The Happyhills Homicide (2024)

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The Happyhills Homicide is an Action Adventure Horror Video Game that was released on November 11, 2022. It was developed and published by Copperbolt (also known as Daniël Weldink) for the PC.

Happyhills is a town like most other places. It has houses, farms, a mall, a bar, a hospital, and a lot of other things. It is in this town that a man wearing a clown mask starts going into these places for the sole purpose of murdering someone. Eventually, the police become aware of his killings and try to stop him. Who will win? The police or the killer?

If you would like to see playthroughs of The Happyhills Homicide on YouTube, please see the following videos:

• A playthrough of the game without commentary by Alpha Beta Gamer.
• A playthrough of the game without commentary by BalanceStone.
• A playthrough of the game with commentary by ManlyBadassHero.

Tropes used in The Happyhills Homicide include:

• Action Girl: In Tape 16, Madison Carpenter puts a pillow in her bed as a decoy, gets a knife and hides in the closet. When The Pale Grin gets close enough, she jumps out and tries to stab him four times. After he dodges all four blows, she drops the knife and runs. He gets a bat, throws it at her, hitting her in the head, and she falls down the stairs and dies on impact. She gets points for trying, at least!
• All Bikers Are Hells Angels: The biker gang in Tape 18 are tattooed, wear leather vests, are armed with knifes, and definitely have an outlaw biker vibe.
• All of the Other Reindeer: As a flashback to June 30th, 1982, reveals, almost everybody at Westpine High, except for Madison Carpenter, hated John Wade. They considered him a freak, an idiot, a weirdo, an asshole and gross. It seems that he had a habit of leaving gifts for Madison Carpenter. The first problem with that is that the gifts contained something dead or rotten because flies would keep buzzing around them. The second problem is that Madison is a teenager and a high school student, while John is a thirty-something janitor. The third problem is that he had an obsession with her, and everyone knew it. While they did not treat John well, he was engaging in creepy behavior.
• Alone with the Psycho: In most of the tapes, the victims are all alone when The Pale Grin comes for them. The twist is that you are playing the psycho. In Tape 20, you play as Detective Bryan Pawalski as he enters Westpine High alone and tries to take down The Pale Grin.
• Asshole Victim: Gordon Baker, the victim of Tape 1, has a criminal record that lists production and distribution of underaged p*rnography as well as stalking playgrounds. Hank Wallace, the victim of Tape 4, has a criminal record that lists drunk driving and arson. Averted with Bill MacSawyer, the victim of Tape 14, who does not have a criminal record.
• Attack Reflector: In Tape 10, The Pale Grin puts a garbage can lid over his torso and simply walks up to one of the football players. The victim shoots several times, but the bullets bounce off the lid. Once The Pale Grin gets close enough, one of the bullets bounces off the lid and hits the victim through one of eyes, killing him instantly.
• Badass Boast: In Tape 15, The Pale Grin says to Detective Bryan Pawalski, "I AM DEATH…." He is quite capable of backing up those words, as the previous tapes show.
• Bear Trap: In Tape 3, The Pale Grin uses this to keep the victim in one spot before he uses a lawnmower on him. In Tape 14, The Pale Grin has to use a rake to disarm bear traps that Bill MacSawyer set. In Tape 20, The Pale Grin sets a number of bear traps and Detective Bryan Pawalski has to evade them.
• Big Bad: The Pale Grin. The twist is that you play as him. Another twist is that you will also play as Detective Bryan Pawalski and take The Pale Grin down at the end of the game.
• Black Dude Dies First: Played with. The very first character to die in the whole game is a white dude. However, in Tape 10, the black football player dies before the white football player.
• Bleep, Dammit!: In the game, a number of get words censored half-heartedly, such as "f*ck," "motherf*cker," "assh*le," "sh*t," and "bullsh*t."
• Book Ends: Tape 1 ends with the appearance of the title "THE HAPPYHILLS HOMICIDE." Likewise, Tape 20 ends with the appearance of the title "THE HAPPYHILLS HOMICIDE."
• Bottomless Magazines: In Tape 19, the SWAT team members never seem to run out of ammo with their submachine guns. In Tape 20, Detective Bryan Pawalski never has to reload while shooting at The Pale Grin.
• Bulletproof Human Shield: In Tape 19, The Pale Grin takes a SWAT team member hostage to use him as a human shield and a gun. This works in his favor, because the hostage is wearing body armor.
• Cacophony Cover-Up: In Tape 4, the victim has a dog that will wake up and start barking if The Pale Grin makes too much noise, so what can he do? Well, as it turns out, there is a thunderstorm that night, so all he has to do is time it so that he smashes the window and walks in the same room as the dog when the thunder is booming.
• Chainsaw Good: In Tape 5, The Pale Grin gets a chainsaw, lures the victim to the right spot, and cuts him in half from behind.
• Combat Pragmatist: In Tape 18, The Pale Grin uses a knife, a broken pool cue and a broken bottle to kill 15 biker gang members before taking a crossbow and killing their leader with it. In Tape 19, The Pale Grin take a sledgehammer, kills off SWAT team members by hiding in doorways and bashing them from behind, takes one hostage and uses him as a weapon and a shield against them, steals the SWAT team truck and uses it to run over the SWAT team members and the victim. The Pale Grin will do anything to win a fight.
• Content Warnings: You will get a message warning you of violent and graphic content in the game. The warning is warranted, because the game demonstrates how you can have graphic violence in a pixel art game.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: In the first Happyhills Vice segment, Detective Bryan Pawalski discovers the message "I AM WRATH," written in blood. In the second segment, he discovers the message "I AM RETRIBUTION," written in blood. In the third segment, he discovers the messages "HATE," "DEATH," "JUSTICE," and "NOTHING CAN STOP WHAT THEY DESERVE! DEATH IS THEIR GIFT!" written in blood. In the fourth segment, he discovers the message "I AM SORRY," written in blood.
• Creepy Souvenir: In Tape 20, Detective Bryan Pawalski finds out that The Pale Grin made videotapes of the murders that he committed. Bryan is naturally disgusted.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: In Tape 3, after using a bear trap to keep the victim immobilized, The Pale Grin starts up a tractor, drives up to the side of the victim, and just watches as the lawnmower slices him up. In Tape 7, The Pale Grin drops a bar of soap next to Tyler, moves a bench in place, and pulls the fire alarm, causing Tyler to slip on the soap and fall on the bench such that he rips his jaw open, and The Pale Grin shoves the bench in and kills Tyler. In Tape 9, The Pale Grin brings a ceiling fan down such that the two young ladies get their heads mostly chopped off. In Tape 13, The Pale Grin sneaks up on the victim, grabs him, rams his face into the stove top 15 times and follows it up by pouring hot coffee on the stove top.
• Danger Takes a Backseat: Tape 16 features a twist on this. The twist being that you are playing as the danger and you go into the backseat to kill the cop from behind. The cop actually thought that it was a cop named Dave bringing him donuts.
• Deadly Rotary Fan: In Tape 9, The Pale Grin lowers a ceiling fan and lets the two young ladies ride right into it, losing most of their heads in the process.
• Determinator: The Pale Grin never gives up. When he decides that you have to die, he will slaughter anyone who tries to stop him. He has slaughtered a biker gang and even a SWAT team on his way to killing the people who he is convinced have wronged him. Detective Bryan Pawalski is the only one to take him down, but even then, he just recovers and escapes.
• Dirty Coward: The blond football player in Tape 10. He left his teammate to die when The Pale Grin turned off the power. As the flashback to June 30th, 1982 reveals, he decided to abandon John Wade and run when his prank of setting the door on fire went wrong and set the whole school on fire. It seems that he will always prioritize saving himself and throwing everyone else under the bus when the chips are down.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Pale Grin practically rips his victims to shreds. Why is he doing this? A flashback to June 30th, 1982, reveals that he was a janitor who had been left behind when a fire burned down Westpine High. Before that, his creepy behavior towards a high school student subjected him to insults and bullying by almost everybody at the school. While his rage is understandable, it is debatable as to whether his response is truly proportionate to what happened one year ago.
• Donut Mess with a Cop: During the parts of the game where Detective Bryan Pawalski investigates the murders, one of the cops is always holding a donut. That same cop also makes an appearance in Tape 17. It is possible that the cop with the donut is named Dave.
• Drop the Hammer: In Tape 19, The Pale Grin finds a sledgehammer that he intends to use to murder the janitor. However, the arrival of a SWAT team forces him to hide and come up with a different strategy to murder the janitor. In Tape 20, The Pale Grin arms himself with a sledgehammer as Detective Bryan Pawalski shows up at Westpine High to find him and bring him in.
• Electrified Bathtub: In Tape 2, The Pale Grin kills the victim by throwing a radio in her bathtub.
• Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: The titles of the tapes hint that The Pale Grin has a twisted sense of humor. The titles include "Spark of Joy" (referring to the electrified bathtub), "Rain of Fire" (referring to the ignited gasoline in the shower), "Don't Drop the Soap" (usually refers to prison rape, but here, he tricks the victim into slipping on a bar of soap), "Just Rel-axe" (a joke referring to the word "relax" and the fire ax used as the murder weapon), "Number One Fan" (usually refers to someone who likes something a lot, but here, he uses a ceiling fan as the murder weapon), "Lights Out" (refers to the literal lights that he turns off and to the figurative lights that he snuffs out), "Motel Killifornia" (instead of California, he substitutes "Cal-" with "Kill-" to refer to the murder that he committed at the motel), "Medium Rare" (usually refers to steak cooked such that the outside is browned and the inside is still partially red, but here, he burns the victim to death), and "Kill 'Em Mall" (he substitutes "all" with "mall" to refer to all the people that he murdered at the mall).
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • Tape 7 features The Pale Grin, a serial killer, targeting two football players named Tyler and Chad. According to the flashback to June 30th, 1982, Tyler was complicit in a prank that set John Wade's door, and then Westpine High, on fire, and he abandoned John at the ringleader's urging. Chad is a rude, entitled bully who treated John like a slave.
  • Tape 10 features The Pale Grin targeting two more football players. According to the flashback to June 30th, 1982, the blond football player was the one behind the prank that wound up setting the school on fire and the one who chose to abandon John. All the other football player did was smoke a cigarette and hang around Chad.
  • Tape 18 features The Pale Grin targeting a biker gang leader and, by extension, his gang. This biker gang is clearly based on the Hells Angels, if their willingness to stab people with knives is any indication.
• Eye Scream: In Tape 10, one football players is killed by a reflected bullet going through one of his eyes. In Tape 12, The Pale Grin kills the victim by stabbing her in the eyes with a coat hanger 20 times.
• Final Girl: Madison Carpenter has the hallmarks of this. She is a brunette, probably a virgin, and does not drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or take drugs either. She survives in Tape 15, but The Pale Grin kills her in Tape 16. Oh, and his last target is a janitor in Tape 19. Having said that, Detective Bryan Pawalski gets the information that he needs to track down and confront The Pale Grin while investigating Madison's death.
• Four Is Death: In Tape 7, the football uniform that The Pale Grin puts on has the number four on it. Considering that he is a serial killer, this does not bode well from everyone else.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: The Pale Grin does not talk very much, but when he does, he has black speech bubbles with red text. This is sharp contrast to everyone else, who have white speech bubbles with black text.
• Half the Man He Used To Be: The Pale Grin cuts the victim in half with a chainsaw in Tape 5. The Pale Grin cuts the blond football player in half with a machete in Tape 10.
• Hero Antagonist: Detective Bryan Pawalski is the policeman trying to find and arrest The Pale Grin. You get to play as him five times in the game.
• Hostage Situation: In Tape 19, The Pale Grin grabs a SWAT team member to use as a human shield and a gun. The SWAT team still tries to shoot him, but the hostage's body armor absorbs the bullets. Using the hostage's gun, The Pale Grin shoots down every SWAT team member and throws the hostage's corpse aside once he gets to the elevators.
• Human Pincushion: The Pale Grin turns the victim's head into this with a nail gun in Tape 6. The Pale Grin turns the victim into this with a crossbow in Tape 18.
• I Am the Noun: The Pale Grin has written messages like "I AM WRATH," "I AM RETRIBUTION," as well as uttered, "I AM DEATH…."
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: In Tape 11, The Pale Grin gets a harpoon, swims underneath the boat, and rams it through the boat and the victim's head. In Tape 14, The Pale Grin stabs the victim with pitchfork before pushing him into a hay bale maker.
• Implacable Man: Averted for the most part. The Pale Grin will easily go down if he gets shot, stabbed and so on. Played straight when you play as Detective Bryan Pawalski in Tape 20. The Pale Grin will take 10 bullets before he goes down, and even then, he recovers and gets away later.
• In the Back: The Pale Grin seems to prefer killing people from behind, as seen in Tapes 1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 17.
• It's All About Me: The Pale Grin, also known as John Wade. At first, the game leads you to believe that he is punishing people for crimes such as producing and distributing underaged p*rnography, stalking playgrounds, drunk driving and arson. However, it turns out that he does not know or care about that. He is actually punishing them for leaving him to die in Westpine High when it wound up on fire. Of course, there are hints that he was already planning to murder those people, because they were insulting and bullying him over things like not cleaning things up and leaving rotten or dead gifts for a high school student named Madison Carpenter who he was obsessed with. His interactions with Madison Carpenter show that he only thinks in terms of how she makes him feel and not the other way around. Very tellingly, when he kills her in Tape 16, he actually wonders why she had to run from him.
• Jerkass: Chad in Tape 7 stands out by being unnecessarily rude and unpleasant.
• Karma Houdini: After killing all of the people on his hit list, The Pale Grin is taken down by Detective Bryan Pawalski. However, The Pale Grin recovers from that, gets away and disappears into the shadows.
• Kick the Dog: Tape 17 has a moment where The Pale Grin pulls the plug on a patient in order to lure Dr. Hawkins into the room and kill him. It is important to keep in mind that the patient was asleep and had not wronged him in any way. In addition, there is no indication that he put the plug back in. Then again, he is a serial killer, so there is no need to portray him as sympathetic.
• Kill It with Fire: In Tape 4, The Pale Grin pours gasoline into the combination boiler, dousing the victim with gasoline, and throws a lit match into the shower, setting him on fire.
• Lack of Empathy: The Pale Grin is a serial killer, so this is a given. The flashback to June 30th, 1982, shows that he simply did not care about other people's feelings. He was obsessed with Madison Carpenter, but it was only in terms what she could do for him, not what they could do for each other.
• Limited Wardrobe: The Pale Grin is only seen wearing a janitor suit and a clown mask. The flashback to June 30th, 1982, shows John Wade wearing a cap and sunglasses in place of his clown mask.
• Malevolent Masked Men: The Pale Grin is a serial killer wearing a clown mask.
• Man On Fire: Hank Wallace, the victim of Tape 4, ends up like this. Naturally, he does not survive.
• Matchlight Danger Revelation: In Tape 18, The Pale Grin turns off the power to the bar and sneaks in. He walks through a pitch-black area when the biker gang leader suddenly reveals himself with a lit cigarette. This is followed by the lights turning back on and the biker gang attacking The Pale Grin.
• Monster Clown: The Pale Grin. He wears a clown mask, and he has no qualms about killing people as cruelly and painfully as possible.
• Mook Chivalry: In Tape 18, The Pale Grin confronts a biker gang leader, who orders his gang (composed of him and 15 members) to attack him. The only reason that The Pale Grin manages to win is that the gang members made the fatal mistake of attacking him one at a time.
• Murderer POV: In Tape 10, the game switches to The Pale Grin's point of view when he peeks through the window and listens in on the conversation between the two football players. In Tape 16, the game switches to The Pale Grin's point of view when he spies on Madison Carpenter with a pair of binoculars from across the road. Due to his clown mask, it looks like darkness with two circles of light.
• Never Found the Body: After Westpine High burned down on June 30th, 1982, John Wade's body was never found. Little did anyone know that he not only survived, but also came back for revenge one year later as The Pale Grin. After Detective Bryan Pawalski takes him down in Tape 20, he finds out that The Pale Grin's body has disappeared. It is confirmed after the credits roll that he is still alive and hiding in the shadows.
• Newspaper-Thin Disguise: In Tape 15, The Pale Grin is reading a newspaper on the train, so as not to arouse suspicion. Averted in Tape 20, where he is reading the newspaper again, but more to pass the time than anything.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: While it was a good deed for Madison Carpenter to politely thank John Wade for his dead or rotten gift to her, it unfortunately gave him the idea that she loved him. She was also a naïve high school girl, so she did not realize how disturbing and inappropriate it was for him, a thirty-something, to leave gifts for her, a teenager. As it was, he was obsessed with her, and he would go on to stalk her, try to kill her twice and succeed on the second attempt.
• No Indoor Voice: The Pale Grin does not talk very much, and when he does, he will yell out his lines more often than not. The flashback to June 30th, 1982, implies that he used to speak in a normal tone of voice, but he is now so full of rage that he has to yell.
• Notice This: Items that The Pale Grin can take, places where he can use items, and objects that he can interact with are indicated with either a white glow or a red glow.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In Tape 7, The Pale Grin has to put on Tyler's football uniform to get past Chad. In Tape 17, The Pale Grin has to put on a surgeon's outfit to get past one doctor and enter the medical supplies room. Hilariously, that doctor thinks that it is Larry with a new haircut.
• Police Are Useless: Averted with Detective Bryan Pawalski, who is the hero antagonist, but played straight with everyone else. In Tape 16, despite Madison Carpenter getting police protection, all The Pale Grin has to do is to take a dog's chain, get into the back of the police car, and strangle the cop (later identified as Martin), which happens because the cop thinks that it is Dave bringing him donuts. In Tape 19, despite an entire SWAT team showing up to kill him and protect the victim, The Pale Grin manages to slaughter them all along with the victim.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: In Tape 20, The Pale Grin will say, "I'M COMING FOR YOU, DETECTIVE!" You are playing as Detective Bryan Pawalski at this point, and if he is not careful, The Pale Grin will kill him.
• Press X to Not Die: In Tape 16, you must press Z four times so that The Pale Grin can dodge Madison Carpenter's knife strikes.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: This turns out to be The Pale Grin's goal. He blames the people of Westpine High for trying to kill him one year ago, and will do whatever it takes to pay them back. Of course, a flashback hints that he was planning on killing them anyway, and that the fire prank simply gave him even more of an excuse. In any case, he succeeds in what he sets out to do by the end of the game.
• Serial Killer: The Pale Grin is certainly this. It turns out that he is a revenge serial killer. He blames the people of Westpine High for trying to kill him in a fire. Of course, it seems that he was already planning to kill them, because they kept bullying and insulting him. By the end of the game, he has killed around 60 people.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: In Tape 4, the victim gets set on fire in the shower, but you only see his silhouette because of the shower curtain. This is notable, because all of the other murders are shown in gory detail.
• Shock and Awe: In Tape 17, The Pale Grin uses a defibrillator to kill Dr. Hawkins. The results are messy, to say the least.
• Shoot Out the Lock: In Tape 20, Detective Bryan Pawalski does this to open the gate to Westpine High.
• Shoot the Hostage: In Tape 19, The Pale Grin grabs a SWAT team member to use as a human shield and a gun. The hostage yells at his teammates to shoot The Pale Grin, but it results in the hostage being pumped full of lead. Shooting the hostage does no good, because he is wearing body armor.
• Single-Target Sexuality: The flashback to June 30th, 1982, strongly implies that John Wade has been sexually obsessed with Madison Carpenter and no one else. The fact that it is an obsession and the fact that he is a thirty-something and she is a teenager just make it quite disturbing.
• Sinister Shades: The flashback to June 30th, 1982, shows John Wade wearing shades, which indicates his cold and creepy nature.
• Snuff Film: It becomes clear by Tape 20 that The Pale Grin had made recordings of his murders for his own viewing pleasure. If that is not the definition of a snuff film, then nothing is!
• Stalker with a Crush: The Pale Grin is obsessed with Madison Carpenter. Tape 15 shows him following her and eventually trapping her at a dead end. He takes a pipe and walks up to her, but Detective Bryan Pawalski interrupts him. Tape 16 shows him going into her house after strangling a police officer. He goes into her bedroom, preparing to do something, when she jumps out and tries to stab him with a knife. After her attempts fail, she runs to the stairs, but he grabs a baseball bat, throws it and hits her in the head, causing her to fall down the stairs and die on impact. A flashback to June 30th, 1982, reveals that John Wade was a creepy janitor in Westpine High who developed an obsession with Madison Carpenter because she was the only one to treat him with kindness when he brought her gifts. He kept a photo of her in his room and vowed that they would be together some day and referred to her as "My love." Just for the record, he is presumably a thirty-something, while she is a high school student (that is to say, a teenager).
• Tempting Fate: In Tape 19, the victim seems to have gotten away and a SWAT team member says, "Don't worry. You're safe here." Shortly after, The Pale Grin runs both of them over with a SWAT team truck and kills them.
• The Bad Guy Wins: To be honest, The Pale Grin basically wins. He killed off every single person who he was convinced had wronged him, along with a lot of other people. Yes, Detective Bryan Pawalski did survive and bring him down, but The Pale Grin survived and escaped. The odds are that he will continue killing.
• The Lost Lenore: Madison Carpenter becomes this for The Pale Grin. What makes this especially twisted is that he is the one who kills her in Tape 16. However, the investigation into her death gives Detective Bryan Pawalski the clues that he needs to find The Pale Grin.
• The Slow Walk: In Tape 15, The Pale Grin does this once he has Madison Carpenter trapped at a dead end and has taken a pipe. Fortunately for her, Detective Bryan Pawalski interrupts him.
• The Stinger: After the credits, The Pale Grin is shown hiding and then disappearing into the shadows.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: In Tape 1, The Pale Grin stabs the victim with a kitchen knife 16 times. In Tape 6, The Pale Grin shoots the victim in the back of the head with a nail gun around 20 times. In Tape 8, The Pale Grin chops the victim with a fire ax 9 times. In Tape 10, The Pale Grin stabs the victim with a machete 10 times and ends up cutting him in half. In Tape 12, The Pale Grin stabs the victim in the eyes with a coat hanger 20 times. In Tape 13, The Pale Grin rams the victim's face into the stove top 15 times and follows it up by pouring hot coffee on the stove top. In Tape 18, The Pale Grin shoots the victim with a crossbow 10 times. Clearly, The Pale Grin does not hold back when he kills someone.
• Thirteen Is Unlucky: In Tape 12, the victim is staying in room 13. Considering that a serial killer is out to kill her, this will not end well for her.
• Use Your Head: In Tape 7, Chad will ram The Pale Grin against the wall. The Pale Grin kills him by using headbutts against Chad's head 12 times. This works because The Pale Grin is wearing a football helmet while Chad is not.
• Vigilante Man: At first, it looks like The Pale Grin is just killing people for no reason. Then Detective Bryan Pawalski finds out that two of the victims had a criminal record, causing him to wonder if The Pale Grin is this. The third victim that he investigates does not have a criminal record, meaning that The Pale Grin is not a vigilante.
• Villain Protagonist: In a twist, you play as the slasher villain called The Pale Grin. Barring the five points where you play as Detective Bryan Pawalski.
• Villains Blend in Better: You might think that The Pale Grin would arouse a lot of suspicion with his mere looks, but you would be wrong. In Tape 7, Chad thinks that he is a mascot and essentially tells him to beat it. In Tape 9, he gets into the haunted house easily, because one worker on a smoking break thinks that he is a co-worker who is late for work. In Tape 17, he walks around the hospital without issue because they think that he is the therapy clown. Funny enough, he can find the actual therapy clown, who will be surprised but not sound the alarm or anything.
• Wanted Poster: In Tape 17, The Pale Grin will find three of these with his face on it. Removing all three posters will unlock the achievement "MOST WANTED."
• Would Hit a Girl: Not only would The Pale Grin hit a girl, he would also brutally kill her.
• X Meets Y: The Happyhills Homicide is A Nightmare on Elm Street meets Hitman (video game series) meets Assassin's Creed.
• You Know the One: In Tape 18, when The Pale Grin has the biker gang leader cornered, the leader pulls out a knife and says, "Back off! It wasn't me!" The Pale Grin simply kills the leader without a word, so you never get to find out what "it" is. He might be referring to the fire of Westpine High or to something else.

Detective Bryan Pawalski: Well, did your investigation, slick?
Slick: I am sorry to tell you this, Mr. Pawalski…but the body…it's gone….
Detective Bryan Pawalski: The body is what now?!