OFF is a Belgian¹⁾ French-language role-playing game developed in RPG Maker 2003, by the “Unproductive Fun Time” team of Martin Georis and Alias Conrad Coldwood, that released on on May 16, 2008.²⁾ It would later be remade in the Unity engine and re-released on August 15, 2025.³⁾

It's a short, interesting, and nihilistic game, with an original soundtrack that adds to its desolate, mystic vibe. On the other hand, it's also described as pretentious, to the author's own admission.⁴⁾ The remake has not been fully evaluated at the time of this writing.

Georis had conceptualized OFF in the mid-2000s, as he was finishing high school.⁶⁾ It draws heavy inspiration from from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None,⁷⁾ along with Killer7 and Silent Hill 2 being his two favorite video games then. He also gives a shout-out to Akira, Brazil (1985), Final Fantasy VI, Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2, Paranoia Agent, and The Wizard of Oz (1939).⁸⁾

The game was relatively obscure,⁹⁾¹⁰⁾ until the '2.0' translation released on December 25, 2012¹¹⁾ and fueled its massive following on Tumblr¹²⁾ that might've benefited from a Homestuck hiatus.¹³⁾ Regardless, it led to a surprising deluge of fan artwork and fan games, like HOME¹⁴⁾ or Continue/Stop/Rise for example. In response to this, Georis and Coldwood mostly had kind remarks.¹⁵⁾¹⁶⁾

During the 10th anniversary stream, Georis mentioned that the Batter's weapons were named in reference to comic artists and mangaka that he liked at the time.¹⁷⁾ For the 15th anniversary, I had personally requested Georis to reveal the full list,¹⁸⁾ since he only went over the first three, and he actually answers this very early in the stream.¹⁹⁾ Anyways, let's get to the point, here's a full chart of weapons and alleged references:

• The game is rendered as 'Off' at first,²²⁾²³⁾ but 'OFF' has also become a valid rendering.
• Some of the character names were translated, such as 'Le batteur', 'Le Juge', 'Sucre', and 'La Reine', or lost their diacritic in the translation process, namely 'Valérie'. Also, 'Zacharie' is still 'Zacharie'.
• We get told that the Queen's speech doesn't mean anything, seemingly gibberish and contradictary.²⁴⁾
• For some reason, RecDra's translation of the original game changed the tileset, replacing '0' with 'C', as if most people hadn't seen a phone with the E.161 keypad. I did not like this change.
• Some fan works feature a 'Ghost Batter' which stems from a 2010 blog post where the character shouts “FUCKIN' STOP!!”,²⁵⁾ presumably since its existence would easily invoke cognitive dissonance.
• I didn't like the HOME fan game. I feel like that became forbidden to say after its author died in 2017.
• It is valid to dislike the remake's new soundtrack, since the original game literally had a message that its original soundtrack was 'integral' and that it would be a shame to play without them.

• OFFchan

• Unproductive Fun Time - The official website for the group behind OFF, amongst other things.
  • OFF (Thread) on Oniromancie - The game's entry on a French RPG Maker website.
  • OFF on Zanarkand - The oldest known thread. Still exists, but they now require an account.
  • @MortisGhost on Twitter - The author's Twitter handle.
• OFF (Forgotten Dreams) - The 'faithful' English translation, re-balanced with translated pages!²⁶⁾
• OFF (EN v2.0)²⁷⁾ → OFF (EN v3.0) - The well-known 'localized' English translation.
• OFF - The official website for the OFF remake.
  • @offtherpg on Twitter, @offtherpg.com on Bluesky