#CLUELESS off fangame

[loafiecat]

DISCLAIMER! 

These reviews are my informal thoughts and opinions purely and by no means are they meant to harm the creators in any way, shape, or form.  I love OFF and I love the OFF fandom, I wish nothing but the best for these creators and I respect them for their hard work. Thank you for your understanding. 

CLUELESS is one of many fangames made by Zachariecide. It is a very short game that serves as one of three sequels to another game called UNKNOWN. In it, you play as the Batter. After waking up on a monorail next to Zacharie, you are forced to solve a mystery involving a strange, horrific phenomena and many, many deaths if you are not careful. Now, one might ask why I decided to start in non-chronological order. Well, this is for a very simple reason: CLUELESS is, in fact, the first OFF fangame I've ever played. Many years ago, I was introduced to the OFF fangame community through playing this title, so it holds a special place in my heart and if it weren't for it, I wouldn't have met the wonderful friends I still talk to today.

That all being said, this game goes in....odd directions.

Due to how short the game is, it's difficult to review without spoilers so, uh- anyway I'll try not to spoil much.

Clueless throws you right in after a brief warning about gory narratives. You start off on the monorail and things immediately go downhill for the Batter. Have fun, champ, go out there and solve the mystery! Oh- your friend's dead? Oh uh- okay- hey wasn't that a different room before? Ohh....oh dear...

There are so many. Deaths. In this game. The starting area alone has at least two ways you can get a game over right off the bat. To be honest, half of the enjoyment is finding how many ways to get a game over there are. It makes me think of The Witch's House a little in that regard. Thankfully, the game lets you save any time, as well as gives you prompts to save at certain points. Speaking of saves, the game comes with save files already packed in. I am not sure why these were left in.

So throughout the game, when you examine certain things or talk to npcs, you get clues. They take spaces in your inventory and you can "examine" them to get a reexplanation of the clue in question. It's like the Batter is taking notes on a pen and notepad. I actually thought this was pretty cool! I'd imagine you'd use them to solve puzzles or as "keys" to get through obstacles. Sadly, none of the clues are applied in such a way. At least, I tried where I thought it would make sense to and nothing worked, so I assume it's just a system to remind the player of certain topics but with no further application. Oh well. Game play wise, there's very few combat encounters so most of the game is spent speaking to npcs and exploring the limited areas. I personally don't mind this as I don't really care for RPG maker combat.

It's hard to talk about the story without spoiling anything, but my opinion of it is that it didn't have much room to breathe. You aren't given much time to ponder what's happening before it's revealed to you and the answers to questions I do have about much of the game simply do not exist. Why is everything trying to kill me? What is the red mansion..place...thing? And why is there a smutty fanfic and why DOES THE BATTER WANT TO KEEP IT-

Overall, I feel rather neutral about it. I definitely enjoyed it more when I was much younger and played this for the first time though. I really feel that the clue mechanic was a missed opportunity.

Anywho, I hope you enjoyed my rambling! Until next time!

[occasionaltouhou]

i read yuor touhou deepsea fangame reimu route and i just want to say you have SUCH a good grasp on like the Feeling of the game scripts its just soooo absoltuely delightful to me. i love touhou prebattle banter you do it so good. also the Thematic Appropriateness of remilia demoted to stage 2 boss is so good. and i love sachiko, truly just rolling with it

I'M SO GLAD TO HEAR THIS.... i try very hard to keep my writing in-character and to maintain the right, like, flow, but to hear that i've pulled it off successfully is another thing entirely. thank you so much

i love banter. i love characters talking around each other bc they're both clueless. i love random violence. and i love when a girl is jsut some guy

[thewolfshipper]

HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS BEFORE, I AM SO FUCKING DUMB

[spiradoptera]

editing stock photos at 2 am to make shitposts is a new favorite pastime

(personal fave out of this set is Shitai)

[panic-in-ballville]

I played Clueless.

[dsmproleplayaccount]

welcome to the dream smp interactive roleplay game!

happy to have you here! here’s some info about this new concept i’m trying out for fun.

disclaimer; i will not be writing any reader x character romance or overstepping cc’s boundaries; the pfp of my blog is not made by me, but was labelled free to use.

how does this work?

it’s rather simple! after you submit your initial post (it’s explained how to do that below), i reblog it with a reply writing the response by the dsmp cast and world as a whole. it’s a training experience for me to learn to write the dream smp characters as well as get better at writing and dialogue in general! i’ll attempt to keep them in character as much as i can, however keep in mind i believe every single character on the dream smp to be morally grey, not inherently good or evil, so i will write them accordingly.

