Life Inside a Computer Game?

Cafe Society
61

What the hell was that?

Must have just been my stomach grumbling. I’m so damned hungry. But no…that sound was definitely not coming from me. Someone else is here. But where are they? These corridors twist and turn every few feet; I can’t get my bearings.

And this hunger!

What’s that? Looks edible. I shouldn’t…but I must. I’ll just die if I don’t eat something. Maybe just a small bite…hmm, not much flavor, but it doesn’t seem to be dangerous. Still hungry though.

Hey, there’s another. And another. These things are everywhere! I’m saved! Let me just scarf down two of three and I should be good to try to find out where the heck I am.

Odd. The more of these I eat, the more I seem to want. I have to stop right now. But I can’t. I have to have another. I feel my stomach fillng up, but yet I find myself irresistably drawn to eat!

What was that? That noise again. There! Down that hall. I could swear I saw something move. I’ve got to check this out. But…I can’t leave this food behind. I know I should but I can’t. My God! Clyde! That looked like Clyde down running down that passage! But that can’t be…Clyde died months ago. It was on the news how they’d found his body in his apartment, bloated, like he’d…eaten himself to death.

I’ve got to get out of here. Run…just run! But don’t leave the food behind. The food is necessary if I get out of here. Yes, of course. I’ll need it on my trip home I’m sure…wherever home is. What? No! Another apparition! And another? There’s four of them floating after me, and it appears Clyde is leading them to me. I’ve got to go!

Oh no. Where’s the food? Ah, a cherry! God, after these tasteless pellets, it’s like bonus from heaven. Musn’t be distracted. They are right behind me. I can hear their undead moans mere feet behind me! Oh no! A corner. I’m trapped! But wait. Another pellet! Bigger than any I’ve seen. What has become of me? I’m moments away from death and all I can think about is eating! Still I cannot resist!

What? Clyde and the others…they’re…they’re fleeing me! That’s right you bastards! Don’t f$%# with me! Come back! I’ll kill you! Trying to kill ghosts would almost seem funny if I weren’t so mad yet scared at the same time. Clyde! I’ve got you! You wanted to kill me? Wanted to eat me? Let’s see how you like it!

62

Good thing we escaped from the assassins trying to destroy my new game. This game will be so realistic, I promise you, just as soon as you jack this special pod into your bio-port so you can play it with me. What, you don’t have a bio-port? OK, this nice man can drill a hole in your back, it won’t hurt more than getting pierced. There, now just make sure it heals and won’t get infected, and … LOOK OUT HE’S GOT A GUN! KABLAMM! There, that was close, let me see your new bio-port. All ready, here we go…

Look at this expansion pack, if we slip it into your bio-port, the game will have new levels! Oops, the whole thing got sucked in! Was that supposed to happen?

Hey, look this is how they make the pods, chopping up genetically mutated aquatic creatures and extracting their organs, if you want to win this level of the game you can’t get too disgusted. Ask for the “special” in the restaurant-- look what happens when you suck all the bones and snap them together: a gristle gun! Quick! Use it to kill the waiter! You did it! Uh-oh, everything is sick all of a sudden! We have to get out of the game! Your game pod is diseased!

Guess what, you thought that was real, but all along it was only part of the game! Now that we’ve destroyed the assassins, surprise! I have to kill you. BANG! BANG!

Back in real life-- Wow, I did it! I beat the game! Oh no, it’s another assassin…

63

BraheSilver, I was thinking of the second one actually, but yeah, the Keeper it was. Did the dungeon critters use a hatchery as a mess hall in the first one, too? I can’t remember, now.

Scuba_Ben brings back fond memories of the first Beach Head.

We had some SIMCity and oldschool arcade gaming in there, too.

And I’m drawing a blank on the rest…
Jomo Mojo that’s not the original System Shock, is it?

64

Ah, Jomo Mojo, almost cheating using a movie rather than a game, albeit a game about a movie. I too am a fan of eXistenZ.

65

Sounds more like Snood or Bust-A-Move to me.

