George, 22 Years Old, August 2020

I selected “Create New Life” and the game pulled up a screen showing the symbols for male and female captioned “Select Gender”. Hovering over the male icon caused the background to change to the depiction of a buff black-haired Adonis wearing a loincloth with a leather strap running diagonally across his chest. On his shoulder, he was balancing a large club. Erstwhile, the female icon caused the background to depict a blonde-haired woman possessed of the perfect buxom figure. draped with an ornate robe holding aloft some sort of staff in her outstretched arm. Lightning was crackling around the end of the staff that gave the impression of raw untamed elemental power.

Talk about gender stereotypes, between the survey question, and this gender screen I get the impression the developers have some pretty old-fashioned views. In any case, it did not really matter to me. As a rule, I always made my characters female as, given the choice, I would prefer to spend hundreds of hours looking at the female form in menus and in gameplay. As a bonus, based on the somewhat questionable disposition this company was exhibiting so far, I would bet money on the end-game female armor being exquisite.

I selected female and turned my attention to the next page, labeled “Select Archetype”. It gave me three options: Humanoid, Demi-Human, and Monster. This game lets you play as a monster? Curious, I selected the option for monster and was met by notice and a list. The notice read, “Warning: Monsters have unique life requirements and are often attacked on sight by Humans and Demi-Humans. They are not intended for new players.” I mean, I wasn’t planning on actually playing a monster in the first place, that notice sounds like common sense for an RPG, I was just curious. Slightly miffed at the warning assuming genre ignorance, I turned my attention to the list. At first, I thought it was only eight entries, but upon noticing that all eight of them started with the letter A and were otherwise in alphabetical descending order, I realized that this was a scroll list. Excitedly, I scrolled my mouse wheel and wound up somewhere in the middle of B. I blinked for the umpteenth time tonight. I had scrolled Really far. Glancing at the right side of the list I noticed a millimeter-high grey bar. I gave another experimental scroll. The grey pixel moved about a centimeter.

I sat back in my chair and spoke my thoughts aloud. It was that unbelievable. “This game lets you play as any monster?!”

There must be so much potential for game-breaking exploits with this, how in the world did they balance the sandbox? I read the eight names currently displayed. I consider myself fairly fluent when it comes to my knowledge of fantasy tropes but for the life of me, I could only place one of the monsters off the top of my head. Cocytus: An S rank Monster.

I checked to make sure there was a back button and then clicked on Cocytus. A popup notified me “Cocytus requires 15,000 Life Points, your balance of 1,000 Life Points is insufficient to select Cocytus” So that’s how it’s balanced, the stronger monsters cost more LP. I wonder how you are supposed to get access to them then if you only have 1,000 LP to spend on character creation?

The existence of Life Points did not concern me overmuch, I had played other RPGs before that had you spending currency to create your character. All things considered, it was an effective method of balancing. As far as getting more Life Points to spend, two possibilities stuck out to me. Firstly, it would function as a sort of new game plus, based on your performance in one “life” you would earn more Life Points to spend on your next playthrough. Very Buddhist of them, maybe that’s why they were asking me about religion on the survey. The second option was that it was related to achievements, so many games were adding them now that it was a distinct possibility. Each achievement would permanently increase your Life Point count, with easier ones being worth a small handful and hard ones being worth a large sum. I hope it’s the first option, that would give the game a lot of replay value.

I scrolled down to G, looking for a monster I was sure would exist, and was equally sure would be fairly cheap. It took me actual minutes to scroll four letters before I found what I was looking for. Goblin: an E rank Monster.

I selected Goblin and the scroll menu changed to what looked like a flow chart. Starting at the entry “Goblin, Basic [E Rank] 50 LP” it flowed out into several options, each of which had several options flowing off it. Some of them were greyed out even though I had enough Life Points. The greyed-out ones looked really strong, one of them, in particular, stood out “Goblin, Emperor [A Rank] 1,000 LP”. Is this even a goblin anymore? The icon looks like a certain green rage monster. I wonder if the Goblin Emperor can disguise himself as a human physicist? I laughed at my own joke before turning my attention back to the first entry. Likely the greyed-out ones were not available on a first playthrough, like the Life Points total they probably were related to achievements or something, and intended for replays.

