Minecraft: PS1 Edition

It's an average Saturday afternoon. You just got your paycheck from your degrading part time cashier job. A whopping 55 dollars and 62 cents. With your new found riches, you decide to hit up some local garage sales to see if you can get a good deal on any retro games. These relics, forgotten by time, remind you of a simpler world. A world of play, of laughter, joy, excitement. Concepts that are becoming more and more unfamiliar to you with each passing day that you waste away at that fucking cash register. You climb into your beat up 2007 Saturn Ion with the rear bumper held on by ductape, and drive, stopping at each location to see what they have to offer. Clothes, books, kids toys, but no games. This average Saturday afternoon has now devolved into a disappointing Saturday evening. With the orange glow of the setting sun enveloping you in despondency, you decide to make one last stop before calling it a day. You step out of the car, hopes lower than ever, to see more of the same. Tables of neatly folded clothes, boxes of old VHS tapes, dusty dinnerware, miscellaneous knick-knacks. As you're heading back to the car, something out of the corner of your eye catches your attention. A lone Playstation 1 game, resting atop a plastic tote full of bed sheets. With the glare of the sun reflecting off of its plastic jewel case, you can't quite make out what game it is, but you can tell it's a 3 disc game by the thickness of the case. You wonder which game it could be. Alone in the Dark? Final Fantasy? Chrono Cross? Curiosity now at its peak, you find yourself reaching for the alluring game. Your curiosity has now twisted into total confusion. Now holding the game in your cold, clammy hands, you read the title, speaking it out loud. "Minecraft: Playstation Edition". As these words leave your lips, you feel a chill run down your spine. "How can this be?", you think to yourself. "Minecraft wasn't created until 2009. By then, even the Playstation 3 was already 3 years old. This is impossible. Surely this is a fake, or a homebrew, or...something?" Flipping the game over, you take a gander at the rest of the case. At first glance, all appears to be normal. It has a rating, a barcode, gameplay screenshots, even a SLUS number. But upon further inspection, you notice the text on the back of the case. It's not English. In fact, it's no language that you've ever seen before, to your recollection. Strange, indeed. You tear your eyes away from the case. It's getting dark out. The owners of the house have begun packing up their unsold items, and most of the customers have gone home. You glance back down at the game to see the price sticker. $15. "Should I?", you ponder. 15 dollars is a sizeable amount for someone in your position. Why spend this much for something that might not even work? But you can't just let something this unusual go, you have to know what it is or it will haunt you for the rest of your life. For the first time, you open the case. You see the first disc: Overworld. Next to it appears to be the game manual. You open it, but the pages are all torn out. "Why would someone do this?" Shoving the thought aside, you close the empty housing of what presumably once was an instruction booklet, and open the second compartment of the case, revealing the other two discs: The End, and The Slip. "The Slip? Is that supposed to be The Nether?" Shrugging off your confusion, you question the integrity of the game. All the discs are there, but in what condition? You check the shiny, black underside of each disc for scratches, but they are minimal. You take one last look at your surroundings. Nobody has noticed you. In what is not your proudest moment, you close the case, shove it into the pocket of your hoodie, and as you do, you feel a sudden sense that someone or something is watching you. You spare a quick glance over your shoulder. Nothing. You briskly leave the scene, shuffle into your car and start the engine. Upon arriving at your humble abode, you slam the door behind you, startled by the sound. It seems to have snapped you out of your daze, bringing you to a more conscious state of mind. It's a very familiar feeling. The same feeling you experience every time you wake up. Your surroundings slowly become more real to you. You slowly become more self aware. Your clothes are damp from sweat, your vision is blurrier than normal, you don't even remember the drive home. It's as if you... teleported. Looking around the room, not quite sure what you're looking for, your eyes stop once they reach the clock on the wall. 11:57. "What the fuck..." Not so much a question that begs for an answer, but rather a simple declaration of bewilderment. You toss your keys in the direction of the table, not caring whether they land on it or not. You open the mysterious case, remove the Overworld disc, and place it into your Playstation console, close the lid, and press the power button. A procedure you've done so many times before, but this time, it doesn't feel so comforting. You are welcomed by the notoriously eerie startup sequence of the PS1, proceeded by a large spinning grass block accompanied by the word Loading... You feel yourself become increasingly more uneasy as the block continues to spin, and spin, and spin, and as it does so, you feel yourself starting to slip away. Before you have time to process this feeling, it stops, and the title screen presents itself to you. "Minecraft: Playstation Edition". There are 3 buttons: Play, Options, and Quit Game. Next to these options, a graphic of Steve. His eyes seem to pierce through yours, looking directly into your soul. But it's just a picture...right? The background, while perhaps unintentional, is intangibly disturbing. It appears to be some kind of mansion, expertly built, nonetheless, in a dark and foggy setting. You press play, proceeding to the World Select screen. To your surprise, there is already one world: Tutorial. You're no stranger to Minecraft, so you ignore it, eagerly jumping straight to the Create New World button. Most of the standard world creation options seem to be there, along with a virtual keyboard. You use it to name your world, then you set your gamemode, world type, difficulty, and with the controller ever so slightly trembling in your hands, you hesitate just for a second. Curiosity, anxiety, excitement, fear. All of these emotions hit you like a punch to the stomach. Your breath stops. The clock strikes 12. "Preparing for world creation. Do NOT turn off system" Enter the survival horror.