Winning the Prize
Jan. 31st, 2009 12:01 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsJulian receives an opportunity he can't refuse, in the form of a grand prize from Screw Top Games.
It was the sound of his alarm clock that woke Julian Keller up on Saturday mornings. Every other day of the week he was up before it had a chance to ring out it's unpleasant tones; his internal clock would wake him up for classes. But Saturdays were different- it was his day to sleep in, which usually meant staying up until two or three in the morning playing games.
Julian would never tell anyone about his addiction to Screw Top Games- a flash game website that he'd discovered several years ago. Every morning he got up he'd do the same thing and today would be no different.
With a force of willpower, Julian rolled out of bed and headed out into the common room to brush his teeth and fix his hair- a shower would come later. He headed downstairs, saying hello to the people who passed him in the hallways until he finally arrived at the kitchen. There, the morning ritual of a quick bowl of cereal and a casual discussion with whoever was around would take about five minutes; after which he'd excuse himself citing homework and head back up to his room.
On a typical day, he'd only have about ten or twenty minutes to progress the name "ScionJK9" on the website's leader boards. Saturdays, however, were a different story; today he had an hour, or maybe two, before anyone usually came looking for him. He intended to make full use of his time, by beating level after level in one of the site's new releases, "Survivor Tag."
The game was simple enough, but he just couldn't seem to get past the thirty-fourth level. Stranded in a hostile jungle, he had to use his wits to find his way from check-point to check point, all the while rescuing people and avoiding the unfriendly natives and booby traps. All it took was a quick click of his mouse on the link he'd made on the desktop- discretely titled "Lit Project-" and he was suddenly in stunningly rendered jungle with nothing but his wits to save him. The graphics were the main feature of games from this site, they were crisply rendered and leagues above the poorly made games of places like Gamefudge or Flashgames.com.
******
Nearly two hours later, Julian was on level thirty-four again, dodging darts and spears from the natives, keeping an eye out for the hunter who had decided his sixty-four bit character was fair game and outrunning impending doom from the volcano which had just erupted. He could see the clearing he had to get to, safety from the volcano and triumph over level thirty-four was only yards away…this was the point where he usually died. But the hundreds of times he'd played this level had conditioned him: dodge left, duck and roll, jump over the log instead of going over; every mistake, every loss was another misstep toward getting it right and beating the game. Unfortunately, he could never figure out how to get across the giant chasm that plunged thousands of feet down into a river- but today he felt lucky.
With the lava flow only seconds behind him, Julian finally saw what he had to do. Just outside what he thought would be his range, there was a vine dangling over the abyss before him. Before he could jump to his doom- again- the lava reached the cliffs and started falling over the side a few feet from where he was. For some reason, this caused a tree to fall over in front of him, creating the perfect spring board to launch himself across the canyon on the vine. With only microseconds left, Julian sprang into action, running across the narrow tree trunk and launching himself out through the smoke, narrowly managing to catch the vine and swing toward the relative safety of the other side. Just before the vine started to travel back, he launched himself into the air and held his breath until his character rolled to a stop on the other side.
He had beaten level thirty-four.
Julian sprang from his chair, doing an impromptu victory dance- which suddenly made him very thankful to have a single room- and shouting in exuberance. A strange sound made him turn his attention back to the screen. A window had popped up while the next level loaded, with a request for him to enter his name, address and email address. Assuming it was for some sort of scoreboard entry, Julian quickly typed in the information- having to look up the school's address again- then quickly pressed enter.
One of his suitemates knocked on the door, asking if everything was alright as the next window opened. It wasn't the game and it wasn't a scoreboard, instead the window was congratulating him on being able to beat the level and… offering him a prize. An all day pass to Laser Saga where he and up to twenty friends he chose to bring along could play games, enjoy pizza and basically run amok in the largest indoor laser tag arena in the New England states.
Julian knew that the site awarded monthly prizes at random to those who had broken past a certain level on the games, but he'd never gotten far enough to be entered into the draw. Now, it looked like his accomplishment in 'Survivor Tag' had been high enough to get into the drawing, and he was one of the winners for the first time. Checking the monthly leaderboard, he got to see ScionJK9 go up in bright flashing green in the winner's placing at the top of the board. Beside it, the little mascot of the site, Panic the Bee, danced as an animated gif.
"Everything is fine, Artie!" The door remained shut as he grinned- this would be a perfect opportunity to unwind in the middle of next week…all he had to do now was convince Professor Xavier to get some chaperons for him and the rest of his new friends. "Everything is fantastic," he added to himself, smiling at the dancing cartoon bee on the screen.
