SEPTEMBER 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to September's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: CHAOS.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: Torture (emotional and possibly physical), claustrophobia, potential weapon violence (guns, knives, spears, flamethrowers, etc.), possible body horror, emotional manipulation, emojis
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Prompt Three
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

DICE BLOCK

In case everyone hasn't had enough fun and games to last a life time in the good old town of Deerington, apparently this month brings you one more. Maybe you were just walking through the door to get into your own house, or maybe you were leaving from work — the moment you walk through any door, you'll find that it doesn't open up to the place you were looking for. Instead, you find yourself standing on a giant game board and you seem to be right on the start space. The doors already disappeared behind you, don't bother trying to run back. The only exit is at the end and you'll have to hope you make it there.

But you aren't alone! With you are other unfortunate souls who hopefully weren't just looking for a quick bathroom break. Some of them might look a little worse for wear. What happened? Well, looks like you may have to ask later, because you'll only really have time to exchange names if you don't already know one another before a large screen you didn't notice was hanging from the ceiling will light up. There's a giant image of a typical six-sided game die that's completely stationary. For the moment. Shortly after, a voice will come on over the speakers, echoing in the otherwise fairly empty room. It's overly cheerful, grating, and giggles at the end of every sentence.

Welcome, players! Is this your first time? Yes? Great!
Would you like to hear the rules?
Okay!
Each player will take a turn rolling their die.
You can then move the number of spaces shown — but only those spaces!
You can move forward, backward, right, and left, but not diagonally!
Each space will have a symbol.
The spaces with a clover are lucky spaces! Congratulations! You'll gain some fortune, whether it's an extra turn, moving ahead more spaces, or gaining an important item you can take with you on your journey!
The spaces with the skull are unlucky spaces! Boooooo, that's too bad! You'll befall some grave misfortune here. Hopefully it won't set you back too badly! Make sure to avoid these at all costs!
The spaces with a chest are item spaces! Here you'll be able to win prizes, like medical supplies or weapons! Maybe even a small something from home! Wouldn't that be nice?
Your goal is to make it to the end alive! Good luck! And remember to have lots of fun!

The first player's name will pop up on the screen, before the die will begin to randomly blink between numbers. Eventually it will land on a number. Once the player moves forward and lands on their space, it will repeat for the second player. This will go on until one (or both players) reach the end!

When they said to make sure to not land on an unlucky space, they certainly weren't kidding. Each one seems to come with some sort of random punishment or horror; it can be as light as having to move back a few spaces or go back to the start, or as heavy as breaking a random bone or feeling a blade slice open your skin. Maybe you'll start to slowly turn into a monster or become filled with the desire to kill your opponent. Anything can happen, but it's always going to be bad.

Players who reach the end will be able to go through the door and end up back wherever it was they were intending to go in the first place. Players who lose? Well... It's back to the beginning for you. Time to wait for the next player. Better luck next time.

DANCE DANCE

But what's behind door number two! People are going to start to get tired of walking around in their own houses at this rate. Even if you managed to escape the board game horrors, this new room you've found yourself in doesn't seem much better. In the center is a large TV screen and on the floor in front of it are two pads with arrows pointing in four directions; up, down, left, and right. Anyone who is familiar with Dance Dance Revolution might feel right at home! But fear not, there are instructions on the screen for you to follow if you need them.

Two players only, and you'll have to work together! It's a team dance and you'll want to encourage each other to stay perfectly in sync. The doors won't open until you finish, and should you mess up? Well, look up, friend!

The ceiling is covered in sharp, painful looking spikes and every time someone misses a beat or steps on the wrong arrow, the ceiling will drop down a foot. It's pretty high up there, but miss more than three arrows and you're gonna start to really feel the pressure. The spikes are looking a lot bigger and more ominous than they did when they were all the way at the top. Hopefully you've got some good rhythm.

But this is a good lesson in teamwork! Even the worst dancers might be able to get out of here okay if they've got someone who they can work together with. Maybe their perfect scores will make up for your two left feet. You can only hope you're both so lucky.

THAT'S NOT A "MEH" FACE!

