rekindleme | Electronic Amusements

Entry tags:

[ou] lancer (zero)

Electronic Amusements

Who: Donatello and OPEN
Where: Casa de Turtle
When: November 15th, afternoon
Summary: Too many people here don't know what video games are, and this cannot stand! Clearly a party is called for.
Warnings: Rated T for Teen?

Donatello's apartment is cleaner than it tends to be. All the scientific apparatus (apparatuses? apparati?) have been neatly put away, the garbage has been emptied, the bed is made, the couch is free of crumbs, and the floor has even been swept. Plus there's snacks on the coffee table. Facing the couch are two large refurbished televisions, each hooked up to a second-hand video game console. Games are arranged in a two neat stacks next to each device.

All that remains is actual guests, which a few invitations by phone, plus the flyers Don posted in the lobbies of the apartment buildings should hopefully take care of.

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When Diarmuid arrives at Donatello's apartment, he looks excited but oddly tired as well. Ever since seeing the assassination attempt against Cyntia, he has been having nightmares. They always cause him to wake up crying, but he can't remember why. He can't remember anything about the dreams, as a matter of fact, and it frustrates him a great deal.

This is really the kind of thing he needs to help him forget about it for a while.

Once inside, Diarmuid sets the plate of cookies he made on the table where Donatello has the snacks--he couldn't come empty-handed after all--and then makes his way over to where the TVs and weird boxes are. He can't wait to find out how it all works!

"Hi Diarmuid," Donatello says, welcoming him in. "How are you doing?" he asks, looking a bit concerned at the young knight-to-be's appearance.

The turtle smiles and sits down cross-legged on the floor in front of a TV, pulling a game from the stack and slotting the disc into the console. "Let's try this one, Super Dungeon Fighter. You play as a party of adventurers in an underground dungeon, slaying monsters and collecting loot." Plus it's cooperative, easy to learn, and the death penalty is extremely forgiving.

Donatello hands a controller to Diarmuid as the title screen pops up, demonstrating how to hold the strange object as he moves to the character select screen.

Diarmuid takes the controller and holds it as Donatello tells him too--after a moment of turning it over in his hands as if it will help him understand how it works better. It doesn't and most of what Donatello is saying goes right over Diarmuid's head. However, he does latch onto one thing. This is a fighting game. Diarmuid knows how to fight!

"This is a strange kind of weapon then? How do I use it and why is it connected to the box? I can't swing it very well then!"

Oh boy...might want to start from ground zero with this one, Donatello!

"It's not a weapon! It's to control the game. The box is a computer, like the terminals around the city, and the controller is like the keyboard. See, watch, when I move the stick here with my thumb, it highlights different characters on the screen and says 'Player 2' next to them? And when I press this button on the other side of the controller," boop, "that tells it what character I want to play." Donatello has selected the wizard and is now setting the color to purple, because of course. "Understand?"

"Oh!" Well that comparison helps some. Diarmuid might not know how exactly the computers and terminals work, but he does know how to use them. He starts to turn the controller over in his hands for another examination, but stops when Donatello starts his demonstration of how the controller makes things happen on screen. The demonstration helps some, but he is just a little confused still.

"Can you help me do that?" While he learns well by watching, Diarmuid usually needs to do things himself to really get them to stick.

"Sure!" Don says, putting his controller down and moving behind Diarmuid to put his hands atop the child's on the controller. He moves his left thumb, showing how to move the thumbstick, then his right, showing how to push the buttons.

"Any idea which character you'd like to play?" he asks. All the standard ones are there. There's Sword Person, Axe Person, Wizard Person, Healer Person, Bow and Arrow Person, etcetera. All can have their clothing colors and gender changed as well.

When Donatello moves over to start helping him move the stick like it should be, he smiles, fingers moving to match. That helps! After things start to move on the screen like he expects them to, he can't help but cheer and then turn to Donatello with a smile.

