The Manipulator, the protagonist of the indie game of the same name, is some form of special agent with a mysterious agenda, infiltrating the headquarters of an equally mysterious terrorist group. Due to the complete lack of backstory and the game's deliberately retro graphical style, absolutely nothing is known about the Manipulator as a person, not even their gender.
What is known is that the Manipulator has the ability to fire "mind bullets" that temporarily allow the Manipulator to take control of whoever or whatever they hit, ranging from enemy soldiers to diminutive robots. Other than that (and the ability to jump), the Manipulator is totally helpless, represented visually by their character sprite not even having arms. In order to take on enemies, the Manipulator must first take control of one, and then do battle with the others using that enemy's weaponry. The game has a minor nod to morality choices: the standard soldiers who populate the levels can either fire regular bullets or non-lethal tranquilizer rounds. Enemies who are shot with regular bullets are killed, enemies who are shot with tranquilizer rounds are knocked out, though they still are incapacitated for the remainder of the level.
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