Amy, a burnt-out college graduate

It was a quiet night alone for Amy as she mindlessly scrolled through her Reddit feed. There was nothing of interest to her at the moment. Her current state of boredom had been the status quo since she had finished school a year ago. Her undergraduate psych degree wasn't enough to start much of a career, but she found that she didn't have the energy for grad school after pushing herself so hard. For the time being she had settled for a low-paying food service job. Despite being overqualified, she needed something that wouldn't require too much from her mentally. Unfortunately, it had been too easy to fall into complacency and she had done little else since then.

Suddenly a pop-up notification on her phone flashed a bright sparkly message. "Welcome to the Gem Ladies app! Click below to play!" Amy stopped her scrolling to examine the mysterious update. Had she accidentally clicked a link while she was browsing? She was wary of any kind of hyperlink or unsolicited message that may give her a virus. She went to her home screen to look at her apps and found that a new mobile game had indeed been downloaded on her phone. A strange curiosity compelled her to open the app against her better judgement. It didn't look any different from any other puzzle game and her suspicion was disappearing. She was already wasting time, why not play a few rounds and then go to bed?

The rules were simple and easy to learn after a quick practice round. The next screen brought up a typical terms and conditions clause followed by a pink text bubble. "Round one! Win and receive incredible rewards or lose and choose your punishment!" Amy was hardly paying attention as she clocked past to get to the game. Immediately she was caught off guard by the level that loaded on her screen. The practice round had involved matching a few colors and shapes to clear the screen. For some reason, round one included twice as many variables and obstacles that blocked free movement. As the time wound down, she had only cleared two thirds of the blocks she needed. She didn't care about doing well at the game, but it irritated her that the tutorial hadn't matched the first round's difficulty level.

"Game over! Choose a punishment! You have 30 seconds to comply."

Over-Eager Extrovert

Need to Party!

Unmotivated