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:

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. And he is. The Girl, on the other hand...
Battle in The Center of The Mind: The Nightmare.
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.

The Girl: Spiky-haired guys always have a Dark and Troubled Past.

- It's actually The Girl whose past is truly dark and troubled.
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 the Nightmare with a level 1 relationship.
Laser Guided Amnesia: The Boy. It's so bad, many of his levels are sent to level zero. The Girl has a form of this that can only be fixed through the computer.
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 the Nightmare.
- Within the first few minutes of the Gather Up demo, you'll come across a large number of bloody corpses with their heads ripped off.
No Fourth Wall: Most of the cast, though not to the extent of the above-mentioned Brains.
Non Action Guy: The Boy. He's The Hero in Gather Up.
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: The Nightmare.
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. If you defeat the Nightmare that night, you don't lose your levels.
- 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 the truth of The Girl and Boy's identity, which has a fight break out between the two. In an otherwise meta and comedic game, this is very jarring.
Tactical Suicide Boss: The Nightmare'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 The Girl is actually a Dark Action Girl obsessed with power. She lost her memories when she tried to defeat the Deity, the most powerful being who had "surpassed levelling". The Nightmare is her subconscious, furious at her failure.
Tomato Surprise: The Boy is the Deity.
Samus Is a Girl: The Nightmare.
Super Powered Evil Side: The Nightmare, more or less.
Wake Up Call Boss: The Nightmare. What, you thought this was going to be a relaxing, easy platformer?
Wide Open Sandbox