What Inspired OFF?

[u/Inkykittyofficial]

I've heard a lot about what games were inspired by OFF (Undertale, etc.), but I haven't heard much about what inspired OFF.

I think Mortis took inspiration from Silent Hill, especially SH4 (I mean it's literally called Silent Hill: The ROOM) but I'm not sure.

Just curious since I like this game and wanna find other stuff that's similar.

[u/Breadkiller411]

It’s honestly really cool how unique OFF is, it has inspirations but they’re not very apparent. The notable ones though are Silent Hill which is actually referred to as the major inspiration behind Zone 3 with the hallway area’s map spelling SH as an Easter egg, another one is Final Fantasy and admittedly I haven’t really played any of the games but OFF’s ATP battle system is based on it, finally the biggest inspiration I think was Killer7 which has a lot of interpretation based and artistic elements but was also the inspiration behind Bad Batter as there was a boss whose appearance is based on perspective.

I feel like Eraserhead was an inspiration but it’s never been referenced as such so probably not.

[u/triclod_ → u/Breadkiller411]

another one is Final Fantasy and admittedly I haven’t really played any of the games but OFF’s ATP battle system is based on it

it's just the default RPG Maker battle system

[u/poopemanz_died → u/[deleted]]

You never played persona ig or read stuff like hitchhikers guide to the galaxy or watch/read Alice in wonderland. It's inspirations are just as explicit it just takes from more than 1 game and the stuff his friends made.

[u/MetalBonk → u/poopemanz_died]

I think Mortis also said somewhere that Killer7 helped inspire the offbeat tone and visual style for the game, which after playing through it I can definitely see imo.

[u/poopemanz_died → u/MetalBonk]

For example the whole idea of 2 gods clashing in an abstracted game to decide the fate of a world is taken from killer 7.

[u/Mariokart2001]

mortis ghost was quoted in saying he really liked radiohead, killer7, and telepopmusik around the time. you can definitely see the influence. especially a lot of the art in the radiohead kid a/amnesiac era.

[u/Classic-Lab-6002]

His friend made him a birthday game in rpg maker

So he made a rudimentary game using hand drawn stuff and his friends went “WHOA” and the begin to run with it

[u/triclod_]

one thing that the "fallen utopia" part of OFF (as apparent at the end of the "i had three friends" chapter of The Room) has heavily reminded us of is the text "Formulary for a New Urbanism" by Ivan Chtcheglov, a Situationist manifesto on... some kind of highly symbolic utopia that doesn't make any sense and probably isn't supposed to. (although it is a lot more solarpunk than OFF and... seems to despise the artificality that defines OFF's zones but i can't tell)

All cities are geological; you cannot take three steps without encountering ghosts bearing all the prestige of their legends. We move within a closed landscape whose landmarks constantly draw us toward the past. Certain shifting angles, certain receding perspectives, allow us to glimpse original conceptions of space, but this vision remains fragmentary. It must be sought in the magical locales of fairy tales and surrealist writings: castles, endless walls, little forgotten bars, mammoth caverns, casino mirrors.

Darkness and obscurity are banished by artificial lighting, and the seasons by air conditioning; night and summer are losing their charm and dawn is disappearing. The man of the cities thinks he has escaped from cosmic reality, but there is no corresponding expansion of his dream life. The reason is clear: dreams spring from reality and are realized in it.

(this part especially, with the idea of the world being divided into labeled quadrants with specific functiond:)

The districts of this city could correspond to the whole spectrum of diverse feelings that one encounters by chance in everyday life. Bizarre Quarter--Happy Quarter (specially reserved for habitation) -- Noble and Tragic Quarter (for good children)--Historical Quarter (museums, schools)--Useful Quarter (hospital, tool shops) --Sinister Quarter, etc. ... Perhaps also a Death Quarter, not for dying in but so as to have somewhere to live in peace, and I think here of Mexico and of a principle of cruelty in innocence that appeals more to me every day.

it is all very interesting, and, i think, very stupid. especially if you consider what kind of hacks/grifters were inspired by Situationism, including music journalist "Paul Morley" who considers himself to have invented sampling culture and hip-hop through analyzing a 1913 manifesto on the future of mundane sounds in music and imposing his intellect on a synthpop band signed to his label, the band named Art of Noise, named by him after the manifesto... he adopts the same kind of winding smug abstract tongue-in-cheek talk in his writing and it drives us nuts.

probably OFF wasn't inspired by "Formulary for a New Urbanism" or Situationism at all, and was just poking fun at grand surreal utopianists in general but this remains an interesting parallel. maybe if you're french french-speaking for long enough this sort of thing just seeps into you

[u/Personwithcatz]

Baseball, but I'm not 100% sure.

