"Alright, everyone! Today I'm bringing you a game called Jump King. I'm sure most of you have heard of it already." While interacting with the swirling flurry of chat messages floating across his screen, Louis opened the game live on stream.
Instead of plunging straight into gameplay, the screen opened with a stylized CG cutscene. A chibi-style character clad in assassin's robes was frantically scrambling upward. Far above, at a peak flush with the blazing sun, a chibi princess gazed into the distance, waiting.
'Persevere... Effort... Keep surpassing your limits!'
'Who will rise to become the final Jumping King?'
The main menu popped up shortly after, stripped down to just five simple options: New Game, Continue, Settings, Achievements, and Exit. The Exit button, predictably, was grayed out.
"Look at that, a crisp, simple interface with zero microtransactions or pay-to-win trash. Truly a breath of fresh air," Louis remarked, leaning into his mic. "Feel free to download it and give it a shot yourselves, but first, sit back and watch how a master like Brother Louis handles business."
He grinned at the camera. "I always say, anyone watching my stream is getting top-tier mental conditioning. My game library is practically legendary at this point. Take Assassin's Creed, for example. Sure, I messed around in the beginning for the stream effects, but once I got serious with that perfect stealth? Every single witness eliminated before they even blinked. Faster than President John himself!"
He clicked to enter the game, radiating pure, unadulterated confidence. After all, talk is cheap, and bragging costs nothing!
Truth be told, if he weren't streaming, he wouldn't mind the chaos as much. He could happily hunt zombies in Resident Evil Resistance or get dragged into wild, outer-ring shootouts, blasting away with a cheery pew-pew-pew.
The screen transitioned into a crisp 2D landscape. A lone black-clad elder sat huddled by a campfire beside a dark puddle, flanked by a series of rocky platforms leading upward. A classic platformer! A ridiculously simple, old-school precision platform jumping game!
In an instant, Louis realized what he was looking at.
"Wait, that's it? It's just a platformer?!" Louis perked up, a smirk playing across his face. "Those of you who found my channel through PixelPioneers' Outlast might not know this, but back before I blew up, platform jump games were my bread and butter. I'm telling you right now, when it comes to jumping games, I am God!"
In front of the webcam, Louis's face beamed with insufferable pride. What had he been worrying about? A jump game? Piece of cake!
Though one question still lingered in the back of his mind: how on earth was a 2D platformer supposed to deliver the exhilarating, heart-stopping rush of a Leap of Faith like Assassin's Creed? Is the whole gimmick just jumping to the peak and vaulting off? Talk about bait-and-switch!
He kept those doubts to himself, though. The game had barely begun, and as a popular streamer with a massive fanbase, and an equally passionate crowd of anti-fans looking for any excuse to roast him, he needed to watch his tongue.
Guiding his character over to the old man by the fire, a dialogue box popped up with the tutorial: 'Use Left and Right to control your direction, and hold the Spacebar to jump. The longer you hold, the higher you leap. But even though I'm handing you the secret to climbing, you might as well turn back now. An amateur like you will never make it to the top.'
"Excuse me? Can't go up? Who do you think you're talking to, old man?" Louis scoffed with a dismissive wave.
He promptly tapped the key, guiding his character onto the very first platform. The controls couldn't be simpler, just three buttons in total, with the only real variable being how long you held the Spacebar to charge a jump.
"A jump game? Just jumping?" With every easy leap, Louis's expression grew lighter, practically radiating smug satisfaction.
"Wait, hold on!" Misjudging the distance on his next hop, the tiny pixelated assassin overshot his landing, plummeted through the air, and hit the dirt with a brutal Splat!
"Okay, okay! So you actually have to precisely charge the timing, huh? Easy enough!" Undeterred by his first fail, Louis chalked it up to a minor calibration error and regained his swagger instantly. Pfft, please! It's just a jump game. I've cleared hundreds of these!
"Oh, here comes the bragging again!"
"Here it goes, watch him fail."
Before the chat's comments could even finish scrolling, the little assassin slipped again, falling all the way back down to the very bottom ledge.
The confident smile on Louis's face slowly withered away as he watched his character tumble all the way back to square one.
To rub salt in the wound, the old man by the campfire spoke up again: 'Give up, young man. It's far too difficult for the likes of you. You'll never reach the summit.'
As the voiceover faded, the chat erupted in collective glee. A flood of laughing emojis and teasing comments washed over the screen like a tidal wave:
"Look at God's confidence crumbling in real-time!"
"Hey little brother, still think you're the God of Jumping?"
"In this jump game, Brother Louis is God! (Screaming in high-pitched, crackly voice)"
"Hold on, why does this game suddenly look kind of evil...?"
Staring at the relentless barrage of roasts, Louis sat up straight and adjusted his headset, trying to reclaim his dignity.
"Old man, shut your trap! I don't buy it for a second. Your little game thinks it's hot stuff? Is it harder than Outlast? I breeze through games like Outlast like I'm drinking water! You think a silly little jumping game can hold me back? Are you out of your mind?! Small jump! Medium jump! Big jump!"
"Look at that flow! Boom, brand new screen! Oh, the rhythm is feeling so good, WHOA!" Just as he hit his stride, scaling his way to a brand-new section of the map, his character missed a ledge by a millimeter. The smile on Louis's face instantly froze as his character went into a freefall once more.
"Small... WHOA..." Two consecutive mistakes. Two brutal tumbles. Right back to the starting campfire, staring down the exact same old man and his exact same taunting dialogue.
In front of his monitor, Louis took a deep, shaky breath. "You son of a...!"
With a loud, venting roar, he tried to cool off, taking several deep breaths in quick succession. Rubbing his hands over his face, he glanced at the wall of 'HA HA HA HA' filling his screen.
"Alright, brothers. Time to get serious. No more looking at chat. Complete focus mode ON." He squared his shoulders. "I haven't been this focused in years!"
After tweaking his camera setup, Louis cracked his knuckles and popped his neck with a fierce look. "Tch. Little Jump King? You dare try to flex in front of a master?!"
Jump! Slip! Drop! SLAM! His right palm slammed against the desk, sending the webcam into a violent frenzy.
Jump, jump... miss... drop! BANG! Both hands slammed down onto the desk together, making the camera shake uncontrollably for seconds.
Jump, charge... almost to the second zone, slip... DROP!
"AAAAARRRRGHHHH!!!" In a fit of pure frenzy, Louis pounded both hands onto the keyboard and violently stomped his feet against the floor. His gaming chair catapulted backward from the sheer recoil, while his face contorted into a mask of utter, unhinged madness.
On the other side of the screen, his viewers were practically dying of laughter:
"THIS IS KILLING ME!"
"Pure, unadulterated, incompetent rage!"
"Live broadcast of a mental breakdown, I love it!"
"Chef, order two more plates for the host!"
"Look at me go up! Now look at me come right back down!"
"God's mentality has officially atomized."
After pacing around the room for a moment to catch his breath, Louis slunk back to his computer desk, clutching his chest with his right hand as if trying to soothe an aching heart.
"Stay calm... posture, stay calm... DAMN IT! Okay, big jump here... big jump across to the ledge... AHHHHHHH!!!"
The second his hands hit the keyboard, Louis jammed down on the Spacebar. And then... The little assassin, looking like a tragic hero straight out of a comic book, overshot the platform entirely and went hurtling down the abyss at lightning speed.
Louis's hands limply lifted off the keyboard. He stared at the screen with dead, hollow eyes, locking gaze with the pixelated old man waiting for him at the bottom. "...Old man. I'm back."