dralchemist | LEMNISCATE | OC-ONLY GAME PROOF OF CONCEPT MEME

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Attention, Lemniscate Resort Complex Employees!
This is a friendly reminder that the LRC's Soft Opening event is still ongoing, and so we require your full attention and cooperation to make sure that everything runs absolutely smoothly for our valued guests.
Please make sure that your assigned storefronts are in good condition and good stock. We wouldn't want any complaints on our first day, after all!
Do be kind to the automated support staff, and make sure that they're following all uploaded protocols and heuristics to the best of their abilities.
Management might be able to see everything, but even we can't be everywhere at once!
Be safe, stick to the guidelines, and we'll get through our Soft Opening not just a team, but as the LRC Family.

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The voice on the intercom might be perky and smiling, but it's either prerecorded or deepfaked. Just wrong enough to dip into the uncanny valley. This place looks less like it's been abandoned, and more that it's never been settled at all. Pristine. Septic. Commercial. Lifeless, in the way that it's waiting for life to come at all.

Welcome to infinity. Welcome to Lemniscate.

LEMNISCATE is an experimental, OC-only jamjar-style game, that I've been brewing on and off for months, with the help of a few random dreams here and there. This is a proof-of-concept meme to help develop the idea and see how other people feel about playing around in it.

THINGS TO BE AWARE OF:

Characters wake up to the above music and announcement in a store that they find themselves owning, some commercialized bastardization of their profession, their backstory, their lives. Expect a Coerthas Fried Chocobo in the food court, a Bed, Bathos, and Beyond that features wall art with pop art depictions of major, possibly tromatic moments. Figure out a name, service, and aesthetic for the storefront. Puns are encouraged, but not mandatory.
- Any and all personal belongings will be confiscated except for their wardrobe, which is allowed in the name of authentic service personalization. Copies of wardrobe items will be available in employees' A₀ suites.
- Characters will also be offered an LRC branded PDA, and have access to a music player loaded with the best of royalty-free music available to stream, LRC intranet text forum (supposedly moderated by administrative staff), voice recorder, memo recorder, open-source art program, texting, voice, and high-fidelity video calls. A₀room assignment and store assignment is noted through the PDA, and supposedly administrative messages and alerts will be pushed when necessary.
- The PDA also acts as an NFC key for employee housing; losing access to your PDA means you'll be locked out of your apartment. Keep it safe!
Though technically managers and employees of the shops that they have come to "own", there's nothing that really keeps them tied to their store. There are no customers, there's no cash flow, and anything confiscated from the shelves or otherwise destroyed is returned to pristine condition at the beginning of the day.
The grounds are routinely patrolled by vaguely egg-shaped security robots designed to catch thieves, delinquents, miscreants, or anybody not following resort conduct. However, it doesn't seem like they've been configured correctly, as while they'll shout synthesized reprimands and call for a higher security authority, nobody ever comes.
- There are also rolling advertising robots along the grounds, usually blaring some jingle and a pre-recorded message about sales, deals, and events supposedly going on at shops. Each one is an announcement for a new arrival, letting those already there know when somebody else has moved in by shouting about a buy one, get one free sale.
Characters are power nerfed on arrival; any supernatural, magical, technological ability or otherwise is not disabled but essentially peacebonded: heavily weakened to the point of uselessness. Could you cast fireballs? It's just a sparkler now; fun, but it's not gonna set anything ablaze.
- In general, while characters' biological makeup will not change (robots stay robots, constructs stay constructs), they are forced into a relatively human height range; anything above 7 feet will get reproportioned accordingly. No tall poppies!
OCs mean OCs. I know you'd like to play your blorbos, and I may open up a post like this otherwise, but I want to give original characters some love. This does mean fandom OCs, customizeable/blank protagonists, and tabletop OCs are all fair game. Want to give your WoL a spin? Go for it! Trying to give your private AU Emet-Selch a job? That's a no go.

