Video Game / Sundy Stairway

Sundy Stairway is an adventure Surreal Horror RPG produced by indie developer Yun Seven. It tells the story of 14-year-old Sunday, whose family moves to the isolated, mysterious Calendar Town, infamous for the abnormally high number and frequency of deaths and disappearances in the area.

Sunday initially attempts to ignore the mysteries surrounding the town and tries to be optimistic about starting anew….until he finds his mother, Monday, on the brink of death in the living room. From there, he decides to save his mother and falls into the rabbit hole that is the Liminal World, a land between the states of life and death, and its many, many Stairways.

The game is still in development as of February 2024. It was released on Android Play Store and on the App Store on 10th June 2023, and is slated to be released on Steam on an unspecified date. Note that although the game has cutesy visuals that border on surreal, it still contains discussion of topics such as child abuse, eating disorders, domestic violence, suicide, and murder.

Due to the nature of the game, all spoilers are unmarked.

Sundy Stairway contains examples of:

A-H

• Absurdly High Level Cap: The party members' levels cap at level 55 as of Act 3.
• Abusive Parents: Almost every parent in the game.
  • Sunday’s father, Friday, who not only regularly argues with and sometimes even hits Sunday’s mother, but is also implied to sometimes physically punish and neglect their son.
  • Melanie’s mom, who mistreats Melanie due to the fact that she sees her as the source of all her misfortunes. She regularly physically abuses her, doesn’t give her enough to eat, and favors her older brother, Marin, over her. After spoiler:Marin’s death during military service, Melanie’s mom beats her for absolutely no reason other than to let out her frustrations, forces her to dig a makeshift grave to bury whatever the family has left of him and abandons her on a busy street afterward. Soon after, when Melanie catches her mom with a stranger, her mom then proceeds to throw porcelain plates at her and leaves her to die of blood loss.]]
  • Anghela’s (or Abril’s) mother counts as this too. She used to be a beautiful model, but after an incident in her youth burned her face off and forced her to quit modeling, she decided to make her daughter follow in her footsteps. Unfortunately, this means that Anghela gets a ton of impossible beauty standards placed on her from a young age, gets locked in her room for days at a time for even the simplest misdemeanors, is berated for wanting to become a chef and not a supermodel like her mother, and isn’t allowed to have friends. The worst thing that Anghela’s mother does is teach her daughter a “purification ritual”—which is, in simple terms, inducing vomiting.
  • Summer and Spring's families are implied to be this as well, with the duo getting outright disowned for unknown reasons, leading to them having to steal to get even basic necessities and living in a run-down house in an alleyway.
• Adults Are Useless: Sadly, almost every mentioned adult in the game is a terrible person. The only genuinely decent adult that's explicitly mentioned in-game is Monday, Sunday's mother, and even she isn't in the best mental state, which isn't surprising considering the years of abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother.
• After Boss Recovery: Most boss fights reward the player for winning with food items, equippables, or money that they can use to buy in-game items.
• Air-Aided Acrobatics: There’s a recurring paper plane in both acts that puts players through an obstacle course. Said obstacle course is required to advance through the game.
• Almighty Janitor: The team of vigilantes that have taken it upon themselves to save near-death souls from the liminal world are a motley group of teens who either access the liminal world completely by accident, are dragged into the role by urgency, or have been stuck there for some time.
• Ambiguous Ending:
  • In Act 1:
    • The good ending of the first Stairway involves defeating the mysterious shapeshifting monster that represents Monday’s trauma, after which Melanie and Monday reconcile and become the same person. Sunday and his mother then return to the world of the living…with Monday falling into a coma soon after.
    • The bad ending, meanwhile, has Sunday chickening out and refusing to fight the monster while Melanie begs him to reconsider. It’s unclear what happened to Monday after.
  • In Act 2:
    • An earlier ending to Act 2 can be unlocked if the player chooses not to visit Abril's house, in which the game stops and displays a photo of Abril lying on a bed with flowers strewn all around her, with the caption "The Sleeping Beauty".
• Ambiguous Time Period: The time period in which the game is set is never revealed.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the first arc, Vela, the mysterious, eccentric character that teaches Sunday how to navigate around the liminal world at the start of the game, remarks that if people will keep getting saved from death in the Stairway, she will soon see freedom, implying that Sunday will have to make similar journeys between the two worlds in the future.
• Anti-Escapism Aesop: The message of the first Stairway’s storyline. Monday refused to confront her painful past and hid under a facade of positivity, which not only took a toll on her, but also took a toll on her son, Sunday, since he clearly was aware that something was wrong. Thankfully, by the end of the first arc, Monday has gained the courage to accept what had happened in the past and become a better person.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • When all party members' HP has been reduced to zero during a boss fight, the game gives players the option to restart the fight, and all characters' stats are reset to how they were immediately before the boss fight.
  • When a party member's HP reaches zero during a previous boss fight, and the player starts a new one, said party member is automatically revived. Subverted in that even though they are revived, their HP is automatically set to 1, meaning players have to quickly find a way to raise their HP so they don't get killed at the first turn.