66

Skate, skate, skate…
Pass it!! Pass it!!
Shot. How did he save that?
Ow! Oh come on ref, that was at least 15 seconds after the shot!! Where’s the penalty?
Skate, skate, skate…
Haha, nailed him from behind into the glass!!!
Picked up the loose puck, 2 on 1.
Passed the puck, pass it back!! SCORES!!!
Alright line change. What do you mean no line changes??? I’ve been playing 8 minutes straight, I’m tired!! This isn’t humane…
Now their goon wants to fight me, I’m a scorer not a fighter!!
Ouch. STOP IT!!
Somebody stop him!
Oh the humanity….
Ah, the coolness of the ice presses against my swollen face.
At least now I get to sit for 5.
They threw me out for fighting and high sticking, when did I do that?
The hurting has finally stopped, for now.
Most hockey games if ya didn’t know. :smiley:

67

I wander into this place completely alone, knowing that a wrong step could be my last. I know the higher-ups don’t care about me. If I do my job, survive this dance with the devil one more time, they’ll smile at me and send me back to these fields. If I screw up and blow myself to kingdom come, they’ll frown, shed a crocodile tear, and send the next man out.

My grip is slippery on the flag I carry. I know the explosives are all around me. I think I can… yes, plant it in the unstable ground here. I’m sure there’s a mine there. I’m not going any further. I might as well just give up… lie down here… where it’s peaceful.

But what is this!? The smug round face of my superior, wearing those shades he always wears when I’ve done well, looms before me. I’ve… I’ve done it. I can say goodbye to this lethal, grey grid! I’m free!

… but… what is this? I’m somewhere else… it looks exactly the same as my last assignment… but far, far bigger, and I know not where any of the mines rest. I must venture out… again!? Once again I wearily survey the field. My work here is not done.

68

Um, did you mean that the other way around?

69

robertliguori - Diablo (on the 'Net)?

70

The OP reminded me of “I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, but when I googled the title I found it had been turned into … a computer game!

Isn’t that interesting?

Carry on.

71

I really must read that story …

My little drama was inspired by the simple, horrible thought: what would it be like to actually be the character in one of those shoot 'em up games? If the character could actually think and feel - but was condemned to “play” over and over again? :eek:

BTW, lots of interesting stories above!

72

I hate to admit this, but … when I was younger … I actually wrote novellette-length stories around Defender and Scramble, and wrote up a script for a sequel to Space Ace called “Borf!”.

God, I’m so embarrassed.

73

Someone did a very lousy novelization of Doom, and I always thought I could have written better myself. An example:

"This was the biggest weapons cache I’d seen yet. At least one of every weapon type the demons liked to collect, and plenty of ammo. This worried me; in the past such a cache had always marked a major demon center. There was only one way out, a teleport alcove. It was go through or stay here and rot. With a sigh I loaded up, braced myself for whatever was coming next, and stepped through.

And discovered that after all I’d seen and been through, I could still be horrified. For like an ant under a magnifying glass I stood there under the gaze of the King of Hell.

It looked as if it might have once been the same basic type as the Barons or Cyberdemons. But this one had grown, grown vastly beyond what even demon biology could support. A huge horned skulllike head was embedded into a supporting wall, with pipes and conduits feeding into it providing life support. It’s brain had expanded to the point where an obviously trephanned hole had been made in it’s forehead to allow for expansion. It was hideous, it was pathetic, that any creature could conceivably have endured such an existence for the sake of power. But this thing had.

And even though it’s eyes were milk white, blank and pupiless as a corpse’s, I still felt it’s attention focused on me the moment I appeared before it; perhaps the only living human who ever had. And then it did the last thing I would have ever expected. It spoke. None of the other types had ever vocalized anything but screams and grunts; but now a voice came, so deep it was felt as much as heard, a freight train or a tornado’s roar modulated into words:

I haven’t the faintest clue what it said.

74

Fiat Lux that would be Minesweeper, of course :slight_smile:

75

Lumpy: That was pretty good :cool: (That was your version, right? I’ve never read the novelization of Doom.)

76

I do remember seeing a paragraph-long excerpt from one of the Doom novels, used as an example of really really bad literature. It had the Marine thinking how he’d like to give the demons a “lemon-flavored suppository.” (He was probably referring to the yellowish rockets fired from the rocket launcher, but I have to ask: since when are suppositories flavored?!)

77

And why the heck hasn’t this thread shown up on Threadspotting yet?!

