The Gamer's Guide to Reality

OK, randomly decided to do this, so here goes: Hi, I randomly decided to do this.
By this, I mean write an original story (the title is a reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide ot the Galaxy). It basically revolves around four kids who play on an online RPG, and, well, hilarity and randomness will ensue. So far, I only have chapter one written, so, read on:

Chapter One

“I just don’t see the point,” Pete said, from his vantage point on top of the monkey bars, looking down on his friends Adam and Luke,

The three of them were in the park, where they had been discussing a whole new game that was being played by nearly everybody at school. A game that nearly everybody talked about during school, after school, and at home online with their instant messengers.

Pete had q very depressing opinion of online chat games, as the last one the three of them had gone on had ended with them collecting completely pointless items, which eventually resulted in a very disappointing reward. However, Luke and Adam were trying to convince Pete that this game was actually good.

However, Luke was getting annoyed after nearly an hour of convincing, “Whaddaya mean you don’t see the point? It’s more interesting, the side quests are more rewarding, there are even rumours you can even go into the game!”

Pete just stared at him, “OK, two things, one, it’s a game, don’t get so worked up about it, and two, going into a computer game is impossible, always has been, probably always will be,”

Luke quietly fumed.

Adam looked towards the road to see a girl walking down the path. He ran from his friends, shouted, “See ya later!” and ran towards the girl.

Pete swung upside down on the monkey bars, while Luke looked on at Adam’s conversation, “What’s the deal with those two?” he asked,

Pete looked at him, still upside down, “Well, if you’d listened when he introduced her three weeks ago, and we’ve been hanging out with her since. Alexis has been staying at his place until her parents move here next month once they finish getting their stuff packed,” he listed,

Luke still looked annoyed, “So how come he’d rather spend time with her than us? I mean, we’re his friends!”

“She’s his friend too, they’ve known each other since they were five, she was on holiday from her home in America, so they’ve been friends for ten years, opposed to the three that we’ve known him,” Pete replied,

“How the heck did you know that?”

“I listen Luke,”

“Oh, shut up,”

•

Adam and Alexis walked over to the other two, still in deep discussion,

“Hi Pete, hi Luke,” Alexis said brightly,

“Hey,” was Pete’s, slightly depressed, reply,

“Meh,” grunted Luke, slipping into his persona of apathetic waste of space.

“What’s up with you guys? You all seem very, well, put down,” Alexis commented,

“We’ve been trying to convince Pete that the game at school is actually a decent waste of time, instead of a lame one,” Luke explained,

“All efforts have failed,” Adam stated, looking ashamedly at his feet, “However, there is one tactic I haven’t tried,”

Alexis looked confused, as did Luke, “What?” they said in unison,
He beckoned them over, and they formed a group huddle (which is difficult if there’s only three of you), and he explained said tactic.

Adam and Luke grabbed Pete by the armpits and carried him, kicking and shouting, Alexis following behind, laughing.

•

They dumped Pete on Adam’s doorstep, so that Adam could unlock the door. As the door swung open, Pete stood up, and followed everyone through the door, knowing he’d never hear the end of it if he ran away.

Adam led his friends up the stairs and into his bedroom.

“Wait, you dragged me all the way here (and dropped me multiple times), just to see your room?” Pete demanded exasperatedly,

Adam considered this, “… No,”

“Then why?” Pete was now extremely annoyed,

“This,” Adam reached up to a hatch on the ceiling, using his lanky height, opened it, and pulled down a step ladder, then began climbing up, “Come on!”

In the loft, Pete and Luke found themselves in technological paradise. There was a big screen TV, connected to multiple games consoles. There were computers and laptops, all with the latest equipment hooked up to it.

Pete summed it up in one word, “Wow,”

Luke just nodded in agreement.

“So, now what?” Pete asked,

“Well, we’re going to play-“ Alexis started,

“Oh no, we’re not going there again, let’s do something else, how about we play on the XBOX?” Pete interrupted, walking over to the TV,

Luke grabbed Pete’s collar and pushed him onto a swivel chair.

Adam plonked a laptop on Pete’s lap, with the opening screen of the game already on it.

Pete shrugged in resignation, and started pressing keys, “So, what do I do?”

Alexis pulled a swivel chair up next to him, and helped him through the character creation phase.

While this was happening, Adam and Luke logged themselves into the game to meet Pete when he was done making his character.

“Wow, this game is lifelike, my character looks almost exactly like me!” Pete commented,

When Pete had finished creating his character, he continued on to the next part of the character creation system, “A questionnaire? Come on! Why does the game need a questionnaire?”

Adam swivelled around to look at him, “Well depending on your answers, it will affect your characters abilities and job class, like one of the questions is ‘What is your favourite video game or video game series?’ if your answer was, say, Mario, your character would probably be able to jump really high, or grow when eating mushrooms,”

“Hmm, well, maybe this game does have some substance to it,” said Pete, frantically pressing keys,

Adam and Luke high-fived, while Alexis switched on a computer and began loading the game up.

Soon, Pete had joined his friends in the virtual world of the game, where the fun was about to begin.

Now for Chapter Two, which is longer than Chapter One.

Chapter Two

The sound of the front door opening and closing could be heard. Adam looked down the loft hatch, and said, “Back in a sec,”

“Where you going,” Luke asked, glancing up from the computer screen,

“I’m going to tell Lauren that the parental types aren’t going to be around for a couple days,” Adam said, walking to the ladder,

“Lauren? As in your extremely attractive sister? Who is only three years older than us?” Luke asked, suddenly extremely interested,

“Oi, leave it, we’ve gone through this twice, you do not have a shot with her,” Adam replied, “Also, the fact that you’re in love with my sister is rather disturbing,”

“I’m not in love with her,” Luke said, “I am obsessed with her,”

“Whatever, just stay here,”

•

Adam pounded down the stairs, “Lauren?”

“Yeah?” came a voice from the kitchen,

“Mum and dad sent an email, they’ll be gone for two days,” Adam called,

“Thanks for telling me, now if you don’t mind, I have some phone conversations to make, some emails to send, and now I have to cook dinner,”

“No problem, how much you gonna cook?”

“Why?”

“I have some friends round,”

“Pete and Luke?”

“Yeah,”

Adam heard Lauren sigh, then say, “Fine, dinner’ll be ready in an hour, stay out of trouble till then, ‘kay?”

“Okay,” Adam trudged up the stairs.

•

When he got back, he found Alexis and Pete struggling to hold Luke back,

“I’m guessing he tried to get downstairs?” Adam asked,

Alexis nodded breathlessly,

Pete fell back, gasping,

“OK, well, dinner’ll be ready within the hour, so let’s carry on with what we were doing before that interruption,” Adam said, “Pete, any idea what job class your character is now?”

Pete pressed a few keys before replying, “Right now, I’m a… 1st Level Human Thief,”

“So, now what?” Luke asked,

“Well, I suppose we could use the ‘Party’ feature, to make the four of us into a group, that way, we can team up to fight larger monsters, and groups,” Alexis suggested,

“So, why hadn’t the three of you formed a party before?” Pete enquired,

“Well, a couple of reasons, I suppose, one: we couldn’t be bothered, two: parties have to be four players or more, or the group is disbanded when a member logs off the game. If there are more than four of you, you are officially a party, and it stays even when the members aren’t on, also we can name it,” Adam paused, “Now, enough chatter, let’s go,” Adam picked up his laptop and started pressing keys,

•

Soon the four of them had formed a party, called “The Four”. It would have been more original, but they couldn’t think of anything.

After a while, the Four got a little bored of just random killing and side quests, even if they were more rewarding.

Pete broke the silence, “I’m bored again,”

Adam seemed to come to a mental decision, and said, “OK, I’m about to tell you something no one outside this house knows,”

“What? You still sleep with a nightlight?” Luke asked sarcastically,

“Shut up you, no, it’s about this game,” Adam replied, “This game,” he pointed at his laptop screen, “well, Alexis and I kinda created it,”

Luke did a spit take, spraying his Diet Coke all over Pete’s head, “You did what?”

“Well, not created it in the sense that we intentionally made it, but yeah, the game was my idea,”

“What do you mean? I know you’re quite wealthy and everything, but how do two fifteen year old kids make a high quality computer game?” Pete demanded,

“Well, it’s kind of a long story, but we have about three quarters of an hour till dinner, so I guess I can tell you, well, it all started when Alexis came over from the US three weeks ago…”

•

Three Weeks Ago

Adam and Alexis got out of his parent’s car, which had just taken them from the airport to his house.

