Brink Cascade: The Bordersdown Game

[charlesr]

I replied to a 20 year thread yesterday. Now I can't find it.....

[Neon Ignition]

Ending 08:
Either immediately or following the further discussion by the campfire you have the option twice to return to the road which is where this story branch picks up with the five of you passing through the woods and emerging into a battlefield. Eventually you reach a cloaked figure that is revealed to be Charles who gives you the choice of two portals to pass through, one purple and one blue, as you try not to get distracted by Fishbowlhead.

Charles Dad Joke 03:
"I've been asking people what the lowest rank in the Army is but no-one will tell me - apparently it's private"

Charles Dad Joke 04:
"I did find out why Tesla's cost so much.... apparently it's because they charge a lot"

Charles Dad Joke 05:
"I had been idly playing with my toy train set till some villains came in looking for me and I threw a bedsheet over the toy - thankfully I was able to cover my tracks"

Charles Dad Joke 06:
"I've just found out my Uncle is addicted to Viagra... my Auntie's been taking it hard"

Choosing the purple portal you emerge in a grand hallway, with marble floors and a grand staircase beneath a chandelier. Brad realises you've been sent far away from the City and the four of you explore a dining room to the left. Approaching a dark figure by a dim fire at the end of the room you all creep forward till you hear the scream of Carmine being torn into by the zombie corpse of someone deceased in a labcoat name labelled JParry. Brad and Sean Bean open fire as Snake hides in a cardboard box. The zombies of Importaku, Rushy and Brats fall from a balcony above and attack. You all attempt to retreat but Sean Bean gets pinned by Carmines revived corpse, he pulls the pin on a grenade, "For England Brad". You, Brad and Snake escape to the foyer as the explosion destroys the room leaving you with a choice of going upstairs or through the door across the foyer.

Opting for the ground floor door you find yourselves in a grimy, dank room with monitors in it. As you explore the floor gives out and you all fall to the basement floor below. Awakening in an underground lab you are confronted by a massive, looming mechanical Servbot. It attacks and Snake fires an RPG rocket that the Servbot grabs and throws back, incinerating Snake - "Snake... Snake... Noooo!". The Servbot releases a toxic gas and it engulfs Brad. As you check on him the Servbot deactivates, after gagging on the toxic gas Brad becomes zombified and you realise you've been exposed and there's no exit except your impending death.

[Neon Ignition]

Ending 09:
The previous ending was a long description as it represents the first on an entire branching arm of the game. For this next ending we pick up events at the point where the player could choose to go upstairs or across the foyer following the dining rooms destruction. Here you chose to go upstairs with Brad and Snake. The staircase is a mess with broken boxes and furniture and you enter the dining room on the upper floor. It's burnt and smells of ash and sizzled flesh as you make your way to a door on the other side. As you pass into the next room you are fired upon by someone in an office - it's Team Andromeda. Team Andromeda reveals that he was banished to the house and has been trapped there for some time, he used the equipment in the house's labs to try to escape as the house is a place where banned users get sent, never to be heard of again. One of his experiments caused a tear in space and it is this tear that is causing the Cascade. Brad and Team Andromeda come to blows. As they feud TA activates a Forum Bot that attacks by spouting nonsense like "The massage from our alien leaders is to extrapolate integral algorithms so as to please Sega ambassadors to disarray our beliefs in the interplanetary mindscape ergo the proprietary usage of the Saturn monikor"

You have a choice whether to push Brad out of a nearby window and jump to escape, or attempt to combat the Bot. Opting to fight it the incessant spamming of the Bot drives blood from Brads ears as you grimace and grab a nearby weapon - A banhammer. Striking the bot, you ban it from existence but another arrives, another strike and another arrives. The endless noise spamming eventually proves too much and Brad passes away as you follow him into death, just as you see a badge on the bots reading Zack Morris Industries - you never stood a chance.


Ending 10:
In this ending you chose to push Brad out of the window and jump yourself in an attempt to escape the Forum Bot. Finding yourselves injured and in a moonlit garden. Leaving TA and the Bot behind you see a gate with the image of a Fez engraved above it and head inside. Walking through dark stone tunnels you eventually reach a lab see notes on portals and a circle with black in its centre. As you approach a wind picks up, becoming too strong to fight against as the circle closes enough to reveal it's actually Kirby - the ultimate tool of destruction. Kirby's pull gets stronger, sucking you and Brad inside, then the lab, the house, the woods and everything beyond it.

