Towns and Towers: A New Land Read online

  Sam realized his mistake about the same time he returned home and walked in the door, but he knew there was nothing the post office could do for him. Firing up his computer, he sent a message off to the company and explained his mistake, hoping that someone there would be able to return his game to him when they returned his system.

  Eager to get his new system and the game back, Sam logged into the game center’s website every day for the next two weeks and tracked the progress of his claim. He saw that they had received the package from the post office two days after he had sent it, and that a few days later it was assigned a depot number after being deemed non-repairable. As the second week began, he saw that a new system was authorized by a customer service agent and was scheduled to be shipped out soon. By the end of the second week, Sam got an email invoice stating everything he already knew along with a tracking code attached to the bottom and confirmation that the game was found in the unit, but that it had also been corrupted. The agent in charge of his claim apologized for this incident and wrote that since the data corruption was most likely the fault of the malfunctioning handheld unit, a credit for the amount of the game would be mailed to him with a new or refurbished Pita Duel Screen system.

  After reading this, the completionist within Sam was a little downtrodden by the fact that he had lost all of his progress, but he recognized after a few minutes that he had already reached the end of the game, and so the credit could be applied towards a whole new game. With that in mind, he visited the system’s online store and began researching possible replacement games for his new system.

  As he had been doing all along, Sam continued to track his game system’s status, virtually watching the package as it made its way through the warehouses, delivery vehicles, and hubs which made up the complex network of FedEx delivery service.

  Finally, the projected delivery date had arrived, and Sam neurotically paced back and forth from his couch to the door, pausing his TV every time he thought he heard a vehicle pull up. To an outside observer, they might have thought Sam looked like a caged animal waiting to spring at the first person to approach his door. The truth, however, was that Sam really had to use the bathroom, and he had been holding it so that he wouldn’t miss the delivery.

  As one might expect, it wasn’t until he felt like he could wait no longer and allowed himself to use the bathroom that his doorbell rang. For a second he thought that the sound might have come from the TV since he hadn’t heard the truck, but remembering that he had paused it, Sam hurried to get out there. This, of course, led to a premature and haphazard finishing of his bathroom business as he attempted to pull up his pants and make it to the front door in time to sign for the package.

  Stepping outside, Sam began to frantically wave his hands as he hurried down the stairs, just barely catching the driver’s attention before the white truck pulled away. The driver, who did not want to have to restart his truck, left it running and leaned out to ask, “What’s up?”

  Slightly out of breath, Sam said, “I…I’m here. I just…just wanted to get m… my package.” Pointing back up to the top of the stairs, he said, “I left your box up there.”

  Looking back the way he had come and then to the driver, Sam asked confusedly, “You don’t need me to sign anything?”

  Shaking his head, the driver said, “We really only do that for companies now. Most residential places like this, we just drop and go. Too many deliveries to make, man.”

  “Oh, well, thanks, I guess.”

  Sliding back onto his seat, the driver yanked down on the gear shift, causing the truck’s transmission to scream out in protest, and then said, “No problem. Have a nice day,” before he pulled out quickly.

  Sam watched as the driver rounded the tight corner doing somewhere above twenty-five miles per hour before he realized that his game system had been on that truck just moments ago and could have very easily been damaged with the reckless driving. Spinning around, Sam sprinted up the stairs, grabbed the box, and rushed inside to open it.

  When he looked at the box, Sam found that it had the game company’s logo on it, along with their catch phrase ‘Play Life’ in the upper left corner. Grabbing his keys as he stepped inside, he dragged one of them down along the seam, cutting through the packaging tape as it went, before dropping them back into the bowl at the door and beginning to unpacking his new acquisition.

  He found that he was already smiling as he dug his way through the little styrofoam peanuts and withdrew a second box, this one wrapped in a thin layer of plastic. Tearing his way through the transparent film, he flipped open the lid and slid out a styrofoam container which held his new Pita Dual Screen gaming system nestled inside an opaque white plastic bag.

  Commenting to himself, Sam said, “You know these people could probably save a ton of money if they just cut down on all of this packaging,” before he realized that it was because they probably had to use this much just to protect their product from the crazy FedEx drivers.

  Lifting the unit out of the container, he slid it free of its final covering and was surprised by what he found. The system he had received didn’t look exactly like his last one. In fact, as far as he knew there were only two colors available, black and white. He had seen while scanning various gaming websites in anticipation of receiving his replacement system that there were rumors online about an aqua blue colored one coming out around the end of the year for Christmas shoppers, but this one was a complete surprise. Everything except the screen was gold.

  Looking back to the FedEx box on the floor, Sam confirmed that it was addressed to him and then noticed a slip of paper in amongst the packaging materials. Pulling it out, he read it over and found that it was simply a receipt with a redeemable code highlighted at the bottom for the amount of thirty-nine ninety-nine, the cost of his lost game. Nothing about the receipt, however, mentioned the fact that this was a gold colored unit.

