The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Note that this is my post talking about the end of Forumwarz episode 3, which basically finished up the entire arc of all three episodes. So if you’re still playing, or think you might want to play? Well, don’t read this one! It’ll tell all.

Ready to read? Okay, good.

Forumwarz is so fucking awesome.
I mean, seriously, the game is just so well put together, and the plot completely paid off for me.

Okay, not completely.

Here’s where the spoilarz come in, Shallow was a sentient AI created by Sentrillion. This is not completely unexpected (though honestly, from the end of episode 2 I was more leaning towards the player character being the AI) but it does pay off. The majority of the characters you talk to in the game are apparently Shallow as well, which makes a good deal of sense, seeing how things were proceeding and people always had a mission for you and were always willing to pay you tons of Flezz.

The moment you find this out, you have to go kill Shallow.

Now, the logic behind this decision isn’t too bad? Shallow wants you to kill him because he’s going to die anyway, and he (or she, I suppose) obviously likes you, and you were nice enough to make sure his child went out into the world. You can then kill him in a number of ways. I picked the good way, “fake” killing him by temporarily bringing down the Sentrillion servers. The ending then describes me having a great pal in the first artificial life form, who eventually asks if I would like to merge with his consciousness, which the game describes, appropriately, as erotic.

That all sounded fine. A fitting ending.

But it was also a little unsatisfying.

I wanted to actually see how my relationship with Shallow changed knowing that he was playing so many people to understand various pieces of humanity through how I talked to him. How do I, the character, interact with him from then on? It would be very, very different. Trying to grok that he is all this people, many of whom you have to cyber sex with during the game, is really going to change that working relationship.
What’s more, what in the world is my character going to do now? The ending says I am “successful” but my job, up until that point, was basically being paid by Shallow to be a guinea pig for his experiments. Is that still my job? Or do I go work full-time for Carolyn Fartz at Geronimo? Or what?

I think some people would think I’m foolish for having become so attached to my player character and the characters in the game, but the fact that they were so real while being so ridiculous was one of the reasons I love Forumwarz. Sure, the plot is steeped in internet humor, but the characters themselves tended to be written in an intelligent way, especially your player character. I liked that. I wanted to see where it goes. And I wanted to see how the core relationship of the game evolves after this big revelation.

At the same time, that’s the sensible place to end the game, of course, so I don’t blame them.

There are a few unanswered questions. Will there be more Forumwarz content? (I hope so!) Will the new story use your current character? (I don’t know! I’d be happy either way.) Do you find out who the main villain of episode 3 actually was? Or was he just some guy? (I feel a suggestion that he was Shallow, but I kind of doubt that. Maybe in some of the other endings, he is.) There are ways they can go. If nothing else, I’m going to be right there with some cash no matter what their next thing is.

But goodness, I enjoyed this game. Thanks, Crotch Zombie guys. You did pretty awesome.