Adventure Quest

The online Flash game AdventureQuest by Artix Entertainment is a lunch break sized RPG that takes place in the land of Lore. The game, though online, is single player, and uses online functions for updating the game easily and for wars. For a one time fee, you can unlock all the features in the game.

The main story is based around the journey of the Devourer and Uncreator The'Galin to uncreate Lore and your attempt to stop the fiend. Nearly every war the game had has been directly or indirectly related to it. The plot and characters are impressive, but on the downside, most of the back story is on the forum, or other places you wouldn't know to look.

For a one-time fee you can become a Guardian to buy more weapons, more quests, more places, etc. Since this isn't a monthly fee, it can be worth it, but only if you have US $20 to spare, and are really into the game; otherwise, you're not paying for much. You can also buy Z-Tokens, whether you are a Guardian or free player, for strong weapons, spells, pets and other things. They add very little to the game compared to Guardianship. On the bright side, you can find Z-Tokens as a reward in some fights, but not very often, and only in small packs.

The game doesn't have only its simple fighting system to keep players enticed. Wars are special events used to move plots, where you enter a series of battles and each monster you and other players kill works toward a certain number to fight the boss for rare event items. You can find mini-games, though not many, in quests. Housing is a big feature, too. You can clear your space of land, start building and even get monsters to protect your house. The downside is that most of the things for houses cost Z-Tokens.

It is joined with the following sequels afterward: Dragon Fable (set 5 years prior to AQ in a parallel timeline), Mechquest (5000 years prior to AQ) and Adventure Quest Worlds (which is a multi-player version set ten years after AQ and in a parallel universe), and Warp Force (set at the same time as AdventureQuest but IN SPACE, just expanding on the Space Opera that was going on in the background).

This game provides examples of:
"Parenthetical note to self. I am slipping. Two uses of the same word in the same sentence. Substitute archaic or something similar. I would use "antediluvian" but I am not sure there ever was a Lorian deluge of some sort. "Old" simply lacks feeling. Hmm. "Archaic implies lack of utility that is a problematic connotation. Of course, given the contents... and I am rambling once again."
 * Acronym and Abbreviation Overload: The forums have an actual guide to the shorthand people use while talking about equipment.
 * Aerith and Bob: Most of the game consists of Aeriths, but you get the occasional Bob in the form of Aria or Smith.
 * Allegedly Free Game: Becoming a Guardian, which costs $20, is necessary to max out your level in any class in the game, get the best equipment, and access a number of quests.
 * Not to mention the severe login stipulations placed on non-paying characters.
 * No longer a problem, as servers have been opened to everyone.
 * Also the rest of things you pay for are just Revenue Enhancing Devices
 * Always a Bigger Fish: During the "Big Trouble in Little Granemor" quest you're attacked by a Giant Hungry Zombie after fighting off some vampires with Vampire Slayer E. The zombie makes about one attack before a scary Ribber randomly comes up and drags it away (with its mouth).
 * Ambidextrous Sprite: Due to the animation style and the amount of Fashionable Asymmetry.
 * Amusing Injuries: Anything that happens to Twig, since he is widely considered to be a) cute and b) really annoying.
 * Animesque: Not huge, but noticeable. More so as part of its Art Evolution.
 * Anyone You Know: At the start you are asked for your name, and in Death's Domain you can randomly time travel back to change it.
 * Anti Grinding: Most quest and war monsters are level scaled.
 * Anti Poop Socking: There are daily caps for experience and gold.
 * Arc Welding: Carnax got attached to the Epic Quests got attached to the Nightbane storyline, and the result got really, really confusing in places.
 * Art Evolution: Since the game has expanded so much in the time it's existed, there's been an enormous change in the art. The forum-based "encyclopedia" even has a catalogue of old monster pictures, which are still being updated.
 * Attractive Bent Gender: All of the Genderbent NPCs are at least somewhat good-looking, and Galana (Galanoth) says that female Warlic looks cute.
 * Author Avatar: A lot, and maybe even the majority, of major NPCs are based on staff members.
 * Awesome McCoolname: Quite common among players.
 * A Winner Is You: You have defeated the Legends! Victory is yours!
 * Bare Your Midriff: Valencia, pictured above.
 * Battleship Raid: Carnax
 * BFG: Actually called that.
 * BFS: Loads.
 * HOLIDAY. COLLOSUS. It's Exactly What It Says On the Tin. It's huge sword that covers most of the player. On the character page, it covers up some information.
 * Boss in Mook Clothing: Many of the higher level random battle monsters are.
 * Bribing Your Way to Victory: Guardianship and Z-tokens.
 * Butt Monkey: Granemor sure likes to get invaded and destroyed.
 * CamelCase: Like pretty much all Artix Entertainment games.
 * Cherry Tapping
 * The Chessmaster: The Chessmaster of The Chessmaster Saga, obviously.
 * Clothes Make the Superman: Class abilities are accessed by being equipped with the class armor. Similarly, a lot of armors give you multiple attacks or other special powers.
 * Copy and Paste Environments
 * Cosmic Keystone: The Eight Elemental Orbs and the Orb of Creation.
 * Critical Hit: Players and monsters alike can do this if they have stats points in Luck Stat.
 * Cute and Psycho: Shii is a hyperactive schoolgirl holding a lollipop.
 * Darker and Edgier: For the most part, 'AdventureQuest is a light-hearted game-- family friendly at worst. And then you try the Assassin Class quest chain...
 * Dark Is Not Evil: The player can choose to become a Werewolf, Vampire or Werepyre (A blend of the two) with the help of each respective species leader's help. Though being of the furrier of the two comes with a Light-based Mon, so meh.
 * Dark World: Nightmare Realm
 * Death Is a Slap On The Wrist: It kicks you out of any quest you were on, but that's about it. You will also owe Death a favour, but nothing has come out of that yet...
 * Death Is Not Permanent: Death's quota is always full, and will bring you back to life for a favor.
 * Deaths Hourglass: The favor for being revived countless times is finding his lost hourglass in a secret quest.
 * Degraded Boss: The fate of many a war boss, like Elder Vampires, Undead Paladins, Undead Skull Apes, and the Herd Boss is to be stuck on the random encounter list. Lampshaded when, after your character has to defeat Drakath the dracolich as part of a quest, they wonder, "Who keeps reanimating that dragon?"
 * Dem Bones: Many of the undead enemies.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: The player defeats war incarnate in a quest. Yes. THE war.
 * And then you get to PLAY AS HIM.
 * Does Not Like Shoes: The Huntress is never seen wearing them.
 * Dude Looks Like a Lady: Donovan.
 * Dual Wielding: A specialty of the Assassin class.
 * Eldritch Abomination:
 * Subverted. Carnax  and The'Galin knows full well what he's doing.
 * A lesser example, but the Grabbi most likely counts.
 * Seth Cay Dhows is a major one. being able to exist in many places at once and can see through time, he even manages to split the mind of Falerin (who is a GOD!) and avoid nasty side effects of such an act. he was also recently reveled to be a man made god known by the name Epsilon who has gone insane and wishes to destroy everything and recreate it all in his own image (What he wishes to do is similar to uncreation which means he is a bigger bad then The'Galin)
 * Elemental Embodiment: The updated wizard class is able to summon these as guests. One for each of the 8 element.
 * Elemental Powers: The updated wizard class. There is one specialist armor for each of the 8 element.
 * Elemental Rock Paper Scissors
 * Eternal Recurrence
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Some of the random enemies are quite...unusual. Including things that really shouldn't be attacking you, like Paladins. Not to mention that one of the random encounters is a bush.
 * Evolving Weapon: A few of the weapons in stores. Generally explained as either vampiric or enchanted.
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin: Many items, guess what the spell Dinozard NOMNOMNOM does?
 * Fission Mailed: In one quest that you have to do as the form of a ninja cat, Death sends you back to the quest when you die because you are too cute to be taken. This is also used a few times in the main storyline.
 * Fighter Mage Thief + The Beast Master
 * Fog of Doom: It's red.
 * Forced Level Grinding: Characters level extremely slowly, gain gold extremely slowly, and need both to buy new equipment. Hope you like farming.
 * Furry Confusion: The gattas, which are anthropomorphic cats... who ride on non-anthropomorphic war cats.
 * Game Over Man: Death shows up when you die, but tells you he's over his quota and sends you back to town owing him a favor.
 * Gameplay Ally Immortality
 * Game Breaking Bug: The updated Darkshifter had the offensive stats of a Lightning Bruiser and the HP of a Tank. its attack power was 5 times that of the updated version with twice the HP. now add on to this already Boss in Mook Clothing with the power bonus for magic use and you get a monster with 20 times the attack and twice the HP of its updated release of it.
 * Gender Bender: In the 2010 April Fools' event, most of the NPCs got genderswapped. The ones seen were Artix, Galanoth, Warlic, Aquella, Robina, Saphiria, and Cenara. The Wereking was mentioned as being swapped as well, and it seems likely that Donovan changed.