• Anti-Villain: The shapeshifting monster of Act 1. Although it terrorizes Sunday on his first time entering the liminal world, is a representation of Monday’s trauma, and holds Sunday back from rescuing Monday, it makes it pretty clear that the only reason it’s there is as a way to keep Monday from remembering her horrible childhood and getting hurt in the process.
• Arc Symbol:
  • Mirrors. They’re used as a means of transportation to the liminal world.
  • Eyes are also used as a recurring symbol, usually representative of trauma.
  • The first Stairway has frequently recurring imagery of origami crafts (heck, some of them are even used in Melanie’s attacks), sailboats, and plates…all of which are actually way more important to the story than they may initially seem.
• Arc Villain:
  • For Act 1:
    • Played straight with Melanie’s mother, who is Act 1’s Big Bad and is the reason why she’s so traumatized.
    • Somewhat subverted with the monster, as even though it actively tries to stop Sunday from rescuing his mom, it doesn’t mean any actual harm towards either of them and is more of an Anti-Villain.
  • For Act 2:
    • Played straight with Abril’s mom, who punishes her daughter for not living up to impossible beauty standards and doesn’t allow her to have friends so they “won’t betray or hurt her”, despite the fact that Abril desperately needs friends.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Every boss in the game has certain "Attack Colors" that they have increased vulnerability towards. Players can take advantage of this by using attacks or consuming food items that will change their Attack Colors to match the weaknesses of the bosses they're fighting.
• Art-Style Dissonance: The majority of the game, despite its dark, complex themes, is drawn in a cutesy pastel style that borders on surrealistic.
• Attack Reflector: By the turn of Act 2, enemies gain the ability to reflect attacks back to the party if they’re made using a specific Attack Color.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Most Neutral or Attack Color-changing skills are game-changing for beginner players due to their ability to deal tons of damage in one go if used properly. It’s just that they cost quite a lot of Power Points. Subverted in that once characters are leveled up a few times and players are able to purchase items that restore Power Points, this becomes less of an issue.
• Backing Away Slowly: In battle, you can choose to 'flee' bosses when the situation becomes too dire to keep on going, or if your stats are too low and you don't have enough supplies. Oftentimes, you can somehow outrun the boss, but in some cases, mostly in which the boss is required to keep on progressing, you can’t.
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: Abril wears a crop top and is femininely presenting.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: As Stairways are a representation of a nearly-dying person's subconscious, the Final Boss battles that occur in every act count as this.
• Bears Are Bad News: Winter is commonly associated with polar bears and is the most aggressive and blunt member of the main cast.
• Beyond Redemption: Melanie believes that due to the fact that she's made her mom unhappy, her dad abandon the family, and her brother work hard to keep her happy, her very existence is a crime so great that she cannot be pardoned for it.
• Big Bad:
  • Act 1 has Melanie’s mother, who abuses and neglects Melanie due to her belief that she caused all the misfortunes occuring in the family and favors her older brother, Marin, over her. After Marin’s demise during military service, she goes from just simply beating Melanie for her mistakes and neglecting her to outright abusing her for no reason, culminating in Melanie getting kicked out of the house and attempting suicide.
  • Act 2 has Anghela’s mother, who forces her child to fit into Hollywood Beauty Standards, deprives her of a social life, and teaches her how to induce vomiting in order to “be more beautiful”. Due to this, Anghela ends up with virtually no friends, an obsession with looking perfect in her mother’s eyes, and is heavily implied to have an eating disorder or two.
• Big Fancy Castle: The second Stairway is a ginormous, luxurious-looking castle full of sweet treats where Anghela lives. Subverted, though, due to the fact that the castle is littered with bosses (some of which even rob the player) and gets increasingly terrifying as the party progresses.
• Blocking Stops All Damage: In the second Stairway, enemies can block attacks if they’re made with a specific Attack Color. This means that the enemies don’t lose any health from the attack.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • During bossfights, damage inflicted on bosses does not translate into outward injury.
  • If a party member's HP reaches zero, they're not explicitly mentioned as being dead—instead, they're referred to as "out of combat" when it's their turn.
  • Subverted with Marin's death. Even though he most likely died of drowning, thereby playing the trope straight, his sprite during his boss fight has his eyes hollowed out and replaced with black ink, and his body torn into two.
  • Fully averted with Abril's death. There is clearly blood and torn-off skin strewn around her, even in her sprite.
    • However, this is also subverted, considering that in the Sleeping Beauty ending, the blood and gore is replaced with flowers.
• Body Horror:
  • The battle against Marin is already a terrifying surprise, but his sprite makes it even worse. His eye sockets are hollowed, with black ink spilling out of them, and his body is brutally torn into two.
  • Abril's death also counts. Once Sunday and Winter sneak into her home, concerned due to the fact that she reportedly passed out in the middle of class, they discover that she sliced pieces of her skin off in some sort of horrifying DIY Self-Surgery (supposedly in a failed attempt to look slimmer) and is literally on the brink of death.
• Body Motifs:
  • Eyes are used to represent fear and trauma.
  • Hands—and, more specifically, index fingers—are used specifically in Act 2, as a reference to Anghela’s “purification ritual”.
