Welcome to English Major RPG (or EMRPG)!
If you are unfamiliar with the controls, return to the main menu and select TUTORIAL: “English Major RPG - Freshman Year.”
Press Enter to begin Level 1: Sophomore Year.
>> [ENTER]
You are in a long corridor. All around you is blackness and a foul-smelling odor. You feel dankness and something sticky on the ground. Ahead is a single white dot of light.
What would you like to do?
>> Walk to LIGHT
The world comes into focus. You are passed out on the quad of STATE SCHOOL, soaked in your own urine. The urge to vomit is coming upon you. URGE TO VOMIT attacks!
>> Use HAND
VOMIT wins, and leaves your hand disabled with its toxin attack! A student passing by is slightly sprayed.
>> Run like a coward
You run like a coward, and crash into a pair of students walking down the path. You recognize them from that one class - one is the fat kid with the wild curly hair who is always referencing poets from the 60s, and the other is that one really skinny girl who always wears black clothes and writes poems about nature.
>> Flirt
“That shirt is very becoming,” you tell the fat kid. “If I was on you, I’d be coming too.”
>> Undo
You start to undo your pants.
>> Stop undoing pants
“Hey, you’re that guy from class,” the fat kid says. “We’re out putting up flyers and chalking the quad for the student literary magazine. You should submit something!”
Do you accept the Quest: Write For The Student Literary Magazine?
>> Yes
The subcultural girl hands you Magic Pen. As you take it, it glows and fills you with warmth. The ancient symbol on it lights up.
You have accepted the quest WRITE FOR THE STUDENT LITERARY MAGAZINE. The magazine is currently looking for SHORT FICTION.
>> Write story
Choose a subject for your awkward student short fiction:
A) Abortion
B) Date Rape
C) Vampires / Werewolves / Aliens / Smarmy descriptions of many drama-filled college relationships with girls who have borderline personality disorder, in a hip narrative voice that implies you wear girl’s jeans
>> C
About how long ago did this poorly veiled autobiographical story happen to you?
>> It didn’t happen to me.
In what place did this poorly veiled autobiographical story happen to you?
>> My creative story is not autobiographical!
Where would you like to take your many fictions?
>> Take STORY to LITERARY MAGAZINE
Filled with pride at authorship, you walk to the meeting with visions of smoking cigarettes with other literary figures in Paris and sharing your philosophies about the difference between truth and Truth in lecture halls. A group of cute girls are planning fundraisers and magazine design layouts.
>> TALK TO cute girls
The cute girls do not want to talk to you.
>> ABANDON career.
By abandoning your writing career during Sophomore year of college, you are 2 years ahead of most students. +500 points!
>> Go MASTURBATE
As you walk out the door, MAGIC PEN begins to vibrate. You pull it out of your pocket and it begins to glow brighter than the sun! You are teleported to the depths of the ancient and forboding hellscape land of Therie!
>> Go MASTURBATE
You are in an ancient tomb. There is no light save for two faintly flickering torches hung upon the wall. There appears to be no exit and if you do not figure out a way out you will surely die. The walls are lined with endless artifacts, stacked one upon the other and in each one is a manuscript of papers. In the corner, is the body of THE AUTHOR. THE AUTHOR is dead.
>> PUNCH walls
You beat your fists to a useless pulp.
>> Kick AUTHOR
The Author is dead.
>> Read MANUSCRIPT
It is a fairly lucid indictment of the current free market state that aligns those with the most agency within our economic system in direct competitive opposition to the best interests of the disenfranchised majority, which makes it inherently beneficial for those who manage commodities to exploit the very citizens whose labor makes their wealth possible as well as maintain their ignorance of the situation and advocates instead for a highly-regulated market organization that distributes resources where they are most urgently needed.
>> But isn’t that punishing the most successful for their success?
THE AUTHOR ZOMBIFIES!
He attacks with THE NOVEL!
>> Fight back!
You draw MAGIC PEN and stab THE NOVEL.
The Novel is dead!
>> Attack Author
You use AD HOMINEM ATTACK. +10 damage!
The author turns his words into an ARTIFACT. He throws it at you!
>> Block!
Reminder: Your commands must be in the form of VERB - OBJECT
>> REIFICATE artifact
You reconceptualize the material artifact according to its value within the market forces rather than the effort and meaning of its creation, dehumanizing its labor and creator!
The Author’s shields are down!
>> Separate the semiotic sign of the Author’s attacks from the signified of their meanings
The arbitrary relationship between the words of the Author’s attacks and the real-world things they denote breaks down!
The Author’s armor disappears!
>> Deconstruct AUTHOR
As contradictions now apparent and inescapable in the very meaning of the walls wrench themselves / each other apart, The Author screams the dying scream of a million tortured souls wrenched and disemboweled!
The Author is dead.
>> Walk out through walls / non-walls
You awaken to the sounds of acoustic guitar.
“You’ve passed the test,” the skinny girl in black says. She is standing over your booth in the TRENDY CAFE. The fat kid sits across from you and extends his hand to shake yours. The place is filled with other students, many of whom you recognize from classes you are taking. Copies of the literary magazine are scattered around the tables and a banner underneath reads MAGAZINE LAUNCH PARTY 2011. At one side, a pair of guys are playing sensitive music surrounded by cute girls. “We had to make sure you were a True Believer. A lot of people just choose English as a major because they don’t know what they want to do with their lives, and skate by because the standards aren’t very rigorous.”
You have successfully completed the quest! +500 self-importance!
