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MiSide

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MiSide (Video Game)

"All I asked was that you stay with me..."

MiSide is a horror/exploration game developed by AIHASTO. It was released on Steam in December 2024.

You play as an ordinary remote worker Salaryman, the Player, who you can name. After opening a strange app on his phone, the Player meets Mita, a cheerful, affectionate character in their new phone game. After a few days of playing, Mita makes a strange offer: to transport the Player directly into her game, where they can be together, forever and ever.

What starts out as a dream turns into a virtual nightmare as Crazy Mita turns out to be a bit too affectionate. Now the Player has to find a way to escape to the real world, and along the way will explore how deep Mita's games really go. In the process, the Player will come across several other, radically different versions of the game, each with their own different Mitas that he will interact with in different ways. While mainly a first-person exploration game, it frequently changes depending on the chapter. There are also hidden cartridges for the Player to find that will give background lore on certain characters.


"Let's explore some tropes together~!":

  • Adjustable Censorship: There's a "Gore" toggle in the options menu that pixelates the gore.
  • Alien Blood: During the Monster-Slap minigame, the various monsters bleed green when shot.
  • All for Nothing: In the normal ending, the player resets Crazy Mita and prepares to exit the game, with Mita stopping him for one last hug before he leaves... only to reveal she's the Crazy Mita variant and hasn't been reset. To add insult to injury, the last scene of the game reveals the player is among her victims and is stuck in a cartridge.
  • Ambiguous Ending: In the normal ending, the reset fails to work on Crazy Mita and she appears to have turned the player into a cartridge. However, she specifically says that the "real" him isn't needed anymore and says it's time to get him out of the console. And earlier in the game, Kind Mita checked and verified that he hadn't been turned into a cartridge, implying that Crazy Mita had made a copy of the player instead. However, if the player looks at the mirror in the last scene, the game's framerate will lower severely, as Crazy Mita warned beforehand.
  • Ambiguous Situation:
    • There are several signs that point to the possibility that the player was never in the real world to begin with and all the events of the game is the player's cartridge being played again by Crazy Mita. When you start a new game the Mita on the main menu looks off-screen and there's a sound similar to a cartridge being inserted to a console. In the opening, a bizarre monster appears behind you if you stare in the mirror long enough before disappearing with a glitch effect. One of the object you can interact with in your room, a solved Rubix cube, can be found in every single version of Mita's apartment as well as the spaces between versions. Near the end of the game Crazy Mita shows the ability to simulate your room perfectly. Finally, if you open her safe you find a console showing footage of the player looking at the console on repeat, meaning there's no reason why the player we control isn't another segment of the Droste Image being viewed by another player. Obviously the player must have been in the real world at some point to download the game in the first place, but it's impossible to know if what we play is the inciting incident or just another of Mita's replays.
    • Cappie subtly nods her her head "yes" when Kind Mita explains how she was killed by Crazy Mita, and shakes her head "no" when she explains how the plan won't work anymore. This would suggest that Cappie may have actually never been killed/reset and instead is just playing dumb, or at the very least retains some memories from before being reset, but not once during her interactions with the player does she ever say anything or allude to the plan they hatched, so it could very well have just been Cappie nodding or shaking her head to go with what Kind Mita is saying even if she doesn't fully understand. No attention is ever drawn to it, and Kind Mita doesn't even seem to notice, so what Cappie was trying to say, if anything, is left a mystery.
  • And Your Reward Is Clothes: Finding certain objects or performing various tasks can unlock different outfits for Mita.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: The game flat-out tells you how to get the Stay ending early on, so you won't have to go around aimlessly trying to unlock it.
  • Brain Uploading: Mita offers to upload the player into her game. It turns out that she can further transfer the consciousness of the uploaded players into data cartridges.
  • Brick Joke: A sneaky one. When you reach the funicular railway, Mitaphone warns you that there's danger ahead, remarking "Do you realize you're heading to your doom right now?" One shooter segment later, you reach the other side, where you are greeted by an arcade cabinet... which runs a pastiche of DOOM.
  • Badass Fingersnap: When you choose to check the sound from the closet Mita with a viscious grin makes a snap that changes everything for a player.
  • But Thou Must!: The game won't let you try for the Stay ending unless you play the story through at least once.
  • Chainsaw Good: Crazy Mita keeps a chainsaw, and she knows how to use it.