Everyone loves to get a text, don't they? Of course they do! Which is why someone has been kind enough to send out a little special something to everyone's Fluid's this month! There's no name you recognize — in fact, it doesn't even look like a name is attached at all. The sender's identification only looks like this: 🥳

The message you've gotten is pretty simple though! Each person has received a text message with one emoji inside. No rhyme or reason applied! That's... random, isn't it? You can try to text back, but no one will answer, and so you might as well just close your device and forget about it.

Every person who received a text will find that their personality starts to shift. They begin to take on some aspect that's tied to the emoji they received. Did you get a simple smiley face? You're happy and relaxed for the time being! Or maybe a silly face will lead you to become more of a prankster. An eggplant could have someone feeling like sexting a Special Someone. An angry face might get you really riled up, even towards people you love. Did you get a knife? Time to start stabbing. A gun? Those people around you look like really good target practice...

The options are endless. Each emojis effects will last for twenty-four hours or until another emoji is sent from the same user.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Snorting to himself, Dick shakes his head, absently wiping the back of his hand across his face to get rid of some of the sweat, a flash of bright blue eyes appearing for a moment as his glasses are pushed up. "Yay."

A door appears in the darkness, swinging quietly open and letting in a dim light, which Dick trusts about as much as the last door he walked in through.

"Something tells me the prize isn't gonna be that great," he comments, making his way over to the door, adjusting his hoodie and jacket along the way.

The flash of blue pricks at his senses putting to question exactly who he's looking at. He remembers the old photos of the first Robin in Wayne Manor. It's been a lifetime since then, and they were the memories of a kid. He'd looked up to the first Robin right up until the moment he met him.

They hadn't parted on a good note and it had taken them years to get back to a semblance of camaraderie that Jason still wasn't sure of. Still, face in those old photographs is vague in his memories and most importantly, he's not expecting Grayson to be younger than him by four years. He was younger than Tim and that in itself was enough to shake off the resemblance as nothing more than coincidence from a fucked up place that already screwed enough with his head.

So, he shakes it off, focuses on the present in a few long strides catches up to the kid.

Jason makes sure to reach the door first and gauge the danger before the kid walks through. But, the other side is nothing more than exit. They're in a back alley that leads out into a populated street in the middle of downtown.

This feels like home.

"We made it." He turns back to the kid. "Try not to get yourself roped into anymore death matches today."

Edited 2019-08-31 02:41 (UTC)

"Does that mean I'm allowed to get roped into them tomorrow?" he asks with a cheeky little smirk, otherwise the picture of innocence with his hands tucked away in his jacket pockets.

There's no way this tiny brat could possibly be the future Nightwing.

Nope.

He laughs. The cheek on this kid.

"How about you table the deathmatches until you've grown another inch. What do you say?"

Edited 2019-08-31 02:54 (UTC)

There's a loud snort in response, and even if his eyes aren't visible with the glasses in the way, there's the distinct impression that he's rolling them.

"Sounds like you're not as turbed by these games as you should be. We got through that one all right, and I'd like to point out me not having that extra inch made me feel a lot safer."

"Huh," he gives him a once over. "That's not a bad point."

Looks like there's more here than meets the eye.

How cliche.

"Just keep your nose out of trouble. Death wouldn't look good on you."

"Are you implying I couldn't pull it off?" comes the arch response, though the kid's still smirking. "Go on, Nanny Jay, don't let me cramp your style. I can see myself home."

Backing away slowly towards the street, Dick lifts his hand in a little salute with the devil horns. "Stay turbed, dude."

Blue eyes flick to him, scanning his face for any hint of recognition. There’s coincidence and then there’s....

What’s with the nickname kid?

“Hey,” he calls out casually despite the disturbing feeling making him oddly tense. “I never got your full name.”

A regular enough question and definitely not a probing one. I am not probing a kid for information just because he shares a name with a dick.

The smirk turns to a full-fledged shit-eating grin. "Funny, I never got yours, either. You haven't leveled up enough to unlock my story arc, yet."

You little brat. Definitely one to watch out for.

He grins right back, almost proud of that answer.

“Todd.” Unlike the rest of the bats, Jason kept things simple. He was who he was, take it or leave it. “Jason Todd.”

He meant what he said before, he wasn’t going to probe a kid. So, he gives him a two-finger salute and heads out to explore the town.

Edited 2019-08-31 17:02 (UTC)

There's an echoing laugh at the salute, but the owner of it's vanished out of sight. You can take the boy out of the suit, but Robin's always there, and he's a shit.