Branching off the first Goblin were the ubiquitous mainstays of goblin culture. “Goblin, Shaman [D Rank] 150 LP”, “Goblin, Warrior [D Rank] 100 LP”, and “Goblin, Scout [E Rank] 75 LP”. Experimentally, I selected Goblin Warrior. I was brought to a character summary screen like what I had first seen before opting to create my own character. At the bottom of the screen, there were two options displayed: “Play this Life” and “Go Back”. I had no actual desire to play as a Goblin Warrior so I was grateful there was a go-back option.

Though as I was reading the character summary, I had to frown. “There’s a lot less info here than on the other character summary. Notably lacking were the fields for class, social strata, and talents. The only skill listed was “Evolution Candidate”. The skill entry was helpful, contextually. I could assume that meant that upon reaching a level threshold I could then evolve into a higher form of goblin. That meant that the flowchart from earlier was probably an evolution tree. A lot like that one anime about 10-year-old kids forcing wild animals to fight in arena deathmatches huh. Something else had caught my attention, however; save a Strength stat of E+ all of the Goblin Warrior’s stats were E. Suitable for such a weak monster. Having Satisfied my curiosity, I clicked on “Go Back”

I navigated back to the three Archetype options, and this time selected Demi-Human. Demi-Human did not have a scroll list. Instead, three further options were displayed. “Beast-Type”, “Spirit-Type”, and “Insect-Type”. Another notice was displayed prominently under the options.

“Demi-Humans, while not as polarized as monsters, still have extreme stat distributions making them challenging to play. What sets Demi-Humans apart from monsters is their lack of a magic stone and capacity for learning. Demi-Humans are either physically or magically stronger than Humanoids, however, their populations tend to be lower, leading them to be exploited in most Humanoid Kingdoms as a matter of course. Demi-Humans are considered a challenging life.”

I read the notice without giving it too much thought, that setting was a standard trope. Selecting Beast-Type, I was greeted by a list containing about what I expected; humans with animal features like ears and tails. I checked a few of them and they had predictable stat distributions and talents. Wolf Demi-Humans had “keen smell” as a talent, as well as high strength and constitution but low mana.

I made my way back and, briefly, looked over Insect Type and Spirit Type. I had already decided to do my first playthrough as a humanoid, based on the notices it sounded like that would give me the most options to experiment with; this was a beta test, after all, I needed to be able to try a variety of things in order to give the developers good feedback. Insect Type was predictable, the list was populated with things like Arachne and Abeil. Spirit-Type was more interesting. I was expecting to maybe see elves and dwarves, but both were absent, meaning they were probably considered humanoid in this setting. I did catch sight of an “Elfling” that, based on its summary page and icon, I determined was similar to a Santa Elf or the Elves from that German fairy tale about a lazy shoemaker.

I made my way back to the Archetypes page and selected Humanoid. Displayed center screen, with no notices this time, was the expected three options: “Human”, “Elf”, and “Dwarf”. I decided to go left to right so that I would end up on Human, as I had decided to play a character with a fairly standard kit for my first playthrough. Dwarves and Elves were usually specialized, whilst Humans were the most adaptable in most settings.

The Dwarf page had three options: “Mountain Dwarf”, “Plains Dwarf”, and “Deep Dwarf”. I glanced at my phone. It was almost 3:00 am, given I was starting to run out of time I decided not to explore the dwarf subtypes; I could learn about the differences as I played. Backing out I peaked into the Elf section and saw what I expected to see: “High Elf”, “Wood Elf”, and “Dark Elf”. I navigated back and selected Human.

The human page gave me two options; Pureblood and Mixed-blood. Mixed-blood had a helpful notice displayed under it. “Mixed-blood humans have at least one ancestor of another race, either an Elf, Dwarf, or Beast-Type Demi-Human. The mixed blood applies a bonus to one or more of the human’s Ability Improvement Values and will fade within three generations if not renewed. If they have more than one nonhuman ancestor, only the bonus from one ancestor will be applied although appearance modification options will be available from all ancestors. Furthermore, Demi-Human Mixed-bloods are treated no better than a normal Demi-Human and are viewed as abominations.”

This was fairly interesting. I bet I can come up with a pretty good build using this mechanic… This is actually a tough choice. I was stuck in thought for a length of time before remembering that I was supposed to be a beta tester. Well, If I want to experience a lot of content my character having a long lifespan would be beneficial, and elves tend to have the longest lifespan out of any mortal race. Hell, sometimes they are even outright immortal save for blade or poison. I selected Mixed-blood.

