“Hey, have you tried out that new game?” Simon asks next to me as he boots up his computer.

“What game?” I ask as I input my login credentials.

“It’s called Earth. It’s not bad if you’re into simulator games, but the gameplay is kind of boring,” Simon says casually as he also logs into his computer.

“I love simulator games. Is it on the Universal App store?” I ask, opening up the store to check.

“What do you think? Everything’s on there,” Simon says dismissively as he opens up a browser. He had to do some research for a new game he was playing.

“Found it. It’s downloading. Installed. Create account. The no responsibility terms; accept. There; new game,” I say as I go through the setup process. “Hey, how do you play this game?” I ask, looking at his new baby character on the screen.

“Essentially, you play the character on your screen, but you can’t control it as you would normally control a character, and you can’t control any of the other characters in the game either. You can fast forward, reverse, or pause the game to predict your character’s actions, and the only way you can influence your character is to be their inner demon,” Simon explains half-heartedly.

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“Oh, cool. Can I be the inner demon for the other characters too?” I ask, getting more interested in the game.

“Yeah, that’s the fun part,” Simon says with a smile. “For example, if your character has a crush on a boy, you can influence the character’s crush and his friends to gang-rape her. Of course, it’s all for character development,” Simon explains, before continuing onto the details of the game. “Different characters have different aspirations and the goal is to have your character achieve their goal. But of course, the reality of the world setting is in place and nothing can be achieved without sacrifices, and as the inner demon, you have to force your character through those sacrifices. There are easier difficulty characters, such as those born with better circumstances, but the characters in the game always want something, and sometimes they want stuff like spiritual enlightenment or stuff like that,” Simon explains, feeling that the game was too troublesome.

“Cool. Sounds like fun,” I respond, before considering a different issue. “This isn’t one of those reality engine games right?”

Simon smiles. “It seems you caught on. Yeah, this game is based on the reality engine, where it creates the reality based on the developer’s wishes. But don’t worry, they’ve placed this game in a virtual machine, so even if nuclear war happens you can just reset the virtual machine and you’ll be where you started and the characters won't notice a thing; or probably won't notice,” Simon says in an attempt to reassure me, before opening up his game.

“Awesome,” I respond, no longer worrying about it. “Hey, what game are you playing?” I ask, curious about the scary graphics on Simon’s screen.

“Oh, this? This is Earth: Hell Mode,” Simon says with a smile.