Apocalypdom

Apocalypdom was supposed to be a sort of weird interactive Alternate reality game that used mixed reality genre points. Some people used it to help them diet or get more exercise. It was a really popular lo-fi horror game. It had various music stations you could listen to, you could create your character, and just survive. The game itself used GPS tracking to give you simulated disasters and apocalypses that would be more realistic in your life. It even had weather tracking that was far better than the actual weather apps themselves. Everyone had that forsaken game on their phone, so no one batted an eye when it could accurately tell what was in nearby stores or restaurants better than the owners themselves. Apparently, police tried to get permission or access to use the data to prevent crime, but the app creators threatened to add log wiping to their system to prevent their customers from getting targeted or having their data leaked. Plus, it was a free game that everyone earned just a little cash on since you could play the game's minigames or try an app called Lethality trials. Apparently, it was a way to connect us to skylines in a sort of money collab. With however one lived, it was no surprise that the apocalypse-themed lo-fi game was a big hit. Everyone in the town practically lived in their own entertainment venue in honor of Doodoo. Since then, everyone in town had to get into the entertainment business somehow. Granted, the farmers had it easy since city kids always wanna see the animals and all the cool plants. It got to the point that the farmers formed their own sort of city. Either way, it went everything was great! Living in a town where fun was always a possibility made it really easy for people to get bored and stuck on what they wanted to do. Maybe a movie theater where you could binge-watch all the shows or movies you wanted to see. Perhaps a circus with a never-ending act, but Apocalypdom was always there. A small slice of reality of something where it wasn't just endless fun, and that was just refreshing in a town like this. No one questioned when people went missing, cause everyone assumed they had left. After all, the town was clearly oversaturated with so many things to do. Maybe having nothing to do would be a good change. The bus always came at the same time between when school opened and closed. The school had been turned into an enrichment center with trivia games, experiments, and physical activities. Everyone easily got jealous of people who got bored or didn't have anything to do. Cause it seemed like such a luxury to just relax. The apocalypdom app in their town always started the same for everyone; an Earthquake caused by overdrilling of a nearby oil rig. The earthquake would cause the water levels to rise and flood the town; however, thanks to how the earthquake hit, most of the places where people lived were safe, but places where they could get resources were hit hard, so it encouraged players to trade and search for the resources hidden or scattered by the water. The water would rapidly evaporate due to heat from underground lava and the sun, which would cause humidity and start a long heatwave that would send a nearby nuclear reactor into a critical that would start a nuclear winter that would afterwards mutate the living and dead as the sun would be blocked out by the clouds, causing an endless night. Once the night passed, it would begin different apocalypses using logic and reason to determine which one would happen next. Not to mention, miniature disasters and events would occur during each to hint at what came next. Like how sealife would explore during the flood, but slowly disappear when the water levels started sinking to hint at the heat wave. How could you find mutant or mutating animals during the apocalypse events to hint at the leaking radiation that would set off the nuclear winter? Luckily, during the game, places labeled as "homes" wouldn't be affected by the main disaster, miniature or events; however was a different story. Not to mention, you could encounter other player characters and even get robbed or murdered by them. Luckily, the app was strict on what horrors were allowed in-game to keep to the lofi getting. Each miniature disaster brought resources and opportunities. Mutant animals like disease-carrying rats would attract snakes that would attract things that eat snakes and more. Animal companions were highly sought after since certain events could be swayed in your favor by having them. Also, your animal companions could mutate to so it was better to treat them well to increase the odds of survival. Most people figured out the game's "logic" behind disasters happening is to assume it's going to happen sooner or later, and to assume that the safety measures to prevent it are going to fail or that people are going to be wrong when they are convinced it's not gonna happen. Like it may have been a Lo-Fi game, but it was heavy karma-based. Like, your real-life actions could influence the game. For example, feeding a stray kitty in real life could spare you from the mutated form of that kitten in-game. Not to mention that treehouses, RVs, and even clubhouses counted as home safety zones to even if they were unoccupied. Each disaster had a set of miniature disasters and events set for your location. Whichever way it went, you could either play the game or activate afk mode to be able to just listen to the tunes. Not to mention it did in fact have some DLC and items you could buy that costed money. These could be infinite storage space, an hour in a safe space that you could upgrade with cash, animal companions that were buyable, and so much more. You could even use money to push the disaster logic in your preferred direction or trigger certain events and miniature disasters. You could even add cosmetics that could affect your character. Perfume and cologne would make your character have little symbols of what they smell like, floating around things, and slightly trailing behind them. A lot of people did get pissy when they found out there was an actual food, water, health, hygiene, and sanity bar, along with an injuries section for serious injuries and even for disabilities. Cause some people started with characters already disabled. With a system like this, most