D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad



"What about the last game?" asked Lily. "That seems relatively straightforward, but also the potential for silliness is high," 

Mint shook her head and explained, "No it wasn't straightforward at all. There's nothing like that game you can find… well anywhere really. The others were mostly based on mortal's children's games, but this was something Thyme had to basically work out from scratch," 

*I suppose that makes sense. Sure to us it just looks like Twister and it the name gets translated that way because that's obviously what it is to us… but if they've never seen the game before Thyme might have struggled with it. Considering it was developed completely from scratch.* 

[Do you think the colours on it were real?]

*What?*

[Well if it's so obviously Twister to us… do you think the translation ability also made it just… look more like Twister to help with the translation.]

*I'm going to say… no. At least, it might try to do that to other people but I have to have some faith in my eyes. Not even Thyme could do so. The idea that the translation is changing our perception like that would be… a bit much.*

[I suppose… it's not like people's mouth's line up properly with what they're saying when you start to look. It's hard to notice if you're not trying, but once you think to look it's obvious. So I can at least believe that it might try, but fail in this case.]

Mint continued to elaborate as Kat and Lily chatted mentally, "Well, Thyme wanted some more indoor games and in this case they were aiming more for the… teenage age bracket with them. I don't properly understand the whole 'rampant hormones' or the idea of a sex drive all that well, but I did take enough lessons on it, and the consequences that I can guess WHY a game like Twister would be fun for those people. 

"Anyway, we're jumping ahead. So Thyme needed something that was indoor, that would appeal to teenagers but wouldn't necessarily be something that only teenagers would like. There were a few different ideas thrown around, and apparently Twister wasn't entirely Thyme's idea, or at least, it was someone else's offhanded comment that helped Thyme figure it out. 

"Not sure who, Thyme has lots of friends, but one of them came to visit and said something along the lines of, 'their teenagers, just give them an excuse to get hot and sweaty in close proximity to their preferred sex' and Thyme apparently spent the next twenty minutes making it very clear this wasn't supposed to be a sex thing. The friend suggested an excuse for dancing, but Thyme turned that down as well because it really wasn't what they were looking for…

"Before the friend said 'Well I don't see how you could untangle the sex from the teens or the teens from each other, especially not in a private resort' and apparently that's where Thyme got the idea. Not that our version of it got all that lewd. Marigold was certainly trying, but in the end basically everyone was forced out of the game because they couldn't reach all the necessary spots. Which… is just weird. In testing that almost never happened. Or at least, not without other people being in the way. 

"Anyway… the first idea was just throwing everyone in a large box and having them running around hitting buttons that popped out of the walls and floor… and it wasn't a bad idea at all but Thyme couldn't work out a good way to simplify it for widespread use. Too much of the 'inner workings' were just Thyme making sure that it all continued to operate. I'm sure with enough time it could be worked out, but there were enough other reasons to put it off to the side instead. 

"The next idea was to slim it down and make it just a single flat area, but then it became more of a game of whacking the buttons. It was better to take up a position and camp it, abusing the length of your arms to try and hit as many buttons as possible. Which while fun, was not the type of game Thyme was looking for, so that too was pushed off into the 'another time perhaps' pile of things. 

"It took a few more iterations to even get close to the form of Twister you all saw. The very first version was a slightly smaller mat, that had the same number of dots, except none of them were coloured, they were all numbered instead. The idea was, you'd spin the spinner, it would select a number, and then you would have to touch it with the correct limb. It turned out to be much too luck dependant. Sometimes you could just stick to one section, while others you were required to have a limb in all four corners of the board. 

"So that got scrapped. The ways things were divided changed a few times. There was the one where the mat was separated into four but it was quadrants instead of four lines of dots. This one wasn't right either because you just had everyone fight around the dots closest to the middle you could. It did get all the players up close, but it just didn't play well in testing. Of course, Thyme would never get embarrassed pressed up against themselves, so that part was hard to test for… but it still didn't seem right. 

"Eventually Thyme would get others to help test things, but not just yet. It took a bit but they got to the current design, however… Thyme didn't necessarily want to stay there. Thyme thought it was too simple and a bit dull as it was, so there were all sorts of additions tried. Fighting, which was quickly prohibited, magic… also quickly removed. My personal favourite was when the mat was changed into a bunch of stepping stones over the water. It didn't actually change much in practice but it LOOKED really cool. Not as easy to move around as the mat though. 

"There were a few attempts at trying to make the mat more slippery. Make it harder for people to keep their grip while playing. Thyme tried all sorts of things. Water, oil, cake mix. That last one was a very weird testing day from what I'd heard. In the end though, none of the additions could really be said to make the game BETTER. The current Twister is rather elegant in its simplicity. It can be moved just about anywhere; the rules are easy to understand and anyone can run it."

Mint paused for a moment just to let that all sink in before she continued. "Oh, right there was that one attempt to play Twister on the water, with the dots less fixed in place, and more a series of connected floating pontoons. I hear that one was quite popular once Thyme brought in some outside help. I'll bet you'll never guess who Thyme got to help test some of the more refined versions of the game!" Mint finished with a massive grin that was too wide for her face.

Kat and Lily shared a look before Kat said, "I don't see how either of us would know the answer, we're not even from this dimension," 

Burnice shook her head, "No see, the way Mint is grinning at us tells me that it's gotta be someone super important… wait fuck it was Auctifer wasn't it? Thyme threw a few prototypes at Auctifer and his Queens and just let it happened… right?" 

Mint's oversized smile stayed fixed in place as she nodded rapidly. "Yeah that'd be right," said Burnice with a sigh, "I can imagine he rather enjoyed the game?" Mint continued nodding. "Urgh… I bet he tested all the variations with a bunch of different people and ended up saying that the simple version was best right?" 

"Exactly!" cheered Mint. "Auctifer explained that the one they could just… carry around and set up anywhere was so much more fun and convenient. It was also pretty easy to add things too if you wanted, but Auctifer felt like they were always 'nice one off additions' that were funny once or twice, but not all the time," 

*Welp. I guess that explains why Mint thought we'd know the answer. Auctifer IS pretty important… though… I wonder if this is a coincidence. Did Mint know we heard about Auctifer just before twister got played the first time? Or did she just assume we'd know of Auctifer because of how important he is.*

[I can't say. It could be either I guess. Still, I'm not sure why Mint would know when we found out though… she's not as connected to everything as Thyme is right? Though I suppose Thyme could've mentioned it… but I feel like Thyme wouldn't be going around talking about conversations they'd eavesdropped on. At least, not without good reason]