Beta Testers at a quaint University

Sweat slid down his forehead, his hands were clammy, his heart was racing. He was so close. So close...just a little bit more and...

"BOOM!" His roommate shouted and tossed down his controller, "I win again!"

"Fuck!" Grey Snyder let his controller drop and leaned back into the couch, "I had you! How the hell did you pull that off?"

"Dude," Lars Ellerbeck smirked at him, "Honestly...you did well. I almost dropped a stock that time," He winked at Grey, "Almost."

"Ok. Double or nothing, except we play Chess instead of Smash." Grey offered.

"Nooo way. You suck at Smash, I suck at Chess. The biggest difference between us is that I don't make bets on the thing I'm terrible at. I'll give you double or nothing with the same stakes."

"Pass...but are you really going to hold me to it?" Grey asked.

"Obviously. I hate doing dishes." Lars said.

"Uh. Fine. I should have known better." Grey admitted. Lars was his best friend and overall a pretty good guy, but since moving in together after their first year of University Grey had learnt a lot more about his flaws. Grey wasn't exactly a neat freak, but Lars was definitely a slob. Not only did he rarely clean up, it just didn't seem to bother him at all. As a last **** measure Grey had challenged him to this bet, thinking that the handicap would be enough for him to **** his roommate to at the very least do his own dishes. Now that would be Grey's job.

He sighed, not that it was really a change. Lars hadn't been doing it anyway. Grey knew it wasn't acceptable but he just couldn't find a solution to this problem. He didn't want to stop being friends with Lars, and nothing he said otherwise seemed to get through to him. Actually Grey's only other idea was to get Lars a girlfriend, that might be the only thing that motivates him to clean up on his own. Except Grey had about as much luck with the ladies as he did Smash Bros, so that wasn't much of an option.

It was pretty late, and he had no desire to play against Lars again at this time, so he headed up to his room. Not quite tired enough for sleep, he laid in his bed and started doom scrolling. It didn't last long before he was interrupted by an email from the University.

Dear Mr. Snyder...

His eyes grew wide as he read it. A new game developed by some comp sci students was looking for Beta Testers and he'd been randomly selected as a participant. He must suck at Smash, but he loved games, so he was already interested even before he got to the best part. It was paid. Not a long, he understood that they couldn't afford to pay much, but $50 to try it was better than a kick in the butt.

He was sold. He was about to click the link before he decided this could be a scam. Better do a little digging first. After independently finding a story about the game on the University's website, and matching the email to an official account, he decided to accept it.

The link opened up the University's portal where he had to enter his student ID and password, and then he was able to click to download the game to his phone.

A few minutes later it was ready. Nefarious. He thought it sounded interesting. He clicked on the how to play and started to read.

Cynthia rubbed her temples as she stared at her screen. How on Earth had this person ever been admitted to this University? Merely marking the answer as incorrect felt totally inadequate to her. Asked to evaluate the indefinite integral ∫40⁢3x^3+12⁢2x^2−9⁢x+14⁢, this student had put 7. Just 7.

"Oh bloody hell...I hate teaching first years." She complained. She'd had enough. She shut down her computer and stood up. It was late, but she'd always been a night owl. She liked to joke that she was still on London time, despite having lived here for nearly a decade now. She moved to her kitchen and started to make herself a tea.

While the kettle boiled, she checked her personal email. She was surprised to see an email from the University. Surprised that it was to her personal email and not her work one that is. Nevertheless she opened it and was even more surprised to see an invitation to join a beta test for a game developed by the computer science program.

Like she had time for that, she rolled her eyes, but she did read down to the end. She got to the bottom and hesitated. Professor Hernandez was offering a quid pro quo...if Cynthia participated in this beta test, she would work on the coding for Cynthia's research project. She'd refused last time Cynthia had asked, but now that she needed something...

The tea finished boiling. She poured it into her mug and picked it up, savouring the warmth flooding into her hands as she did.

"Hmm...it's been a long time since I've played a game on my phone...but sure. I might as well." She said to herself. She followed the instructions in the email and downloaded the game, then set about reading how to play.

Regan was enjoying a quite night in. Her roommate was spending the night with her boyfriend which had left her alone to her own devices...specifically her collection of vibrators. Most of the time she liked having a roommate. Ashley was a lot of fun and they got along really well, but sharing a room had seriously taken away her 'me' time.

Of course she couldn't spend the whole night masturbating. She was currently taking a break from actually doing the deed and instead reading erotica on her favourite website to build up some fantasies for her spankbank. Then a notification popped up, which she'd normally ignore, but she saw it was from the University and decided to check it out.

Oooh, this was interesting. An invitation to a beta test in exchange for extra credit? Her grades kinda sucked, so anything helped. And she spent enough time on her phone anyway. She quickly downloaded the game, but it seemed to complicated to start right now. Besides, she was all alone. She set down her phone, turned off the light, and picked up her vibrator.

"Hello again friend...miss me?" She asked it. Then she flicked it on and smiled to herself, it was a really good night.

Kai stepped onto the treadmill and started it at a slow pace. Then she grabbed her phone and went to navigate to her music app, but a sudden notification caught her attention. An email from the University?

The treadmill was barely moving at this point so she decided just to check it out now. It was an invitation to a beta test of a new game. Kai bit her lip and thought about it. She wanted to help out the students who'd created this game, but she was already so busy. Between her own studies and her commitment to the volleyball team she was stretched pretty thin...

She sighed. They probably worked so hard, she knew if she was in their position she'd want someone to play and give honest feedback. She knew she was good at that. It said it wouldn't need too much of her time, she could make it work. She quickly downloaded the game, but then switched to her music and got serious with her run. She wasn't here for fun after all, staying fit was key to helping her team win.

Grey received a notification from his recently installed game. It seems like all the beta testers had signed up and the game would start tomorrow. He'd get his starting coins and cards at midnight and have until 8am to make his first play.

The game seemed pretty simple in his mind. The goal was to become the preeminent mad scientist by accumulating victory points for your fiendish inventions. All players took turns simultaneously, choosing 1 of four actions. Either Espionage, Invent, Research, or Work. Espionage was a way of creating passive income and learning about your opponents. Invent let you build inventions which earned the victory points needed to win. Research gave you a bit of money and let you draw a new invention to be played in the future and Work was the easiest way to acquire more money to build with. It was a kind of idle game. Turns were played at 8am and 8pm and you could set whichever action you wanted to play at anytime before that.

Actually coming up with a strategy to win was going to be hard until he started to play. First of all each day the game would display a new twist, a change in the rules. Second these inventions apparently had a number of effects, some would target himself and some others, either negatively or positively. So until he knew what the twist was and what his cards were, he couldn't really formulate anything. It seemed likely though that he'd want to start with spying. Starting that passive income now would pay off at the end, he was sure of it.

Hello and welcome to another board game branch! This one is based on the board game, Nefarious, which is a real game (it's a lot of fun if you love board games). This one will be a little different from the other board game branches. The player's inventions will sometimes specifically target an opponent or themselves with effects like those seen in the other branches, but sometimes will create magical objects instead. They'll also have challenges assigned by the game for rewards and as a kind of 'idle' game there will be far more breaks. Hope you enjoy it and once you see how it works feel free to suggest new Inventions or Work Challenges in the comments at any time.