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 May 16, 2008.²⁾ It would later get a Unity remake with Fangamer that released on August 15, 2025.³⁾

It's a short, interesting, and nihilistic game with an original soundtrack that adds a mysterious vibe, but it's also 'pretentious' in a way.⁴⁾ The remake polishes the work, with added bits of intrigue, but the sound design is much more muted and the battle system can get tedious.

The player assists the Batter on his sacred, faith-driven mission to 'purify the world', unraveling the world and clearing out the specters. However, the Batter also removes the zone guardians, purifying the zones into a state of desolation, making you question his methods as the story progresses. After he kills the world's creator, his alleged 'son',⁵⁾ the Judge finally intervenes and gives you a brief chance to switch perspectives.

Regardless of your decision, the credits roll as a rainbow-themed song⁶⁾ plays in the background. The official ending features a void, as the world had been turned 'OFF', while the special ending simply has the Judge wandering the purified zones. If the player has thoroughly inspected said zones, exchanging their grand items for the Aries Card, we get a secret joke ending that involves space monkeys.

Georis conceptualized OFF while pursuing art studies⁷⁾ and released the game when he was a young adult.⁸⁾ Over the years, it was revealed to have drawn heavy inspiration from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None,⁹⁾ Killer7, and Silent Hill 2. Additionally, he has also given a shout-out to Akira, Brazil, Final Fantasy VI, Metal Gear Solid 1+2, Paranoia Agent, and The Wizard of Oz.¹⁰⁾

By definition, OFF was a sleeper hit that initially went unnoticed during its first four years,¹¹⁾¹²⁾ then came the 'English 2.0' translation on December 25, 2012,¹³⁾ and it gathered this massive following on Tumblr¹⁴⁾ during the Homestuck hiatus,¹⁵⁾ inspiring a deluge of fan content including fan games like Continue/Stop/Rise, HOME, etc.¹⁶⁾ Naturally, Georis and Coldwood had kind remarks.¹⁷⁾¹⁸⁾

The prior world faced an unknown disaster that reduced it to ashes, so Hugo creates the Queen, who had the Guardians build a new world which idealized the concepts of harmony, happiness, and hope. At some point, Hugo is afflicted with an illness, then¹⁹⁾ creates the Batter, who performs an 'audit' of a dysfunctional world that relies on five elements, yet it's believed that he doesn't really care about any of this to begin with.

Soon enough, the Batter enters 'The Room' which explores Hugo's backstory, specifically the prior world, his presumably dead parents, and his few influences. Eventually, the Batter berates the Queen for failing her tasks, conducts a 'mercy killing' of Hugo, then the Judge scolds us before a final verdict is made. Of course, half of the fun is speculating which parts were allegorical, metaphorical, or symbolic.

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.²⁰⁾ For the 15th anniversary, I had personally requested Georis to reveal the full list,²¹⁾ since he only went over the first three, and he actually answers this very early in the stream.²²⁾ 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,²⁵⁾²⁶⁾ but 'OFF' has also become a valid rendering over time.
• Regarding the Batter's talksprite, the original concept art shows him having two eyebrows and two eyes, making him 'expressionless' (😑), but the upturned nose idea has also been validated.²⁷⁾
• It should be obvious, but a number of the characters have had their names translated (e.g. 'Le batteur', 'Le Juge', 'Sucre', 'La Reine') or lost their diacritic (e.g. 'Valérie') after translation.
• Quinn's translation changes '0' to 'C', likely to avoid confusion over 'slashed 0' and '8'. I've never liked this change because most people have seen a phone's E.161 keypad, the puzzles are modeled after it, and this actually brings up a new problem of phonewords since 'C' would imply '2'.
• When Zacharie enters Zone 3's sugar storage room, he notably has a slip of tongue saying 'cette ép…', likely 'cette époque' (this era/period), before correcting himself and saying 'cet endroit' (this place).²⁸⁾
• We get told that the Queen's speech doesn't mean anything, seemingly gibberish and contradictary.²⁹⁾
• Some fan works feature a 'Ghost Batter' which stems from a 2010 blog post where the character shouts “FUCKIN' STOP!!”,³⁰⁾ 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 - The official website for the OFF remake.
  • @offtherpg on Twitter, @offtherpg.com on Bluesky