    • Interestingly enough, there is a hand enemy in the second Stairway, with one specific attack called “Cut Hand”, implying that Anghela is either regularly practicing Self-Harm or, more likely, as a reference to the terrifying failed Self-Surgery she attempts as a desperate way to lose weight, with the hands being one of the places where she removed her skin.
• Boring, but Practical: Plenty of the skills and items that characters unlock earlier on in the game are easy ways to beat bosses with relative ease, even later on in the game.
  • Attack Color-changing skills that deal damage to single enemies are one of the first skills that characters learn in-game. While the skills that damage multiple enemies seem to be superior, those skills often cost more Power Points.
  • Basic food items like Spicy Lollipop and Gummy Bear can save the party in even the direst of situations, such as when players run out of food items with similar effects or can't afford superior items.
• Boss-Only Level: The final levels of the Stairways are reserved specifically for fighting the Big Bad of each act.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Monday vows to become the best mother she can be to Sunday and not follow in her abusive mom's footsteps. Deconstructed, though, since Monday's attempts to be a good mother involve staying in a relationship with Friday, her clearly abusive husband, just so Sunday won't have to think that their separation was his fault.
• Brick Joke:
  • The paper plane that Sunday and Melanie use in Act 1 as a form of transportation appears again in Act 2, and is used for a similar reason.
    • What's more, the plane is even mentioned when the group hitches a ride on a paper boat in Act 2.
• Broken Bridge: In every Stairway, there are several fogs that prevent the characters from progressing further. These fogs only disappear after the characters remember—and fight back against—their trauma.
• But Thou Must!: Major boss fights—such as final bosses or bosses that have a significant role in the story—are required. When players try to flee, a message displays that says they can't, and the only ways out are either a fight to the death (after which the fight will restart), or returning to the menu and loading the nearest saved checkpoint.
• Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp":
  • The game's equivalent of energy is called "Power Points", and the character's current state depends on a "Calm Bar" that is at the bottom of their picture during a boss fight.
  • Enemies are called “Nightmares”.
• Cathartic Crying: At the end of Act 1, when Sunday rescues his mom, they share a tearful embrace.
• Central Theme: Helping people accept their trauma and move on from it.
• Creepy Child:
  • Vela, who appears to be around the same age as the teenaged Sunday, and makes odd, cryptic remarks about death and human nature.
  • The souls wandering in the liminal world appear to be locked in a childlike form and exhibit odd personality traits. The trope is played straight with Melanie, who frequently makes remarks that border on concerning, but it's downplayed with Anghela, who still acts like a fairly normal child.
• Cerebus Callback:
  • At the very beginning of the game, Sunday listens to the radio of his dad’s car and hears about the abnormally high number of mysterious deaths and disappearances in the game. Later on, it becomes clear that this odd statistic is due to the fact that some people who commit suicide can’t return to the land of the living because their soul can’t pass through the Stairway.
  • In Act 2, a few days after Sunday and Winter befriend Abril, they share empanadas together during recess. The scene then cuts to Abril in the bathroom, leaning over the toilet and feeling happy that “the slim, beautiful Abril is back”. During one of the flashbacks seen in the second Stairway, it’s revealed that Anghela was taught a secret “purification ritual” as a little girl—which is, in simple terms, inducing vomiting to lose weight, implying that this “ritual” was what Abril was doing in the bathroom.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Both acts start off lighthearted, but suddenly, the central character of the act borders near death suddenly, and Sunday (and in the second act, Winter) has to enter the liminal world and save them, helping their soul explore the Stairways and reach the door of Rest. However, it’s easier said than done—the closer the party gets to the door of Rest, the trickier the bosses and puzzles become. Worst of all, the fog flashbacks get worse and more horrifying.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: Sunday does this in the bad ending for Act 1, walking away from Melanie and his mother at the last second.
• Character Development: All the central characters in the game experience this, to some degree:
  • Monday goes from putting on a facade of toxic positivity and making her life revolve around other people to compensate for the trouble she thinks she causes her family and friends and to distance herself from the years of abuse that shaped her youth, to learning that she must accept her trauma and grow from it in order to fully heal.
  • Abril starts off almost completely following her mom around (with her body suffering the consequences), doing modeling even though it clearly makes her unhappy, and being obsessed with being as beautiful as she can be in the eyes of others, to learning that she doesn’t have to live for others and that the things she enjoys doesn’t have to come from the standards of other people.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • In Act 2, players can collect and purchase lots of Lemon Candies and Effervescent Drinks, which both heal party members and counteract the Dizziness state. This becomes vital during the battle against Anghela’s monster, due to the fact that its strategy is to give the party the Dizziness state as much as possible in order to have an advantage over the party, since it counteracts the effects of any food items or healing skills.
  • Early on in Act 2, Abril gives Sunday and Winter her address. In the next chapter, the duo begin to feel concerned due to the fact that Abril doesn’t turn up at their lunch table during recess, and Winter later found out that she came to school, but fainted and had to be discharged. The duo then use the directions Abril gave them to find her house and check up on their friend, only to discover that she has committed suicide, kickstarting the events of the second Stairway.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Sunday serves as this for the majority of the plot. In Act 1, when he finds Monday near-dead, he decides to interact with the mirror placed next to her, which transports him to the liminal world. In Act 2, he gets a bad feeling about Abril’s situation, and convinces Winter to go to her house and say hi, which leads them to discover that Abril’s bleeding out and in urgent need of help.
