lostcarnival | ⇨ THE GAME CUBE

Who: Everyone who gets caught in the game.
When: Day 97
Where: Hellbound Hallows, the game inside of a cube inside of a city inside of a computer.
What: On Day 97, a massive Game Cube drops on the city of Mainframe, forcing those caught inside to fight against the User for their lives. This log is 100% Hellbound Hallows gameplay. Plotting deets are here.
Warnings: Diablo-esque violence, characters dying, and edgy video game aesthetic gore.

HELLBOUND HALLOWS↴
The Game Cube drops close to the entrance of the carnival - so much so that it will end up pulling a lot of people from it in, out of sheer terrible luck. Alternatively, your character may have seen it coming down and understood what allowing the programs to fail would mean, dashing in to be caught beneath it out of sheer heroism. Maybe you entered the game for some reason in between.

Either way, once the walls of the Cube have passed you, you'll find yourself in a new reality. You find yourself somewhere in the levels of a dungeon crawling game with a dark aesthetic. Some binomes and sprites from the city have been pulled in with you, and all oft them know what to do. It's time to Reboot.

Use the icon button the Ringmaster gave each of you. Tap it twice and say "Reboot", and you'll be able to assume your new form. Maybe it's useful, maybe it's not, but it's probably better than nothing. Probably.

Now, figure out where you fit in to the structure of setting, and wait for the Game to begin.

► LEVEL ONE: Level one is where the Users will enter. With a cold blue aesthetic, it appears to be some manner of underground fortress, filled with many hallways and grand archeways. In a standard game, the enemies here would be theoretically the easiest to defeat, but you are under no obligation to follow those rules. Level one is ruled over by Sora, rebooted into the form of a vampiric overlord. He must be defeated in order for the Users to gain access to level two.

► LEVEL TWO: The colour pallet shifts to purple here, the corridors becoming darker and only lit with scattered braziers and the occasional stream of lava. Banners and tapestries depicting some hellish god line the walls. The traps here are primarily fire based, with lava traps or geysers of flame becoming more common. Level two is ruled over by Yamato, who has rebooted into the form of a fiery hellbeast. He must be defeated to access level three.

► LEVEL THREE: As the colours shift into a sickly green, the Users will reach the final level. The architecture is shaped based on the screaming faces of the damned, and the rooms are large and dramatic, filled with vast obelisks and deep chasms. Subterranean plant life haunts the floors and shadows of this place, and poison traps become deadly and common. Level three is ruled over by the man Gongenzaka, the final boss of of the game. If he is defeated, the Users have won. Do not let this happen.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Aauh, it seems as much..." And hmmm, that does make sense. He watches the cloud fluff around, before looking himself over. "There are petals instead of scales over the wings, though I, the man Gongenzaka, am not entirely certain as to why there are wings at all..."

"Intimidation factor, probably. Plus some rule of cool in there too." Jimmy shrugs and takes another sip of potion. "And people expect dragons to have wings. Western ones, anyway. And you don't really look like a Chinese dragon to me."

"The users are making headway, but I've been sabotaging where I can. Dumping out healing potions, handing out the beneficial ones to the NPC's, that kind of thing. Hope it works."

"Hmmm, this is true...indeed, I, the man Gongenzaka, have never seen such a dragon with multiple heads..." As it is, Jimmy gets an approving nod. "It is good to hear that you, as well as the others, have been working together however. We should most certainly get out of this fine..!"

"I hope so, Gon. I really do. I hate wrecking someone else's fun like that, but we've got a lot more at stake than they do." Another sip, another smoke ring. "Although I should probably be offended that I'm tarted up more than a bakery display case."

"...Tarted?"

He is Fourteen.

"Sorry.. An over-emphasis on 'sex' or 'sexy'. Either to sell your product or cater to what you perceive as your target audience." Jimmy waves his free hand in an up-and-down gesture to indicate himself. "Take this model. I could have been anything. A table with a few bags of money on it, a chest sitting on the..." He stops, wincing at the implications there. "... Okay, let's move away from the too on the nose social commentary."