I was taken to a new screen showing the options for Elf, Dwarf, and Beast-Type. I guess the more abnormal Demi-Humans can’t breed with humans. Makes sense, Insect Type probably lays eggs and Spirit Type is almost certainly heavily based on some sort of magic. In any case, I selected Elf and as expected was then prompted to choose Between High Elf or Wood Elf. Yea I could have guessed as much, Dark Elves are stereotypically reclusive and xenophobic to a fault. No way would a Dark Elf get with a human. I debated for a moment and selected Wood Elf on the grounds that High Elves tended to be prudes and I didn’t want my ancestor to have an abrasive personality. This brought me to a “Life Summary Screen” showing my stats, with the options to “Customize Appearance” and to “Go Back”.

Life Point Investment: 100/1000 (Mixed-blood [Wood Elf] +100)

Name/Age: NULL, 56

Gender: Female

Class/Level: Not Selected

Species: Human (Mixed-blood [Wood Elf])

Social Strata: Not Selected

Starting Gift: Not Selected

Ability Improvement Values:

• Strength: D
• Endurance: D
• Dexterity: C (+1 from Gender: Female)
• Intelligence: D
• Charisma: D
• Mana: C (+1 from Mixed-blood[Wood Elf])

Talents: Determined by Class

Skills: Wood Elf Ancestry*

All my stats are D except Mana? And that’s only C because of my Wood Elf Blood. That confirms Wood Elves are magic-focused at least. Going to ignore the fact that gender influences stats… Twitter is going to have a field day with this game jeez. I suppose D must be the base for humans then, the default character probably got ability improvement from his class levels then. As I was ruminating over the character summary, I noticed the symbol next to the skill. Curious, I hovered my mouse over it, this prompted a descriptor menu to pop out of it.

“Wood Elf Ancestry: Due to Elven Ancestry, the player receives a bonus to Mana Improvement Value. Hidden Stat; [Lifespan] is expanded by a random value from 100 to 500. Warning: a Lifespan greater than 120 years will result in reduced experience gain proportional to the length of the lifespan. Longer lives require more time for change to take effect.”

“…”

Well, I wasn’t going to play a mixed-blood then. Based on the notice I could assume that a human lifespan was likely 120 years, though it was probably influenced somewhat by social strata, money for medicines, and all that. I simply didn’t want to deal with an overly slow leveling process. I quickly navigated back and selected Pureblood.

Life Point Investment: 0/1000 (NULL)

Name/Age: NULL, 56

Gender: Female

Class/Level: Not Selected

Species: Human (Pureblood)

Social Strata: Not Selected

Starting Gift: Not Selected

Ability Improvement Values:

• Strength: D
• Endurance: D
• Dexterity: C (+1 from Gender: Female)
• Intelligence: D
• Charisma: D
• Mana: D

Talents: Determined by Class

Skills: Determined by Class, Ancestry

Alright then, no warnings about my character being abnormally grindy, lets see what the appearance editor is like. I selected edit appearance and pointedly ignored my clock.

I was presented with a highly detailed 3d model of the woman from the gender select screen, sans robe and staff, though she was wearing underwear. Strangely, I did not see any sliders with which to adjust proportions or select a hairstyle, only some color options for all the usual areas every game tends to have. Stuff like skin tone, hair color, iris shade, and so on. At the bottom of the screen were the now-familiar options to proceed to the next section, in this case, class selection, or to go back.

After some fiddling, I realized the mouse became a sculpting tool when hovering over a region of the body; by highlighting the bust, I could scroll the mouse wheel to deflate or inflate, though there was an upper and lower limit. I could also click and drag to make them perkier or saggier, though this also seemed to be influenced by the amount of hot air I pumped into them. This was in all honesty, a highly detailed appearance editor. I set about sculpting my character based on the playstyle I had in mind. Yup, playstyle. I’m totally not making her based on what I personally find attractive…

I wound up with a lithe build, roughly 160 centimeters tall. A Modest bust that was perhaps a bit on the small side. Her hair was a shade of red that was almost black, with a natural wavy pattern. I had spent about twenty minutes fiddling with said hair before a box popped up telling me that hair would grow at a natural rate while playing and thus attempting to set a style would simply result in odd growth patterns.

That message honestly startled me, it was almost like someone was watching me work, but everything else about the game seemed so advanced I just wrote it off as just another smart feature, aimed at players who were extremely picky like myself.

