Beta 1.0 Test

by Harley Vex

  That opening to the outside is a problem.

  I open my inventory to find a few Common Dirt, my Common Leaves, and Common Sticks. Awesome. Quickly I equip the Common Dirt, feeling like the total noob I am, and I boldly march to the cave entrance with dirt in hand. Then I place a few chunks of it along the bottom in the same manner I placed the Sifter. Each dirt chunk comes up to my waist once placed. Stuff returns to its original size when placed. Good.

  But it smells like, well, dirt.

  Could be worse.

  Full night has almost fallen by the time I finish the bottom row of my barrier (six 3ft x 3ft dirt chunks in a row.) That still leaves a nice view of the swampy lake that's opposite me, and I'm out of Common Dirt so I equip the Pure Sand next.

  And then I learn the meaning of Gravity in this game.

  Each time I place the Pure Sand, it slides right off the dirt wall and slides either downhill towards the lake, or down the slope of my cave. Yeah, it stays in pentagon form as it does, but it's still frustrating.

  "Well, that's useful," I shout, tension rising up my spine.

  So I equip the Common Leaves next and place them, forming a wall between me and the outdoors. The leaves are the same story as the dirt. When I place them with a rustling sound, they appear in their original sizes.

  "Good job, Mike," I say. "You're going to survive until daybreak." Was day here about a real-life hour? Great. That means night could be the same.

  Then I see Problem Number Two.

  I can see through the wall of Common Leaves.

  And already the world has gone into I'm Gonna Kill You Mode.

  A weird green light shimmers above the lake in the distance. Particles fall off the floating spiral. Swamp gas, maybe. Or some hostile mob. And two other tall, lanky figures bounce up and down in the water, treading it. They're both too tall to be human and too thin. But their heads are bulbous.

  I feel really safe right now. (Insert sarcasm.)

  "Okay, Mike. You're in here for the night," I mutter, backing away from my flimsy leaf wall and towards the back of the cave. "Craft something. Keep your brain occupied. Just don't make noise." I bring up my inventory and Crafting Tab by touching my backpack. At least I can still see my inventory box in full light and color.

  And phew—I grabbed the Flint Shards.

  "Distraction time. Just ignore the monsters. They can hang out there and talk about last night's Game of Royals episode." Then I shut up because I'm making noise. I go to work making various arrangements on the grid with the Flint Shards, Common Sticks, and the Plant Twine. Crafting will be similar to what I did for the Sifter—intuitive but not too intuitive.

  After a few tries, I'm rewarded with something in the output that looks like a crude hatchet, with the gray, shiny blade tied to a stick by the Plant Twine. I tap the output and the tool zips into my inventory, like the Sifter did.

  I highlight it and wait for the expanded tooltip.

  Flint Hatchet

  Strength: 2

  Attack: 4

  Speed: 3

  Health: 150/150

  Calories: -2

  "Excellent." I equip it with the single tap and my inventory vanishes. Though I can't see it in the dark, I can feel that I'm holding a wooden handle that threatens a splinter with every movement. I swing it, satisfied at the whoosh it makes. The stats have told me it's a weapon as well as a tool. Strength must be its ability to break items, probably items with a Resistance of 2. Calories must be how much hungrier I'll get per swing.

  Sclorc.

  My heart leaps into my throat and something makes a repeated splashing sound in the lake. Not the distant side of the lake, but at the shore. Maybe, even, just thirty feet away.

  I lean closer to the leaf wall, but it's so dark now I can only see some small pentagon stars in the sky, slowly moving overhead, and that green particle swamp gas thing in the distance. It floats around aimlessly, seeming to stay over where I think the water is.

  Than another sclorc sound follows...and it's very close. To my right. Already well onto land.

  I back off, raising my Flint Hatchet.

  "Okay. This is a horror game," I hiss.

  The sound follows and it seems whatever is walking around is right above me. Squishy footsteps come after that, slow and dragging. Then they fade in the direction of the scattered woods area.