you can go into this knowing literally nothing about the dream smp! if you have a friend who is clueless about the story, they can submit a post here and become part of the dream smp, learning more about the characters in an interactive way- either way, if you would like yourself / a persona of yours to join the story, that’s exactly what this whole thing is about- i will write you into the story, while you yourself control your own decisions. it’s like a game which takes you down different paths depending on what choices you make, however this has literally endless possibilities!

sounds like a pretty fun concept to me! that’s why i thought it would be cool to try this out, seeing as interactive stories are for me the most entertaining kind.

it might take a bit for me to reply, and in case (though i don’t think that would happen) that this blog happens to get flooded by submissions, i’ll most likely not reply to all of them; including ones that i don’t feel comfortable doing for whatever reason. don’t be shy to submit though, i am looking forwards to playing this w/ you guys!

and don’t feel bad for this being reader-insert! i myself don’t and will not ever read those because of personal preference; you can think of this as more of an open-world text-based fangame.

how do i enter?

to enter, you must be moderately capable at writing your own character- anything extra triggering crossing the line of what usually happens on the smp shouldn’t be included in your character’s backstory or actions, as to not endanger the mental well-being of me or possible readers.

the story itself starts when your character, someday somewhere, finds a portal. they jump into it, and spawn in the dream smp.

in the “start the game” (or submit post) section, you’ll fill out this short form:

- name, age & gender of the character - are they accompanied by any pets? - brief appearance, clothing and height - starting point (time-wise) - starting point (space-wise) - starting post (thoughts and feelings upon arrival, maybe them wandering around or interacting with objects/buildings)

as for the starting points; any time during the canon storyline is fair game, e. g. you can start your story at the beginning of the l’manberg war, during the pogtopian revolution, or during the prison arc that is currently ongoing. feel free to pinpoint very specific times to me as well; shortly after techno’s execution, right after tommy gets let out of the prison, etc.

any place should also be fine, however don’t have your character spawn for example in the middle of a battlefield or inside buildings; you’re most likely to spawn in a large and open area, for example outside l’manberg, in the village by techno’s house, or the initial spawn area.

if you have specific questions and don’t know whether something would work or not, don’t be afraid to simply send me an ask! you’re never a bother.

you can choose to have your character have forgotten everything (except their own beliefs and personality) because of jumping through the portal, or they can have a backstory; please keep those in line with the minecraft universe, i. e. things like growing up in minecraft player villages, hybrid settlements, a nether colony, or public servers like hypixel.

please no mary-sues, overpowered characters, nsfw characters or anything that seems off-limits! your character can be a furry or a mob hybrid if you want! as long as it’s not painful to write about it’s all good.

this rules section will expand depending on my experiences with this! it’s still in alpha, let’s say; don’t be afraid to ask me to specify or add something.

can i play with someone else?

since this game is basically in its demo, i’ve never done this before and have no idea how it will go, multiplayer is not available just yet! if there is enough demand, you’ll be able to play with your friends in the future, but for now it’s limited to one character.

if you have any other questions, please use the question section!

so, are you going to join the anarchist syndicate or become part of snowchester and an adoptive sibling of the underscore family?

can’t wait to see what you come up with!

either way, have a wonderful rest of your day :]

[whatisthisnonsense]

Lea Liveblogs Off And The Hugginsverse Fangames; The Prequel To Shenanigans

Okay kids, before we set off to our fieldtrip to fucksville, it’s time for EXPOSITON in the form of me not shutting up for several paragraphs while I tell you why this is a good game, the fangames are good games, an all ya’ll punk asses need to listen to Mama Lea and play these dang games. Off itself was created in 2008 by a cool Belgian dude, one @mortisghost. Originally in French, we’ll be playing the 3.0 English translation as I hear that’s the most accurate (though sadly, removed all the swearing). Off was one of the first Earthbound-like indie games that used surrealism and horror to deconstruct the concept of well, Earthbound-like RPGS! It also created the proto-Sans Undertale in the form of the Zacharie fandom but we’ll get there when we get there While it never truly became popular like it’s thematic descendant Undertale, Off has a rather quirky cult following (myself included), many of which happened to be surprisingly good indie developers themselves! While there are a plethora of fangames, we’ll be focusing on the ones made by @theclaudehuggins, aka The Hugginsverse. Claude Huggins has made multiple OFF fansequels, fan-interquels, and fan prequel-sequel-god-what-the-actual-fuck-is-evens, as well as a couple of mods for Minecraft and Don’t Stave. There’s even a new one in the works which I will ABSOLUTELY be liveblogging when it comes out! The basic gist of a Hugginsverse game goes a little something like this; Temporal Shenanigans, Body Horror, Someone Playing With Powers That Perhaps They Should Not Have Been Given, and Well I Guess Zacharie’s Dead.  For the Liveblogging, we will be playing, in order; Off, CLUELESS, Fastforward, and UNKNOWN. We will not be playing 365 because it’s sad and the last link I saw for Decode was a demo, and I’m not yet ready to include it. Now, as a fair warning; Off and it’s fangames, Huggins and otherwise, do include (as mentioned) body horror, along with some other severely unpleasant phenomenon such as suicide and cannibalism. This is a horror game series after all. I will be tagging as needed per post with tw: (Whatever), but if the whole thing puts you off it’d probably be best to blacklist the tag Jubiel Raham, my personal pupetteer who’s tag will be on every post from game start on. Now, without futher ado, let’s get this shitshow on the road!

