CLOSED

/// UNSTABLE EGA STREAKS HISS ACROSS A VOXEL-CLOUDED SKY FALLING ///

In the midst of a magical catastrophe that threatens the globe, the FBI has traced the origin back to the offices of GOG.com. The feds, unfamiliar with the deeper aspects of PC games, have seen all agents entering GOG HQ mind-warped. As time is running low, officials are now desperately calling on you, a seasoned veteran equipped with decades of training in games, thus belonging to a rare group deemed capable of saving humanity in a last-ditch attempt.

/// SCORCHED DOSBOX VOLTROT IMPLODES LOW-POLY ENVIRONMENT NIL ///

Shoved into the first accessible room at GOG headquarters, you are greeted with a message written across a wall in huge, nervously scribbled letters: "WHATEVER YOU DO, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES". For some reason, the sentence seems to abruptly end there.

Looking around the room, you notice a few other things:

+ an alarm clock flashing "SOON" in red, blocky LED. There are two buttons on the device: one yellow, one green
+ a phone-book-sized printout of "Good News: A GOG PR Manifesto", precariously balanced on top of a slightly vibrating box, functioning as an impromptu lid
+ a metal plaque, stating "Employees Must Use Galaxy!", mounted askew on one of the walls
+ shown on a computer screen: a support ticket count of 178.542 (rising) above a prompt to "PURGE"
+ a monk's robe hanging next to a switch labeled "DISCONNECT"
+ an orange bear plush toy tangled up inside a chaotic nest of cables
+ a keyboard missing three keys: the letters D, M, and R. You find these on the floor across the room

What will you do?

/// NETHER HACK RESIDUAL MIDI FLOAT Z-BUFFER VECTOR BIO-TOTALLING ///

= How to enter the Giveaway =

Write a short story about what you would do in the situation above, describing the outcome of your actions: (1) either you ingeniously end the ongoing catastrophe or (2) you hilariously fail and make things much, much worse.

= Prize =
Enter to possibly win a game (or several games) of your choice up to a total of USD 5 from the GOG catalog. One winner drawn from all entries via random.org.

= Details =
Giveaway runs at the least until December 26th. Please allow chat messages to be received from anyone in your account settings for this, so I can get in touch with you.
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Each story posted automatically enters the giveaway. Feel free to write up something, even if you do not want to enter (please state if so). Let's have some light-hearted fun - I'm looking forward to your stories (a few sentences suffice; all sizes welcome, all count). And good luck all.

/// CITYSCAPE LEVELING GALAXY.DLL MOUNT VR SCUMM TEXTURE BLEED ///

= Giveaway Entrants =
ywzywz, aCyborg, tag+, CthuluIsSpy, servobeupstry, RepJunior, action_fan, FrostburnPhoenix, BenKii, DiffuseReflection, altosy, Gede, Catventurer, cose_vecchie

i called a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy to help me with this mess. ( and ofcourse that guy is YOU under my post , oh please hep us )

I'm in

As I enter I take a look at my surroundings. Noticing the alarm clock is not displaying the time I go over, open it, and replace the batteries, ah good now it is displaying the time as 00:00 I see instructions in the back of how to set the clock and set the time to the proper time. Gamers need to know when it is 3am for peak gaming performance.
I then go over to the keyboard and put in the D key, swap the F and R keys, swap the E and G keys, swap the H and A key, and swap the J and M key. Now that they keyboard spells DREAM I slide my finder across these keys. Instantly I hear the alarm clock go off. I wake and realize it was just an epic dream... shame I have to get up for work and answer a ton of support tickets from GOG customers...

There is no doubt to me, the PR Manifesto is crystal clear:
Announce immediately through the ticket communication system using emojis only

"EPYC acquired GOG. Long life to Galaxy!"

With absolute radio silence once sent
...and just in case, Chewie the bot as the on-call PR representative
(Sorry! The purple dot was overwhelmed... is taking some days off!)

And somebody Please!! Give the bear a hand and enroll it to the witness protection ASAP!


Those clueless blues...

[Thanks for the chance, the idea and good luck to all!]

My character's luck stat is at maximum and I'm terrible at point and click games, so I just random rub things against other things and hope it works out.
Normally such silly actions would do nothing, however my obscene, reality defying luck makes it work out in the end.
It turns out, replacing the lid with the bear, shoving the Galaxy plaque into the wires and rearranging the letters D, M, R into MDR will call in a bunch of good humored French Engineers to sort the mess out.

...

1
I see the resemblance to a game in GOG database, so to get back control (hah) of the situation I look for the knowledgeable janitor who knows everything. We listen to great music and find a guy named Dylan who got bored waiting for his sister and started talking with some guys who claimed DRMs are epic. After adding them to all games making them slow and prone to crashing, he wanted to add it to reality in the new update coming soon (since about a thousand years or two). We call his sister Jesse, who has lost track of time playing the upgraded Witcher 3 and convince him to type "delete all drm" on the main computer with the missing letters we found, saving the world with only a couple hundred years to spare! The robe is actually a t-shirt which I take and we go searching for the sequel.

@ywzywz teamwork, quick thinking. but look at what your colleague did though ...
@aCyborg what a relief, just a dream. all nice and quiet now
@tag+ emoji strategy, yep, that sounds like it should work (GOG should adopt that for sure)
@CthuluIsSpy French engineers to the rescue, bravo. good thing you knew how to call them
@servobeupstry purging, straightforward. now, let's hope for a timely response from support
@RepJunior the Finnish janitor solution, classic path to regain control

Thanks for helping out, phew! This anomaly should soon be contained then ... WAIT, OH NO - DUCK!

/// HOLO DIAMOND VIPER FX MOD AAC DEMAKE SURGE PHYTO-DESTRUCT ///

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Great fun reading your stories. I'll be updating the list of giveaway entrants in the first post. Looking forward to more wacky solutions :)

Cool giveaway. Not in though since I'm bad with these types of stuff. Will be checking it out for the funny entries.

Thanks. You've got some time to change your mind though, and still give it a go if you like.

What a trip, particularly the final scenes. The ups and downs of it. Might it indeed be all a dream? ... OH LORD, INCOMING!

/// XOR#HYDRANT-GATE CAPTCHAIZED GOG.CONNECT EXTINCTION BRINK ///

Fun giveaway, love the creativity!
Not in, but I'll be enjoying the fun ideas. :)

BTW, has anyone just walked in, saved the bear and at the keyboard simply ... CTRL - ALT - DELETE ??

(Old gamer here) LOL.

I'm good. I'm just looking forward to the stuff people will come up with. :)

Yeah, you'd think an easy answer would be worth trying first. It's what I'm saying, takes a veteran to deal with this thing properly. HECK AHH, WHAT'VE YOU DONE?

/// JACKED INSOMNIA KEAN[ING]JAM STARS.5 COPIES.87 PATIENCE.ZERO ///

Seeing as I've been called in to save the world, there's only one thing to do.

I Use the cables to mark out a square with an "X" inside it. I Then place the clock and plaque on opposite corners of the square to represent time and space, and the box and robe on opposite corners to represent the magical and mundane. Lastly I place the bear plush in the center, take a step back, and chant-

BAKA ECCHI NEKO SEINEN GOD GO GO!

This seals the anomaly within myself and transports me to a fantasy world where I am greeted by a tsundere priestess and a shy kitty girl.

I Then save the world.