THINGS TO SEE:

The Lemniscate Resort Complex could be likened to a cleaned up, near-futuristic version of Dead Rising 2's Fortune City, a massive, 5 mile radius domed all-inclusive resort seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
Resort amenities are all connected by well planned, well lit concrete footpaths. There is only one road, and it leads from the outside of the dome into an empty parking tower.
The LRC is made up of the following sections:
- The Lemniscate Mall, a massive, sprawling indoor/outdoor mall complex that hosts endless rows of identical, blank, empty storefronts... until suddenly populated by a character's entrance and subsequent employment. Features multiple food courts, an indoor mini-golf course, two 12-screen theaters on either anchoring end of the mall [showing generic-brand mockbusters 24/7!], and an arcade/bowling alley/indoor ice rink. Shops spill out into outdoor boardwalks and tree-lined promenades, with shopping courts surrounding elaborate fountain displays.
- The Aleph Housing Centers:
  - Aleph-Null (A₀), employee housing: Just because you live where you work doesn't mean you can't live in luxury! A high-end apartment tower with assigned rooms, doled out in 2-, 3-, and 4- person apartments. Each apartment has a private bedroom and en-suite bathroom for every employee's privacy, and a shared living/kitchen area for the apartment itself. Self-maintained, though, so don't expect room service.
  - Aleph-One (A₁), low-end guest suites: They might be the budget option, but Lemniscate has spared no expense in making sure that even the ordinary guest has an extraordinary time. Think high class hotel suites with communal bedrooms. Even if you're not getting a window room, you can have a virtual vista on one of the inner walls!
  - Aleph-Two (A₂), high end guest suites: Now we're talking deluxe! No longer apartment or hotel towers, each A₂ booking is a house unto itself. And if you're willing to shell out the serious dough, then you can get some primo lakeside real estate, resplete with all-inclusive food, drink, and robotic house service staff.
- Trembling Giant Country Club: An 18-hole, professionally designed and automatically maintained golf course that takes you on a tour around Lake Cantor. Hit the links, then stop by Pando's Clubhouse for after-game food, drinks, and entertainment.
- Cardinal Beach, an artificial beach that abuts one of the edges of the massive dome. Carefully installed machinery generates lifelike waves that lap up against soft, golden, precision-engineered sand.
- Lemniscate Lifestyle Center: Far away from home and missing your leg day? Have no fear, the LLC is here! Fully equipped with a state of the art gymnasium, a massive and sprawling rock climbing wall, multiple lap pools, courts for basketball, racketball, soccer, and a gymnastics/parkour annex. Finally, you too can have a good time bouncing down one of those long trampolines before diving into a pit of cubes. Posted schedules for yoga, kickboxing, martial arts, and other fitness classes update daily, though the LLC seems to be in a dearth of trainers at the moment.
- Restaurant Row: An outdoor offshoot of the mall, styled after a downtown mainstreet, boasting a number of high-end restaurants with automated service. There's a central plaza with a stage meant for live entertainment, though it's yet to see use. The restaurants below are non-exhaustive; feel free to take a meal in any number of quality venues.
  - Digges' Olde English Pub: Contemporary takes on British cuisine, and a robotic bartender in a bowler hat to serve you good, old fashioned ales and lagers.
  - Bernoulli's: Well cooked, middle of the road Italian classics. (Robot) Handmade pastas and pizzas, to your liking.
  - La Brasserie d'l'Hôpital: Five star French cuisine with prix fixe courses (the prix is "all inclusive".)
  - Escher's Cafe: Pastries, coffees, and bistro sandwiches, available to go or to eat alongside an abstract sculpture garden.
  - Gyu-Kaku: A yakitori restaurant where each table has a charcoal grill in the center, and diners are encouraged to order premium cuts of raw meats and vegetables to cook at their leisure. Also includes fresh sushi service and a selection of sakes.
- Administration & Maintenance: [STRICTLY OFF LIMITS] The main hub for the administrative staff of the resort, a pristine glass and steel office complex. 6 floors of workrooms, "open concept" offices, meeting halls, and other office couture rise, but they're all depopulated.
- Maintenance Tunnels: [STRICTLY OFF LIMITS] Hatches scattered all around the bounds of the Dome lead down to a sprawling network of fluorescently lit concrete hallways, underground passageways that allow for movement around the resort without having to disturb guests' views or concepts off the resort. Please do not wander off of the clearly marked and well notated paths.
- Outside The Resort: Surrounding the LRC but still within the bounds of the dome are some carefully curated sections of wildlife. The edges of the dome have captured a section of a nearby forest, with the rest of it growing outside the LRC's confines, while a manmade lake, Lake Rosen, sits on the edge of the A₂ housing plots.
- The Dome: A geodesic dome that stretches impossibly high and wide surrounding the LRC, with a reinforced, impenetrable steel wall at its base. It's transparent, so the moon, sun, and weather affect everything on the outside. But inside, it's always well conditioned, balmy, and perfect.
  - There seems to be one main entrance in and out, a massive, reinforced gate that leads into the only road into and out of the dome. A guardhouse and check-in kiosk sits robotically manned at the front, ready to welcome guests that never seem to arrive.

