I'm sure many of you have heard of text-based games before, where the game is told through text and through text-based choices, you will affect the outcome of the game. If not, fear not; it is a rather simple concept, but it has one caveat, the community decides how the game gets played-out through a weekly poll!
Every week, there will be a small blip written to progress the current story. At the end of the written blip, there will be a poll below with 3 possible choices: Good, Neutral, and Bad. A bad choice will have negative consequence for the character which causes you to lose one of your three health points; for example, your character gets hurt because they did not take care around a trap. A good choice on the other hand, will cause your character to progress the story (which is necessary to beat the game). Finally, a neutral choice is often the safest, but uneventful choice. It causes you to only delay the inevitable, forcing you into to choose only two choices on the next blip: a good and bad one.
To win the game, you need progress the story 10 times with 10 good/neutral choices, but be careful! Lose 3 of your health points due to bad choices and the game is lost!
There will be hints sprinkled throughout the story to indicate what choice to pick, and you are free to discuss with your fellow club members in the comments below what decision to take, so pick wisely. The winning choice in weekly the poll will be the one that gets fully worked out and be part of the story, while the other 2 get a quick summary about what would have happened.
To further illustrate how this exactly unfolds, let me give you a quick example below.
You wake up lying on a stone floor with barely enough light to orient yourself. You slowly get up, you don’t have any memories of where you are or how you got here, your memories of the past few days in general blurry. Something about a truck? Trying to look for a clue you check your pockets and empty out the contents. You don’t find much, in the dark you manage to make out the faint outline of a lighter and what seems to be a key. Seeing some small movements in the dark you decide now is the best time to test out your lighter. The small flame lights up your surroundings and dozens of silver hamsters the size of your fist with long snake-like tails screech out in panic as they scurry into a nearby dark corner. The sight startles you at first, but after the initial shock is over you feel not threatened by them and you turn off your lighter concerned with conserving fuel. The road behind you is blocked off by boulders leaving you only with a single path deep into the darkness. After some hesitation, you decide to get up and walk forward hoping to find an exit.
After a while you see something big move in the dark. You freeze and decide to not take another step. It is big, filling up most of the hallway in front of you and is hunched over something. It seems to have a thick fur and a massive tail, but more you cannot make out. While you are thinking desperately about your next move you hear the creature whisper something, most of it is inaudible but you are able to decipher the repeating words “Lord Momonga” with effort.
PICK YOUR NEXT ACTION:
1. You decide to hide in a nearby corner, hoping for the creature to go away eventually.
2. It best to show you are not afraid, you decide to keep moving forward and hope it ignores you.
3. You grab your lighter and try to scare it away using the flame.
You decide that it probably best to leave it alone and you look for the nearest hiding spot. You check your surroundings and you find a big rock that would hide you fully so you curl up behind it. It is not comfortable and it takes all your willpower to not shiver too much against the cold ground, but you manage to stay mostly still. Times passes by very slowly and you are not sure how much longer you can lie there, when you finally hear the creature walk away. You peek over the edge to see if it is truly gone and then decide to wait a few more minutes to be sure it is safe. At last, you can get up and you walk towards the spot where the creature was hunched over. You are unable to make out the exact details so you decide to quickly use your lighter and what you find terrifies and confuses you. It is a small shrine with in the middle a painting of a skeleton in a purple robe holding a massive golden staff. What kind of place did you end up in? Deciding it is best to leave before the creature returns you end up walking further into the cave.
(NEUTRAL ENDING, +0 PROGRESSION, +0 LIFE, CURRENT LIFE TOTAL 3/3, CURRENT PROGRESSION 0/10)
You search your mind desperately for answers and remember one of those documentaries you once half-watched on TV while looking on your phone. What was it again, don’t let them smell your fear? That must be it! You take a careful step forward and puff out your chest. A flashback of a different documentary about how a mouse was trying to complete a maze to reach the cheese pops up in your mind and you are filled with determination. You start to walk right in the narrow gap between the creature and the wall with the bravest face you can muster. Surely if you don’t look at it then it cannot see you either. You are almost past it when your arm slightly brushes its fur. You stop moving hoping it did not notice, but no such luck as the creature slams its tail hard into you. “Who dares interrupt my prayers to lord Momonga!?” is yelled at you while you desperately scramble up, some of your ribs bruised or broken. No time to think, run! You run as fast as you can away, too afraid to look behind you. After what feels like an eternity you realize you can only hear your own footsteps and you slow down exhausted, a sigh of relief leaving you as you notice it did not chase you down. You thank the gods you happen to be wearing brown pants as you take a seat to recover your energy.
(BAD ENDING, +0 PROGRESSION, -1 LIFE, CURRENT LIFE TOTAL 2/3, CURRENT PROGRESSION 0/10)
Deep in thought you put your hands in your pockets mindlessly and roll the lighter and key between your fingers. The creature is big but it reminds you strangely of the hamsters you found shortly after you woke up. Perhaps there is a way to drive the creature away? Throwing a rock might just agitate it though and you doubt making yourself big and bonking on your chest would work either, it is not a bear after all. You grab the lighter out of your pocket and think back of how its flame scared the strange hamsters. That could work, most animals are afraid of fire, and it worked earlier too, albeit on a way smaller version of what is in front of you. Why not? You open your lighter and the flame lights up your surroundings. You are right; it is one of those hamsters, just bigger! Having caught its attention, it gets up and speaks trembling. “A-an intruder!? Who are you, how dare you come here!? Nobody knows of this place but me and lord Momonga!” It tries to appear imposing but you stand your ground as you can see its whiskers tremble. The giant hamster tries to get closer, but immediately backs down again suspicious of your lighter. “What are you holding? Is that a magic item?!” said the hamster in awe. You are not sure what he means by that but you take a few steps closer pointing your lighter at him menacingly. “I-I must retreat and inform Lord Momonga!” yells out the hamster faced with this dangerous lighter aggression. The creature quickly grabs what seems to be painting of something and runs off, leaving you behind. Assured it is gone, you take a look at what the creature was crouched down over; it seems to be a shrine of some sort, the painting that stood in the middle missing. What was it praying to? You turn off the lighter and start to walk deeper into the cave, hoping that the exit is nearby.
(GOOD ENDING, +1 PROGRESSION, +0 LIFE, CURRENT LIFE TOTAL 3/3, CURRENT PROGRESSION 1/10)