Amplitude (also stylized as AMPLITUDE: A Visual Novel) is an English-language Urban Fantasy Visual Novel developed by the indie studio Ceylon Entertainment using the Ren'Py engine. It is funded through an Indiegogo campaign and was released on September 6, 2017, through Steam for Windows, Mac, Steam OS, and Linux.
The game's story begins in the year 2121, in a world where the majority of human populace has a mutation that grants them superpower-like ability. Discrimination and outright bullying are facts of life for the unlucky minority born with no power whatsoever.
The player wakes up in an otherworldly tomb, feeling something is terribly off. There they meet a mysterious girl who explains the player's situation: they are but a wandering soul, having died just moments before.
Becoming aware of their situation, the Soul remembers the events leading to their death. Here the player chooses whether to play as Adam or Eve, both criminals killed during and because of their last job, but with different exacts of their occupation and backstory.
Luckily, the mysterious girl offers the Soul a chance to avenge their death. Back on Earth, two powerless teenagers are on the brink of death: Katy Black and Jon White. The Soul must then choose a body to be their Host (which will also save the body from death). Seeing no other option, the soul agrees. The mysterious girl only asks for one thing in return: that when they return to the realm of the living, they must hold on to a pendant she gives them.
Oh, and they won't remember who killed them.
Back on Earth, the Host, now inhabited by the Soul, makes a surprising recovery. Though their friends and family are slightly worried due to the Soul seemingly not remembering their own identity nor of their closest ones, they chalk it up to post-trauma stress.
As the Soul is beginning to adapt to their new body, things get even more complicated: turns out the Host's soul is still intact, cohabiting the body together with the Soul. The Soul controls the body during the daytime, the Host during the night.
Now it is up to the player to help the Soul solve the mystery of who killed them while balancing the Host's school life and personal problems. The mystery yet deepens when a dangerous organization is hunting for the Soul, who was involved with them on the Soul's last job. Per the norm of the genre, the player can also pursue a relationship with the many, many colorful characters in the cast.
Not to be confused with a Rhythm Game of the same name.
Amplitude provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Jon's mother is this to her children, at least mentally. Forceful and demanding, Lady White cannot accept anything but perfection. This has a more sinister twist on her treatment to Felix, which is actually her husband's son with a mistress—Eve's sister-in-law.
- Accidental Murder: Felix seeks to kill his mother. He ends up killing Eve because Giselle convinces him she's the one. She's not. Felix's mother is Eve's sister-in-law.
- Adam and/or Eve: The default names for the Soul.
- Affably Evil: Giselle.
- Aloof Big Brother: Katy's brother, Aaron.
- Amicable Exes: Jon and Michelle.
- Art Attacker: Both souls have this power. It is not a coincidence.
- Artifact of Doom: Giselle gave the souls pendants as part of her deal to bring them to live. The pendants are more than pretty accessories.
- Back from the Dead: This kickstarted the game's event.
- Battle Couple: Many of the game's probable couples end up as this.
- Big Fancy House: The White's Mansion.
- Bilingual Bonus: Hoo, boy. If you can read Indonesian, the game has this in spades. 'Pelet' is an Indonesian word for 'curse', and 'Abang-Abang' the idol group means a bunch of young adult men ('Abang' means an older brother, regularly used for any older male). The Electify storefront has the words 'Listrik' on it, meaning electricity. The cinema is called 'Layar Tancap', which is the term for a folk cinema of old using vintage projectors and screens, commonly held in celebrations by the wealthy. 'Balsem' is an ointment for muscle relief! 'Dodol' is a chewy Indonesian dessert. 'Belanja' Mall is literally 'Shopping' Mall. There is a music group called Fana, meaning ethereal, which may also be a Shout-Out to the music group fhana.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Good Ending is this. The Vessels move on with their lives, the world saved, but the Souls would forever be sealed.
- Bland-Name Product: Theo likes the card game 'Wizardry'. There is also 'Bromeus Hospital', a play on a real 'Boromeus Hospital' near the author's campus.
- Blow You Away: Theo.