 * Gender Neutral Writing: You're either referred to by your name or a gender-neutral word like 'friend'.
 * Glass Cannon: Goggs pretty much exemplify it. They nearly always go first, and can, in some cases, blast you for 700 damage over the course of one turn, but can be taken out just as fast by a player who knows what they're doing.
 * Global Currency: Gold
 * God Is Evil: Seth Cay Dhows who was recently reveled to be a man made god known by the name Epsilon
 * God of Evil: Not that he's especially evil.
 * Going Through the Motions: Not too common, but Egregious during cutscene of the fight between Wolfwing and Nightbane.
 * Grim Reaper: You probably owe him a lot of favors.
 * Harmless Villain: Zorbak, most of the time.
 * Headless Horseman
 * Hello Insert Name Here: You can even leave your name blank.
 * Hijacked By Ganon: Except it was old villains being controlled by an even older one.
 * Hilarious Outtakes: Yes, it can be done with a flash game; it was parodied in the 2009 Frostval Event.
 * Hit Points
 * Hopeless Boss Fight: Several, including The'Galin and the Nightmare Queen.
 * Hope Spot: The playerbase got one during Mostly Harmful. Almost two weeks of furious fighting, and it seemed like it was going to come down to the last hour... then the fourth stage arrived and dropped the meter by a full 18% with less than a day to go. Cue Downer Ending.
 * Averted for those on the forums, however. It had been made clear that the war consisted of four waves.
 * Humanity On Trial: The'Galin's plan.
 * Hurricane of Puns: The creators know it. They consider it part of the game's campy and fun atmosphere.
 * Now say hello to the event that is called... Drakelcube P.
 * And meet mighty heroes and villains such as Gokar, Bhelma, Panfluti and Gherkina.
 * Idiot Hero: The player character can be a spectacular moron, but in "The Bizarre Flecks", the player comments he/she is a master of playing dumb.
 * If You're So Evil Make This Kitten Undead: The enemy Fundead Kitten's description says that Kabroz dared Zorbak to make this monster.
 * I Let You Win
 * Impossibly Low Neckline: Lucretia, the apothecary in Granemor.
 * Improbable Weapon User: One weapon is a cupcake.
 * Or candy floss.
 * Or a fishing rod.
 * Or a fruitcake.
 * Or a decorated Christmas tree.
 * Or a piece of fruit.
 * Or a sword made of gum.
 * Or a live electric eel.
 * Or a Grass Blade.
 * Or a burrito of DOOM.
 * You get a plunger to help you make your way through a link between realms. And yes, you fight with it.
 * In the early levels it's a really effective water weapon. And it can crit by hitting with GIANT GEYSERS OF SEWAGE.
 * What happens when a Frostval gift is stolen? You pay large amounts of money to use the wrapping paper as a weapon.
 * There are many more examples of this trope than the above...
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: part of the 'hurricane'.
 * Inevitable Tournament: Wizard Games
 * Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Lampshaded occasionally.
 * Infernal Retaliation: A kind of wolf-like monster named Razorclaw is particularly weak to fire, but if you hit it with fire, it will claw you while on fire. This occurs even if you missed.
 * Instant Awesome Just Add Mecha: At Mt. Thrall you can fight Titan sized monsters in an appropriately sized Mecha. And it has no point to the plot.
 * Its All Upstairs From Here
 * Its Up to You
 * Item Crafting: The custom weapon and spellcrafting.
 * Karma Meter: AdventureQuest's "Morality Compass" which measures good, evil, unity and chaos.
 * Kaiju: ZardZilla. Even his description text says so.
 * Katanas Are Just Better
 * Killer Rabbit: Several versions.
 * Knight Templar: Galanoth does not like dragons. While this is not usually a problem, they're not Always Chaotic Evil, and he occasionally gets rather... overboard. Artix is just as bad or worse for undead. Also, Nemesis just wants to enforce justice. Unfortunately, his definition of justice is "kill everyone who doesn't agree with him".
 * Leave No Witnesses: Used as an excuse on one occasion to justify Violence Is the Only Option.
 * Leeroy Jenkins: An entire quest about him, in fact. Using the ACTUAL SCRIPT.
 * Level Up Fill Up: You restore all of your HP and MP when you level up.
 * Limited Sound Effects
 * Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards: A constant problem and the cause of many a nerf.
 * Loading Screen: There are jokes on them; laggy computers can read them while faster computers cannot.
 * Lost World: Dinozard island.
 * Luck Manipulation Mechanic: Defying stat rolls by paying SP.
 * Magic Knight: Including Undead variants.
