The Lord of Misrule
The Background: Jack’s Story
(The following extract has been adapted from the original
short story of The Lord of Misrule and specially rewritten for the game).
...Jack’s first recollection of the Internet role playing game, The Lord of
Misrule, had been an Email he’d received on October 31st. He’d been given
the opportunity for advanced registration to play ‘The World’s Hardest Game.’
The rules were quite simple. Jack had to enter qualifying rounds to begin
with, along with a host of other players. At the end of those rounds, the
game would select one person with which to go head-to-head, beginning on December
1st of the same year. Combining skill with dogged determination and the will
to succeed, Jack had eventually been chosen.
Surprisingly, the game itself had few rules. The Lord of Misrule was played
in real time. It had the capacity to send you Emails, telephone calls, faxes,
and text messages to your mobile phone, especially if you hadn’t logged on
by a specific time each day.
The role playing game was based loosely on a mixture of the twelve days of
Christmas and the Twelfth Night. Although it had thirteen levels - because
it was played in real time - you had to complete the first twelve in twelve
days. If you failed to complete any level you would not be allowed to continue,
nor would you be allowed to compete again.
Each day before the start of the game you were required to log on with your
own password and answer a simple question about the previous day’s play.
Levels
one to twelve had your character completing a variety of tasks, all of which
appeared to have encompassed the dark side of someone’s imagination.
Jack had found the levels becoming progressively more disturbing but, at the
same time, addictive. His appetite for role-playing games was insatiable and
given the fact that he was unemployed, it didn’t really matter much to him
how late into the night he continued playing.
But it had mattered to Susan, his wife, and on more than one occasion they
had argued. Jack knew that if he failed to accomplish anything, the game would
end without him reaching the final level: he had also learned from experience
that if he refused any task, or failed to log on, the game would come looking
for him. And that it wasn’t him who played the game: it was the game that
played him.
When Jack had completed the game on the time he was ecstatic, only to find
that level thirteen had to be played in Lapland. No other information had
been forthcoming. By the 15th December, Jack had received tickets and details
through the post of his and his family’s all expenses paid trip to the resort.
He’d managed to redeem himself by persuading Susan that he’d paid for all
of them to go because he felt he’d been neglecting them; he’d very obviously
omitted the fact that he was desperate to have a crack at level 13...
The Game:
Your epic adventure takes place some 90 minutes north of Rovanieme, in one
of Lapland’s premier ski resorts, The Valley of Lite, home to a hotel, and
a small cluster of beautiful log cabins, nestling among the fir trees: it
is believed that Father Christmas actually lives behind Lite Fell.
Your
journey starts outside Cabin 13 in the snow-covered valley, where an ancient
evil, a former servant of Satan, had once roamed the land before finally being
banished to hell by God as a punishment for his injustices.
Many
hundreds of years later, Satan’s servant, known only as Claude, managed to
free himself. Unlike most of Hell’s creatures he did not collect souls for
his master in the normal way. Instead, he took over the valley, redesigning
parts of hell for his own purposes, and then (by now the 20th century) took
on the mantel of an independent game designer who let it be known that he
had created the most cunning, addictive and unbeatable game ever devised:
in reality, it was simply a new version on the old favourite of signing away
your soul. Claude uses the game to collect them.
Game Storyline:
The opening screen of The Lord of Misrule deposits you outside Cabin 13 in
the company of a well-dressed businessman who will tell you your mission:
From here on in you are going to play the part of Jack and you are going to
experience what the story didn’t tell you. Ultimately, you are going to try
and dethrone Claude and become The Lord of Misrule. When you are given the
key, you will be allowed to enter Cabin 13.
Game opening screen:
Your opening view of the game will be a flashback of Jack’s slaughtered family:
a distant memory of the first time he was invited to play. It should give
you an idea of the opposition you are up against.
...Jack
recalled his final vision of the room on that fateful night. The predominant
colour then was red: as if someone had thrown buckets of blood all over the
walls, creating huge splash stains which had resembled abstract art; the ceiling
was spattered, the floor matted, the furniture soaking. Jack had never seen
so much blood. He didn’t think the human body could hold what appeared to
be such vast quantities.
Jack’s vivid memory of his slaughtered family was haunting: his wife, Susan,
her body ripped and shredded and discarded like a paper bag. Marie, his thirteen
year old daughter, her arms and legs torn from her torso and dumped, one in
each corner of the room; David, fifteen, his truncated body forced into the
chimney recess. The only clue to his whereabouts had been the long, glistening
trail of intestine, stretching as far as the cabin door, to Jack’s feet...
The Levels:
Each level has been specifically written and designed using mythological creatures
from all over the world, incorporating a multitude of puzzles, which increase
in complexity the further you progress.
The Lord of Misrule is an epic, complex adventure game, and the following
paragraphs provide only a very brief summary. The levels are more complex
than they appear.
Level 1 : Caves of Death.
The Caves of Death is played out on a windswept moor, a barren landscape,
where there are two adversaries for you to deal with: Cerberus, the three
headed dog that guards the entrance to Hell; and Black Annis, a hideous hag
with blue skin and one eye. However, you need one in order to get rid of the
other. It’s up to you to decide which one, and how. Remember ... you’re in
charge, every decision is yours.
(See Gallery Page for more info)
Music playing: Tubular Bells, copyright Mike Oldfield,
is used without permission of the composer and the music publisher. Should
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