PHASE I [ 6 00 ] You wake up, and you're in a camp ground. The graphics aren't bad here, not really, but they're definitely last gen -- not the type of quality expected out of ViViD. On top of that, every once in awhile, the scenery sort of... glitches before going right back to normal as if nothing ever happened. If you're particularly unlucky, your own body parts might glitch out for a moment too, appearing as nothing more than broken code and then back to normal. Pretty weird, right? Oh well, don't worry about it. Totally harmless.
Glitches or not, you're still in a camp ground along with everyone else. There's a fire, there's some tents, some trees. Maybe some s'mores? You got it all. You're also not wearing what you were before. No, now you're wearing some sexy shorts, or maybe you've got a whip at your side, or maybe you've got a really classy fedora. And if you're one of those lucky few who have all three at once? Good for you! Try not to blind everyone with all that sexy.
Or, you know, the game will glitch out again and you'll be stuck wearing something else. That's definitely not as sexy.
PHASE II [ 7 30 ] If you decide to finally go exploring that crazy jungle, you'll find that you have a wide range of exploring options. Seems ViViD's taking a crack at their very own open world game -- this one modeled after your run of the mill adventure game. There are rivers to swim through (complete with alligators)! There are cliffs to scale (complete with angry birds ready to peck at your face)! There are even ravines to swing across on vines (just like Tarzan)!
Actually, the game is made to allow you to do just that -- those vines are all conveniently lined up for everyone to use them to swing across. Go on, it'll be fun. If you miss, you'll just lose a life, right?
Of course, if you overshoot your goal, you might run into one of the other glitches; the white space that you'll stumble into implies that you flew right off the world map and are now in unprogrammed space. Don't worry, you'll dissolve eventually, slowly but surely, and will reappear on the cliff so you can try again. There's no other way around that ravine either. Still, it's only a little frightening watching your body disappear piece by piece, right?
PHASE III [ 9 00 ] If you manage to scale one of those cliffs or swing across that ravine or cross that river, you may find yourself a chest. It's a treasure chest, and you don't even need a key to open it! Open it right up, a cute little jingle will play, and… nothing will be there.
Or the item will be there, hovering in the air, something amazing, fantastic, incredible that you've always dreamed of having and wanting, and -- you can't touch it. No matter what you try, it hovers right out of reach, and you can't interact with it at all.
Oh, and the cute little jingle is going to follow you around now, on constant loop.
PHASE IV [ xx xx ] So you died.
No big deal. Perhaps you got eaten by a crocodile. Perhaps you fell off a cliff. Perhaps another player stabbed you (that's rude). Either way, you've only lost one life and you have two more so it's nothing. After all, this is just a video game, right? It's fine.
Except it's really not fine.
You'll find yourself in a graveyard, tombstones all around you (maybe one of them has your name on it -- hope the epitaph doesn't suck). It's nighttime, it's foggy, and you're with the other players who have also lost a life. For a while, nothing will happen. The cold and quiet of the night will start to seep into your bones -- and then a figure appears. It can't be killed, it is silent and grim, and it does not speak.
Instead, it approaches each person there, reaches out and touches them on the forehead. Even you. All you can see for a long moment is corpses around you, the dead faces of everyone who had been with you in the ViViD level, flesh rotting away and faces caught in expressions of horror --
And then you're all dropped back into the camp ground together again. It's sunny and cheery and everything is fine, and you're down to two lives. Just, you know... don't lose the rest, okay?
BONUS [ xx xx ] You have a butler now, congratulations! He's following you around everywhere. He's an NPC, and not a very well-made one; sometimes his face glitches out, and he doesn't so much walk behind you as just… appears right next to you. He's handy though because if you ask him to, he'll pull up the start menu. You can sort out your inventory there and exit the game if you wish (except no matter how many times you press the "quit" button, you... can't).
Sometimes, though, that doesn't work out so well. Not the start menu but the butler himself. He might appear next to you on a narrow cliff face, knocking you right off the edge, or appear right on top of a hornet's nest, making them angry enough to go after, well, you. Maybe he accidentally summons a bear when all you were trying to do was ask him where the next dungeon is. That's unfortunate.
You can't seem to get rid of him either, no matter what you do. How annoying. Hopefully he doesn't cause you too much trouble because that bear... well, that bear's pretty angry.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
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[Read: he has never done anything like this before, and is fairly sure he's going to die.]
Not sure I'm going to make it across on those vines, If I'm--if I'm being honest.
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[ Maybe??? Rinne doesn't really know, he really just wants to fly across, but he can't. He gives Wheatley's body a once over, and... ]
Is that body really that heavy? You look slim.
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[He seems to light up at that--anything but swinging over a chasm. Wheatley immediately starts looking around for an alternative before he even registers that Rinne is addressing his chassis.]
This? Well, uh. I'm not entirely used to it, is the problem.
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Let's look around. There may be something on the other side. [ You can follow if you want, Wheatley. He's definitely not going to stop if he falls behind. ]
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[He gestures vaguely to what's now his head as he starts following, doing his very best to keep up.]
So it's taking some getting used to, as you can imagine.
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Are you used to moving?
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[He says, like Rinne should know exactly what he means by that.]
Legs are new, though.
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[ No seriously, that made absolutely no sense. Why was he still hanging around this thing? ]
Luckily, learning how to walk is one of the first things you can do. You've already mastered talking, so you're halfway there.
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[He laughs, but it's nervous and trails off quickly as he keeps looking out over the chasm as they continue looking for this fabled alternate route.]
I had a rail, it was sort of--mounted to the ceiling. Got around on that.
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He looked up for a moment, and then back to the chasm-- hey, in the distance...! ]
There's a bridge! [ It was... a little further away, and getting further away from where he was positive he saw a shiny spot, though. Maybe... ]
Would you be able to make it from here?
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Definitely. Not a problem.
[That's about when he trips on a conveniently-placed root, hooray!]
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Rinne kneels, in an attempt to help the poor stupid robot up to his feet. ]
I'll walk you as far as the bridge. That much shouldn't be a problem for you.
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[He manages to pull himself into a seated position, glaring at the offending root like it just killed his dog (that he doesn't have). Wheatley blinks a few times before realizing that Rinne is actually not leaving--in fact, the opposite. He's trying to help him up, so he complies, using him to keep his balance as he stands and steadies himself.]
Won't be a problem, now that I know to look out for...that.
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[ He has no idea how strongly he's being held in place to that chassis, but he doesn't need to have a dumb little orb thing falling into the abyss below to weigh on his conscious while he's proceeding through the game. ]