Video Game / Formthief

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Formthief is a text adventure game by Eggshell Ghosthearth.

After a vengeful ghost kidnaps most of the four-leggers in town, you and your partner Dog attempt to rescue them. After stealing the ghost's scepter, Dog hijacks it to enable you to take the form of any of the animals whose soul you can summon from wherever the ghost is keeping them. Fortunately for you, Dog is a necromancer and knows how to perform a summoning ritual herself, but it requires objects personally related to the summoned — so you'll go all around town seeking them out, befriending (or pestering) the inhabitants, and - of course - peppering the town with raunchy stickers.

The game can be played here or here.

Formthief contains examples of the following tropes:

• 0% Approval Rating: Played for Laughs. Mayor Norbdzok holds office in a bulletproof glass case in the center of the town hall, surrounded by torch-and-pitchfork-wielding citizens chatting and eating casseroles. He literally has a 0% approval rating, according to a poll he refused to leave his chamber to vote in.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Downplayed with Dog, since it's only an alias. Necromancy is not a trade where it pays for others to know your real name.
• Animorphism: After Dog modifies the ghost's scepter, it can give you the form of another animal if it has access to their soul. This is morally questionable at best, but the extra mobility the other forms give you is necessary to advance the plot, so it's shrugged off as a lesser evil.
• Awesome McCoolname: The player character's name is Aeroplane CoolFace, but everyone calls them "Jet".
• Casual Kink:
  • The character you play as is very into bestiality, and doesn't seem to mind who knows it. As you go about the game, you have the option of collecting and spreading stickers with various slogans like 'Help Animals Cum'.
  • While talking to Drunk Pete, you have the option of bringing up his own kink, Plushophilia. He gets very into it, and tells you all about the various plushies he owns.
• Cryptic Background Reference: There are occasional references to an Antarctic War that took place before the events of the story. It is never plot-relevant. This is made even more baffling by the offhand mention that all Antarctic horses are hermaphrodites (there are horses in Antarctica?), which may or may not be related to the war.
• Flying Car: Town Drunk Pete lives in a hovering RV above the park. He sometimes throws things (or throws up) off the side of it, which seems to be at most an inconvenience to the townsfolk.
• Gender-Inclusive Writing: Your gender is listed in your bio as "CLASSIFIED".
• Hive Mind: City Council Member Lavender underwent a ritual to split himself into twelve different bodies in order to "more impatiently experience the pleasures of life". They don't appear to share post-split memories, but they often debrief each other on the happenings in their life.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • You can choose the protagonist's species, but if you don't pick the canine option, you and Dog qualify for this trope.
  • Estelle (a beagle) is stated to be committed to Pine (a mouse) in the "Relationship Status" segment of her bio.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: In addition to humans and other animals (both anthropomorphic and not), the world contains the added species of ghosts, elves, and sentient robots.
• Misplaced Wildlife: This fantasy future Antarctica contains herds of Triceratops and wild horses, although it's possible the horses are leftovers from former human inhabitation of the continent. How they survive the colds is never stated.
• New Weird: Contains elements of science fiction (Robots, government research facilities, psychic powers), fantasy (Magically transforming into animals and souls), and horror (Ghosts and goblins). Many, many strange things happen, and you are unlikely to get context on any of them. The entire game takes place in the far future, with bizarre cultural distinctions and changes to life that contradict physics and reality as we know it. However, you and Dog are focused solely on retrieving lost pets, and thus little focus is given to it.
• Sealed with a Kiss: The game closes on you and Dog kissing.
• The Silent Bob: Dog apparently only communicates in body language. The first time in the game she interacts with you, she realistically only asks for something, and it's up to you to figure out what; but as the game goes on, it becomes apparent that she can communicate absurd amounts of information to you with a simple motion. This is usually Played for Laughs. (Although she's shown to know a number of psychic spells, telepathy is not one of them, nor is her dialogue ever described as such.)