“Oh! This looks like an interesting game.” Jasmine flipped the game box around, it was weird to see new retro games in the wild. She scanned back of the box rather quickly. It was about an anthropomorphic crow that could fly really fast and had skates on the bottom of his shoes. That was the name of the game : Skate. She swore she had heard that title before. On the front of the cover it had the main character doing a peace sign and behind him was a metropolis looking area. The city was called Darkcrest. A weird name for city and the game did look a little dark. How did one play the game when one got it home? Oh, it looked like there were a very ways. It looked like you could dump the rom and put it on an Everdrive. It looked like you could use emulators too. She knew her brother had an emulator or two on the laptop at the house.

Jasmine laughed. “To think GameWorld would have games like this.” She smiled as she waited in line to pay for her new game. She noticed there were also plushies of other well known video game characters. She ignored them. She was ready to go home and play this game. Was this a clone or parody? She didn’t know and didn’t really care. The line seemed to go on forever and she was getting rather annoyed. Only two more people were left in the line and then it would be her turn. She watched the two people pay for their stuff and then it was her turn. She plopped the game down on the counter.

The Cashier looked at Jasmine. “Is that all?”

Jasmine nodded. “Yes.” She pulled out her GameWorld debit card in anticipation to paying for the game.

The cashier rang up the item – a number flashed on the screen. The price was $30. That’s a pretty good price. The Cashier tapped the screen and then Jasmine swiped her debit card and paid for it. The Cashier smiled and bagged the item.

The Cashier smiled. “Enjoy.”

Jasmine smiled and nodded as she took the bag. “I will..”

There was always that blissful joy you got when you bought a new video game. She was kind of getting a weird feeling from this game. Not like it was dark or evil. She just has never found a game that ran on emulators before. To her that was strange. Emulators were usually used for pirating games. Nintendo, Sega and even Microsoft were against emulators and if you were found running their games on them. You usually were forced to pay a fine or go to jail for piracy. Maybe this new video game company was trying something different. Pay for the game and run it on software you already had. Hopefully the game was a big seller. Thirty bucks per game, that wasn’t a lot and probably wouldn’t make anyone rich. She should call her brother to see if he had the proper software to run the game.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

***

Bobby was sitting on his laptop and he as setting up to start a live stream. He did this sort of thing sometimes. He didn’t do the newer games, he didn’t really care for them. Retro games were his thing and lately he had been seeing this game : SKATE advertised. Of course he knew the title, it was actually an skateboarding game for one the old Xbox’s. He forgot which one and he never played it, he was more of an Tony Hawk’s Underground fan anyways. The box art actually had a retro feel to it. It was the main character of the game doing a peace sign in front of a city landscape.

The game actually popped up a few times on his Facebook newsfeed. It was like the site was reading his mind or something. Emulators were setup, the screen grabbing software was set up and the broadcasting software was setup. Now he just needed to find a game to play.

He shook his head. “I don’t see why these kids like this Fortnite crap. When I was their age, we didn’t have games like this.” He barely had Mortal Kombat because of all the overbearing parents in the 90’s. Hell, he used to save up all of his change for a year, then sneak into the arcade tent at the fair and play all the games his mother didn’t want him to play. That included : Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2. Ah, back when bloody fighting games were something new. Now it seemed like everyone was putting out fighting games now a days. His eyes were getting tired and he decided to get up out of his computer chair and walk into the kitchen.

He walked to the ’fridge and opened it up and took out an energy drink and popped the top and walked to the cabinet were all the glasses one and took one out and poured the energy drink into the cup and then tossed the can into a trash can that was meant for bottles and cans. He sipped the energy drink and then he heard his phone go off. His ringtone was Mr. Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne and it was really loud, it was probably some spammer calling him so he didn’t rush back to his phone. His phone was by his laptop and he walked back to the dinning room, where his laptop and computer chair were. He sat back down in the computer chair and put the glass full of energy drink down on the table.

Bobby picked up his phone and looked at the last call made. “That’s strange, she doesn’t usually call me.” He paused. “She probably wants something.” He clicked on the voice mail, it was his sister and she bought a new game and wanted to see if his laptop had the required emulators. She didn’t say what game it was. This might be a nice opportunity to stream a new game on his YouTube channel.