#Gamer System

[aki-hanah]

Surviving in the Abyss as a Wind Spirit

Chapter 3: Peter Pan and Tinkerbell

As soon as I woke up I found myself on the table inside of some makeshift moldy tent. Looking around I was startled to be greeted by his curious azure eyes staring straight at me.  I stared back at him in trepidation. He attempted to pet me. I instinctively reeled back. He stopped. I stopped.

‘This was awkward. Terrifying, but awkward.’

“s-sorry" he said whilst adorning a longing and somewhat regretful expression.

‘Now this makes me feel bad’ she thinks to herself as her perspective of him shifts

Sure, he was a relentless murder machine in the story however, now, he was just a child, not yet the Childe but a child. A child like any of the other millions. He was scared, curious, friendly……not murder-y(yet?)

With great hesitation, trying my best to resist my survival instincts I trudge toward his open palm and

*boop*

It was so much bigger than me. It was soft and warm. Against my better judgement, I let out an audible purr as my small black fur-like feathers puffed up in contentment.

“How interesting”, Skirk remarks as she enters and walks towards us causing me to hide behind his hand only to be picked up and grabbed by her to inspect me.

“While it has been some time since I’ve returned to the surface if memory serves me right, this is a wind spirit. They often appear in areas with high anemo energy concentration, however….I had thought this species went extinct….or evolved and became the Anaemograna” she continues

After a good minute, she tosses me back to Ajax saying “It’s harmless, do what you wish, however don’t let it get in the way of your training” before walking away to give the both of us some space.

I. WAS. SHAKING

If I had a proper digestive system, I’d probably soil myself with the predatorial stare she was giving me. It felt as if she was dissecting me with her piercing pink eyes.

“Are you ok?” He asks with a worried but curious gaze as he looks down at me. I give a small chirp in reply

“Good, my name is Ajax and that was my master Skirk earlier. She’s a bit…..different from normal adults but she’s not a bad person”

“How about you, do you have a name?” I shake my head at this and look up expectantly hoping he’d give me one to complete the quest.

“Oh, can I give you one?” I nodded eagerly

“How about….Feathers?” Really kid, is this all you’ve got I thought to myself as I prepared to nod and accept my faith right before a notification popped up

[STYSTEM NOTICE: THE NAME ‘FEATHERS’ IS A D RANK NAME]

[IF ACCEPTED (*1) MULTIPLYER WILL BE USED ON REWARDS]

[CONFIRM NAME [/] [x]]

‘System, what’s the highest multiplier with their rank possible?’ I ask with curiosity

[STYSTEM NOTICE: A rank gives a (*2.5) multiplier for rewards]

I see Ajax looking at me expectantly before I shake my head ‘Sorry kid but I really need those rewards’

He looked a bit dejected and then all of a sudden with a newfound determination he took a deep breath and started going through names one by one

“Aria, Zamir, Chip, Paulie, Pixie, Tori” he said speeding through names only for me to shake my head and reject each and every one.

By the end of the whole ordeal, he was gasping for air and looked slightly frustrated.

“Common, I think Mr. Beaks is a lovely name” he said desperate

[STYSTEM NOTICE: THE NAME ‘MR. BEAKS’ IS AN F RANK(*.5) NAME]

[CONFIRM NAME [/] [x]]

‘Deny, Sorry kid, hard pass’ I think to myself as I shake my head much to his desolation.

Just before he was about to start round two Skirk entered, holding two pairs of swords and handing one to Ajax saying “Get ready, some slimes are approaching the base. If you defeat them in under 5 minutes, I might give you a break for today”

[multifandomfanboy]

Chapters: 2/3 Fandom: Homestuck, 더 게이머 | The Gamer (Webcomic) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: John Egbert & Dave Strider Characters: John Egbert, Jade Harley, Dave Strider, Rose Lalonde, Dad Egbert, Underlings (Homestuck), Consorts (Homestuck), Karkat Vantas Additional Tags: The Gamer Ability (The Gamer Webcomic), Video Game Mechanics, Alternate Universe - Video Game World, Overpowered characters, Overpowered John Egbert, Broken abilities, Swearing, no beta we die like men Summary:

On his 13th birthday, John Egbert's life becomes one big video game. No, not in that way, in this completely different way.