 * Magiscience
 * Mana Drain: The Banshee can do this to you. You can also do this to enemies in many different ways.
 * The Many Deaths of You: Most of the time you fall, but you'll sometimes have different deaths depending on the armor you're wearing.
 * Marathon Boss: Sine qua non is a non-boss example. The Night of 100 Ninjas, while not particularly powerful, can take a long time to defeat.
 * Marked Change: Various armors, shields and weapons.
 * Mascot Mook: Frogzards.
 * Maze Game: The Maze, of course.
 * The Medic: The vast majority of moglins. The only exceptions are the evil Zorbak and Kabroz and the one and only Badass moglin in the game, Dewlok.
 * Zorbak has healing magic, he just doesn't like to use it.
 * Mini Game
 * Mirror Match: It's You!
 * Mirror Universe
 * Money Spider: Explained, amazingly enough. It's somewhere between a subversion, a parody, and a justification: Robina the Hood steals from the rich and gives to "the cute little cuddly-wuddly forest creatures!" There's even the note that "How did you think level 1 spiders got so much gold on them?"
 * Multi Mook Melee: Frogzard Challenge, the Pit
 * Myth Arc: The Devourer Saga
 * My name is Guardian Dragon.
 * Nerf: This is decided by the staff group the Knights of Order (KoO). They appear in-game in several places: Aelthai in Battleon, Zephyros in the Azamay quest, Khold and Radagast in the '09 and '10 April Fools' events, Shii as an Assassin class trainer, and Kalanyr in several quests.
 * Nerf Arm: In the April Fool's Day 2008 event, a Nerf Wraith turns your sword into a foam covered version of the default warrior weapon.
 * News Travels Fast
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: It's very possible to be a ninja-pirate-dragonslayer-vampireslayer-dracomancer-paladin-necromancer-knight-beastmaster-shapeshifter-assassin with a black belt.
 * Reaching level 10 in the necromancer skill lets you optionally become a lich. Since you can choose to be any one of four possible subraces, this means you can double the undead fun and become a vampire lich.
 * No Fourth Wall: The Guardian Dragon is especially prone to this, with lines like "Sorry I'm late, the server was lagging again."
 * Non Linear Sequel: Dragon Fable, Mechquest and Adventure Quest Worlds
 * Non Mammal Mammaries: Female Drakels and Pae. Though the Drakel has have hair in later renditions. The staff have stated that this was intentional and not an artistic drift.
 * Our Monsters Are Weird: Boy, howdy. You can fight everything from worms to the stat roller to ice cream to giant ticks to tomatoes to Sarah the Nerfkitten to leprechauns to were-seals... the list goes on and on.
 * Our Vampires Are Different/Our Werewolves Are Different: They're generally pretty much standard-issue, but there are also vampire-werewolf hybrids and vampire-werewolf-dragon hybrids.
 * Physical God: Lorithia was once said to have been a physical god at one point, which led to The'Galin's ascension to godhood. This was only told through forum backstory information. Falerin and Eldron are the gods of Evil and Good for the world of Caelestia.
 * Planet Terra
 * Playing With Fire: Mercuria, Drakkonan
 * Pop Quiz: When infiltrating N.O.V.A., you are asked questions, about the organization, that are never mentioned in the game. It redirects you to a link to the forums where you can ask about it before the quest starts, though.
 * Power Up: Red and blue potions (used to heal) and a lot of class abilities.
 * Prehensile Hair: Visia
 * Prepare to Die
 * Purposefully Overpowered: "Mastercrafted" items are much more powerful than other items at their level, by balancing power with expensiveness, with 10% more power for 10% higher cost.
 * Rainbow Pimp Gear: Since Clothes Make the Superman, some armors that look silly can be extremely powerful. Bunny Jammies comes to mind.
 * Random Number God: You'll be praying to it on most class quests.
 * Really 700 Years Old: The Huntress.
 * Ridiculously Cute Critter: Moglins. However, many of the fans find them annoying, especially Twig and Twilly. This has led to all sorts of... interesting quests, including a minigame where you punt Twilly and an April Fool's Day quest that featured Twig as the Devourer.
 * Twig being the Master of Evil was also referencing a forum in-joke.
 * Then, of course, because this is AQ, they decided to subvert their whole joke: After the Mogbusters spend quite a while abusing him, Then Twig lands in a patch of piranha-infested water. For most people this would be a problem, but Twig is a Big Eater when it comes to fish and ice cream. They never stood a chance.
 * The only moglin who is not ridiculously cute in some way is Zorbak, an evil ebil blue moglin mage necromancer, and his evil brother Kabroz.
