Dungeons & Wives (Volume 1)

Chapter One

Favorite Game

Most people would have said, “It’s just a game.” They might have played it, enjoyed it, and then moved on with their lives. Even the biggest fans would eventually quit and then fondly look back at it after a decade or so.

But it was always more than that to me.

It was a game that saved my life and, no matter how lame it might have sounded to some, gave me a purpose to keep on living.

Custom Dungeon World was the greatest game of all time as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, either.

It was the kind of game that so many gamers dreamt about yet obviously would never become real due to logistical reasons.

Whether those reasons were because of feature creep, lack of budget and assets, not having enough time in the world to produce it with an indie team—honestly, the fact that the game ever got made was a miracle.

Even if the richest, most powerful person in the world promised to make a game like Custom Dungeon World, nobody would believe it.

Everyone would think it was a scam or a false promise for the sake of attention.

At best, maybe some game with barely a tenth of the content would come out a few years later.

Then Custom Dungeon World dropped out of nowhere on a Tuesday for a fraction of the price that AAA games were sold at.

Some of its more ridiculous accomplishments included:

Over two hundred classes, each one with multiple specializations and ways to play. Someone could do three runs with the same class and it would feel different every time. Players also got to choose a secondary class to mix-and-match classes for even greater variety.

Over ten thousand pieces of equipment between armor, weapons, and accessories, many of which came with unique effects that could evolve a run’s gameplay even more.

Then there was the entire reforging and alchemy systems to improve stats on them or to combine the effects from different equipment pieces together.

Over a hundred unique dungeons on launch evenly spread throughout the game so that players never had to take the same path through.

Most of these dungeons, excluding the starting ones, were also the size of at least five dungeons you might find in any other game, with branching routes, optional bosses, and tons of secrets to discover.

Even the earlier dungeons in the game had special routes only accessible using items acquired later on, so there was always a reason to go back and explore some more.

Oh, and there was a “Dungeon Builder” mode for players to create and share their custom-made dungeons with others to go through.

Nearly a hundred likable NPC companions who could join the party if not playing with friends, and you could customize the NPCs’ classes, gear, and fighting styles.

Each one even had an entire questline with meaningful character growth that showed off their personalities and just how much love the creator put into them, too.

And if someone didn’t feel like playing with friends or scripted NPCs, they could create their own NPCs to party up with.

Those were just some of the more unbelievable elements of the game that were included on release.

I could also ramble about the insane number of quality-of-life features, the endless quests, the romance system, the implementation of new game plus, the way that every dungeon and boss had unique theme songs, how nothing was an asset flip and enemies that were simply reskinned variants of others were pretty rare, how incredibly optimized the game was while barely taking up any space, how the developers allowed broken builds to exist and never nerfed the fun exploits players discovered, and so on.

It was a dream game beyond expectations on release, and then the post-launch support came that basically doubled the game’s content with post-endgame content.

Then the most popular dungeons created by players got officially added to the game with their creators being financially compensated for them.

Every update brought more content on top of a game that already had far too much of it, not that anyone complained, and all the updates were free. No battle passes. No microtransactions. You bought the game once and then had access to everything it had to offer and continued to release.

But of course, anyone who knows how humanity is understands that we can’t have nice things.

Custom Dungeon World was such an insane game that it was impossible for everyone not to take notice of it, and there was just as much jealousy and spite as there was admiration and love.

Journalists and content creators hated being treated like equals to average players, never once receiving special treatment of any kind, and the game didn’t hold their hands, either.

Other developers claimed the game was “impossible” and that the only way it was possible was with exploiting cheap labor, theft, or heavily using AI-generated assets.

Certain groups of people tried to get the game banned and shamed people who played it because, admittedly, the developers did absolutely cater toward men, especially with how not a single unattractive girl existed in it and many of them had body proportions and outfits that were unrealistically sexual.

The developers refused to censor the game in any way, so it got banned in a few countries for its depictions of mature topics and some of its characters as well.

And despite everything, the developers remained totally anonymous.

Following legal documents led people to some elderly woman who clearly knew nothing about video games.

She was obviously used to hide the identity of the developers.

She was happy to help with hiding their identity, too, seeing as how she never once exposed who they were despite everything offered to her.

Some of the criticisms of the game were fair, though, especially when it came to the lack of a solid, overarching story to really tie everything together.

But that wasn’t what me and so many others played it for.

Custom Dungeon World was not meant to be a game for people who wanted to immerse themselves in a deep, epic story.

It was a game that put gameplay first, had no filler that wasn’t purely optional, and made sure that players didn’t have any of their time wasted on tutorials and worldbuilding.

Sure, there was worldbuilding there if people went looking for it, but nobody had to sit through ten minutes of cutscenes and then thirty minutes of dialogue before even getting to play the game.

The game started with fighting in a dungeon and ended with fighting in a dungeon. Gameplay was the most important part of the game, which was a shock to many AAA developers.

It was the greatest game ever made as far as I was concerned.

That was why I felt no shame in admitting I had over 50,000 hours in it with every single second of them being genuine.

I loved the game so much that I refused to taint my playtime with it by leaving it open whenever I wasn’t actively playing it.

Even on those days where I was exhausted and passing out, I always made sure to properly close the game before going to sleep.

Did my social life absolutely suffer as a result? Yes. Though, it wasn’t like I had much of one in the first place, and I couldn’t have had one even if I wanted one. It was only possible for me to make friends over the internet in the first place.

But I was so damn happy playing the game that I didn’t care. It was like a game personally made for me that did everything I loved.

Not only that, but it was a game that made my life worth living.

And I was about to get right back into playing it.

“There you go,” the nurse said as she helped me back into bed. “What’s your plan for today?”

“Same old, same old,” I answered.

“That dungeon game?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, right. I asked my boyfriend if he heard of it the other day.”

“Yeah? Does he play it?”

“He said he tried it and thought it was fun, but said the graphics were too… what was it? Oh, right. He said the graphics were too ‘anime’ for him, whatever that means.”

“Ah.”

“To be fair, it’s hard to imagine him playing any game that isn’t about sports or shooting people. You play any of those?”

“I used to, but I’m too hooked on dungeons now.”

“Nothing wrong with that! As long as you’re having fun, that’s all that matters, right?”

“Right.”

The nurse brought my laptop over from the counter, plugged it in, and prepared to leave. “Have fun! Don’t forget to buzz if you need anything.”

“Will do.” It’d be impossible to forget that after being stuck in a nursing home for most of my life.

And it was where I’d spend the rest of my life.

No amount of physical therapy, surgeries, or medications would fix what happened to me, so all I could do was have fun playing my favorite game every day.

I already had enough medical issues before losing control of the lower half of my body.

But, like they said, it is what it is.

I booted up my laptop, waited for it to load, and wasted no time opening up Custom Dungeon World.

I had just finished a Geomancer/Duelist run the night before, so it was time to get a new run started.

I wasn’t sure what kind of run to go with this time around, though.

There were a few different ones I theorycrafted and felt like trying.

Well, first, it was time to create a new character.

The power went out as soon as I clicked “Create Character.”

That was my immediate assumption, at least, but I realized it had to be wrong considering that I never heard of a power outage that also turned the sun outside off.

Everything was dark.

Then there was light.

And the light took the shape of the character creation screen from Custom Dungeon World.

I found myself standing in the rented room of a tavern in front of a tall mirror with all of the usual character creation options floating in the air next to it. As for the person I saw in the mirror, they looked… well, like me. Except I was standing.