[Neon Ignition]

Ending 11:
Here, we return to when Charles had offered you two portals to choose between. You choose the blue portal in this instance and appear in a stone castle room. You meet the jester Nonny who has been put there by Charles to offer a choice of another two doors to pass through. The first is the path of the God of War, the second the Path of Dark Souls. You choose the Dark Souls path and set into the next room where you all step through together and are immediately beheaded by a large blade held by a giant silver knight.

Ending 12:
Having chosen the path of the God of War you exit the castle and can see the City on the horizon, lit by gunfire and explosions. You can also see a tear in space above the city. A shard of light shoots through the tear and hits some rubbled buildings beside the bridge. You have to choose between heading to the City or investigating a small toy figure that peered at you from the rubble. Heading to the rubbled buildings the small figure scuttles around when you get close. Eventually you follow it to an open space in the rubble where a purple flame waits, space rippling around it. Bodies lie all around you, clearly only just deceased with knife wounds in them all. You suddenly collapse in pain, sliced in the leg by the little figure. You look up to see a toy cats face. It charges again as you realise it's a Toythatkills. You crawl to the flame and it leaps through the air screaming "Teddy-meoooow!" with knife reached out as you touch the flame. Time freezes and the world around you breaks apart before you are flung back through time to the start of your journey having lost all your progress in the great purge of Code-2016.

[Neon Ignition]

Ending 13:
For this ending we go all the way back to the early choice between the Path of Red or the Path of Black doors and opt for the Black one. We enter an aquaduct, on a rotting pier. Climbing into a small row boat you row out into the open night air and see a dock to the side and a lighthouse out on the water. You choose to head to the small dock and pull up on the silent shoreline. Walking through an overgrown area you eventually emerge in a small Japanese town street and Ryo runs toward you with a mirror in hand, he breaks it and a golden glow engulfs him. As it dies down he's covered in a golden suit of armour with a sword. Crashing into a small pillar his armour vanishes leaving him in just his heart patterned boxers before he impales you. You awaken again back on the street, Ryo runs out toward you again so you run down the street and jump into a parked Ferrari. You think you're escaping but Ryo jumps a motorbike off an overhead bridge and slams the wheels into your face. Again you awaken on the street with Ryo running out, you run across the street and slide through a low window into the basement of a building. Ryo runs past and you discover a group of teenagers trapped in the house, before you can plan an escape you are killed by a Maniac Mansion scientist and awaken on the street again, forever trapped in 80's gaming references.

Ending 14:
Here you chose to head to the lighthouse instead of the dock. As you row you hear a growing loud roaring noise and suddenly a plane crashes into the nearby water. After being thrown into the water by the crash you emerge and have to choose between swimming to the lighthouse, the boat or back to land. Deciding on the lighthouse, you swim past the debris and climb the wet steps to the lighthouse door, lights come on in the following foyer chamber and a golden statue appears followed by a recorded voice:

"I am Asura, and I am here to ask you a question.

Is a man not entitled to meet who he chooses?
No, says the man from Resetera, he belongs to the nightclubs
No, says the man from NeoGaf, he belongs to the workplace
No, says the man from online dating sites, he belongs to our membership services"

You enter a biosphere and it takes you beneath the waves till you can see a sprawling underwater city.

"I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different.
I chose the impossible... I chose...
Blobcat"

"I built this city, a place we could be together amongst the memories of the forum's forgotten. Where the thing that had been lost could entertain us and we would not be bound by the petty trolling of console wares. Where the threads would not be constrained by server issues. And with the access we are granting you, this can be your city as well. Welcome... to the Rapture of Bordersdown"

When the biosphere docks at the bottom of the sea, you step out an pick up a nearby walkie-talkie. Escape-to-88 starts to speak to you over it but the second he says 'would you kindly' you toss the device away. As you walk through the art deco corridors that drip with leaking water Asura's voice begins again over speakers.