Her eyes color was a very light Azure that was approaching silver, it went very nicely with the hair. I left the face mostly intact; I knew better than to try and sculpt something that didn’t look like an abomination. Though, I did smooth it out a bit and round some of the sharp edges just slightly. In all honesty, she wound up looking slightly indistinct Asian with a bit of German. I selected an appropriately light skin tone to match the general shape and then set the lips to a slightly redder tone of that. Looking over the model, I decided it was pretty good for my first session with this editor and clicked on the button to advance to class selection. While the new page was loading, I glanced at the clock on my phone. Grimacing, I decided I had not looked. It was almost 4:00 am.

The class selection page was populated with five lists, each one conveniently labeled with “Tier One-Five” respectively. Each list consisted of a familiar scrolling menu populated by terms that would be familiar to any RPG player, each one of which also listed Life Point cost. As a rule, the classes in higher tiers seemed to cost gradually more and more. The cheapest class in Tier Five had a displayed cost of 6,000 LP. Directly underneath each list was a small label displaying a prominent “0/1”. Along the very bottom center of my screen, I saw a counter displaying my available Life Points. It currently readout that I had 1,000 remaining. Thankfully, each class had the small “*” symbol next to its name, indicating that I could hover over it to get a small blurb about its effects.

Piecing together everything on this screen, it seems like as long as I can afford it, I can pick one class from each tier simultaneously. No way to tell if I would get them all at once or if some other mechanic would come into play. I would guess the latter. Those scroll bars are so small too… this is going to take a while isn’t it. As a starting place, I went into Tier One and selected a cheap class, Beekeeper, for 300LP. As expected, the 0/1 for Tier One became “1/1” and all of the classes except Beekeeper Disappeared from the Tier One list, while Beekeeper was highlighted in a manner that indicated it had been selected.

Not as expected, however, was the fact that the lists for the other tiers shrank considerably. It looks like a bunch of classes in higher tiers just got removed… looking through Tier Two, it seems like all the magic-related classes went away. That probably means that I can only take classes from each list if they relate to each other. Then again, Great Archer is still available in Tier Two… how is Archery related to Beekeeping? I unselected Beekeeper and started scrolling down the first list.

The majority of the first list seemed to consist of civil classes like Beekeeper, Farmer, and Jester, although there was a small number of classes that may have some combat potential, though they all sounded rather weak. Things like Bandit, Hunter, or Kickboxer.

I periodically selected a class to see what change it would have on the other lists, and through experimentation arrived at a few conclusions. Classes that carry an inference of physical activity seem to preclude classes that infer intellectual pursuit, although there are some exceptions. The Magic Knight Class was still available in Tier Three even after I selected two physical type classes from Tier One and Two. I suppose one of the things that makes a higher tier class more powerful is the potential to mix magic in with physical ability. I wish I could figure out why I can pick more than one class at once, usually, you would only get one class. I’m too tired for this shit. Saying that, I was still too engrossed to consider turning in. It was only 5:20, and I would be fine as long as I was in bed by six.

I continued scrolling down the first list of classes until I reached the bottom. Passing through the Zs nothing really caught my attention. I had tried to ignore the weak-looking Tier One class and pick only from Tier Two and Three, seeing as I couldn’t afford anything above three, but when I selected a higher tier without a lower one, the button proceeded to grey out, which indicated that I had to fill out from the bottom up. Then I finally reached the bottom. What’s this now? ‘Custom Class* 0LP’? I hovered over Custom Class to get the info blurb.

“Custom Class unlocks a modified developer toolkit used for designing classes. By expending Life Points, you can build your own class from the ground up. Warning: Custom Class Feature is in Early Alpha.” I cautiously selected Custom Class. To my surprise, every class from all five classes disappeared. All save for one, in each tier, there was one option left for me to take; Custom Class*. I selected all five of them and hit the button to proceed to the next section.

The next section showed my Character Summary but had several new icons and altered details that I could only assume had been added by Custom Class.

Life Point Balance: 1000

Name/Age: NULL, 0

Gender: Female

Class/Level: Custom Class, 1

Species: Human (Pureblood)

Social Strata: Not Selected

Starting Gift: Not Selected

Ability Improvement Values:

• Strength: <D>
• Endurance: <D>
• Dexterity: <C>
• Intelligence: <D>
• Charisma: <D>
• Mana: <D>

Talents 0/1: [Browse Talents]

Skills 1/1: [Browse Skills] Divine Authority[Class Features]*

The first thing I noticed was the change from “Life Point Investment” to “Life Point Balance”. That makes sense I guess, the class description said something about spending LP to build my own class. Considering Custom Class cost a grand total of 0LP, it would seem that it’s been changed into a form of currency. Kinda like skill points, I guess.

