Visions and Voices

They said I'd die. They said I'd die and go to heaven.
But no - that was not enough for me. I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. In my fear of death, I lost sight of myself and everything I held dear. I made the wrong choice and everyone but me paid the price. But now, with all the things I have learned...I would make things right again. I would correct my mistake and return everything to the way it was before. Dear God...I no longer expect to enter heaven's pearly gates. But please, let me ask for one last favor, one final prayer, if You will.
Ten days, God. Let my body hold out for just ten more days, so I can redeem myself...

Visions & Voices is an RPG Maker game made in six weeks by well-known RM duo Karsuman and Craze. The game is largely non-linear, and is based on a ten-day time limit. It can be downloaded here. Better Than It Sounds. (In addition, a currently in-progress remake of the game can be found here.)

You play as the Wanderer, and enigmatic figure who has come to the Montfort village to solve a mystery; apparently, most of the inhabitants disappeared overnight. He decides to explore the village in search of clues, soon discovering an Apocalyptic Log of sorts by a "prophet who has fallen from grace". Shortly after, he realizes that reality is warping around him. Disturbing things appear out of nowhere, other, more familiar things disappear, and all the while, time is ticking away...

Will he be able to see the Visions? Will he be able to hear the Voices? And if he does...will he be able to accept them?

Examples:

Dison: Woah, trippy!

Alphonse: I'm pretty tired.
Wanderer: Want to hit the hay?
Alphonse: Depends. Would Ox be involved?
Wanderer: ...you know what, I'm just going to take a nap. By myself.

Dison: Yes sir! Even in the face of demons armed with tentacles ready to ravish us all, I will stand beside you sir!
Telia: W-what?!

Wanderer: He speaks!
Marlowe: My choice not to speak has little to do with my capability of doing so.

  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A bard, a fisherwoman, a caretaker, a farmhand, a chef, a merchant, and a lawyer.
  • Random Encounters: Averted.
  • Rare Candy: When doing a solo run, Wanderer can find several stat-boosting items outside of the Ogre's Mug.
  • Reality Warper: D'kothos and, presumably, the other demons as well.
  • Run, Don't Walk: Averted, unfortunately.
  • Sequel Hook: And a prequel hook, too; the ending says that this is not the first time the Visions and Voices have been summoned, nor is it the last.
  • Shell Shocked Senior: Dison, subverted as he's a cheery Cloudcuckoolander. However, his Contemplate Our Navels line shows his war trauma is still severe; "So...so many dead..."
  • Shock and Awe: Alphonse.
  • Shout-Out: To a lot of other freeware RPGs.
  • Slippy-Slidey Ice World
  • Smarter Than You Look: Ox, a farmhand who's a Mighty Glacier and speaks in a country accent; however, perceptive players will notice his secondary stat is, oddly, a stat normally reserved for spellcasters, and if you talk to him, you'll find out that he's actually very intelligent and loves to read. This turns a bit dark in his Contemplate Our Navels line on the evening of the tenth day, though; "People think I'm dumb..."
  • So Beautiful It's a Curse: Lyla. She's always the one getting stared at and complimented by the other characters, and she hates it. She doesn't whine about it, however; instead, she goes for hostility to anyone pointing it out or making a pass at her.
  • Squishy Wizard: Marlowe and Lyla.
  • Stripperiffic: Elena. Lampshaded in one of the ice worlds.
  • Take Your Time: Averted. The final boss encounter always happens during the evening of the tenth day, no matter what.
    • Played straight on individual days, though, where you can run around as long as you want and no time will pass unless you sleep at the Trauma Inn.
  • The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Inverted. All stats are mental traits, not physical (Bravery, Perception, Charisma, Tenacity, and Logic), yet many of them function as physical stats (Strength is replaced by Bravery, Perception takes over for Dexterity, and Charisma is roughly equivalent to Constitution).
  • Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: One of Marlowe's passive abilities reads "He has seen unspeakable horrors so profound that Marlowe is immune to mental effects."
  • Title Drop: Where to begin.
    • Two of Marlowe's skills are "Visions" and "Voices".
    • On the eighth day, a library appears. One of the books, if translated, is titled "Visions & Voices".
    • The Final Testimony says ""We are the Visions you see at the dawn of a day, and the Voices you hear at the latest hours of night."
    • Yet another time is in the Downer Ending. "Could you not see the Visions? Could you not hear the Voices? Or...was it simply that you could not accept them?"
    • There's also the evening of the tenth day. The game mentions that "visions flash before your eyes, and familiar voices speak to you."
    • The last line of the good ending is "all fall victims to the whims of the Visions and Voices."
  • Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Telgium seems to be a fairly benevolent one -- it can be used to make the Final Boss mortal. It's unclear what exactly the Wicodian is, but it seems to be a normal Tome of Eldritch Lore.
    • Many of the books that only Marlowe can translate are written in a horrific, unreadable script.
  • Too Awesome to Use: "Good" items are actually manufactured by the player via uses of feats, so the player has to consciously make the normally "too awesome" items.
    • Feats themselves tend to fall victim to this, however. Sure, there might be a Seraphim Whiteleaf in that garden, or something really awesome in that chest that you don't have a key to, or that monster might obliterate you if you don't trap it...but what if there's something else that you'd rather use your feats on? Then, before you know it, you're done exploring and ready to go to sleep and you still have more than half your feats left.
  • Trauma Inn: Subverted; each time you sleep at the inn, a day actually passes, preventing you from abusing it.
  • Tsundere: Telia is a Type A. If you talk with her at the Ogre's Mug every day, her Contemplate Our Navels phrase before the final battle changes from "Do you hate me? You never talk to me..." to " <Wanderer's name>... I love you."
    • Oranyan: The Wanderer, towards Telia. As much as he taunts her and gets angry at her when she behaves like a jerkass, he actually cares for her a lot.
  • The Unpronounceable: Books written in demon script literally cannot be read until Marlowe translates them.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Poor, poor Montfort.
  • Useless Useful Spell: Averted. Every single boss, including the final one, is susceptible to status effects, and they are usually key to winning. Most of your characters' skills are status effects, in fact, though this means most battles boil down to "Slap enemy with status effects, use regular attacks until they die, renew status effects if they wear off."
    • However, the game does have useless useful equipment. Anything that decreases your speed at all is usually not worth any of the benefits it might give, and anything that isn't a character's Weapon of Choice (see below) is usually fated to do nothing but sit in your inventory as well, as a Weapon of Choice almost always deals far superior damage, regardless of attack stats. There are many, many accessories that quickly become useless, as well.
  • Video Game Stealing: Telia's Pilfering Jig ability does this. Since many bosses have important and unique items that can only be acquired this way, you'll probably want to keep her in the party at all times.
  • Violation of Common Sense: Using the Wicodian to power up the final boss to godlike levels.
    • Also, entering the creepy village in the first place.
  • Visionary Villain: Montfort, of the Well-Intentioned Extremist variety.
  • Weapon of Choice: The game has every one you can think of, from whips to claws to orbs. Each character does have a weapon that's technically "best" for them, though:
  • Wham! Line:

The Fallen Prophet: Kill...me.

"The Book, Dear God. I pray that you have the Book. Otherwise, my dear friend... I am lost. You are lost. We are all lost."

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