- Cool Big Sis: Eve can be this to the Host as she's older than them.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The Souls. Grace and Liz. Theo. Simon and Bunny. It might be easier to list people without this trope.
- Dead to Begin With: The Soul's death and resurrection kick off the plot.
- Everyone Is a Super: Except for the unlucky few.
- Generic Graffiti: Katy likes to draw them and they become relevant in some character routes.
- Guide Dang It!: Several more difficult character routes can become this, especially if the players fail to notice the hints scattered in other routes. Very much apparent in Theo.
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Hilarious in Hindsight: Theo plays a blatant knockoff of Magic: the Gathering. His goldfish comment makes it clear that he is literally a storm user. - Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You can choose the Soul's name at the beginning of the game.
- Ho Yay: Jon and Eric have some shades of this. Doing Eric's route will reveal that Eric is really Jon's first crush. How this will play out at the end depends on the player's choices.. Without realizing Cam's true nature, some scenes could feel like this.
- Item Crafting: The player can craft things as part of a quest line as well as to use as gifts.
- The Jeeves: Harvey, Jon's P.E.T is this, despite being a robot scorpion.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Soul can't remember who killed them.
- Legacy Character: Ari likes to pretend he is one, running around the town with his grandpa's mask.
- Legendary in the Sequel: Sonnya Gray now has ascended to this status. Players can unlock the origin story through one of the sidequests.
- Legend Fades to Myth: As quite an amount of time has passed, the events of the original Freak-Quency are written differently in the currently accepted history.
- Living Forever is No Big Deal: Theo isn't thrilled to have everyone else passed on him, but he isn't complaining either. His stoicness might play a big part here. He is, overall, just showing disappointment at constant battles and turmoils, having to see people he cares of leave him, while being quite indifferent to his own immortality.
- Mayfly–December Romance: Theo's romance path naturally leads to this.
- Multiple Endings: A staple to visual novel genre. Amplitude has three main story endings and two ending variations for each character route.
- Ms. Exposition: Done by none other by Miss Xero herself!
- My God, What Have I Done?: Katy was shaken hard after she delivered the final blow to Michelle, who was turning into a mindless zombie.
- One-Word Title
- Playing with Fire: Jon's power... or so he claimed. He is a normies, and the fire is really just a hi-tech gauntlet his mother gave to give him a 'proper' impression.
- Post-Victory Collapse: The main characters get better.
- Really 700 Years Old: Theo, who is 200 years old.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Giselle.
- Relationship Values: Affecting several quests, dialogue variations, and of course, endings.
- Robot Buddy: The P.E.Ts, though they're also making sure their partner is behaving well.
- Robot Girl: The advance of robotics has made it possible for conveniences such as robot nurses and they're cute to boot.
- Romance Sidequest: The player can initiate a relationship with the side characters, though some of them are platonic in nature.
- Save the Villain: You can choose to deliver your revenge... or save them instead.
- Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Several pairs have this dynamic, most notably the two Hosts.
- Sequel Series: Set about a century after Freak-Quency. Some characters make a return.
- Sharing a Body: The criminal Soul sharing the body with the hormonal, teenager Host.
- Shout-Out: It deserves its own page. The creators are having so much fun with this, they have references from Niga Higa to musicals to various oldtime Eastern RPGs.
- Spin-Offspring: Players of Freak-Quency will notice that several characters are descendants of past heroes.
- Spiritual Successor: To the developer's previous game, Freak-Quency
- Telepathy: Bunny's power. It really makes communicating simple.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Set in 2121, though the world is very much familiar.
- Visual Pun: On Jon's school, you can find bathrooms with chicken logo and cat logo on it. Guess which picture for which gender.
- Walking Spoiler: Theo is Jackal.
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What Could Have Been: Cam was designed as a girl. During development, this character went through a lot of iterations as the story was deemed complex enough. Current canon has Cam stating that he was a girl and went through gender-change with his mutation after the murder of his fiance. - "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Occurs after the final battle sequence.
- Woman Scorned: Sephia takes this really badly.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Eric.