(Aka me getting really into OP Gamer System fics, remembering all the weird video game physics stuff in Homestuck that has nothing to do with SBurb, and going like "hey, what if that wasn’t normal")

[setokaibapetty]

5 + 1 Friday Fic Roundup: “The Gamer” Girls

Fics with girls/women (mostly Taylor Hebert) have Gamer or Gamer-adjacent powers.

1. The Rising of the Shield Heroine (SV): Taylor gets alt powers in the form of getting the abilities of the protagonist from “The Rising of a Shield Hero”.

2. Recurve (SB): Taylor gets the alt power of The Gamer and uses it to be a hero.

3. Gaming the System (SB): An SI finds herself in the Worm setting with The Gamer power (and scary hints this might not be her first playthrough).

4. All the Queen’s Men (SB): An SI finds themselves reincarnated into the MCU with a Gamer system. This fic self-identifies as a spite fic.

5. Munchkin (SB): Gamer!Taylor as seen through outside POV. Basically PHO.

Bonus: Doomsday Prevention Toolkit (SB): Taylor ends up with the AI from the video game Mass Effect: Andromeda in her head and “tinker” powers that upgrade.

[sunderwight]

PIDW but it's a game.

You play as Luo Binghe, the lowliest disciple of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's Qing Jing Peak. The first part of the game proceeds more or less like a semi-normal fantasy dating sim -- Luo Binghe is bullied and downtrodden, but can seek help and opportunities to build relationships with various female characters, like Ning Yingying and Liu Mingyan. The game's interface implies a truly staggering number of potential romance candidates to unlock, however, so it makes sense that the first part in your disciple years doesn't get you very far in any of the routes.

But then for the second part, things start to shift. You get an option that seems to amount to asking whether you want to make things better for Luo Binghe or not. When you click the obvious choice, that you do, your previously cold and ruthless shizun seems to go through an inexplicable change of heart. You get a weird kind of fanservice-y scene featuring him during the Skinner Demon Mission. Then he features extremely heavily in the Demon Invasion Mission, only to turn up as your companion in the Dream Demon Mission.

After that, it seems like you've gotten onto his route, somehow? Why does the scummy male teacher even have a route in a game like this, though? You try to check for player guides but you can't seem to find any. You try reloading older saves and making other selections, but no matter what you choose, you end up finishing the Dream Demon Mission by moving into Shen Qingqiu's house, and the routes for Liu Mingyan and Ning Yingying and the briefly-encountered Sha Hualing are all greyed out.

But maybe that just means they're inaccessible for advancement for now, or something. And a lot of games have plot points that are on rails, and you can see where Luo Binghe actually getting a place to live would be one of those things. The format of the game changes as well, going from a relatively loose sequence of scenes and interactions to a daily management style, where you have tasks to complete (make shizun breakfast, go to morning lessons, cultivate, do chores, etc) and only a set number of hours in which to complete them. You have affection points, but any time you try to spend them on anyone other than Shen Qingqiu you get an error message. There are dialogue options for flirting with other characters, but they're always greyed out and impossible to select.

Still, you can unlock scenes. A lot of them are just long slow shots of Shen Qingqiu doing things, like reading, or lecturing, or eating. You get missions, and sometimes you meet female characters who seem to unlock new possible romance paths, even though they're still constantly greyed out. Maybe this part of the game's just especially on rails? Waiting for the actual harem-building segment? You kind of like a lot of aspects of it anyway, though. Luo Binghe is an especially compelling character, not at all like the usual sort of non-entity placeholder main guys in games like this. He definitely has personality.

But then you get to the third part. The Abyss. Shen Qingqiu pushes Luo Binghe in, and suddenly you're wondering if you've somehow reached a bad end. You were saving up some of those affection points for later, maybe you should have spent them all on him? Was there something you did wrong to make this happen? You're not even sure why he's thrown poor Binghe away, he was cold and cryptic about it, and now you're wondering if all the time you spent distracted by other things was time you should have spent farming a better relationship with him. You can't help but wonder where you went astray, because Luo Binghe will not stop wondering about it, and wondering about it in ways that make you feel oddly like he is accusing you, the player, of making the wrong choices... but in a way that could still plausibly be aimed at himself, as a character. You feel bad. You kind of want to restart, but you also can't bring yourself to abandon Luo Binghe. You have to see this through, to help him make it to the other side.

