The Bright in The Screen

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Trust me and everything will be fine. I am a good person.

The Bright In the Screen is a 2008 horror Adobe Flash game.

You are a stick figure. You are in an empty facility of some kind. You cannot remember why you're here or how you got here. The facility is totally empty except for you, a mysterious entity sending you messages through the many screens scattered throughout the facility, and the "red freaks", insane red stick figures that attack you on sight.

It's Better Than It Sounds.

Tropes used in The Bright in The Screen include:
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different - You play as one of the Red Freaks in one level.
  • And Then John Was a Zombie: Uh, not exactly. A screen informs you that "You are red when you are not looking". And then later on "You are a happy smiling Red Freak." Towards the end of the "goodbye" screen, you begin flashing red.
  • Blackout Basement - In two levels it's dark except for some words lit up in white and a flashlight you can click on yourself to use. At least you still have your gun.
  • The Blank - the "Red Freak Museum" shows self-portraits of the Red Freaks as this.
  • Book Ends: At least in one version, the ending literally takes you right back to the start. "Your new assignment" indeed.
  • Color Coded for Your Convenience - All the enemies in the game are red.
  • Dialog During Gameplay - After clicking on a screen, it plays through it's message independent of everything else. Because of this you can walk off from the "dialog" and miss things, watch multiple screens of dialog at once, or have to dodge Red Freaks if you want to read all of a message.
  • Disproportionate Retribution - In the "Trash" story on some screens in the first version, a character misses the trash can, accidentally littering. The two others that witness this then proceed to beat him to death.
  • Empty Room Psych - the "game" you can play while the game is loading. You can move around and shoot powerful-looking beams... but there's really nothing to shoot and nowhere to go. The old version had this room labeled "Red Therapy" and the new version tells you "You are red when you're not looking."
  • Empty Room Until the Trap - sometimes.
  • Fake Platform - in some areas, screens and places that are black fool you into thinking there's a nice solid place to walk. They sometimes drop you into a room with Red Freaks. There's also an unavoidable one in the beginning. "I told you to mind the gap."
  • Foreshadowing: "You've already been through this".
  • Gainax Beginning, Middle and End
  • Gameplay Automation - the "Seems like you've completely lost it" level. You only control the screen, and "you" navigate to the next level perfectly.
  • Horror Hunger - the "Meat" stories shown on some screens in the second version. "This is AWFUL! I need it RAWRER!" *next screen shows blood all over* "Delicious."
  • Humanoid Abomination - the "Red Freak Museum of Art" shows the Red Freaks as this. Because of their similarity to the player character, you probably are this, too.
  • Informed Equipment - "You have a gun in your inventory."
  • Interface Screw / Camera Screw - in one level the screen jumps around as if glitching. Throughout the game the screen seems to vibrate just a tiny bit.
  • Level Goal - the doors at the far right of each level.
  • Little-Known Facts - the "Red Freak Facts" on some of the screens. "Fact: Red Freaks are all the same. But they don't care." "Fact: Opinion = fact. This is a fact."
  • Mind Screw - The game's description says, "Experience first-hand social human behavior," and it only gets stranger from there.
  • Mission Control Is Off Its Meds - The messages in the screens are either cryptic messages or outright lies.
  • Mood Swinger: Whoever the hell controls those screens.
  • Multiple Endings
  • Nonstandard Game Over - If you right click and choose "commit suicide", the entire game screen turns gray and the only way to continue is reload the game.
  • Ontological Mystery
  • Playing the Player - The Unreliable Narrator does this. "This world was not made for you." "You can close the game whenever you want to." "If I were you... I would stop doing this." "YOU NEVER LISTEN!"
  • Press X to Die - "Red buttons. They hurt you." They are useful if you get stuck and need to die to restart the level, though.
  • Department of Redundancy Department - "Red Freak Fact #2: Red Freaks learn trough(sic) repetition." "Red Freak Fact #3: Red Freaks learn trough(sic) repetition."
  • Running on All Fours: Most of the faster Red Freaks.
  • Schmuck Bait - "Don't press A though. A is bad." "Some of these guys are really angry." "Don't touch red walls." "I don't reccomend(sic) considering suicide." Among others.
  • Silence Is Golden - There are no sound effects for most of the game.
  • Teased with Awesome - You have a gun that automatically kills any Red Freaks you click on for a while in the middle of the game, but it gets taken away from you once the lights are back on.
  • You Wake Up in a Room: One of the endings.
  • Zombie Gait - The slower Red Freaks walk this way.
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