Distorted Travesty

Distorted Travesty is a "Fast Paced Satirical Action Platformer" made in Game Maker by Dark Yoshi (aka. Zephyr Burst). It follows the story of two gamers with no clear goals in life. These two are Jerry, the most hardcore of hardcore gamers, and Jeremy, who partakes in some light hacking and playing jokes. You control Jerry, while Jeremy sits on the fourth wall and gives you aid throughout the game.

One day, when they break into the Integrated Electronics Factory to teach its CEO about the greatness of Jerry's favorite game, a mysterious entity known as The Darkness comes and steals him away to another world, one which is composed of all the games the two have played since their youth. Their only hope of returning home is to collect the Seven Magical Flavored Muffins throughout the world and use them to defeat The Darkness once and for all, lest they miss a new episode of the best series ever. The game was completed on November 5, 2010.

A short sequel, Distorted Travesty 2: The Sequel To The Prequel was released on April 7, 2011, and can be downloaded from the same site. In it, you play as Claire, Jerry's ex. Both Jerry and Jeremy make appearances in the game as well.

A third entry in the series, Saved Game, is currently in development, though the final version is unlikely to be released anytime soon. This entry in the series revolves around Jerry and Claire, chronicling their struggle to save the Darkness and defeat the Virus introduced at the end of Distorted Travesty 2. Jeremy and his sister, Chao, return to provide help, guidance and (in Jeremy's case) snarky comments. A demo showcasing the first portion of the game was released on March 25, 2012.

You can download the trilogy here. But be warned, they ain't easy.