It was the sound of his alarm clock that woke Julian Keller up on Saturday mornings. Every other day of the week he was up before it had a chance to ring out it's unpleasant tones; his internal clock would wake him up for classes. But Saturdays were different- it was his day to sleep in, which usually meant staying up until two or three in the morning playing games.
Julian would never tell anyone about his addiction to Screw Top Games- a flash game website that he'd discovered several years ago. Every morning he got up he'd do the same thing and today would be no different.
With a force of willpower, Julian rolled out of bed and headed out into the common room to brush his teeth and fix his hair- a shower would come later. He headed downstairs, saying hello to the people who passed him in the hallways until he finally arrived at the kitchen. There, the morning ritual of a quick bowl of cereal and a casual discussion with whoever was around would take about five minutes; after which he'd excuse himself citing homework and head back up to his room.
On a typical day, he'd only have about ten or twenty minutes to progress the name "ScionJK9" on the website's leader boards. Saturdays, however, were a different story; today he had an hour, or maybe two, before anyone usually came looking for him. He intended to make full use of his time, by beating level after level in one of the site's new releases, "Survivor Tag."
The game was simple enough, but he just couldn't seem to get past the thirty-fourth level. Stranded in a hostile jungle, he had to use his wits to find his way from check-point to check point, all the while rescuing people and avoiding the unfriendly natives and booby traps. All it took was a quick click of his mouse on the link he'd made on the desktop- discretely titled "Lit Project-" and he was suddenly in stunningly rendered jungle with nothing but his wits to save him. The graphics were the main feature of games from this site, they were crisply rendered and leagues above the poorly made games of places like Gamefudge or Flashgames.com.
******
Nearly two hours later, Julian was on level thirty-four again, dodging darts and spears from the natives, keeping an eye out for the hunter who had decided his sixty-four bit character was fair game and outrunning impending doom from the volcano which had just erupted. He could see the clearing he had to get to, safety from the volcano and triumph over level thirty-four was only yards away…this was the point where he usually died. But the hundreds of times he'd played this level had conditioned him: dodge left, duck and roll, jump over the log instead of going over; every mistake, every loss was another misstep toward getting it right and beating the game. Unfortunately, he could never figure out how to get across the giant chasm that plunged thousands of feet down into a river- but today he felt lucky.
With the lava flow only seconds behind him, Julian finally saw what he had to do. Just outside what he thought would be his range, there was a vine dangling over the abyss before him. Before he could jump to his doom- again- the lava reached the cliffs and started falling over the side a few feet from where he was. For some reason, this caused a tree to fall over in front of him, creating the perfect spring board to launch himself across the canyon on the vine. With only microseconds left, Julian sprang into action, running across the narrow tree trunk and launching himself out through the smoke, narrowly managing to catch the vine and swing toward the relative safety of the other side. Just before the vine started to travel back, he launched himself into the air and held his breath until his character rolled to a stop on the other side.
He had beaten level thirty-four.
Julian sprang from his chair, doing an impromptu victory dance- which suddenly made him very thankful to have a single room- and shouting in exuberance. A strange sound made him turn his attention back to the screen. A window had popped up while the next level loaded, with a request for him to enter his name, address and email address. Assuming it was for some sort of scoreboard entry, Julian quickly typed in the information- having to look up the school's address again- then quickly pressed enter.
One of his suitemates knocked on the door, asking if everything was alright as the next window opened. It wasn't the game and it wasn't a scoreboard, instead the window was congratulating him on being able to beat the level and… offering him a prize. An all day pass to Laser Saga where he and up to twenty friends he chose to bring along could play games, enjoy pizza and basically run amok in the largest indoor laser tag arena in the New England states.
Julian knew that the site awarded monthly prizes at random to those who had broken past a certain level on the games, but he'd never gotten far enough to be entered into the draw. Now, it looked like his accomplishment in 'Survivor Tag' had been high enough to get into the drawing, and he was one of the winners for the first time. Checking the monthly leaderboard, he got to see ScionJK9 go up in bright flashing green in the winner's placing at the top of the board. Beside it, the little mascot of the site, Panic the Bee, danced as an animated gif.
"Everything is fine, Artie!" The door remained shut as he grinned- this would be a perfect opportunity to unwind in the middle of next week…all he had to do now was convince Professor Xavier to get some chaperons for him and the rest of his new friends. "Everything is fantastic," he added to himself, smiling at the dancing cartoon bee on the screen.
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