“It was really ahead of its time,” said Dean. “Branching nonlinear storyline, conversation trees, and a fully-implemented stat/skill system. The graphics weren’t the best, and it was a hassle swapping out all those floppies, but Parallel Worlds: The Void was as good as video games got in 1984.”

“And the Cadillac Cimarron was as good as subcompact cars got in 1983, so what?”

“Well, there was this little thing called the video game crash. You wouldn’t have heard about it, seeing as you were a zygote at the time, but about half the industry went belly-up. Hardly anyone was in the mood for epics, even for home computers, so the game moved barely five thousand copies. It wasn’t until people started passing illegal copies around in the late 80’s that it became famous.”

“And?”

“And it ended as a cliffhanger. You never find out the full story behind where you are or what’s going on. The company folded before they could finish the second installment. You could be sitting on the only copy in existence.”

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