78

Yep, that’s Diablo. And Battle.net.

And IHNMAIMS rocks.

79

I’ve been driving tanks for the Army for years now, but I’ve never been in the driver’s seat of any tank like this before. Where’s the range finder for the main cannon? Heck, how do you even set the cannon’s elevation in the first place? And how do you swivel the turret? It’s like the cannon is always facing forward.

And where is the periscope? I can’t see a damned thing down here. All I get is a forward-looking display screen that looks vaguely like the green display of a nightvision scope … except none of the objects it’s showing in front of me have any substance. All I can see is their outlines.

Oh well, might as well find out how this tank handles.

Slow. That’s how it handles. God, I miss the M-1 Abrams. At least at this speed I won’t accidentally bump into any of those uh … any of those … er … why is everything on the landscape a perfect polyhedron? Where am I, anyway? Legoland?

Yikes! No time to worry about that now. There’s an enemy tank on my radar scope! Got to get within range before he can shoot me down. … Hmmm … up close, his tank looks as bad off as mine does. No swivel turret, no way to elevate the main cannon, he had to turn the whole vehicle just to point his weapons at me.

Just like I have to turn my whole goddamn slow tank just to bring my weapons to bear on him. Who designed this tank, anyway? Whoever it was must’ve been the lowest bidder, that’s for sure.

Wait a minute … that other tank is behind that … um … that cube-shaped thing. (Building? Bunker? SUV standing on its end? What is that damn cube, anyway? Blast this greenish night-scope and its lack of detail.) So if he’s behind the cube … then why in heck can I see every detail of his tank?!

This night scope must have X-ray vision! Wow! There’s something useful in this tank afer all!

Oh, crap! He’s coming out from behind cover to shoot at me. I’d better shoot him first! Okay, swivel the tank 'til the cannon points at him … my targeting crosshairs just lit up, letting me know he’s in my sights … good … now, adjust for range. D’OH! Forgot, this tank doesn’t even have a range adjustment. I can’t lift the cannon! If I fire a shell, it’s just going to pop out of the muzzle and drop straight to the ground. Crap. Well, maybe if I shoot at the ground in front of me, he’ll think my tank exploded and might leave me alone. It’s worth a shot.

What do you mean, the firing trigger is on the back of my tread controls?! What kind of an ergonomic design is that?! Oh, all right, I’ll thumb the stupid button.

Hmmm … the shell came out of my cannon, but it hardly made a sound. Artillery propellants must have gotten really quiet in recent years. Or maybe this loud bass rumbling is just affecting my hearing. And … hey! I can see the shell I just fired on my night scope! It looks like a kinda pointy pyramid. And it isn’t dropping with distance! It’s not following a ballisti trajectory at all! It’s … it’s cruising at a constant altitude a few feet off the ground!

Sure is cruising slowly, though.

<glances at wristwatch> Wonder how long it’s going to take that damn shell to reach the other tank.

<taps foot impatiently>

BAM! Wow! That other tank just exploded into flying fragments. Did they put a nuclear warhead in these shells or something? There’s not even a trace of him left … except … oh no! He managed to fire a shell of his own, at me, before my shell destroyed his tank!

Oh, but hey! His shell is moving super slowly too. I’ll bet I can just back up and turn left at the same time, and dodge out of its –

Crap! I just backed up into a tetrahedron. I can’t move out of the way any father. I’m finished!

Aaaaaah!

That’s funny … the only thing that happened when his shell hit my tank was that the night scope screen got a whole bunch of cracks in it.

…

What do you mean, I have to abandon this tank because its window is cracked?! What do you mean, you’ve got two more tanks just like it that you’re going to make me drive?! Who’s in charge here?! I demand to be reassigned!

80

Ah geez, someone’s dragging a white box around me again. I feel the sudden urge to go trudge towards that big black fog. Whoa! Where am I? I’m in the middle of a big field of some type of green plants. What’s that burning sensation? Oh must be nothing. Phew, this is tiring work. Lugging all these grenades around. Strange thing is…they didn’t give me a gun. Just an infinite supply of 'nades. Hmm…that burning sensation is getting more irritating. It can’t have anything to do with these plants I’m wading through. Is that a little flame on my boot?
…
poof into human torch

-=Unit Lost=-