Tropes used in Distorted Travesty include:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: Averted. The level cap is 64, and you will likely get close to that if you're shooting for 100% Completion.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: On a train, nonetheless!
• Advancing Wall of Doom: Two of them, both created by Hexor. The first one is in Distortion, the second in Distortion WTF.
  • And of course the multiple advancing instakill spike walls in levels that would already qualify as Platform Hell without the extra time pressure.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played with. Once you figure out that The Darkness is nothing more than a video game maker, you begin to think this, but then you find out that it's only trying to protect itself. Once a greater threat appears, it actively helps you defeat it, since it would be protecting itself.
• Apocalyptic Log: The Artist's notes scattered in the Black Rock Fortress seem to be this at first.
• Arc Words: "Distortion" and its derivatives.
• Artificial Stupidity: Meta Knight has an AI that's very easy to break. Attack, back dash, run up to him, attack, etc...
• Autobots Rock Out: One of the boss themes.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: Very few maps are this. Two of them are in Metropolis, and another is a hidden map.
• Awesome but Impractical: Kudeku, due to its pitifully short range and high cost.
• Awesome Yet Practical: Hurricane and Wildfire. But especially Hurricane.
• Awesomeness Is Volatile: The reason for why Jerry can't enter Rave mode during boss battles—Jeremy says that if the boss can enter it too, the game would crash due to an overload of awesomeness.
• Back Tracking: Certain items in some areas become obtainable after learning a new technique improving your mobility.
• Bacon Addiction: The final muffin is bacon flavored, which Jerry calls the best muffin to ever exist.
• Badass Longcoat: Jerry.
• Bait and Switch Boss: In the Maverick Factory, you see Zero standing before you in the third map. Jerry, however, doesn't want to fight him. Just then, a giant robot comes and squishes him, so you get to fight it instead.
• Barrier Change Boss: The Quick Time Distorter and the Data Collector.
• Big Bad: The Darkness. Subverted. It actually helps you defeat the real Big Bad.
• Big Good: The Artist. Subverted. He's actually the Big Bad.
• Bonus Boss: Two of them, one in the Maverick Factory and one in the Spire.
• Bonus Dungeon: Multiple, unlocked during the game. But the most notable one is the Spire of Forgotten Souls, a 100 floor but not really dungeon.
• Bottomless Pits: Plenty of them.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Plenty of times. In the tutorial level, Jeremy complains about text boxes blocking his view, for starters.
• Briar Patching: After The Darkness adapted to Jerry's Bullet Hell weakness by giving many bosses bullet hell abilities, Jeremy tries to do this.
• Bullet Hell: Many of the later bosses, as well as the Unexpected Shmup Levels.
  • Especially the Shroud Lord once it gets down to its final life bar. This screenshot speaks for itself.
  • Fridge Brilliance: Jerry says he's terrible at bullet hell games, so naturally the Darkness would take notice and fill up the harder areas with it!
• Check Point Starvation: The main source of torment in the Secured Data Segment.
  • Also a constant source of Fake Difficulty throughout the game. Want another try at that pixel-perfect jump? Enjoy replaying the punishing minute of almost as hard jumps before it!
  • Worse still in the bonus dungeon where you have to clear 5 screens at a time without one.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The Flame Instigator.
• Classic Video Game "Screw You"s: The game basically celebrates them, revelling in throwing increasingly elaborate and longer sequences of pits, advancing walls and tricky jumps for minutes at a time between checkpoints.
• Cliff Hanger: Subverted and parodied.
• Climax Boss: Necrobane.
• Corridor Cubbyhole Run: Most rooms in the Secured Data Segment are this. There are various objects in the background which flash different colors. In order to avoid taking a very large amount of damage, you must get into a colored zone which matches the color the objects are currently flashing.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Artist, as well as most of the people on his team.
• Critical Annoyance: It's not too annoying though.
• Critical Existence Failure
• Crossing the Streams: When The Artist makes himself invincible, the only way to stop him is to enter Rave Mode during the boss fight. Jeremy notes that you'll only get one shot at this (not that it's hard to kill The Artist once you activate it).
• Damage Increasing Debuff: Cripple temporarily drops the victim's defense.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy: The Darkness. The first thing it does after causing the Phase Distortion is capture all the heroes and gamers, as they would be the ones most likely to stop its plans.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Just self preserving.
• Deadly Lunge: Both the Shrouds and the ordinary enemy type called "Dark Variant" do this.
• Deadpan Snarker: Both Jerry and Jeremy, though especially the latter.
• Death Is a Slap on The Wrist: Zig Zagged. In short or easy rooms, it's not a big deal, as there's a checkpoint each room and the only thing you lose is Internetz dropped by enemies. But in lengthy rooms where you're certain to die a lot, death is NOT a slap on the wrist, as it forces you to go through the level all over again.
  • The game also mocks you. Mercilessly... (*sniff*)
• The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Go on, just try and hide behind King Mech. I dare you.
• Difficulty Spike: Black Rock Fortress. Full stop. And it only gets worse from there...
• Disc One Final Dungeon: Black Rock Fortress. This is also where the story tends to get more serious...
• Disproportionate Retribution: You break into a company and cause thousands of dollars in property damage, all because its CEO said your favorite video game sucked.
• Doing In the Wizard: The Darkness isn't a living being, it's a program designed to make video games.
• Double Jump: Averted. Instead, you get an ability that creates a block for you to jump off of in order to increase your jumping height.
  • ...Then later played straight, however, as there is a fire spell with this effect.
• Down in the Dumps: Not the most literal example, but all the Distortion worlds are supposed to be this. They're more or less a location for worlds which don't have the Muffins in them.
• Dummied Out: The Conjure spell, which originally let you summon allies to your side to help you out.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Jerry and Jeremy fight an uphill battle against The Darkness for pretty much the entire game.
• Easy Mode Mockery: Jerry calls easy mode "Wussy mode" after beating the boss of Dark Depths, and there's even two extra game over messages you can get if you play on easy mode, both of which mock the player for being on easy mode.

You could always try the game on an easier difficulty... oh no, wait, you can't.

