A Different Kind of Games Challenge

     Her Neohome’s doorbell chimed, startling her out of her studying.

     “Coming!” she squealed, barely holding in a giggle of excitement. She flung open the front door to find Lulu waiting there, all dressed up in the latest fashion from the NC Mall, as usual. The Red Cybunny was beaming, bouncing where she stood and holding a Rainbow Notebook that looked as if it had been bought just for the occasion.

     “Hey there, Abby!” Lulu said, giving Abigail a big hug. “Thanks so much for inviting me! I’m so excited to play today.”

     “Thanks for coming, Lu!” Abigail led Lulu through her Neohome and into the living room, where the game table was all set up. “I can’t wait to try this out with all of you. It’s been so long since we all got to play games together.”

     “I know!” Lulu huffed. “I can’t believe it’s been years since the last Daily Dare or Games Master Challenge. Even though I didn’t like the games as much as you or AAA, I do so miss all the fun involved. And the collecting, of course!”

     Abigail nodded, smiling as her cousin settled into one of the chairs. “I know, I miss it too. I’m hoping today will be just like old times!”

     “Hey sis! You here?”

     The voice of her brother, Aristotle A. Avinroo, or AAA as he insisted on being called, drifted from the front of the house. Abigail rolled her eyes; of course he wouldn’t bother knocking. Just like old times, indeed.

     “In the living room!” she called out, not bothering to get up to greet him. If he wanted to be rude and invite himself in, he could find his way around, too. A few minutes later, his smug face appeared in the doorway, with his goofy, multi-colored glasses slightly askew.

     “Not bad,” he said, nodding when he saw the full table set-up. “Not as slick as the Games Room version, of course. It at least looks like the game designers did a serviceable job of translating the masterful original into a decent tabletop adventure.”

     Abigail and Lulu shared a knowing look. Even though AAA had tried to sound lofty and uninterested, they could both tell how excited he actually was to play the game by the way his ears wiggled.

     “Trust me, it’s more than just decent,” Abigail said, unable to help herself from getting just a bit defensive. “Just wait and see. It’s going to be fun!”

     AAA sniffed, raising an eyebrow at her as he sat down and pulled out his own notebook. “Fun? You know I don’t care about that. I’m here for the challenge, and to prove my gaming genius to you all again when I win this thing!”

     Abigail frowned. “You know, it’s not really that kind of game…”

     The doorbell chimed again, saving her from yet another argument with her brother. She forced herself to smile at him and excused herself from the table, hurrying to the door to let in who she hoped was their final player.

     Sure enough, a Green Zafara with a dazzling smile was waiting on the doorstep. It didn’t surprise her that he’d showed up late; he always had to make a dramatic entrance.

     “Abigail, my dear! No need to fret, the fun can begin now that I’m here!” Chadrick Woolsworth Tuffington IV exclaimed, reaching out to ruffle Abigail’s hair. Without waiting for further invitation, he paraded past her, calling out further greetings and self-important fluff as he found the others. Abigail snickered to herself as she followed him. Even though Chadley could be just as annoying as her brother sometimes, he was also funny without realizing it. She hoped he’d bring that humor and enthusiasm to their game today.

     “Now that we’re all here, we can get started!” Abigail said as she rejoined everyone at the table. She gestured to the game pieces laid out on the table. “As you all know, today we’ll be playing the tabletop edition of Neoquest. I’ll be your Game Master, responsible for guiding you through the adventure and controlling all of the non-player characters. You’ll each be playing a character of your own creation, and together you’ll be saving ancient Neopia from the corrupted members of the Circle of Twelve.”

     “Did you know I beat the original Neoquest in less than seven hours? It takes most people weeks, if not months, to reach the end,” AAA bragged, picking up one of the Fire Imp figurines and squinting at it. “This is going to be a piece of cake.”