  • Abril also serves as this due to the fact that she gives her friends her house address in Act 2, which indirectly helps them save her life.
• Chekhov's Skill: Sunday has really, really good intuition. In both acts, he gets a bad feeling about the central character—he starts hearing voices, seeing things, feeling pain etc., which leads him to investigate and save the character’s life.
• Climax Boss:
  • Act 1 has Marin, who Sunday fights once he realizes that spoiler:he’d captured Melanie after the Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure, and the monster of the first Stairway, who Sunday and Melanie fight together in order to save Monday in the good ending.
  • Act 2 has the monster of the second Stairway, who the party fights after reaching the top of the Stairway. However, the monster is more of a Bait-and-Switch Boss if anything, as immediately after defeating it, the party realizes that to truly save Abril, they must fight the real Final Boss: Anghela’s mother.
• Color Motif: Pastel colors represent nostalgia, innocence, and the subconscious, while darker tones represent trauma, grief, and death.
• Combat Medic:
  • The majority of Anghela’s attacks are specifically meant to heal the party or revive out-of-combat party members.
  • As a more nefarious example, some Nightmares can heal themselves and the other Nightmares around them.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • Sunday does everything in his power to help win against the Big Bad of each act, even when he endangers those around him.
  • One of Melanie’s attacks, Broken Plate, increases her Attack, increasing her damage output, but reduces her Defense, causing her to be more vulnerable to damage.
• Cool Big Bro: Marin was the closest thing Melanie had to a proper parental figure. He took care of her, brought her food and even gifts when their mother wasn’t looking, influenced her love of origami, and was the light in her life. At least, before he died.
• Cool Big Sis: Anghela acts as a sisterly figure to the younger Sunday and Winter, and is implied to be fairly popular within the school. Winter even asks her for tips on how to be more feminine.
• Cosmetic Award: Almost all of the game’s achievements count as this. They don’t affect gameplay in any way, and the ones that do only really serve to unlock chests that give players rare, unbuyable items.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Almost all of the game’s events—and, by extension, much of the annoyances Sunday and family have to go through—are because of the fact that Sunday’s family moved to Calendar Town in search of a better life. And why did they do that? Because Friday lost his previous job.
• Critical Hit: All combatants have a chance of landing one. Melanie’s Ninja Knife attack never misses and has a near-guarantee of one, but it costs a whole 35 Power Points.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Mercifully averted. In Act 2, when Sunday and Winter sneak into Abril’s home, it’s revealed that Abril is bleeding out after attempting a horrific Self-Surgery by slicing pieces of her skin off of her arms, legs, and stomach because she saw herself as ugly in the mirror.
• Darker and Edgier: Than Yun Seven’s previous works. Most of their other works are lighthearted, with a similar surrealistic style. The only other game they’ve developed that comes even mildly close to Sundy Stairway is a Visual Novel-type game called VT Harmony, which touches on themes such as depression and codependent relationships.
• Dead-Hand Shot: In Act 2, an early ending can occur if Sunday chooses not to visit Abril. This ending includes a shot of a limp Abril lying down with flowers strewn over her face and body.
• Death Glare: Winter has two skills—Threatening Look and Cold Look—that are just her staring daggers at the enemy, and reduce the enemy’s Defense and Attack respectively.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The only colors in the flashbacks are pink and black, save for the occasional Red Filter of Doom if the flashback is particularly traumatic.
• Developer's Foresight: Sometimes, decisions that the player makes can lead to early endings. If Sunday chooses to jump off the wall in Act 1, he’ll fall into an endless void. If he chooses not to visit Abril’s home, the player is treated to a Dead-Hand Shot of someone who is implied to be Abril.
• Dies Wide Open:
  • Played straight with Marin, whose eye sockets spew out black ink in his boss sprite.
  • Averted with Summer, Spring, Abril and Monday. All of them have closed eyes in both their sprites and artwork.
• Disc-One Final Boss: In Act 2, the gang defeats the monster of the second Stairway and is just about ready to save Abril and bring her back to the world of the living…until another boss appears—this time, it’s the very person who’s been causing Anghela so much pain: her mom.
• The Disease That Shall Not Be Named:
  • As we see her in Chapter 6, June is wheelchair-bound and complains to Sunday about her mysterious illness, which she hopes will at least be slightly remedied with the herbs growing in the family garden.
  • Winter is seen in Chapter 3 taking some sort of medication. Sunday asks her if she’s ill, to which Winter replies that it’s none of his buisness.
  • Both Summer and Spring, the duo that Sunday befriends in Chapter 12, suffer from a disease that has paralyzed Summer and left him bedridden. It's implied that Winter also suffers from a similar illness.
• Disguised Horror Story: Played with. The game is advertised as Surreal Horror in both promotional artwork and videos, but Sunday’s life in the land of the living is basically just a Coming of Age Story. The actual horror lies in the dark themes of the game, and the trauma of its characters that are explored in the Stairways.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Sunday’s way of distracting himself from his parents’ arguing matches is to blast loud music into his headphones and cuddle up with his favorite candy plushie—which is a fairly common way that kids in dysfunctional families cope with the stress of familial tensions.