 * Rule of Fun: The weapons and armor are often ridiculous, the puns numerous, the monsters... surprising... and every quest will involve you fighting. Some might say it's a rather popular game.
 * Sdrawkcab Name: Zorbak and Kabroz, Varax and Xarav, Artix and Xitra.
 * Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Falerin's speech, which has become somewhat of a minor meme on the forums. Falerin has lampshaded it:


 * Set Bonus: Mastercraft sets.
 * Shout Out: Loads, ranging in scale from a couple of random lines from Hamlet to an entire quest devoted to an Affectionate Parody of Myth Busters.
 * When having Radagast as a guest, if you run out of SP to keep him, he'll suddenly disappear while commenting about Jack Candle.
 * Significant Anagram: Seth Cay Dhows/
 * Standard Status Effects: Subverted; while there are normal ones, like burned, frozen, poisoned, and doom, there are ones like soaked, entangled, and afraid. There's a whole section of the forums encyclopedia. that list the status effects.
 * Summon Magic: Summon spells.
 * Talk Like a Pirate: An event synchronized with the real-life holiday of the same name.
 * Too Awesome to Use: Because of the high SP\MP cost and the constant danger of wasting it by missing, most level 10 class skills will end up as this for many players.
 * Too Many Belts: Whispering Raiment has what appears to be 19 belts altogether on the outfit.
 * Trademark Favorite Food: "Fish and ice cweam!"
 * The World Is Always Doomed.
 * Throw the Book At Them: An Umazen is implied to have learned magic over the internet. The "sort of" lampshade, turns out that all she knows is throwing a magic book at you. Despite the lame-appearing attack however, it does relatively high damage when you're on par level with her.
 * Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Most weapons include at least one variation where they are thrown, which usually ends up providing more damage.
 * Timed Mission: The "Division by Zero" and "Mostly Harmless" wars.
 * Amongst others, including the second war in the Bradakhan saga, the "Terrible Twelve" war, and "Emerge from Shadow". It's a trope that's become moderately popular in recent years.
 * Vaporware:
 * The City of Deren
 * "The Sweep" - sort of. It's an ongoing rebalance operation which is supposed to be applied to older items as well as new ones. Whilst all new items are at the new standards, most older equipment has yet to be fixed.
 * Violence Is the Only Option: Lampshaded, of course.
 * Viewers Are Geniuses: The entire Devourer plotline was nigh-impossible to follow with reading the pages and pages of explanations given on the forums. The staff swear they learned their lesson from the trouble handling it, and the next Myth Arc will make a lot more sense. Even worse was a good bit of information was released over an IRC chatroom in a chat with the staff or Role Play with one of the Staff as it's GM, giving the 20 players a distinct advantage (Information on the IRC channel is available on the forums but it's so over looked most players don't know it exists) The characters from the Roleplay are sometimes referenced in game establishing the worlds created by the players as part of the Extended Universe.
 * Wallet of Holding
 * Wall of Weapons: You can see one when you are meeting Shii and Wallo to train the assassin class.
 * Weird Moon: In Darkovia, it's always night and there is always a full moon. And when the Devourer's attack was imminent, the moon changed into a weird red-eyed thing. And before the Devourer attack, Dewlok's home had a Zelda-ish moon complete with creepy face.
 * Wide Open Sandbox: While quests are set, you can still choose to do most of them at any time in any order.
 * A Wizard Did It: Used to explain away many plot inconsistencies. "It's MAGIC!"
 * Word of God: Most of the backstory for the Devourer Saga. In this case, literally. Falerin, the head writer, is also the NPC Caelestian God of Evil.
 * Words Can Break My Bones: "Red Fog." *Red Fog rolls past and knocks your HP to One* "Okay, that's really annoying."
 * Wrap Around: Some battle animations.
 * Xtreme Kool Letterz: X-Guardians and Z-tokens.
 * You Can't Thwart Stage One:
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Aelthai has a bright shock of purple hair compared to the decent hair colors of the other characters.
 * Valencia has dark purple, Aquella has dark blue (Though her skin is also blue due to being a water elf), Warlic's is white. Lady Tomo has purple. Purple seems to be a popular color for NPC hair.
 * Maxwell's daughter Emma has hair that randomly changes color.
 * Let's not forget the player characters, who can also have some rather exotic hair colours.
 * You Mean Xmas: Quite a few real-world holidays have AQ equivalents, such as Frostval (Christmas), Hero's Heart Day, (Valentine's Day), the Grenwog Festival (Easter), and Mogloween (Halloween).