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

[He looks over as she doesn't select beginner and raises a brow]

Don't be over confident.

[Either shes stupid or she knows what she's doing. In this case, Vanitas is going to assume the later or this is going to get ugly quick. His pride makes him want to select the same as her but he's also not familiar with the game at all. One quick glance at the spikes and he just selects and lets the menu move to the song.]

[Over-confident? Yup. Looking at the Queen of Over-Confidence who can back it up!]

Whatever. At least I know what I'm doing.

[Just going to set the song selector to random and- Why this song. Pidge cringes inwardly a bit as the song starts playing.]

This is so retro...

[He has his doubts but Vanitas really just wants to get out of here. He blinks a bit at the song that comes up and gives Pidge a side glance at that. He doesn't know the song but it just takes a couple of lyrics on the preview screen to judge her.]

If it's your favorite song you don't have to be ashamed of it.

[He chuckles a bit as the game loads. The instructions said to just match the arrows so that doesn't seem too hard.]

... it's one of the most annoying and disliked songs in the history of DDR. Anyone who likes this is a masochist.

[And Pidge is not a masochist.

Vanitas will find this quite simple with beginner mode. Pidge on the other hand is bouncing around quite a bit. Doing her best not to miss any arrows.]

I forgot this song needed a lot of jumping...

Edited 2019-09-01 20:45 (UTC)

[It is pretty simple and isnt hard to keep up with. His eyes do glance to Pidge with how much she's jumping around. It looks like he got a decent partner after all but that doesn't stop Vanitas from being a little bit curious.

He has no intention of wanting to die but he does miss an arrow and look up to see the spikes drop down just enough to be at much closer to their heads with a loud screech as its lowered.

At least one arrow missed isn't an instant game over.]

[From observation when she can, she feels irritation at the arrow being missed. And is quick to let him know.]

Don't do that again. This place doesn't mess around when it comes to punishments!

[A slight chuckle escapes him]

You sound experienced.

[Luckily for Pidge, Vanitas doesn't feel like dying today. At least not this way so he does actually try not to screw up on anymore arrows. Pidge seems like someone that would be fun to see squirm but he's not interested in joining her in being smashed by spikes.

The song isn't that hard on beginner luckily and even though Vanitas has never played he has enough coordination to do well.]

Been here long enough. Consider everything this world does a potential death trap.

[Good. The song soon ends and they both pass. She motions to Vanitas and the screen.]

Your turn to pick a song.

[He doesn't comment on that and instead selects random as well.

He doesn't want to drag this out any longer either. The song starts making Vanitas click his tongue. It sounds similar to the last one that played. High-pitched singing over a faster song or something.

Can't say he's a fan but the sooner they get through this, the sooner it can be put behind him. He's no longer worried about Pidge screwing up at least.]

[Oh god another jump heavy but also step heavy song. For this Pidge knows her limits and switches to Standard.]

I guess we just have to get it over with. Passing this song means one more, and whoever has the highest score gets a bonus song.

The sooner the better. Is the bonus song any different?

[If its more of the same, this should be fine. Granted, Vanitas knows he's not getting the highscore with how Pidge is playing and he's completely fine with that. If this wasn't team thing, he would have tripped her up long before now.]

It depends. If all the songs are unlocked, it randomizes it. If all the songs aren't, it'll be one to unlock. Or so I'm used to... who knows with Deerington.

[Knowing this particular Beethoven song makes picking up the beats she needs easy as the song starts. Then again, who doesn't know Beethoven songs.]

You might get an unlucky surprise then.

[This seems too easy but he's sure not everyone is coordinated so maybe four-eyes and him just lucked out. However, Vanitas isn't optimistic.

Still he moves to the song, hitting the arrows on point. He still feels stupid doing so but its better than taking the punishment of a loss or not doing it]

That's pretty standard around here.

[Unlucky surprises are normal.

Pidge almost misses an arrow as her thoughts stray, looking as if she was stumbling. It's fixed fast as she chastises herself mentally.]