The sensitive song fills you with pride.
>> TALK TO cute girls
The cute girls do not want to talk to you.
>> ABANDON major
You are in a long corridor. All around you is blackness and a foul-smelling odor. You feel dankness and something sticky on the ground. Ahead is a single white dot of light.
What would you like to do?
>> Walk to LIGHT
The world comes into focus. You are passed out on the quad of STATE SCHOOL, soaked in your own urine. The urge to vomit is coming upon you. URGE TO VOMIT attacks!
>> Use HAND
VOMIT wins, and leaves your hand disabled with its toxin attack! A student passing by is slightly sprayed.
>> Run like a coward
You run like a coward, and crash into a pair of students walking down the path. You recognize them from that one class - one is the fat kid with the wild curly hair who is always referencing poets from the 60s, and the other is that one really skinny girl who always wears black clothes and writes poems about nature.
>> Flirt
“That shirt is very becoming,” you tell the fat kid. “If I was on you, I’d be coming too.”
>> Undo
You start to undo your pants.
>> Stop undoing pants
“Hey, you’re that guy from class,” the fat kid says. “We’re out putting up flyers and chalking the quad for the student literary magazine. You should submit something!”
Do you accept the Quest: Write For The Student Literary Magazine?
>> Yes
The subcultural girl hands you Magic Pen. As you take it, it glows and fills you with warmth. The ancient symbol on it lights up.
You have accepted the quest WRITE FOR THE STUDENT LITERARY MAGAZINE. The magazine is currently looking for SHORT FICTION.
>> Write story
Choose a subject for your awkward student short fiction:
A) Abortion
B) Date Rape
C) Vampires / Werewolves / Aliens / Smarmy descriptions of many drama-filled college relationships with girls who have borderline personality disorder, in a hip narrative voice that implies you wear girl’s jeans
>> C
About how long ago did this poorly veiled autobiographical story happen to you?
>> It didn’t happen to me.
In what place did this poorly veiled autobiographical story happen to you?
>> My creative story is not autobiographical!
Where would you like to take your many fictions?
>> Take STORY to LITERARY MAGAZINE
Filled with pride at authorship, you walk to the meeting with visions of smoking cigarettes with other literary figures in Paris and sharing your philosophies about the difference between truth and Truth in lecture halls. A group of cute girls are planning fundraisers and magazine design layouts.
>> TALK TO cute girls
The cute girls do not want to talk to you.
>> ABANDON career.
By abandoning your writing career during Sophomore year of college, you are 2 years ahead of most students. +500 points!
>> Go MASTURBATE
As you walk out the door, MAGIC PEN begins to vibrate. You pull it out of your pocket and it begins to glow brighter than the sun! You are teleported to the depths of the ancient and forboding hellscape land of Therie!
>> Go MASTURBATE
You are in an ancient tomb. There is no light save for two faintly flickering torches hung upon the wall. There appears to be no exit and if you do not figure out a way out you will surely die. The walls are lined with endless artifacts, stacked one upon the other and in each one is a manuscript of papers. In the corner, is the body of THE AUTHOR. THE AUTHOR is dead.
>> PUNCH walls
You beat your fists to a useless pulp.
>> Kick AUTHOR
The Author is dead.
>> Read MANUSCRIPT
It is a fairly lucid indictment of the current free market state that aligns those with the most agency within our economic system in direct competitive opposition to the best interests of the disenfranchised majority, which makes it inherently beneficial for those who manage commodities to exploit the very citizens whose labor makes their wealth possible as well as maintain their ignorance of the situation and advocates instead for a highly-regulated market organization that distributes resources where they are most urgently needed.
>> But isn’t that punishing the most successful for their success?
THE AUTHOR ZOMBIFIES!
He attacks with THE NOVEL!
>> Fight back!
You draw MAGIC PEN and stab THE NOVEL.
The Novel is dead!
>> Attack Author
You use AD HOMINEM ATTACK. +10 damage!
The author turns his words into an ARTIFACT. He throws it at you!
>> Block!
Reminder: Your commands must be in the form of VERB - OBJECT
>> REIFICATE artifact
You reconceptualize the material artifact according to its value within the market forces rather than the effort and meaning of its creation, dehumanizing its labor and creator!
The Author’s shields are down!
>> Separate the semiotic sign of the Author’s attacks from the signified of their meanings
The arbitrary relationship between the words of the Author’s attacks and the real-world things they denote breaks down!
The Author’s armor disappears!
>> Deconstruct AUTHOR
As contradictions now apparent and inescapable in the very meaning of the walls wrench themselves / each other apart, The Author screams the dying scream of a million tortured souls wrenched and disemboweled!
The Author is dead.
>> Walk out through walls / non-walls
You awaken to the sounds of acoustic guitar.
“You’ve passed the test,” the skinny girl in black says. She is standing over your booth in the TRENDY CAFE. The fat kid sits across from you and extends his hand to shake yours. The place is filled with other students, many of whom you recognize from classes you are taking. Copies of the literary magazine are scattered around the tables and a banner underneath reads MAGAZINE LAUNCH PARTY 2011. At one side, a pair of guys are playing sensitive music surrounded by cute girls. “We had to make sure you were a True Believer. A lot of people just choose English as a major because they don’t know what they want to do with their lives, and skate by because the standards aren’t very rigorous.”
You have successfully completed the quest! +500 self-importance!
The sensitive song fills you with pride.
>> TALK TO cute girls
The cute girls do not want to talk to you.
>> ABANDON major