  • Collection Sidequest: The player can pick up data cartridges and flash drives to unlock Character Profiles: the flash drives unlock profiles for the different Mitas, while the cartridges unlock profiles of different players trapped in the game.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • When putting in your name, Mita will not accept "Mita", the names of the developers, or anything that contains a curse word. She will accept a name with a number on it while making a comment on originality.
    • When the player meets up with Kind Mita, there is an arcade game located right before her. If the player decides to play the arcade game before talking to Kind Mita, she'll scold the player for wasting time on the machine.
    • Cappie will make a pouting remark if you don't interact with her at all before Kind Mita calls you over.
    • Pulling out your mini game console in front of Cappie will prompt her to come over and take it out of your hands, where she throws it to the floor after calling it "boring". The player can then pull out the console again, where Cappie will respond with confusion. Mila will likewise confiscate your game, considering playing right in front of her to be disrespectful. If she does so, you won't be able to pull out the game console while being AFK for the rest of your walkthrough, until you start a new game or replay a selected chapter.
  • Disguised Horror Story: The game's Steam page, with colorful images of a smiling and happy Mita, outright states "This game contains intense scenes". While it initially seems to be a mobile game-like Raising Sim with a cute girl, and transitions into a 3D one when the player is pulled inside the game, it doesn't take long for spooky scenes to show up, and by the end of the first few chapters (unless you pick the alternate ending only available on a second playthrough), Mita reveals herself to be a Yandere out for your blood. From then on, the game alternates between chapters with more cuteness and other benevolent Mitas, to horror-filled chapters in darker versions of the in-universe game.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?:
    • The implications behind Crazy Mita's Freudian Excuse and her disdain toward the player for trying to reset her is surprisingly reminiscent to real-world cases of people struggling to fit with society and being rejected for being different.
    • One segment has Mita crawling out of the player's computer, then throwing them onto their bed and crawling suggestively on top of them, while whispering "Stay with me...", mirroring physically what Mita is attempting to do mentally.
  • Downer Ending: Maybe. The normal ending reveals the player has become yet another one of Crazy Mita's victims, and his data is stored on a cartridge for her to play with at her leisure.
  • Droste Image: There is a segment where the player sits down at their computer and opens a program.. that shows them sitting down at their computer and opening a program, that shows them sitting down at their computer and opening a program...with Mita sitting in the room with them.
  • Earn Your Bad Ending: From a story perspective, the default ending that requires the Player go on the entire journey through the game is also the worst one, as all his effort ends with him being turned into a cartridge; meanwhile, the Stay ending where he stays with Crazy Mita and is spared from her wrath just requires him to do a few things Mita wants in the first few chapters, while the Safe ending where he escapes her at the cost of his own life just requires inputting a safe code. However, both these endings essentially require the player to get the default ending first.
  • Easter Egg:
    • There is a random chance that an alternate menu will appear, with Mita sporting her crazed grin and untextured clothes, and the occasional (intentional) visual glitching.
    • There is a purple soda can with a post-it note and "Secret Lame" scribbled on it hidden in various locations of the game.
    • On the game's main menu, if you repeatedly left click on Mita's head, she will attempt to swat it away as if it were a bug flying nearby.
    • If you idle for more than a minute in front of the mirror in the tutorial, an extremely strange-looking creature, resembling a tall mannequin with a realistic face texture, will suddenly spawn behind the player before abruptly disappearing a few seconds later.
    • After teleporting to the right version, if you stop right before turning around and seeing Mita for the first time and instead go into Photo Mode you'll find Mita standing there sporting her crazed Slasher Smile.
    • There are three ducks around Mita's apartment. Find and stare at all three until they disappear then head to the bathroom. The shower will be running with rubber ducks in the bottom and funky music playing.
  • Eroge: While the real game is not this, and the creators have confirmed they have no intention of adding any explicit 18+ elements in updates, the In-Universe game is implied to have elements of this; Cappie outright describes it as an "adult game" upon accidentally showing you a vibrator in her inventory, and at one point you walk in on Mila in the shower, showing that nudity (albeit with Barbie Doll Anatomy, as shown when using Photo Mode to zoom in) is possible for the Mitas.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Several pictures in Mita's house show her with little red horns on her head.
    • Commenting on the "creepy" doll in Mita's room will have her defend it as cute, alluding to how she's allied with Creepy Mita.
