Evil Characters

Forever trapped inside a picture after kissing an eldritch being: all about Lyle from Look Outside

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Look Outside is a huge surprise: a dark JRPG with a killing art style, challenging, and full of secrets. The player wanders entirely in one apartment building since something outside is horribly mutating people. You have only 15 days to explore, gather supplies, and discover what is happening. And with 100+ grotesque monsters and disturbing bad endings behind every corner, this will not be an easy task.

During these days, you can meet different NPCs. Some are still hiding in their flats, while others come knocking at your door. However, deciding who to trust is challenging, since several neighbors already “watched outside.” Because trusting and welcoming to your place a devious maniac, who then demands your bone marrow, is not the best choice.

Luckily, in all this grotesque madness, there is always Lyle. He is a nice neighbor, well, maybe a bit creepy and stalkerish, but not that bad. Lyle lives in his flat and happily welcomes you inside. He is passionate about photography and even has a dark room in his flat. However, regardless of his kindness, the fact that is wearing a long robe with a hood, and that bug-like appendices are coming out of it, are probably a good sign that Lyle watched outside. In fact, he tried to take a picture of whatever being was up in the sky.

Luckily Lyle retained his personality after watching outside, and he can still help the players by providing them with photographic paper to capture the bizarre phenomena around the building. However, Lyle will ask for something in exchange. Something as simple as taking a picture of the main character… or a kiss. Don’t worry, nothing super pushy, and you can refuse it. In this case, Lyle would break the tension by joking about it. If instead, you accept the wild proposal, Lyle demands you to close your eyes before the kiss. Would you really trust this creepy creature? Luckily you can, except for the feeling of kissing something burning and mechanical, nothing bad happens. However, Lyle will also take a picture of the main character, with or without the kiss.

During the game, Lyle can also help you to develop pictures in his dark room. He doesn’t allow you inside, because he is working on a secret project, but gladly develops the picture for you. Again, he will ask for a kiss as a reward, and again you can refuse. Just try to don’t break his heart, because Lyle is a good guy, especially in a world of grotesque dismembering monsters. But seriously, you can truly break the poor guy’s heart by peaking after closing your eyes during this second kiss. In this moment, you can glimpse Lyle’s true appearance: a mechanical grinning face with a lens in the middle. While the main character’s face appears terrified in the reflection, Lyle’s only reaction is to run away ashamed and in tears. He locks himself in the dark room, crying and with a broken heart. Yes, monsters do have a heart, and you broke it.

As for any other NPCs in the game, the player can also attack Lyle at any moment during the dialogue. However, the battle against Lyle is quite unconventional. First, he doesn’t directly attack the player, he just passively endures the attacks, showing to be stronger than the appearance, with really high defense. After being attacked, with a broken heart, Lyle shows the player the picture he took of them. At this moment, the Polaroid also joins the battle, appearing in the top-left corner. Starting now, the player has only a few turns to kill Lyle before the picture is fully developed. At every turn, the picture reveals a grotesque face behind, each time more disturbing. The problem is that the main character’s portrait also mutates in synchrony with the polaroid, becoming at each turn a far more twisted being. And then, they will become forever trapped inside the picture, reaching a very unexpected Bad Ending. Or not that bad, considering that Lyle will always bring you around in his pocket, taking the picture out only to show you the world around. Sadly, one day Lyle will lose the picture. And the main character will remain there, forever alone and trapped inside the picture.

During the fight, if you attack the Polaroid instead of Lyle, especially using fire, you can challenge Lyle’s true form. If you defeat the Polaroid before being trapped in it, a furious Lyle will reveal his true form. However, Lyle is not exactly angry with you but more sad about the loss of his treasure. He wanted to keep that picture (probably with the main character’s soul imprisoned inside) forever with him, and now everything is lost. The true form is the one of a disturbing bio-mechanical abomination, a sort of caterpillar mixed with cameras and lenses, with grinning mouths, eyes, and pictures all across the body. Lyle’s passion for photography got imprinted in his design after he watched outside. Regardless of the twisted and disturbing appearance, the grotesque Lyle is not a very dangerous enemy, and he is still weak against fire. After all, he needs to protect his body from extreme temperature and light, as if he was made of film paper.