  • Melanie’s trauma and the methods she uses to dissociate from it are shockingly and disturbingly similar to the harmful coping mechanisms some abuse victims display in Real Life.
  • Anghela’s behavior—eating lots of food in one go and then proceeding to forcefully vomit immediately after—are disturbingly similar to symptoms of an eating disorder, more specifically bulimia nervosa.
    • In fact, this might as well be canon, since one of her monster’s attacks—while it’s still in Anghela’s form—is literally called “Bulimia”.
• Dream Land: The Stairways, which are a peek at a near-death person’s subconscious.
• Driven to Suicide: Both acts center around a character who, due to their trauma and some other issues they may struggle with, is this. In fact, Calendar Town is on the map specifically because so many of its residents suffer from this fate.
• Early Game Hell: The game is pretty difficult to master for new players due to the amount of game mechanics and stats to look out for—in fact, in boss battles, players have to watch out for party members’ HP, Calm Bar, and Power Points at the same time.
• Earn Your Happy Ending:
  • After suffering from abuse during her formative years, having the only person who could save her get taken away from her, and dealing with the repercussions and trauma completely alone, Melanie gets a fresh start and feels true, genuine happiness and peace for the first time in decades.
  • Anghela, after carrying the tons of emotional baggage from her mom’s gaslighting and abuse, finally gets to be at peace, and is finally able to do what she wants to do.
• Easter Egg:
  • In the first Stairway, at Floor 6, there’s a treasure chest that’s stranded in the middle of a jelly sea. Once the player reaches and opens it, they are rewarded with a brooch called “Brooch 7”, which can only be acquired using that specific treasure chest. The brooch’s name is most likely a reference to the game developer, Yun Seven.
  • In Act 1, Sunday has to move a box of items from the trunk of the car into their new home. The box has a print of a TV and a bunny, most likely a reference to the two central characters of VT Harmony, another Yun Seven game.
  • The statue of the historical figure Eva carrying the severed head of her lover in the town square is another VT Harmony reference.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • The terrifying monsters that are in every Stairway, which are culminations of nearly-dead people’s trauma, issues, and fears.
  • In retrospect, the majority of Nightmares in the Stairways are this. Vela mentions early on in the game that all Nightmares are a representation of someone’s fears or trauma.
• Empty Levels: Party members only unlock new skills at every other level, so every odd-numbered level only really increases the characters’ HP, Power Points, and some additional stats depending on the character.
• Enemy Scan: One of Sunday’s skills, Reveal, can reveal enemies’ current health.
• Explorer Horror: During the final parts of both Stairways, the areas get increasingly surreal and dark. Combat mostly takes a back seat, and all the exploration centers around revealing the final key bits of the central characters’ backstories.
• Eye Scream:
  • Marin’s boss sprite has no eyes, with his eye sockets getting hollowed out and replaced with an ink-like substance.
  • The only artwork that shows Melanie’s mother’s face in full has her have only one eye, staring daggers at her daughter.
• Eye Motifs: Eyes are used in the game to represent trauma and fear.
• The Faceless:
  • All of the characters in the Party have their faces obscured and replaced with a Motif of theirs:
    • Sunday’s face is obscured by a piece of candy, which looks similar to his favorite candy plushie;
    • Melanie’s by a plate as a form of Foreshadowing;
    • Winter’s by a polar bear cookie, which is her favorite food;
    • and Anghela’s face is covered by a piece of toast, representing her true love of cooking.
  • Interestingly, when you first meet him in the Stairway, Marin appears wearing a paper boat with an eye drawn on it, most likely as some sort of Foreshadowing.
  • Melanie’s mother doesn’t have a nose or mouth, and only has one eye in her boss sprite. Her face isn’t shown in most of the flashbacks.
  • Anghela’s mom wears a mask to conceal the permanent burns as a result of an incident between her and another model.
• Fairytale Motifs: Played with. Anghela is a princess in a luxurious castle with so many sweet treats it could give someone disbetes just by looking at it, but said castle is incredibly dangerous, and she can’t find a way out, no matter how much she wants to leave.
• Final Boss:
  • Act 1 has the monster of the first Stairway, which has around four phases in total. However, it’s relatively easy to beat since there are only really four Attack Colors—red, blue, purple, and pink—that it could be weakened towards.
  • Act 2:
    • Gameplay-wise, it’s the monster of the second Stairway, who also has four phases. However, it’s harder to beat since, with the introduction of Anghela and Winter to the party, two new Attack Colors get added—Celeste and Yellow. Aside from that, enemies gain the ability to be able to block, ricochet, or even heal from attacks when they’re made with a specific Attack Color, which depends on the enemy. Plus, it uses lots of attacks that inflict the Dizziness state onto the party.
