I like the idea, but the article lacks climax and doesn't explain many things.
1. Microtransactions? Where does the money go to? How does it work?
2. The clean option describes the liquid as "a gelatinous substance" but then says "water".
3. If the 3d model is poorly rendered and the subjects can't ineract with RPC-033-1, how are they physiologically confirmed to be 89% similar?
4. Similarly, how is it determined that 033-1 "have expressed explicit knowledge known by the individual" if it isn't possible to communicate with them? Or can the instances communicate with the subject?
5. The gurgling, chewing etc. sounds retarded.
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1. Meant to be ambiguous
2. I'll correct that
3. Physcology and physiology are complete seperate things and since they act the same way, chances are they've been expressing things in an identical way as the person would like calling for help or saying things while panicing.
4. see above
5.I'll remove chewing
And as for there being no climax, this is less of a story and more of just a horrid thing that exists, taking advantage of peoples emotions over a percieved loved one being tortured.
Thanks for the feedback.
Eh, the 'strangled with black tentacles' part of it was a little too on the nose with the clear connection to EA/the harry potter mobile game.
Maybe something more like 'users of the app are locked out of using the feed, clean, and toilet actions until paying a microtransaction charge which will appear during this event."?
Why not:
This feature is an even in which the screens view will zoom in on RPC-033-1's face. After which, RPC-033-1 will begin to gag as if being strangled. This will appear to worsen as time progresses, causing further suffering to RPC-033-1. Deactivation of this feature may only be achieved by choosing to pay a microtransaction charge that will appear as a yes or no option during the event. This will cause the feature to cease for the time being until six hours later when it will appear again. RPC-033's screen view will return to normal after an events conclusion; revealing RPC-033-1 to bare heavy constriction marks across its neck, limbs and torso.
Microtransaction charges appear to increase in price with each additional appearance of ‘Wrathful Fulfillment'.
(account deleted)Really good idea (the app icon is very spooky), although some details should be fleshed out: a) do the instances have any knowledge of the universe outside the app? b) (as others have mentioned) What happens when you neglect RPC-033-1 and do not tend to their basic needs? (do they eventually die?) On the other hand, if you do not wish to stop the "wrathful fulfillment", do the instances get strangled and mangled ad infinitum? (this leads to my previous question, do RPC-033-1 ever die?). It would be more impactful if we could get some closure on what happens to the instances in the end. An experimentation log would be useful to help explain the entry and further expand on it. As well, I find the transition from taking care of the instance to it being perpetually stuck in an amorphous horror to be very sudden, and it left me kind of confused as to why would you take care of (or be guilted into taking care of) the instance only for it to get tortured constantly by an unknown force (I'd rather neglect it if that were the case). Some real-life consequences/effects would make the transition more seamless and coherent.
Also, the title needs some work in my opinion. "Strangle Loved Ones or Pay Money" sounds way too blunt, and it doesn't make the story compelling to read. Perhaps make it somewhat more vague or paraphrase it in a way that doesn't give away the whole entry. I liked the "wrathful fulfillment" idea, so maybe some inspiration could be drawn from that.
Seems a good start but there isn't much of a hook other that it gets annoying if you neglect it. It's more like a smoke-detector with a dying battery sort of annoyance.
If there was some link to the real world other than to other smart devices linked to it, it would work better imo- like phone calls and emails to tell the user's contacts it is being neglected or sharing personal/intimate pictures in a more and more severe fashion with social media until they get attention.
No vote at this time.
"RPC-033-1 instances appear to universally dislike the taste of the slop."
This portion doesn't sound very clinical to me, the "slop" portion in particular.
I'll be honest for a second, this entire time while reading this article, I could've sworn anything that happens to RPC 033-1, would happen to its real life equivalent. However, this article was much less cliche than I thought. I do personally dislike the requirement of microtransactions to stop Wrathful Fulfilment. For me, it makes the article feel less serious. I will give it this, however, microtransactions are rather unique for an article, even if it does break immersion a tad bit for me.
The sun in your eyes, made some of the lies worth believing
I honestly felt that the microtransactions made it more believable. This isn't a spooky app that allows you to torture someone via voodoo, it strikes me as the idea of aggressive marketing campaigns to encourage microtransactions in apps taken to it's logical extreme, though I don't know if that was the author's original intent. It builds up quite nicely actually.
1. Like some knockoff apps will have a similar name or picture to confuse users into downloading it, and not be removable by normal means.
2. Will psychological guilt the "caretaker" into using alternative cleaning and feeding options due to how distressing the basic cleaning and feeding options are.
3. If you don't take care of the character it will publically shame you to your contacts and on your social media.
4. Psychologically bullying the user into paying the app to not visually torture someone close to them.
Honestly the only thing missing is I want to see the options for alternative care that can be paid for with microtransactions. It's a refreshing take on the idea and the user at any time could make it stop by destroying the phone
This is unique in that it goes for a more psychological type of thrill, compared to the body horror stuff that tends to be more common. That said, I have to agree with some of the previous comments. It feels like it'd be more of a nuisance than a legit threat. It is anomalous in that it's an application that can identify a chosen loved one and use it against the victim but that is where the paranormal part seems to end. It feels very 'tip of the iceberg' to me, which isn't necessarily bad.
All in all, I did enjoy this very much and I feel it has potential as a prelude to something more sinister. Whoever created the app maybe did so through supernatural means and intends to use it as a way to bring in easy money. Perhaps they have other anomalous projects in the works, all meant to rake in dough. Will we ever know the name of the party responsible for such an app? Who knows.
That's just my garbage take on it though. Great read!
Thoroughly chilling. Five stars.
/forum/t-6182514/rpc-033#post-