Game Primer: The Caligula Effect: Overdose

However, the game also leans into fatphobic jokes early on which can come across as jarring when compared to the actual message.

There is one character who may make players expect a TERF like mentality, but this never happens and translations of post game content show her being accepting as well.

A character also mimics committing suicide to aggravate this trauma.

Trauma: Bereavement

Shogo was the former president of the Go-Home Club who was more than happy to step down as soon as someone else was willing to take the position. He’s pretty gloomy, but goes with the flow and will act as a big brother when people need him to.

Shogo was deeply affected by the suicide of a close friend. He feels guilty for abandoning her, especially when she asked him to die with her. He no longer feels confident in protecting others because of that experience. It lead to him becoming a shut-in, unable to move past the trauma. His character story involves a girl blackmailing him into dating her, and him rejecting her as he feels unworthy of love due to past trauma, only to feel he’s back in the same position he was before.

Trauma: Schizoid Personality Disorder

A very detached person and avoidant of people. He’s very emotionally detached and finds it a nuisance that girls insist of drooling over him. He initially avoids joining the Go-Home Club and tries to work on escaping alone.

Izuru is focused on being independent, allowing himself to break away from the trauma of a controlling parent. However, he struggles with not knowing how to handle things on his own since he never got a chance to experience them. He has to learn to both be independent and accept help when he needs it.

Trauma: Messiah Complex

Kotaro is headstrong and stubborn, throwing himself at everything in an attempt to be a hero. He doesn’t think things through but has a strong sense of justice so is constantly trying to do his best. Extremely childish and still has a lot of growing to do.

Kotaro lost his parents and had to move in with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, who all abused him. In real life, he’s small and weak, and doesn’t feel he can live up to the heroes he always saw on TV. He couldn’t even protect himself against abuse, nevermind anyone else.

Trauma: Turning Into Her Mother

Kotono is a kind older sister type that is always looking out for her friends. She’s popular with men, but is somewhat avoidant.

Kotono was raised by a single mother, who she resented for never being more than she was. Kotono ended up spending her teen years drinking and partying, but ended up pregnant and her boyfriend leaving her. She resented her child for ruining her future and felt like she’d become her mother and wanted to go back to the life she had before.

Trauma: Internet Addiction

Naruko is a tech driven girl with access to the real world internet thanks to her phone. She’s both a savvy information source and distrubors of disinformation when it pleases her.

Naruko is obsessed with her follower count and being popular, but does so by stealing popular content and opinions from other people online. With some encouragement, she starts creating her own content, only to be met with backlash and trolling. In reality, she had a history of trolling people online and being horrible to people on things they worked hard on.

Trauma: Dysmorphia

Mifue is easily annoyed and aggressive, often described as tomboyish. She also loves food and delights in all the nice things on offer in the virtual world.

As a child, Mifue was bullied due to her mother being fat, leading to her developing a severe fear of becoming fat and a strong prejudice against fat people, including her mother. Desperate to not be like her, Mifue developed an eating disorder, landing her in hospital and too weak to do anything.

Trauma: Loneliness from a New School

A timid girl who’s easily flustered but cares deeply about her friends and will stand up for them. She comes into her own as she grows more comfortable with people and can start talking extensively about her interests.

Suzuna ended up going to a different high school from all her friends and ended up being bullied by her new classmates. Unable to make any friends, she ended up having to eat her lunch alone and away from everyone else. She’s focused on being able to spend that time with the other members of the Go-Home Club. However, she starts to develop an unhealthy dependency on the protagonist to deal with her loneliness. You can reject or reinforce this.

Trauma: Witnessing an Assault

A heterophobic lesbian who will fear the male protag but fall in love with the female one. Ayana is easily scared but turns violent when it gets too much. She’s friendly towards the other girls, but can only vaguely respect the boys.

Ayana was an underground idol with her friend, however a fan attacked her friend with a bat. Ayana already had a fear of men, but after the attack she was so traumatised she couldn’t trust even her own family. Her brother and father distanced themselves from her out of consideration for her feelings, but tried to stay in contact even when she didn’t have the strength to respond.

Trauma: He’s just fucked up.

Overconfident, polite and charismatic. A Sherlock Holmes type, but lavish in his wealth and status and his achievements. Easily brags about himself as the best of the best.

This man doesn’t have trauma. There’s just something wrong with him and he’s completely unapologetic about it.

Trauma: Fear of Growing Up

Producer: 40mP

A former Ostinato Musician that joins the Go-Home Club. He attempts to appear cool, confident and cunning, but in reality, he’s immature.

Kensuke is scared of growing up as he fears becoming a boring adult. He doesn’t want to get trapped in an uninteresting office job and be someone with no remarkable skills, so he’d rather stay a child forever. He tries to stand out by becoming a musician in real world, but the reception is lukewarm, further escalating his fears.

Producer: Utsu-P

Trauma: Bereavement

Producer: cosMo@Bousou-P

The mysterious goth leader of the Ostinato Musicians. She wants nothing more than to keep everyone in the virtual world. She’s very strict and serious most the time but has her teen girl side that loves vampires and the like.

Thorn is identical to Shogo’s friend that killed herself and makes him relive the moment of her death to hurt him. In reality, Thorn is actually Asuka, Shogo’s former friend who blamed him for their friend’s death. He directs all that hatred towards Shogo and destroying the world that failed their friend. He manipulates Mu into helping him achieve his goals.

Trauma: Dysmorphia

Producer: Asa

A male idol that’s overdramatic about everything. He’s obsessed with his looks and resents Izuru for how pretty he is. Like seething anger and gnashing teeth level of resentment. To a man that’s just standing there. He wants everyone to love him and give him attention.

Ike-P has dysmorphia about his face, making him obsess over being ugly in reality. He dedicated everything to trying to be fashionable, working hard to pay for fancy clothes and haircuts, but it never made a change in his popularity. He ended up watching all his friends living their lives, going off to college and getting girlfriends, while he found himself in a dead-end retail job, wishing he’d been able to be something more, but blaming it all on his looks.

Trauma: Edgelord (Chuuni)

Producer: 164

An anime otaku that lives for the righteous revenge of the tortured hero. He will take revenge on the evil-doers and everyone is cringing at him playing his favourite anime OPs in the break room.

Shadow Knife was the school punching bag, suffering frequent physical abuse from his classmates. When he entered the virtual world, he took the form of his favourite anime hero and enacted his revenge on his bullies.

Trauma: Loss of Wealth

Producer: cyoucyo-P

Mirei is pompous and spoilt and you should count yourself lucky if she’s willing to look your way. She loves throwing money around and having fancy parties.

Mirei was the spoilt rich daughter of an important family. However, one day her family went bankrupt, and she was left without a penny to her name. She was unable to adapt to the life of common people and longed to return to her previous life. The only friend she had left was her butler, an elderly man who’d cared for her since she was a child. He joins her in the virtual world, appearing as a younger version of himself so that he can have more time to look out for her.

Trauma: ??? (You gotta play the sequel for that one)

Producer: YM

Wicked thinks you should mind your own fucking business and let her blow stuff up.

Trauma: Gender Dysphoria

Producer: OSTER Project

A kind and gentle girl and the sweet big sister to the other musicians. Tragically forced to babysit the more unruly members, but is patient with them all the same and serves as their voice of reason. She loves cute things like flowers and tea parties.

Sweet-P didn’t realise she was trans until she hit 30. She realised she wanted to be like the cute girls, but was faced with transphobia on top of feeling too old and overweight for her dreams. In the virtual world, she’s able to live her dream of being the petite girl she wishes she could be in real life. Her story is focused on balancing transition goals and the happiness of the journey to achieving them.

Trauma: Reclusion and BPD

Producer: PolyphonicBranch

An anxious boy fighting between being a loner and wanting friends. He’s a hikkikomori that loves books and being holed up in the library.

Shonen-Doll has a strong fear of being abandoned and rejected by people. He chose to hide away from everyone so he wouldn’t have to face the reality of it happening. He struggles with emotional regulation and can end up having awkward interactions with people or getting angry and screaming if he feels he’s in danger of being abandoned or hurt.

Trauma: Pervert but also Witnessing a Murder

Producer: DECO*27

A pervert that enjoys peeping. He’s disillusioned into thinking this is normal. No one agrees with him.

While attempting to peep on a young woman, Stork happened to notice someone acting suspicious and took pictures of them, thinking they weren’t up to anything more serious than himself. He ended up witnessing the person killing the residents and was unable to stop them. He realised he had evidence, but couldn’t bring it forward without outting himself for his own crimes.

Trauma: Bereavement

Producer: Pinocchio-P

A quiet girl that loves spending time with the fake family Mu created for her, putting them above her musician duties. She uses a voice modifier to avoid using her real voice.

Kuchinashi was the sole survivor of an arson attack on her family home. Her sister survived for a short while following the attack, but the sight of her injuries rendered Kuchinashi completely mute, to the point she had to write her responses in the court case. Kuchinashi longs to be able to go back to her life with her loving family.