Labyrinth of Lewdness.

  A pixel art graphics hardcore game of the 18+ genre. The core idea of the game was simple: You are within a world called the ‘Labyrinth’, operating on game mechanics, which even the NPC’s are aware of; How far can you climb? It goes without saying that there is no difficulty other than ‘Purgatory’ and perma-death is constantly active, pushing away most pyers with its overwhelming unfriendliness.

  However, that was precisely what made me like it so much. The joy of finding a legendary artefact in a random abandoned temple? The ment of having your character be killed by a curse, triggered by taking the artefact, within seconds? They kept me at the edge of my seat.

  Before I knew it, I had been pying the game for ten years, but still hadn’t even glimpsed the end of this journey. So, when I inexplicably found myself in a forest with grey trees, sporting white leaves, I was able to recognise: “Floor 1- Enchanted Forest”, I mumbled uncontrolbly. Confirming my thoughts, a blue panel, straight from the game, appeared before me.

  Css: None

  Stats: Body(+), Mind(+), Esoteric(None)

  Skills: None

  Titles: None

  Special Conditions: Cycle(+)

  This sealed the deal. I was in the ‘Labyrinth’, no doubt about it. I pinched myself, doubting the reality around me, but, sure enough, I felt a burst of pain, confirming it was all real. For a moment, I paused and took a few deep breaths, before analysing my situation.

  So, what is going on and what do I do?

  Firstly, I directly shoved the question of how I appeared here away, as there was no way for me to find it out. It was something worth looking into, but I had more pressing issues right now.

  Secondly, I checked my body, which, from what I could tell, was identical to the one I had, meaning I didn’t possess someone’s body, but directly appeared here. This is wonderful news, as it could have been troublesome if I had to pretend being someone, without even knowing who they are.

  With these two out of the way, I got to the fun part: Inspecting my status in more detail, starting with the stats.

  Body:

  Grip Strength: 5

  Mass: 4

  Jump Power: 6

  Flexibility: 8

  Smelling: 3

  Beauty: 5

  Physical Toughness: 4

  Vitality: 5

  Pleasure Limit: 4

  Agility: 7

  …

  Exactly like on screen, dozens of different values, randomly strewn around, presented themselves, all pretty straightforward. After looking over them, I concluded that they were pretty simir to what I expected and passed on to the mind stat.

  Mind:

  Focus: 7

  Ingenuity: 5

  Malice: 2

  Adaptability: 9

  Willpower: 6

  Stability: 7

  Perception: 4

  Obsession: 6

  Crity: 5

  Lust: 4

  …

  The mind stats were one of the most annoying, but also interesting aspects of Labyrinth of Lewdness, as they massively affected gamepy. Generally, they were divided into three types: Thought, Wisdom and Personality.

  Under thought fell all stats that were reted to the ability to think, like Focus, the ability to think of something and Crity, how rationally one can think.

  Wisdom included everything that reted to the ability to understand and deduce, like Ingenuity, the ability to find solutions and Perception, the ability to combine information to infer facts.

  Lastly, personality. It included everything that was tied to behaviour, like Adaptability, which indicated how flexible one’s mind is, to Lust, a measure of how lustful one is.

  In the game, managing these stats was crucial, mainly for two reasons. The first one was that the information provided to the pyer by the game was affected by them. For example, a character with high perception can predict betrayals before they actually happen. On the other hand, a character with low crity might make wrong assumptions, which the game will present to the pyer as true.

  The second reason is the self-will function of the game, which, as the name suggests, means that the character has a will of its own. In other words, characters with high malice might attack NPC’s without pyer input, while characters with high benevolence might refuse to kill, even when attacked first. Well, it was a bit more complicated than that, but this was the general idea.

  Finishing my musings, I turned my attention to what I considered the most interesting and therefore saved for st, the ‘Cycle’ special condition. The esoteric stats, like Luck, Presence and Faith, were also something I would like to know about, by they unfortunately required meeting conditions to be able to see.

  Cycle:

  Upon death, you return to the moment of entering the Labyrinth, while retaining this special condition.

  This condition can’t be detected by any observation skills.

  My eyes bulged, as if they would fall out of my eye sockets from shock, while my hands started shaking. Isn’t this…the most unreasonable ability that could possibly exist?

  The shock didn’t st long, however, as it was swept away by a wave of joy; Isn’t this a dream come true? She had fantasised what it would be like to py Labyrinth of Lewdness in VR, like in those stories with game capsules, but had never even dreamt of it happening.

  The Labyrinth is by no means a friendly pce, where safety is never guaranteed, which had made her worry quite a bit during the few minutes she had been here. Pying from behind a screen and going through something in reality were two completely different things, however, with the Cycle, it was possible to have the best of both worlds.

  She couldn’t help but let out a ugh, before shaking off the distracting thoughts and focusing on her course of action. What would she do upon beginning the game and nding in the Enchanted Forest, with no weapons nor skills? The answer was to walk forward and hope for the best.

  So, she did just that and went to where her eyes were looking, as the direction didn’t matter at all. Within a few minutes of her walking, the trees had managed to become twice as densely packed, with thicker crowns, but thinner trunks. Within another ten minutes of walking, she found herself in an area with short, but thick trees. The only thing that remained unchanged was their dull grey colour, at least in her eyes.

  The same, however, couldn’t be said about the little green men, who, blending in with the surrounding green trees, were licking their lips at her sight. One of them signalled something to the others with his hands, to which they responded with a nod, before quietly slipping away.

  After five more minutes, she suddenly stopped. Namely, in front of her y a small heap of leaves, which looked slightly out of pce, considering how there weren’t many leaves around it and that they were lying sporadically. It didn’t take a genius to identify it as a trap. More precisely, a goblin trap, which meant there was already at least one lurking around her.

  ‘Fight or Flee?’, she ran the possibilities through her head, before resolutely deciding. Fight!