Kidnapped by a Crappy Game (1)

It was just another perfectly ordinary, unremarkable summer day.

On a rare day off, I was lounging on my bed in the glorious blast of the air conditioner, soaking up every lazy second.

Other people might spend free time gaming, or head out for drinks with friends.

But for me, the mere idea of moving my body — or even my brain — on this heavenly day off was pure, unfiltered torture.

"GYAAAAAAAH!"

"Ahahaha, man, I haven't seen this in forever."

In my hand sat modern humanity's essential tool, and the streamer's video playing on it had me grinning without even realizing it.

The video in question was a YouTube playthrough of a mobile game long since declared dead — abandoned by nearly every player it once had.

A streamer who billed himself as a trash-game specialist was experiencing the game's uniquely godawful mess firsthand, delivering a real-time stream of pure, unfiltered verbal abuse masquerading as critique.

And at those words, the chat window exploded into a cascading flood of messages.

"Not wrong, honestly."

Watching that chat scroll by, I found myself dredging up memories of a game I'd completely wiped from my mind.

Astral Lagrange — a game that had once hit number one on the mobile store charts and briefly whipped all of Korea into an SF frenzy. A genuine "it was big once" title.

In a country where anything stamped with the SF label was practically destined for a quiet death, this thing had held the number-one spot for nearly a full month. An absolute first.

In a nation that was basically the graveyard of science fiction — where ten Star Wars fans, ten Star Trek fans, and ten Doctor Who fans somehow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only added up to twelve people total — that kind of miracle was enough to make SF nerds like me reach for the download button before we even knew what we were doing.

The character designs were genuinely charming, the models polished down to the finest details. The combat animations weren't the usual cheap jiggle-physics garbage either — they hit at a level that rivaled AAA action games. And the mechs and warships, every design that came to mind when you thought "sci-fi," were dripping with pure visual charisma.

At the height of its popularity, every community board was overrun with a bizarre phenomenon: mecha-obsessed freaks and ship-fetish weirdos crawling out of the woodwork in droves.

Naturally, the combat system put all that gorgeous, unhinged design to full use — flashy, spectacular battles where players could intervene however they wanted. And on top of that, monetization that was shockingly player-friendly for a mobile game.

"No matter which characters, ships, or mechs you use — everything is fully clearable!"

That was the developer's catchphrase, and it had people like me — and regular players too — genuinely believing this thing might kick off another Interstellar-level cultural wave.

Or rather… it had.

About three years after that dazzling official launch, the player base stabilized, new blood dried up, and revenue started sliding. Whether it was pressure ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the parent company over the freefalling sales rankings or something else, the developers suddenly unleashed every scummy, predatory monetization scheme in the book. Limited characters, mechs, and ships with completely unhinged stats started flooding out one after another.

Eventually they built a system where combat and exploration were literally impossible without those so-called "key characters." Players started peeling off one by one, revenue dropped further, so they pushed another update that crossed every line — and more of the remaining players bailed. Then the company pulled every reckless stunt imaginable, ballooning the exodus even more.

You can run a game into the ground, sure — but this catastrophically?

I still remembered it vividly: saying goodbye to a game I'd poured millions of won and genuine affection into, walking away for good.

And now, three years after deciding to rejoin the land of the living—

Watching a playthrough of Astral Lagrange — a game that had plummeted from god-tier to pure trash, now populated solely by the most hardcore concrete loyalists — I felt a small flicker of fondness for something I'd once poured so much into, even if the ending had been ugly.

And while I was thinking that, new messages kept flooding into the chat.

Return rewards, huh.

Of course, that particular chat got buried instantly under the ones that followed — messages from an audience whose trust had been annihilated beyond any hope of recovery.

Even so — between those chats and the current state of a game I'd once sunk serious money into — my curiosity was being thoroughly, shamelessly seduced.

And it was a day off. I had nowhere to be.

"Let's see… Astral Lagrange, Astral Lagrange, Astral Lagrange…"

I scrolled past a gauntlet of ripoff clones and similarly named titles until, finally—

"There we go. Found it."

The game that had been sitting at a flaming 1.7-star rating when I quit had somehow clawed its way back up to 4.5. With a flicker of genuine expectation, I hit download.

Of course, the moment the download finished and I went to launch it, three-year-old memories came flooding back and jabbed straight at my PTSD.

"Tch… looking at it now, I don't really feel like playing."

Did I really need to blow my precious day off on a verified trash game?

That thought stopped my finger mid-tap—

And right then.

Ding♪

"Huh?"

I hadn't even logged in yet, but a notification email from Astral Lagrange had just arrived.

The contents matched exactly what I'd seen in the stream chat earlier.

The problem was that the so-called "rewards" came with absolutely zero information about what they actually were.

"In this day and age, they don't even show the package contents or the drop rates?"

That alone was enough to conjure up every infamous predatory gacha game I'd ever heard of. My hand shot straight toward the delete button—

And then those final words sealed it.

I felt the world go dark, and consciousness slipped away.

When I opened my eyes again—

Ah. A familiar ceiling.

A ceiling that was somehow both familiar and completely new was there to greet me.