     Abigail sighed, but didn’t say anything. Unlike the original Neoquest game, this version couldn’t be beat by speed-running. It required exploration and cooperation as much as it did strategy and skill. She knew it was pointless to try and remind her brother about that, though. He’d have to find out the hard way, as they started playing. First, though, they needed characters.

     They spent the next thirty minutes coming up with the characters that each of them would be playing as. AAA, naturally, decided on a White Lupe sorcerer exactly like the original game’s hero. He spent most of his character creation time maximizing his Lupe’s skill points, only remembering to give him a name (“Hero the Great”) at the very end when Abigail reminded him about it. Lulu’s character was a Pink Wocky musician named Princess Fluffy, a collector of strange artifacts and even stranger stories who loved nothing more than to sing lullabies in the moonlight. Chadley’s character, to nobody’s surprise, was a Green Zafara warrior named none other than Chadrick. When asked what his character’s backstory was, Chadley simply shrugged and said, “He’s me! What more could you want?”

     “Okay, are we ready?” Abigail asked. She waited until all of her players nodded before continuing. “Here we go! Your adventure begins in Neopia City, a safe haven filled with friendly villagers who can help prepare you for the dangers that lurk ahead…”

     With that, the game began! Abigail continued to explain the game’s mechanics as Hero, Princess Fluffy, and Chadrick explored the city. They bought basic armour from Morax Dorangis, learned about healing from Boraxis the Healer, and received a few quests from Choras Tillie and Eleus Batrin. Just as Abigail was starting to think running the game would be easier than she’d thought, the group left the city, and everything turned into chaos.

     “I want to Hunt!” AAA insisted the moment they left the city’s walls.

     “You got it,” Abigail said, pulling up her notes on combat encounters. She rolled some dice to determine the enemy they’d face: a Snow Imp. “The air around you grows chilly, and up ahead you see—”

     “Oh!” Lulu called out, bouncing in her seat. “I want to keep an eye out for any gems! Do I see anything shiny around here?”

     “Uh, hold on…” Abigail frowned as she shuffled through her notes. “Can you roll your dice for me? A low roll means you won’t find anything, but a high roll could mean you find—”

     “What do I see up ahead? I want to fight it!” AAA insisted, waving his hand to get Abigail’s attention.

     “Right, right! You see a Snow Imp. You’ll need to roll to see who attacks first,” Abigail said, flipping back to her battle notes.

     “I rolled a ten! Is that good?” Lulu asked, holding out her sparkly pink dice for Abigail to see.

     “Yes?” Abigail said, distracted. “One second… Chadley, what is your character doing? Are you fighting, or looking for gems?”

     “Huh?” Chadley looked up from where he’d been doodling self portraits in his notebook. “Oh. Right. Chadrick wants to go back to Neopia City. He’s pretty confident he can talk Lummock Sendant into giving him a cooler magic wand.”

     “Fifteen!” AAA called out. “That means I go first, right? I want to blast the Snow Imp with my white wand!”

     The game kept going on like that for the next hour, with AAA, Lulu, and Chadley each doing their own things, and Abigail trying to juggle them all. She’d roll dice for AAA’s battle damage while holding a conversation between Chadrick and an NPC. Then she’d scramble to find the right item card for Lulu’s latest search, all while skimming through her notes to make sure she wasn’t missing any key story beats.

     It wasn’t long before Abigail was feeling completely overwhelmed. It was just too hard to keep up with all the different directions the story was going. When AAA and Chadley both snapped at her for mixing up their encounters, and Lulu whined that she’d been given the wrong item card, Abigail realized that she wasn’t even having any fun.

     “Can we take a quick break?” Abigail said suddenly, holding her notes tight to her chest. “I, uh, need to refill my water bottle.”

     Abigail hurried into the kitchen without waiting for an answer, finding it difficult to breathe steadily. She sank down to the floor and put her head in her hands. She had been so excited to play today. She had known it wouldn’t go perfectly, especially knowing the personalities of her brother, cousin, and friend, but she’d never thought it would go so wrong, so quickly. Even during the most competitive of their past Games Master Challenges and Daily Dare tournaments, Abigail had always enjoyed herself. Why was it so hard to find the fun in this?