    • Story-wise, it’s actually Anghela’s mom. She may only have one phase, but has lots of HP and uses attacks that inflict the Afraid state onto the party.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Anghela’s mom, Angeline, deprives her daughter of social interaction for fear that she’ll get betrayed. This is because one of Angeline’s friends in the modeling industry grew jealous of her fame, beauty, and youth, and splashed chemicals on her face in a ploy to dethrone her. However, Winter later notes that even though she feels sorry for Anghela’s mother, it’s still no excuse for her mom gaslighting her into not having friends.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The game incorporates its story into its adventure elements in lots of ways:
  • Each level in the Stairways is a progessively deeper exploration of their central character’s psyche. The more warbled, surreal, and incoherent the levels are, the more disconnected the person is from their emotions and past. This explains why Abril’s stairway very clearly resembles a castle and is very dreamlike and fun with lots of puzzles, representing how she’s not exactly dissociating from her past. Monday’s stairway, meanwhile, appears to take the party to random places, representing how she’s almost completely shut herself off from the pain of her childhood trauma over time.
  • The central characters’ souls are also representative of how much they’ve dissociated from their past, since dissociation traps your soul in the Stairway for an indefinite amount of time. Melanie is a paranoid Shrinking Violet due to getting stuck in the same room for what is implied to be decades, talking to no other person than herself, while Anghela is happy, bubbly, and the crew’s Determinator, implying that she’s only gotten stuck in the castle fairly recently.
  • According to Vela, the Nightmares in a Stairway are representative of the trauma and fears the person connected to it has experienced, and no two Stairways have the same Nightmares.
  • The puzzles in the Stairways also count. Monday’s Stairway has lots of Air-Aided Acrobatics while Abril’s Stairway has more puzzle-platforming sections.
• Game Within a Game:
  • The Air-Aided Acrobatics challenges in the game count as this. Players are tasked with riding on a paper airplane and collecting stars while avoiding obstacles (and, if enough stars are collected, unlock a chest).
  • There are multiple areas in Act 2 where you can complete an obstacle course (and unlock a chest if the course is completed within the time limit).
• Golden Ending: In this game, there are two, both of which are achievable by choosing to save the central characters in both acts.They’re also the only endings that directly affect the storyline.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Melanie suffers from this in shades, since it’s heavily implied that Monday’s been dissociating from her past for decades, which means Melanie, the incarnation of her soul, was stuck in the tiny room you first find her in for that same amount of time. Unsurprisingly, she’s not only become a Shrinking Violet, but she’s also paranoid and unwilling to pass through the fogs at times.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: In Act 1, Melanie is so horrified over remembering that Marin’s dead that she suffers a Heroic BSoD, running away from and cursing Sunday for forcing her to remember. Eventually, when the party reunites, she apologizes to Sunday for her actions, with Sunday understanding that she was just doing it because of her resurfaced grief.
• Gone Horribly Right: In Act 2, it’s revealed that Anghela was taught how to perform a “purification ritual” by her mother. At first, she doesn’t need to perform it unless she consumes lots of food, but eventually she performs it on a near-daily basis, and after that, she doesn’t even need to perform it anymore, because her body just rejects almost everything she eats by itself.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Players can unlock achievements if they find and unlock all the chests in every Stairway. Unfortunately, some chests are locked behind mini-games or are easy to miss, meaning that finding every single chest in the game requires a lot of work and dedication.
  • In Act 1, players meet Marin, who Melanie decides to make a gift for, after which players are tasked with finding three colored pieces of paper hidden around the area so Melanie can make a gift. Plus, if it wasn’t hard enough, players cannot leave the area until all three pieces of paper are found.
  • In Act 2, some areas feature locked walls that the party must disable in order to progress through the area. In order to disable the walls, players must find and pull four levers hidden around the map, which is already hard enough without the occasional Nightmare getting in the way.
  • Some endings of the game are incredibly difficult to obtain unless you’re actively trying to get them. These extra endings have almost no purpose other than for the sake of {{100 Completion}}, with the game actively encouraging you to try and get the Golden Ending.
• Gut Punch: The tragic memories of the central characters. It’s made worse by the fact that with every memory the party discovers, the scenarios playing out within them just get worse and worse, finally culminating in one horrific incident that finally drives them to commit suicide.
• Healing Boss: All the Nightmares in Act 2 have certain Attack Colors that they can heal from.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Vela, the eccentric young spirit that guides the lost souls in the liminal world, as well as the living beings who enter it to save them, teaches Sunday about the Calm Bar, his Power Points, and his HP bar, effectively Breaking the Fourth Wall.
• Here We Go Again!: Act 2 has a similar beginning to Act 1, to the point where even Sunday himself is already aware of what’s going to happen at the start—he remembers that mirrors are a Portal Door to the liminal world, and correctly predicts that Anghela is Abril’s soul and that there’s going to be a fog on the first floor that they have to brave together.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Occurs in Act 1 when Sunday discovers his mother's body. He just stands there, frozen and unmoving, for a good few seconds. Even his sprite is frozen.
  • Also in Act 1, after Melanie remembers her brother's death. And it's not pretty, either: Melanie screams and cries hysterically, cusses Sunday out for making her remember, and runs away.
  • Downplayed in Act 2, in which Anghela gets a minor one after remembering her mom's abuse and getting convinced that she isn't beautiful.
• He Was Right There All Along: In Act 2, the Final Boss is Anghela’s mother, who you can only fight after fighting the monster.
• Hide-and-Seek Horror: In Act 2, one of the areas on Floor 7-4 has a chase sequence in a maze, in which the party plays hide-and-seek with an otherwise beautiful woman with a Long Neck and an uncannily cartoony body.