Alexis looked up at Adam’s overly large house, “What did you do? Win the lottery?”

Adam looked at her, “Yeah, pretty much,”

“I was kidding,”

“I know, doesn’t make it any less true,”

Adam led Alexis up to the guest bedroom, for her to dump her suitcases, before asking, “So what were you so excited about in the car? You seemed pretty keen to get me on my own,”

“Well, you know my dad works for the US government?” Alexis replied,

“Ye-es?”

“Well, he gave me one of these old scanner things, it analyses whatever is passed through it, and translates the data for use, he built it out of old computer parts, so it’s the only one of it’s kind,” Alexis explained, rifling through her suitcases,

“You bring it with you?”

“Yep, do you wanna go install it on your computer?”

“I don’t see why not, to the loft!” Adam exclaimed, raising his fist (superhero style) and leading her to his bedroom,

•

Present Day

“Wait a second, you’re saying that this scanner thing analysed something, and created a game about it?” Pete asked, a disbelieving expression on his face, oh, that and Diet Coke.

“Sort of, I had a notebook full of all these ideas for a game, so we decided to let the scanner scan that,” Adam explained, “At first all we got were heaps of code, which was kind of disappointing, but later, I head my computer whirring, and when I went to investigate I found that the code was writing itself, expanding on what I had originally written, and then the opening screen to the game just opened up on my computer,”

“So how’d it end up on the school system?” Luke enquired,

“Well, after the disappointing failure I had decided to do some homework, and I’d left the school website up,” Adam paused to think, “I’d say that the game broke itself up and went through the website, and then spread into the school system as soon as someone logged into it at school, or the computer the website is run from in the school,”

“Is that even possible?”

“Probably not, but it ended up in school anyway.”

“So, you accidentally created a game, through pure luck and a scanner?” Pete asked,

“Unlikely but true,” Alexis commented,

“Shards of the game were in the school computers, and people could use these to connect to the larger game, like a shortcut,” Adam explained, “I want to show you something the game made,”

“What do you mean, ‘the game made’?” Luke shook his head, “Things like this don’t happen in real life, you’re having us on,”

“Wish I was mate, but the whole thing is true,” Adam said, “So, when I opened the game up, these blueprints shot out of my printer,” he rummaged through a cupboard drawer, “As I had some spare computer and video games console parts lying around, I could build it, but I had to buy the doorframe,”

Luke looked at him questioningly, before looking at the blueprints. They showed a doorframe with door attached, and several electronic parts attached to it, such as a computer keyboard, which don’t usually come with doors, “What does it do?”

“I have my theories, the most likely being that it allows the player to go inside the game,”

“Do you have any theories on how the computer made the game?”

“Yes, I think that this house is built on a dimensional rift, and ideas about the game leaked out as thought waves, I wrote them down, and then this dimension forced my computer to make the game itself,” Adam suggested,

“A lot of crazy things there, but compared to what else you’ve been telling us, makes more sense,” Pete said,

“Well, the door is in the corner, so we get it on it’s stand, plug it in, hook it up to a computer with the game loaded, and go in,” Adam said, pointing to the completely unnoticeable door in the corner.

Here's Chapter Three... come on people! I'd like people to read this, give me some feedback etcetera.

Chapter Three

“So, now what? We just going to turn this thing on, and hang out in the game world?” Pete asked, as he and Adam carried the doorframe (including door and electrical equipment) to a stand Alexis had put on the floor,

“Yeah, pretty much, we can stay in the game for about half an hour in the real world, as that’s when dinner’ll be ready, and a day in the game world is roughly ten minutes, so we’ll stay for three days, however, the length of these days are entirely dependant on how our minds translate them on the way in,” Adam told him, as they lowered the door frame into the stand,

Adam grabbed a USB cable, and plugged it into a waiting computer, then plugged the door into an open socket,

“Have you ever done this before?” Luke asked,

“What? Go into the game world? No, we haven’t, in fact, what we’re going to do now will either work perfectly, not work at all, or seriously injure us, so the fact that we’re going in now is because we’re bored out of our minds,” Adam told them once he had finished setting the door up, “Ready to go?”

