I leaned forward in my chair, my thumbs slightly clumsy on the modified controller they'd given me when we switched to PC ports of console games. My bright blue and yellow race racecar leapt out ahead of the pack. I clipped an inside turn and hit the grass, but on purpose, swerving to hit a mushroom. As my car collided with the bright red and white spotted shroom, I gained a huge burst of speed.

I steered back onto the course, keeping myself away from the other racers. Sweat was trickling down my face. We were in the final third of the course. Just ahead, the track raised up, curved around and entered a tunnel. I pushed the accelerator down as hard as I could go, shot out ahead of everyone else. As the tunnel went right, I veered left, shooting off of the cliff's edge.

I held my breath as I soared into the air. My car arced forward. I wasn't going to make it. I was going to come up short.

My wheels hit the racetrack, and I corrected to swing my back tires back onto the course. I just shaved off a good four seconds by cutting off that curve. Now, I was well out ahead of all the other racers. I leaned forward, hitting the apex of each of the next eight squiggly turns before racing across the finish line. The score screen appeared. "Winner! Trevelyan, Colin!"

I threw my hands up in the air. "Woo!" I yelled.

The guy next to me flicked his eyes toward me with an unhappy scowl. "Sorry!" I mouthed, and he went back to his own game. It looked like he was playing a custom Halo map. His light red Space Marine armor had a very distinctive style. His squad seemed to be winning. I glanced at their handles but didn’t recognize any names.

My own opponents were in other rooms, hunched over their own screens. I’d gotten a thrashing from Amber’s squad in Veilfire, playing alongside a bunch of randos. Lost a couple of PUBG matches pretty hard. I’d done better in the 4-player Starcraft maps, winning three with some cheesy Zerg rush strats and then losing hard when I drew one of the Korean players.

I tried hard to focus on each game as it came. The tournament staff were serving up a whole buffet of different games today. Everything from the latest hotness to 20-year-old platformers. Each option would include a note about how many other gamers were waiting in the lobby and what the victory conditions were. One time I got offered nothing but first person shooters: the next round, I could choose between Minecraft, Amber Dawn, and Rollercoaster Tycoon. I’d picked the latter option and built an absolutely ridiculous park where the rides were free but the vending concessions through the roof.

Right at noon, our wristbands had all lit up. Three of the other gamers in the room got red lights and cleared out their gear right away. Another had all green. He stuck around to watch the rest of us sweat it out with our yellow blinking lights.

I had spent all afternoon on this, the second day, trying for games where I could use known hacks and exploits to gain a high score. Some of them, like this particular version of Mario Kart, I'd never played before. But I had studied lots of games, watching other blokes in my niche try their hand at getting a high score. Fortunately, I'd seen this particular level in a video once before and remembered that trick to cut off the tunnel.

My finish time, 1 minute 28 seconds, wasn't as high as the guy whose video I'd watched, but considering I wasn't really a console gamer and had only played a couple of racing games, I thought I'd done fairly well.

A message popped up on my screen as the racing game vanished. "You have 1 hour 43 minutes remaining in this testing session. Choose one of the following games to complete as far as possible in that time." It offered me a choice of 6 single-player campaign games with a timer at the top of the screen showing my hour and 40-plus minutes ticking away.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Single-player games were my cup of tea. Despite the urgency the timer suggested, I considered carefully. My first instinct was to go for Portal. The old classic puzzle game was one I had spent quite a few hours in a few years back, and I was pretty sure I could clear most of the levels quickly. Then I looked at the message's wording again. “Complete as far as possible."

I glanced down at my wrist and the still blinking yellow lights. This was no time to play it safe. I needed to earn a big score and make it to the green. I picked my game and settled in.

As the loading screen appeared, I tried the keyboard shortcut to skip past the tutorial. It worked, thankfully, even though I ought to be registered as a new player in its systems. Then I went with most of the defaults on character creation, other than changing my race to Katagan and selecting the Rogue class. The Katagans were a cat-like species invented for this game's particular mythos. They gave a buff to stealth and to jumping, both of which I would need. I also changed my sex to female, which shrank my hitbox.