• Hope Spot:
  • In one of Melanie’s memories, it’s revealed that Marin had planned to take her to live with him after his military training, where they could finally be away from their mother. The night before their planned escape, Melanie packed her bags secretly and even made an origami gift for her brother, only to arrive at the military base the next day and learn that ''Marin had died the night before.”
  • In Act 1, when Sunday’s mom is barely out of reach from him while he climbs a staircase in the liminal world in an attempt to save her, the monster of the first Stairway appears in front of the screen, alongside a sudden sound effect, scaring Sunday so much that he suffers a Staircase Tumble and blacks out.
    • Something similar happens to Sunday and Winter in Act 2, when they’re about to reach Abril climbing up the staircase. They suddenly get an unexpected urge to vomit, lightheadedness, and dizziness…right before a Jump Scare from the monster of the second Stairway.
• Horrible Housing:
  • Melanie’s childhood home. Text in the game implies that the only reason her mother takes care of the house is because Marin still lives there.
  • Summer and Spring's place of residence in Act 3. The duo live in a sketchier part of town with an implied high rate of crime, and the only shots we get to see of the house show what is implied to be where they sleep, a tiny room that's completely empty save for a small bed where they sleep. Made worse by the fact that their families live in the same neighborhood as Abril's, implying that they were well-off prior to getting disowned.
• Hospital Epilogue: If you received the good ending for Act 1, it ends with Sunday and his dad in the hospital with his comatose mother.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Party members in-game can use food items to recover HP, Power Points, or increase their Calm Bar to boost their stats. Plus, Anghela can churn out unlimited snacks, sandwiches, and even whole picnic spreads to heal the party in some of her skills, so long as she has enough Power Points.

I-P

• Interface Spoiler:
  • Almost all the chapters in the game have interfaces that remind players of the chapter number, accompanied by a unique drawing on the interface. Some of these drawings can spoil significant plot points.
  • Also in the chapter interfaces, even the titles of the chapters can give some hints as to what will occur in the story.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Winter may be mean, aggressive, and antisocial, but for all her flaws, she genuinely cares for her friends. When she finds out that Sunday’s been having trouble adjusting to the new place and is on a rough patch in his life, she gives him a polar bear cookie to make him feel better. When she finds out about Anghela’s upbringing, she feels sorry for her, remarking on how awful she would have felt if she were in her place. On a somewhat comical note, she even indulges in Abril’s snack cravings by handing her an empanada when she hears that she’s been feeling unwell.
• Joke Item: There is a brooch in the game called “Brooch 7” that requires a whole ton of patience and skill to unlock, with the party having to find a way to walk over a jelly sea before reaching the chest at the center. Observant players will quickly notice that Brooch 7 increases your Speed, Attack, and HP by 7, which is probably a dead giveaway that it’s meant as nothing more than an Easter Egg and a reference to the game’s creator.
• Jump Scare:
  • In Act 1, after Sunday climbs up the staircase to save his mom, and is just barely about to reach her, the monster of the first Stairway shows up on the screen out of nowhere, terrifying Sunday so much he falls down the stairs and blacks out.
  • The same thing happens in Act 2, except Sunday and Winter get sudden lightheadedness, dizziness, and an uncontrollable urge to vomit immediately before the jump scare.
• Kick the Dog:
  • In Act 1, Melanie’s memories show that her mom dislikes her due to the fact that her birth caused some problems in the family. As a result, her mother doesn’t give her enough to eat, regularly beats her for even the slightest misdemeanors (and later for no particular reason), forces her to do all the household work, and only really keeps her in the house because Marin doesn’t want her to kick Melanie out. After Marin’s death, though, Melanie’s mother begins to treat her much, much worse.
  • In Act 2, Anghela’s memories show that her mom wants her to become a model and follow in her footsteps despite her occasional objections. Unfortunately, this means that Anghela is a victim of Hollywood Beauty Standards and a strict regimen imposed upon her by her mother that starts off as just limiting her from eating certain foods to outright teaching her toxic habits like the “purification ritual”.
• Kill the Cutie: Both Monday and Abril commit suicide in Acts 1 and 2 respectively. Subverted in that they both survive in the Golden Ending.
• Killed Offscreen:
  • In Act 1, Sunday finds his mother bleeding out just after she committed suicide.
  • In Act 2, Sunday and Winter find Abril bleeding profusely in her room, a short while after her Self-Surgery.
  • In Act 3, Sunday, Winter, and Abril go to meet Spring and Summer after learning that they decided to visit Spring's family's home to ask for help. Once they arrive, they find both of them unresponsive on the asphalt.
• Killer Rabbit: Most of the minor Nightmares in both Stairways actually look quite cute, but are still very dangerous if you haven’t focused on building your party properly.
• Leitmotif: Kalimba and piano tunes represent nostalgia, innocence, and happiness. However, distorted versions of them represent the loss of those things.
• Lethal Joke Character: Despite Anghela appearing to be a mostly harmless Combat Medic, when she’s built properly, her basic attack and damage-dealing skills—Casserole, Chewy Explosion, Melted Butter, and Yesterday’s Bread—can actually output tons of damage.
