Labyrinth of Loot - DLC
Final part of Labyrinth of Loot
The developers of Good Games For You take a moment to reflect on the events that have transpired after they released their first ever game as an independent studio. One member is appalled at what happened. Another is excited and curious about the level of technology this development kit has revealed. And yet they cannot discount the effect they have had and the statement they made to the rest of the world.
Where do they go from here?
Enjoy!
DLC
BlueberryPossumLandslide has signed in.
Amistak321 has signed in.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan has signed in.
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BlueberryPossumLandslide: Can someone please explain to me what the fuck just happened!?
Amistak321: Yeah! Why the hell did everyone who played our game turn into hot, gay minotaurs!?
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: You think they’re hot?
Amistak321: I call them as I see them.
Amistak321: No commentary on them being gay?
BlueberryPossumLandslide: Bitch, non-binary. I don’t give a fuck about who fucks whom. I just want to know why they suddenly turned into cows, lost all sense of decency and obsessively started ‘recruiting’ other players!
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Where’s NAN anyway?
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Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx has signed in.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: The man of the hour. Care to explain yourself?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Sorry I’m late. Was in the shitter when I got the ping you guys wanted to talk.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: And what’s to explain? We did exactly what we set out to do. We started a change in the game industry.
Amistak321: By turning everyone into the very same minotaurs that allegorically ties them to the title of Labyrinth of Loot?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: That wasn’t me. That was all you.
Amistak321: Bullshit. And I mean that both as a pun and a statement of my disapproval.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Give him a second to explain.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Thanks, LOL.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Okay, so long story-short, what we created was a reality virus.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: If I didn’t have my name on all this, I would log off now and block you. What the fuck is a ‘reality virus’?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Just what it’s name suggested. A virus that alters reality itself. And propagates itself.
Amistak321: What kind of weed have you been smoking?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: I’ve been clean for the past decade. And I’m being serious.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: What we created was a self-propagating, non-sentient organism that follows a set of instructions, finds its target population and proceeds to replicate itself by transforming the target into a host of itself.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: LOL, you’re in world of computing, right? Aren’t there a lot of theoretical computing models out there?
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: …
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Fuck. Holy shit. HOLY FUCKING SHIT!
Amistak321: What? What is it!?
BlueberryPossumLandslide: LOL?
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Give me a few minutes. I need to check something.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan as gone AFK.
Amistak321: While he’s gone, NAN… What did you mean when you said I made them into minotaurs? I’m the goddamn artist. I can’t program that shit. We don’t even have minotaurs in the game.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: But it was in the back of your mind. There was something in your intent. Something in your heart that said those loot boxes are associated to bovines for some reason.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Admit it. What was it? You were always a better at the concept stage than the rest of us.
Amistak321: …
Amistak321: *sigh*
Amistak321: Fine. Look… I just had this fleeting idea that the reason loot boxes became so prevalent and polluted the gaming industry for a bit is because it called out to the stubborn part of our human brains.
Amistak321: That risk/reward system that keeps telling us that the next pull will be the big one. Just spend a little more and you’ll get that ultra-rare drop. Yeah I could blame the predatory corporations that create such exploitive systems but they wouldn’t play the game, right? I was thinking about those stories about kids spending thousands of dollars to spam these damn cancer cubes…
Amistak321: And I guess… I thought that cows were pretty much as stubborn as they get. It’s one of the reasons why I suggested the name ‘Labyrinth of Loot’. Because, you know, minotaurs. Bulls. Labyrinth.”
Long.Overdue.Leviathan is online.
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Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Back.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Fucking hell, NAN. Were we messing with a goddamn biological computer!? Did we use a bio-computer to actually program a videogame and it somehow evolved and became a virus!?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Thinking too small, LOL. Close, but not close enough. Bio-computers would mess with people’s physiology if it became infected with a virus that propagated.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: But how do you explain the alteration in cognition that people experienced? How people just seemed to ignore the changes? How even with huge minotaurs with milkers that size of people’s heads or cocks that would destroy any ass, no one blinked an eye?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Or even how people who were related to these individuals in some way just accepted that they are now minotaurs and had always been minotaurs?
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: No… It isn’t… You’re joking… This can’t really be…?
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: A quantum computer!?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Better.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: Slow it down for those of us that don’t know shit about theoretical computing. The fuck is a quantum computer?
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: It’s a super-advanced computing model. One that uses the principles of quantum mechanics to perform computations. It’s an emerging technology. Really expensive. Like government-level spending. They shouldn’t be compressed into something like a headset that can be used for game development.
Amistak321: But if it isn’t a quantum computer, then what is it?
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: …
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: No… It’s impossible! It’s not real!
BlueberryPossumLandslide: Get it over with, man. What the fuck is sitting two feet away from me right now!?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: A temporal computer.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: A device that can use the very fabric of reality for its computing. We are literally using the entire universe to perform our calculations and run our game.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: That’s why everything was so realistic. So well-defined. What we literally did was partition a bit of our own universe with its own rules and laws. But because it was still tied to our reality, it has an effect on our dimension.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Even the smallest of thoughts during development alters the very rules of how the game works and how it interacts with the rest of the universe.
Amistak321: Oh fuck… You’re saying because I thought it’d be funny to insert bull-people into a game called Labyrinth of Loot, people started turning into cow-people!?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Not just you.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Blue, weren’t you talking about how people get all up in each other’s sexuality all the time? That governments, societies and entire groups become obsessed with who people fuck and what their preferences are? That we’ve stigmatized sex so much that things would be much better if people just didn’t care anymore?
