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Video Game / Voodoo Vince

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Feel his pain.
Voodoo Vince is a 2003 Platform Game for the Xbox about a Voodoo Doll come to life. His creator Madam Charmaine is kidnapped by passable Evil Sorcerer and seventh grade dropout Kosmo the Inscrutable, and he must rescue her by adventuring through crazy lands that have been warped and corrupted by "Zombie Dust". Voodoo Vince must use his voodoo doll powers and hurt himself to hurt enemies and progress.

A hilarious game, rife with Irony and Lampshading.

The game was never made backwards compatible with the Xbox 360, nor was it re-released for Xbox Live, because the game used some unique custom code that prevented porting over on that platform. However, the game received a remastered version for Xbox One and Windows 10, primarily handled by the game's original creator, Clayton Kauzlaric. It was released on April 18, 2017.

This video game provides example of:

  • Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Almost everywhere. Justified in that Vince is only 10 inches tall, and the pipes are only absurdly spacious to him.
  • Action Bomb: The Killadillos try to roll into you and detonate. Appropriately, they even have a bomb-like design.
  • Alien Invasion: The "Alien Attack" voodoo power.
  • Anthropomorphic Food: The onions are alive in this game.
  • Big Boo's Haunt: Crypt City.
  • Boss Battle: One per region in the game. The majority of these take the form of three-cycle encounters, with the exception of the first boss.
  • Bottomless Pits: Placed throughout the game. And it takes skill to get over them, since they are rather wide.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: A core part of the game's humor, spoken or otherwise and frequently overlaps with lampshade hanging.
    • If the player loiters for an extended period of time, Vince will look over his shoulder at the camera and motion as if to ask what is the holdup.
    • Frequently in cutscenes, Vince will throw the camera a sideways glance, especially if the goings-on at the time are particularly silly.
    • If the player dies a number of times in rapid succession, Vince will call attention to their poor playing ability by saying "Try to keep me alive this time!" upon respawning.
  • Buffy Speak: Vince once says "Hey, it's one of those bell-ringy-thingies!"
    • Kosmo once as well. "You little...doll...guy."
  • Captain Obvious: Vince can be this sometimes. When dealing with the reanimated skeleton of a T. rex: "That can't be good."
    • "I'm no scientist, but I bet that clock has something to do with time." Vince might have been sarcastic, though.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Kosmo the Inscrutable.
  • Chainsaw Good: The Chainsaw voodoo power, appropriately enough.
  • Chew Toy: Since he's a voodoo doll, physical abuse doesn't affect him — but nothing ever goes right for him.
  • Circus of Fear/Amusement Park of Doom: Carnival DePrave.
  • Clock Tower: There's one in the Square. Each of the different stores is open during a certain 3-hour long time frame. What Vince has to do is reset the clock to somewhere during the open hours.
  • Colossus Climb: The final boss.
  • Cool Mask: A Mardi Gras Mask, which you must wear to a costume ball.
  • Creepy Doll: Dolly Playtime. But when Kosmo pulls her string, she becomes even more so.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Vince.
  • Death from Above: The "Space Junk" voodoo power has a satellite come falling on top of Vince.
  • Dem Bones: Bones McMurty and the first boss battle.
  • Distressed Damsel: Madame Charmaine.
  • The Ditz: Professor Ethel. Her "complex scientific invention" is a balloon.
  • Doomy Dooms of Doom: A large piggy bank. Kosmo enhances it with repeated "of DOOOOOOM!"s.
  • Everything Is Trying to Kill You: "What now? A giant crab? A giant dog? A giant...carrot?"
    • Every seemingly friendly character you encounter will eventually turn on you, perhaps with the sole exception of Bones Mc Murty.
  • Evil Twin: An evil, demented version of Vince appears in the Hall of Mirrors as a miniboss.
  • Evil Sorcerer: Kosmo...albeit a nearly completely incompetent one.
