Quick! Grab all your gold bar or the most expensive or powerful item and put it into the correct slot! If the world might end due to this encounter than your might as well go out strong.
Plot thickens (cool monster BTW)OK So mini HR is in the game now. Seems like the real HR is still in sepia town. I don’t fully understand is real HR experiencing this vicariously or virtually or as reality? What a guy. Along the same lines when one of the denizens of Arkerra buys the farm (dies a death) are they like dead? or does somebody in sepia just press a key and revive an icon on the left side of the screen? Get another life till you run out of them lives. Earn more life by collecting shiny coins. I mean this is after all a video game right? Then there is Best’s tubie human floating in saline solution or amniotic fluid or some cool stuff. Dead or alive?.
Best is a hard core gamer, we all know them. He will be back with a 3 hour video showing how he solo’d the hardest dungeon using a toothpick glitch. Only his will be how he solo’d an entire other dimension!
Considering that HR I think it was said that Best still showed brain activity, like he’d been transported to another world…
Unless we’re going to get yet another world introduced to us, I’m fairly certain that Best is a denizen of the digital world now. It’s quite possible he’s WAV.
I know of a MMO that recently added some hard mode options. The hardest one does have permadeath, tjough you can unlock two revives if you live long enough.
So much to take in. Upon further inspection our mostly pixelated monster seems to have the pupil of his eyeball in sharp focus. The iris is evocative of the vagina lookin thingie which appears when people in this comic strip are lookin across the gap which must not be crossed.
It’s creepy in context. Consider that the thing appears to be highly disordered noise…static, introduced into ordered data. To a digital universe, this is effectively the purest symbol of entropy it can experience while still existing/being online.
It can’t be realistic because it is antithetical to reality. It lacks detail because, by nature, it opposes the concept of detail. Think of it as something like the Nothing’s event horizon…not terrifying because of how it looks, but the alien terribleness of what it represents as it intrudes into their world, converting it vertice by vertice into more…nothing.
An excellent analysis of the situation, Radio Silence, and one with which I completely agree. Terror is something that really only makes sense in context and, in this context, it is unimaginably horrifying.
Ahem.. But, then, why d this thing even have this eye-mouth-thing?
To be honest, this thing would be actually somewhat more menacing to me if it were without anything ike this at all. Like one of these sentient oozes/slimes in horror films. Faceless, limbless, mouthless, but still capable of feeling you, moving to you, and frigging consume you whole.
Or, conversely, with a lots of eyes. You never can go wrong with a lots of eyes. Lots of eyes are always FTW, in my book.
So, lemme get this straight without reading back through:
The cultists who are in the game, want to kill everyone else in the game, so they are basically exploiting a glitch/virus/whatever to do just that, and the CREATOR of the game is HELPING them do this, in the name of trying to… what-was-it? Shut off the tubes or wake up the guys inside? Or kill them in-game in order to wake them up, because somehow he can’t?
Am I on the right track? :I
I love this. There seems to be a quite huge moral dilemma behind this: Which status has a artificial reality? A universe that’s simulated in another one? But with persons who have phenomenal experiences of their own.
It’s also the main conflict…and huge plot twist (IIRC, it’s revealed about halfway through the second disk)…of the video game Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. (Kind of a huge spoiler, but it’s a 10 year old game, so…) Though SO makes the dilemma a bit less muddy by making all the player characters, and all but a handful of the friendly NPCs people who exist entirely within the game world, making it a lot clearer that the Eternal Sphere has full independent existence.
I know it’s supposed to be an intimidating beast of horror, but my Zelda training has conditioned me to want to just immediately wail on that vulnerable eyeball ad nauseam.
eye would like to see this being defeated, if eye have anything to say about it, hopefully eye am seeing it straight and they put it out of its misery by aiming for the eye.
Sadly, Tectonicus is certainly not a little pale girl. Though, I bet he’ll cry like one after encountering something like this creature. After all, HR is the creator of this universe. To the gods of this world, he is like Eru Ilúvatar to Valar.
Tho it shall be lost at the ass end of this comment sections, I hereby do predict that when Frig and Penk meet up there will be some hot romance! It just came to me seeing this page, for some reason…
Hail, denizens of this site, I have traveled long to reach thee, and now wish to give my salutations to you all…
But seriously, started reading this comic (like 3 days ago) and just finished reading from chapter 1 up until now, and I can say that I love this place, especially the puns
LOOKOUT!! It’s an 8-bit demon!
Who’s that pokémon? It’s Missing No.
Quick! Grab all your gold bar or the most expensive or powerful item and put it into the correct slot! If the world might end due to this encounter than your might as well go out strong.