THINGS TO DO:

I. Explore and Mingle
- The grounds sprawl for a reason. There's plenty to see and to do; ~~all~~ most of the locations above are available and open 24/7. Hit the links, hit the gym! Enjoy Transmorphers or The Da Vinci Treasure at your leisure! It might be lonely with no guests, but you can hang out with your fellow employees all you'd like.
II. Investigate
- Sure, the maps may say that certain areas are off limits, but... if there's nobody to enforce the boundaries, then who's to stop you? Just be warned that guest and employee experiences are curated to limited areas, and any incidents occurring out of established boundaries are not covered by the LRC contract.
- a. The Grounds At Night: The stars shine overhead with minimal light pollution. Walkway paths are illuminated, providing careful avenues to go from place to place. Security and Advertisement robots roam on set paths in their assigned sections, though some of them are acting... erratically. Glitching out and getting stuck in pathing loops. Going off script and having conversations, either with themselves or others. Shops that should be open 24/7 are going dark and shuttering with seemingly no rhyme or reason. And be careful not to get hit by the automated sprinkler system.
- b. Administration: A&M should be off limits, but there's no barrier of entry. From the abandoned foyer to the open concept offices to the empty server racks and emptier break rooms, there don't seem to be any signs of life. Digital whiteboards, clipboards, projections, papers, and reports are all filled with stock assets and Lorem Ipsum filler text, like this place is supposed to be a parody of a modern tech office. Randomly generated inspirational posters line the walls in irregular intervals. What kind of work is even supposed to be done in here?
- c. Maintenance: Even deeper into the A&M building are underground offices and workshops, similarly filled with junk text and nonsense. The workshops seem to be repair bays for the staff robots, with inactive models in various states of cybernetic repair visible in different berths. A good number of maintenance tunnels end up here, so it's easy to at least find your way to Repairs if you get lost in the tunnels. Just try not to get spooked by disembodied voices echoing through the halls here, or the schematics for more humanoid support staff.
III. Escape: Or at least try to. The dome stretches far and wide, but the edges are clearly marked, and seem impenetrable. Security robots that can see employees attempting to touch or tamper with the edges of the dome will flash warning lights and try to dissuade such activity. But any actual damage somehow sustained by the thick chrome walls? That will trigger a blaring alarm, red spotlights shining down on the wall in question, an APB put out on all employees PDAs about "a potential out-of-bounds exception", and a swarm of security robots designed to actually detain, restrain, and remove the offending employee from the edges. Get ready to run.
IV. Whatever You'd Like: Come up with events! Think of things that might happen in this kind of setting! I can't think of every possible scenario right off the bat, and I'd love to hear what kind of interesting prompts get dreamt up by people who want to get swept up in this world. Just keep in mind the aesthetic of clean capitalist resort with hidden, technological secrets as an overarching aesthetic. Feel free to take control of NPC robots who fill the shoes of resort staff, knowing that they are showing the beginning signs of sentient intelligence and personalities where they should be running on pre-programmed subroutines. Anything else? Go wild (within corporate mandated bounds)!

