TCTRPG

"To anyone who can know the bitter sweet taste of the word 'November,' may we forever bask in the softest shade of the color Tuesday."

—Intro to the game

Also known as The Color Tuesday, TCT is an Eastern RPG on Newgrounds (and other sites) designed by Robert Lee, (webname; Grawsie).

The game centers around Childhood Friends Alex and Kyle, who, after being drawn by a beautiful melody into the woods in the dead of night, meet a woman that tells them about the Others, evil creatures that can influence adults to do their bidding. The children are also told that they are destined to save the world from the Others and only they are free of their influence. To defeat their enemy, they must use their special powers driven by imagination.

The game is set in an ostensibly modern setting, with lots of inspiration coming from EarthBound. The Color Tuesday comes from one of the characters Color Synesthesia, or the association of certain words, letters and numbers as having distinct colors.

The game can be found here.

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Tropes used in TCTRPG include:

Character Tropes

• Big Bad: Officer Maxwell... sorta. He's the biggest villain you see.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Bella acts and dresses like someone from two centuries back.
• Childhood Friends: Alex and Kyle.
• Delinquents: Alex is implied to be a mild case at the start. In this setting that is a good thing. She also appears to have the mental condition synesthesia that causes her to associate numbers and colors. The adults around her dismiss this as being a rampant imagination.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Maxwell is disgusted by Pierce, though it isn't clear if his reason for burning him stems from this disgust or as punishment for Pierce allowing the band to escape town. Possibly both.
• Face Heel Turn: Page, after Alex refuses to hand over the guitar her brother left for her.
• Fat Bastard: Pierce. Alex has no problems putting him down with it.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • Choleric: Alex: Hot-Blooded, focussed driver of the story, and our heroine.
  • Melancholic: Kyle: The calm, level-headed team-worker, who corresponds best as The Lancer as its only Alexs position as the Red in the Red Oni, Blue Oni relationship which makes him not the hero. Is nonetheless prone to martyring himself and places others before himself.
  • Sanguine: Bella: Slightly loopy, but cheerful and well meaning, she seems to float slightly above the rest of the cast (and at times above reality.) Shows elements of The Smart Guy.
  • Phlegmatic: Chadd: Laid back and docile; a born follower, he requires a guiding hand, but has enough sense to make up for himself what path to follow as a follower. Shows elements of The Big Guy.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Kyle attempts a heroic sacrifice when he finds the only way to deliver needed medicine to his sister requires he sacrifice his powers and memory, but the character is hauled back from it when Alex has a brainwave relating to something her brother told her.
• Hot-Blooded: Alex is implacable, short-tempered and won't take no for an answer; she'll keep demanding answers to the questions around her even when its plain she won't get an answer, and when everyone else is giving up, she's the one who comes up with a way to continue. See Heroic Sacrifice.

Alex: Why won't anyone listen to me?
Paige: Probably because you ask stupid questions.
Bella: Also, you have no tact.
Alex: Shut up!

• Just a Kid:

Alex: You're the same age as us!

• Knight in Shining Armour: Kyle fits the archetype.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Pierce. Everything about the guy screams "massive creep."
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Alex is the red, Kyle the blue.
• Screw Destiny

Alex: Never say you don't have a choice, there is always a choice!

• Strange Girl: Bella's a little odd, going beyond merely being a Cloudcuckoolander. Everything she says sounds like its from a medieval romance, and she’s oddly hostile to Alex (probably because she's not ladylike).
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Officer Maxwell believes that rebellion against the Others is futile and finds that siding with them is much safer. Another part of him genuinely believes that provoking Alex and the others to rebellion is as good as murdering them. How much of this is due to the control of the Others and how much is true to heart is not clear.

Gameplay Tropes

• Action Commands
• Actually Four Blokes: Several enemies.
• An Adventurer Is You: The different characters can be molded into certain roles very easily.
• Batter Up: Kyle's main weapon.
• Bright Slap: Chadd starts with the attack Therapeutic Slap. It restores HP.
• Cool Shades: Paige.
• Forced Level Grinding: You will need to level grind quite a bit as the difficulty spikes are dramatic.
• Knife Nut: Paige. Chadd goes as far as carrying two.
• Parasol of Pain: Bella's main weapon.
• Party in My Pocket
• Puzzle Boss: The only way to defeat Pierce's transformed form, Jigglesworth, is to destroy his chair.
• Shock and Awe: Alex's initial attack is Dream Bolt. Bella's is Thunder Strike.
• Shovel Strike: Alex’s weapon.
• Kill It with Fire: Ignite. It only works some of the time though.
• The Medic: Kyle starts off with the first healing spell of the game. Chadd also starts off with a technique that restores IP.
• Weapon of Choice: Shovel for Alex, baseball bat for Kyle, an umbrella for Bella, a rather nasty looking knife for Paige, and two blades for Chadd.

Narrative Tropes

• Other Abduction: Happens to Chadd, followed shortly by the whole party.
• Chekhov's Gun: The guitar of Alex's brother, and Alex's synesthesia.
• The Power of Rock: The final battle is unwinnable through normal means. You have to use Maroon Regret to triumph.
• Title Drop: In a dream of hers, Alex describes her brother as a greenish-grayish color, the same as the color Tuesday.
• Guitar of Plot Advancement
• Xanatos Gambit: Pulled off by Paige and Chadd to get hold of the guitar of Alex's brother, using Alex's synthesesia as a tool.

Setting Tropes

• Adults Are Useless: Worse than useless; being susceptible to the Others, adults are outright dangerous. See Competence Zone. It seems to make the ones who aren’t outright evil (like Pierce) into Lawful Stupid puppets. Alex’s mother is so under control she is completely useless as a parent; she believes listening to the TV will give her inspiration for a proper punishment, and she seems to feel no connection to her daughter. Kyle's dad, on the other hand, seems perfectly willing to let his daughter die with no outrage at all when told the only reason the medicine cannot be fetched is that it’s the wrong season for leaving town. This finally prompts Kyle to rebel.
• Competence Zone: All the protagonists seem to be around 11-13 years old. Children younger are shown to have dreams where angels visit them (ironically, to ensure they give you gameplay tips) but don’t fight. Adults are worse than useless due to being influenced by the Others.
• Mind Control: Most of the adults are implied to be under this. The children are not, but as the setting is all they have known, they don’t notice the problems.
• Order Versus Chaos: One of the few cases where chaos is definitely in the right; order is taken to creepy levels to keep humanity enslaved to the Others.