- when a game uses the 'eating food heals you' trope but for fun there are dozens of unique foodstuffs you can grab that all act as mechanically identical healing items (preferably these are all different types of convenience store junk food)
- when at some point early in a game you are in the player character's apartment and you can pick up and examine a bunch of props that the player character has some commentary on ("my grandma gave me this mug... it says 'world's best grandma' on it for some reason")
- when a character in the game is shown to be (or heavily implied to be) playing the same game they exist inside of
- when a character explains a mechanic like saving or whatever and ends by saying “but I don’t really know what any of that means”
- a dog is one of the wisest npcs
- character shows they are confused or dizzy by spinning their sprite around all 4 directions in high speed before slowing down frame by frame to a dead stop
- local grocery store run by child
