The ARC nosleep

My buddy Dave was a game developer. A good one. He's the only guy I know who could blend a game with reality on this level. But I'm scared to think what he actually accomplished.

He started in BASIC when we were in elementary school. Back then he'd just modify the demos that came included like the gorillas game where you throw the banana-bombs back and forth. By the end of middle school, he had a good grasp of C++.

After college we ended up living in different cities. He moved into New York City, I went out to San Diego. But he kept developing games, indie ones mostly. Back when indie was more synonymous with unsuccessful. And I was always the first to test them out.

So when I saw the package from Dave at my front door, I wasn’t too surprised.

Normally he'd just post the files for me but this had hardware. It was an attachment for my iPhone. A crude 3d-printed plastic device that connected to the bottom port and wrapped up around the lens.

“It’s a kind of augmented reality game," Dave said on a video chat with me that evening. "The hardware scans depth in the room, like the Kinect. It’ll do an on-the-fly scan of your apartment, creating a point cloud. It lets the ARC know what exists in his space.”

He would do this sometimes, talk like folks knew what he meant. “I don’t know what an ARC is, Dave. No one does.”

He sighed. "Augmented Reality Character. Imagine the The Sims, but it’s happening in your home, and you can watch it through your phone’s camera. The hardware and software scan the rooms you want and process it into 3D space. Then your character, your ARC, can walk around your apartment, or where ever you scan." Whever ever I scanned... I started to get it.

"The phone's camera is like window into the ARC's world. A mirror of ours."

I scanned my apartment, but started off simple. Just the living room and the kitchen. After a bit of processing, a crude 3D character (like the first version of the Sims) appeared in the middle of the room. He looked around cautiously before bumping into my coffee table and navigated around it.

It was incredible. The closest thing I can compare it to is this: http://ift.tt/1KjHN7M

It really felt like he was there. I looked out into my empty room, then back into my phone. It was like I was watching an alternate dimension.

I was reminded of something Dave told me when we were growing up. We would have sleepovers at friends' houses where a parent would set up a camping tent in the backyard and we'd all stay in it. We'd bring sleeping bags, lanterns, junk food, Nintendo Magazines. Inevitibly one of those items was always a Ouija board. We'd try to call the spirit of some dead person or demon, normal kid stuff. One time though, Dave had said, "These things open doors to the other side. Don't worry though. They can't hurt us. But they'll be with us."

I followed my ARC around. He went over to my shelf and leafed through some books. He opened my refrigerator door and looked inside. In the augmented world, a ghostly door opened and I could see generic food inside. BEER, SODA, SANDWICH.

“Those are temp models for now. Same with the ARC. No facial expressions or anything yet. I’m still working on that.” He was right, the ARC’s face looked static, like a model from GoldenEye.

Dave continued. “Even when the app is closed, he’ll still be doing his thing, just living his life. The app is like a window into his world." The ARC continued around the room, looking at various things, and eventually settled in front of the TV. It was a television show starring other ARCs.

I was impressed. Most games he made felt retro or smaller in scope. This was legit. There must have been a larger development team than usual. He explained that he’d received venture capital from a foreign company (that I'd never heard of). Without it the R&D for the game would have never happened.

“Try it out for the next few days, let me know if there are any bugs or anything."

Over the next couple days, I followed my ARC around. I watched him get comfortable with his (my) surroundings. Slowly developing a personality. But one thing I couldn’t get over was every time I logged in, the ARC would react. Not a glitch. More like how you might react when you hear a creak downstairs at 2am. As if he heard me open the app, entering his space.

I expanded the ARC's area by scanning the bedroom, bathroom, and even some space in my front patio. He picked up on the expansions quickly, visibly excited by the additional area. But when he would find doors to unscanned rooms he couldn’t open them. Unless the space on the other side was scanned, he couldn’t go through. I could tell this bothered him, regardless of his expressionless face.

After a week, testing got... weird.

I opened the app to find my ARC staring out the window. Standing perfectly still. Just staring.

I walked around him, looking for any signs of life. I hadn't scanned anything beyond my deck. For him, the world faded off into a white void. He just stood there, staring at it.

