Fourteen people and a timeloop. What can go wrong?
A Visual Novel about fourteen people trapped inside a timelooping location, called the Clocktower Anomaly. In order to escape, they must solve a series of puzzles, different depending on the loop. At first, it seems like an escape from their everyday, especially considering magical “Anomalies” are known phenomena in their world. However, something isn’t quite right in this place, and a dangerous force lurks between the surface...
This Visual Novel provide examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Includes, but is not limited to:
- Amelie’s parents: Her parents verbally and emotionally abuse her, causing her to become withdrawn and actively depressed later in life.
- Abel’s parents. They adopt two children for the sole purpose of having them put under extreme stress, in order to force them to develop magical powers. This leads to them becoming extremely traumatized, and one of them attempting to murder the others.
- Ame’s adopted mother, Alice. She not only coerces him to join a top-secret organization, essentially conscripting him as a child soldier, she hides his physical disability from him and forces him to walk without mobility aids.
- Stephanie and JJ’s foster parents: As orphans, they are shuffled between various homes throughout their life. Many of them are implied or downright stated to be abusive towards them.
- Alliterative Name: A few.
- "Jasper Jasmine Jekyll" who goes by "Jazz".
- "Alice Ambrose"
- An Astral Projection, Not a Ghost: The Floaters, though frequently described as 'brain ghosts' by those they attach to, are actually astral projections by characters who remain unconscious during the current loop.
- Arc Words: The title itself functions as this. It is revealed later that:
- “Float” is a term for a person magically observing a time loop
- “Entropic” is a term for magical decay called Entropy which tries to kill the main cast
- Autism in Media:
- Peri Dubois has a black-and-white morality, and often has intense reactions to minor changes in her surrounding
- Madeleine Nenohara has a special interest in thrill-seeking activities (e.g. rollercoasters)
- Big Damn Reunion: Subverted, with Touko and her brother. The two were separated at birth, and Touko spends her life looking for him. But after she finally finds him, the two realize they don’t know how to interact with each other since they’re essentially strangers. Paired with Surprisingly Realistic Outcome and Truth in Television, in that many siblings separated often find themselves alienated from each other.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: At the end of the game, the player character is communicated to directly, and is treated as a character for the rest of the run.
- Cain and Abel: Abel Moreau has a brother who tries to kill him
- Clock Tower: The main setting. Also doubles as a Motif.
- Cursed Item: One of the main characters, True Whitman, has a book (the Ipsum Delatura) which drains the life-force of others, while containing infinite knowledge- A Great Big Book of Everything. The Ipsum Delatura itself is an example of Comical Translation, as it translates roughly from Latin to “it is the very thing”
- Fun with Acronyms: The “Wish Task Force”, the main organization in the game, has the acronym WTF.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The story is in a repeating time loop of the same day
- Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Subverted, subverted, subverted. As said by the creator of the game himself, this is primarily a game about disability.
- One of the main themes of the game how disability is neither the minimizing Disability Superpower, or the patronizing “inspiration” for abled people
- All of the characters have varied relationships with their disabilities
- Because people treated them as an “inspiration,” Loam, as an adult, was pitied and treated like a child because of their physical disability, and ended up being completely isolated from the rest of zir town for her entire life.
- Kanatsun, whose physical disability has been hidden from him for his whole life, is learning that “pushing through” disability or Throwing Off the Disability isn’t anything worth celebrating. After routinely struggling to stand for the long periods of time that he needed to within the timeloop, he finally admits that he might need some manner of mobility aid.
- Kanatsun also has ASPD and PTSD As a result of discovering his parents murdered at age eight , as revealed by the end by his adoptive mother, who was purposely withholding the information from him for his entire life (note: He’s 34 at the end of the first game). By the end of the game, he’s still coming to terms with this realization.
- Peri Dubois ends up finding companionship, not in one of the neurotypical characters or some anonymous “Saviour,” but in Madeline Nenohara, an older autistic woman who bonds with her over their similarities. They both also have very different traits on the spectrum: Primarily, Peri has a black-and-white morality and Madeline has a special interest in high-adrenaline activities.
- Jazz is a sociology graduate student whose migraines end up causing her unable to stay fully conscious. This would normally fall under the Ironically Disabled Artist trope, but the narrative doesn’t focus on her “overcoming” her disability. It simply shows how getting the right medication was enough for her to continue her studies.
- Rashmi has a memory disorder which causes them to insert events that didn’t actually happen. They never end up recovering, but find ways to tell others how to get the support they need.
- Amelie has psychosis, and ends up learning to manage her symptoms using strategies such as music, and staying around other people. Notably, the symptoms never actually end up going away, and she never actually recovers.
- Murder Water: In several loops, magical (deadly) water tries to kill (or successfully kills) the main characters.
- Physical Disability in Media: Three of the main characters are physically disabled
- Jazz has intense migraines, which she often needs medication for
- Kanatsune Ame has hyper-mobile joints and Multiple Sclerosis
- Loam Arnault has arthritis and chronic fatigue
- The Antichrist: Played with. The Killer was hoping to become this. In fact, they trapped the main characters in the loop as a way to harvest their energy through ritual killings… In order to have enough power to destroy the world. However, after being unmasked as Loam, the Killer fails their task at the end of the game.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: Peri Dubois is extremely skilled at weapons, and exhibits signs of childhood trauma.
- Shout-Out
- Rashmi is a dungeon master for Dungeons and Dragons, and at one point says that Loam sounds like the Joker, as an insult.
- Abel Dubois is a fan of the Hunger Games
- To the Morshu meme: “Come back when you’re a little, mmm, stronger.” Also doubles as grim comedy, considering that it’s said by a parent who, after years of abusing her adopted son… Has recently revealed that she has hidden his physical disability from him for years, and forcing him to walk without any mobility aids.
- Alice: “Come back when you’re a little, mmm, stronger. Then we can address reducing your handicap”
- Ame (rightfully so): “Are you serious right now?”
- This encounter:
- True: “As for who that enemy is… Actually, I’m quite certain they aren’t among us at the moment.”
- Peri [with a blank expression]: “Amogus.”
- True: “I don’t speak French, darling.”
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Rashmi, under the 'Pay Cheating Unto Evil' clause. They're technically cheating on their husband with Amelie, if only because they didn't get the chance to divorce him before the events of the game began.
- Urban Fantasy: The story takes place in an alternate, modern-day Earth where magic is common enough that even civilians know it exists, though the vast majority of people go their whole lives without ever using it.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
- What Ame hopes to avoid through working extremely hard, to the point of shutting off his entire personal life.
- Furthermore, many characters (including Peri and True) see themselves as merely objects or tools who fear not being useful anymore, due to trauma or other factors.
- Notably, many of the villains in the game (e.g. Alice) have the main fault of seeing people as tools as well, and do not hesitate to abandon those they don’t find useful
- Wham Line:
- “Loam spent a week alone in their room”: Innocuous, but within context it reveals who the Killer within the time loop was
- World of Badass: Both played straight and subverted. Many of the characters have remarkable abilities, but mostly due to situations of extreme trauma (for example, Peri had to become proficient in use of polearms because she was adopted as a child for the sole reason of being used as a bodyguard)