  "Great." I scratch my head in the silent break, but to my shock, another wooden pane appears before me. It looks like my inventory and has the same bark texture for the background, but there's a bunch of text on it.

  DAY 1

  LIGHT: 2

  FACING: SOUTH-SOUTHEAST

  BIOME: NORTHERN SWAMP [BORDER]

  TEMPERATURE: 45

  HUMIDITY: 55

  ELEVATION: 10

  HOSTILITY: 70

  More info. I take in what I'm reading and force myself to calm down. I've found something else important. Many people would ignore this stuff, but to me it's gold.

  Certain mobs could have rules for spawning, like needing a certain biome, temperature, or elevation, and using this screen will be useful for farming certain mobs. Light levels will probably be important too.

  And...hostility?

  I've never seen that stat in any sandbox game before.

  Assuming zero means no hostile mobs spawn and 100 means you'd better drop your inventory and give up now, I'm assuming that 70 is not good.

  Sclorc.

  I hit the top of my head again, dismissing the new screen. Gross, wet footsteps approach from above, and then a dark figure drops in front of my leaf barrier with a disgusting, mushy sound. Long, lanky limbs claw at my leaves, which rustle as the creature slowly pushes its way through.

  My heart sinks and I jump.

  Oh no.

  Oh, yes.

  The tall monster with the bulbous head is pushing through my leaves. It's already stepped up onto the Common Soil layer.

  The First Deadly Sin of Salvosera. Thou shall not use leaves as a wall.

  The Common Leaves must have a Speed score of minus ten or something. Now isn;t the time to think of how I can use that. "Stay alive, Mike." If punching a tree trunk almost hurt, what's this thing going to do?

  I lift my Flint Hatchet, barely able to see its outline against the stars.

  And then, lo and behold, the creature drops off the dirt layer, having pushed all the way into my cave. It lifts one arm at me. My heart hammers and my sweaty palms almost make me drop my weapon.

  Sclorc.

  I swing. "Get out of here!"

  The monster makes a sound between a hiccup and a scream as my Flint Hatchet makes a sickening thump against its flesh. Pressure runs up my arm, but my health's fine. Bingo!

  But the monster doesn't flinch or retreat like a normal being.

  And now, more sclorcs sound in the distance and I fear my enemy has just called backup.

  I swing again to be rewarded with another thump, but then something long and lanky swings at me from the left, and then a strong, greasy hand strikes me on the side and my view flashes redder than it did when I punched the tree. The pressure in my side is immense. My health bar rises into my vision, now down a full quarter. Crap. The green bar slowly regenerates, but my Calories bar shrinks in tandem with it.

  I swing two more times, accidentally breaking some Common Leaves. A window. Just what I need. But I strike the mostly-unseen monster, glimpsing bluish-green flesh in the starlight, before it makes one final-sounding weak hiccup and falls to the cave floor and explodes into dark gray particles.

  I replace the missing leaves which have dropped as items on my side of the barrier, aware I've got no more in my inventory. Worse, the sclorcs are still sounding outside. How far away? Maybe this monster has dropped something I can use to defend myself.

  Yes. I can faintly see something on the cave floor, a dark splotch and what appears to be a white line, and I lean down and tap the mob drops to collect them. Plork. When I check my inventory for my prize, I fin
d a greenish-blue chunk of what looks like rotten meat. Putrid Flesh. Awesome. And a Bone. Yet despite that, my stomach rumbles.

  I'm actually feeling hungry in the game.

  I pull up my health bar by tapping my chest and find that I'm halfway healed from my injury, but my Calories bar has just depleted by a full quarter. As I watch, my red Health bar climbs slower and slower and then stops. The mechanic makes sense, as I'm assuming a full stomach will heal better than an empty one.

  I'm hoping the Putrid Flesh isn't on the menu. Then again, what game would want players to eat something like that? But I check it out in my inventory and hover for the tooltip, praying during the three-second wait.

  Putrid Flesh

  Refinable: 1

  Edible: 0

  Fuel: 0

  "Prayer answered," I say.

