The Floor Above Roots
Game Rules
Make your way from Roots to Meraki Room while staying alive after navigating your way through an onslaught of people coming to you with decent or shitty intentions.
Random people approach you endlessly throughout the game until you reach your final destination, Meraki Room. Each person that approaches you is looking to you for help. The catch is, you don't know if the person really needs help, or if they are just looking to take advantage of you. Because you don't know their true intentions, your actions in response to their request will determine your score and physical health. There are 4 possible outcomes to each interaction:
- If you help some one that had shitty intentions and they successfully take advantage of you, your health will suffer and you will lose power.
- Conversly, if you help someone that had decent intentions and they really needed the help, your health will benefit and you'll gain power.
- This also works symmetrically in reverse. If you negatively respond to someone that had shitty intentions looking to take advantage of you, you will empower yourself and your power will increase.
- Conversely, if you negatively respond to someone that needed the help and had true intentions, it will be to your detriment and you will lose power.
Each random person's intentions are sampled from a normal distribution. The game assumes the people we approach will randomly have decent or shitty intentions. Yes. I know. Some of you may believe that this distribution is more tipped in favor to a much more biased distribution in either direction. There is context to everyones intentions, this game assumes nothing more than that people are coming to you and asking for help. It ignores context.
You have 4 actions in response to people's randomly distributed unknown intentions:
- (+) Love - throw out hearts to show that you are willing to help the person with what they need
- (-) Throw a Nope - Straight up throw some shade with a strong, dismissive "Nope".
- (-) Use your weapon - Assume the worst. Shoot first, ask questions later.
- (-) Fisticuffs - Respond with rage, your weapon is not enough. You're so sick of people's bullshit you want to throw a punch and knock somebody out
How to play
Don't die.
You must confront people. For every person you ignore that ends up walking off screen, your health will be deducted by 20 (full health is 100). Ignore too many people and you'll die.
If you play the game like a shitbag and never respond with hearts but only using your weapon, throwing a nope or punching, its up to chance on whether you'll survive (see the scoring below). If you get confronted by more people with bad intentions, then it'll work out in your favor. Conversely if you get confronted by more good intentioned people, you won't make it and the power of 'NO' will have worked against you.
Altruism doesn't work in this game (or life - if you disagree with this you're wrong). If you respond with hearts to more than 5 people in a row, despite the person's intentions, you'll die from stretching yourself too thin trying to help everyone. Sorry cup cake.
How is my score based?
Scoring is based on 2 values. First, your bias. Based on your reponses to confrontation are you more likely to risk being a sucker and respond kindly (throw hearts) or always be defensive and respond negatively (weapon/nope/punch). Second value is your overall weighted score based on how successful your responses to confrontation have been. The score is weighted in favor of a negative response (the power of 'NO'). Responding with hearts will increase/decrease your score by 1. Responding with a weapon/nope/punch will increase/decrease your score by 1.2 (in this game, the power of 'NO' takes precedence with an extra 0.2). The scoring is symmetric, and your health will be reflected in the same manner. Based on your response to each confrontation, the following indicators will show the accumulated values of your actions:
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+1 You responded kindly (threw out hearts) to a person that had good intentions. Your health increases.
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-1 You responded negatively (weapon, nope, punch) to a person that had good intentions. Your health decreases.
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-1.2 You responded kindly (threw out hearts) to a person that had bad intentions. Your health decreases.
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+1.2 You responded negatively (weapon, nope, punch) to a person that had bad intentions. Your health increases.
At the end of the level, or after dying, you'll be presented with your combined bias and weighted score along with an assessment of your demeanor towards confrontation.
I Don't Understand the Point of the Circle of Indulgence at Bangers and Lace.
We all need a nonsense break to everyday life to readjust. Just take a break, chat Eric up at the bar for a bit, collect your thoughts, crush a couple beer's with Ethan. Hint: If you don't take a break from dealing with people, you'll die.
The Final Boss
You'll know it when you see it. The optimal strategy to win is not always what it seems. You'll figure it out. Pro tip: Getting hit with an ice cold can of PBR is not optimal. Listen to your mother's sage old advice.