The group team consists of 156 members with ten main members that present ideas to their boss, Mark at Dynamic Innovations. Their first thought is Ember Quest and gave to him with a rough idea of what the storyline is. On June 1, 2042, they present their ideas about Ember Quest.
“Hello, sir,” said the leader. “My name is Olivia, and these are my colleagues.”
The names of the other nine members are Astrid, Nina, Haruhi, Jaehee, John, Lincoln, Philip, Walter, and Charlie. After naming the other nine members, Olivia gave Mark a packet of their ideas for the game and started presenting their views. The others provide insights on some of the areas that the group leaders have agreed to put into the storyline. The ideas are in the following:
The characters that the players create will determine what they become at the end of the ten chapters
After each collected item, the next chapter will become better or worse
The game will feel like a dream
On June 10, 2042, Mark approved the idea and sent an email to Olivia to start the project. After she gets the approval from him, she spread the news to all the members. Each group started working on their part, and the leaders of those teams had meetings with Olivia every two weeks. They continue working on the game, coding, the characters’ design, and fixing bugs that they find. After eight years of working on perfecting the game, the team finished on June 13, 2049.
When the team finishes the game, Olivia is notified, and she made a report and passed it to Mark. He is satisfied and tells her to let the applications come in for testing the game. After she had the meeting with him at Dynamic Innovations, she went back and said everyone that is approved the game. They started celebrating their hard work, and Olivia began to writing the blog post.
Hello! It’s Olivia again, and I am here to tell you great news. Our first game, Ember Quest, is completed, and we need our early testers for it.
Ember Quest can be played online with friends, local play, and offline with multiple VR sets. It can be played up to five players.
The game is about you and your character. The way you customize your character from our hundreds of clothing will determine your story and what you will become at the end. As you proceed through the game and collecting the dress, the chapters will become better or worse. The game will always end with the war, but the storyline will still change when you pick different types of clothes and weapons.
Now, enough explaining about the game. I am currently accepting applications for being a beta tester for the game until July 31, 2049. We will choose five lucky people to play the game. If you are selected out of the fifty people to move on to the next round, my boss will send you two questions of his choice and choose the five lucky people. If you are a minor, please tell your parents before signing up for the application and let them fill it out for you. Here’s the form:
Name:
Email:
Age:
Why you should be chosen:
Olivia publishes the blog post on their website. Within a few days, the team started filtering through the applications until the deadline. It is passed up to the top 10 and they choose their five applicants. Olivia sends a list of the 50 applicants to Mark. He reads the list and sends them an email saying:
Hello chosen participant,
My name is Mark Long, the boss of Dynamic Innovations. You are one of the 50 lucky applicants and thank you for applying for testing Ember Quest. Here are the two questions for you to answer.
If you had to change one event in your life, what would you change and why?
Why did you sign up to be a beta tester for Ember Quest?
As the applicants respond to the email, Mark started reading the email and chooses the five luck people. After a few days of reviewing the emails, Mark chooses the five people. He writes them down and sends an email to Olivia. The email says the following:
August 25, 2049
Olivia:
Hello, Olivia. I have chosen the five testers for your game. These are the names of the five people: Nariko Nakamura, Maria Gonzales, Christian Davis, Thomas Kendall, and Jack Sterling. I hope you will do well in the testing for the game and hope they will love the game that you and your team has created. I will come to check-in to see the progress of the players.
Mark Long
Olivia contacted the five immediately. She explained the instructions and gave them the address to the game testing building. After she sends the email, she closed her eyes and took deep breathe in and out. I just hope this game will work out before it goes out into the world to sell, thought Olivia.
Nariko, Jack, Maria, and Christian comes to the address that Olivia gave to them in the email. They did not know that they will be in for a ride when Thomas arrive the next day. Olivia and the other nine members welcomed them and told them about the agenda for the day.
“After we eat lunch, we will work on the customization for your characters,” said Olivia, “and work on the biography too.”
Everyone nodded, and the four testers followed Haruhi to the Great Hall, where the meals are served. After getting their meals, they talked and got to know more about each other. As they were going to start another discussion, Olivia interrupts them.
“I’m very sorry to interrupt your discussion,” said Olivia. “It’s time to create your characters.”
The four testers put away their trays and followed Olivia to the computer lab to create their characters. They sat down, and a member helped them through the steps of forming their style. Choosing from hundreds of clothing items and facial, it took awhile to build their characters and giving them personalities. Thomas arrives and is brought to a separate room to establish his role. After 2 hours of customizing their characters for Ember Quest, Olivia printed the biographies of the avatars. The bios are the following (in parentheses are the character names):
Name: Nariko Nakamura (Nariko)
Age: 17
Biography: Nariko is an introvert that does not talk a lot with people. She grew up alone and likes to write because it is easier to write to express herself than to talk to others about herself. She does not trust anyone including her family because she knows that they will tell behind her back.