  But there's no time for relief.

  Sclorc.

  Sclorc.

  Wet footsteps. Louder.

  Sclorc.

  I slap my backpack, which is now bulging a bit, to close my inventory.

  Backup is here.

  I bolt to the rear of the cave, putting my back against cold stone. The first pink light of dawn appears on the horizon, outlining the dead trees growing from the water, but does that make me feel better? Nope. Three dark figures appear before my leaf barrier. Rustling follows as they push through. The early morning glow gives me a view of what's pushing through my crappy barrier.

  I'll vote for ghouls since zombies don't have claws, and these things are vaguely humanoid with blue-green, mottled skin and sunken faces with black eyes. None wear clothes. It's all featureless, seal-like skin with a pixilated shine. Their arms move in an inhuman up and down pattern as they push through the leaves, long legs unmoving, and towards me.

  At least they don't stink. And I'm not suggesting to Salvos that they add that.

  But I can't take comfort from that because I'll never take three of them at once. My chances of dying are probably ninety percent.

  But still, I raise my hatchet as the pentagon sun rises behind them.

  But then the monsters, all at once, begin to let out a cacophony of hiccup-screams. They flash reddish each time they do, indicating they're taking damage.

  "What the—" I start.

  Are the Common Leaves not such a dumb idea after all?

  Or is it the daylight?

  The daylight. One of the ghoul things makes it through the barrier, into the shade of my cave, and stops taking damage while its two buddies continue to struggle behind it. Both of them drop dead, and I swing at what I hope is a weakened monster. With a single thud, the last ghoul drops dead into a puff of smoke, leaving two Bones. Its buddies have also left gifts of Putrid Flesh and Bones.

  I stand there, eyeing the rising sun.

  I did it.

  TheWattleman: 1. This New Game: 0.

  And I already have my first invention idea.

  But just as I lean down to pick up the mob drops, the world goes dark and I'm falling through a void. My time is up.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "Hey! I was having fun!" I pull off my black helmet as soon as I realize I'm standing on a bunch of roller balls in the futuristic cop suit. I blink, shocked at the artificial blue light that surrounds me. An intense prickling sensation from the suit dies down from a storm to what it was when I left the changing room.

  I turn to reorient myself. Yes. I'm back in the Salvos Simulator. And Candi's standing at the glass door she's holding open, an open laptop on the floor beside her.

  "I'm really sorry," Candi says with a grimace. Then she lifts an eyebrow. "It's addictive, isn't it?"

  "You've played? I...I almost died, but it was cool, and wow, my heart's still pounding. Creationist was scary when I first started playing, and this brought that whole feeling back by like, ten times."

  "I see you met the Swamp Ghouls." She grins and motions me out. "Intermediate mob, actually. There's a Common type and then there's your friends."

  "Why did you log me out?" I sound like a kid.

  "Your two hours were up? Right now, players get so immersed in Salvosera that they have to be reminded to exit the game. The devs are working on adding reminders to the game like the real world time, but there's the issue of having those reminders break the experience, so the implementation hasn't come yet. So I had to cut you off."

  "That was really two hours." I step out and adjust to standing on the regular floor again. Three other players are still deep in their experiences and I'm instantly jealous. That big guy in the suit over there might even be Don. "So the game's name is Salvosera."

  "Yes."

  "So I get to stay?" I hate that I sound like a drooling moron. What is Candi doing to me? I want to play that awesome game again. I already have an idea for a mob trap thanks to those Common Leaves. Already I want to experiment. "Trust me, I'll have tons of suggestions and praise."

  Candi just offers that alluring smile. "I think you'll do well. You'll need to sign a contract before you continue. Anton's assistant had his lawyers draft one up while you were playing."

  My heart sinks at the thought of perusing small print and trying to spot loopholes. It's a trap! "Do I get my own lawyer?" Sure, I know some stuff about law, but I'm rusty due to not finding a job in my field and due to it well, being pretty late at night. My adrenaline's wearing off and with it, I feel my eyes sagging.