• Elemental Powers: The game uses four main elements:
  • Playing with Fire
  • Making a Splash
  • Blow You Away
  • Dishing Out Dirt
• Elevator Action Sequence: There is one in the Fright Train.
• Eleventh-Hour Superpower: Jeremy obtains the ability to hack just about anything at the end of the game.
• The End of the World as We Know It: What will happen if The Artist accomplishes his goal, only so he can save face.
• Enemy Scan: You can do this at any time by clicking on an enemy.
• Evil Counterpart: Hexor to Jeremy, who supports the final boss similarly to how Jeremy supports Jerry.
• Evil Twin: The Darkness can copy the data of anything it scans and create a near-perfect replica. In particular, Hexor is a copy of Jeremy.
• Fail O'Suckyname: Black Rock Fortress, to Jerry and Jeremy.
• Fake Longevity: Discussed.

This is only to make you Back Tracking a few rooms and lengthen gameplay.

• Final Boss: Subverted with the Shroud Lord, who is set up to be the final battle and is the hardest boss in the game. However, the actual final boss (and Big Bad) is The Artist.
• Frickin' Laser Beams: The Aero Scanners have auto-hitting ones.
• Fridge Logic: The material the Metools' indestructible helmets in the Mega Man series are made of? Jeremy wonders why Dr. Wily didn't make entire robots out of this stuff.
• Giant Space Flea From Nowhere
• Global Currency: Internetz.
• Gone Horribly Right: The Darkness.
• Ground Pound: Jump attacks and the Grand Slam technique.
• Guide Dang It: A chest in Black Rock Fortress, which requires you to use an in-game glitch to get. To get it, you have to use Earth Shift to create a stone block on the floating platform next to the moving platform. After that, jump on the moving platform, and run into the block you created underneath it. Since the platform moves according to time and not variable checking, it'll move down eventually and let you get the chest.
  • Also the method for dealing with the Ultimate Phalanx for the first time, if you don't pay too much attention to Jeremy's comments.
• Harder Than Hard: Distorted mode. The game even warns you that it's completely unfair.
  • It's so difficult that even Dark Yoshi himself can't beat its final boss!
• Have a Nice Death: The Game Over screens contain mocking one-liners. It's implied that Jeremy is actually the one who says them.
• Healing Factor: There are healing spells and MP regenerates, but they eat MP so take a long time to recharge. Made all the more boring when you realise checkpoints don't restore HP and MP so you have to hang around save rooms for minutes at a time to fully heal.
• Heart Container: You have to collect four of them before they do you any good, probably as a Shout-Out to how they work in The Legend of Zelda.
  • There are also powerups that increase your Mana, and a rare type of powerup that increases both.
• Heavy Sleeper: Sonic. He's in such a depression after his disappointing games that he just doesn't want to wake up. Even when Abstracity has been practically destroyed.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Samus or Jerry's ex. The game doesn't tell which.
  • According to the sequel, it was Claire, though she survived.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Jerry looks awfully like Allen from D Gray Man... Justified, as right before the beginning of the game, he went to an anime convention dressed like that and didn't change before breaking into the first level.
• Homage: Many of the levels are homages to various Nintendo and Sega games.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The first time you fight the Ultimate Phalanx, it's protected by the Muffin it's guarding. In order to progress, you have to kill yourself, return to the room's entry, and try to leave the dungeon.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Beginner, Veteran, Hardcore, and Distorted.
