The intro.
The PK Girl is an Interactive Fiction game written by designer Robert Goodwin in 2002 on the ADRIFT engine. The protagonist is a more or less ordinary guy who sees a cute girl being kidnapped while going out for ice cream. At the urging of her sister, he gives chase to rescue her, and learns that the sisters are really psychics trying to escape from someone that wants to make use of them. During the course of the game, he encounters more lovely girls while trying to protect the psychic sisters from their oppressor.Can be found here
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This game provides examples of:
- Artistic License: Saffy levers up a heavy stone with a katana, using no PK whatsoever. In real life, the sword would snap in a moment if someone tried to do that - a katana is not a spade.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Theoretically the rule for ROSA. Chadwick got his high position because he can kill you with his brain, but is absolutely useless when Brought Down to Normal...or when he's sprayed in the eyes with a fire extinguisher.
- Badass Normal: The Player Character. He has no powers, but he can take down three Mooks in his first fight, and later on fights powerful psychics hand-to-hand.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Saffy responds best to you when you call her out on her Tsundere behavior.
- But Thou Must!: Common throughout the game. An exception occurs early in the game when you can refuse to help out Laurie, but it renders the game Unwinnable.
- Covert Pervert: Of the three girls in the ice cream parlor, Monika's actually the one who's interested in you. Also, if you make blatantly sexual come-ons at her, she'll act embarrassed...and her score will go up.
- Dating Sim: Though you only get to date three girls (and two of those dates are mutually exclusive); the rest are won by solving their problems.
- Deliberately Distressed Damsel: Cassie freely admits that she could easily have handled her captors herself, but being rescued was more fun.
- Distressed Damsel: Cassie, Saffy and later Laurie.
- The Dragon: Chadwick is the official #2, but doesn't get enough screen time to fill the role; that falls to Katryn.
- The Dulcinea Effect: The plot is kicked off by your decision to rescue a girl you've never even met before.
- Easily Angered Shopkeeper: They call the cops.
- Faux Action Girl: Made a plot point in Saffy's arc. You first meet Saffy by getting her loose from ROSA's clutches, then save her from some drunks who are harassing her, causing her to feel that she owes you a debt and getting her to help you out...but that just ends up getting her into even more trouble that you have to save her from and pushing her further into your debt.
- Far East: Saffy's katana is decorated with Chinese characters rather than kanji, and she herself is Chinese; her real name is Saffron Lee.
- Fate Worse than Death: Putting the inhibitor band on Octalus and forcing him to live out the rest of his life as a human.
- For Science!: ROSA is dedicated to studying and understanding supernormal powers. Such things as "ethics" are, of course, distractions. Katryn doesn't quite approve of how far they're willing to go, or of how they conduct their business.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Three of the girls you can court have absolutely nothing to do with the main story.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: One way to beat a psychic is to take them on man to man.
- Guide Dang It!: In previous versions of the game, you could only get Katryn's ending by meeting with someone on a sidequest that the game actively tries to warn you against embarking on. The author reworked things so that you can also get her ending by perfect adherence to her methods.
- I Owe You My Life: Saffy's motivation for helping you out later in the game.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: Called out. If you take something you should be paying for the cops show up later and confiscate all your inventory. See how you like it!
- Lemony Narrator: If you try to act too perverted (such as trying to peek in on the girls while they're changing), the narrator will break the fourth wall to veto your actions in a rather smartassed fashion.
- Muggle Best Friend: Monika and Ethan don't have any powers, but both are Laurie's supporters and in on the secret.
- Multiple Endings: Depending on which girl you get, if any.
- Mutant Draft Board: The reason ROSA is after Laurie and Cassie.
- Old Save Bonus: When you meet the girl who sells love charms you can buy one with her name on it and get a larger than normal bonus. Just not on your first playthough where you can't legitimately know her name at that point.
- Phlebotinum Girl: Laurie, Cassie and Saffy are all targeted by Rosa for their psychokinetic abilities. Laurie is the main example, being the most powerful (and thus the greatest prize). They're all far more proactive than your average Phlebotinum Girl, though they still require a lot of help from the non-powered protagonist.
- Purple Prose: Heavy in the descriptions of the girls, as well as being rather unintentionally insulting.
- Railroading: Ultimately, the main plot will play out the way it's supposed to. If the Player Character can't defeat a particular obstacle, then someone else will step in to save his bacon. Whether he succeeds in solving the puzzles can determine his ending, though.
- Relationship Values: Done through Scoring Points for each of the eight different girls. You need 40 points with a girl to get her ending.