people didn't realize the creation of a magic system could exist, let alone be side by side with cultivation and various other systems that one would only dream up in fantasy or fiction. Since these systems could be called miniature disasters, events, or some of the larger-scale ones could be called main disasters. Such as the ascent of magic, where magic would slowly enter the world, which also meant there would be a magic decay to end the disaster. Unless your character had a child, which would allow you to continue to play as your character's next generation when they die, then you would start over from the beginning of the game. The further you progress, the more things that could appear and kill your character. Which is why, besides survival, every player's secondary objective is to produce many offspring with an NPC or, if unlucky, a player character. In any case, a rumor was going around that the collab with Skyline's Lethality Trials would create a town where one could go to experience the despair that came with these disasters, since they were also working on a version of it in their own game with its own twists. Currently, the Main Disasters follow a flow pattern. An earthquake caused by drilling, which would block off main rivers and or damage underwater rivers. This would start the other disasters off, since due to the earthquake, the nuclear reactor would get damaged, and it would cause the flood to occur. Since the earthquake damaged a lot of the land thanks to drilling, the lava of a forgotten volcano would slowly begin rising, causing the ground to heat up. This, along with the sun, would cause the water to eventually evaporate as the flood would sooner or later weather down the blockages and allow nature to resume its natural course. However, thanks to the flood, the radiation leak from the damaged reactor has spread across the town and has ascended into the sky somewhat. This would start the mutation of animals as the radiation would amplify the heat due to ozone damage. This causes these mutated animals to try and escape into shaded or cooler areas. This would also mean the clouds would slowly become clogged with radiation that after a long time, the sun would be blocked out by the now heavy clouds that would rain both acid and radiation from the sky, eventually, as the nuclear plant would go critical, causing the rain to turn into snow. This would cause the living to mutate and the radiation to slowly reach into the dead. After that, the clouds would begin to black out as the dead would rise from their graves. Eventually, the clouds would part as the slowly rising lava would force the town to evacuate as it becomes a giant lava lake, which would burn both the radiation and mutation out before solidifying and turning the once town into a stoney plane where the town would rebuild once more in the ever faithful belief that this was a once in a lifetime occurrence. However, the now lowered levels of lava would create a false sense of peace as the radioactive ash with heat-resistant diseases clinging onto it would slowly fall upon the new town, starting a pandemic disaster that would morph into a zombie apocalypse, which would distract from the signs of the next disaster. The list of main disasters includes: Earthquake, Tornado, Hurricane, Flood, Tsunami, Nuclear winter, Ice Age winter, Nuclear explosion, Heat wave, Monstrous night, Undead, Acid Rain, Pandemic, Magic, Electrical and technological outage, Volcanic eruption, and so much more that is constantly being added to. However, there was a positive aspect that some disasters followed closely after others, so you had time to prepare. Consider the Cybergeddon, AI takeover, or "gray goo" scenario, and the follow-up disaster would be the collapse of all technology and electricity-based systems, as in the game world, the government would decide to create a giant EMP to wipe out those disasters. Which would then create a cascade effect labeled in the game as the "outage". Another disaster would be the Orbital Kinetic Bombardment, where all the trash around Earth would enter back into the atmosphere and usually burn up, but in some cases, it would hit hard distraction from any potential bigger asteroids that would push Earth's gravity, changing the day and night cycle, but also creating a cascading effect labeled only as "global Climate Collapse". Some disasters just existed in the background as a sort of middle finger. These would be Strangelet, Magic, Alien Invasion, and there was even a section where players could suggest their own sort of apocalypse ideas. The list is even longer than the terms and conditions! In any case, however, the goal is always to keep your character alive or to keep their generational line going. The issue with that came with if your player character had a child with another player character. Due to how the system worked, it was always first-come come first-served. Which meant if you have twins, then player A could claim twin A and player B could claim twin B, but it also meant that player B couldn't claim twin A's future generations and player A couldn't claim twin B's future generations. A Good example story would be Sarah and Jenekins had two twins named Jarold and Jenna. Sarah and Jenekins died; their players began to control Jenna and Jarold. Jarold had two twins, and Jenna had a single baby. Jarold died early due to a disease that allowed his player to control any of Jarold's Kids. Meanwhile, Jenna's player could only control Jenna's kid when Jenna died. Once the player chose one of Jarold's kids, he couldn't pick any other kid after. So when Jarold's kid died, the player was reset back to Day -7 of the Apocalypdom, allowing him to recollect resources and prepare a week in advance. Some players could pay to buy extra preparation time, even up to a year, but it required a lot of roleplaying and sticking to their characters before the doomsday schedule. Plus, not to mention they still had to follow the law or wind up in jail, which was an automatic failure since the flood would easily overtake the prison in the game. Apparently, this was cause some locations were so overpowered that they were nerfed so that the overpowered locations had an Autofail disaster. For the prison it was the Flood, Bunkers it was the earthquake, and etc.