• Idiot Ball: Trusting The Artist with the muffins before the Shroud Lord fight, for both Jerry and especially Jeremy. Not only was he the one who gave them the idea to destroy The Darkness in the first place, but they also figured out that he was corrupt as hell. At least we got the most epic final boss ever out of it, though.
• Inner Monologue: At the end of the game, Jerry has one. But then it's quickly subverted when Jeremy says he sucks at monologues.
• Interface Screw: Hexor messes up a lot of things in the final level and boss fight to deter you.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Both Jerry and Jeremy, to varying degrees.
• Ki Attacks: Physical techniques like Mental Insurrection, Wave of Awesome, Kudeku or Grand Slam.
• Killer Game Master: The level comments paint the creator as this, hinting his amusement at the horrors to come.
• Lampshade Hanging: Constantly, by both Jerry and Jeremy.
• Last Chance Hit Point: The Revenge Bead retaliates Collision Damage, but cannot take an enemy's last HP.
• Last-Disc Magic: Wildfire and Hurricane.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Jeremy's literal position.
• Like a Fish Takes to Water: Jerry is an avid gamer who gets thrown into the worlds of the games he played.
• Locomotive Level: The Fright Train.
• Lucky Seven: The seven Muffins.
  • Your seventh set of Heart Containers also gives you an extra 100 HP.
• MacGuffin: Lampshaded, as they're the 7 Magical Flavored Muffins.
  • In reality, they are the seven Data Allocation Segments, specific pieces of code that grant almost total control over the program. Why they look (and apparently smell) like muffins is anyone's guess.
• Malevolent Architecture: Found especially in the Black Rock Fortress.
• Mercy Invincibility: Getting hit, dashing, and using Grand Slam all give you invincibility. The second is essential for beating the game.
• Meta Powerup: Awesome points don't do anything, other than increase the EXP you gain.
• Mission Control: Jeremy, though he starts taking a more active role towards the end of the game.
  • He is also separated from Jerry for the first half of Distortion Reckoning.
• Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: Hexor performs a similar role to Jeremy, except he wants you dead so taunts and manipulates levels into death traps.
• The Mole: Clone Syrus.
• Nintendo Hard
• Noob Cave: The IEF, which also serves as the game's tutorial level.
• Noodle Incident: At the beginning of the game, Jerry talks about a time when Jeremy's teleportation transformed him into a girl, and Jeremy did something to him because female Jerry was hot.
• "No Warping" Zone: Several times in the story, you cannot warp out to the world map because the Shrouds or the Darkness blocked this function..
• No Peripheral Vision: At the end of Dark Depths, The Informant and another antagonist talk, and the other antagonist initially can't see Jerry standing behind The Informant, as if the world was two-dimensional - which, given they are in a videogame, might as well be the case.
• Obstructive Foreground: Lampshaded with text boxes. Also a difficulty enhancer in the Shady Woods/Shady Caves.
• One-Hit Kill: The instant death spikes which start at Metropolis and appear throughout the rest of the game.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You / Blood Knight: The Shroud Lord. Before you fight it, The Darkness says that it's absolutely obsessed with defeating Jerry, and must be defeated before The Darkness can come to a peaceful solution with Jeremy.
• Painting the Fourth Wall: Due to the different coloring text boxes have, you can generally tell whether or not someone is a good guy or bad guy pretty effortlessly. Jerry even uses this fact once.