"To build this place at the bottom of the sea; insanity. But where else could we be together safely amidst the memories of our joining? In 2016 the great Purge took place, a cataclysm that saw a year lost from the lives of all. The expressed contents of our minds, our shared experiences and our gaming time lost to the sands of time. But time is too precious to be given away so readily and so I sought out these experiences, an attempt to retrieve our time together. Eventually, I found them, scattered like ashes in the wind, and I brought them here to keep them safe. It was not impossible to build Rapture of Bordersdown at the bottom of the sea. It was impossible to build it anywhere else.

Could I have made mistakes? One does not build cities if one is guided by doubt. I know that my beliefs have elevated us, just as I know that the things I have rejected would have destroyed me. But the city... is collapsing before me.... have we become so convinced by the preservation of these threads of our lives that we have stopped to see the present? Perhaps"

A large glass window is smashed behind you and as water crashes into the corridor a massive diving suit wearing creature with a drill hand stomps in, it's MisterBubbles. He pursues you as you through an art display room dedicated to the Bordersdown Meet Up 2016 and other threads such as people arguing over something called Nintendo NX. The next room has a statue in it and you realise Asura's fixation is because a game released during this time that shared his name. The incoming water begins to catch up to you and you continue till you reach a staircase leading left and right. A hole lies in the wall nearby and two yellow lit eyes appear as Blobcat climbs out "When you find my Asura you'll become and Angel. Then MisterBubbles will come". You choose to head left up the stairs and enter a departures area littered with body remains. MisterBubbles reappears and pursues you with Blobcat riding on his shoulders. You managed to escape through a docking section and enter an industrial corridor.

Wiping a nearby dirty sign you see the word Ishimura. You continue till you reach a train platform and a twitching person stands near the far end and begins to creepily sing.

"Hush now, hide all your little ones
Rush now, kiss all their little heads goodbye
Soon all the creatures here die

Dreamless sleep follows the Finsbury Girl
When her kingdom comes, the ending is nigh

Quiet, enjoy your peace while it lasts
Silent, secretive feelings
Of fearsome feeling that engulfs the skies

You bring joy to the Finsbury Girl
When she sees the light leaving your eyes"

The figures then leaps in front of an oncoming train that rests into the station and you board. Aboard the train you're attacked by creatures and you rush from carriage to carriage till it reaches the next station. There you choose between disconnecting the carriages or leaving the train. You disconnect the carriages and the train starts up again. As it does, the Ishimura fires up and rises through the water causing massive destruction to Rapture. Water fills a bay your train has reached and eventually you are holding your breath as the Ishimura enters space. Finsbury Girl watches you via a security camera as she opens the air lock and the cold freezes you within a room sized block of ice.

[Neon Ignition]

Ending 15:
Back at the decision on whether to exit the train, this ending assumes you chose to get off. The creatures begin to pursue but the train begins to accelerate again and carries them away. You look at the platform and see another figure, this time though it's Charles.

Charles Dad Joke 07:
"I once won an award for being the most secretive guy on the forum... I can't tell you how much it meant to me"

He warns you that Finsbury Girl lies ahead and is being influenced by an alien marker. The creatures she summoned led to Rapture's downfall and the corruption of Asura and Blobcat's minds. Charles reveals he never lost the 2016 content of the forum, he just wanted to protect some gold standard posting.

Charles Dad Joke 08:
"People have always underestimated me, I once told them I was going to invent the formula for becoming invisible... if only they could see me now"

You face off against Finsbury Girl in the next chamber, battling multiple creatures with a laser tool. You use the tool to cut the grated floor around the marker and it collapses down. Charles arrives and says he can send you somewhere safe but not home due to being near the marker.

Charles Dad Joke 09:
"Do you think people are born with photographic memories... or do they take time to develop?"

You and Finsbury Girl pass through a portal to spend the rest of your lives living on Animal Crossing island.


Ending 16:
Back in Rapture, when you were on the staircase, here you chose to head right instead of left. Blobcat calls for MisterBubbles to attack and he crashes through a wall knocking you out. You wake strapped to a chair with MisterBubbles stood in a corner and Blobcat standing nearby. Asura steps out from the shadows:

"I've always been suspicious of the assumption that great forum discussion is an unqualified benefit. That the fanboy madness that so often accompanies it can be cavalierly dismissed. So I asked the question - Suppose there were an entire subsection of the forum that was segregated from the rest of the active space well beyond anything that would occur as normal course. What would that really look like?