Regardless, the Endless Abyss seems like it must be an inevitable plot development. A lot of the game shifts to account for it. There's even an option to essentially select this "thought" from Luo Binghe's internal diatribe, that this is inevitable, and it seems to turn off the litany of recriminations for a while, although sometimes it also results in Luo Binghe... glaring at the screen?

At you?

Anyway the daily management system goes out of the window, and instead there's an energy bar now. Encounters with monsters or the occasional demon woman will lower the energy bar, how much depends on what you choose and how the encounters proceed. Sometimes there are romantic/sexy responses for interacting with the demon women you meet, and they aren't greyed out, but if you try and select them the cursor will jump to another option. You think there might be something wrong with your mouse? Sometimes you get Luo Binghe glaring at the screen scenes afterwards. When Binghe's energy bar hits zero, you're offered two choices -- "sleep" or "think of shizun". Sometimes even if you pick "sleep" the cursor will still jump to "think of shizun", and you'll be treated to another one of those slow lingering scenes of Shen Qingqiu. Except they are becoming increasingly strange, obviously warped by the exhaustion and trauma of the situation, so that aspects are eerie or even disturbing. For example, sometimes Shen Qingqiu seems to be missing limbs, or eyes. Sometimes there's blood on his hands. Sometimes the food he's eating is rotted, or the bamboo house background looks like the Qing Jing Peak wood shed. That kind of thing. You don't mind the idea of harm coming to the man. He deserves it, really, for pushing Luo Binghe into the Abyss. But the few times you try and select options along those lines, the UI glitches again.

Also the "think of shizun" option only restores a quarter of the energy bar, whereas resting restores all of it. But if you try to go for too long without doing it, it will lock you into choosing it successively for a long time.

In addition to the energy bar, there's a calendar. It's not all that sophisticated or even consistent, and it's clearly meant to reflect the fact that Luo Binghe has troubles accurately judging the passage of time in the Abyss. However, the longer you spend in the Abyss, the more violent and unhinged things start to become, and the more the UI starts glitching to reveal disturbing messages, and the more often Luo Binghe "glaring" scenes happen. So you decide to do your best to get Binghe out of here as quickly as possible. This part of the game must be broken, but hopefully if you can make to the next segment, it will work properly again.

Eventually you get to the Xin Mo Mission, which is the last part of the Abyss section, and Luo Binghe escapes.

But the weirdness continues. Worsens, even. You still get missions to like, take over the demon realms and infiltrate Huan Hua Palace, all cool stuff, and you still meet girls who seem to unlock possibly romance paths. But most of the time everything is greyed out. There will be 5 dialogue options but maybe only 1 or 2 of them will be selectable. Parts of the menu are inaccessible. You don't have an energy bar anymore, you have a Xin Mo corruption bar, and it just keeps steadily rising. Sometimes you're presented the option of propositioning a character to "mitigate corruption", but if you try and click it the game glitches or the cursor freaks out and it fails. Sometimes the game crashes outright, and when you reload your last save, it starts with Luo Binghe glaring at you through the screen. You still get the "rest" and "think of shizun" options at times, but neither one helps the corruption bar.

Then. Jinlan City. You reunite with Shen Qingqiu. There seem to be a lot of options for acting vengefully towards him, but they're all greyed out, except for a few which let you chase him down or manhandle him a bit. The whole segment is frustrating, full of weird fanservice-y moments but also mired in how little Shen Qingqiu will say, how often he insists on evading or running away, and how Luo Binghe doesn't seem to have the right prompts to actually get him to explain himself. At times it seems like the "think of shizun" mechanic is bleeding over into the real interactions with the character, so that you can't tell what's really going on vs what are the manifestation of Luo Binghe's trauma or even hallucinations. The Xin Mo bar has maxed out. You have to catch Shen Qinqiu. Catch Shen Qingqiu. Catch Shen Qingqiu--

Then suddenly the bar is at 0, and you're watching Shen Qingqiu's lifeless body fall towards the ground, his energy expended in the effort to push back the corruption. Like, all of his energy.

You catch Shen Qingqiu. Or at least, you stop his corpse from hitting the dirt.

Now the game art is crisp and clean again. All the weird UI artifacts and blocked-off menus are either gone altogether or else working properly. The sound, which had been very gradually deteriorating with low-pitched ringing and muffled portions, is normal. You can hear characters gasping and distantly shouting, and birds chirping somewhere, the ragged cadence of Luo Binghe's breaths, while the camera focuses on Shen Qingqiu's body.

Huh, you think. That's a sort of dramatic resolution to that plot arc, and it raised more questions about Shen Qingqiu than it answered, really. But at least it's over with now? Does this mean Luo Binghe can finally start to recover, or advance other plots?

Then everything blacks out. You get booted to the main menu, or something that looks like it, except the only option you can select now is the New Game+ one.

When you click it, it seems like you've started the whole game over again. Except that there is a Xin Mo corruption bar, greyed out, already waiting for in a corner of the screen. And instead of starting out with a view of Qing Jing Peak, you start out with the young Luo Binghe looking directly towards you. Like he's staring through the screen. It's the basic starting point character, except he already has his demon mark on his forehead, and his expression is way more cold and calculating than anything the junior protagonist would have worn.

"Don't get in my way," he warns.

Then the game proceeds like a visual novel with extremely limited choices. The old selections and the menu for various romance routes don't even appear, the menus have all changed again, this time oriented entirely around hiding Luo Binghe's demonic cultivation (while building it) and managing daily choices and Shen Qingqiu's relationship status. A romance game with only one romance route, and it's the treacherous crusty old teacher? Wtf? But otherwise it seems almost normal, except for the special faint-lettered red options that sometimes appear in weird places on the screen, suggesting things like preventing the Skinner demon from catching you unawares, or saving Shen Qingqiu from Without a Cure poisoning, or keeping out of the Endless Abyss.

Those options seem like they should create different outcomes, and you click them whenever they show up, but they consistently fail. As if there's some other force in the game pushing things back onto the rails no matter what you do...

Anyway, eventually you get through the main plot again, and Shen Qingqiu dies once more. This time the game keeps going from that point, however, with quests to try and find ways to resurrect him. You're starting to wonder why you're still playing -- after all, you signed up for a harem game, not this tragic gay love story? You're not even gay! It's just that Luo Binghe is such a compelling character. You decide it's time to take a break, though, so you get up, do some stretches, go to the bathroom, etc.

It feels like someone's watching you.

You've definitely been playing that game for too long. Sometimes you think you catch sight of Luo Binghe's face out of the corner of your eye, in the bathroom mirror or on the black surface of your phone's screen, just before you turn it on. But when you look twice or turn your phone off again, nothing's there. You call your little sister, to apologize for dropping off the face of the earth for a bit, and you joke about getting too invested in this weird game that might be broken? She hasn't heard of it, but she sounds a little worried as she suggests maybe coming over and taking you out to lunch, or something.

You decline -- she's got a lot on her plate, and she mentioned already having plans earlier -- but then you promise to get some fresh air anyway. But when you go to head out, somehow you find yourself turning away at the last minute. You try again, and yet it's like you just keep getting distracted before you can open the door. After a few tries you give up, swallowing down your growing unease. You take off your shoes and coat. When it comes to it, you really do want to find out what happens to Luo Binghe next.

The game is running.

You don't remember turning it back on...?

The screen is focused on the familiar image of Shen Qingqiu's preserved corpse. You can see Luo Binghe's hand in the frame as well, transferring qi in yet another familiar sequence, the one that seems to run at the end of every in-game day. There's some text.

Is it you? the red letters ask, scrawling and flickering, as if someone is attempting to write directly onto the screen. Are you the one behind all this? Thwarting me at every turn?

Yes/No options appear in the game's usual font and position. You try to click "no", even though you're unsure and feel like you must have missed a scene somehow. But the interface warps and when you hit "no" it changes to Stay Silent.

I can't figure out. Are you here to help me, or get in my way?

Help/Harm. You click "help" but again it changes to "stay silent" afterwards.

What do you want from me?

This time there's no option to select at first. Then, as if being shoved onto the screen by some alternative function, a text box opens up. Like the kind that some games have for implementing cheats or selecting character names. This particular game has never shown such a function before, Luo Binghe's name was locked in and you don't even know if it has cheats. The cursor blinks, and somehow it feels as if you have only one chance, and if you don't take it now, it will be gone forever.

You type in "help" and barely manage to hit enter before the interface blinks out. No list of prompts or possible options appear.

Shizun? the red text scrawls, shakily.

Then the whole game crashes.

You wait, but it doesn't start up again. You try to run it again, but you can't find it on your system, somehow. Really weird. Even if it had crashed, it shouldn't have gotten deleted? But you still can't find it. You start to feel genuinely alarmed. Not only can you not find the game on your system, but when you try and search for it absolutely nothing comes up. You try and go to the online shop page for it, but you can't remember where you actually got it from in the first place, now that you're thinking about it.

What bullshit is this?

What, was the game actually some kind of virus? It couldn't have been. Also who would make a virus like that? You get up and pace, trying to make sense of it.

It's gotta be some kind of mistake. Maybe you've just missed too much sleep, you're not thinking right. You'll take a break and when you come back you'll realize that you were just looking in all the wrong places, somehow.

You head over to the fridge to grab something to eat.

You can't remember the last time you went shopping, but the food in there is probably still fine. Right?

[hope-has-hope]

OK might have to make a E-sport AU now 🫡

[thecorvidforest]

DID/OSDD culture is a subtle switch happening and only noticing it because you immediately get way worse at whatever you’re doing

[whatsfourteenupto]

does fourteen play videogames with the noble family

I feel like no one in the house is much more than a casual gamer, but Fourteen will occasionally pick a system out of That Box (you know, the cardboard one nearly every family has stashed in a closet or garage with all those out-of-date electronics) and fix it up. It started one day when he was bored and eyeballing the blender, and Donna found Rose’s old Nintendo DS in a drawer and told them there was a game on it where you could just play with cute dogs, if they could get it working. It keeps their hands busy, and it’s good fun for everyone when random old games get dusted off.

[retrogamelovers]

Which one are you playing first? 🎮

[nebuladreamz]

Thinking about how if i ever had the opportunity to make. a mascot horror game or story that i'd have it take place right before the eventual Big Fall of the establishment

[Big ramble under the cut lmao]

Something something reuse how I thought for Security Breach we'd play as Vanessa and the five nights formula was doing the shift but slowly discovering through each shift that Some Shit is happening and she has to stop it (directly before we found out Vanessa was Vanny/Vanessa was the security guard's name)

LIKE!!! I fucking adore how a couple of standout mascot horror games have been [primarily Indigo Park, I'm willing to give it a shot and it's deadass because of Rambley and his role as an AI assistant], but a lot of what I've seen personally (stares at. Fucking. Garten of Banban), it's a lot of post fall. Always investigating or going through the abandoned place where shit's gone wrong (thank you BATIM for starting the chapter-based formula -bangs head-)

But like. I've always thought about what it would be like for a mascot horror game to take place before the fall, or even during it depending on the execution.

Before the fall, you're either a kid who's a regular at the establishment (daycare, amusement park, whatever) or even an employee working there-

(or even MORE interestingly, if we go with a chapter-based thing or even similar to FNAF in terms of there's a set thing for whatever, the POV keeps changing between different people- wait I'm cooking. i'll get back to that later actually)

-And slowly as it all develops, you watch as everything begins to just. Fall apart. Employees leaving, the place coming down into disrepair, something's up with the main mascots of the place but you don't know what (at least in universe, we all know this formula as players)

Actually, coming back to the changing POVs, you can even draw in inspiration from DBH (I only watched gameplay back then oops) where the perspective changes between different people. A child enjoying their day, a first time employee, a long time employee, a parent of a child. Hell, depending on things, you could even have a moment where (depending on the location) you play as a fucking burglar looking to steal shit (before getting. Fucking bass boosted)

And eventually there'd come the inevitable end where it all closes down, leaving whatever living mascots inside to rot (insert Abandoned by Disney line here /j)

LIKE!!! I want to see people expand on the formula!! I want to see people fuck around and find out!!!

