in ancient and pop culture, and some of them are pretty absurd.
