Video Game / The Host (2020)

The Host is the first in an unnamed series of first-person indie horror games made on the Unreal engine by Fingers Dipped In Red. Each game in the series follows a different protagonist as they venture through a haunted location.

Games in the series:

• The Host: The first game released in the series. You play as a nameless protagonist who is on a small boat and gets stranded on an island due to running out of gas. You must go into the island and the house within to find gas. But the house is haunted by a strange ghost girl...
• One For The Road: The sequel to The Host. You play as a father who is driving his wife and daughter to an event. He feels the need to use the bathroom and heads to the nearest pit stop. But he is jumped by a mysterious man wearing a sack, and must escape the junkyard and a nearby mansion haunted by a mysterious entity to hopefully reunite with his family.
• The Fun House: A Christmas-themed spinoff of the main series. You play as a student heading home for Christmas, who ends up in a car accident and wakes up in the titular fun house. He is forced to play a series of deadly games by the clown animatronic who owns the house.
• Visitation and Visitation Two: A duology of spinoffs starring a college student, Norman, and his friend Martha, respectively, as they are haunted by a pitch-black, humanoid demon who dwells in the hallway of the dorm. To find out how to repel it, Norman and Maria must find tapes that explain how to do so. Unlike the other games, this one is unique in that the player cannot move around, and is confined to the bed. Instead, they must use their vision and the zoom-in feature to look around the rooms for hidden tapes.
• The Fallen Third: The chronologically first entry in the series, serving as a prequel to the others. Pastor Jeffrey has begun preaching in a new town in the State of Tobyhanna, and is called upon by a fellow Deacon to meet him somewhere. But he gets chased by the titular Fallen Third, a demon resembling a nun, along the way, and is about to discover the dark secret of the town...
• Hail The Fallen Third: The Grand Finale of the series. You play as Caitlyn and her friend Jacob, who investigate the town in Tobyhanna and the church to defeat the evil that lurks there, the Fallen Third, once and for all.

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This series contains examples of:

General

• Ambiguous Situation: Whether the demon antagonists: (The Fallen Third, the Clown Demon, and the Visitation Demon) are the same entity or not. They are all demons, but have somewhat different M.O.s, and it's never confirmed either way.
• Antagonist Title: The last two games, The Fallen Third and Hail The Fallen Third, are named after the demonic villain of the series.
• Arc Words: "Hail The Fallen Third", the phrase said by followers of the cult of the titular demon. It appears at the end of many letters written by the cult members.
• Big Bad: The demons are the overall antagonists, as each game is driven by them seeking victims to devour and putting them in deadly games. It's ambiguous if the three ones seen are the same one or different demons.
• Co-Dragons: Father Tony and the masked man/Father Jeffrey are the main servants of the Fallen Third. The latter serves as the muscle and chases down two different protagonists.
• Demonic Possession: The demons can possess different characters. The Fallen Third seems to refer to it as “converting” them.
• Faux Affably Evil: The demons are nice on the outside, but they are clearly trying to lure their victims to their deaths.
  • The Fallen Third tells Jeffrey as it chases him that it will "take care of him" in what seems to be its attempt at a soothing voice, which just makes it sound more sinister.
  • The clown demon tells the student it captured that it just wants to play, and that it wants to cheer them up. Right before sending a wall to crush them.
  • The Visitation demon, the one time it speaks, pretends to be Martha and tells Norman to come closer... so it can devour him.
• Haunted House: The mansion where a good chunk of the series takes place is the center of the Fallen Third's Religion of Evil, and where it resides.
• Human Sacrifice: The cult of the Fallen Third provides innocent people for it to devour, including children.
• Mind Rape: The Fallen Third induces horrifying hallucinations in its victims, most notably Pastor Jeffrey.
• Sinister Minister: The Deacons of the town are Christian priests who became servants of the demonic Fallen Third and feed it human sacrifices. Among them are Pastor Jeffrey and Father Tony.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: An unnamed book that looks like the Necronomicon seen or referenced in each of the main games. It's connected in some way to the Fallen Third and seems to be capable of summoning it- both Alice and Pastor Jeffery have it in their possession at different points, and it seems to have allowed the Third to warp their minds- and destroying the book is the key to defeating it.
• Town with a Dark Secret: The unnamed town in Tobyhanna where half of the series takes place is a pious, religious community on the outside, albeit hostile to outsiders. On the inside, the townspeople form a Religion of Evil and conduct Human Sacrifice to the demonic Fallen Third.
• Religion of Evil: One of these is dedicated to the worship of the Fallen Third, a demon who they provide with human sacrifices.
• Would Hurt a Child: Both the Fallen Third and its cultists have no problem sacrificing children to it.

The Host

• Antagonist Title: Alice is the titular Host of the Fallen Third.
• Big Bad: The Fallen Third is the demon possessing Alice and Emily, and who the protagonist must evade to escape the island.
• Creepy Children Singing: The soundtrack that plays when the ghost girl chases you in the cellar has this.
• Cruel Twist Ending: The protagonist finally manages to find a gas tank for their boat in the end... but it's empty. They then touch the book, and it's implied they end up another victim of the Fallen Third.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: A ghost girl, indicated to be Alice, Emily, or both, haunts the cellar of the house and comes for whoever enters.

