: Exploring the Inner World (3)
Translator: Lonelytree
In the 70th of the 20th century, a toy company called LJN was established on the ground of united state. The inspiration of its name came from one of the its biggest shareholders Lewis J Norman. Initially LJN was mainly focused on producing toys but… in the years 1985, at the height of the incident of Atari’s ET (the impact this game had on the entire north American household gaming industry was immense. There were still many urban legends related to this that exist today)… MCA gaming company that was popular at the time used sixty million dollars to purchase LJN company and nudged onto the no-return path of game design…
And from there, a legend within the gaming world began.
In United States, LJN soon won the name of the machine of ‘poorly made games’. The video game publisher was notorious for its poorly made licensed video games. They depended on rushed production, prolific glitches by producing games that would capitalize on the relative popularity of movies or other intellectual properties in non-gaming media, while often failing to provide any noticeable reflection of said IP. Terminator, Nightmare at Elm Street, Back to the Future, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure… Various horrible games that maddened players enough to smash their joystick went into the world and stomped the gaming passion of kids in that generation and left horrible scars on them.
In 1990, the company was bought by Acclaim Entertainment, and LJN was folded into Acclaim in 1995. It closed down its toy making part and focused on game publishing. Of course, its style did not change because of this, it was still the same company…
The year was the year of Nintendo Entertainment System. LJN used the name of a legal company and outsource many non-gaming license to some unknown and strange third party studio to turn them into games. They ignored the most basic gaming standard and user experience and watermarked these creations of their with uneven standard (most of them horrible) with their small rainbow logo (The logo of LJN was a six-colored rainbow) and spread them around the world…
!!
AVGN refers to the company’s logo as the “Shit Rainbow”.
Purple: Putrid Gameplay
Blue: Bad Musical Abominations
Green: Graphical Farts and Garlic
Yellow: Piss-poor Lack of Loyalty to Source Material
Orange: Orange (Aren’t) You a Fuckin’ Idiot (possibly due to the cartridge art deceiving you into believing you’re playing an actual OK game)
Red: High Stress Anger Inducing Masochism
LJN… became a symbol. Just like many heartless companies that were constantly churning out horrible game… because they could survive, so they thought their existence was logical, so they believed it was only logical for them… to remain the same way.
However, time would prove everything…
Even with the rainbow logo showering over them, LJN still had some good games, but over 90 percent… were horrible duds. After so many years, LJN became a symbol for trash game. Even in the inner world of Thriller Paradise, there was a location called LJN Park. The twisted game designers created a place of exile here and gave it the name of LJN. Pixels that were not meant for the world, bugs in the game, the failures, and the flaws… these things that had nowhere else to go and nothing good about them would ultimately end up here.
And one of the three leaders of Origin, ROOT was the ruler here. Today (a day in Inner World also consisted of 24 hours, the flow of time was similar to a region in the main universe but different from the real world), ROOT had rarely left the core of the park and arrived at the fringe of LJN park. She stood there quietly and looked down the horizon of ‘desktop’ down the distance as if waiting for something, mumbling, “Qie… this is too slow, if this continues…”
“If this continues, they will be caught up by V1.” Suddenly a voice appeared behind ROOT and finished her sentence.
“First Link… now you?” ROOT did not turn around but drop the man’s name. “Ad…” The man who was named Ad walked forward and stood next to ROOT. He added, “Because I am also curious just what kind of human being that you have placed your hope in is like.”
This Ad was one of the 3 rules of Origin. Actually his full name was Administration but for the sake of convenience, we shall call him Ad.
ROOT gave him a side eye, as she added, “So… you came uninvited.”
Ad responded coldly, “You know my reach of permission, I have not performed the function of ‘request’ for a long time already.”
“Hmph… that is what I hate about you.” Root scoffed. “keep saying these conceited words with such expressionless tone.”
“I am just telling the truth.” Ad answered.
“Yes.” ROOT added, “That is why it is so annoying.”
“Hmm… I realize that since the failure of the last movement…” Ad continued, “You have become more and more abnormal.”
“You should take a look of yourself first. With your current state, slime… you still have the right to call others abnormal?” ROOT said with sarcasm. Naturally she had her reason to say something like that. The current Ad looked normal at least physical wise; 180 cm plus height, average build and a normal black outfit… but his had was like a liquid crystal ball floating in the air and it was wiggling slowly above his neck.
“I merely run into a bottleneck during the next stage of self program upgrade.” Ad used his slimy head (there was facial organ, the voice came directly from inside the neck) to explain, “I have to maintain this status before the breakthrough.”
“This is not a bottleneck, this is merely a ‘neck’…” ROOT continued to mock.
“Erm…” Ad did not know how to answer, he was not familiar with these human jabs, so he changed the subject, “By the way, since Link was here before me, where is he now?”
“News came from π Maze earlier, the scouting team that Link sent out a month ago finally located SCP-0790 and had apprehended it.” ROOT answered.
When Ad heard that, he was obviously startled. Several seconds later, he said darkly, “Then I need to hurry over there immediately too…”
Seeing his reaction, ROOT’s expression shifted. “You guys seem to be very cautious of that thing….”
“SCP-079 is the key existence that is the anti-thesis to our ‘system’.” Ad said as he moved towards the desktop. “Other than that…” He paused and said in a serious tone, “He is not a thing