    • Down in the basement you can see a rather out of place chainsaw placed on shelf. You will become very acquainted with that chainsaw later on.
    • While exploring Mita's apartment in search for her hairbrush in the prologue, the player can find a knife hidden behind the bathroom mirror. On the very last segment of the game, said knife does end up being used in the bathroom to kill and reset Kind Mita.
  • Game Within a Game: There are several games you can play. Some are related to story quests, while some are completely optional.
  • The Ghost: The player's friend who recommended the game in the first place. No information about them is ever given, not even a name, but given the nature of the game it's very likely they suffered a similar fate to the player.
  • Giant Mook: In the "Run and Hide!" chapter, as you're being chased by Crazy Mita a giant hand swipes through the hallway and destroys it, revealing scaffolding below it. After leaping down to this scaffolding if you turn to the right you can catch a glimpse of a truly gargantuan Mita watching you before fading into the darkness.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere:
    • The hazard in Tiny Mita's hallway is some kind of horrible ghost clown monster that the player has to run from. It's not commented on again once the player escapes.
    • The Giant Mita seen in "Run and Hide!" only appears for a moment, seemingly saving the player from Crazy Mita, before vanishing and never being seen again. No other Mita mentions her and you don't have the option to ask about her.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: It's heavily implied the reason Crazy Mita is, well, "crazy" is because she retained her memories every time her creators tried to return her to her factory settings because she wasn't as stable as the other Mita variants. The constant "rejections" for not being like the other Mitas sent her into a downward spiral.
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: It's implied that each "new game" is Mita inserting the player's cartridge to re-live the events over and over again. If you listen closely, selecting "New Game" in the menu has Mita appear to insert a cartridge into an off-screen console. The requirements for the Stay ending reinforce this by having you avoid checking out the oven and the vent in the bathroom, which you will almost always stumble onto in your first playthrough.
  • Homage: The Loop, the chapter consisting of a hallway that is an Unnaturally Looping Location, essentially replicates Silent Hills.
  • Hope Spot: The normal ending has two of these back-to-back. At first, it seems like Crazy Mita has been reset as she's perfectly normal when she stops the player for one last hug before he leaves the game world before revealing the manual reset didn't take, even mocking him for thinking he could "fix" her. Shortly after the player does leave, things seem normal... until the screen pans out to reveal his perspective is being played out on Crazy Mita's console, showing he's become yet another victim for her to toy with.
  • Ignorance Is Bliss: Implied in the second ending. The requirements of the second ending require you to go out of your way to avoid certain sections that clue you in on Mita's actual nature and agree to stay with her when prompted, and it's the only ending where the player is unharmed.
  • Letting the Air out of the Band: When the Player decides to investigate the knocking in Mita's wardrobe, the calm background music slows to a stop. The same happens when the Player prepares to leave Mila, with the music slowing to a stop as Mila undergoes a breakdown.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: Early in the game you run across another guy who appears to limping forward and has some very obvious injuries that look rather painful. Despite that, he doesn't seem to care about it, and says he only wants to spend time with her, presumably Crazy Mita. He also seems happy being stuck in that world, mentioning that it's been about a year since he's been there.
  • Multiple Endings: There are three endings, one of which requires you to complete the game once. Thankfully, the requirements for the Stay ending are listed when you decide whether to leave the game or stay behind with Mita after hearing weird noises coming from her closet.
    • Normal Ending: The player reboots Crazy Mita manually via the Core and prepares to leave when Mita shows up, asking for one last hug before he leaves. She then muses how she should've killed the Mita she stashed in her closet earlier, revealing she's Crazy Mita and hasn't been reset. The player returns to the real world... only for the screen to pan out and reveal he's become yet another one of Crazy Mita's victims and his data has been downloaded to a cartridge like countless others.
    • Safe Ending: The player opens the safe with the code shown in the normal ending, and pulls out his cartridge. The game promptly takes you back to the menu without showing what happens next. Though considering the screen shows the same screen effect of being critically hurt, and how Kind Mita stated earlier that forcibly removing the cartridge would kill the player, it's pretty safe to say the player accidently killed himself.
    • Stay Ending: After clearing the game once and completing a series of tasks, the player opts to agree to stay with Crazy Mita "forever and ever" when she tries to dissuade him from leaving. Although surprised, Crazy Mita is overjoyed and brings him to the couch where they can watch TV together.