Jeremy: What would he want them for? He's not even with the darkness. Flame Instigator: How would you know? Jeremy: Your text box isn't red.

• Palette Swap: Parodied. One of the enemies is called a "Palette Swap Sentinel". Jeremy also expresses his hatred of palette swaps if you scan certain enemies.
• People Jars: Found in the Black Rock Fortress containing, among others, Mega Man, Mario, Link and Samus Aran.
• Pinball Scoring: Awesome points, not due to attached zeroes or anything, but just because you get them on practically every occasion.
• Platform Battle: Ultimate Phalanx.
• Platform Hell: Plenty of the later levels.
• Poor Communication Kills: The only reason you get into a fight with Blazing the Bat is because Jerry fails to mention that he isn't allied with The Darkness.
  • Also, the only reason people are resisting The Darkness in the first place is because it doesn't mention that it just wants to preserve itself, and is not actively malicious.
• Power Fist: Jerry's Weapon of Choice, which is powered by gemstones.
• The Power of Friendship: Jeremy tries to attribute their victory to this. Jerry will have none of it.
• Power Nullifier: DASH DISABLED
• Press X to Not Die: Played for Laughs and used word for word; everyone drops what they're doing and rushes to stop the Quick Time Distorter once they see a single quicktime event. The quicktime events themselves are subverted (they don't really kill you; you can take as long as you want), and parodied (like being used for jumping across a small gap or climbing up stairs).
• Rank Inflation: Averted.
• Recurring Dual Mini Bosses / Demonic Spiders: The Shrouds, who will appear randomly in certain areas.
• Recursive Ammo: The Shrouds' Danmaku Diamonds, as well as the fireballs of the Blazing Robot.
• Red Right Hand: Left hand actually, which transforms into a giant metal claw when attacking. Jerry happened to be cosplaying as Allen from D.Gray-man when he got caught in the Phase Distortion.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: At the end of the Black Rock Fortress.
• Re Stabilization: You can air dash while flinching.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Slightly; destroying random objects only gives you tiny amounts of experience, counts into kill chains and sometimes drops items.
• The Reveal: What the Darkness is and who created it.
• Reverse Shrapnel: Wildfire.
• RPG Elements
• Semifinal Boss Preview: The Shroud Lord, who attacks you for short periods of time in Distortion WTF before flying off. You don't get to fight him for real until the end of the game.
• Scratch Damage: Played straight for you, and averted with enemies. The player always takes at least one point of damage, while the damage you deal to your enemies can be reduced to zero.
• Sequel Hook: Subverted and lampshaded.
• Sequelitis: The trope itself is lampshaded In-Universe.
• Shout-Out: The Ribbon Bead protects you from status ailments. "Definitely not a reference to any fantasy."
  • The Triforce Bead is even more blatant.
• Skill Point Reset: Firebrand the demon does this for a small amount of money.
• The Smart Guy: Jeremy.
• Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Those spike blocks.
• Snowy Screen of Death: When your health falls below 20%, the screen starts displaying static (accompanied by all sound effects and music becoming more low-pitched). Once you die, this is how you go out.
  • This is also used as a build-up to the Wham! Episode prior to entering Distortion Reckoning.
• Some Dexterity Required: For crippling certain enemies or casting spells in rapid sequence to master certain segments or obtain powerups. No annoying Combos, though.
• Sound of No Damage: If you can't hurt an enemy with an attack (be it due to elemental resistances, armour or a defense-increasing stance or move), a quiet "thud" sound is played.
• Spikes of Doom: Multiple kinds, one of which kills you instantly.
• Sprite Mirroring
• Stalked by the Bell: A variation of this: The chance for the Shrouds to appear increases over time, so if you run through rooms quickly with only few deaths (or if you reload instead of retrying), you have to deal with them less often.
• Stationary Boss: The Dragonroot and the Crystals.
• Stat-O-Vision: Jerry's ability due to sitting on the Fourth Wall.
• Super Mode: Rave mode.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity: Lampshaded.

Because I'm nice, you can have a restore point here.

• Take That: Plenty of them, due to the satirical nature of the game.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Lampshaded heavily, parodied, and invoked in the cutscene prior to the Arrghus battle, where Jeremy purposefully keeps talking so that the boss won't attack, and also goes off on a tangent to chat about Jerry's preference in video game genres while doing so.
• Teleporter Accident: Cause of the aforementioned Noodle Incident.
• Temporary Platform
• Thirteen Is Unlucky: Subverted; the thirteenth set of Heart Containers gives you an extra 50 HP.
• This Is the Final Battle: A variant said right before you fight the Shroud Lord. So, subverted.
• Timed Mission: Each set of floors in The Spire. Also, the escape sequence at the end of the game.
• Trippy Finale Syndrome: The final level, to an extent. Averted by the final boss, however.
• Turns Red: Although often not visible, most bosses tend to start off pretty easy. After you do enough damage their attacks get more threatening, or they gain whole new ones. Happens multiple times, in some cases.
• Unblockable Attack: Those red "death rings" in the last few dungeons, as well as the element surges of the colour wheels, cannot be nullified by dashing.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Metropolis. And it's awesome.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: Two of them. As already stated, they're of the Bullet Hell variety, but they're not too bad.
• The Un-Reveal: We never did learn what happened with Jerry's ex...
  • Not until the next game, at least.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Jerry and Jeremy, Type 2.
• The Voice: Jeremy.
• The Walls Are Closing In: The Artist tries this to kill Jerry after he sides with The Darkness.
• Warp Whistle: You can teleport to the world map by pressing M in the pause menu, although the Darkness sometimes blocks that ability.
• Wham! Line:

Jeremy (garbled): The Darkness has tricked us all.

