DN-010-The Arcade

As we walked toward the arcade you could feel the base from the music traveling through the floor. I’ve never been to one before. But Kurt reassured me it was good. So I guess it’s good?

When we walked in there were rows of these games.

“It’s epic. You’ll get used to it. Or not. Haha, I guess we’ll see. Each row is linked to the same game so you can do the vr and whatnot and still play the same game.” Kurt said.

“Duuuudee. Check this one out. It has monkeys, bananas, and guns. Saweet.” Chad said as he ran over and started putting on his VR goggles. The game had this man on the front who was holding an owl with some monkeys behind it.

Further down the line was a girl with blond hair. “Wait, would she be playing with us?” I asked. Not that I cared, I just was curious.

“Yeah, but that’s how it goes up here. No one cares. Just makes for a more interesting game.” – Kurt said.

“Alright.” I said as I sat down and started to examine the buttons and the plastic gun that was all attached. Instructions ran across the screen for each button’s code when the game noticed that I had been sitting.

The objective was pretty clear. You could either be a monkey or you could be a banana. The monkey’s objective was to collect the bananas. The banana’s objective was to get out of the water while being chased down by monkeys.

I chose a banana because, well I’m not quite sure why. Just felt right. You know when you get that feeling of deja vous? Like you have been somewhere before. Past or present. Like you have been there in a dream or another reality. I had one of those feelings. So I just shrugged it off and went with my intuition. Banana time. Chad, Landon, and Zack all picked monkeys and then Alex chose to be a banana. I think it was a sympathy choice, or she just really likes bananas too.

The monkeys’ icons were by the shore of this beautiful body of water. The banana icons were all set in the sky. There was one other icon next to Alex and I’s icon. I guess it was that other girl. She looked pretty beat up. She had been playing against the game for a few rounds and you could tell she was down to just a couple of lifelines. I mean we all saw it.

Across the screen in block letters, you saw. “Ready. Set…” and then my icon had transformed into an immersive experience. We all became our icons. You could see the sights. The views are all around. It was beautiful, especially from this perspective. Up here.

“Go!” You heard a gun crack and I felt my whole body begin to fall leaving my stomach somewhere in the sky.

Alex took a hit as negative numbers in red overlaid the screen. Then I got hit and the other girl was next. In the sky, were floating lemons. I caught one and it turbocharged my speed. Alex saw and she did as well. As we got close to the water we saw the monkeys swimming towards us. Still shooting with one arm swimming and one arm in the water swimming against the waves crashing against them.

Then we hit the water. We began to sink. Floating in the water were pineapples slightly bouncing up and down. Glowing, fading in and out. I caught one and it began to transform into an underwater jet. I hung on tight. My lifelines were getting low. Alex ahead of me had already figured it out and was racing underwater towards the shore. Behind me was the other girl. She sank to the bottom. Her lifelines were low and if she lost this one. Well, it might have been over for her.

Kurt saw and started swimming towards her. I looked back and as bad as I felt, I had to get to shore.

Alex got to shore, and then I did. We watched the other guys shoot at and collect the computer models’ bananas to up their scores. But Kurt was doing something different. He picked up the other banana. Swam it up to the raft sitting in the ocean. As the banana entered the life raft a green thousand points flew from the horizon over our heads and then faded out into the mountains. He saved her and collected the points. And it also gave her another lifeline.

I think it was one of those moves you know that the game doesn’t tell you. One of those secret codes to advance. Ones that you would never think of. Or at least that’s how Chad was explaining it to me later on.

We played a few more rounds. It was an awesome game. Something about it felt so unexplainably lifelike. The kind of experience that makes you question what side of reality you are on.