Then there are these arrows next to my Ability Improvement Values. Looks like I can Spend LP to improve them. Browse Talents and Browse Skills seems pretty self-explanatory, but it looks like I have a cap on how many I can have and this [Divine Authority] is taking up my skill capacity. Feeling a bit irritated, I hovered over Divine Authority to see what its effect was.

“Divine Authority[Class Features]: Represents the individual’s ability to influence the Divine Realm. Specifically, removes the restriction placed on the Talent and Skills System, allowing for limited direct interference. Enables in-life access to the Life Summary Menu” I sat back in my chair. That effect sounded damn powerful. I guess according to the setting of the game, this skill would make me some kind of demigod. Isn’t that a little powerful for a level one skill?... …I can’t get carried away, it does say it’s only limited access, and of course, it wouldn’t be so kind as to specify exactly where the limit lies. I decided, for now, I should play around with the new options and move on to the next screen.

Unfortunately, I quickly discovered one of the previously mentioned limits. When I tried selecting the [Browse Skills] option, I was given an error message, “Skills can only be browsed when available capacity is greater than zero.” At least that seemingly confirmed that I would be able to get more capacity somehow. Probably has something to do with leveling up. I went for [Browse Talents] next and quickly found another limitation. While the list of talents was extensive and even included a search function that seemed to parse based on both talent name and the contents of the talent descriptions, Almost every single one was greyed out. This is kinda weird. Even though the game called ‘Custom Class’ an Alpha feature, it seems like there’s way more development effort put into it than the rest of the game. I mean, every talent has that ‘*’ symbol, it tells me the effect as well as the prerequisites… If I had to guess, I’m getting access to the description comments left by the developer in the code file, with this many options you would have to have the effect written down somewhere. Divine Authority must be giving me access to that file. Still, prerequisites huh…”

Each talent seemed to have a set of prerequisites made up of minimum Ability Improvement Values, as well as a minimum level. Some of them even required other talents or skills. Frankly, the list was huge and even with the search function, I was having trouble making heads or tails of it. I started browsing the talents that resulted from searching for “level 1” since that effectively filtered to only the ones I could currently get the prerequisites for when I found something that sounded insane.

“Prodigy I(500LP): [Acquisition Effect]: applies +1 to all Ability Improvement Values and Improves Intelligence to S. [Level Up Effect]: Provides a random beneficial bonus based on class. [Acquisition Source] Randomly assigned at birth to one in one million individuals.” Selected the option for “Acquire Talent” and a confirmation window opened asking me to confirm I wanted to spend the 500 LP, while also informing me that I could not refund a purchased talent. Without hesitating I selected confirm. My LP balance decreased by 500, and all of my ability scores ticked up by one, while Intelligence jumped up to S.

I was left with 500 LP to spend on my ability scores so I started playing with the arrows. Unlike when I bought Prodigy, it seems I could use the down arrow to undo a purchase. After fiddling for a while I had more or less figured out how it worked. Firstly, I could not reduce an individual score below its minimum value. That minimum value, rather than E, was the value the scores had hit after I purchased Prodigy. I suppose buying Prodigy and then refunding the S rank intelligence to get more LP than I spent would have been a bit broken. …fuck me. I could have raised my skills first then bought prodigy… I was a bit dejected by this, but there didn’t seem to be a way to replace [Prodigy I] now that I had bought it. I decided to look into this on my next character and moved on.

The next thing I noticed; the cost for increasing an attribute increased by a factor of two for each improvement; increasing Endurance from C to B cost me 100LP and further increasing it to A cost an additional 200LP. This meant I could either improve one stat twice and two stats once, or five stats once. If I chose to improve Dexterity, it would cost me 200LP for the first improvement, making the decision slightly complicated. After giving it some thought, and bearing in mind that This would affect the talents and skills I was able to acquire by way of prerequisites, I opted to increase Endurance, Dexterity, Charisma, and Mana each by one.

