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

An urban explorer from Little Rock, Arkansas who's infatuated with the unknown, collecting things like haunted cartridges and searching out haunted emails.

She is the contestant of "Widespread" and "Mind's Eye Squared".

• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite her infatuation with supernatural urban legends, she doesn't believe in Polybius.
• Canon Foreigner: While the mod uses elements of both the original creepypasta and ChainmailChasers for Smile Dog, Sara Taylor herself is original to the mod.
• Character Blog: Sara has an official Neocities blog with a few posts about Tomodachi Life, Polybius, and finally the origins of the Smile Dog image. Naturally, there's more to it than meets the eye. The blog also includes a link to Sara's Tumblr page, but the link is broken and leads to an error page instead. A fake error page, that is: clicking "Search" will give you a nasty surprise.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: If she sends the "Smile!" email, the Smile Dogs do manage to kill her, but if she deletes the email instead she's able to escape with her life. Then Dragon comes after her for revenge... but she still manages to beat it.
• Fluffy Tamer: Non-canon art of Sara depicts her as, somehow, managing to tame the three Smile Dogs as pets.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Downplayed. Sara expresses a love for urban legends and creepy mysteries, but this interest clearly only extends to the fictional: when faced with such horrors in reality, like the Smile Dogs, she's understandably terrified.

A 12-year old girl with little friends but many toys, which seemed to naturally be drawn to her.

She is the contestant of "No More".

• Cipher Scything: "No More" is otherwise a straight adaptation of Tattletail, but Ruby's name and design are wholly original to the mod due to the original game having a Featureless Protagonist. She's a strange example, however, in that she deviates sharply from the possible identities that Tattletail does provide for the player character: see You Don't Look Like You below.
• Friendless Background: Ruby is described as this, but she always had an aptitude for toys instead. This then leads to her parents getting her a Tattletail for Christmas.
• You Don't Look Like You: Though the player character of Tattletail is a Featureless Protagonist, family photos in the original game show the two children◊ that they possibly could be. Ruby bears little resemblance to the girl in the photo, who is visibly younger than twelve and appears to have straight brown hair compared to Ruby's bright red pigtails.

A reclusive young girl who spends her days in a small apartment, and her nights in a strange dream world.

She is the contestant of "Deep Dream" and "NASU".

• Driven to Suicide: It's implied that Madotsuki does this as in her original game: upon waking up at the end of "Deep Dream", the mod transitions to a rendition of Yume Nikki's credit sequence, complete with the blood splatter implied to come from Madotsuki throwing herself off of her balcony.
• Not So Stoic: A small but significant example: the end of "Deep Dream" sees Madotsuki hesitate and become visibly despondent before pinching her cheek to wake up, as though reluctant to leave the dream world behind. This implicitly leads into her committing suicide afterwards.

A 14-year old boy with a love of gaming, who's gifted a copy of Duck Season that soon leads him to fighting for his life.

He is the contestant of "Face Me".

• Kid Hero: David's forced to become one after the Dog kills his mother as per canon and he faces the demonic canine head-on.
• The Runaway: Just like in Duck Season, the end of "Face Me" has David running away from home after the defeat of the Dog, due to his mom's death.

Two priests who seek to right their wrongs and exorcise the demonic from this world.

They are the contestants of "Mortis".

• Badass Preacher: The both of them, as when they both confront Amy and Michael the result is John exorcising Amy far earlier than he did in canon.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Father Garcia brings his signature shotgun to bear when aiding John against Michael and Amy, and he puts it to good use against the former.

SPREAD THE WORD.^note

A trio of evil, dog-like entities that spread through emails to hunt.

They are the anomalies of "Widespread" and "Mind's Eye Squared".

• A Dog Named "Dog": Aside from all three of them being referred to as "Smile Dogs", Husky is...well, an actual husky dog.
• Best Served Cold: After beating "Mortis," the credits roll, but if you deleted the "Smile!" email, Dragon shows up at the end to take revenge for Sara's foolish attempt at killing it, leading into "Mind's Eye Squared."
• Decomposite Character: The various renditions of the Smile.jpg image are made into separate entities in this mod's canon, each with their own names^note and methods of killing. Husky, based off of the original image◊, kills by freezing its victims; conversely, Demon is based off of the second version of the image◊ and burns its victims alive. Dragon, meanwhile, is taken directly from ChainmailChasers and is said to drive its victims to suicide.
• Digital Abomination: Three demonic dog-like entities that propagate through emails. Dragon indicates that they exist inside of the emails themselves, and assumes Sara was trying to kill them by deleting the email she got.
• Slasher Smile: Naturally, they each sport one at all times: they aren't called "Smile Dogs" for nothing.
• True Final Boss: Dragon serves as this for the mod's initial release, being fought after the credits in "Mind's Eye Squared" only if you deleted the "Smile!" email at the beginning of "Widespread" instead of sending it.