Choices made, I loaded into the main game. Technically, you were supposed to conduct a series of initial quests, getting you geared up and earning you a follower, before challenging the first dungeon. Instead, I hit my sprint button and raced out of the starting village to a waterfall at the far end. There, I leapt, triggering my racial to land nimbly on my feet at the bottom of the waterfall. The exit to the first dungeon was here, and if they hadn't patched out the hack, I could actually enter through the back door.

I ducked under the waterfall, grateful that the Katagans also had darkvision so I was able to see the door. Right now, it was supposed to be blocked on the inside with a wooden bar which could only be raised by someone inside the dungeon.

I rotated my camera above and to the side, so I was looking straight down at my character, but a little to the right. My camera clipped into the dungeon.

I reached into my inventory for my rogue starting equipment, a stack of four shadow grenades. I targeted the ground at my feet and threw it before engaging Shadow Stalk. I targeted the shadow inside the dungeon and stepped through.

I swung my camera back, relieved that it had worked, and snuck up the exit tunnel to the boss room.

The boss was the undead skeleton of an ancient sun priest. He would hit like a truck, and I had no gear, but I knew how to deal with that. I skirted around the outskirts of his platform. Stepping on it would activate him. Instead, I went to the coffins of his summoned minions.

I looted each of them in turn to steal their weapons. Then I opened my inventory, selected a healing potion, and tried the cheat command that would spawn duplicates of basic potions. It was a developer command accidentally left into the game and, thanks to publisher laziness, not patched when an exploiter discovered it two years after release.

It worked. I dropped one healing potion in the spot where each of the skeletons would revive before jumping up onto the boss platform.

This game didn't have any damage hacks that I knew of. Camera clipping, unintended interactions, and an accidental tester code or two left in were the limits of my knowledge, but they ought to be enough.

As the boss raised from his sarcophagus and started monologuing, I snuck around behind him. I pickpocketed him, slipping a health potion into his inventory. Then I took my place in front of him.

As his intro finished, he produced an enormous two-handed axe and swung it at me. I dodged, avoiding the swing. We began to dance, him swinging, me avoiding. With each swing, my dodge skill increased just a little bit until it ranked to ten. That plus the experience I had gained discovering this place was enough to get me my first level.

I paused the game as I selected the new ability. I had always appreciated that this game lets you level up in combat. It refreshed your health and energy bars too, which could be a lifesaver at times. I'd only taken a single hit from the boss during our dance, but it had eaten half my health and I was glad to get it back.

I selected the "Dose of Your Own Medicine" ability, and it slotted into my first quick slot, then let the game resume, targeted the boss with the ability, and hit it.

It was an ability designed to let a rogue force an enemy to use any consumables on them, a gamble since you didn’t know if they had poisons, buff potions, or maybe a fireball spell. Unless you’d pickpocketed them already to make sure they had just what you wanted.

Immediately, his health dropped by more than half as my ability forced him to use his consumable — the healing potion. Generally, rogue poisons only deal about 5% of a target's damage. This wasn't a poison, this was a healing potion, and undead took double damage from any healing done to them.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I slid around behind the boss as he began to raise his army of undead minions and pickpocketed him again, sliding in another health potion. As each skeleton rose from its grave, it stepped on the health potion I had thoughtfully left outside its sarcophagus and died.

A second later, "Dose of Your Own Medicine" was back off cooldown and I hit the boss with it again. His health dropped; he had only 10 points remaining.

I dodged behind him and struck with my dagger. Being in backstab position, it did double damage and the boss collapsed. The rush of XP from the boss and his minions took me all the way to level 3.

I didn't bother to loot them. I’d already taken everything in their inventories. Instead I opened the boss's sarcophagus to reveal his treasures. I laughed in relief as I got the one item that I absolutely had to have to make this work: The Cloak of Restoration, which made any healing spells I did, or any healing items I crafted, 15% more powerful.

Being a rogue, I didn't actually have any healing abilities and I wasn't planning on taking on any more undead. That would take far too long. But this cloak was perfect for my planned cheese.

I grabbed his other gear, raced back out of the dungeon, and then sprinted all the way to the nearest real town, not that newbie village that was lacking trainers. I had to outpace a few low-level wolves that wanted to eat me, but nothing I couldn't handle.

In town, I quickly traded my boss gear to the blacksmith for a couple of crafting materials, and then used the little money left to have the enchanter teach me a health-restoring enchantment I could put on gear. I returned to the blacksmith and started crafting the one item I could: a simple iron dagger, but enchanted with the Life-Giver spell.

I received back a dagger that would do 6 points of damage while having a chance to restore 3 points of my own health. That would have been viable at this level, but wasn't nearly enough for what I needed to do.

I turned around, sold it to the blacksmith for more than the cost of the materials he'd sold me, thanks to the enchantment on it. Then I bought mats for two more daggers, built them, sold them back, bought mats for four daggers.

Five minutes later, I was back at the enchanter buying the next restoration skill up. Thanks to power-leveling my blacksmith and enchanting skills at the same time, I had already gained an entire other level. I put all of my points into the “Built It Myself" skill, which rendered any weapon I myself had created 15% more effective.

I returned to the blacksmith for the next round of skills. By the time I had mastered journeyman and advanced journeyman level blacksmithing and enchanting, I was level 10, and the trainers in this town couldn't teach me anymore.

Usually in this game, you couldn't fast travel anywhere you hadn't already been. However, I knew a hack here too. On the way down to the fast travel, I stopped by the inn where I spent most of my remaining gold to recruit a mercenary follower. Eric the Just was from the capital city of this game, Solgrim. Having hired him and listening to his assurance that he would be a faithful companion to me should I only prove true to him, we hit the fast travel site.

I manually took control of Eric and walked him over to the fast travel carriage driver. From Eric's persona, I spoke to the man.

There wasn't an option here to have Eric fast travel. Instead, they could have a little dialogue about what it was like back in Solgrim and how Eric had enjoyed eating the stew at the inn there. This was a dialogue usually encountered by players after their first trip to Solgrim when speaking to the carriage drivers at cities elsewhere on the continent. Because Eric was native to the town, it triggered the dialogue to pop up.

Now resuming direct control of my own character, I approached the fast travel and asked the carriage driver for a ride to Solgrim. Since he remembered having a conversation with me about the excellent stew at the inn, the carriage driver decided I had been to Solgrim and was now worthy of travel in his carriage. I hopped on the back with Eric the Just and we were off.

The carriage dropped me off outside Solgrim's gate, which was perfect for me. There was a rare mob on a hill just outside of town, a one-eyed werewolf that had been plaguing the town's livestock. If I went into town I’d get a quest to kill it, but I didn’t want to spare the time.

I raced up the hill to find it eating a freshly killed sheep, told Eric to attack it head on with his broadsword, and then snuck around behind it. In backstab position, I used my most recently created life drinker dagger as the wolf bit down on Eric, taking most of his hit points off in a single blink. I stabbed. My dagger almost killed the wolf outright. I didn't take any damage, so the health enchantment did me no good. I stabbed again and the wolf dropped dead at our feet. The XP raised me to 15 — high enough I’d be able to train the next level of enchanting and blacksmithing.

Eric was nearly dead, so I tossed him a health potion and looted the wolf for his pelt and one good eye, as well as the six gold that he was for some reason carrying. Now level 15, I entered the town and sought out the enchanting trainer. There, I bought the next restoration skill up before reporting to the blacksmith for duty.

Very helpfully, the timer showing just how much of my time had elapsed blinked in the corner of the screen. I tried hard not to look at it too much. I knew what I was doing. I still had nearly half an hour left.

I was aware of people gathering behind my chair. Didn't they have something better to do? Games to play? "What's he doing?" someone asked.

"He's wasting his time making daggers."

"What the hell, man? Is he already giving up?"

I was nearly to the point where crafting wouldn't give me experience. As I finished off craft mastery, my timer was down to 27 minutes, but I had crafted a dagger that could one-shot nearly any creature in the game.

Emphasis on nearly any.

Eric and I rushed out of there. I didn't have a hack for fast travel for this next part. I was going to have to run it on foot. We raced across the game's landscape. Dark green and grey pine forests giving way to lush mountain meadows.