"I think I have it! Is there a person with a spear?" He turns back to the screen and looks at one character that has a spear-like weapon, but it doesn't look like any spear he knows, "That isn't quite right. If there isn't, can I play someone with a sword?"

He doesn't really care so much for colors or if his character is female or male. There is sot much other fun stuff to mess with at the moment...

"It doesn't look like we have anyone with a spear. The one guy has a trident. It looks like the Knight and the Barbarian have sw-" Donatello's sentence is cut off by a sigh of exasperation as lines of static appear on the TV screen. "Hold that thought," he says, standing up and walking over move the television away from the wall, fiddling with the wiring on the back, then leaning around to check the screen. "Okay, that should hold it," he says, resuming his seat.

"So yeah, the Knight and the Barbarian have swords," he finishes, pointing out the two characters.

Diarmuid leans to the side to see if he can see what Donatello is doing, but after a moment he gives up and just waits for his friend to return. Once Donatello is sitting again, he tilts his head at him, "What happened? Was something loose or broken?"

It doesn't take Diarmuid long at all to decide who he wants to be. Really, his choice should be obvious.

"The knight! I want to be the knight!"

"Yeah, one of the cables came loose. These are all sort of cobbled together," Donatello states, gesturing to encompass both TVs and game consoles. "I miss my set-up back home," he sighs.

The turtle smiles. He saw that one coming. "I never would have guessed you'd pick the knight, Diarmuid," he says.

The other characters on the screen fade away, to be replaced by the knight and the wizard, backs to the audience, in front of a huge set of wooden doors with a skull embossed in the middle, slowly opening as a loading bar fills.

"That is all I know how to be!" Diarmuid giggles and then watches the screen change. He is very curious about how this is going to work, and hoping that the 'cobbled' together device won't give out in the middle of everything. It will make him very sad if they can't finish what they are starting.

"What do I do first? Which button makes him move and use his sword?"

"The thumbstick is for moving, just like on the character select screen. I think the red button is attack, the yellow button is block, the green button is jump, and the blue button is special attack." The buttons all have a character written on them too, but it's in Saeng Seongian, so the colors are probably more useful.

The game finishes loading after a brief interval, and now on the screen is an overhead view of the knight and the wizard in what appears to be a basement. There's two minutes or so of nothing much happening while a voice-over that sounds very bored gives the game's excuse for a plot, and then zombies start rising up from the ground and shambling slowly towards the player characters.

"Special attack? How do I know when to use that? Will you tell me?" Diarmuid seems to understand the other controls, testing them out without actually attacking anything right away. He is glad that Donatello mentioned what went with what color because he can identify the colors faster than he can read at the moment.

"Do we fight those things? Are you ready? I want to start before they get usss!" He is giggling and bouncing on his knees as he waits to start.

"Yes, these are the things we fight and I am ready to start!" Donatello responds, grinning. The little guy's enthusiasm is infectious.

"The special attack is different for each character. I think the Knight's is a shield bash that stuns? Or that might be one of the other guys," Donatello explains, having his little wizard cast a fireball into a group of enemies.

"A shield stun? That makes sense! It's one way to use a shield. I will just have to try and find out. Don't let anyone get behind me!" Diarmuid cheers and then directs his character toward one of the zombies since he can't attack from a distance. At first he fumbles just a bit, but soon he figures it out and dispatches the zombie.

"And now the next one! You will not get passed us!"

The flaming zombies continue shambling towards the heroes as the wizard pew-pews little magic bolts at them, eventually causing them to crumble to the floor into little piles of cartoony ash. A couple of the piles spawn spinning gold coins above them, and one of them spawns a little spinning heart.

"You can do your basic attacks as much as you like, but your special attack is on a timer. See the bar under the picture of the knight at the top of the screen? You can only do your shield bash when it's full. Oh, and the hearts above it are your health. If an enemy hits you, you take damage, and when all your hearts are gone, your character dies and you lose some gold and have to wait a minute before you can come back in."

