“Pew pew pew” … “What?!” I stop mid fire and eyeball my less than impressive hand held as if I have the power to pause live action rounds. I translate daggers to my teammates, “Could you have given me something with at least thirty nano frequencies!?” It crosses my mind for a split second that maybe this was some strategy of invincibility by being purely unthreatening. I’m sure my stylin’ golf clap demeanour is reward enough for my team’s highly amused strategist. I’d better fix this quick smart.
The ground below our magnetic weighted boots started to bubble and crumble, sending spouts of hot dirt in to the atmosphere. They hung in the air long enough to distract our less than aware opponents as the heavier dirt clumps started to develop metallic wings and execute a flying vortex formation around our feet. I kept focus and took the opportunity to convert in to a somewhat shallow mirage and sleuth my way back to the ship’s hull which was behind the thin veneer of aubergine pines. I managed to rip a socket off my injured opponent’s weapon, I knew our tech department was on the hunt for -
Today as I zoned out and got carried away on the wings of a fantasy land, I realised this real life game I was playing had morphed from something like Crysis Warhead into the first version of snake on an early model brick phone, the type with no internet or calculator. It took a while to notice, but just like a forced upgrade to the graphics card on my power tower, I’ve had to upgrade my perspective on this environment as the gameplay becomes clearly obsolete and insufficiently accommodating when you’ve discovered how poorly the programming’s been written.
My extra efforts and endless days of burnout and caffeine spiked enthusiasm count for nothing at the end of this game. It doesn’t matter how fast you click or how regimented you are to the second hand on that clock, my score was always to remain the same at fin. “Yes sir, yes ma’am, I’m good, how are you, sorry, would you like, I have an idea, let me do that for you, I’ll fix it, leave it with me, I understand, click click click, tap tap tap, hello, sorry to hear that” is the bulk of my dispassionate vocabulary during the day. I’ve been observing others that hold the same work ethics as I and funny thing is nobody cares when they get sick or leave. The only thing that matters here is that the boss thrives, the boss is the only reason I play the game. When the boss is taken down, it’s game over and on to the next one like a well-oiled robot due for a service paid by itself or in exchange for other robot parts. Wtf, I’m a robot here and in fantasy land, a slave to the game. What if there was a game that evolved with it’s players and was not completely and totally hinged on the boss, a game whose goals continuity adapted to the way it’s players played.
** Stuffing plays games