Video Game / Cafe "Venus Flytrap"

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You play as a fly with a love for sweets and writing novels when one day, you are drawn to a sweet-smelling cafe. Despite some ominous elements of the restaurant such as the Venus flytraps, the fly is nevertheless fascinated by the food. But when he wakes up after hours, he learns the awful truth.

Cafe "Venus Flytrap" was created by Circus Rat Games as an entry for its "Sweet to Sour" game jam, and published on March 20, 2023.

Since the game's pretty short, all spoilers will be unmarked.

The game provides examples of:

• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Our protagonist is a fly who wears nothing but glasses and a green scarf. Averted with the other flies, who wear nothing at all. The frogs, meanwhile, are decked out in dresses, jackets, bowties, and chef's whites.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While the protagonist is polite and considerate, he still angrily stabs the chef frog in self-defense in one of the endings.
• Big Bad: While the frogs don't seem to have a real leader among them, the chef frog comes the closest to this trope since he is directly responsible for preparing the meals for Harvest Day and decides to give the titular fly a chance to run to prolong his terror.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The four frogs all pretend to be extremely nice when doing their job and interacting with customers. They're also revealed to be cannibalistic serial murderers.
• Blood from the Mouth: In one of the endings, some blood leaks out of the chef frog's mouth after the protagonist stabs him in the chest to emphasize that he was seriously injured. Granted, it's implied he survived it as the protagonist called an ambulance.
• But Thou Must!: The frogs will inevitably drug you and trigger the second act of the game, no matter what sweet treat you chose to order.
• Eats Babies: To emphasize how horrible the frogs are, the chef frog casually admits they've eaten their own babies when hungry enough.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Instead of immediately calling the police, the fly instead calls the ambulance to tend to the chef stating that unlike him, he was not a murderer. The chef frog is taken aback by this.
• Evil Chef: The chef frog is a sadistic serial murderer who tries to kill the protagonist, looks down on other animals (or at least the very least flies), and suggests he's eaten his own babies.
• Fantastic Racism: It's clear the chef frog looks down on flies, viewing them as gluttonous and naive "halfwits" who are inferior to frogs. He also seems to look down on other humanoid creatures.
• Faux Affably Evil: The chef frog often speaks in a gentlemanly fashion, polite and pleasant, even as he gleefully confesses to killing and turning countless sentient insects and animals into food.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The chef frog casually mentions how frogs eat their own children if they are hungry enough.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: In one of the endings, to emphasize how sadistic he is, the chef frog sings a song which suggests he finds flies' screams "pretty."
• Man-Eating Plant: The fly is told that the Venus flytraps around the cafe emit a sweet-smelling nectar which brings flies into the store. In truth, the plants are meant to trap flies and the frogs would retrieve them before they are digested.
• Multiple Endings: There are two endings, both of which depend on if you grab the knife from the kitchen before fleeing for the front door.
  • If you do, you stab the chef as he advances, causing him to collapse to the floor. You call an ambulance instead of finishing him of, showing you have the moral high ground.
  • If you don't, the chef says he's unlocked a few more doors in the cafe and gives you a head start, implying he's going to chase and eventually kill you.
• No Name Given: None of the characters have confirmed names, including the protagonist.
• Offing the Offspring: To stress how evil and twisted the frogs are, the chef frog states they eat their own babies if they're hungry enough.
• Sadist: Not only does the chef frog seem to enjoy killing other animals, he lets the fly protagonist try to run from him to prolong his suffering for fun. He even suggests in one of the endings that he Loves the Sound of Screaming.
• Sapient Eat Sapient: Played for Horror. Despite being sapient, the frogs are revealed to eat just about anything sapient (like flies, mice, and their own babies if they are hungry enough) to show how twisted they are.
• The Sociopath: The chef frog is a low-functioning one: he enjoys what he does and takes his time prolonging the main fly's suffering.
• Super Gullible: Due to his Fantastic Racism, the chef frog views all flies as extremely gullible, stating they "would believe anything" and calling them "halfwits."
• Sweet Tooth: Like real-world flies, the flies adore sweets and the fly protagonist suggests he eats sugar daily.
• You're Insane!: In one ending, the protagonist angrily calls the chef frog a "deranged lunatic" and later a "maniacal psychopath" due to his horrible actions.
• Your Little Dismissive Diminutive: To show how much he looks down on the protagonist and other flies, the chef frog condescendingly refers to him as "my naïve little glutton" before trying to kill him. In one of the endings, he also calls him a "little glutton."
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The other four frogs disappear completely in the second half of the game and their fate in each ending is never shown.