Several dozen years ago, the first video game was released. It was a crappy black-and-white ping-pong game. However, pitiful as it was, it was the greatest step in the new age. Do you wonder how videogames are made? Coding, slightly. Programming, barely. But how does it actually put the effects onto your screen? When consoles were first introduced, humans had created an artificial god. It has many forms, and goes by many names. The Gamemaster (or GM for short), the AI, the CPU. The Entity was born. The Entity was a kind of magic, bringing joy and anger-outlets to the lives of everyday people. However, this power had a dark side. An evil force that drove The Entity into a more...dark era of the digital world. Games like Grand Theft Auto were just the beginning. The more The Entity embraced its evil side, the more it was loved, and the more it dared to journey deeper into a darker gaming age. Today, the year is 2050, and the newest virtual reality game is about to come out. Don't worry, it's nothing like Sword Art Online. There have been hundreds of VR games before, all which had no problems, and almost all were much beloved. It was a game called "TerrorCards", a game with every horrifying creature you can imagine from any form of media. From Doctor Who's weeping angel, to the xenomorphs from Aliens, and even the crappiest creepypastas, all melded into a form of card game in a virtual world. This is where our adventure begins, with a random gamer nerd biking down to his favorite GameStop.
His name is Devin. He looked to be in middle school, event though he was a highschool Softmore. He wears a leather jacket, and black sweatpants with a red vertical stripe going along the side of them. He also has thick glasses, on a face covered by pimples. His hair is buzzcut, as close as possible to bald while still having hair.
He pedals down the sidewalk, rocks crunching under his wheels. He's sweating, thinking Why did we have to live so far away? Devin barely stops in time for a car to pass when he gets to the road. It honks at him, as his tires screech to a halt.
He screams "Sorry!" as the car passes him.
"Careful, jackass!" The angry driver shouts at him through their open window, the song My House blasting through their radio. Devin sat there, waiting for the traffic light to turn green. He pulls out his phone and earbuds, and turns on Pandora, while jamming the earbuds into his ear. After clicking skip on several songs, he looked up to see the light on the other side of the street turn from green to yellow. Meaning the street he was about to cross would turn green soon. He sighed, and put the phone and buds back into his black bag he had on his shoulder. He looks up, and sees the walk sign turn white, and show a picture of a cartoon man walking, indicating that he could walk now. He hopped on his bike and rode off.
About 15 minutes later, he arrived at the GameStop. He locked his bike up near the bike rack, and took off his helmet, the cool Autumn breeze flowing through what was left of his hair. He ran up to the door of the store. There was no line, meaning everyone was already inside, buying a copy of the game. He might have been too late. He opened the doors, pushing his way past the huge groups of people. He got up to the counter, dug into his pockets, and slammed his money on the counter. "A copy of TerrorCards for the pc please!" He said, slightly out of breath from all the biking. The store clerk reached behind himself, pulled a copy of the game off the shelves, and put it on the counter. Devin grabbed the game's CD case, and the store clerk looked through the money, giving back change.
Devin raced back home, eager to try out his new game. He biked to the back of his house, and put his bike in the garage. He entered the home, greeted by the dog, whom his family named Butters. Butters leaped off the ground towards Devin, barking and licking his face. "Down boy, haha." Devin said, giggling. Butters wasn't a big dog, by any means, but he weighed quite a bit. Dan, Devin's stepdad, whistled. Butters ran towards the sound of Dan's whistle, and Dan started petting him. Dan was an incredibly tall man and skinny man. He grew up from a rough childhood in Texas, and developed many concerning conditions as a result. He had a luck of ability to feel hunger, so he could go whole days without eating and not realize or care. He also had really bad back muscles, and felt intense pain from his back at random times, so he sits on a pillow whenever he sits anywhere, to ease the pain. He also had a huge dislike to cheese.
But despite all his flaws, Devin liked him as a father because he shared Devin's love of all video games. He was also pretty smart when it came to strategy, and offered Devin much advice on how to use clever and cunning strategies in the games he played.
"Welcome home, Dev." Dan said as he pet Butters.
"Thanks. Can I go on the computer? Got a new game from the shop."
"I don't see why not. Have fun."
"Thanks, I will." Devin said as he walked up to the computer, turned it on, and started installing the game. While waiting for the game to finish downloading, Devin went on Steam and checked his group, The Scorpion Guild. The Scorpion Guild was a group Devin made to connect all his friends together to play games. Currently, it only has one member. A guy named Brayden, username: B_Boss. B_Boss had access to the beta for TerrorCards, so Devin knew from him that it must have been an amazing game. When the Scorpion Guild page loaded, there were no new join requests. As usual. Devin checked the game download progress. 100%. A button appeared to start playing the game. He put on his VR headset, and clicked play.
