The Hidden Agenda of Destruct-O-Match by kassil |  |
TYRANNIA - We all know of this game, I'm certain. You match up colored stone buildings,
and then you blow them up; if you do well, you go to the next level of the game,
where another color gets added to the mix, and so on, until you have six different
colors in the mix at the final level. If you knock out enough blocks, you even
get point bonuses - if you can clear the entire level, you get a whopping five
hundred point bonus to your score, which is usually enough to carry you all the
way to the end level. According to the game, we're clearing out old stone homes
to make way for new construction, chiefly in the form of big, bright, shiny, brand
new skyscrapers. (A silly idea, if you ask me, but since nobody did I suppose
it doesn't much matter, does it?)
The question I want to ask today is this: has anybody ever actually stopped and
thought about what we're doing in this game? We're involved in the wholesale destruction
of the homes of seemingly innocent Tyrannians, rather remarkably sturdy ones if
the levels are any example, just so that someone else can come in and build shining
new skyscrapers. We've been doing this for quite a while - but we've yet to see
a single skyscraper show up anywhere in Tyrannia - or anywhere in the rest of
Neopia, really. Why would someone pay us all to go demolish a bunch of sturdy,
colorful stone houses and then not do anything with the land we just freed up?
Personally, my guess is that someone, possibly some nefarious villain like everyone's
favorite green slimeball Doctor Sloth (or maybe just the shadowy bunch of Tyrannians
who keep following me while I'm scribbling this in a notebook as my Neopets bash
down a bunch of beautifully colored houses), wants the Tyrannians evicted from
their homes, and we Neopians have been doing just that for them, whoever they
are. Just imagine how many homeless Tyrannians there must be by now, and yet we're
still continuing to destroy their homes! It hardly seems fair - after all, those
are good, sturdy stone homes; they can survive being dropped several times their
own height with a stack of similarly solid stone homes on top of them, onto still
more sturdy stone buildings. You'd think that any reasonable people would want
MORE houses like this, not fewer. (Actually, I'd prefer a house built underground,
but that's me - I always have been told that I'm a bit odd by most standards,
after all...)
So why would they want the Tyrannians evicted? One reason that I can think of
is the opportunity to buy up the open land left behind - with the Giant Omelette
always around as a ready supply of food, Tyrannia's soil has never been farmed
that we know of, so it's probably going to be an absolutely wonderful place to
raise crops. Or perhaps they're offering the newly homeless Tyrannians low-paying
jobs and low-rent homes someplace else, in an effort to get incredibly cheap labor.
Maybe that's where all the stores and factories in Neopia are getting their workers!
It'd even explain why so many good, honest Neopets need to go harass the horribly
overworked Faeries at the Faerie Employment Agency in order to get a job!
Of course, it could all just be a case of completely unfounded paranoia, too.
Maybe the Tyrannians themselves are using the newly cleared land for something
- like building the next great Neopian attraction, like a petpet racetrack, or
a hot springs health spa, or a forge where Neopians can bring their old junk items
and try to forge them into something rarer and cooler - like the Cooking Pot,
but without the angry god-thing that gets angry if you try the wrong things. Or
maybe they're intending to build a Tyrannian casino, what with Tyrannia having
the Wheel of Mediocrity, Tyranu Evavu, Kacheekers, and Grarrl Keno - it's certainly
bound to be profitable, and maybe even take a chunk of business away from Krawk
Island's vital gambling industry.
Of course, this is all only possible if we're actually managing to clear the land.
For all we know, the whole thing could be some clever mock-up to distract all
of Neopia from the secret plans of the Tyrannians to conquer the rest of Neopia
and rule it with a heavy Stone Age fist! Of course, this would lead to yet another
drawn-out war, and the Tyrannians know it... They might just be piling up fake
homes for regular Neopians to smash apart so they can use the stone fragments
to build newer, bigger, stronger weapons to use against the defenders of the rest
of Neopia - and the tourism the game brings in must be letting them rebuild the
stockpiles of ammunition for their Dung Catapults... (I'm really starting to get
a little worried about those Tyrannians shadowing me, now... Maybe I should send
Sainwy ahead so he can get help if something goes wrong...)
As for me, I think I'll keep a closer eye on Tyrannia and the residents of it
- especially the ones following me right now, even though I've got absolutely
no intentions to stop knocking down more colorful and well-built stone buildings
- it keeps the striped Usul in my family, Cerulean (even though her legitimate
and official name is squirrl_2001) from hitting anyone else in the family with
the heavy cast-iron frying pan she carries around.
The author of this article would like to point out that he means this all only
in simple fun, and would prefer not to see the heavily armed and armored Tyrannian
goons he was threatened with show up at the door of his NeoHome late at night.
He would also like to thank the brave members of the Defenders of Neopia for helping
him fight off the Tyrannian Moehogs that decided to ambush him on the way home
from Tyrannia late last night.
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