The Longing Ribbon

One day, Jeannine went out on a trip through the woods, accompanied by her dog, Sandy, and two friends, Sara and Matthew. During the drive, however, they become lost. Shortly after finding a wrecked car with nobody inside, they resume their travel, until Sara notices something—they had just passed a stone path that none but her noticed. Utterly lost, without a clue where they may be headed, and now pelted by a sudden rain storn, the three decide to take shelter at whatever house lies at the trail's end.

Said house is a mansion. A friggin' huge mansion.

Inside, Jeannine wanders, examining the bizarre decor. When she returns to the entrance, where she had left her friends and dog, they've disappeared. In an effort to find them, she searches through the house yet again, until finding the mistress of the mansion. She says that Sara and Matthew have already met her, and that she agreed to let them stay the night. Jeannine hurries upstairs to talk about their temporary refuge, but her friends soon begin arguing over just who wanted to stay in their room: Sara claims it was Matthew, but Matthew's certain it was Sara. They disregard it without much fuss, and prepare themselves for bed.

Though Jeannine does the same, her sleep is brief. She will soon wish she'd never come to the mansion at all.

Available for download at RPGMaker.net.

^[1]

The Longing Ribbon demonstrates:

• All in a Row
• All Just a Dream: the nightmares, obviously.
• Ambiguous Gender: Sandy.
• Anticlimax: Lampshaded in the joke ending.
• Arbitrary Gun Power
• Bang Bang BANG
• Bittersweet Ending: Jeannine successfully banishes Daryxll back to the afterlife and grants Alania the peace of death she desperately sought, and she, Matthew and Sara survive and escape the manor, but Jeannine had to kill Luke in order to keep Daryxll from returning. Oh, and Sandy and Lyman are both dead.
• Books That Bite: Chapter IV; almost every piece of furniture from the mansion starts to lash out.
• Broken Bridge
• Creepy Child: Luke.
• Character Level and Experience Points: Both averted. Rather than have Jeannine gain strength through combat, she grows via magical sinks, paintings, and stories. Yes, really.
• Click. "Hello."/Dramatic Gun Cock: done by possessed Sara inside the rotting cellar; see Took a Shortcut.

Sara: “Wait right there. I'll be down in a second.”

• Death Seeker: Alania
• Easter Egg: multiple, all detailed in the included readme.txt and walkthru.txt files.
• Eldritch Location: The manor itself.
• Escort Mission
• Evolving Attack: the strength of Jeannine's various techniques can be increased at sinks.
• Fight Woosh
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Remember that evil-looking Instant Rune in Luke's room, which you see in the prologue? While walking through the same room, but in its decrepit state, pay very close attention to the bedframe when you head toward the door.
• Genre Blindness: You discover a broken car in the middle of nowhere. After finding that there's no one inside, you start driving again; then, your friend sees a path mere seconds after you passed it—or would have, had it been there before. While checking out the mysterious trail, it starts raining. Now your dog is behaving oddly. Of course the only rational solution is to stay at the mansion down the road!
• Hearing Voices: [[spoiler:Sara hears a voice on the stereo's blank cassette tape. Judging by how she acts later on, it's of the '''Evil''' type]].
• Hellish Pupils: Sara, once she becomes fully possessed.
• Hit Points: But of course.
• Improbable Power Discrepancy
• Infant Immortality: Subverted. Poor Sandy.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Wait, the one foot tall potted plant is blocking my way? To be fair, this happens in a dream.
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
• Jump Scare
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Jeannine, as far as firearms stored underneath her bed and the sword in Matthew and Sara's room are concerned. Matthew would fit this, if he was actually more heroic.
• Lost Forever: Every time the chapter changes, make sure you check as many paintings, book cases and sinks as you can. New chapters not only bring new instances of the aforementioned, but also get rid of the old ones.
• Mercy Kill: Poor Luke...
• Mood Dissonance: When Jeannine is presented with a rock wall to examine, try choosing the answer of “Whoop-dee-shit.” Monster eyes flash, then Sara spins, falls over, and accidentally chucks her gun away. What's more, you can just keep telling the wall the same phrase over and over, until you actually pull the rocks out. Remember: this all happens after the Click. "Hello."/Dramatic Gun Cock event.
• Motive Rant: In the final act, you have to find several recordings made by Daryxll and Alania that are essentially this.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Reschen gives several blatant hints that the red chest should not be opened until the kids are outside the manor. Guess what happens. Though to be fair, Daryxll's illusions did make it seem like they were in the clear.
• No Stat Atrophy
• Notice This: Sara quite clearly tells Jeannine to check a painting when they first enter the mansion, and, in her provided bedroom, mentions how odd the sink is, and asks her to look at it, too. Matthew tells Jeannine to examine the bookcase on the second floor, but this is after you've already lost the chance to read at least one MP-boosting story.
• One Woman Party: seeing as Jeannine is the only character to receive the benefits of obsessive-compulsive disorder and a taste for depressing artwork, this is to be expected.
• Pamphlet Shelf
• Precision F-Strike: Swearing becomes more present as the story progresses. Not too shocking, considering the circumstances.

Possessed Sara: “You had your chance, you miserable, prying cunt. Now I'm going to kill you.”

• Preexisting Encounters: of the Set Encounter type.
• Save Points: not only are they painfully rare—often one to a chapter—they're one-use only.
• Shout-Out: Many, but the one that stands the most is, of all things, Zero Wing. The quotes "Main screen turn on", "You are on the way to destruction", and "For great justice" are said at certain points in the game. And they are surprisingly fitting for the moments in which they are said.
• Spooky Paintings: Examining them gives Jeannine an extra ten Hit Points. They're pretty much all over the place, too. Some of them “aren't interesting” during one chapter, but in the next, they're magically new and fascinating. And in entirely different places.
• Random Encounter: occurs in Chapter IV, when Die, Chair, Die! comes into effect.
• The Stinger: At the end, Darxyll asks Reschen why she left the Ribbon with the trio if she had no intention of wanting to return to life. Reschen is unable to give a response..
• Story to Gameplay Ratio: combat doesn't make an appearance until a good deal in. In fact, you can skip combat entirely, if you choose End Game > No three times without having Jeannine move.
• Take Your Time: Played straight and averted. In the latter's case, there are two events outside of combat where Jeannine can be One Hit Killed.
• Together in Death: Reschen and Darxyll.
• Took a Shortcut: Jeannine, it seems. When exploring the decayed celler, the mildly-possessed Sara goes ahead of you after the rockslide; however, the next time she appears, it's at the entrance of the room you're already mostly through. Then the Click. "Hello."/Dramatic Gun Cock happens.
• Warm-Up Boss: Arguably the Dream Thing. Its most powerful attack is fairly weak, if you've been actively looking for books, paintings and sinks.
• We Cannot Go on Without You
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Alania sure as hell doesn't. The whole point of her alliance with Daryxll is so she can ultimately die.

1. ↑

   having been made with RPG Maker 2,000, it can only be played on Windows computers.