The Real Scoop on Ice Cream Machine

The answer, my fellow Neopians, has come to my attention after months of careful research. After poring over books in the Altadorian Archives as well as interviewing various Neopians around the world, I have come to a solid conclusion. Ice Cream Machine is nothing more than a plot by the evil Dr. Sloth to help him take over Neopia.

Right. I see you, rolling your eyes back there. You have to believe me! The fate of Neopia rests in your hands! I will tell you how I’ve come to such a seemingly outrageous conclusion.

Ice Cream Machine has over 100,000,000 plays. That’s one hundred million, folks! That’s close to four times as many plays as there are Neopets! And it’s easy to see why Ice Cream Machine is so popular. It’s addictive, thanks to the colorful shapes flying through the screen. The music is rocking and catchy, possibly the best music set to any game in Neopia. And, of course, there’s that elusive avatar, earned with a submitted score of 14,500 or above. The avatar was what drew me to Ice Cream Machine. I could stare at that avatar all day, watching Adee get smacked with a strawberry ice cream scoop over and over. Ice Cream Machine is a hypnotist’s dream, enticing players to try just one more game, one more, they’ll get the avatar next time! Just one more!

I sought reinforcement for this conclusion and found many prime sources. Claire, a close Neofriend, I found hunched in a corner, eyes bloodshot as she watched peach-flavored scoops zoom across the screen. I asked her how she felt about Ice Cream Machine, and she mumbled incoherently. I repeated the question and she said nothing until she passed the level. She finally looked up at me, eyes blank, and managed a few words. “So... close... need more Ice Cream Machine... ” she hissed, before turning back to the game and resuming game play, entirely ignoring my presence.

After playing the game as much as I have, any sensible Neopian, such as myself, is led to wonder what exactly happens to those ice cream scoops as they fly past Adee and into the great beyond. Yes, each one gets me five points closer to the avatar, true, but where do they go? Where does all that ice cream end up?

I have decided upon five possible outcomes for where this ice cream goes.

1. Nothing. Nothing happens to the ice cream; it just vanishes, says Ollyolly, my Blumaroo. Well, he should know; he’s the one playing it all the time since he’s my active pet. But I respectfully disagree. This may seem the easy solution, but we all know, thanks to the law of conservation of mass, that matter can never be created or destroyed. Those millions of ice cream scoops can’t just vanish. They must be somewhere!

2. The ice cream is recycled. Now, everyone loves recycling! Just take a peek at the Money Tree or Secondhand Shop, says Rkaituh, my lab rat. This does seem to make sense, at first glance. But... how well does ice cream recycle? Sure, you can re-freeze chocolate ice cream and make more, but what about when you add in the strawberry, chocolate, and caramel toppings? Surely that would dilute the ice cream, especially for the more delicate flavors such as peach and rainbowberry (though dilution may be a good thing for garlicky bratwurst—yech). And fish ice cream definitely doesn’t keep well. So I also disagree with this theory.

3. The third solution, proposed by my Lupe, Thadior, is that the ice cream exits the warehouse at the same velocity that the scoops are flinging them towards Adee. This also makes sense on the surface. But that also means that the ice cream should end up somewhere outside the warehouse, and given the amount of ice cream, should mean that the pile of ice cream should be quite visible. But even a detailed study of the Happy Valley does not yield any clue towards this proposed mountain of ice cream. So again, I disagree with my pet’s theory.

4. My Lupe’s cunning Gruslen, Bomber, communicated to me a different solution while devouring Thadior’s leftover fish pop. Perhaps the ice cream was indeed being moved out of the warehouse, but instead, it was being used to feed Neopets in need. This is a heartwarming solution, but I doubt its existence. Have you ever met a Neopian who has travelled to the Giant Ice Cream Scoop for food? Or perhaps dipped into the Giant Vat of Ice Cream Surprise? Well, I haven’t, so I have come to disagree with this theory as well.

5. For the final solution, I propose we look toward the skies. No, not the sun. Or even the Space Station. We must look at Kreludor and its Mining Corp. What powers the massive complex, rendering it so capable of advanced technology? Solar power? Boring. Orange Grundos running on hamster wheels? Possible, but unlikely. The answer, in my opinion, is none other than the missing ice cream. Dr. Sloth must somehow manipulate the energy used in the flinging and decay of ice cream into power for his mining business. Think about it. Ice cream scoops flying every which way, at all hours, never ceasing. If the average game gets through five levels, that’s 375 scoops per game, and with over a 100,000,000 plays, that’s over 375,000,000 scoops just waiting to be converted to energy. Sounds like a great energy source to me.

So there you have it. The fable of Adee’s nightmare is just a cover up for Dr. Sloth to harvest energy from unsuspecting Neopians. No wonder Adee looks so happy and she’s wearing last season’s clothes. Dr. Sloth invented her and her plight to coerce thousands of Neopians into unknowingly powering his mining company. And we’ve all fallen for it. You, me, your Neofriends, my Neofriends. Dr. Sloth was smart to make such an addicting game part of his ploy. We can only wonder what he’ll do with the massive amounts of energy he must have stored up by now. I’ll let you know what I think in five minutes; I’ve just got to play one more level of Ice Cream Machine.