Video Game / Do You Copy?

It's a normal night in Tower 4 at the Gracewind Park. As a nightwatchman you're doing your nightly rounds while wondering if the string of missing people is the work of the rumored Gracewind Park Goatman. Suddenly, a hiker starts crying bloody murder and claims that he is being chased by something.

Can you lead him to safety?

Do You Copy is a freeware Survival Horror game for PC on Gamejolt, made by Space Octopus Studios for the website's Asylum Jam 2017. If you want to check it out yourself, here's the link.

Received a sequel, A Gracewind Tale: The Leeds Murder, in early November 2022.

Do You Copy contains examples of the following tropes:

• The '90s: If you were wondering why the hiker doesn't use a modern smart phone to call or at least text for help, it's because the game is actually set in 1999, as revealed through a newspaper clipping at the end of the game. Cell phones did of course exist in the late '90s, so it's possible he actually had a phone, but no reception.
• Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: The watchman has barricaded the half of the Tower that leads to the staircase, in hopes that it will deter the Goatman. We find out in two of the four endings that it didn't; the Goatman managed to break in anyway and kill you.
• Ax-Crazy: The Goatman is, for all intents and purposes, a supernatural serial killer who murders people for thrills.
• Being Watched: At one point, the hiker may ask the watchman if they ever feel like they're being watched. Both of them are.
• Bittersweet Ending: One of the endings can be considered this: The Goatman finds and kills you, but you managed to save the hiker.
  • Even the best ending could be considered this: You save both the hiker and yourself from certain death, but the Goatman is still out there and free to terrorize and hunt other hikers.
  • Hell, even the ending where you fail to save the hiker could really be considered this. The hiker is dead, but at least you are still alive.
• Conspiracy Theorist: One of the notes the watchman keeps in their tower implies they suspect the officials are covering up what's happening in the park.
• Crazy Survivalist: Heavily implied with the watchman, having barricaded their tower and keeping notes on the strange happenings of Gracewind Park. Looking over their notes, they at least know about the Goatman.
• Creepy Monotone: The Goatman's voice when it mimics the hiker's sounds like this. This is actually very useful, as it allows the player to know if the real hiker or the Goatman is talking at the moment.
• Darkness Equals Death: Inverted. The Fire Tower isn't exactly dark, being lit by a single light, but any ending where the Goatman finds and kills you is caused by the activation of the Tower's floodlights, which are very bright and would be entirely noticeable in the darkness of the forest.
• Deadpan Snarker: Some of the dialogue options can make the player snarky toward the hiker and/or the Goatman.
  Has anyone told you that you're being paranoid?
• Distressed Dude: The hiker, who gets lost in the woods, is being stalked by something and must rely on the watchman's instructions to get to safety.
• Don't Go Into the Woods: The man that the player is tasked with helping is a hiker who has come on a camping trip in the woods of Gracewind Park, where he's stalked through the darkness by the Goatman, with his attempts to evade it continuously getting him lost. Whatever you do in the game determines whether he lives or dies. The notes and newspaper clippings scattered around also suggest that Gracewind Park has been the sight of several strange disappearances and other goings-on over the years.
• Double-Meaning Title: "Do You Copy" can refer to radio communication jargon that means, "Do you understand me?" or could be a question posed to the Goatman regarding its voice mimicry. Also, the name suggests it was heavily inspired by the award-winning game Firewatch, since its location and design look almost identical to the latter's fire-watch tower.
• Downer Ending:
  • The worst ending by far is the one where the Goatman kills both the hiker and the watchman; as the watchman is the only person who seems to suspect the truth behind the goings-on in Gracewind Park, the Goatman is now free to keep terrorizing and killing people.
  • The ending where the watchman fails to save the hiker but keeps their location concealed from the Goatman could be considered this, too, though not quite as bad as the former, as the watchman at least lives to continue their investigations.
• Economy Cast: There are only two voice actors, the Tower 2 watchman's and the hiker/the Goatman's.
• Evil Gloating: The Goatman frequently taunts the watchman, asking him if he thinks he can save the hiker or asking him to turn the tower's lights on so he (the Goatman) can know where he (the watchman) is.