BlueberryPossumLandslide: I did.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: And is that why everyone that was infected became horny and just started having sex with whomever they could all the time.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Probably.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: LAN, weren’t you railing about the stereotypes of gamers always being sexually undesirable, anti-social nerds? That despite the rise of streamers and e-sports, there is still this perception that anyone who plays a game is an unfit, unclean nerd?
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Let me guess.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: That’s probably why everyone that was infected became incredibly attractive by modern standards despite being minotaurs?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Exactly. And as for me, it was my desire to change the world in the least violent way possible that allowed Labyrinth of Loot to change people without causing any sort of conflict. Probably the reason why everyone doesn’t even flinch when they see a seven-foot-tall bull-man walking up to them and urging them to play our game or even question who we are.
Amistak321: You sick fuck! You knew this would happen!
Amistak321: You planned this!
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Hahaha! I didn’t think we would be turning people into furries! But the game did what we hoped it would. We made a statement.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: And what is that statement? That we’re a bunch of reality terrorists!?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: No. Loot boxes were a dark mark our industry’s history. A novel concept that preyed on vulnerable people’s risk/reward instincts that was abused by corporate greed.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: But when implemented well. When tied to the core of a game and its mechanics in a non-intrusive way that didn’t take away from the fun, they really are just another form of randomized loot that we see in older games.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: The pursuit of monetary gain corrupted what was essentially a core mechanic in so many games into an excuse for society to view videogames as a whole as another front for gambling.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Your silence and the fact you haven’t logged out yet suggest you agree with me.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: I don’t disagree. The methods are… weird and the results are not what I expected but… they’re not unwelcome. Changing people’s minds this way… Well… It’s not like we forced them to play the game. In the end, they chose to play it.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: I’m going to guess there’s some sort of hypnotic suggestion in there but if they’re not strong enough to resist that, then that’s their fault.
Amistak321: I suppose there’s some kind of ironic justice in seeing people turn into addicted minotaurs after playing our game even if we created it as a mockery of the same addictive gaming we’re railing against.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: And we’re now trapped, aren’t we? We put our names on this thing. It’s out there. There’s no going back.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: I won’t hold you guys hostage. If you want to drop off the project, you’re free too.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Fair warning, though. I’m not going to stop.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: There’s too much shit in this industry. I’m just cleaning it up. If that means turning people into horny, anthro furries so be it. As long as I get to drown out all the horrible practices that pollute videogames these days.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: I mean, look at it this way. Beyond the initial cost to buy the game, it’s not like we get any money from it, right? That money is basically being spent to pay the licensing fee to sell it on various digital platforms.
Amistak321: Yeah. I suppose. Wouldn’t feel right taking money from people who we made into addicts…
BlueberryPossumLandslide: Doesn’t seem like they are addicts. From what I see, they’ve got balanced lives. Hell, we might even be balancing it for them…
BlueberryPossumLandslide: And we now know what we’re getting into. We can control stray thoughts or even use it to our advantage when making our next game.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: That’s the spirit.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: So you two are still in on this?
Amistak321: Now that I’ve had a second to calm down… I think this could actually be a good thing. I’m still in.
Amistak321: Just answer me this. Why did everyone turn gay?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: I think it’s a merger of all of our intentions. If people just started fucking one another and producing minotaur babies without little regard of the resources that would take, we’d be in a whole lot of trouble. So our players all became gay so that when they get fucked or do fuck, they aren’t pumping out calves. Pregnancy could take away from precious game time, after all.
Amistak321: I hate that you’re right about that…
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Blue? You still with us?
BlueberryPossumLandslide: You know me. I hate leaving a project unfinished. And we’re just getting started.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: What about you, LOL? You’ve been really quiet.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Honestly, I’m still in shock that I have a temporal computer sitting right next to me. Never even thought that was possible and my mind is spinning.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: Fuck the ethics of this. I want to see what this baby can do!
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Hahaha. Come on, we’re not monsters. We have to remain somewhat ethical here. Maybe we can throw a personal vendetta here and there but like Blue said, we’ve got to control ourselves. A stray thought and a single megalomaniac inclination could cause us to end the world or worse… turn us into the very things we’re trying to fight against.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: But I do have an idea on who our next target should be.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: Oh yeah? What are we going after next? Corporate oversight? Unnecessary padding? Unskippable cut scenes?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: lol. I’ll put those on the list. But no, let’s let Labyrinth sit and stew for a bit. Maybe we can pull out a summer update or something to keep it alive. I’ll shoot you all a text on when we can meet next.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: For now, let’s enjoy the results.
Amistak321: Fair. See you all later.
Amistak321 has logged off.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan: I’m going to see what the markets are saying about Labyrinth. I think it’s safe to say we want to stay under the radar for now.
Long.Overdue.Leviathan has logged off.
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BlueberryPossumLandslide: Hey, NAN. Where did you say you got these dev kits from again?
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: Some weird seller I had never heard of. They call themselves ‘NexGen Gaming’. Not publicly traded. Though apparently they’re part of some group of corporations.
BlueberryPossumLandslide: And we’re trusting another corporation? I thought we hated corporate oversight.
Xxx_NotAN00B_xxx: We do. But apparently, the Nexus Conglomerate isn’t like other corporations…