Step Right Up: Adventure Isle

Song List:

Widespread (Sara Taylor vs. Smile Dog)
No More ()
Deep Dream (Madotsuki vs. Monoe, Monoko, Poniko and uboa)
Face Me (David vs. The Dog)
NASU (Madotsuki vs. Nasu)
Mortis ()
Mind's Eye Squared (Sara Taylor vs. The Dragon and f*ckass)
Evilkaru (Evilkaru vs. Quandale Dingle)

Tropes found in Step Right Up: Adventure Isle:

Adaptational Alternate Ending:
- "Deep Dream" still has Madotsuki throw herself off of her balcony as in her original game's Downer Ending, but the context is changed: rather than gathering all 24 Effects and depositing them in the Nexus before waking up, Madotsuki is effectively forced out of the dream world by uboa and is implied to kill herself out of despair.
- "Mortis" primarily adapts the events of the first Chapter of FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, with its focus entirely on Amy Martin and Michael Davies, but not only do the two end up attacking John at once, Father Garcia shows up to aid him. After shooting Michael, John is able to successfully exorcise Amy, which doesn't happen until the Golden Ending of Chapter III.
Alternate Reality Game: The mod has an ongoing one centered around Sara's Domain, Sara Taylor's Neocities website. Though initially presenting itself as an ordinary blog, multiple secret pages, images, and messages can be found relating to the latest object of Sara's interest.
Art Shift: Almost every song in the mod has some form of unique art style, going from the original Friday Night Funkin style to 3D models, pixel art, hyper-detailed painting and more. Most of the songs also change between artstyles throughout their length:
- "No More" switches from the 3D models of Tattletail to a cartoony 2D artstyle late in the song.
- "Deep Dream" is the biggest example, progressing through five different artstyles each associated with a different character or segment.
- In "Face Me", the Dog takes on a noticeably grimier and more detailed look as he manifests in reality for the song's second half.
- "Mortis" features both the simplistic, Atari-esque graphics of FAITH's gameplay and the rotoscoping used in its cutscenes.
- The switchover from Dragon to f*ckass in "Mind's Eye Squared" is highlighted by a change from the painterly artwork used for Dragon and the other Smile Dogs to a style more reminiscent of 2000s scene aesthetic, particularly for Sara's sprites. The background even changes to a Windows XP desktop, and f*ckass's popups match the aesthetic accordingly.
Big Damn Heroes: Amy Martin and Michael Davies end up outnumbering John in "Mortis," but Father Garcia's intervention distracts them long enough for John to shoot Michael and perform the exorcism on Amy.
Blade Reflection: The killer Dog and David are shown on the cover art of "Face Me" with David's reflection on the Dog's knife, pointing the barrel of his light gun towards his attacker.
Cerebus Rollercoaster: "Mind's Eye Squared" is a self-contained example. Beginning as an entirely serious horror song against Dragon, the song abruptly changes tone two-thirds of the way through with the appearance of the ridiculous-looking and ridiculously-named f*ckass... only to pivot back into horror shortly afterwards as Dragon reappears for the final stretch. In a fitting encapsulation of the tonal whiplash, the song ends with a Stylistic Suck image of f*ckass congratulating the player... with the grainy Nightmare Face of one of the other Smile Dogs burnt into the background, and the image as a whole slowly distorting into something more unsettling after a few seconds.
Compressed Adaptation: "Deep Dream" is one for Yume Nikki, focusing mainly on Madotsuki's encounters with Monoe, Monoko and Poniko while glossing over most of the other dream worlds and residents. The need to gather all of the Effects to reach the ending is also cut, as Madotsuki is instead Driven to Suicide when uboa forces her to leave the dream world instead.
Eviler than Thou: After beating the fifth song, somebody (implied to be Michael Davies, as he jumps John after reading a note next to his corpse) kills Thumper and dumps his corpse in John's scenario, which likely has something to do with "Mortis" only being playable after this happens.
Fission Mailed: During "Face Me", the Dog emerges from the lake as a giant and blasts the player with eye lasers, resulting in an abrupt "Game Over"... until the screen pulls out from the in-game view to that of David's room, continuing the battle against the Dog.
Interface Screw: "Mind's Eye Squared" is rife with this, as both Dragon and f*ckass will barrage you with pop-up windows as a distraction throughout the song. Dragon in particular also forces the game into windowed mode and begins to move the window around the screen (though thankfully the strikeline remains in one spot during this).
Morton's Fork: Before playing "Deep Dream", you can either get Madotsuki to go to sleep right away, or play "NASU" on their console. Either way, they'll be transported into the dream world.
Nothing Is Scarier: The Wheel of Decisions used for selecting songs features silhouettes of the potential opponents (or Madotsuki in the case of "Deep Dream") on each space...except for "Mortis", where the space is completely blacked out save for a pixelated question mark. Appropriately, it's the final non-secret song in the initial release.
Random Encounters: Of a sort: one of the mod's main gimmicks is that the songs are played in random order as selected from a Wheel of Decisions. The only exception in the initial release is "Mortis", which will always be the last song picked. However, the mod also features the typical Freeplay option to play the songs at your leisure once beaten for the first time.
Shout-Out:
- The Art Shift during Monoko's section of "Deep Dream" is explicitly modeled after the style of gobou, a popular animator within the Yume Nikki fandom whose animations also prominently feature the characters present in the song.
- Befitting its throwback to 2000s scene aesthetic, the instrumental of f*ckass's section of "Mind's Eye Squared" heavily samples "Caramelldansen".
Sudden Downer Ending: Madotsuki's scenario is very lighthearted compared to the others and "Deep Dream" mostly consists of her wandering the dream world and making friends with its inhabitants. Then uboa shows up and interrupts her song, effectively telling her to Get Out!, which then leads to her suicide.
Unexpected Gameplay Change: Most of the songs in the mod have unique mechanics or sequences harkening back to their source material:
- "No More" features a point-and-click element in which the player must shine their flashlight on Mama Tattletail as she moves around in the darkness in order to stop her Life Drain mechanic. Mama moves between three different rooms throughout the song, which the player can switch between by clicking buttons on the left and right sides of the screen.
- Similarly, "Face Me" adapts the shooter gameplay of Duck Season and its inspiration by requiring the player to shoot ducks and duplicate Dogs as they try to break through David's TV screen, taking large chunks of health if they attack successfully.
- Both "Deep Dream" and "Mortis" are preceded by segments of gameplay directly modeled after their respective games, complete with Michael appearing to attack the player in the FAITH segment.

Step Right Up: Adventure Isle - TV Tropes (2024)

Song List:

Tropes found in Step Right Up: Adventure Isle: