Test Drive

[uploadedmods]

TEST DRIVE 001


-TDM threads can be considered game canon if players involved agree & if it suits any roles you may decide to choose for the current plot.
-Any reserving player that does not submit an app by Saturday morning will be subject to challenging applicants.
-Participation in the Test Drive is worth a flat 10 points per month rather than per thread, and you must have a minimum of 5 comments in that month to qualify for it.
-This TDM is good for the duration of the Mist setting. A new TDM will go up before the next setting.

The NETWORK for this setting is a voice-only walkie talkie system that can be used to communicate between all locations. The default channel will be open to all walkie talkies, but characters can change to an unused channel for private conversation.
of note: There seems to be something strange about these walkie talkies, in that there is no static. The quality is disturbingly crystal clear, like the person you're speaking to is right next to you instead of miles away.

CONTENT WARNING: Some prompts contain gore, character death, and substance abuse.

Reserves will open on Saturday, September 8 until Saturday, September 15
Applications will open Saturday, September 15 until Saturday, September 22

General Prompts


The lights above you are a blindingly, pristine white. The walls around you curve up into the ceiling like the inside of an MRI machine. Your hands, feet, and midsection are strapped to a clinical table, and minutes seem to tick by, with no clear course for escape presenting itself to you.

The curved white space above you flickers with color, and a perfect square like a television screen expands before your eyes. It pans over what appears to be a town, something small and simply populated.

“Hello, and welcome to your first setting,” a neutrally cadenced feminine sounding voice begins, riding the line between human and machine. As she speaks, captions of the text type themselves in neat and perfect Arial font. “The location is loosely based off Bridgton, Maine, United States of America, Earth. The year is 2007. You have been selected to participate. Obedience ensures an enjoyable and immersive experience for our audience. If you have been granted a role, instructions will follow. Do not talk about the role. Do not attempt disobedience. If you have not been granted a role, your objective for this round is simple: survive.”

After that, the shackles may release promptly and allow your character to roam free. Or perhaps not — perhaps they've been given a role to play, and if so, further instructions will play out upon the screen. Once suitably briefed, characters will be released to their own devices. Beware the mist.

CHECK OUT THE CURRENT SETTING PAGE FOR DETAILS ABOUT THE LOCATION.

learn from the mistakes of others

A pair of unperturbed mall inhabitants decide to chance the mist. They're the first of a handful to trickle out the front doors, and they seem to get by just fine. About a minute ticks by, and they disappear completely into the dense fog that presses in from every direction. It's so anticlimactic that for a moment it almost seems stupid to feel uncomfortable by the sight of it.

Until precisely one half of a body is hurled abruptly and with great force from an indeterminate point in the obscurity. It's not a top half or a bottom half; no, it's a cleanly sliced left half, head to toe as though a neat line were cut down the middle. It slams into the transparent glass doors and crumples before them, still and obviously unmoving, slowly leaking.

After a few seconds, a dark tendril of something reaches out, curls around the jutting left ankle, and drags it with painstaking slowness back into the fog.

At least the rest of them probably made it, right?

Right?

Hopefully you weren't one of the others to follow their lead. If you were, that dark shape seems to be closing in awfully quick.

eff this, let's bounce

A pair of car keys can be found discarded or perhaps dropped in their owners' haste. Braving the mist when it's at its lightest and pressing the key fob will cause a car to beep politely, flashing lights to indicate its location in the fog. Take anyone willing to go with you and pile in. Try to get the hell out of dodge!

An excellent idea....

Within five miles of the car's journey the battery will die and the engine will stall. Consider yourselves effectively stranded and with no one but yourselves to blame. Perhaps help will come if you wait long enough? Hours, surely no more than a few days... Maybe you should consider braving the fog to get back? Five miles can feel like a hundred in conditions like these.

Either way, it seems like you're trapped in the car for about as long as R. Kelly got trapped in the closet during that one unfortunate CD.

radio chatter

Characters in the library and the church will be able to communicate via walkie talkie radio chatter immediately! Characters in the mall will not have this ability until later in the month, so any network style threads with a mall character will take place during Week Two of the October plot or later, after most people have already been fully introduced to the setting and given time to adapt.

Roles

Employee of the Month (Multiple)

Some characters will be printed wearing a designated kiosk uniform, their name sloppily stickered in slightly crooked letters onto a Dippin' Dots badge, or whatever store they may happen to be assigned to. The cool voice that introduces them to the mist will carry on to tell them that they'll be playing employee # _____ in this month's immersive experience. Their motivations and objectives are simple: go to work.

Except the role seems to be bugged, because they can never not go to work. If they leave the five or six foot radius of their designated post they'll begin to experience consequences, which worsen in severity based on distance and duration. The role doesn't end at mall closing, it doesn't end on Saturdays, it simply doesn't end. Hopefully next month's code push will have a bug fix; we apologize for the inconvenience.

(If choosing to keep these threads as game canon, the role will wear off within the first in-game week)

Aggravated Assault

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing the role of a CONVICTED FELON having recently been released on parole. Your motivation for this month's immersive experience is frustration. Having undergone hard time, you'll find that we have increased your aggression and temper characteristics, and lowered your inhibitions. Your objective is to find and begin an altercation with Snuff the Rooster, who will be playing the role of the person who turned you in, NARK. Your altercation must take place in a public space with witnesses, and may not stop until Snuff the Rooster is unconscious, evicted from the mall, or someone intervenes.

Thank you for your participation!

Consequences for not completing the objective in this role can be moderate to severe.

Snuff the Rooster

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing the role of NARK. Formerly a close friend and ally of CONVICTED FELON from Aggravated Assault, you were quick to roll on them during police questioning in exchange for your freedom. Your motivation is to turn over a new leaf, and get your shit together. Your objective is to survive the altercation.

Thank you for your participation!

The Lovers (Duo Role)

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing one half of a partnership role! Please seek out (character 2). Your motivation this round is love, and the need to protect your partner from threats both inside and outside of the mall. Your objectives is to greet your lover with a kiss and place them above all others. Do not act like strangers.
Consequences for not completing the objective in this role or failing to present a convincing couple can be mild to moderate.

Pathological

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing a background character in our current setting. Your motivation is to tell lies; at least one third of what you say must be unarguably untrue. Your objective is to keep these lies from being discovered as false.
Consequences for not complying with this role can vary from mild to severe, with the compulsion to tell larger and larger lies growing as time goes on.

Scared Speechless

Congratulations, participant! You will be playing a background character in our current setting. You may choose one person, stranger or otherwise. This is the only person you may communicate with, either verbally or through writing.
Consequences for not complying with this role are severe.

Glitches

potency error

Someone seems to have miscalculated the relative strength of intoxicants; all inhibition-altering substances seem to have been cranked up to eleven. One shot has the strength of three, though the taste seems to stay exactly the same. One or two drinks will quickly creep up on you. One of the joints found discarded in the bathroom trashcans will easily green you out. God forbid you've got anything stronger.

greatest movie of all time

Settling in to the relatively nice theater found at the far end of the mall is a decent way to make the time go by. The projectors are automated, and there are six different theaters that show flicks at scheduled times.

Except that every single one of them is showing Spider-Man 3. Every single one, every single showing, no matter what is advertised, becomes Spider-Man 3. That's how you know this is a horror game. Hope you didn't wander in by mistake because the doors will shut behind you and leave you to watch the entire showing. Please keep your feet off of the seats.

please replace toner cartridge

It seems there was an error in printing someone this first time around; everything came through but the visuals somehow. Your character is flesh and blood, fully formed, wearing tangible clothes even, but are completely invisible. Donning additional clothing causes it to clip out and then promptly disappear. Taking clothes off will cause them to reappear. Hopefully this gets fixed in the next lite patch.

(If choosing to keep these threads as game canon, the glitch will wear off within the first in-game week)

code bases by tricklet

Comments

[relieable]

[oh, the lady is giving him sass. Osomatsu just grins right back at her. it's not every day he gets to talk to a pretty girl that isn't Totoko!]

I'm just gonna drive where the wind takes me! ...At least until I'm outta the fog, yanno? [he jingles the keys at her] Wanna come with? Or would you rather stay here in hell?

[myorders]

[ If there's one thing Peggy has a lot of, it's sass. And yet she can manage to dial it back as needed. With that sassy retort now out of her system, it's time to look at the situation and the facts as they are. ]

I suppose that's as good a plan as any, at least to start with. I could do with less of this fog.

[ Right, then. Peggy makes her decision and announces: ]

I'll come with you, if you'll have me. This may not be a literal hell, but I would rather not stand around here.

[relieable]

[he chuckles at her before gripping the keys tightly in his hand. he doesn't want to drop them the same way the previous owner dropped them]

Great! Let's get outta here!

[it doesn't seem like anyone else is brave enough to come with them, but that's honestly fine. Osomatsu would rather not have a car filled with people judging his driving that he doesn't know how to do.

once they are outside in the fog, Osomatsu starts clicking the key fob again, so it will show them where to go. the car's lights blink in the distance]

Geez, this place gives me the creeps.

[myorders]

No need to tell me twice.

[ They may not fully know what's out there, but it's got to be better than here. At least in theory, anyway. Which could be called famous last words, but Peggy reasons that sometimes it's better to take a risk in an effort to gain more knowledge than it is to hang back and hope it falls into their laps. ]

Yes, if they were attempting to frighten us, they're doing a rather good job of it.

[relieable]

I'll say. [he starts heading for the car, walking fast because this mist... doesn't feel right. there's a weird energy about it] You just wake up in that weird room, too?

[myorders]

Quite so, and may I say the whole experience was rather disorienting. Fortunately, that seems to have passed now.

[ She pauses for a moment to consider him and the car. ]

I suppose we ought to try and find someplace useful, such as a temporary shelter of sorts. Or perhaps we should locate others who are in the same situation we are.

[ Having allies is sometimes a good thing. ]

[relieable]

[they arrive at the car and Osomatsu opens up the doors with the click of a button. he considers her suggestion, then decides he agrees with her. she seems really smart!]

We can do that, sure.

[he climbs into the driver's seat and his eyes widen at the sight of the steering wheel. ah, this is it! he's finally going to drive for the first time in his life! he's SO EXCITED]

[myorders]

Mind you, that was only a suggestion. If you have other plans, I'm all ears.

[ Cooperation is key here, or so it would seem, and despite Peggy's tendency to swoop in and take charge, it isn't always necessary. ]

[relieable]

[if she wants to take charge, that's fine! Osomatsu is also used to leading. but in situations like this, he'd much prefer to be following someone who knows better. because he's a wimp]

I was just planning on driving away from the fog, maybe see about gettin' home somehow.

[he pauses for a moment, wondering what to do. ah, right. the key goes into the ignition. so he shoves it in, turns on the car. it rumbles to life, and it looks like there's enough gas in here to get them going for a while! score]

[myorders]

[ Perhaps they can take turns sharing the responsibility. ]

Driving away from the fog is a good plan, but I doubt that you'll be able to drive this car all the way to wherever it is you've come from.

[ Perhaps her instincts are off-base, but Peggy sincerely doubts it'll be that easy. ]

It seems that you got lucky when you stumbled upon this car.

[relieable]

[she's probably right, he probably won't make it to Japan in this little car. they're in America now, right?]

Yeah...

[okay, now what does he do? he needs to impress this lady! needs to do everything he said he was going to do. he looks down at the pedals beneath him and gulps.

then he puts his foot on the gas.

the car screeches to life, but] I-it's not moving!

[he's still got the parking brake on.......... oh gosh Peggy run away while you still can]

[myorders]

[ Perhaps getting into this car with him wasn't the wisest course of action, and normally she would have thoroughly screened him first, but there was no time for something like that. ]

Sorry, but you have driven before, haven't you?

[relieable]

H-Huh? [Osomatsu takes his foot off the gas and gives Peggy a startled look] I-I mean...! Of course I have! It's as simple as pie, right? Turn here, stop at red lights, all that jazz!

[myorders]

Oh, yes, simple as pie. [ She's watching you, Osomatsu. ] I suppose you could just start to drive, and if you have questions, you can just ask me.

[relieable]

[okay... she's got him]

Then... I guess you can tell me why it's not goin'?

[myorders]

Well, let's see. You have the keys in the ignition, and I assume the tank is at least full enough to drive.

[ She takes a good long look around the car, but it still takes her a moment to notice the parking brake is on. ]

Ah, I see the problem.

[ She points to the brake. ]

That has to be disengaged before the car will drive.

[relieable]

[.........ah. Osomatsu grins weakly, letting out a nervous chuckle]

Oh! Of course! Let me just... take that off. [he moves the brake into the drive position. then when he slowly steps on the gas again, the car starts moving. amazing! he presses the gas pedal over and over, causing the car to lurch and stop, lurch and stop.

it's a rough start, and he finally turns to look over apologetically at his passenger]

S-sorry. It's a lot tougher than it looks!

[myorders]

Quite all right. We all have to start somewhere, and it just so happens that your starting point is here.

[ She smiles at him in what she hopes is an encouraging way, but at least they're beginning to get somewhere. ]

You're lucky I don't often get carsick.

[relieable]

[a positive! and at least she's smiling at him.

as time goes on, Osomatsu gets a bit better about driving. the ride is smoother. but almost as soon as they get about five miles away from the church, the car dies. for real this time. Osomatsu keeps turning the key, but the engine just sputters at him.

great. he killed the car]

Uuuuhhhh...