HOW TO PLAY:

This is all improv, free jazz, bouncing ideas off of one another. If you want drama, keep drama OOC. Make sure to post at least your character's store and their basic deal as an OC before rolling out your prompts and ideas.

Ask questions. Plan, if you'd like. Let me know if you need clarification. I can be contacted at alqemizzy or Izzy#6915 on Discord.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ ooc; Marcel comes with some warnings, please mind them. ]

[ Does Marcel look like a guy who owns a pet shop? No. Is Marcel a man who now owns a pet shop? Yes.

Doggy Style is a medium-sized pet shop with an evident dog theme that stores everything from delicious, beef-flavored snacks in natural rainbow colors for your pup(!) to dog beds, toys and equipment. If your dog needs it, it's here. If you need a dog, he's got phone numbers for a wide range of breeders and rescues, too, though there never seems to be anyone on the other end of the call.

He offered, though, right? So now you owe him. ]

I.

option a.
[ Does he get the whole mall thing? Nah. He used to shoplift in places like this when he was a kid, working here now in what's obviously shady business but otherwise a pretty standard job? Fucking weird. And being around all that dog stuff makes him kinda miss his own dog, you know, if Marcel came with a normal human heart. Since he doesn't, he just hangs out at Bernoulli's, eating pizza and only thinking about his dog when there's no one to stare up at him pleadingly for leftovers. Like that, he might not look it, but he won't actually punch you in the face if you join him. Not right off the bat anyway. ]

option b.
[ The Lemniscate Lifestyle Center is more his thing, yeah? Even devoid of people - or, hey, maybe especially devoid of people. No one to keep an eye on. For fucking once, he can focus on his own shit. Most hours a day, there's a good chance you'll find Marcel parkouring in the gymnastics annex or doing taekwondo forms by himself. Currently, however, he's doing push-ups and general warm-up for a lap. Disturb him or join him, if you dare. ]

II.a

[ It's been a day. It's been uneventful, like fucking always. Marcel needs a smoke. Standing beneath the stars and craning his head to look up, he sucks on a cigarette and runs his hand over the back of his head, cropped hair coarse against his palm. Catching the smoke between his fingers and licking his lips, he says to no one in particular, maybe himself, maybe some innocent bystander who better think about running now: ]

You think dogs care that we named some fucking constellation after them? I think they'd be fucking psyched, if they had the brains for that crap.

[The innocent (or, well, "innocent") bystander has come wandering in out of the darkness, hands stuffed in the front pocket of his hoodie and a wild-eyed, tense look about him. He seems about to say something when Marcel speaks instead, his own words dying on his lips as he mulls over what he was just asked.]

...no? What?

Stars, yo.

[ With the hand holding the cigarette, he points up at the midnight sky, giving the newcomer a sideways glance. Just quickly sizing him up. Worth robbing? Probably not. No one here's truly got anything worth stealing and he knows, he's been shoplifting. It all just vanishes the next day. Psst. ]

There's a constellation called the Dog or something. Big Dog. Yeah, something like that.

[ Another inhalation of smoke, it leaves his nostrils in small puffs. ]

Like, fuck, wouldn't you be honored if someone slapped your name on a fucking star somewhere?

[Max sizes him up right back, in a manner both shrewd and intrigued, even if he finds the topic nonsensical.]

I guess? ...I don't think dogs really care.

[He pauses, settling back against the wall with one leg propped up as he angles his gaze upward.]

You know that shit's not real, right? [He gestures to the sky.] They've got us in like a dome thing. It's probably projected.

What the fuck's 'real'?

[ A grunt that could be a laugh, could also just be a grunt. You decide what's 'real' here. Marcel walks over, sucking the last life out of his cigarette and stubbing it on the ground under his heel. After that, he pops himself up against the same wall same way as the other man. ]

Nothing was real where I came from, shit isn't real here. What's the difference?

Real philosopher type, aren't you.

[Max glances at him out of his periphery, a playful glint in his eye.]

What makes something real then? If I punch a wall here it'll break my hand, that seems pretty real.

LEMNISCATE | OC-ONLY GAME PROOF OF CONCEPT MEME

marcel verlinden | doggy style.

IIa

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