Level Up (video game)

"A game about personal growth"

Level Up (not the trope) is a platformer in a vaguely similar style to Achievement Unlocked. The Girl has to explore her world and level herself up in order to help The Boy that recently crash landed in her backyard. She can only stay up for so many hours before she has to return home to sleep.

The game is available at Newgrounds here.

Tropes used in this game include:
"The Girl: Spiky-haired guys always have a Dark and Troubled Past."
 * Hundred-Percent Completion: Doing so unlocks a demo of the sequel, Gather Up.
 * Action Girl: The Girl.
 * Actual Pacifist: The Girl is this, due mainly to not having any attacks.
 * Amnesiac Dissonance: The Boy seems like a nice guy with a bit of memory trouble.
 * Battle in the Center of the Mind:
 * Beneath the Mask
 * Cast of Snowflakes: Every NPC has a unique sprite and Character Portrait.
 * Character Portrait
 * Collision Damage
 * Compensating for Something: The "Tyrant" enemy, according to its description.
 * Continuing Is Painful: Dying during the day takes away 60 seconds of exploring time.
 * Darker and Edgier: The sequel, Gather Up, seems to be this, and also plays more like a traditional Metroidvania.
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Lampshaded with The Boy.


 * Elves vs. Dwarves: The Squarians versus the Roundites, sort of. There's also a third race, the Hexies, who didn't want to participate in the feud between the other races, and moved as far away from them as possible.
 * Gotta Catch Them All: Little gems, big gems, skills, codex entries, and resetted levels.
 * Guide Dang It: The Nightmare
 * Idle Animation: More are available the more one levels up.
 * Jump Physics:
 * Double Jump: Available for purchase in-game.
 * Last Lousy Point: Depending on who you talk to, it's either trying to beat the game on the first day, or defeating with a level 1 relationship.
 * Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Boy. It's so bad, many of his levels are sent to level zero.
 * The Law of Conservation of Detail: Some names are shortened when entered into the CODEX. The Squarian character "John Freeman's Ghost", for example, is written into the CODEX as just "John".
 * Level Up: Many things are leveled up, from taking damage to sitting around to leveling up.
 * Level Up At Intimacy 5: By donating gems to the Boy, you become more and more friendly with him, which increases the Girl's heart level, and in turn her life meter, for a maximum of eight hearts.
 * Meta Guy: Brains the Squarian; his metaness is even essential to completing your CODEX. He does have enough sense not to tell the Girl how the game ends, though.
 * Mercy Invincibility
 * Metroidvania
 * Mood Whiplash: The battle with.
 * Within the first few minutes of the Gather Up demo, you'll come across
 * No Fourth Wall: Most of the cast, though not to the extent of the above-mentioned Brains.
 * Non-Action Guy: The Boy.
 * Orphaned Series: Unfortunately, despite the first game's popularity, and the surprisingly good alpha builds of the second game, the game's creator was unsatisfied with where development was going, and "put it on the back burner" back in 2010.
 * Puzzle Boss:
 * Relationship Values: Not hidden.
 * Restart At Level One: This happens at the start of every new day with your levels. Averted with the sleep levels and any skills you have gotten.
 * Fortunately, your levels regain a lot faster than if you'd just started the game on Day One.
 * This is a stat you level up, seriously
 * Rhymes on a Dime: Hulker the Roundite.
 * Sudden Downer Ending: The game ends with . In an otherwise meta and comedic game, this is very jarring.
 * Tactical Suicide Boss: 's rock attack.
 * Timed Mission: Explore all you can before you have to go to bed.
 * Troubled Backstory Flashback
 * Tomato in the Mirror: The ending reveals that
 * Tomato Surprise:
 * Samus Is a Girl:
 * Super-Powered Evil Side:, more or less.
 * Wake Up Call Boss: . What, you thought this was going to be a relaxing, easy platformer?
 * Wide Open Sandbox
 * Wide Open Sandbox