     “Hey, Abby, you forgot your— oh, what's wrong?”

     Abigail looked up to find Lulu poking her head into the kitchen, Abigail’s water bottle held in her paws.

     “Do you even have to ask?” Abigail said, her voice shaky. “The game is a complete disaster!”

     Lulu frowned, her ears drooping in confusion. “What do you mean? We're all having so much fun! I've got 8 gems and 3 pelts already, and as soon as you left AAA started bragging about how many experience points he's got and Chadley won't stop yapping about how all the NPCs love him!”

     “Well, I'm not having any fun,” Abigail said sadly. She looked down at the notes she was still clutching; they were now crumpled quite badly. “It's hard enough to run one game, and I feel like I'm doing three different ones at once! You know I don't mind a challenge, but this is impossible. Plus, we're all supposed to be playing together to progress the story.”

     Lulu set the water bottle on the kitchen counter and slid down to sit next to Abigail. “I'm sorry, Abigail. I guess we're all so used to playing our own games against each other, that we didn't realize how difficult that made your role.”

     “Maybe it was silly of me to think this could work,” Abigail said, shrugging. “It's like you said, it's so different from what we normally do.”

     “I don't think it's silly!” Lulu said, putting her arm around Abigail’s shoulders. “And, I think we can still make it work so that we all have fun.”

     “You do?” Abigail asked.

     Lulu nodded. “Yeah! We can think of it like… like a different kind of games challenge! Where instead of challenging each other to compete, the challenge is to work together! I bet if we explain it to the boys like that, they'll be tripping over themselves to play the right way. I promise to be better about it, too. What do you say?”

     Abigail thought about it for a second. She did still really want to play. She had spent so much time preparing, and she really did miss playing games with the rest of them. Maybe Lulu was right. Maybe this could work, if they looked at it from a different perspective.

     “Let’s do it, then,” Abigail said, smiling at her cousin. Lulu perked up, grinning from ear to ear.

     “Awesome! Why don’t you actually fill your water bottle this time, and I’ll go tell the boys what’s up.”

     A few minutes later, Abigail returned to the living room to find Lulu challenging AAA and Chadley to a competition to see who could collaborate the best. To her relief, they both took the idea in stride, with AAA even going so far as to mumble an apology to Abigail about not playing by the right rules before. Abigail thanked him graciously as she got settled again with her notes.

     “Okay,” she said once she was ready. “Let’s try this again. Lulu, I believe you wanted to go to the Jungle Ruins to search for more treasure?”

     “Actually, I want to go back to the Dank Caves first. AAA, you were about to battle a Cave Ogre, right? Can I help you?”

     “I suppose,” AAA sniffed, cleaning his glasses. “Chadley, are you coming too?”

     “Naturally,” Chadley said happily, sliding his character’s token over the game board. “Chadrick is more than happy to share all of the super cool magic items he has with your characters! Teamwork!”

     “Oh! I have an idea!” Lulu exclaimed, leaning forward and fanning out her item cards. “What if I use some of my gems to reflect sunlight into the caves, to blind the Cave Ogre?”

     “Then I can use one of Chadrick’s new wands to surprise-attack it!” AAA couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice at this new strategy. “I bet we’ll even beat it in one turn!”

     Abigail smiled as she listened to the three of them strategize, and the room finally filled with harmonious chatter instead of discordant arguing. This was exactly what she had hoped for when she came up with the idea for them to all get together for a day of playing games. It might not be exactly like old times… but Abigail was starting to think these new times could end up being even better.

     “Are we ready?” Abigail asked, readying her dice as they all turned to her with big grins and determined gleams in their eyes. “Let’s roll for initiative!”

     The End.