• Level Ate: Most of the second Stairway is comprised of various foodstuffs.
• Luck-Based Mission: When encountering a Nightmare the party’s never fought before, attacking them practically becomes this, as the player has no idea what Attack Colors it can heal from, block, or reflect, and what Attack Colors it is weakened towards.
• Mana Shield: Winter has a skill that, if she is attacked, will covert all the damage she takes in order to subtract her Power Points instead of her HP.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane:
  • The whole liminal world itself. The individuals who reside within it can take on a new form, and if someone is found and rescued within its confines before they reach the door of Rest, they can return to the land of the living, giving off the impression that the liminal world is paranormal. However, Vela mentions that it’s still between the lands of the living and the dead no matter where you go, implying that everyone will enter the liminal world at some point.
  • Vela’s “feathers”, which offer Sunday and his friends guidance while they traverse the liminal world. Vela can talk to the party through the feathers and they offer seemingly magical qualities, and yet they always disintegrate once the party leaves the liminal world.
  • Mirrors, which serve as portals to the liminal world. The game never confirms if mirrors in general can be used as portals or if they only open up when the person who uses them enters the liminal world. The “mundane” part lies in the fact that people use mirrors on a daily basis (obviously).
• Meaningful Name:
  • Melanie’s name means “dark”, which makes sense interpreted in a weather-related context, considering that Marin is represented by rainbows in the story.
  • Anghela’s name means “messenger”.
• Medium Blending:
  • Some artwork of the game, including the Title Screen, appear to use both three-dimensional backgrounds and two-dimensional, hand-drawn artwork.
  • The background art of the game is a mixture of two-dimensional and three-dimensional assets.
• The Mirror Shows Your True Self: Mirrors are portals to the Stairways, which represent an individual’s psyche.
• Money Spider: All of the enemies in the game drop food items or money once defeated.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The stark contrast of the secnes before and during the fights against the major boss(es) of each act. The backgrounds during the boss fights are darker and grungier than the lighter, more pastel-toned color palettes of the floors before.
    • This contrast is exacerbated further in Act 2, in which the floor where the boss fight takes place begins in the bright back garden of a luxurious palace. Once the palace is entered, though, the Deliberately Monochrome colors kick in.
  • The scenes right before a character is discovered dead and the scenes immediately after. The scene starts off bright and nornally colored, and then turns much darker. To add to the contrast, a scream, followed by shattering glass, can be visibly heard during these scenes.
• Multiple Endings: Played straight, although strangely enough, almost none of the endings affect the storyline in any way.
  • The good endings for both acts involve saving the central characters, Monday for Act 1 and Abril for Act 2. These endings are the only ones that affect the storyline.
  • The bad ending for Act 1 is achieved if the player clicks on the “…” option when Melanie asks if Sunday wants to fight the monster and save his mother, leading to Sunday [1] walking away while Melanie begs him to reconsider.
    • There is an extra ending in Act 1: the Endless Void ending, which is achievable if the party decides not to take the paper plane and jumps off the platform instead, falling into an endless void.
  • The bad ending for Act 2 is achieved if Sunday decides not to check up on Abril, leading to her dying of blood loss without anyone knowing.
    • An additional bad ending is achievable if Sunday and Winter decide to stay inside Abril's room when her mother knocks on the door, after which the trio are beaten to death.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: If Anghela's mother's backstory as it's told in the flashbacks is accurate, in her youth, a fellow model that became envious of her fame and success attempted to do this to her. Subverted in that Anghela's mother survived, but was left so horrifically injured that she had to quit modeling.
• Never Say "Die": Played with. Played straight in the liminal world, where a party member with zero HP is considered out of combat, and their turn is useless unless they are revived, but completely averted in the real world, where a character is just simply described as dead.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In Act 1, after the truth about Marin's death is revealed, Melanie screams in horror, still obviously in denial over her brother's death, and yells at and abandons Sunday for revealing such horrific truths to her. Somewhat subverted in that Melanie later apologises to Sunday for being a jerk and rejoins the party.
  • Downplayed in Act 2 when a similar incident occurs after Anghela learns about the abuse her mother inflicted on her. It doesn't take a lot of the group's convincing to convince Anghela that she's beautiful the way she is, but it's evident she's still shaken up about what she'd learned.
• No Ending: Since the game is still in development, there isn't a concrete ending for the actual game yet. Early endings can be achieved, of course, but those are Point of Divergence endings and have no effect on the actual plot.
• Non-Standard Character Design: In Act 1, Sunday and Melanie meet Marin, who Melanie wants to make a gift for, triggering a quest. However, Marin's sprite design is slightly different compared to the rest of the characters—he has a single eye that is drawn more realistically compared to the more Animesque style the other characters' eyes are drawn in, and his character portrait that appears during his dialogue has no mouth. The reason for this becomes clear later on: the real Marin passed on long ago, and the Marin we meet in the Stairway is just an avatar to distract Melanie from the fact that her real brother has already passed away.
• Non-Standard Game Over: All of the non-canon endings in the game do not have an end screen; instead, a black-and-white screen with some artwork depicting the characters' fate is shown, alongside the title of the ending.