We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us. I dared to ask the questions of importance, the questions of matter. What is the difference between a Moderator and a User? A Moderator builds. A User asks where is my share? A Moderator creates. A User says what will the newbies think? A Moderator invents. A user says I prefer the old look.

Moderators did not plant the seeds of this Arcadia. I did. Lacking its own ingenuity the Moderator fears the Asura. What it cannot control, it seeks to censor. What it cannot regulate, it seeks to ban. An artist strives to frame his thoughts in an image; to challenge the other users and to make his experience in the forum and the marriage it created immortal. The Moderators say 'no, the forum must serve the user... you intentions endanger the server'. A Moderator chooses... a User obeys. And so I hacked the Bordersdown server, I tore a piece of tis existence out for myself and brought it here to keep for myself and Blobcat. What they refer to as the Purge, I have enshrined as the Rapture of Bordersdown"

Asura steps back and Blobcat approaches. You next wake feeling encased, you can see through several holes and MisterBubble looks curiously at you, seeing a suited twin...

[Neon Ignition]

Ending 17:
We return to the point in the story where you had to choose between the lighthouse, the shore or pursuing your boat. Here you choose to swim after the boat and as you get closer you realise that the boat and yourself are being caught up in the swirl of a whirlpool. Charles appears above on a winged banana and tells you the whirlpool is going to take you to the third and final world away from your mission, a place he cannot go and that is controlled by another.

Charles Dad Joke 10:
"A teacher once asked me what the formula for water is so I told him - H I J K L M N O. He said it was wrong... so I told him he'd taught us it was H to O".

You are pulled under the water and when you resurface you're on a bloodied beach landing and under fire. Explosions erupt all around you and a soldier grabs you and drags you to cover, it's Sgt. Huxley. He guides you across the beach to the base of a cliffside bunker and uses explosives to blow a hole in the wall. You follow as he guns down advancing soldiers until you reach a vehicle bay and a Commander Cepp calls down to you to stop. You remain in cover as Cepp tells Huxley that the Cascade has come to their world. Cepp then guns down Huxley and you look to decide whether to make a break for Vehicle Bay 04 or 07.

Choosing Bay 04 you run as the soldiers open fire and you dive behind the bay garage. As the soldiers close in you enter the bay and can't see anything as you fumble around, locating a vehicle and climb inside. Just as Cepp is about to order the soldiers to open fire again on your position you hit the accelerator and the Ecto-1 smashes through the shutter door and races out onto the open cliff edge road. Soldiers climb into vehicles from other bays and you find yourself pursued by a pink Rolls-Royce, the Batmobile and a DB5 in addition to Airwolf. The side door on the chopper opens and Commander Wakka leans out. You use controls in the Ecto-1 to swivel out as the car self-drives and you fire a proton beam, cutting through the DB5. The Rolls-Royce flies through the barrier on a corner too sharp for it to take. The top cover on the Batmobile opens to reveal Wheela is using it to pursue you. A speed bump knocks your finger and another proton beam blasts out and incinerates Wheela's head, causing the Batmobile to lose control. Wakka fires missiles causing the Ecto-1 to crash and he lands, walking over as you lie strapped to your gunner seat. He opens a little box and a group of Fraggle Rock Dozers climb out and tear into your face like hungry piranha.

[wakka]

Exactly how I would kill someone irl. 10/10.

[Neon Ignition]

Ending 18:
Here you chose to enter Vehicle Bay 07 instead of 04. Again you run to its rear and the troops close in. Cepp calls out to them to prepare to fire but once the shutter explodes outward this time it's the DeLorean that races out of the garage and out onto the road. As the soldiers race to their vehicles you gun it down the long road and as the car reaches toward 88mph sparks begin to fly and after cracks of thunder and a flash of light you emerge on the same road but the soldiers are gone. You can choose to continue driving or engage flight controls. Choosing to fly and spend the next hour soaring the skies. Several pop culture references later you see that this world is made up of multiple huge lands chained together to something above the clouds. You fly upward and as you emerge above the clouds you see a huge city and are then flanked by two X-Wings. Observed by a flaming eye on top of a huge tower, the X-Wings bank away and sirens sound off. Under fire from the X-Wings you swoop down to the city streets where you're pursued by KITT, Optimus Prime, the Jurassic Park T-Rex and Vin Diesel. A huge action sequence later sees you driving off a rooftop, you jump out and the Tardis appears before you and catches you.

