"...Hello? This is... This is the suicide hotline, yes?"
Oops, wrong number. But you may not want to tell that to the man on the other side of the phone.
You play as a young woman who receives a call from an unknown number, mistakenly trying to reach the suicide hotline. You're given the choice of trying to defuse the situation, but with limited time and knowledge, how can you help a man that's already so close to the edge? What could you give a complete stranger that would give him a reason to live?
Love, maybe. But things could get twisted fast... it's better not to take that risk.
Don't Take This Risk is a soft horror Visual Novel made in Ren'Py by Poison Apple Tales
, created for the Asylum Jam.
The mysterious man on the other end of the line is set to appear in Beauty and the War: X Playing Pieces, where his name and past will be fully revealed.
The game can be downloaded here. It now has a webtoon that can be read here.
Don't Take This Risk provides examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: The man will affectionately call you Kitten or Kitty if you don't tell him your name. He tells you to call him whatever you want too, instead of ever revealing his own name.
- Ate His Gun: Any time you run away after meeting him, he shoots himself in the head instead of mixing pills and alcohol.
- Bittersweet Ending: There is no outcome where Ambrosia 'saves' the man without sacrificing something of herself.
- Commonality Connection: Over Emily Dickinson's poems.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Heavily hinted at, but it's never outright said why the mysterious man wants to die, just that he considers himself worthy of death. It's heavily alluded, and in some routes admitted, that he's killed a number of people and acted immorally out of a debt to someone. Whether to believe him or not is up to the player. Whatever happened, there's no one and nothing left that the man can cling to.
- Destructive Romance: The ending where you and the man become a couple. It's built off of little more than guilt and desperation, and even if the player chooses options that make it clear they're very okay with it, the relationship isn't healthy and has little potential to be.
- Downer Ending: There is no unambiguously happy ending.
- Driven to Suicide: The man on the phone will go through with it in most of the endings.
- Drowning My Sorrows: If he hangs up and you try to contact him again, he'll text you while he's noticeably drunk. It's not just that he's drowning his sorrows, though, since he's actually mixing alcohol with pills as his suicide method.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: In the ending 'Keep Your Eyes on Me,' the man heavily implies that he's not above taking advantage of you if you fall asleep while watching over him."I’ll turn in for now. Better be careful you don’t nod off. Not that I would complain. Just don’t hold me responsible for what I do –to you or me."
- Easter Egg: When you choose the alluring voice option, there are times when he will break into song.
- Everything Sounds Sexier in French: In either voice option, the man has a very obvious, sexy French accent, and implies that English isn't his native tongue. Despite his occasional stumbling through English phrases, he doesn't say anything in French except when he's texting while drunk.
- The Faceless: Most of his face is hidden under a blanket. You can ask him about it, but there's no way to make him take it off.
- Forceful Kiss: The man does this to the player, largely because he's '''trying''' to scare her away.
- Hello, [Insert Name Here]: You can put in a name, or go with the default name of "Ambrosia." Even if you do, the spoken dialogue either skips over your name or calls you "Kitty".
- I'm a Humanitarian: Possibly. He says that he wants to "devour" the player, and it's left ambiguous whether it was entirely sexual, especially in the context that he has killed before.
- Love Freak: The man is very passionately romantic, even if all he has to go on is a glimmer of hope that he might be loved. LOVE IS EVERYTHING.
- Love Martyr: The player basically has an option to become this for the sake of giving him a reason to live.
- Multiple Endings: 9 different endings, but none of them are traditionally happy. The developer made a guide on how to get each of them here.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The entire premise is that you're a young woman trying to help a random stranger who is clearly suicidal and in need of help. No matter what kindness you show, the result is always horrific, in one way or another.
- No Name Given: The man never gives you his name. If you ask while on the phone, he'll answer that he's "nobody," and if you ask in person, he'll tell you to call him whatever you want.
- The Power of Love: Played with. The only way to keep him from hanging up and killing himself is by convincing him that you love him. He'll say he returns the feelings, but it's very clear that it's hollow and desperate on both ends. Still, it works, for what he considers "the best ending of all."
- Scream Discretion Shot: When he bites off his tongue and bleeds out in front of you.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: You have the option to run away several times.
- Shoo the Dog: There are some points in which the man is actively trying to make the player run away, and he never physically prevents her from doing so, particularly if it's clear that she doesn't actually love him. Confirmed in some extra dialogue written by the developer.
- Shout-Out: In the webtoon:
- The cab driver says “I can totally see Mr. Rogers fitting in here.”
- Episode 7 is called Basic Instinct.
- Sweet Tooth: The man mentions that he likes sweets, especially flan and creme brulee.
- Yandere: It's very unclear on whether the man is one or not, since he claims that even if he were a killer, he would never hurt the player or anyone the player cared about. However, the player can choose to act as an unambiguous yandere with some dialogue options."If you look at another girl, I'll kill her."