Pete and Alexis murmured in agreement, while Luke looked like he was about to burst with excitement, “Yeah!”

“Then here goes,” Adam said dramatically, before pushing the power button on the door.

•

Nothing seemingly happened, and Adam looked crestfallen, “Why does nothing I build ever work?”

He moved over to the door, and opened it, in a hopeless effort to see if it had worked. However, instead of seeing the room on the other side of the door, there was the image of the game world from a birds-eye view.

The keyboard that had been built into the door swung through the image (seemingly unaffected), and words appeared in the door, ‘Enter username and password’.

Pete ran around the back of the door, and looked through it, all he could see was Adam on the other side, “How-?”

Adam shrugged, “Who cares? Let’s see if it’ll work though,” he started typing into the keyboard,

The door briefly flashed a bright white light, before the clearing again, and the word ‘Enter’ appeared,

Adam took this as his cue to step forwards, and for the other three it was like watching their friend step into the door and disappear.

•

For Adam, as soon as he stepped through the doorway he felt himself plummeting, a bit queasy from the sudden shift in gravity.

As he fell, he knew he was going to die, but, as one often does when one is about to die, time seemed to slow down as he noticed something seemingly unimportant. From this height, everything looked like it had on his computer screen, with the camera above his character, however, his character wasn’t there. Soon, time sped up again, and Adam closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he found himself standing at the spot that had been devoid of his character up until seconds ago. He also wasn’t dead, which is a good thing.

Suddenly a tremendous pain ripped up his spine.

•

“What should we do? I mean, how do we know he hasn’t been killed?” Pete asked, “Should we follow him or not?”

Alexis examined Adam’s computer screen, which still had Adam’s character on it, however, it seemed to be moving independently, “Well, assuming that’s him, he’s fine,” she looked at the other two, “I’ll go next if you like,”

With that she keyed in her username and password onto the door’s keyboard and jumped through the door,

Pete and Luke looked at each other with looks that said, “Who’s going next?” as both were considering the negatives of what was on the other side of the door,

Of course, like all big decisions in the universe, this was decided in the most logical way possible. Rock, paper, scissors. Yeah.
“Scissors beats paper!” Pete exclaimed,

“Best two out of three?” Luke attempted, but no dice, Pete marched him over to the door,

Luke reluctantly keyed in his username and password, and glumly walked through the door, to what he thought was certain doom,

Pete, after much deliberation and thought, had come to a decision between running away and forgetting the other three had ever existed, or going in after them. Then he considered how boring his life would be if he never took risks, and he entered his username and password, and dived through the door.

•

Alexis too felt the sensation of falling, before realising she was still running, and in the same place her character had been moments before, she looked at Adam to see him in intense pain while growths pushed themselves out of his armpits and his back. Suddenly, she felt a strange feeling all over her body, as changes began to affect her as well.

Luke had kept his eyes closed the whole trip, and when he opened his eyes he felt his ears elongating to a point.

Pete hit the floor face first.

•

Adam’s shirt ripped and two large, and two small, reptilian wings folded out, and grew. Where the wings met the skin they were of a similar colour and texture, but as they got further away you could see scales, and the tone was that of a light gold, the wing flaps being leathery and yellow. Several inches below his armpits, a new pair of arms had punched their way through the skin. Muscles had appeared where there hadn’t been before. Not overly large, body-builder-type muscles, but enough to defend oneself in a fight. The seat of his trousers tore as his spine extended, until it became a long, reptilian (of the same hue as the wings) tail.

Suddenly his trousers readjusted themselves to compensate for the tail, and re-designed themselves to resemble those of his characters, which were basically three-quarter length shorts.

His school shoes changed and moulded into more suitable adventuring boots, and large metal shin guards appeared, actually built onto the boots themselves. His ripped shirt remapped itself to compensate for the extra arms and wings, before then changing colour until it was a red t-shirt with short black sleeves. His bare hands were suddenly made un-bare with adventuring gloves (basically black, fingerless gloves).

His belt suddenly readjusted itself so it could hold a sword and its scabbard, which soon appeared. Then two sword-belts wound their way across his torso, followed by their accompanying swords and sheaths.

