[Josh Devlin]

The Dead Woods had six entrances, five of which led to a labyrinth containing most of the dungeon's treasures. The last entrance, which required the Flame Staff to get into, was his destination. When he walked inside, the entire screen pixelated so much he couldn't see what was going on. He found himself in the first level of a four-screen arcade game that had just entered the public domain due to celebrating its 40th anniversary of release. "Heh!" Josh laughed. "This game is older than I am!" What an Easter egg. Something like this couldn't have been coded accidentally. "This game doesn't take long, though - let's see if I can beat the first loop!"


mObntyJlp_ {Gaming - 55 - FAIL}

He played through the first two stages with little trouble, but the unpredictable, bouncing trampolines at the top of the third stage ran Josh through all three of his lives. Once those lives had expired, he was whisked back to the back entrance of the Dead Woods. It was a straight shot to the very back of the dungeon, where Mothman awaited. A giant moth that fluttered in a chamber surrounded by spiked walls, this boss was terrifying to most players in the base game...but armed as he was, this boss would be merely a formality. Four slashes with the Fire Sword would take it down, allowing him to free the third imprisoned maiden. Four more to go.

The next three were equally easy, considering he had to do very little searching in the dungeons themselves - once he had that Boss Key, he wouldn't need to open any more treasure chests. The Palace of Pleasure, the Thieves' Hideout, and the Ice Tower all were trivialized by overpowered equipment. There was one more obstacle before entering Horthos' Castle, though - the Black Omen fortress. It was the penultimate dungeon in the base game, and as such, the player was expected to be armed to the teeth. Full of enemies that could roast Josh alive and other enemies that could freeze him to the bone, Josh did end up having to drink one of his blue potions on the way up to the three-headed dragon at its apex. Much like the dungeon's denizens, one head had fire breath, and another had ice breath that could freeze sections of the floor, making it slick.

Going through yet another blue potion, this time motivated by the need for a magic refill, Josh was able to take down all three heads with copious use of the Flame and Frost Staves, rescuing the final maiden and opening up the front door to the evil pig god Horthos' Castle. Hopefully the hunt for the Boss Key wouldn't take too long - there were 22 chests in the castle basement, and only one of them contained said Boss Key. Where would it wind up?



---

{WC: 471}
{PC: 17}·

[Elayne]

Nothing happened!

All rolls were passed.

Josh Devlin

Lucky you! The first chest you open has the key you're looking for. On to the next one? Or check and see what the other treasure chests contain.

[Josh Devlin]

Heading down the right set of stairs to the castle basement, Josh's first order of business was the two treasure chests before the basement's major fork. He kicked open the two chests there, only to laugh hysterically as he found the Boss Key and a door key! By the time he caught his breath, he was already back up to the main foyer and heading up the stairs to the beginning of the castle tower. "Well, guess we...don't have to look for it!" With silver-tipped arrows, most of the enemies on the way up the tower disintegrated on contact.

The tricky conveyor rooms on the fourth floor, the torch puzzles on the fifth floor, and the locked doors on the sixth floor were no match for him - thankfully, Josh knew one of the Helmet Heads on that floor contained a second door key he would need to reach the top floor, where Horthos awaited. Drawing a trident easily twice the hero's size, the big, blue, anthromorphic pig tossed it at him as soon as he had control in the room, taking an erratic, curving path Josh couldn't easily predict. Ouch - even with the extra armor, that still removed about a quarter of his health! At least he stood still while the trident twirled, letting him hack away at the armor the King of Evil wore.

After a few more hits, the boss changed tactics, teleporting next to a wall and surrounding himself with a ring of flaming bats. Donning the Magic Cape and turning invisible (and invincible), he slashed twelve more times at the pig's behind, suffering no knockback as he was already up against the wall. Once Josh landed the twelfth hit, he turned around and grabbed the wall as though it were a liftable object, then started pulling against it - exploiting a well-known glitch that kept his Magic Meter from decreasing as long as he was in this state.

"Surprised this isn't patched," Josh mumbled as Horthos leaped to the center of the room and came down hard on him with his trident, knocking him back nearly to the front of the room. He quickly moved out of the way as soon as he wasn't stunned, and not a moment too soon - the outer ring of floor tiles crumbled away.

"You are doing well," the pig snorted. "But can you break through this secret Technique of Darkness? En garde!" Once the tiles had finished crumbling away, both of the torches in the corners of the room went out, rendering Horthos invisible. They were too far away to light with his lantern. He was forced to use the Flame Wand to light them from a distance. With rampant pause-buffering, he was able to make sure Horthos wouldn't teleport on top of him while re-lighting the torch - very important, as one body blow would mean a death.