  • Exploited Immunity: Pretty much uses this trope as a central game mechanic. You play as a voodoo doll, and your strongest attacks are 'voodoo' attacks that get charged up and unleashed, and are randomly chosen from the ones you've learned. They can range from getting halved by a bear trap to getting crushed by a satellite, but they all involve 'killing' Vince in order to insta-kill nearby enemies—Vince can do it all day, but the monsters he's killing would say otherwise.
  • Fetch Quest: The Bayou area, where Crawdad Jimmy sends you out to get ingredients for his soup. Played with to some extent, as it's revealed that he was really just trying to stall you until Kosmo arrived.
    • Also, in Roachfort, where Professor Ethel sends you to get the components for her balloon.
  • Gangland Drive-By: The "1930s Mob Hit" power has Vince get lit up by some goons who are in a period-appropriate car using Tommy Guns.
  • Gangplank Galleon: A pirate ship at the Bayou.
  • Ghost Butler: One escorts the player through several parts of Brusque Manor.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Most notably the second boss battle, but this applies to almost all the bosses.
  • Ground Pound: With his head!
  • Guide Dang It!: The Trophy Room in Brusque Manor isn't very self-explanatory. In order to advance, you have to blow up the eggs that spawn imps. The flames that you use to light yourself on fire are too tall to reach, but you can fire yourself at one using the three crossbows on the floor. But doing that accomplishes nothing unless you have the dynamite that needs to be lit on fire. Where is the dynamite? On a tall shelf all the way across the room that requires careful platform jumping to reach.
  • Harmless Villain: Zig-Zagged. Kosmo is quite harmful, it's more in spite of himself than anything. He's only dangerous during the game's events because his goons had finally managed to steal Madame Charmaine's Zombie Dust, and even an idiot like Kosmo can be dangerous with a Reality Warping magical artifact.
  • Hollywood Acid: The "Acid Bath" power, which involves pouring acid on Vince.
    • The "Toxic Waste" power may also count.
  • Hollywood Voodoo
  • Humongous Mecha: The final boss battle.
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Kosmo has apparently gone after Madam Charmaine's Zombie Dust many times in the past, but never managed to get some until the story starts. Vince never takes Kosmo seriously during their conversations and easily dispels the "evil vision" that Kosmo is using to gloat. Considering he's a single carnival fortune teller with two heavily-mutilated minions, it's rather justified.
  • Kill It with Fire: The way to deal with Reggie and Primo, the surly gas pumps.
    • Also the only way to rid the upstairs of the imp eggs in the Brusque Manor level.
  • Lampshade Hanging: A major part of the game's humor. Crosses over often with fourth wall-breaking above.
    • Vince will sometimes remark on the amount of absurdly-shaped and colored collectibles in the world by saying "Who leaves this crap lying around?"
  • Lightning Can Do Anything: Yes, it can. It can help you defeat the Bone Goliath. Also, Lightning is one of the last voodoo powers you'll acquire.
  • Living Statue: In Crypt City, Kosmo zaps a giant statue in the center of the mausoleum with his magic, bringing it to life. The statue, therefore, becomes the third boss in the game.
  • Losing Horns: Heard when you lose a life.
  • Made of Explodium: Those fuel canisters just don't like touching the ground.
    • There are several other instances in which this sort of thing happens, such as the Bomb power.
  • Meaningless Lives: Pretty much. You have a limited amount of lives, but the only consequence of losing them all is being spit back to the main menu, where you can just reload your last checkpoint (which in turns gives you three more lives to work with). Collecting an extra life restores Vince's health to full capacity, so it's a good idea to collect them either way.
  • Oh God, with the Verbing!: Vince says some pretty funny stuff when he gets hurt, some of which fall into this category.
  • One-Book Author: While Beep Industries developed two other games, Voodoo Vince was their only title for Xbox. It's a shame, too, because it's pretty darn good.
  • Platform Hell: Play this game. You'll be experiencing this sort of thing numerous times.