It's here that you meet Doctor Kryss who takes you to where the leader of this world resides. Stepping out of the Tardis Kryss is shot dead and the leader looks on:

"Survival, plain and simple. When you're pushed, killing is as easy as breathing. I have spent a lifetime building this world in the image I want it to be in. Tying these disparate worlds together to bring unity under my rule. These lands were once so at odds that it drove me mad. I brought them together though and made them one. Lands and people from an endless pool of film and tv into a single world, a design that I can understand and that truly resonates with every fibre of my being. Sometimes it became too much but every time I thought I wanted out they'd pull me back in. I am the Leader of this world, I am Dogg Thang and I brought these lands together to form my kingdom, the Dogg Thang Cinematic Universe.

And like any true saga of any real theatrical value, it's all about one thing... family"

Commanders Cepp, Wakka, Yakumo and Teddymeow step out. Beside you Kryss glows and regenerates into Golgo you passes you a small device. Cepp is taken out by Golgo but one of Wakkas grenade pins comes out. Dogg Thang throws Wakka over a railing where the grenade blows him up, Yakumo is shocked so Dogg Thang shoots him then orders Teddy to attack.

Teddy dives off the balcony with claws outstretched screaming "Teddymeeeeeeooooow!" then impaling Golgo. Golgo grips Teddy close and doesn't let him go as he begins to regenerate, the energy burning Teddy alive until the light fades and reveals Golgo has regenerated into Atticus.

Dogg Thang tosses down another grenade. Atticus flees in the Tardis and you have to choose whether to use the device or pursue Dogg Thang. You opt to chase him as you run away from the exploding grenade and you follow him into the next room - The Blue Room

Monitors line the walls all around you as DT sits in a chair and explains his role:

"I am the Architect of this world. I created this world from the multitude of media creations that exist. From here I watch over its continued universal continuance. Welcome... to the Blue Room.

"You have many questions and although the process of reaching this room has changed your perception of matters you remain irrevocably resistant to the acceptance of necessity in the design you witness. Ergo, some of the answer I give, you will accept and some you will not. Concordantly, whilst your first question may seem the most pertinent it is never the less the least relevant"

You ask why you're being pursued. "Interesting, you came to that query faster than expected. This world is older than you might suspect. I prefer counting from the emergence of the initial disparance in thematic cohesion, in which case this would be the day not far from a hundred cycles. The first cinematic universe I formed was created using diplomacy but the interworking of such distinct mediums of content led to social collapse. Further attempts followed similar results and so a cohesive and controlled cinematic universal approach was required for the minds contained within to accept the social order that had been imposed.

You are here because of an anomaly within this world. You're continued presence creates an instability within that threatens its continued presence. Your arrival here also heralded the bringing of the effects of the tear from the world you came from. The longer you exist within this realm the more the tear will force its way through and soon the Brink Cascade will end this world too. You, you are the villain of this worlds story.

Let's cut through all this nonsense shall we? The world isn't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how traumatised by your journey you are. This world will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.

Dogg Thang shoots you in the chest.

"That's how winning is done"

[wakka]

Wait is that the true ending? That's hilarious

[fuse]

It was already going to be a struggle for me to ever rewatch the second Matrix film with a straight face, but that's gotten even less likely now.

[Golgo]

Even Hideo Kojima would struggle to wrap his head around the double-triple-quadruple crossing of this epic script!

[Neon Ignition]

It's not even the true ending, we've still got several to go

[fishbowlhead]

This all makes the Dune books look like pop up short stories for 2 years olds, it’s absolutely glorious 😁

[Neon Ignition]

Here you get 18 endings so far, the Dune film doesn't even give you one!