I reached the lair of the great dragon Chassander. Eric and I ducked inside. The nice thing about this dragon’s lair was it was a single room dungeon with no trash mobs. I zoned in and snuck into position behind the sleeping dragon.

Eric was waiting for my command to attack. I crouched in the shadows, my dagger out. Then I struck as I ordered Eric forward. My dagger sliced deep into Chassander's scales.

Striking from behind did double damage. I got another 10% damage, plus the boosts from skill name, which by now gave me an additional 50% damage. My backstab hit for 400 points. The dragon had 300 remaining.

Eric threw out his taunt, distracting the dragon from me. It breathed fire in a wide arc, searing Eric and catching the edge of my hitbox as I sidestepped furiously. I lost 60 points of health, taking me down deep into the red. I wasn't in the right position, but I stabbed at the dragon anyway. My knife connected, and I dealt another 300 points of damage, but much more importantly, gained back all the health I had lost as the dragon dropped.

With the dragon's soul, I could now activate my protagonist power. The ability, called Netherworld Dream, took me to the afterlife of this place, home of the final boss, Dranator.

Now, the game was scripted so that you ought to encounter this first boss early on, after killing an easy dragon and taking the portal to the Netherworld. Then, you would have him beat you to within an inch of your life before miraculously escaping back the main world. You’d grind for multiple levels before making any further attempts. Future visits to the Netherworld would let you grind on the unique mobs here, but you wouldn't see Dranator again until you'd completed most of the game's storyline.

I glanced up at my timer. Five minutes remaining. I raced through the Netherworld. Angry Valkyrie and mead-drinking warriors chased me. Eric valiantly stayed behind to defend. He probably wouldn't take more than a couple hits from an angry Valkyrie, but that was alright. I didn't need him for this next part.

I raced straight for Dranator' throne room. The door admitted me. The supreme boss, a one-eyed giant wearing a horned helmet, descended from his throne, laughing. "Foolish mortal, you have returned from the world of the living too soon." He proceeded to monologue about how I might have the dragon-eater ability, but I would not ever succeed at mastering it. Blah blah blah.

I cast my last two shadow grenades. One at my feet, one right behind him. I shadow-walked into the second cloud, and then stabbed Dranator with my dagger.

Like I said, this encounter with Dranator was supposed to scare the crap out of a level 1 or 2 player. As such, the boss didn't have his full hit point and combat strength that he would later in the game. The developers did it that way so that the player could take a single hit from Dranator without dying.

I hit him for 600 points of damage, instantly one-shotting him.

Most games would have had a mechanic that kept the boss alive at one hit point, should this happen. Apparently, the designers and playtesters of this game had never considered anyone doing what I had done. It had actually been six years into the game before an exploiter put together all the pieces I had done and managed to finish the game in an hour and a half.

As the "Victory" message appeared and the credits began to roll, I sat back in my chair. I still had three minutes left on my timer. Not quite a world record, but I'd take it.

I became aware of clapping and cheering behind me and spun my chair, pushing off of the desk with my arms, to see most of the other gamers in the room crowded around me, watching. "That was cool," one guy whose name I hadn't caught said. "I've never seen anyone do anything like that before.”

“Isn't it cheating?" another guy asked. "I mean, you basically didn't play the game. You just made a bunch of materials and then cheated."

"Weren't you guys playing your own games?"

"Yeah, we finished," they said. I looked over in the corner where one girl was still hunched over her machine. The screen tilted away from me so I couldn't see exactly what she was playing. Everyone else looked a combination of relieved, worried, or stressed. "

“So... was it enough?" one of the guys asked.

"How should I know?"

“Check your bracelet," he said. He held his up. It was flashing green and had a string of words racing across it that I couldn't read. "It says I'm supposed to report to the main hall in 15 minutes. I think it means I'm in."

Another guy showed his red bracelet. "I didn't make it, but I'm gonna try again if they'll let me."

I looked down at my bracelet. There was nothing on it. I held my breath, waiting. After what seemed an eternity, a string of green lights illuminated it, followed by the message telling me to report to the main room.

"Yes!" Some of the others cheered for me. Two of them helped me climb onto my powered chair. I set off, feeling like I was on top of the world.