The rest of the fight was a lot less stressful once that torch was lit - it was a matter of dodging a line of flames, making a quick cut with the Fire Sword to stun the pig, then firing a silver-tipped arrow at his schnoz. Repeat four times, and the fight was over! The only thing that annoyed Josh was the critical health alarm playing during the victory fanfare. The door to the maiden's chamber opened. Josh walked into it, but instead found himself on top of the Pyramid of Power.

"Right...there's one more thing I have to do..." Josh mused aloud. He brought up the save menu, did a savewarp back to the Last Link title screen, then started the game back up and transitioned back to Super Zebbo from the fortune teller's house nearby. Returning to the ship for a complete refill on energy and ammunition, he made a quick save just in case, then made his way across the planet's surface, the door to the alien leader's lair now open thanks to defeating the Golden Four. He nervously watched as the statues of the four sank into the planet, revealing an elevator surrounded by reinforced glass, acid bubbling on the outside of it. "As if the horror elements of the Zebbo series needed any more reinforcing," he mumbled as his heart raced.

---

r|KadLy6

{WC: 704}
{PC: 18}

[HopelessStar]

Nothing happened!

All rolls were passed.

Josh Devlin

As spooky as it is, everything looks proper. There's only one jumpscare during the elevator ride, then it's time to fight the boss. But you're prepared for this, it'll be easy!

[Josh Devlin]

The music in the final area reinforced being in the bowels of the alien lair. That is, if it could even be called music; it was mostly the sound of bubbling acid, the sound of bowel discharges, and the like...all meant to get the player's skin crawling. The screech of a Zebbo did make Josh flinch during the elevator ride, though everything in the code seemed to be working as intended. Maybe a little too well.

As soon as Josh stepped out of the elevator and opened the door on the left side, four red-and-green, jellyfish-like aliens flew at him at speeds that were difficult to reach to. Quickly aiming the Cryo Beam at them, all it took was one shot to freeze them in place. That was only half the battle, though - while extreme cold was the apex predator's weakness, that alone would not be enough to take one down. A follow-up Rocket to its soft underside shattered the vile creature, parts of it dissolving away in the acid beneath.

They wouldn't stay frozen for long, though! While aiming Rockets at the others, one of the Zebbos thawed out and weaved around frantic firing of the Cryo Beam, latching onto Josh's head and sucking the very life out of him at a high rate - 30 energy per second! The player gasping, he assumed a ducking position as quickly as he could, dropping mini-nukes as quickly as the game allowed. By the time the Zebbo was destroyed from repeated close-range blasts, Josh was down a little over a third of his energy. There were still three more rooms of these things.

While powerful, the Zebbos were not exactly smart. In the following room, he was able to lure two of them beneath a platform in the center of the room, then detonate high-yield explosives atop them. He had so many, and they did no damage to the final boss, so why not use them? The next two rooms went fairly smoothly, other than taking a brief acid bath after missing a Rocket on one of the frozen Zebbos. While not in great shape, only at a third of his maximum health, most of the danger was over.

After falling down a shaft, Josh found himself in a dark room full of husks of powerful enemies from various locales on the planet. Each one disintegrated upon contact with either himself or ammunition of any kind. A shrill cry came through his set's speakers, and a giant, nearly screen-filling Zebbo latched onto him and drained his energy at breakneck speed. Once he was down to a single point of energy, the alien let go, let out another shriek-like cry, and slowly floated away. "Looks like this is all about how it was in the normal game," Josh remarked, Resheph hiding behind his chair - even she couldn't handle it. "Not surprising - we solved the seed. It's just about finishing the game now."

---

{WC: 490}
{PC: 19}

[Josh Devlin]

Past the close, but scripted, brush with death was a recharge station that filled all of Josh's health and ammo completely, as well as the final save station in the game. Beyond one last door was a long hallway, at the end of which rest a red, pulsing brain in a jar. Affectionately called "Mama" by fans of the series, she was protected by four thick, rapidly-regenerating veins. There was a glitch Josh knew about for skipping past them, but without the wall-penetrating properties of the Gamma Beam, executing it would be impossible.

"Guess we're doing 'Zeb Skip' Skip," he mumbled as he began rapid-firing missiles toward the exposed veins. Turrets fired at him on occasion, but with the protection he had, he felt the damage from them would be negligible. Making his way past the fourth vein after unloading a copious amount of ammo into them all, he began doing the same to Mama herself, first breaking her glass tank, then firing more missiles into the immobile alien leader. After thirty shots, the tank, as well as the tubing feeding it and holding it into place, collapsed.

It was not over yet, though - a hideous, bipedal alien the height of the entire screen rose where the red, brain-like blob had fallen. Now boasting a wicked smile boasting wicked-looking fangs, googly laser eyes, and sharp talons at the tips of her toes, this was Mama in her true form - Super Zebbo's final boss. With only the Cryo Beam and the Wide Beam, taking her down would require 120 charged shots. With possession of almost all of the Rockets in the game, inserting 60 of them into her face would be much faster, if not much easier as well.