• The Faceless: There are no reflective surfaces and the watchman doesn't meet face-to-face with anyone.
• First-Person Ghost: We never see what the Player Character looks like and they have no spoken dialogue, only communicating through text you can select in-game.
• For the Evulz: It's pretty clear that the Goatman's motivation is sadism. It taunts the watchman over whether or not he will save the hiker, shrieks into the night to scare both him and the watchman, and gives up on the hiker if it realizes it can't kill both of them.
• Frame-Up: One of the newspaper clippings shows or implied the Goatman successfully framed a local farmer, Michael Leeds, for its murders. However, after Leed's trial, the murders continued.
• Hell Is That Noise: The inhuman shrieks that the Goatman gives off. If you hear it and get a communication immediately after that isn't panicked, that means that the Goatman has killed the hiker.
• Hidden Depths: At first glance, the watchman seems like just a simple avatar for the player, but simply looking around their tower and notes shows they are aware of the Goatman and that they know what they are up against and matching wits with. It also appears that they are investigating what's really happening around the park.
• Horned Humanoid: The Goatman, of course. We can briefly see it in the bad ending when it kills the player. Despite not showing its entire body, we can see it resembles a demonic humanoid figure with the horns of a goat.
• Humanoid Abomination: A clear picture is never given of the Goatman and all we ever see of it is the head, but the clue is in the name that the creature apparently resembles a man.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Looks like the Goatman loves to hunt its victims before killing them (or it's implied even eat them), as it's heard on the radio, using the hiker's voice, ordering the watchman to run or sadistically asking the watchman if it "should make him (the hiker) run" .
• Imposter Forgot One Detail: The spotlights are incredibly bright, and if you turn them on the first time around, the hiker's response implies he knows how to get to Tower 4 and doesn't need guidance beyond that (though he sure as hell needs reassurance). The fact that the hiker later asks for directions despite already knowing how to get to Tower 4 is a dead giveaway that it's really the Goatman speaking.
• It Can Think: Sometimes when the hiker is close to the tower, he will contact you and say that he thinks whatever it is chasing him "knows where [he's] going". It goes even further when the Goatman starts talking to and taunting you in the Hiker's voice, revealing that the creature has human-level intelligence.
• Jerkass: You can potentially play as a jerk to the hiker, giving snarky responses while he's afraid for his life, deliberately misleading him, or just straight-up ignoring him.
• Jump Scare: Both endings where the Goatman finds and kills you have the monster suddenly appearing right outside the tower, banging on the door and shrieking. Its red eyes glaring at you over the top of the door don't help matters any.
• Karma Houdini: The Goatman suffers no retributions in any case. It can get away by killing the hiker but failing to kill the watchman. In the second case, it can do the contrary. In the worst case, it can kill both. In the best ending, it fails to kill both and is basically defeated. Nevertheless it's implied it'll keep mercilessly preying on other unfortunate innocents who happens to pass by the woods.
• Know When to Fold 'Em/Rage Quit: If you successfully save the hiker and yourself, the Goatman angrily quits the chase and returns to its lair, probably realizing it has lost.
• Mission Control: It's you! You play as a park ranger trying to guide a lost hiker to safety.
• Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: While it's expected that you will help guide the hiker, you can just as easily feed him bad directions or deliberately do things that will get him killed by the Goatman. There's actually one point where this is needed to win, as he will ask you to turn on the floodlights one more time to calm his nerves. Do that, and the Goatman figures out your location and kills you.
• Mood-Swinger: The lost hiker can come across as this, going from relatively calm to panicked to angry and back again rather abruptly. It's actually because the Goatman is mimicking his voice; paying attention to the tone of voice is vital to figuring when the hiker is actually speaking. A general rule of thumb is that if the tone is relatively calm, it's the Goatman. If the tone is more panicked, it's the Hiker.
• Multiple Endings: The game has four distinct endings.