This cost me my remaining 500LP, but I was confident I would be able to improve the scores in-game somehow. Feeling pleased with myself, I clicked the button to confirm my selections and advanced to the next screen, confirming through the window that warned me that due to using Custom Class, I could no longer return to previous menus to change my selections. This must be what they meant by Alpha, it doesn’t play nice with the other game systems.

The next Screen was labeled “Life History”. Compared to what I had just been doing, this section was almost refreshingly simple, possessing only one option. Being as tired as I was, I didn’t question it and clicked on the selection box labeled “Social Strata”. I felt like a bucket of Ice water had been dumped over my head somewhere in the back of my head I knew I had messed up. Reading through the options, all but two of them were greyed out. The reason they were greyed out was really easy to discern; the three available options cost 0LP, anything else had an LP cost. In my giddiness over the power of the custom class, I had forgotten that LP was originally used for designing every aspect of the character, and I had spent it all on my class.

Glancing down at the back button I sighed. Just like it said on that warning, I can’t go back; it’s greyed out. Resigned, I looked at the pair of options I had available for 0LP; “Commoner”, and “Fallen Noble House”. Both of them were listed under the heading “Challenging Start”

I decided to list out the pros and cons in my head. Pros of being Commoner; I have some upwards mobility if I become successful, with my Divine Authority I should be able to make quite the living for myself. Cons of being a Commoner. I would be at the mercy of the nobility, if this is anything like other medieval fantasy RPGs, then the nobility is formed out of assholes who look down on everyone beneath them. There might even be something annoying like the ‘Right to Strike’ where a noble can get away with striking down a Commoner for any reason. That settles it. I selected Fallen Noble House and confirmed. Even if it wasn’t fully a noble, there was the chance that I might be able to do something like leverage past connections.

The next window casually informed me that, “Due to having maxed out the Life Point Investment the remaining options for customizing your birth family have been locked to ‘Randomized Lottery’. Not having control of your birth family is considered a ‘Challenging History’, do you want to return to the class selection screen in order to reclaim some of your Life Points?” Of course, the option to return was greyed out due to Custom Class. The game is actually mocking me…

I advanced to the next window where I was supposed to select my starting gift. Like my family, I only had a handful of options. Specifically, three. I could pick a “Strange Potion”, a “Small Seed”, or a “Light Coin Purse”. None of them sounded particularly useful. …Well, I can officially say I screwed up. I don’t think it really matters which one I pick. The coin purse is most likely pointless, with my custom class ability I can likely find a way to get money no matter what. The Strange Potion or the Small Seed then… Eeny Meany Miny Moe… I selected the Small Seed. The only option was to “Finish and Name Character”. Selecting it, a text entry box appeared. Probably because the name was still fresh in my head, I entered “Stahlia” and confirmed. My character summary appeared, now fully populated, with a loading bar labeled “Preparing Your New Life, Please Stand By!”

Life Point Balance: 0

Name/Age: Stahlia, 0

Gender: Female

Class/Level: Custom Class, 1

Species: Human (Pureblood)

Social Strata: Fallen Noble House

Starting Gift: Small Seed

Ability Improvement Values:

• Strength: C
• Endurance: B
• Dexterity: A
• Intelligence: S
• Charisma: B
• Mana: B

Talents 1/1: [Browse Talents] Prodigy 1*

Skills 1/1: [Browse Skills] Divine Authority[Class Features]*

I vaguely noted that the arrows for my Ability Values had gone away, but I had more or less expected that the ability to improve all of them to max just by spending LP would have been a little too strong. I glanced at the clock… it was 8:45 am now. I would have to log out as soon as I got in-game so that I could sleep for a couple of hours before my test. The loading bar had reached 95% when I noticed a burning smell. I looked around my room in a panic and saw there was smoke rising from my computer. Jumping up in a panic, I lunged at the power cable to yank it from the wall.

I was too late, although I managed to shut off the computer, I could see the case was horribly blackened. What the hell. This game ruined my PC! I stared in abject disbelief at the still smoking wreck that used to be a PC. Sagging backward onto my bed, I was too tired to really get angry, but I was sure I would be livid after I woke up. Pulling out my phone, I sent an email to EvilGod telling him I had found a major problem with their game, and asking if there was any way I could get the computer replaced; I still really wanted to playtest New Life. From everything I had seen it did in fact sound like an amazing game. After sending the email, I confirmed that my alarm was set for 11:00 am and grimaced as I fell into a far from restful sleep.