Products of a toyline by Waygetter Electronics, but there's more to them then meets the eye, especially Mama...

They are the anomalies of "No More".

• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Mama Tattletail's are particularly prominent, to the point that one of the main mechanics of "No More" requires you to track her By the Lights of Her Eyes before she kills you.
• Token Heroic Orc: The Baby Tattletails are the only unambiguously benevolent Anomalies in the mod, working to banish Mama and protect Ruby without any (apparent) ulterior motive. The other Anomalies are either actively malicious or, in the case of the Yume Nikki characters, vaguely neutral.
• Would Hurt a Child: Mama, of course, has no qualms about killing the 12-year-old Ruby if she gets the chance.

A red, bird-like creature who serves as the player character of the Famicon game NASU.

It is the anomaly of "NASU".

• Advertised Extra: If you go straight to bed, you don't even have to see NASU, and yet they get a bio as one of the Anomalies rather than anybody from the Dream World.
• The Face: For the Dream World, despite not being in it. Their bio goes more in depth on the dream world and its residents while never once actually mentioning NASU themself.
• Optional Boss: "Nasu" can be skipped entirely by having Madotsuki go directly to bed rather than play video games, causing the mod to transition straight into "Deep Dream".

A digital entity taking on the appearance of Duck Season's mascot, who's been killing dozens of children and families throughout Langford, and has now set his eyes on David.

He is the anomaly of "Face Me".

• Evil Sounds Raspy: He's a malicious Humanoid Abomination hellbent on killing a child out of spite for shooting at him, and his vocals are distinctly guttural growls. This becomes particularly evident in the second half of "Face Me", where his voice stops being bitcrushed as he manifests from the game into reality.
• Would Hurt a Child: As in his source material, the Dog makes his way into reality with the intent of killing David.

Two demonically-possessed teenagers who are out for the blood of the priests.

They are the anomalies of "Mortis".

• Ascended Extra: In the original game, Michael was a Plot-Irrelevant Villain who only held a major role in Chapter I before falling to the wayside. Here, with "Mortis" being a heavily Compressed Adaptation, he becomes the only other antagonist to appear besides Amy before she is exorcised by John as in Chapter III's Golden Ending.
• Dual Boss: Though initially appearing separately in "Mortis", Amy and Michael are fought at the same time once Father Garcia arrives to support John.
• Final Boss: For the mod's initial release. While the other songs are played in random order, "Mortis" will always be the last song picked, making Amy and Michael the final opponents faced.

• Advertised Extra: Despite being front and center in most promotional material, Thumper's only role in the mod is to host the Framing Device for its horror anthology. He disappears entirely before "Mortis", and the appearance of a large gray corpse in the minigame before the song implies that Michael unceremoniously killed him.
• Ambiguously Evil: Everything about his appearance screams "bad news", but Thumper never shows any overt malice towards the player character.
• Creepy Mascot Suit: He's the mascot for the Adventure Isle theme park, and both his costume and whatever he is on the inside have clearly seen better days.
• Mad Eye: Downplayed in that Thumper's eyes match, but his left eye is broken and never looks in the right direction.
• The Unfought: He never does anything more than admit you into Adventure Isle and host the wheel-spin to select the next song, and his implied death before "Mortis" shuts down any possibility of him becoming the Final Boss... for now, at least.

Numerous characters that appear in Madotsuki's dream world.

They are the anomalies of "Deep Dream".

• all lowercase letters: uboa's name is spelt like this.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Madotsuki tries to continue the song, but once uboa asks "Do you know you?" she shuts up.
• Ascended Extra: The three girls are random characters in the original game, and Uboa is a rare Easter Egg. Here, Monoe and Monoko accompany Madotsuki and uboa ends Madotsuki's time in the Dream World.
• Get Out!: uboa interrupts the song to force Madotsuki to wake up.
• Knight of Cerebus: "Deep Dream" is a surreal but altogether whimsical song, and undoubtedly the lightest part of the mod alongside "Nasu"... until uboa shows up. It brings the entire track to a screeching halt, never singing and outright interrupting Madotsuki when she sings in order to demand that she wake up. Madotsuki, normally The Stoic, is visibly distressed as uboa takes over the dream, and being forced to leave the dream world leads directly to her committing suicide.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: When Madotsuki tries to continue the song, uboa doesn't play along. Eventually uboa interrupts her while she's singing.

A strange, yellow dog that's capable of dragging others into electronics and transforming them.

He is the second anomaly of "Mind's Eye Squared".

• The Dragon: Ironically, to Dragon, directly aiding it in its revenge against Sara.
• Lethal Joke Character: He's very deeply unserious, but his Interface Screw can prove rather difficult.