Page 64 of Level Up
A few people accuse me of cheating—even though Ilost—while another person says that Damien probably let me (almost) win to get in my pants.
Damien’s expression is stoic, at least what’s visible of it, and I expect him to just ignore all of this, as usual.Malcolm’s done a decent job of scrubbing away and blocking the worst offenders, so all of this could just get swept under the rug.
“Look, you guys know how I play Three,” he says, his voice light despite a bitter edge to it. “If I died for stupid reasons a bunch of times,”—which he did, to be fair—“it’s because that’s what I do. I’m not actuallygoodat these games. I just like them.
“And Aud—lylikes these games as much as I do,” he continues, although he trips up a little; I think he was about to say my real name. “She’s technically better at them because she puts more thought into strategies.”
“It’s fine,” I say with a laugh, which comes out a little forced. I’m surprised by his statement; I wonder if he actually believes that. “If people want to think that I cheated so I could doworsethan you by ten minutes, then so be it.”
HeySMR: Ignore all these fools, my sweet angel
I laugh in earnest at my friend’s message. “Helmi, you should be asleep.”
HeySMR:Hush you
HeySMR: The two of you should do more collabs, this was so fun
ToastOnBeans:I don’t usually like speedruns but I loved this
HadTrash93:Definitely do more collabs! Oddly, you have a new sub. :)
SconesIsRad:I ship it
Damien holds up a middle finger, aimed somewhere behind him—probably directed at Malcolm, then. “Maybe we’ll have to do the second half next time, then,” he says towards the chat, towards me.
“Maybe we will.”
I recently revisited this game because I hadn’t played it since I was 16, and I have to say it holds up surprisingly well. I sort of thought the rose-coloured glasses of nostalgia were making me remember it being better than it was, but aside from the sorta janky graphics, it’s a pretty awesome game.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the third game—I don’t care if it’s “too popular” or whatever, I think it’s great. But sometimes it’s nice to go back to the game’s roots and play something truly punishing and inaccessible. No tutorial level, no hand-holding, nothing stopping you from straight-up breaking the game by dropping all the Stones in a lake. Why would anyone do such a thing? BECAUSE YOU CAN.
Not to be a Morrowboomer about this, but there’s a twisted, depraved brilliance toSOA1that the other games just don’t quite reach, even though they are great in their own ways. (AndSOA3is still technically my favourite, sorry not sorry.)
I mean, I spent so many hours playing this game when I discovered it that my first girlfriend dumped me, so take that as you will.
— Review ofThe Stones of Ayorby@SconesOfAyor(May 17, 2020)
seventeen
feral
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
Damien isn’t looking at me when he asks. I can tell because he moved his webcam up to a normal height after our stream, when we immediately started a video call between the two of us and resumed our originalSOA4games.
“Uh, the usual, I guess?” I reply, returning my attention to the game in front of me. “Coffee with Victory, dinner with the family, stay up way too late playing video games and then feel like a zombie on Sunday.”
“Right. I forgot about—You’re busy on Saturdays, yeah.”
I wait to see if he’s going to elaborate, but he stares straight ahead at his own game. “Whydo you ask?” I try to sound playfully—rather than anxiously—curious.
“I’ve already cancelled tomorrow’s stream, since today’s was so long,” he says, “so I thought maybe we could hang out.”
“We can still hang out like this between stuff?—”
“I meant like you come over here and we play Nintendo or something,” he says, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he wasnervous about this as well. “But obviously that doesn’t work for you?—”
“I could come over,” I say quickly. I try not to let my burst of excitement show—he’s inviting me forvideo games, after all. That’s all this is. “I mean, I can bump coffee to the morning and then be home by dinner. That’d be okay, right?”