Honest to god, I might take this and run with it myself cause now I'M getting ideas.

[ksdesign]

I’ll have you know… all i ever talk about these days is the qsmp and the eggs but specifically leonarda and foolish & vegetta

[aki-hanah]

Surviving in the Abyss as a Wind Spirit

Chapter 2: A god-er....Archon Send?

‘Huh?, What is this, who are you? And where am I?’

[CONFIRMATION OF ACCEPTANCE [/] [x]]

‘Ey! Answer the question’ I say a tad annoyed

[CONFIRM REJECTION? [/] [x]]

‘W-wait, wait, errr…ummm, x, x!’ I say in a fit of panic

[CONFIRMATION OF ACCEPTANCE [/] [x]]

‘Accept, Accept!’ I reply all too eager

[WELCOME NEW PLAYER]

A wave of relief soon washed over me. Being trapped in an unknown area (well not totally), having the fanfic cliché of a system is practically a god- er- archon send.

[ > OPEN MENU [/] [x]]

‘Confirm’

‘Hm? Why is my name blank?’ I ask squinting at the menu screen

[QUEST: FIND A SUITABLE NAME]

‘What, no no no no no, I don’t need to find one, my name is ********’

‘What?’

[STYSTEM NOTICE: THE NAME ‘********’ IS PQV CXCKNCDNG]

‘Huh? Ok then…I guess I’ll make do with, uhhh, Asher?’

[NOTICE: DOES NOT MEET QUEST REQUIREMENTS]

[OPEN QUEST DETAILS? [/] [x]]

‘Confirm’

[QUEST: FIND A SUITABLE NAME

  REQUIREMENTS:

  [_] MUST BE GIVEN BY SOMEONE ELSE

  REWARDS:

   UNLOCK SHOP, UNLOCK PARTY SET UP, UNLOCK FRIENDS,

UNLOCK CHARACTER SCREEN,  1000 MORA, 10000EXP]

‘What!? I can’t even give myself a name!?’

[NOTICE: IF THE NAME IS GIVEN BY THE PLAYER, THE QUEST WILL BE CLOSED AND THE FOLLOWING REWARDS WILL NOT BE GIVEN: 1000MORA, 10000EXP]

[DECLINE QUEST? [/] [x]]

‘No, no, cancel, uhh, proceed with quest’ I hastily reply, after all, what use is the shop if I don’t have enough mora, plus knowing the world of Teyvat, specifically the abyss, I’m going to need all the strength I can get.

[QUEST CONFIRMED] ‘phew’ I let out a sigh of relief

[NOTICE: PLAYER IS ABOUT TO WAKE UP]

[3]

[2]

[1]

[multifandomfanboy]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Homestuck, 더 게이머 | The Gamer (Webcomic) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: John Egbert, Jade Harley, Dave Strider, Rose Lalonde, Dad Egbert Additional Tags: The Gamer Ability (The Gamer Webcomic), Video Game Mechanics, Overpowered everybody, Overpowered John Egbert, Broken abilities, no beta we die like men Summary:

On his 13th birthday, John Egbert's life becomes one big video game. No, not in that way, in this completely different way.

(Aka me getting really into OP Gamer System fics, remembering all the weird video game physics stuff in Homestuck that has nothing to do with SBurb, and going like "hey, what if that wasn’t normal")

[retrocgads]

UK 1998

[lemm-moxx]

Something I've noticed about the magnus archive/protocol's intros.

(image text below the read more)

Text:

The TMA intro: "Oh wow! So spooky! Hah-hah"

The TMP intro : "Oh god. The end is nigh. Jon? That you bud?"

[nickysfacts]

Thanks R.O.B.! You weren’t the hero we deserved, but you were hero we needed!

🤖🎮

[quirkycritters]

*Frantically ripping my window open and throwing these to y’all like feed to pigeons* I FIGURED OUT HOW TO REWORK MY TOON STYLE I’M SO READY FOR ART FIGHT