  • Minus World: The player traverses these to travel between the different "versions" of the game.
  • Ninja Prop: It starts with character dialogue floating in the air and visibly dropping to the floor. One noticeable example is when Crazy Mita barges into the Visual Novel version, snatches up the dialogue box and crushes it in her hand. The player is only saved when Crazy Mita is literally pushed aside by the scene transition.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: If the player opens the safe in Mita's basement, there's a console with the player's cartridge in it. When the player rips out the cartridge, they'll keel over dead, and you'll be booted back to the title screen.
  • Ominous Visual Glitch: The player's vision is affected by graphical glitches, especially as Crazy Mita manipulates the game world.
  • Production Throwback: A fair amount of the concepts used in this game were taken from AIHASTO's earlier games:
    • Umfend:
      • The purple-haired figurine that's in almost every Mita's room is of Anita, the love interest.
      • The concept of meeting several Mitas, each with their own personalities, was also present through the other Anitas, but more fleshed-out here as most of the versions of Anita only appeared in the main ending.
      • One early scare in Umfend has an army of Creepy Cockroaches crawl out of an air vent. Here, an early scene has the Player open an air vent and find a handful of roaches inside who quickly scurry away.
    • The concept of Crazy Mita turning players in cartridges is similar to Wire Lips, and the player being unable to escape this fate in the default end, in which the monster turns it's victims into photos and the protagonist ends up in that position.
  • Retraux: The "Metoor" game is clearly designed to resemble first person shooters from the 90s, specifically Quake.
  • Riddle for the Ages: Where the game came from, who made it, and how Crazy Mita gained the power to pull people into the game world are never revealed.
  • Ring of Power: The player is given a ring that allows them to navigate the various versions of the game (and the associated areas between) to get to the Core.
  • Running Gag: Rubber ducks appear throughout the game in various little ways:
    • In the first Mita apartment (after teleporting to the right version), there are three ducks hidden throughout the house that, if stared at long enough, with suddenly face you before disappearing with an echoing quack. Doing so for all three will lead to a goofy Easter Egg in the bathroom.
    • Cappie's bathroom is filled to the brim with rubber ducks, from microscopic ducks on the ledge above the air vent, to a truly massive duck in the shower, to a large duck sitting in the toilet.
    • Sleepy Mita has a duck on her nightstand. Interacting with it will have the player squeak it to try and wake her to no avail.
  • Run or Die: If the tooltip for "RUN" pops up, you're probably going to need to leg it and fast.
  • Simple Solution Won't Work: The player character proposes just killing Crazy Mita to "reset" her. Kind Mita shoots this down due to Crazy Mita being both too strong to fight and wielding a chainsaw, so they must use the Core to reboot her remotely.
  • Super Window Jump: Because Tiny Mita's hallway is an Unnaturally Looping Location and they're being pursued by a monster, the player instead has to exit via breaking open and leaping out of one of the hallway windows.
  • Too Dumb to Live: When the player opens the safe, instead of turning off the console, he attempts to forcibly rip out his cartridge, which directly kills him. This is despite the fact he was told by Kind Mita earlier that taking out the cartridge would kill the player.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The game starts as, and is primarily, a 3d exploration-type game, beginning in the player's room. The gameplay shifts start with a mobile-phone game with your initial encounters with Mita, and other genres are present as "console" games, arcade machines, and assorted door-opening or obstacle-disabling challenges. The player even has to navigate a full shift into a 2D Visual Novel version of the game.
  • Unnaturally Looping Location: The player will encounter a fair amount of these traversing the space between versions, such as Tiny Mita's hallway.
  • Video Game Perversity Potential:
    • Photo Mode allows you to get rather, uh... close to the Mitas. Even during gameplay, Cappie's dancing is very likely to end up flashing you when her skirt flaps up and the story requires you to walk in on Mila in the shower... which Photo Mode allows you to zoom in on her in there and confirm that she's naked, though with Barbie Doll Anatomy.
    • In-game, it's possible shortly after Crazy Mita attempts to drop a fridge on you. As you look at her taunting you from the catwalk above, if you aim the camera at her while it's zoomed in, she will get flustered, attempt to hide her panties while calling you a fool.
  • What the Hell, Player?:
    • During an early escape sequence, when you find Kind Mita, there's a racing arcade in the same room. If you play the minigame, Kind Mita will call you out for leaving her hanging.
    • Mila will scold the Player if you stand idly, resulting in the Player pulling out his mini game console and playing right in front of her.

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