A black screen popped up. "Enter Username" said a siri voice. A keyboard popped up in front of Devin's view. He entered his name, same as always: Dscore20.
"Welcome to TerrorCards." The siri voice said, and Devin's character loaded in. He looked himself over. A customize character option popped up, and he made his character look like himself, except with less pimples and better hair. After clicking accept, a strange device appeared on his arm. It was a metallic half of a card game playing field, similar to the wrist card holder from Yu-Gi-Oh. A sudden thought then entered Devin's mind. This had better not just be a rip-off of yu-gi-oh… Truth be told, Devin was not a fan of yu-gi-oh. The siri voice returned, this time sounding more human.
"Hello, and welcome to the tutorial simulation." A large green bar appeared on the hud below Dscore's vision. It had the words "HP: 20" next to it.
"This, is you health point meter. When it reaches zero, you will die. Your HP meter will increase when you level up. You also have a mana bar below your HP." Dscore noticed the blue bar barely visible under the green bar. The words "Mana: 1" shown next to the blue bar. Suddenly, a deck of card appeared on the wrist card holder, each card had the Terrorcards logo on the back of it. Dscore looked up from his wrist, and saw a gray figure step out of the darkness. It also had a wrist holder. The siri voice continued.
"Let's have a practice duel. The enter a duel with an enemy, simply say 'Let's duel!' as loud as you can. When a player declares a duel, both players have to accept the duel request." The gray figure in front of Dscore held up his card holder, and words popped up in Dscore's view. "Accept duel?" the options yes or no also appeared. Dscore clicked yes. The deck of cards on Dscore's wrist holder drew 3 cards into Dscore's view. The voice continued,
"In an event of player vs an enemy AI, the player will always go first. To play a card, you will need to spend mana. You max mana will increase as you level up, as well. Please look at your cards." Dscore did as told.
"There are two types of cards, minions and actions. Minions have an ATK and HP value, and actions do not." Dscore noticed a card in his hand, deadite zombie. It cost 1 mana, and had 2 ATK and 4 HP.
"To play a card, simply drag the card from your field of view onto your wrist guard." Dscore played the zombie in an empty space. It spent all his mana meter, because, after all, he only had 1 mana. A zombie appeared out of the ground, and stood up. Ready to fight.
"Minions cannot attack the same turn they are summoned, so please end your turn." Dscore noticed a yellow "End Turn" button on his wrist guard. He pressed it, and the enemy AI was quick to react. It summoned a deadite skeleton shieldmaster. A skeleton with a giant spiked shield. The siri voice continued, Dscore getting quite annoyed.
"There are several special effects in TerrorCards. The most common ones are Taunt, Charge, Battlecry, and Deathrattle. There are several other effects too. You can see them all in your in-game menu. This shieldmaster has taunt, meaning you have to attack them if you attack." Dscore waited, and the enemy AI ended their turn.
"To attack, simply tap the minion in play, and point to the target enemy minion." Devin did just that. He tapped his zombie, and pointed to the enemy skeleton. The zombie clawed at the shield, and the skeleton bashed the creature in the face, and it stumbled back. Text popped up above their heads.
"Dscore's deadite zombie did 2 damage to enemy AI's skeleton shieldmaster, and suffered 1 damage in return."
Devin noticed he had another card in his hand. An action, called Life Surge. He dragged it onto the deadite zombie, and it healed 3 HP form the creature. But since its max HP was 4, it only healed 1 HP., bringing it back up to full health. Dscore ended his turn, and the enemy AI used his shieldmaster, and it swung its shield at Dscore. He was knocked back, flat on his bum, dealing 1 damage. That actually felt like it hurt… he though for a moment, then stood back up, not wondering why his cards hadn't spilled out onto the floor. He saw his HP bar go from 20, to 19.
It was his turn again. His mana went up to 2, now. And he cast an action on his zombie, roar of rage. It gave the minion +2 HP, and taunt. The zombie then attacked the shieldmaster, killing it.
The enemy AI did his turn. This time, they summoned a deadite skeleton jouster. A skeleton riding a horse while holding a giant lance. It had charge, so it could attack the same turn it was played. It did 3 damage to the zombie, injuring it badly, but the jouster only had 1 HP, and died instantly. The zombie had 3 HP left. Dscore's turn. He attacked the enemy AI directly, dealing 2 damage, and killing the enemy. The siri voice continued speaking.
"You can improve your deck by unlocking packs, and swapping out cards in your library for cards in your deck."
A world started loading in, forming green all around Dscore.
"This ends our tutorial program. Good luck, and have fun." The siri voice vanished, and Dscore finished loading into the world. His adventure had begun.