Online Simulator

[got_quiet]

Name: Online Simulator
Status: Complete 
Site: https://rosalievile.itch.io/onlinesimulator
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: M/M (?)
Description: A psychedelic horror puzzler with a strong late 90s aesthetic. 



This is another game that was in the VN category but wasn't a VN at all. It's a mystery puzzle game where your job is basically to explore a desktop and unlock the final scene via a password you uncover through poking around. There is something that looks kind of like a plot that you uncover through hints in the texts of various files, but I think the main point of the whole thing is to just weird you out. A lot of questions remain unanswered in the end.

 

The story of the game, such that it is, is mostly revealed through a series of chat logs. The person who owned the machine appears to have been a crazy person obsessed with Dental Amplification. He researches a number of drugs and techniques to make teeth grow wildly in subjects, then hooks up via RP with some poor rube, "Monkey," who may or may not have some sort of past as a lab specimen, and their online roleplaying about turning Monkey into a test subject gradually becomes realer and eventually deadly. Also maybe there's an apocalypse. But none of that is really part of the plot you interact with. When you start playing all of this has already happened, and you uncover evidence of this as you dig through the computer.

Eventually, after figuring out the four passwords that comprise the tests of the game, you input the last one in its proper place and are treated to the final scene, which is some sentient internet spouting crazy talk about Online Syndrome. None of it is supposed to really make sense, I think, but it is supposed to evoke a very particular mood, which it does well. It's weird and freaky and unsettling. I liked it a lot.

The game goes hard on being unsettling visually too. If you find jarring colors and distorted graphics to be uncomfortable this will probably fuck you up. It's very neon, very clashing, and outlandish in a lowkey sinister way. The game within a game that starts this whole thing off is a "fetish tooth game" that breaks every time you play until you give it the correct fetish when prompted, which is your win condition. The rest of the game is a combo of folders with chat logs to read, a "browser" where you can go through weird web pages that hint at solutions and reveal a little of the worldbuilding background, and a chat program that you interact with briefly.

A single run through depends on how quickly you find the hints you need. I didn't take me too long, although at one point I did lookup a playthrough to get one of the passwords, and I'm still not entirely sure how I was supposed to discern them. The other three are straightforward. You'll know you've got it when you see it. After you've won once there is no replay value, unless you haven't poked around every single file and would like to go back and look at distorted pictures of people who have turned into human teeth.

 

While this was not at all a VN, I enjoyed it. It had a good atmosphere, a moderate but not unreasonable challenge, and was fun to explore. It was a little fucked up though.