I called Dave and told him that I was pretty sure it was broken.

"It's possible. Just leave it, I'll deal with it in the next revision."

At work, I played with the app a bit. I scanned my office and some of the hallway. I waited briefly, but my ARC didn't appear. But a map, which I'd overlooked until then, grew larger in the upper corner of my screen. I could see a top-down view of my office and my home, but they weren't connect. I realized it's the same function used in so many strategy games. I hadn't connected those two parts of the map yet. The ARC couldn't travel to my office without those parts being connected.

When I got home that evening, I checked on him. He was still standing there, staring out the window. I examined him with my phone until I noticed something.

The couch was flipped over. Not in my real apartment, but in his version of it. On the floor, the letters M-O-R were scrawled. I assumed it was another bug. After all, the ARC couldn't possibly write. And he seemingly hadn't moved all day.

The next evening, Dave called and told me he'd pushed an update. This should fix the problems I was having as well as introduce a multiplayer test. He told me his ARC should be at my place now. Opening the app I saw another ARC. She was sitting on the couch with mine, laughing and watching television.

As is the case with most beta tests, I started to lose interest. It was cool, don't get me wrong. But there was only so much happening. Only so much action. I sat down on the couch and threw the TV on.

Now this may sound silly, but I started to feel like I wasn't alone. Even though I knew the game was just a game, it felt like someone was with me. It couldn't touch me, or interact with me, but it still felt present. Like a ghost. I had to open the app.

The two ARCs were still with me on the couch. But they were fighting, screaming. Without sound it was hard to understand what was going on. I mean, maybe nothing. They weren't real. But it was heated.

My ARC stood up, walked over to the shelf and grabbed a picture frame. I realized that the particular photo he grabbed was a photo of me with my family. He was pointing at the picture, then waving his arms in the air. He threw it on the coffee table in front of him, and approach Dave's ARC like a juggernaut.

Then my ARC slapped her.

It's hard to describe how I felt. It looked cartoony, and I'm sure most people without context would say it was comical. But to me, it felt as real as it would had I seen it in public. It felt like real abuse.

I closed the app and decided to go to sleep.

And then I had that feeling again. I had to look. I took my phone off the nightstand, went to the living room and opened the app. But there was nothing. No one on the couch. Or in the kitchen or bathroom. I creeped through my apartment, stalking around for my digital roommate.

They were in the bedroom.

They were in my bed.

I'm not prude, but this was really explicit. Far more explicit than anything Dave had made before. It was passionate, aggressive... And I just watched. I moved in close, watching until I realized it wasn't going to stop. Then my ARC snapped his head towards me. He looked right at me. I closed the app out and threw the phone to the floor.

I got back in bed and rolled over to the far edge of the mattress, as if my presence would interrupt them.

The next morning the ARC was standing back in the same place by the window. No sign of Dave's ARC. He must have called her back somehow. I looked around the living room to see if she was there but to my horror, I saw something else entirely...

All of the furniture was pushed into the corner. The words MORE ROOMS were scrawled repeatedly on every wall.

MORE ROOMS.

I looked back at the ARC. He just stood there, staring out the window. Frozen. His hand clutching the photograph of my family.

I checked the other rooms. The kitchen. Bathroom. Bedroom. All the same. Trashed, MORE ROOM graffitied on every wall and floor. Then I noticed the closet door in my bedroom.

In my world it was closed, but in the ARC's world it was cracked just slightly. I opened the door, slowly, expecting more graffiti. But there was no graffiti on the walls...

Dave's ARC was there. She was hanging. Her arms and legs bound together in the back, hanging from a rod. Her face and body graffitied. MORE ROOMS. She just hung there, motionless.

I backed away. I texted Dave, but but no response.

It's been 3 weeks, and I haven't heard from Dave. His phone goes to voicemail, no response over email. I called the front desk of his apartment and they said they haven't seen him in days. My ARC hasn't moved. He just stares out the window.

I have no idea what to do.

It's just a stupid game, right?

Submitted January 07, 2015 at 05:06AM by the_arc_help http://ift.tt/1AogFS2 nosleep