A black and red baseball cap appeared on his head, and then twisted itself so it was facing backwards. The tuft of hair that now stuck out at the front suddenly burst out of it, so Adam had a large, spiked tuft of brown hair sticking out of his cap.

The impossibility, and possibly the amount of energy needed for such a transformation, caused him to fall over, semi-conscious.

•

The sensation Alexis had felt upon arriving began to consume her, short, tawny brown fur marked with black spots spread across her skin. She cried out in pain as her DNA was rewritten, combining her regular human DNA with those of an ocelot. Her shoulder-length platinum blonde hair, lengthened until it was waist-length, with light-brown streaks appearing.

Her canines sharpened, and her clothes reshaped themselves to avoid tearing. As her tail lengthened out of the back of the new whole in her trousers, the two legs of the trousers fused together to become a skirt, which then shortened until it was knee-length.

Her blouse had reformed to a regular white t-shirt. Her new clothes allowed for more cat-like manoeuvrability as well as human manoeuvrability.

The pain of the transformation caused her to black out.

Although she was unconscious, the changes didn’t stop. She shrunk several inches, and her feet gained pads and her toes became clawed. Her hands were mostly unaffected, mainly because animal hybrids are human enough in this area for there not to be a problem in the opposable thumb department, although her fingers and thumbs did gain claws.

•

Luke was mostly unaffected, his ears lengthened to points, and he grew several inches, so there were no extra-growths, but he was conscious of all the other changes.

A dark-blue cape had formed, and his garb became that of a wizard. His long, greasy hair became short and spiked. At his belt was a gnarled staff, which whispered of forgotten magicks and spells.

•

Pete pulled his face out of the dirt and gaped at the transformations affecting his friends, completely unaware of his own.

His clothes had changed to a camouflage green, and at his belt was a knife.

As he watched, his mind began to consider things he had never considered before, such as, ‘How much would that staff sell for? I wonder…’ He caught himself, he had never considered thievery before in his life, too scared he might get caught, and now he wasn’t just considering it, he’d almost done it. He pulled his arm back down from where it had been reaching for Luke’s belt.

Now the fun could truly begin.

I think your story has a lot of potential, but here are a couple of things that might help make this better-

1) I think more description would help. Take some time to describe the areas around your characters, and not just the situation or why they are in a particular area. If you can, try and put in descriptions pertaining to each of the five senses. Don't just tell me what's happening, show me! Really try and get into the characters' minds. Draw me, the reader, into the world you're trying to create here.

2) Separate your chapters into paragraphs. To be honest, I found your story hard to read because there was hardly any spacing between dialogue. Have a space between your dialogue from the rest of your description like so-

"So what do you think of my ring?" He asked.

"I think it's lovely!" She replied.

Granted, that's not the best example I could've given you, but you see my point. That is definitely easier to read.

While I'm on that subject, every so often, break off and start a new paragraph. I find it easier for me to read something if you break descriptions down into smaller paragraphs because honestly, it is really hard to read huge paragraphs.

I hope this helps you.

Originally Posted by Veyrael

I think your story has a lot of potential, but here are a couple of things that might help make this better-

1) I think more description would help. Take some time to describe the areas around your characters, and not just the situation or why they are in a particular area. If you can, try and put in descriptions pertaining to each of the five senses. Don't just tell me what's happening, show me! Really try and get into the characters' minds. Draw me, the reader, into the world you're trying to create here.

2) Separate your chapters into paragraphs. To be honest, I found your story hard to read because there was hardly any spacing between dialogue. Have a space between your dialogue from the rest of your description like so-

"So what do you think of my ring?" He asked.

"I think it's lovely!" She replied.

Granted, that's not the best example I could've given you, but you see my point. That is definitely easier to read.

While I'm on that subject, every so often, break off and start a new paragraph. I find it easier for me to read something if you break descriptions down into smaller paragraphs because honestly, it is really hard to read huge paragraphs.

I hope this helps you.

Thanks, I may go back. My idea was to give as little description as possible, and introduce more as it goes along (see chapter three). I may go back and do some spacing.
Thanks.

Yep. Over all it's pretty good. You might want to spend more time editing, and as Vayrael says you should throw in some more details. So keep it coming and good job.