  Shrugging, Sam figured that it must be some sort of limited edition model, like the Legend of Zelda units which Nintendo had released years ago for several of their systems, and made a mental note to try looking it up later in case it was so rare that it might be some sort of collector’s edition. If it was a collector’s edition, it might be worth something, but usually that was for things which had never been opened, and he knew by looking at the mess around him on the floor that there was no way he could repackage it to make it look like that.

  Accepting this, Sam left the mess on the floor, sat down on the couch, and powered up his new device. Just as the old one used to, it displayed the company logo for a moment before it went black for a second’s worth of processing before the screen flashed and presented him with the home screen. Satisfied, Sam pressed his finger to the screen and swiped left to see the small list of preloaded apps including a mini game he had played before, a settings icon, and an icon for the online store. The screen then darkened and presented on overlaid image of text which offered him a tutorial on how to use the system. Figuring that he knew everything already since this was simply a replacement system for his old one, Sam pressed the button on the right which said ‘Skip’ and then confirmed his choice before the screen returned to normal.

  For the next ten minutes, Sam tapped his way through the settings menu, setting up his Wi-Fi connection and removing all of the parental restrictions which kept kids from playing for too long or buying violent games which have a ‘Mature’ or ‘Adults Only’ rating. He then switched over to the online store and input his credit card information as well as his redeemable code from his receipt which credited his account automatically. When he was done, Sam blew out a, “Finally,” and then began scrolling through the list of games the online store had to offer.

  Being that this was the game system’s third generation and that all of the company’s previous games were not only compatible but also downloadable, Sam knew that he had literally over a thousand titles to choose from. Using the drop down box, Sam filtered his options so that he was only looking at g
ames which had been released in the last six months because he wanted something new and then further reduced the list by selecting JRPGs. In the end, he found that he only had to sort through roughly a dozen games, and most of their titles were familiar to him from either having played previous titles from their series already or from the research he had done in the past weeks. One game, however, was unfamiliar to him and had a listed release date of today. Tapping the title, Towns and Towers, he found that the description made it sound very similar to other games he had played and enjoyed in the past like Dungeons and Dragons, and Caverns and Creatures, and best of all, it was priced for the exact amount, thirty-nine ninety-nine, which he had been credited.

  Sam tried to recall if he had seen anything about the game online, but when he again came up blank, he decided that since he had the free credit from the company he might as well give it a try. Worst case, he’d have wasted someone else’s money, and he would get at least a few hours out of the game. Pressing the button and the confirmation which appeared afterwards, Sam purchased the game and selected an immediate download. When the screen switched to a download progress meter, Sam took note of the fact that the system only had about half a charge, and that the game’s file size looked to be huge, nearly five gigs. This prompted him to set it down and begin rummaging through the trash on the floor until he found the wall plug so that he could hook it up to the outlet. He knew he could probably have used the one from his previous system, but this gave him a chance to confirm that he had received everything as expected.

  Once plugged in, Sam took a minute to remove the instruction booklet and warranty and tuck them away in the ‘everything-that-doesn’t-have-another-place-to-go’ drawer in the kitchen. Then he cleaned up the trash on the floor, shoving as much as he could back into the box, tossing the remaining scraps into the bin. Knowing that he had a few minutes to kill, he returned to the restroom and finish what he had been doing earlier.

  When he came back and checked the device, he figured that he would have time to make himself a sandwich and possibly do a little research on the game. He didn’t think he would have time to necessarily read through a bunch of reviews about it, but he hoped he might come across a completed walkthrough or possibly some cheat codes someone might have posted. Sometimes the games were released in other countries before they reached the States, and other times there were leaks from within the companies that made them. Either way, he didn’t mind a leg up on beating the game or accessing some early loot, if possible. To his surprise, however, when he looked at the system, he found that it had already finished

  downloading the entire game. Pleased, he temporarily set aside his thoughts about the sandwich and research and sat down to start the game.

  The game opened up with the usual fanfare, showing all of the companies who helped to produce the game, and then switched to the title screen. Here it gave him several options including start a new game, or to load and continue a previous save, but since he had not played before and had no saved file, that option was grayed out. Below those, it also offered him a chance to read the instructions or to look over the game’s settings. Selecting settings, he checked the control layout so that he knew which buttons controlled what for his character and then took a second to raise the volume of the character voices and sound effects and to reduce volume of the background music. His thought had always been that he would always rather hear what the characters in the game had to say than listen to pretty music someone had composed for it. Chances were, if he wanted music, he would simply use his iPod, which was loaded with his favorite songs rather than whatever the game offered.