[tzalmavet]

Thanks for the info, I definitely will check out One! Also, have you played Unknown? Any thoughts on it?

I’ve played Unknown!

It was… something?  Hard to say if I thought it was completely good or bad, but I didn’t come away from it feeling like I’d wasted my time.

It was neat how it focused less on combat.  Unfortunately, the villain is a little too unlikable; his actions and motives are explained so little, that he kind of came across as a jerk for no real reason, and sometimes put the story (and player) in a very uncomfortable place.  He had a nifty design, though.

Most problems I had with it come from the fact that it’s too short, and most of its lore isn’t there in the actual game.  It got a lot more interesting for me after I looked through the creator’s blog, and found out a lot more about the characters, especially learning their motives, feelings, and origins (Clueless became more interesting, too).  If the game spent a little more time developing its characters, mood, and setting, it would be improved tremendously.

I definitely liked how many different endings you can get.  There’s so many, I’ve never gotten the same one twice!  This actually works well with the game being so short, because it makes it easier to replay (or, you could just revert to a file saved right before you choose all of the factors that influence the ending, but that doesn’t take too long either).

I’m definitely interested in what Claude might do with the story in the future.  Looking around, it was good at the time it came out, and was definitely quite influential on OFF’s fangame community.  Unknown isn’t available to download anymore, but I still have a copy on my computer, and there is a small handful of playthroughs of it that one can watch on Youtube.

[whatisthisnonsense]

I found I've downloaded CLUELESS along with other OFF fangames like forever ago, so I'm giving this a try and for now going along with your liveblog! (reading it is still a pleasure, I love your commentary a lot :3)

YES EVERYONE DO EXACTLY WHAT THIS WONDERFUL MUFFIN DIDAlso thank you! 

[tzalmavet]

HELLO!!! I'm a huge fan of your art and you're theoretical discussions about OFF and Osomatsu!! I hope you don't mind if I ask your opinion about the Zachercide fan games for OFF (Unknown, Clueless, etc) I was thinking of playing them? How is the lore, characters, and overall quality of the game? What order do you play the games in? Or does that jot matter? ((also unrelated- are you no longer in the Osomatsu san fandom? That would be a tragedy)) Sorry if someone's asked you this before, thanks:3

Thank you!

I’ve got really mixed feelings on those games…  I don’t love them, but they were entertaining.  I definitely enjoyed them a lot more after I read the lore on their creator’s blog.  They’ve got a fairly interesting story behind them, one that I like, even if it doesn’t show up very clearly in the actual games.

The characterization in them is… questionable.  I liked some of it, and didn’t like other parts.  They get a pass on the original characters, and I guess how well canon ones like Zacharie are portrayed depends on how you saw them in OFF.  The drama can feel rather forced a lot of the time, but that’s just my opinion.

Except for maybe FastForward, I found them pretty easy.  Each of them can be finished quickly, and I don’t think I came across any bugs.  The music in them is pretty nice, as are the overworld and battle sprites.  There’s a little jumpscare near the beginning of CLUELESS, so you might wanna play that one in windowed mode if those bother you.

As for order, I think that I played them:  UNKNOWN>CLUELESS>365, I haven’t finished FastForward yet, and I haven’t tried DECODE.  Their creator might have posted the best order to play them in at some point, but whatever order you try, you should probably start with UNKNOWN.

They’re not my favorite OFF fangames, but they’re interesting.  There’s a lot of different endings you can get in UNKNOWN, and I have yet to get the same one twice.  I say you should try them out if you’re curious.  Even if you don’t like them, at least they’re all really short.

(and I still like Osomatsu-san, I just haven’t been as active in the fandom since OFF has become a special interest and season 2 hasn’t been released yet. I still have some fics and stuff for Osomatsu-san planned to finish later)