You have been invited to play Terrorbane, a new JRPG where you take the role of the eponymous hero in their quest to defeat the foul demon Xondar and bring peace back to the land. With a myriad of environments to explore, quirky characters to meet, and secrets to discover, the developer of the game promises that this game will be the greatest game of the year!
...Were it not for all the bugs that still plague the game.
For all of his boasting, the developer's programming skills leave a lot to be desired, but he's very proud of his creation and he wants you to experience its magnificence for yourself. As the Player, it is up to you to take up the position of unofficial playtester, dive into the game, and find all of the bugs that still lurk in the code.
Maybe if you find enough, you can convince the Developer that the game could probably use some more development time before it is released.
tERRORbane was developed by BitNine Studio, published by WhisperGames, and released on April 1, 2022 for the PC via Steam and the Nintendo Switch.
The Developer swears that tERRORbane has no bugs, but it does have the following tropes:
- BFS: The Eversteel is a massive greatsword with the power to slay Xondar. However, its true power is letting you slash the environment and access part of the game's code.
- But Thou Must!: No matter what you choose when entering your character's name, the Developer will always force you to pick the name "Terrorbane".
- First-Person Smartass: While you, as the Player, don't have any spoken dialogue, the various post-it notes on your bug list has you snarking about the game's numerous bugs.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: At some point in the game, you are told to name the player character. No matter what you choose, the Developer will name the character "Terrorbane." Your first choice will still pop up occasionally as you play the game, as the Developer didn't do a good job replacing every instance of your first choice with "Terrorbane" in the game's code.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: The End Game Boss cannot be beaten. The moment you enter combat against it, it fires off an attack that deals far more damage than your health bar can take. Getting killed by this boss is necessary to enter the incredibly glitchy version of Whiskerburg.
- Hostile Show Takeover: During the True Ending, Archdemon Xondar manages to usurp the Developer position, trapping the original Developer in a weather app. He proceeds to remake the game, making it bug-free but also much more drab-looking.
- Intentional Engrish for Funny: In the original draft of the game's intro scroll, the Developer purposely wrote in Engrish in an attempt to appear "retro". He uses more grammatically correct English in later versions of the intro.
- Minus World: If you get killed by the End Game Boss but try to enter Whiskerburg again instead of being revived, you'll end up in an extremely glitched out version of Whiskerburg. And yes, there are plenty of bugs to find in this already buggy mess of a city.
- No Kill like Overkill: If you pick a fight with the End Game Boss, it will launch a multi-hit attack that does 9999 damage with each hit before your character can even do anything. Your character, by the way, only has around 153 HP.
- Obvious Beta: The entire game is an In-Universe example. Despite the Developer's insistence that the game is perfect, it is still riddled with bugs: inverted controls in some areas, glitchy user interfaces, NPCs behaving oddly due to bad coding, translated lines appearing where they shouldn't, and strange game behavior during battles are just a few examples of the game's issues.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Kuborg packs quite a punch despite his small size; a single scythe attack from him can take almost half of Terrorbane's health.
- Small Name, Big Ego: The Developer is convinced that he has created a game that will show up the AAA gaming industry and constantly boasts of his "superb" programming skills. Your goal is to find enough bugs to convince him that he still has room to improve.
- Take That!: The ending where you allow Xondar to remain the new Developer makes fun of some of the more criticized practices of the gaming industry, such as rushing out sequels and implementing microtransactions.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change:
- If you try to skip the opening scroll twice, you eventually end up on a very bugged version of the scroll. In order to advance through the scroll, you have to play a Rhythm Game.
- Once you collect enough bugs to reach the True Ending, you end up fighting the Developer in a Shoot 'Em Up stage.