• What Could Have Been: Dark Yoshi stated that he wanted the worlds to work similarly to how they did in their original games (Like being able to use the Goomba Stomp in the Mario worlds), but he had trouble programming many of these aspects.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: If the Syrus that Jerry and Jeremy rescued from Black Rock Fortress was a clone...what happened to the real Syrus?
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Jerry.
• Wind Is Green
• Write Who You Know: The names of the protagonists, Jerry and Jeremy, are the names of Dark Yoshi's roommates.
• You Can't Go Home Again: At the beginning of the game, Jerry and Jeremy's only motivation is to get back home, though of course, they soon find that there is more to the world than that...
  • Subverted once you do reach Jerry and Jeremy's home and find that they can't go home because it's already been caught by The Darkness.

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Tropes provided in the sequel

• Action Girl: Claire.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: The semifinal level.
  • Also the final level, when you're being chased by the virus.
• Badass Long Hair: Claire.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Almost, anyway...presumably... Claire and company still think they have a chance, at least.
• Bullet Hell: Claire says she's actually good at these, in contrast to Jerry.
• Barrier Change Boss: The Virus Core.
• Batman Gambit: The virus pulls one of these — it lured Jerry and Claire to the island to distract them while it launched its main attack elsewhere.
• Cliff Hanger / Sequel Hook
• Department of Redundancy Department: The title.
• Dual Boss: The Twin Bloom.
• Elemental Powers: Like Jerry, Claire has Blow You Away, Playing with Fire, Making a Splash, and Dishing Out Dirt, though her repertoire is smaller than Jerry's.
• Gamer Chick: Claire.
• Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Every single boss, except for the final one.
• Have a Nice Death: Subverted; unlike her brother, Chao will give you encouragement instead of snarkiness.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Claire looks like Eve from Black Cat.
• 100% Completion
• Lighter and Softer: The game over screens, which actually encourage you this time!
• Long Title
• Mission Control: Jeremy's sister, Chao, takes his place in this one.
  • Jeremy does, however, help out Claire for the final level as well.
• Platform Hell: Everything from world 3 onwards.
• RPG Elements: Have been cut, unfortunately.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Especially due to the RPG Elements being cut and the level design having a much heavier emphasis on platforming.
• Squishy Wizard: Claire, compared to Jerry. She can't even use physical attacks.
• The Virus: Since the world is virtual, it's an actual computer virus, trying to take down The Darkness. And, judging from the ending, it succeeds.
• Wall Jump: Claire's special ability. You'll be using it very often.
• Zettai Ryouiki: Claire.

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Tropes provided in the third game, Saved Game

• Early Game Hell: The early game is more difficult than that of its predecessors, thanks in no small part to the absence of weapons for the first few chapters of the game and the loss of the dash until Gate 3.
• Guide Dang It: The Water Temple in Gate 2. It is a labyrinthine dungeon full of complex water-shifting puzzles that can take a very long time to fully wrap your head around.
• Oxygen Meter
• RPG Elements: They're back, but more subdued than in the first game — Skill Points obtained from enemies can only be used to make specific, minor improvements, and there are fewer collectibles.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: Far fewer mistakes are allowed than in the previous games. Couple this with the fact that Jerry and Claire have smaller arsenals than their previous appearances, and Distorted Travesty 3 might just be the toughest game in the trilogy.
  • The game also doesn't hand out healing stations at the start of every room.