Josh's strategy was to stand in the corner and aim diagonally up, only ceasing fire when one of Mama's attacks threatened to hit him. That did not start well, taking hits from a full barrage of lasers that bounced him around the corner of the screen. There was no hit invincibility against this or any of her attacks, either - tanking attacks and turning the battle into a pure damage race would be impossible.

As Mama slowly turned more and more red after taking plenty of hits, a new attack caught Josh off-guard: a fast-moving chain of explosions that dealt massive damage even with the Immersive Suit on. Direct contact removed two entire energy tanks' worth of health. One more of those and he was a goner. Luckily, Josh knew that attack meant Mama was on her last legs. After one more volley of Rockets, Mama's weakening frame could no longer hold her heavy head up, and she collapsed to the floor, slowly dissolving away.

It still was not over - in her dying breath, Mama activated the alien lair's self-destruct sequence. The words "TIME BOMB SET - ESCAPE IMMEDIATELY!" in dark, red letters filled the screen as klaxons sounded nonstop. He had three minutes to navigate back to his ship, take off, and escape the planet. While that was normally plenty of time, Josh was not in possession of the Speed Booster. That would make things a bit harder.

---

{WC: 525}
{PC: 20}

[Josh Devlin]

The rooms now completely bare and devoid of enemies, it was a matter of racing the clock and avoiding falling debris. After narrowly sliding underneath several closing gates, Josh made his way through the next couple of rooms without a hitch, running all the way to the bottom-right portion of the escape's first large room. "Oh no, I don't have Speed Booster!" he cried, realizing his mistake had cost him valuable time. He had to turn back, instead navigating a winding pathway that looped around the space above the speed shaft twice.

As this door locked behind him, like the previous ones in the escape sequence, Josh now found himself in a wide open room full of angled ledges that made jumping among them precarious. Several of them were even falling away at random over time, not to mention the shaking room was filling with deadly acid from the ground up. Luckily, the Jet Boots would let him simply hug the top of the chamber.

Two minutes until detonation. Please evacuate the facility immediately.

"I know, I KNOW!" Josh shouted at the game, his heart pumping from the tense music, the shaking planet, the unceasing alarm...everything about this escape sequence got the adrenaline flowing. What immersive design! They certainly don't make games like they did back in the 90s... No time to gawk at that, though - the elevator was in the next room. He took it upward, watching glass shatter around him as it slowly took him out of the alien base and to the cave network on the planet's surface. He wasn't in the clear, though - the blast radius would still engulf him if he didn't make it to his ship!

The moment he sprinted out the door leading to the alien's lair, the wall above the door gave way, crushing it completely. With careful timing, he used his Jet Boots to keep jumping up a long shaft that would otherwise require precise platforming under heavy time pressure otherwise. He dropped a couple of inputs but managed to land on nearby ledges every time, making his way to the surface level with little time to spare.

One minute until detonation. Please evacuate the facility immediately.

The sky itself was flashing menacing purples and yellows as light from outside the cave crept into view. Josh took a quick look at his timer before leaping toward the final door to the landing site. "Ain't got time to save the critters," he said to himself. Stepping through the final door, his ship was in sight.

Thirty seconds until detonation. Please evacuate the facility immediately.

By the time the computerized voice finished letting Josh know about his time crunch, he was already on top of his ship. With one final down input, he descended into the ship and took to the skies. The final cutscene depicted the planet exploding shortly after the brave bounty hunter's escape into Federation space. Mission accomplished.

The credits sequence had been expanded, as well - in addition to including the lists of staff for both original games, it also included a list of the staff who worked on the randomizer itself. Josh's name would be in there as soon as the software was released; the thought of it left him with a beaming smile. After the credits, a detailed play report scrolled up the screen, including the intended item acquisition order and time of acquisition of each item.

All in all, Josh was thoroughly impressed with the project, turning the console off as soon as he saw the entire play report. He left an overwhelmingly positive review of the software, even in its current buggy state. Standing up and stretching, he emailed off his review before heading out to get a meal - he hadn't done a marathon gaming session like that since before taking Pokémon racing seriously!

---

Job thread end. Please add +1 Gaming and +1 Dexterity.

{WC: 640}
{PC: 21}

[whimsae]

Congratulations!

Your thread is complete and now locked.

Josh Devlin

Your thread has been locked. For completing the Beta Testing job, you receive 100 Pen, 3 Rare Candies, +1 Dexterity, +1 Gaming. In addition, for making 25 Posts total, with 11 Random Events, you also receive an extra +3 Stamina, 5 Rare Candies, and 275 Pen.