"But you see what I mean. The bonus reward object in the game represented by this model could have been anything, and the people that made this game opted to make it a sexy slave girl." Another sip of firebreath, and he shakes his head. "This model is pandering. Possibly with some copyright infringement, depending on how closely Star Wars is watching it's IPs." He shakes his head, getting back to his point. "Anyway. The point is, that making this reward object look like this is catering to one particular demographic... One particular group of people... But it's potentially losing a lot more."

...Table? Floor?? Okay they're moving from commentary, apparently.

He does his best to listen-he doesn't catch what Star Wars is referring to (maybe it's like Kozmo), but he does his best to understand. After the explanation, he can only really say one thing-

"....You seem to know quite a lot about how these matters function..."

"Not video games specifically, but I was in Sales. And it's.... Finding the right balance between 'Just edgy and offensive enough to get the word out and bump the sales figures' and 'Too offensive and the sales are plummeting' is hard." Jimmy sighs and shifts around to get comfortable.

"It's.... I see things like this, and me getting kidnapped in the opening cinematic and wonder what the developers are trying to say. There aren't any male slaves, there's no male bonus objectives, I'm not even sure there are any female characters for the users to choose from. And that has to have cost them sales down the road as word of mouth gets around."

"I...see..." So he says after the first bit. But it appears that he grows more and more confused as Jimmy speaks.

"...If that is the case, why did they not merely add such options?" ACTUALLY FOR THAT MATTER- "A-AUH....D-...DOES THAT MEAN I, THE MAN GONGENZAKA, AM THE ONE WHO KIDNAPPED YOU!?"

PRIORITIES

"Because who knows why. Lazy? Pandering? It didn't occur to them? Who knows." Jimmy shrugs, shifting around again because metal thongs are really, really uncomfortable.

Gon's outburst startles him (ow.) and once he gets himself situated again, he looks back over. ".... No? I mean, about as much as an actor would be, when their character kidnaps someone for their nefarious plans, anyway." Wow. That one came seriously out of nowhere.

Edited 2017-06-11 02:04 (UTC)

"....I, the man Gongenzaka, was speaking of myself in the Narration, not in the literal..." How is it nowhere, Jimmy, he's trying to figure out how a plant dragon stuck in a hole kidnapped you!!

"In the Narration? I think I was intended as kind of a sacrifice/offering/bribe thing. Maybe you're stuck in there and you've got all your minions on the upper levels bringing you things." At least, that's how he thinks the story goes. He had about two minutes from reboot to capture and they didn't exactly fill him in on what was going on.

"Hmmm, that would make sense..." Two minutes or not, he is curious after all. "...I, the man Gongenzaka, confess, it's a bit strange...filling the role of the 'final villain', and only understanding the combat methods..."

"Maybe it's one of those deep games with plot and story hidden away and you have to go look for it." He thinks about that one for a moment, taking another sip of firebreath and taking another look at his 'assets'. "Or more likely they figured that their primary audience didn't give much of a damn about the story and wanted to focus more on killing monsters and the bit of bonus titillation."

"My money's on the latter, really."

"Hmmmm, that does make the most sense..." Ahhhhh, he has to sigh. "It is a shame, but I, the man Gongenzaka, suppose it does at least shorten the time that we must be here."

...

"...I suppose once they arrive, however..." ...That'll be it for you, huh Jimmy.

"Yup. I'll vanish in a cute wave and a jingle of coins. It's happened a couple of times now, all by the same player. I think they're trying to help him level. He runs over, taps me on the shoulder, there's a noise of chains hitting the floor. Now I know what that is." He adds with a grumble, muttering and trying to grope for the attachment for the harness on his back.

"And then I stand up, wave a little, and then I vanish. Which, until they get down here to you, meant that I'd have a chance of showing up somewhere else in the level they were clearing." He shrugs. "There's four recolors of this model, and I only show up when the dark haired one in the blue wins. There's lots of places where I can show up, though. So it's not bad."

"Hhhhmmnn... ...Either way then, it'll be the last we see of the other until then. ...I, the man Gongenzaka, should thank you for the moment in that case. Even if you appear elsewhere, I would otherwise not be able to offer that gratitude until after the game is over after all.

"...I, the man Gongenzaka...well. I look forward to seeing you as you should be!" In the meantime though...they may hear footsteps soon.

⇨ THE GAME CUBE

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject