Video Game / ALONE (RPG Maker)

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ALONE is an 2021 horror adventure game made by DakeCraft in RPG Maker.

Yeongchul is a hardworking young man who blames himself for not giving more attention to his girlfriend, Euna, thanks to constantly working overtime. He returns home after another day at work, but eventually, strange things start happening around the house. He'll have to figure out who's the culprit and prepare himself before they arrive.

It can be downloaded for free on itch.io here and on Steam here, with the latter having a paid Steam Edition.

ALONE provides examples of:

• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • During the phone call scene you get after figuring out Soyeong is the culprit, the timer is paused.
  • When you lock the chosen room's door, it automatically speeds up the timer to when Soyeong arrives, meaning you won't have to wait for too long to see the ending.
• Action Survivor: Yeongchul is a regular, working 28-year-old who's suddenly forced to deal with a home invasion situation, on top of the invader, who's his Yandere ex, having murdered his girlfriend. Even after he does freak out after being unable to call the police due to the cut telephone line, he still figures out who's behind it with a few clues and can be pretty resourceful depending on what's avaliable on the room he chooses to wait at: he either uses heavy boxes to defend himself, or takes advantage of the bathroom floor's slipperiness making Soyeong trip.
• Bittersweet Ending: Ending 2. Euna is still dead, but this is the only ending where Soyeong gets arrested and Yeongchul is guaranteed to live because of his choice.
• Bland-Name Product: SNS, which looks like a green-colored version of Twitter / X.
• Bystander Syndrome: Nobody seems to care enough about the murder case in any of the endings. The charity campaigns made for Euna - and Yeongchul in Ending 3 - don't reach their goals, and in the endings where Soyeong succeeds in murdering Yeongchul, the case goes cold because people forgot about it.
• Crime of Self-Defense: In Ending 4, Yeongchul is punished by the law for killing Soyeong despite being threatened and almost murdered by her.
• Criminal Record Stigma: In Ending 4, Yeongchul can't get any job for the Crime of Self-Defense he did to protect himself from his insane ex-girlfriend. Because of this, he kills himself.
• Cold Ham: Downplayed. She can scream when she's about to go for the kill, but Soyeong is mostly a Soft-Spoken Sadist with a somewhat sophisticated manner of talking. Yeongchul even lists her "talking style" as a hint for her identity in hindsight.
• Domestic Abuse: Back when Soyeong was dating Yeongchul, she stalked him to the extreme of memorizing his schedule, forced physical affection on him, threatened to kill him whenever he wanted to break up, and spread rumors that tarnished his name and made his friends leave him.
• Downer Ending: Out of the five avaliable endings, nearly all of them qualify. Two of them end with Yeongchul dead and Soyeong getting away with her crimes, and the other two end with Yeongchul eventually being Driven to Suicide. Only Ending 2 gets the closest to being a happy one.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted. Soyeong's past behavior as a girlfriend, as described by Yeongchul during the second phone call, is meant to be seen in a creepy light.
• Driven to Suicide: Yeongchul in Endings 3 and 4, because of what happened to him at the aftermath of those.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: Downplayed. The Hidden Ending is one of the worst among the five endings, and it requires a very specific divergence: hide in the washing machine room, but have low stamina - something that needs effort on the player's end, as only way to spend stamina is to investigate the objects in the house, which one probably wouldn't do after getting the key without being aware of this ending. If you do it, Yeongchul will try to pull the boxes like in Ending 2, but will be too tired to do it, leaving him vulnerable to Soyeong's attack.
• "Eureka!" Moment: While analyzing the possible culprits with the notebook where he had to write his bosses and coworkers down, he laments for Euna's fate, saying he didn't expect them to "break up" like this. "Break up" turn out to be the words he needed to realize who is responsible for her murder: his clingy and batshit crazy ex-girlfriend from university, Soyeong.
• Evil Is Petty: Out of petty spite, Soyeong accused Yeongchul of being a He-Man Woman Hater when he threatened to walk out of the abusive relationship back when they were dating each other.
• Evolving Title Screen: The title screen's text when you first open the game is a light-dark gray gradient, which changes depending on the outcome. Whenever you die or get most of the endings, the title text's color will be a red-and-white gradient, with small red text underneath saying "You're not alone, My love". If you get Ending 2, the title text will instead be glowing white, with small gray text underneath saying "Leave me alone, please".
• Foreshadowing: During the opening, Yeongchul mentions that Euna is not his first girlfriend, and that his former one "gave [him] a lot of troubles". It not only hints who killed Euna, but her motivation for doing it as well.
• Forced to Watch: Yeongchul is forced to listen and fruitlessly beg as Euna is murdered on the other side of the phone call.
• Good News, Bad News: Soyeong frames her vengeance as such. Bad news? She knows where Euna lives and brutalizes the poor girl. "Good" news? She's coming for Yeongchul next.
• Hate Sink: Soyeong. Unlike most yanderes that have a Freudian Excuse, her actions make her look more loathsome as she is fully aware of them. She is remorseless for spreading false rumors of Yeongchul being a He-Man Woman Hater when they were in college (and is even baffled when he calls her out), obsessively stalking him to the point of memorizing his schedule (which creeps Yeongchul out), and murdering Euna out of sheer jealousy for dating him.
• Improvised Weapon: Yeongchul finds a brick in the bathroom to use as a weapon.
• Karma Houdini: In Ending 1 and the hidden ending, Soyeong escapes from the police after committing her murders.
• Love Confession: Played for Horror. Soyeong says it once she gets to the front door, and its voiced too.
• Minimalist Cast: Other people are mentioned in the epilogues, but otherwise, there's only Yeongchul, Euna, and the home invader/Soyeong.
• Multiple Endings: They depend on where you chose to hide after you get the key.
  • Ending 1: Horrible, Merciless Ending: If you hide in the bedroom, Yeongchul will be unable to defend himself or escape, and Soyeong will easily kill him. She escapes from the police and her murder case goes cold.
  • Ending 2: Saved by Worthless Stuff: If you hide in the laundry room, Yeongchul uses the room's heavy boxes to defend himself from Soyeong when she breaks the door. The police is alerted and they arrest Soyeong, who gets a 15-year prison sentence for Euna's murder. Yeongchul receives mental care in a hospital for a few months before continuing his life.
  • Ending 3: A Choice of a Cornered Rat: If you hide in the phone room, Yeongchul will jump out of the window to avoid Soyeong, breaking his legs and spine to the point of paraplegia but saving himself and getting Soyeong arrested. However, after a few years, he takes his life in the hospital after being consumed by extreme PTSD.
  • Ending 4: Category of Self-Defense: If you hide in the bathroom, Soyeong will slip on the floor, giving Yeongchul the chance to fatally bash her head with the brick. Despite it being in self-defense (and despite what was told to the public), he gets a 4-year prison sentence and takes his life because of his criminal record not allowing him to get any jobs.
  • Hidden Ending: Unforeseen Weakness: If you hide in the washing machine room but don't have enough stamina, Yeongchul won't have enough strength to push the boxes before Soyeong breaks the door. The rest of the ending proceeds similarly to Ending 1.
• Modular Epilogue: After a short scene showing what happens because of your hiding spot choice, a text-only epilogue reveals its aftermath. The recurring elements through all of these are the police and public's reaction, and the case eventually spreading via SNS.
• Monochromatic Impact Shot: After Soyeong comes, the front door opens after enough blows, with her briefly appearing as a black, Slasher Smile-bearing silhouette against a red background behind her.
• Married to the Job: Yeongchul confesses in the opening that he's unable to go on a date with Euna because of his overworking, settling for an online date.
• No Escape but Down: Yeongchul escapes from Soyeong in Ending 3 by jumping out of the window. It is Deconstructed via its outcome, which is Yeongchul ending in a wheelchair due to breaking his legs and spine.
• Protect This House: Once Yeongchul figures out who's the one that cut his house's lights and murdered Euna, he has to find a weapon to defend himself, find a key, and choose a room to lock the door of to prepare himself against the invader.
• Red Filter of Doom: The most intense moments of the game (specifically, during the two phone calls with the invader and after the failed call to the police) have this filter on the screen to enhance the horror.
• Sound-Only Death: We only get to hear stabbing and splattering as Euna is killed.
• Sanity Meter: The green sanity bar lowers while you travel through dark rooms and when you pick wrong choices. Losing too much of it will result in a wavy distortion effect over the screen, female silhouettes appearing and disappearing, and other visual illusions.
• Sprint Meter: The red stamina bar lowers when you investigate the things in the house.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Yeongchul subtly lampshades in Ending 3 how risky jumping out of the window from a high area (specifically the 4th floor of a building) to escape danger is, only going through with it because he's desperate, and considers losing his legs the lesser evil over being brutally murdered. He ends up suffering some of the many possible consequences of jumping from high places: broken legs and spine that lead towards him becoming paraplegic.
  • The boxes in the washing machine room are implied to be very heavy, as even a bloodlust-crazy Soyeong who breaks doors with ease can do little but slam on them helplessly. One would require a lot of stamina to even move the boxes - which is why Yeongchul manages to save himself in Ending 2, but dies in the Hidden Ending.
• Terms of Endangerment: Soyeong tends to call Yeongchul "my love".
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: She also knows where your girlfriend lives. Justified in case of knowing the protagonist's home, as Yeongchul informed Soyeong of it while they were dating.
• Timed Mission: You're given 8 minutes to figure out the invader/killer's identity and prepare yourself before they can come and kill you. Losing all stamina or sanity decreases the timer by three.
• Yandere: Played for horror and deconstructed with Soyeong. She murders Euna for "daring" to be with her ex and tries to kill Yeongchul for leaving her. According to Yeongchul, this behavior extends back to when the two dated in university, with it being the reason why he broke up with her. Unlike many examples, Soyeong's actions make her look unsympathetic and totally unhinged for creepily stalking Yeongchul to the point of memorizing his daily routine.