  "You can find one and have them look it over before you sign. They're okay with that." Candi frowns a bit as if remembering that I'm not a rich dude.

  And I'm not okay with that.

  Sinking back to reality, I go and change. Candi waits for me and when I come out of the changing room, I follow her through the gaming area and back into the seventies lounge. She tells me to have a seat and that they're faxing over the full contract. I do.

  "Can I think this over and sign tomorrow?" I ask.

  She follows me into the lounge as I sit on a bright yellow couch. "If you leave now, you'll still have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and an agreement not to come back. Drink?" She opens the mini bar.

  Figures. But this hot chick is offering me a drink. But I force myself to shake my head while also wanting to slap myself for refusing. "I'm good. I want my mind clear when I look at this paperwork."

  "Understandable. Maybe I shouldn't have offered." She grabs a bottle for herself and a small shot glass. Not professional, but at least it's after hours and I'm glad to see this place isn't formal. She sits on a bright blue couch. "So, Mike, while we're waiting for the fax, what do you think?"

  I take a second to realize she's asking about the game. "Um, I think it's going to take off."

  Candi laughs. "So do I." She sits on the other couch, crossing her legs. "Salvos has been developing this new game for a long time. Instead of just buying indie games and making them popular, they're trying to make their own thing."

  Creationist was made by a small team of indie developers in Chicago over a decade ago, and when the game started taking off, Salvos came in and bought it, giving those guys a million each. "That's good that they're making their own games now."

  "They can sure afford it," Candi says, "and afford to hire the best...never mind. You haven't signed anything yet, so I've got to clam up. Sorry."

  "Look, I understand. Unless there's something shady in the contract, I'll sign. I mean, I could feel the wind on my face, and the grass under my feet, and when I tried to punch that tree trunk like a moron—"

  "I know what you mean." Candi downs her shot.

  A burning need to know how Salvos created an almost completely real experience almost bursts from me. This is some next level tech. "What was it, exactly? A hallucination of some sort?"

  "Okay. All of reality happens in your brain," Candi says, tapping her head with both hands. "Even right now is just in your brain. I don't know exactly how they did it since I'm not a neuroscientist and I think they're stuffy, but they found some way to trick your senses into creating a new reality."
<
br />   I laugh. "No crap. I got the idea that the suit was doing that."

  "Only when turned on," Candi says. "So, what about the rest? The mechanics? I can't give you any spoilers, but I do need to collect your feedback. It's vital that the devs balance everything out."

  "I liked that it was challenging but not impossible," I say. "That's how Creationist was when it first came out. You had to figure out what to do. Use your brain. Now when you log on, you get a bunch of on-screen instructions aimed at five year olds."

  "Yes. It's all Explain Like I'm Five now."

  "I mean, some players will get frustrated with it being that way, but someone always writes a wiki," I say. "So I think it'll work. Salvosera has that novelty Creationist used to have. And I like how everything has a mechanic you can find a way to exploit."

  "Any...criticisms?" She seizes a tablet from the couch that I haven't noticed until now.

  I think. "One thing so far. You have to pick up items one by one and that'll annoy people who are trying to collect lots of blocks at once. I mean, it's good that you don't get an inventory full of junk when you don't want it, but there should be an easy way to turn that feature on and off."

  "That one, I agree with," Candi says. "Keep exploring, Mike. You'll find a way."

  "I did like the info in the tooltips, though. Not too much of a clue but not too little. Made me feel smart."

  Candi lifts an eyebrow. "Most people don't figure out the Sifter for a couple of in-game days, let alone the Flint Hatchet."

  "You saw everything." I grab the edge of the couch.

  "Yes." She taps the tablet with one orange painted fingernail. "We need to see what our players are up to. And that reminds me, I left my laptop in the testing room." She bites her lip, distracted.

  "So no scratching my butt."

  Great job, Mike. But Candi bursts out laughing.

  I'm liking her more every second and I fear I'll sign that contract too fast.