- Rescue Romance: Three Distressed Damsels who are available for romance after the rescue. A fourth girl needs protecting from a pervert when you take her out on a date.
- Restraining Bolt: The inhibitor band.
- Samurai: Saffy.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Jerrick Stein breaks your motorcycle for the lulz and later pays you off with a gift certificate.
- Secret Test: Katryn is running one. She is attracted to you, and she wants to overthrow Octalus either way, but she also wants to see if you have the competence needed to take over as leader of ROSA and be a worthy partner to her. Accordingly, she only helps you if you can't overcome an obstacle yourself.
- Shrinking Violet: Bengte, Aileen.
- Smug Snake: Octalus, Chadwick. Both also qualify for Smug Super.
- The Social Darwinist: Octalus believes in the superiority of the psychically-gifted over mundane humans.
- Squishy Wizard: Chadwick, who's useless when his psi is turned off and goes down almost instantly. Averted by Octalus, who's almost as deadly with his bare hands as he is with his PK.
- Stalker with a Test Tube: Octalus' motivation for kidnapping Laurie.
- The Starscream: Katryn, more or less. She's more of a good guy in the end, but she's still a manipulative bitch who's using the protagonist as a tool to get rid of her boss so she can take over.
- Supporting Protagonist: The Player Character is there to protect Laurie, not because he has any personal agenda of his own (aside from possibly romancing one of the girls involved).
- Technopath: Laurie, Octalus. Actually, any sufficiently powerful PK user can do it; it just so happens that there's only two such PK users known to exist.
- Token Mini-Moe: Cassie. Yes,
she is a romanceable girl.
- Unwinnable by Design: At precisely one point, for Refusal of the Call. If you screw up at any other point in a way that would otherwise get you killed, one of the girls will pull a Big Damn Heroes and solve the problem.
- Upgrade Artifact: The PK battery.
- Useless Protagonist: You can be this and still complete the game, and some of the girls won't think any less of you for it. If you do fit this trope, then the girls will do the heavy lifting for you. Katryn won't be impressed, though. At one point, Cassie lampshades this; she could have escaped from the thugs any time with her powers, but being rescued was more fun.
- Videogame Cruelty Punishment: Aside from not getting a girl if you're cruel to her, if you try to steal from a location without paying for something, the cops will take everything you have.
- Violation of Common Sense: You're chasing down a bunch of kidnappers. In the middle of the chase, what can you decide to do? Ignore your partner's protests and go into a bar! Which will, in fact, provide allies and clues that you can only get then and that will help you in various sidequests later on, with positive consequences for some of the romances.
- Weak, but Skilled: Katryn has no combat-useful PK abilities, but like the player, is fairly capable in combat.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Telepathy can be disrupted by a microwave transmitter.
- We Can Rule Together: Katryn's ending has you taking over as ROSA director and making the organization operate in a more benevolent manner, as well as becoming her lover.
- What the Hell, Player?:
- Laurie is willing to be very patient with you if it means rescuing her sister. But she can be pushed too far:Laurie: You do not even care! You do not even care that right at this moment my sister could be transported to somewhere we'll never find her! You do not care that she could be in some laboratory being experimented on as we speak! Yes, they do those kind of things to people! But it does not matter to you as much as having a good drink in the first bar you lay eyes on.
- Should you feel the need...
Laurie: The kidnappers! They have my sister! We cannot stand around all night waiting for them to return her because they won't. We must look for her now! You may not be the hero I would have wished for to emerge from nowhere when I needed you to save the day. You may not be any kind of hero at all! But you are the only one that I've got. So please start acting like one. - Laurie is willing to be very patient with you if it means rescuing her sister. But she can be pushed too far:
- Women Are Delicate:
- The game's chauvinistic view of women was pointed out even when the game was in its competition days, with women being portrayed as inherently weaker than men. Despite several of the women in the game ostensibly having psychic powers or other combat skills, they are so childlike that the untrained, unremarkable (but male) protagonist has to constantly help them out. Laurie's introduction is all about how helpless she is and how she just needs a knight in shining armor to help her, implying that of course she just needs a man to make her complete.
- Katryn is the sole aversion. While she mostly lets the player character do her work for her, that's because she wants a strong man at her side and is testing his fitness. This is seen if the PC screws up; she'll intervene and save him.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Cassie is afraid of spiders.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Both Laurie and Monika. The author thinks it's the female ideal, and has no qualms with telling you so in Laurie's description.
