Thumbs Down and 7,700 Words of Fury
There's a game called King's Crown. It's a blatant rip-off—excuse me, "inspired by"—Crusader Kings, set in a medieval world where you play as a member of a chosen family, striving to revive your house across generations. From the very first version, it was riddled with bugs, catastrophically broken balance, and an endless parade of creative Glitches that players could exploit. Hardly a masterpiece, even by generous standards.
Anyone who actually paid for King's Crown—or "King's Kink," as we called it—and tried playing it would immediately storm onto Storm, the game's distribution platform, and leave a scathing thumbs-down review. "Absolute garbage. Refunding." "That fire bug's been around since launch. Why haven't they fixed it? Are they just abandoning the game?" "Stop making DLC and fix the damn bugs, you incompetent bastards."
Yet even the worst games have their niche fans. Just like there are always a few people who deliberately seek out terrible streams and boost them with views and likes, I was one of those rare enthusiasts. I felt a bit sorry for it, honestly. If King's Crown had been made properly, it could have been at least a modest success. Think about it—playing Crusader Kings in a fantasy setting? Controlling orcs, elves, or dwarves? Crossbreeding heroes, demon lords, and divine races to spawn endless descendants and build kingdoms or empires? Everyone who's ever read a generic fantasy novel has imagined something like that at least once.
So when news broke that a massive new DLC was coming, I was genuinely excited. "Listen well. Expectation is the first step toward disappointment." But just like that famous NPC line from another game, King's Crown betrayed us. Or rather, it only lived up to the expectations of everyone except us niche fans. Most players had been shouting "This DLC is doomed! Doomed, I tell you!" from the moment it was announced.
The DLC's premise was simple. Twelve infamous Demon Lords from different dimensions banded together, opened rifts, and utterly annihilated everything players had built over hundreds of years. Your only goal was to survive as long as possible against their overwhelming forces, then upload your score online to compete on the leaderboards. It was completely at odds with everything King's Crown had stood for until then—and the backlash was enormous. In the worst possible way.
It was as if someone at SimCity had decided to drop twelve simultaneous disasters—meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, alien invasions, floods, city-wide fires—onto every carefully built city at once. The DLC was universally called the worst in history. Thanks to it, King's Crown, already poorly received on Storm, plummeted straight into "Overwhelmingly Negative" territory.
"What the hell were the developers thinking? Did they even want people to clear this?"
Most players would have rage-quit after a single attempt, but I belonged to that peculiar minority who refused to give up so easily. After all, the developers had poured effort into it. Abandoning it like so many other broken games felt like a waste of all the time and energy I'd already invested.
"Just you wait... I'll slaughter every last one of those twelve Demon Lords—or whatever the hell they are."
From that day on, every spare moment outside work went into attempting a perfect clear. The goal was total victory: defeating all twelve Demon Lords. To that end, I abandoned my old save files and started fresh.
-----
Several months passed. I made decent progress in King's Crown, but ultimately failed to reach my goal. I only managed to defeat five of the twelve Demon Lords.
"Haa... It's impossible."
Staring blankly at the monitor with bloodshot eyes, I muttered the same words out of habit. On screen, the Belmont Empire I had founded and named burned in ruins. I'd chosen the name hoping it would evoke a vampire-hunting noble house from some action game, a family destined to strike down Demon Lords. The irony was painful.
In the center of the screen, the message "Dimensional Collapse" appeared alongside my final score. To my surprise, I had scored 530,000 points—first place worldwide. Then again, with how infamous the game was for being terrible, not many people even attempted the leaderboards.
Regardless, I captured the screen and rushed to Storm. There, I began writing a lengthy critical review, attaching the screenshot. Since reviews were limited to 500 characters at a time, I kept adding replies, pouring out my thoughts in 500-character chunks. Lost in the flow, I ended up writing over 7,700 characters.
"This goddamn game. I'm glad it's over. Let's never meet again."
With that final line, I finished the review and deleted the game.
"Ugh...!?"
The moment I clicked "Yes" on the confirmation prompt, my heart began pounding violently. An overwhelming pain surged through my chest.
"Hrrgh...!"
Breathing became impossible. My body refused to obey. The agony that started in my chest spread through my entire body until I was shaking like a leaf. I instinctively grabbed at something to keep from falling off my chair, but it was useless. All I managed to do was knock my expensive keyboard to the floor.
"Kehk—kack—khk—"
Lying on the ground, clutching my chest and gasping, the last thing I saw was the Storm page for the now-deleted King's Crown. On it, the game's main heroine, Elaine, the Tragic Crown Princess, looked down at me with a sorrowful expression. Her illustration—silken black hair and melancholic crimson eyes—was so beautiful that it had lured countless unsuspecting players into buying the infamously bad game. Ah... before I die, I might as well admit it. I was one of those people too.
And yes, King's Crown really is a terrible game. The only reason I kept playing despite everything was because of Elaine. Like Juliet from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, her tragic life was so heartbreaking that I wanted to at least protect her descendants from an unjust end. That was all.
----
In a hazy state, my consciousness suddenly snapped back. I opened my eyes wide and frantically looked around. What? Wasn't I dead? Blinking, I touched my chest. I was wearing the same comfortable cotton t-shirt and pajama pants I'd had on before dying. The terrible pain that had spread from my heart was completely gone.
Like a new recruit stepping into the barracks for the first time, I looked around with a dazed expression. I was alone in an empty white space. It looked exactly like the half-rendered white void from that infamous game series known for indiscriminately slaughtering every character.
"...Hello? Is anyone there???"
I shouted into the void, hoping for any kind of response. After a while, someone finally answered.
"Hmph. What a rash fellow you are."
A heavy, booming sound echoed through the white space, as if something massive had fallen from the sky. The vibration was strong enough that I could feel it through my feet. Fear crept up my spine. Unlike moments ago when I'd been desperately searching, I now turned my head slowly, trembling.
And then—
"O... God..."
What appeared before me was an enormous... thing. A phallus larger than an elephant. It was dressed like a person, wearing a resplendent golden crown upon what I could only assume was its glans. In its right hand—attached near what looked like a massive testicle— it held a bejeweled scepter larger than my entire body. Countless bulging veins covered its surface. Suddenly, something resembling a human mouth opened just below the glans, and a deep, resonant voice poured out.
"Bow your head. Bloodless one from another dimension. I am Papiyas, the God of the Massive Root."
I had cried out for a god in my shock... and one had actually appeared.