One For the Road

• Big Bad: The Fallen Third, who traps the protagonist in their town and is controlling the mysterious masked man that chases the protagonist and tries to abduct him as a sacrifice.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Good Ending, in which the protagonist is able to escape, but his wife and daughter are still nowhere to be seen.
• Downer Ending: The Bad Ending, in which the protagonist is consumed by the Fallen Third.
• Down in the Dumps: The setting for the first part of the game is a junkyard where the masked man patrols, seeking victims.
• Multiple Endings: There are two endings, depending on what you do in the mansion:
  • Bad Ending: If you go in the secret passage in the bedroom, you eventually face off against and kill the masked man, only to wander into the catacombs and be consumed by the Fallen Third.
  • Good Ending: If you input the correct code for the keypad-locked door and escape, you can escape the mansion and find your car- the protagonist will then run over the masked man and escape.

The Fun House

• Big Bad: The unnamed clown animatronic, hinted to be a demon of some sort, runs the titular Circus of Fear and forces the protagonist to venture through it for its entertainment.
• Christmas Episode: It is specifically stated to be holiday-themed. This mostly translates to taking place in the winter, but since the game is mostly in a fun house, it's easy to forget.
• Circus of Fear: The titular Fun House is a dark area haunted by a clown animatronic who sticks faces of itself everywhere and is always watching and is filled with death traps.
• Cruel Twist Ending: The protagonist finally escapes the house, only for the clown animatronic to start chasing them. They run all the way to the end... only to find another animatronic waiting for them on the other end. The game ends right there, with the implication that they are killed.
• Hell Is That Noise: The clown animatronic, while chasing you, makes several bloodcurdling screams.
• Monster Clown: The Clown Animatronic who runs the Fun House kidnaps people and makes them go through various death traps before trying to kill them.

Visitation and Visitation Two

• Big Bad: The unnamed demon haunts Norman and Martha, trying to devour them.
• Smashing Survival: In both games, after gathering all the tapes, you need to press E repeatedly until the bar fills up to escape the demon.
• Tomato in the Mirror: In Two, the ending implies that the demon in the first game was possessing Martha, the protagonist of the second.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: After spending half of Two with the point-and-click gameplay of the first one, Martha is transported to another nightmare where she can walk, thus going back to the gameplay of the main series.

The Fallen Third

• And Now for Someone Completely Different: After controlling Father Jeffery for most of the game, you suddenly switch to the protagonist of The Host for the last third.
• Big Bad: The titular Fallen Third chases down Pastor Jeffrey and attempts to "convert" him to one of its followers. Upon succeeding, it has Jeffrey chase down the other protagonist to make them another sacrifice.
• Call-Back: Alice and Martha, from The Host and One For The Road, respectively, appear in a list of people whom the Fallen Third has “converted”.
• Downer Ending: Father Jeffrey is converted into a follower of the Fallen Third, while the other protagonist escapes but is heaving to what will be their doom in The Host.
• Face–Heel Turn: Father Jeffery ultimately succumbs to the Fallen Third and becomes a follower- specifically, the masked man from One For The Road.
• Nuns Are Spooky: The Fallen Third appears in the form of a nun with red skin and a skull for a head.
• Origins Episode: Essentially one for the masked man from One For The Road, whom Pastor Jeffrey becomes.

Hail The Fallen Third

• Big Bad: The titular Fallen Third, whom Caitlyn is trying to destroy for good.
• Call-Back: Every single previous game in the series is referenced in some way. The junkyard and mansion from One For The Road are locations, as is the town and church from The Fallen Third. The events of The Fun House are referenced by a radio in the early game. And the Smashing Survival from Visitation, where Norman and Martha had to "Pray the Blood of Jesus", is how Caitlyn must escape the Fallen Third in the ending.
• Grand Finale: It is the culmination of all the plotlines introduced in the series, and the presumably final defeat of the Fallen Third.
• High-Voltage Death: Caitlyn will die if she tries to walk through an electrified metal gate without turning off the generator.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After the Fallen Third spends the entire series either winning or getting away with devouring and "converting" innocent people, Caitlyn presumably manages to finally kill it by burning down the Tome of Eldritch Lore it is linked to.
• Load-Bearing Boss: The Fallen Third is a variant- just before Caitlyn finds the Tome of Eldritch Lore and is about to burn it, the Third makes the catacombs cave in, forcing her to escape.
• Skeptic No Longer: Jacob is initially an atheist and stays that way for most of the game, but upon surviving a close encounter with the demonic Fallen Third, he asks the devoutly religious Caitlyn to take him to her Church.
• Smashing Survival: As a nod to the Visitation games, the Final Boss consists of mashing the E button until the bar fills up to repel the Fallen Third.