That is a lot of information at once, but Diarmuid thinks he understands it all. He notes where the special attack bar Donatello mentions is and then speaks, "I took some damage so I am going to grab the heart!" He directs his character over to pick it up and watches as the damage he took heals. It's too bad damage taken during real battle can't be healed so easily!

"What do you use the money for?" He looks away from the screen for a moment and at Donatello, "Are there things you buy?"

Donnie nods. "Yeah, there are little stores throughout the game where you can purchase upgrades to your weapons and new abilities and stuff."

He directs his wizard to go around behind the much sturdier knight as a new wave of enemies (skeletons this time, even) appear and a door opens at the far end of the room, granting access to the next area.

"Just like you can here! I get it!" Okay, so it's not exactly the same, but considering he comes from a time when bartering is still the way people get things, having any kind of understanding of money is a big step for him.

Diarmuid's attention focuses back on the game when the next wave of enemies appears. He takes down several of them and then notices that his special attack is ready and calls out right before he uses it, "Face my shield evil creatures!"

Someone might be starting to really get into the game...

The turtle looks over at Diarmuid, resisting the urge to ruffle the little knight's hair. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself" he says, having his wizard pepper the enemies with magic blasts from behind the knight.

As the party of two advances down the corridor, mowing down the waves of weak beginning-of-the-game enemies in their way, they eventually come to an ominous chamber! You can tell it's ominous because it has a skull motif. There's a disembodied booming laugh with lots of cheesy reverb, the kind of laugh voice actors give when they want to really ham it up.

Then a giant skeleton with armor and a sword and shield bursts out of a hole in the ground, and two (skull-covered) sarcophagi rise up from the floor and start to spit out smaller skeletons.

"Now heroes, you die!" the giant skeleton says, with additional evil cackling. The words 'BOSS FIGHT' pop up briefly in the middle of the screen. The words are covered in skulls, because of course they are.

"Wow..." For a moment, all the cheesiness around the boss fight really distracts Diarmuid from the fight itself. He's not sure if he should be impressed, worried, or just amused. However, as soon as the boss makes his declaration, Diarmuid's expression becomes more serious.

"No, we won't! We aren't going to let you win!" He looks to Donatello from the corners of his eyes, "You take care of the small ones and I will get the big guy! If you get into trouble, let me know!"

Geez...it's almost like he has watched actual fighters plan battles or something. Oh wait... He has...

Don blinks as he looks over at Diarmuid. "That's exactly what I was going to say, actually." He reflects for a moment that Leonardo would probably really like Diarmuid.

The wizard runs out from behind the knight, casting a fireball into the middle of a group of skeletons and then backpedalling, firing bolts of magic at a sarcophagus, which completely fails to take damage. "It looks like the coffins are invulnerable," he says, throwing a couple shots toward another group of mooks.

"It would be too easy if we could do that!" Diarmuid uses his special attack on the boss and makes a happy sound when the boss is stunned for a few seconds. He takes the time to focus on doing as much damage as he can without the boss hitting back.

"Hang in there! We are getting closer!" In fact, it helps a lot that Diarmuid can pretty much build up his special attack during the time the boss is stunned and then stun him again a few moments later, "I think I got it figured out!"

"Oh hey, the sarcophagi become vulnerable when you have the boss stunned," Don remarks. And indeed, they flash red when the giant skeleton is stunned. Unfortunately it doesn't last long enough to destroy one.

"If you can just put him down a couple more times, I can stem the tide of skeletons."

Because he is so focused on fighting the boss, Diarmuid has missed the sarcophagi flashing. He is very glad that Donatello hasn't! "I will keep doing that! We have the trick to this fight figured out. We will win over you, Boss Monster!"

And there he goes stunning the boss again. Go, Donatello, go!

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Electronic Amusements

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