Choice of weapon(s): Bow and arrows and pump air rifle
Game look: She has a round face. Her eyes and hair will look like Asuna from SAO
Name: Maria Gonzales (Maria)
Age: 16
Biography: Maria is a happy-go-lucky girl and always creates fantasies and what will happen if she made a different choice in situations in her mind. She loves to read sci-fi/ fantasy books and manga, which helps her to get ideas for her books. When Maria gets a chance, she always hangs out with friends at school and after-school.
Choice of clothing: Colorful short kimono dress, matching sleeve-gloves, and flats that has a butterfly on them
Choice of weapons: Bow and Arrows and dagger
Game look: Long pink hair with bangs, red eyes, and a normal face
Name: Jack Sterling (Jack)
Age: 15
Biography: He wants to be a popular kid and be a leader. All he wants to do is to boss people around and have a lot of fun with his friends when he is out of school. Sometimes, he is disrespectful to the elders and gets into fights.
Choice of clothing: Wears detective clothing, a tan trench coat, a black watch on the left wrist, and black dress shoes
Choice of weapon(s): gun
Game look: Hair looks like Honey Senpai from OHSHC (but black) and has menacing green eyes
Name: Christian Davis (Chris)
Age: 15
Biography: He is the popular kid in his school. He is not snotty like most popular kids and helps a lot of bullied kids from bullies. He hates people that are mean and does not tell people about things. All he cares is being friends with a lot of people who are in need and some of the lovely popular kids.
Choice of clothing: leather jacket, sunglasses, white polo, jeans, and red vans
Choice of weapon(s): sword, fists
Game look: Looks like Nakatsu and Sano from Hana Kimi combined
Name: Thomas Kendall (Unknown —> Thomas)
Age: 17
Biography: Thomas does not have any social life or like leading anything. At home, he plays video games when he has free time. He is also lazy, but not all the time.
Choice of clothing: Black jeans which are ripped at the knees, checkered vans, and a red shirt
Choice of weapon(s): Fighting
Game look: Looks like Sano from Hana Kimi
After Nariko, Jack, Maria, and Christian finish their characters; they were shown their rooms that they are staying for the ten days. They put their luggage in their place and went to the standard room to talk more for the rest of the day. While they were playing a game, they talked about what they expect from the game.
While the four testers talked, Olivia brings Thomas secretly to his room. She does not want the others to know that the fifth player is here already.
After breakfast the next day, the four testers come into the main room. There were computers, five chairs that are in a circle, doctors, and the Virtual Reality headsets. Nariko notices the five chairs and asks a question.
“Why are there five chairs?” Nariko asked.
“The fifth player is going to be coming late since he sent an email to me that he will be late,” Olivia responded. “He never told me the reason why.”
Being skeptical of Olivia, Nariko squints her eyes and nods. She was the first one to choose her chair and sits in it. Two doctor and two members started getting Nariko ready for the game. The others sit down on the open chairs and received help from two doctors and two members. The doctors and members put life support onto them and made sure that everything is working before they enter the game.
“Remember that each chapter takes the whole day to complete,” said Olivia. “When you are finished with a chapter, save for each chapter and log off from your characters.”
Olivia continued explaining a little bit more about the game. She told them that the game could record diary entries, which can be written while playing the game.
The four testers nod, put the headsets on their eyes, and turned it on. Their screens turned on, and their 10 chapter journey started.
Halfway through the day, Thomas comes in the main room where the four other testers are at playing the game. The scientists were observing the game screens, and Olivia is worried that they will not survive the first chapter. Thomas taps Olivia on her shoulder, and she jumps.
“Oh, hello, Thomas,” said Olivia. “Are you ready to be put into the game?”
“I’m ready as I’ll ever be,” responded Thomas.
Thomas sits in the last chair that is open. Two doctors and two members helped get hooked onto the life support and the headset. Olivia explained what she said to the others in the morning. He understood, puts on the headset over his eyes, and turns it on. His essential part is now started in Ember Quest.
After Thomas just entered the game, Mark comes in to check on the progress of the game. He asked questions, and Olivia responded to him quickly. He took notes of what she says.
“Well, this is a nice set-up,” said Mark. “Good thing you have doctors on sight.”
“Yup.”
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