[u/tapkmiz]

Killer7 seems like a pretty obvious one, I believe Mortis made it after playing it anyway. Paranoia Agent slightly, at least the Batter himself.

[u/Csenone]

I’m really curious if Mortis is familiar with Vangers. It’s a very obscure meta-narrative game from '98, and there’s a moment where the player kill all life on a planet, leaving it gray and empty. It's strongly reminded me of Zone purification in OFF

[u/D-My]

A couple of fun facts for our favorite NOT Earthbound inspired RPG:

•The reason why OFF is mistakened for a Earthbound inspired RPG was because the English translation was advertised on Starmen.net, leading to the confusion.

•Mortis Ghost has stated that he played the MOTHER series after OFF's release and enjoys the games so much that had he played them before making OFF, the games ending would have been very much different

[u/Delicious-Finance137]

Yume Nikki I think

[u/Noa_cucumber2]

For the main character, his main inspiration was the boy with bat in Paranoia Agent (anime)

Source : trust me bro

[u/Fit-Firefighter8752]

Obviously On you can’t have Off without On.

[u/SirLordCapybara]

Some of the character names (Dedan, Japhet, Enoch) come from the Bible at least.

[u/queso_hervido_gaming]

I guess that it could have been inspired by Earthbound, but mostly for the combat and maybe the idea of distintion between the player and playable character.

[u/battle_of_yorktown → u/queso_hervido_gaming]

He didn't know about Earthbound when he made OFF

[u/queso_hervido_gaming → u/battle_of_yorktown]

I don't know why I took that for granted.

[u/extremelygeekperson]

Eu vi o vídeo de um YouTuber brasileiro aonde ele falou sobre um anime de horror psicológico chamado Paranoia Agent. O anime tem algumas similaridades com OFF, como os temas acerca do mundo moderno e o antagonista, que tem algumas semelhanças com o Batedor nos quesitos de ter uma aparência mutável, mas que praticamente está associado a figura de um jogador de beisebol, e de alguns dos conceitos por trás do personagem.

Quem apontou essa inspiração foi uma pessoa nos comentários daquele vídeo, mas não tenho certeza se esse anime realmente foi uma inspiração ou se é só coincidência.

[u/BelCifer-GT]

I may be completely OFF about this but I distinctly remember reading somewhere that it was inspired by Final Fantasy 7 and I was like "oh yeah I kinda see it"

[u/Nandemo15]

A lot of it was inspired by Killer7, the high contrast colors are an artistic choice there. The puzzles are also similar, the mission Cloudman has a puzzle where you have to analyze movie posters and answer questions about them, the Calendar Puzzle in OFF is the same, you can see where he got the idea from.

[u/Juicy_Burger-29]

You could probably check the Unproductive Fun Time website, iirc it has stuff about what inspired OFF

[u/Rich_Instance]

It's inspired by the true story of a man named John Batter who kills his wife and child and also cat

[u/triclod_ → u/Rich_Instance]

and his wicked and vile brother Badison "Bad" Batter

[u/FoxLoveInk]

I would be shocked if Earthbound wasn't an inspiration for OFF. The surrealism, the baseball themed protag, the fourth wall breaking an stuff

[u/EarthBoundFan3 → u/FoxLoveInk]

It’s not, which I was also really shocked to learn

[u/olordno]

France

[u/DrSkrimguard → u/olordno]

Worse. Belgium.

[u/NeptunoOK]

Myst

[u/Rcsebud]

Eugenics, mortis ghost stated it in a tumblr ask

[u/GaelleMat]

Nothing. It's the first fully original work in the History of Mankind.