After killing Lyle, regardless of his form, you can acquire the key to his dark room. What kind of mysterious project was he developing there? The answer is easy and only slightly shocking: dozens of pictures of the main character, his apartment, and his door. Apparently, Lyle was truly obsessed with him since he was still human, a crush that started to become a disturbing obsession. After all, we warn you that Lyle was kind of a stalker. Moreover, if pictures all around are not enough, hidden in a corner you will find a copy of the key to the main character’s apartment. If Lyle already used this key or not, and to do what, is a secret that will die with him.

Lyle is a fragile soul, a grotesque being, a helper, and a creepy stalker, all packed together in a well-written character with a striking design. Lyle truly shows the potential of Look Outside, a small game with so many secrets, variables, and details to discover. And, of course, in a world of devouring rats, teeth spreading like a disease, and beings who steal your flesh if you stare at them, Lyle “the kind stalker” is not such a bad NPC.

This article has also a video compendium on the Surreal and Creepy channel, where you can see all about Lyle:

The Pocketcat of Fear & Hunger: what RPG merchant could be more disturbing than one exchanging items for children? [Evil Characters]

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If you read other articles about Fear & Hunger, you would know that it is a really grim and dark world, where the world friendship does not exist. Between the many creepy and twisted enemies, with disfigured and mutated bodies, Pocketcat is just a human figure with a cat head. At first glance, he looks goofy and out of the content, a character ready for a cartoon, not for a sadistic and horror RPG. But as often as in real life, sometimes appearances are wrong.

Pocketcat is one of the merchants in Fear & Hunger, and it will establish its shop in the depths of the mines. After interacting with the player, Pocketcat will say how happy it is and how much life is beautiful. Living in the depths of a prison, with people tortured and mutilated, its positive view of life is definitively out-of-place. Pocketcat sells interesting artifacts: a powerful sword, a book that allows saving once everywhere, and the Necronomicron! Strangely enough, you cannot buy anything with gold in its shop. Because the Pocketcat is using another coin.

In the most normal and joyful way, Pocketcat will exchange its powerful artifacts for… human children. The cartoon-ish and joyful character is, in reality, a sort of children predator, a mischievous creature exchanging items for kids. Even one of the main characters could be exchanged in this way, as in other evil deals (for more info check my article in Evil Quests section: Fear & Hunger: the many ways to permanently sacrifice the Girl [Evil Quests]). Who or what is the Pocketcat? It is not only a merchant enslaving of kids for who knows which disgusting purpose, but also a more ancient and evil being.

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By asking information about the Pocketcat to the New Gods, the player will know that the Pocketcat is a Trickster associated with the ancestral Moon God. The Moon God is hidden and mysterious in Fear & Hunger, but it looks like that will be more integrated into the plot of the sequel: Termina. Anyway, the Pocketcat is clearly something more ancient and powerful than a sick and deviated merchant. The origins of the mysterious Pocketcat are also revealed inside a book, apparently telling a sort of fairytale.

The book tells the story of a child called Willem, ignoring his mother’s warning going to play in the woods during a rainy day. But as his mother says, rainy days bring problems to children. The Pocketcat suddenly emerges from the bushes, stalking the kid till home, with its big glowing eyes. When safe at home, the boy will find a parcel addressed to him, with a mouse printed on it and catnip inside. He was marked as prey from the Pocketcat. In a picture from the book, the creature is unnaturally tall, “twice as tall as Willem’s father would be.” The hidden nature of sexual predator of this entity is even more highlighted in the book, since “its hand was moving swiftly inside its pocket while the two big yellow eyes glee’d inside a burlap bag in great excitement.” Maybe this is why it is called the pocket-cat.

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The player can also witness the true boogeyman’s nature of the Pocketcat. During a dreamlike flashback, the player will visit a town before the madness started to spread, a more peaceful compared to the insanity of the dungeon. However, in the darkness of an empty corridor, a kid is running, maybe scared of the darkness behind him. There is no time to do anything since something will drag the kid in the darkness. Before everything gets silent again, the distorted smiling face of the Pocketcat will briefly appear in the darkness.

A boogeyman, a servant of an ancient God, a slaver, and a merchant, the Pocketcat is all these things, and probably more. An ancient being who hides its true evilness behind a cartoon-ish facade, playing its own game with very mysterious rules. Another disturbing character in the grim world of Fear & Hunger.