Update: It’s back on sale! As this game’s creator explained on Twitter, what started as a joke about false scarcity became an example of it. It’s $US2 and available on itch.io.
Original story: You’ll have to forgive me for leaving the name of this game about coordinating a raid in an MMO you’ve never played before out of the headline. I had to, because the name of the game is My Older Sister Left The Computer So I Got On And Found Myself Trying To Coordinate A Raid In A Game And I Don’t Play MMO’s.
It’s a real game, yes. I fire it up and within seconds have control of 47 fantasy heroes who are all level 70, and yet not one of the chumps understands the raid mechanics for the boss fight they’re in. They rely on me to set their formation and choose which abilities they use—everyone has completely different skills—after which I cross my fingers while a JRPG-style combat plays out.
We’re fighting Valear the Non-Extant, some kind of wispy undead plant thing, and all the abilities have impenetrable fantasy-ass names like Runic Prayer and Astral Carnival and vague descriptions that say this one “Inflicts a state on the target” or “Grants a status to the target”. The only way to find out what they do is trial-and-error.
This stress simulator, which is as much an actual nightmare you might have as it is a game you can play. was made for the Games that Shouldn’t Be Games Jam 2021. It’s the work/fault of CannibalInteractive, who has a history of things like this, with previous games including It’s Six Random Characters and a Single Floor Dungeon, That’s the Whole Game and I Have Low Stats But My Class Is “Leader”, So I Recruited Everyone I Know To Fight The Dark Lord.
The other thing to know about My Older Sister Left etcetera is that it’s only available on April Fool’s Day. From midnight Pacific Daylight Time you won’t be able to pay for it on the itch.io store, though it will apparently return for 24 hours on subsequent April Fool’s, “but the price will increase each time.”
Now if you’ll forgive me I have to go figure out what Numbing Clots does, and how I get rid of this Dark Vitals status that I’m pretty sure prevents me from seeing what effects statuses have.