56Kmodern

You are mankind’s last hope. Aliens are invading, the president is under attack, nuclear powerplants are out of control, zombie ghosts from the stone age are devouring teenagers. And now show those bastards that they shouldn’t have relied on a single hero to save the day, but rather developed some proper emergency plans!

The human race needs your help? Let them down! 5 seconds to save the world? Let them pass!

This is the premise of this first ever 56kompo I am going to start right here, introducing a brand new concept of digital entertainment: The Speedfail! Since the beginnings of video game recording, gamers have strived with perseverance and incredible endurance to reach the highest score in minimal time, to finish the hardest games with breathtaking ease and then to show off. But did they ever doubt if they were on the right side? Did they ever question their belief that what they did was something purposeful? No! But they should have!

Why save the princess, when she obviously enjoyed being abducted?

Why eat all the pills, when there obviously isn’t any way out of this maze?

It is up to you now to decide whether you want to keep playing a part in that twisted scheme, or whether you want to fail as hard, as quickly and as irrevocably as you can. Fail everyone, in any kind of game, no matter if it’s a shooter, a platformer, or an adventure game with one single possibility to die. Fail in a tutorial level when they least expect it. And then post it on their favourite medium, the realms of the speedrunners, the tragic kingdom of automated reactions:

Youtube!

As an inspiration on how to fail very quickly (yet without my astonishing theoretical framework built around it), maybe you’d want to consider watching this video.

Link your epic fail to my humble attempt at failing Moon Patrol as a video response. The best fails will be posted on a static page with a link to the author’s homepage and some nice words and cultural analysis sprinkled all over. All entries should be in by November 1st.