Closed Game

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A 2015 H Game, written by Izumi Bany'a (of Kuroinu fame) and art by Sei Shoujo (of STARLESS and Bible Black fame). As you can expect of the first, it's brutal. Of the second, it is both erotic sometimes and twisted and erotic in other moments.

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In a futuristic, post-apocalyptical earth, most of the humans now live in a Earth depleted of natural resources, and are denominated Earthlings, while a small minority lives on a space station floating above the planet called Caelum Urbs, and are denominated Heaveners. Tougo Magnarten is an orphan Earthling living a humble life as mechanic. His best friend is Celicia, a fellow orphan who became a bounty hunter after the local sheriff, George Mitchell, saw her shooting abilities on a contest. Tougo is constantly arguing with Celicia over the dangers of her profession, and is oblivious to the fact she is romantically interested on him.

Tougo's life changes suddenly when the three are attacked inside a restaurant. Tougo is gravely injured but wakes up completely healed, but finds himself inside some kind of isolated complex. Soon he meets Celicia, George, and three other people who were also kidnapped to this strange place, all of these women.

Not long after, Celicia's sister Celine, which had been adopted by Heaveners and have not be seen by Tougo and Celicia for years, appears through a hologram, and explains why they are there: a contest known as Closed Game is about to begin and they are the participants, the ultimate prize the reward of living in Caelum Urbs, in luxury. But, as it turns out, losing the game has lethal consequences, and certainly the odds are not in favour of the Earthlings.

Developed and published by Empress in Japan. Published in english by JAST USA.

Tropes used in Closed Game include:
  • Absurdly Youthful Mother: Justifed since Celine is adopted and Caelum Orbs is said to have advanced medicine able to do basically anything.
  • A Date With Rosie Palms: Celine masturbates while watching other women being raped.
  • And Now For Something Completely Different: You get to pick Celine's choices in who she is going watch be raped. Unlike what you would expect, this has consequences for Tougo.
  • After The End: Though is never said what happened, aside of resources becoming scarce.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Sort of. One of Celine and Michiko's pets is a giant insect of an unspecified species.
  • Big Bad: As the short scene from the beginning implies, the idea of bringing Celicia, Tougo and George in the game is all Celine's idea, making her the primary source of conflict.
  • Bi the Way:
    • Celine openly pleasures herself from watching other women being raped, and has sex with Tougo too in her route.
    • Michiko does it mostly with men but have one scene with one woman too.
  • Covers Always Lie: In the game's cover, Celine is seen playfully touching Celicia's left breast, and Celicia seems pretty okay with that. When you play the game however, Celicia talks of her sister pretty aggressively before meeting her again and when the game starts the anger turns into wrath as Celine commits more and more horrible deeds for the sake of the game's ratings.
  • Crap Saccharine World: For all the good things on Caelum Orbs, the inhabitants are disgusted by sex and it is forbidden. Then again, except for Michiko, which is no angel, they are said to be living pretty happily like that.
  • Downer Ending:
    • If you do not get locked in any route, the girl with who Tougo had sex for the last time gets kidnapped by Celine's giant insect and Tougo don't reaches her in time before the game stage ends. Tougo and the others all die.
    • Michiko's route. In the post-credits scene, Tougo gets turned into the female-type gimp after Michiko gets bored of him and his personally is overwrote so he shall obey all of Celine and Michiko's commands. And there is no proof that the others were indeed saved.
  • Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Celine takes wicked pleasure in watching people suffer, and is also incredibly beautiful.
  • Foreshadowing: In several points of her route, Michiko talks about how Tougo moans "femininely". Turns out she was planning to turn him into a female gimp once she got bored of him.
  • Genre Blindness: It doesn't take several stages until the participants realize Closed Game is a show, after being told their suffering is being broadcast all over Caelum Orbs. It's like they never heard of reality shows before.
  • Green-Eyed Monster
  • Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: By the time of the forest stage, Tougo concludes that the game is actually no game at all, and Celine had been cheating all the time. The girls had not been losing by being attacked and raped, their suffering was the attraction all along.
  • Heroes Want Redheads: In Michiko's route, Tougo ends up falling for her.
  • Hot Mom: Justified in Michiko's case since her daughter Celine is adopted.
  • Ill Girl: Marielle, which has an unspecified degenerative, and incurable disease, at least for doctors from Earth.
  • Like Brother and Sister: In-universe, is how Tougo sees his relationship with Celica. The reverse is revealed to not be true quite early in the game, but Tougo only stops treating it like that in her route.
  • Malevolent Masked Men: The gimps, who use gas masks and physically attack the participants in order of raping them.
  • Not So Different: In his own internal narration, Tougo begins to think she and Michiko may not be so different as her route goes, since they both live under hardship. Though he also remarks that hers is of a very different nature.
  • Oblivious to Love: Tougo's internal narration makes it as obvious as possible that Celicia wants him. Sadly he seems to not be able to deduce what her behaviour around her means.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Celicia is headstrong and hot-headed and Lacey is open to argument and cool-headed.
  • Sacrificial Lamb: Celicia's giant, ahn, critter kills George early in the game, showing how unmatched the Earthlings are against the enemies of the game.
  • Sex Sells: Inverted and played straight. Heaveners are generally repulsed by sex, and Closed Game is advertised as a deadly competition. However, once the game starts, after some time it revolves more and more about rape, and according with Michiko that increased their interest, though not the point that the act has cased to be forbidden.
  • The Last of These Is Not Like the Others: Michiko's route, since she is not a participant of the game or is her route a sub-route of another heroine(Celine is of Celicia's route). It mostly involves her sexually dominating Tougo, with no monsters/gimps involved aside of the initial scene.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Celicia and Celine grew up in different environments and it shows: Celicia is very tomboyish and aggressive, and Celine is extremely feminine and tries to be graceful most of the time.
  • Utopia Justifies The Means: In her route, Michiko explains that the purpose of the Closed Game is show how wonderful sex is to Heaveners, who are generally disgusted by the idea of it, the Deadly Game aspect being just a way of attracting viewers without scaring them away with the idea of sex. Considering for how many seasons Closed Game has been likely running, Michiko's head count is likely on the dozens.
  • Villainous Crush: In her route, Michiko seems to develop one for Tougo, and Tougo goes back and forth in thinking if it's just sexual interest or she really likes him. The post-credits scene reveals all female gimps were pretty likely Michiko's discarded lovers, so the final answer is no.