  With that done, he returned to the main menu and selected to start a new game, to which the game announced the title in a deep, ominous voice, “Towns and Towers.” The screen then immediately switched to a cut scene showing a distant aerial viewpoint looking out across a vast meadow towards a large white tower. Just as Sam began to nod appreciatively at the game’s graphics and attention to detail, the camera zoomed forward showing a circular shaped town surrounding the tower and then zipped past it all to focus on something else. As the camera continued, it seemed to span an entire continent going through various terrains and climates, showing off some of the flora and fauna in each of the areas along the way. Overall, Sam couldn’t help but feel impressed by how beautiful and hyper-realistic the scenery looked as it passed by another three towers, each with their own town. The last tower was dark and hard to see due to a thick purplishblack cloud cover which swirled portentously about it.

  Once the camera passed around the tower, making sure to depict its unknown height as it panned upward to show it disappearing into the clouds, it immediately turned around and raced back the way it had come. This time the camera flew at least ten times faster than during its initial flight and only slowed down once it returned to the same meadow it had begun in so that it could focus on the discrete shadow of a figure stepping out from behind a tree he hadn’t seen the first time. Before the figure could step out into the light, however, and show Sam what the person behind the tree looked like, the screen froze and presented him with a list of options in a menu which popped out from the right.

  Still smiling at all that the game had shown him so far, it took Sam a moment to realize that this was his opportunity to create his character. The first question it asked was the typical male or female to which he selected male, as he always did, contrary to the fact that some of his friends regularly chose female characters so that they could see the character’s quote assets unquote bounce around the screen.

  From there, the game gave him the option to customize his character including facial features, hair style, and general physique. Sam made sure to check out each of the options available, even going so far as to drag the meters which controlled each characteristic of the avatar’s physical form all the way to the extreme, where applicable, so that he could see the full range of their effects. At one point he found that he had made his character look like a dopey bald fat black guy with a long black beard which hung down to his chest, tiny deep set little eyes, and a small thick pig nose. The character looked down at himself, as if inspecting Sam’s work, and then sat down on the ground like it was so depressed with himself that he couldn’t be bothered to continue.

  After a quick laugh, he switched most of the options to the opposite extreme and found himself looking at a tall lanky boy with pale white skin, long red hair which fell in waves down his backside, and a clean shaven face with large bug eyes and a long Pinocchio style nose. As the character looked itself over, it seemed to consider its appearance and then tilted its head towards him as though it had hoped Sam would have come up with something better.

  Shaking his head at the disturbing idea that the game was trying to convey its opinion to him about his selection, Sam went back through the menu options and carefully selected traits he thought most closely resembled his own. By the end of his work, he found that he was staring at a reasonable facsimile of himself in digital form. The character had short brown hair, an average looking face, and a body style which, while not speaking to hours spent in the gym in the vain hopes of looking like the next Arnold Schwarzenegger, also didn’t announce complete laziness and poor health. The character on the screen looked himself over once more, and then stared up at the Sam as if he could see him and gave him a thumbs up. Shrugging off the creepy idea that his game character could see him, Sam confirmed his options and went to the next menu.

  As the new menu appeared, the character stepped fully out from behind the tree so that he could see him better, and Sam noticed that the new menu was asking him to select the character’s role. The list of options was small, but each one gave a description which hinted towards future branches one might choose to follow.

  The first option was to be a rogue, and the description stated that a rogue was a versatile character, capable of sneaky combat and nimble tricks. It stated that rogues were stealthy and dexterous and capable of finding and disarming man
y traps in addition to being able to pick most locks. The rogue also had the ability to ‘sneak attack’ enemies who are caught off-guard or taken by surprise, thereby inflicting extra damage, and were generally motivated by money. It stipulated that rogue characters were unable to wear any heavy armor and were restricted in weaponry to bows, daggers, and some short swords due to their lower strength rating. Below that it listed several subclasses in gray like thief and ranger, but these were clearly not selectable at this time, and Sam figured that they were possible classes for rogues to grow into depending on the choices the play made in the game.

  The second option was to be a warrior. Warriors were described as fighter characters capable of receiving and dealing massive physical damage but with lower than average intelligence. It went on to describe them as skilled in combat and able to wear heavy armor and use most weaponry but unable to use magic. Just as rogues could learn to be thieves and rangers, it appeared that warriors too had some subclasses available. Listed in gray, Sam saw that they could become either knights or barbarians.

  The third option was for him to become a mage. The description here stated that these highly intelligent characters used arcane magic but were considered less effective in melee combat than any other class due to their low strength and health but could contribute from a distance using a range of both offensive and defensive magic, as well as restorative and support magic. Similar to the rogue’s restrictions, heavy armor, swords, and battle axes also looked to be out of the question as it stated that they would only be able to wear robes and use staffs for the duration of the game. The grayed out subclasses here listed wizard and summoner.