  • Properly Paranoid: After collecting the things for Crawdad Jimmy's gumbo, he invites Vince to a fanboat race. The latter begrudgingly agrees, and confides with the player that he doesn't fully trust Jimmy. Sure enough, Crawdad Jimmy was in cahoots with Kosmo the entire time and had been keeping Vince busy long enough for the Inscrutable to arrive.
  • Puzzle Boss: Every boss is defeated by finding the right way to use the environment to deal damage to yourself.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Bubba Gators.
    • Professor Ethel gets rid of Vince instead of all those heavy objects. Shortly after, Vince faces off against a double-headed alligator with deadly eye beams.
  • Re-Release Soundtrack: The "Remastered" port contains a different music piece for the "Earth, Water and Wood" stage. It's a lot more upbeat and faster-paced, which ties in better with the "Sausage Factory" sub-level.
  • Rise to the Challenge: Inside the Kosmobot.
  • Rule of Three: In the boss fights, Vince often has to pilot vehicles or otherwise engage in a particular set of mechanics to damage the bosses three times each (with the sole exception of the Bone Goliath. With every round of gameplay, the encounters progressively get harder through boss attacks getting more aggressive and frequent, the environment becoming more hazardous, or a combination of both.
  • Runs with Scissors: One of the voodoo powers has Vince run around with a pair of scissors.
  • Self-Harm–Induced Superpower: Being a voodoo doll, this was Vince's whole thing. Activating his voodoo powers would cause Vince to injure himself in some way, which would then transfer the damage to all nearby enemies, effectively making it an instant kill move. The power needs voodoo beads to work, which Vince can get by attacking enemies.
  • Sequel Hook: Madame Charmaine hints at a sequel at the end.
  • Slapstick: A literal example when using the "Piñata" power.
  • Squashed Flat:
    • Vince ends up running over the wrecked gas pump with a steamroller.
    • In several instances, this happens when Vince uses certain voodoo powers or ends up crashing into walls.
    • One of the attractions at the Midway of the Carnival is the "World's Strongest Kitten", which has a sign depicting it as lifting a 5 lb weight. By the time Vince finds it, the poor thing had been crushed under a 50 lb weight.
  • Stock Video Game Puzzle: Tumbler Room. You have to jump on floor buttons to rotate the walls on floors two and three so that the staircase will be open. The right combination allows you to reach higher floors.
  • A Storm Is Coming: One of Vince's powers has him getting swept up by a miniature tornado.
    • Also, Kosmo unleashes a windy creature called Hurricane Hannah.
  • Super Drowning Skills: Justified since Vince is made of burlap — and burlap sinks quite fast.
  • Temporary Platform: The blue trails that the ghost butler leaves behind. Follow him closely or you'll fall to your death.
  • Tempting Fate: "What next? The obligatory boss battle?"
    • "Could it possibly get any worse?"..."Yes it can."
  • Toilet Humor: The "Laxative" power, which involves Vince taking a big swig and then having an outhouse drop over him.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: Quite a few, which prevents the game from getting too monotonous. For example, in the Rocket Lab level, there's a segment where you ride a plane through a tunnel. And one of the boss battles features Vince riding a rat which is always running forward.
  • Videogame Cruelty Potential: The cute little animals you have to kill to make sausages. The story requires you to do this, though.
    • Vince's various voodoo powers, which inflict damage to him in some hilarious ways, also count.
  • What Might Have Been: Clayton Kauzlaric, the designer of the game, later posted information on scrapped level ideas, including, among other things, an entire Riverboat area, and an 18th-century society of roaches in Roachfort.
  • Your Princess Is in Another Castle!
  • Zombie Gait: Vince has to lay several zombies to rest. He must bring a light to the zombie crypt, all the while preventing it from getting taken by a bunch of imps. Once the light is in place, the zombies walk towards the crypts very slowly.

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