  • The hiker dies. Fail to send the hiker to safety and do not turn on the lights again, and the Goatman will kill him.
  • The watchman dies. Send the Goatman (who's posing as the hiker) to Tower 2 and turn on the lights again. The Goatman gives up on the hiker, but has successfully baited the watchman into revealing their location, so he finds and kills the watchman.
  • Both die. Lead the hiker to Tower 4 and turn on the lights again. The Goatman kills the both of them.
  • Both live. Send the Goatman (who's posing as the hiker) to Tower 2 and don't turn on the lights again. The Goatman is frustrated to see that Tower 2 is empty and gives up on the hiker and cannot find the watchman, so both live.
• Nervous Wreck: The poor hiker is completely freaking out half the time, though he manages to stay calm enough to follow your instructions.
• Never Found the Body: The missing posters in the watchtower indicate there's been a few mysterious disappearances in Gracewind Park over the years, many of which are attributed to the Goatman. Depending on your choices, you and/or the hiker will join the list by the end of the game.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In two of the endings, you can inadvertently get the hiker killed by the Goatman while trying to help him.
• Nothing Is Scarier: For a majority of the game, the Goatman is never seen. The only evidence we (initially) have of its existence are its eyes glowing in the darkness and the high pitched screams it will sometimes emit. The real horror comes from not the threat the Goatman poses, but trying to figure out when the monster is imitating the hiker over the radio and preventing it from killing anyone. Fail in this regard and the creature will kill either you, the hiker, or both.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "You should... RUN. Any minute." Cue Jump Scare.
• Properly Paranoid: Looking over the watchman's tower and notes implies that the Player Character suspects something is happening in Gracewind Park, and not only are they absolutely right, but they have been trying to get to the bottom of this mystery for some time.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Goatman's eyes are seen glowing in the darkness, both in the woods and if it reaches your tower.
• Red Herring: The game's initial demo implies that the monster terrorizing the woods is none other than Bigfoot, due to supposed sightings being listed in both the watchman's notes and newspaper articles. In that demo, the Goatman is only hinted at by a passing mention in the notes.
• Shout-Out: One of the scraps of paper in Tower 4 shows all of the disappearances happening roughly 27 years apart.
  • The game being set in 1999 could be a shout-out to The Blair Witch Project, (the film is set in 1994 but was released in 1999) which also follows someone becoming lost in the woods with a sense that something is after them.
• Skinwalker: The Gracewind Goatman appears to be an amalgamation on par with modern depictions of both creatures, with it being both a tormentor and a trickster.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: The Goatman sounds very calm and sinister when it imitates the hiker's voice, but you can tell that despite its emotionless tone, it's sure having fun with scaring both the hiker and the watchman.
• Stock Sound Effects: If the Goatman's blood-curdling scream sounds slightly familiar to you, it's probably because it's a heavily modified version of the infamous screaming goat meme.
• Urban Legend: In-Universe. Gracewind Park has a local myth involving a monster known as the Goatman, that roams the forest at night and can imitate human voices. It turns out to be very real, as it stalks the hiker throughout the game and even speaks with you over the radio. The Goatman itself is based on the real-life legend of the Maryland Goatman, a hybrid killer who wields an ax and terrorises passing motorists.
• Villainous Breakdown: A subtle one, but the Goatman gets increasingly irritated as the watchman and hiker stay several steps ahead of it, and if you save the hiker by sending him to Tower 2 and don't turn the lights on again, it'll call off the hunt out of frustration.
• Voice Changeling: The Goatman can perfectly imitate human voices. It constantly badgers the watchman. Figuring out when it's talking is key to surviving the night.
• Workplace Horror: The game puts the player in the shoes of a park watchman who is radioed for help by a hiker, who is being chased by something. The watchman must give the hiker instructions to guide him to safety, while also trying to lead whatever's after him in the opposite direction, though you have to be careful not to lead it to your location either.

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