H̡̹̝͖̝̦̥̫̳Ù̮̮̯̩̮̘͙U͚̱̹̼̺̘̭̦̳Ṳ̷̥̦̰͙͙͍U̶҉̼͚̻̪̤̞͔̺U͙̯̘̼̣̕͠Ṳ̪͍͇̥U̷̳Ú̷̶͙̻͕̳͉̻̥M̜̕͠͠A͓̖͓̖̫̰͠A̴̸ͅA͙̱̜̝̙͈̫͢A̢̧̞̮̱͈̤͉ͅA͎̫̻͓̝̯̘A͏̘̼̤̬͔͠A̳͙̘̱̜A̝͘͠͠A̡̼̗͓͉͇̮͙̣Ạ̡̢̰̗͚̦͓N͏̼̫̙͙͡!̦̺͚̲̥̥ :D
IÄ! VEL-KOZ!
It’s the little things, like the corrupted alt-text, that really show how much you guys care about creeping us all out.
“look into my eye and see you’re meant to be apart of me” …O.O NOPE!
NO. BAD DIGI-OLD GOD.
DROP IT.
—===### Reticulating Spines ###===—
Yes, well…
“I did it thirty-five minutes ago.”
I see what you did there…
I don’t. o_o?
Watchmen. Read it.
No.
Yes. And DON’T WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST.
in fact, just don’t watch the movie at all if you read the real thing. you will cry.
Can I watchwomen?
No, you creeper.
Ozy what you did there!
Wow… wow.
Huh. We’re gonna need a bigger raid.
If you have any ideas about building a better mouse trap, now’s the time to start kitbashing it together…
One that kills bugs dead?
Oh yeah. That thing eats bugs alright. It also eats viruses, firewall, buffers & all of the code as well.
D-Reaper versus Savage Races coalition.
Ha! Sucks to be you, Savage Races coalition.
And then it will suck for Gastonia and suck for Akera. Congratulations for being second in line to die!
Aw…Sauron and Cthulu had a baby!
Sulu?
Oooh my.
Sauron and Cruella de Vil…
Nope its vel-koz.
Hey – isn’t that the once-invisible monster from Jonny Quest? (plus some tentacles)
I was thinking Forbidden Planet.
That’s one heckuva ID manifestation there.
That thing scared the heck out of me, along with Cruella DeVil and the Horta. Also the ‘Return the Slab!’ mummy from Courage.
Nah. It’s the end of game monster from Borderlands. Just watch, it’ll grow rocket pods on those tentacles any frame now.
The loot drops for this monster are gonna be so disappointing…
Well, the loot that its victims are carrying should be getting dropped too.
Looks like some kind of Oculus Rift
BEWARE, I LIVE!
RUN, COWARD!
I HUNGER. RUN, RUN, RUN!
He comes?
Ĥ̵̛̠̮̠̟͈͙̪̘̼̼̺͓͔ͮ͒̊̒ͤ̾ͮ̒̅͗͑̋͂ͩ̓̂̀͘Ế̡͐̎ͯͬ͜͏̶̹͚̻͚̳̼̹͍̜̪͚̪͉ͅ ̷̢͇͉̱̦̥̲͕̞̹͓͎͈͓̩̼̰̳̫̽̏͛ͮ̑͂̎̀̓̾͠Ç̏̅̿̌͐̇ͬ͌ͥ̍̄̚̚͏͇͓̩̣̖̮̺̗̬̮͍͕̼̩ͅO̅̆̽̃̾ͪͭ̚͠͏̸̜̠̫͍͉̖͓̭͕̫̣̘̞͈̰̥̹̯ͅM̸͖̗̣̳͎͖͐͌͗̔̃͛̌̏͜E̴̛̼͕̗̩̤͍̗̪̭̘̲̹͇͇͕̫̞̐̄̐̒ͮ̂̾̄̓̔̎̿̌̾͞͡S̸̢̝͔̗̬̼̳̬̫͉̘̲͎ͣ͌̽͗͒ͨ̋̇̽́́͠.̢̢͕̮̣̥̺̮̎ͬ̀̔ͫͪͧͨ͐ͫ̆̂ͯͫ͂̿̽͜
shoggie!
Dat Shoggotron tho
Splugorth!
It’s Payet Beast!
Plot thickens (cool monster BTW)OK So mini HR is in the game now. Seems like the real HR is still in sepia town. I don’t fully understand is real HR experiencing this vicariously or virtually or as reality? What a guy. Along the same lines when one of the denizens of Arkerra buys the farm (dies a death) are they like dead? or does somebody in sepia just press a key and revive an icon on the left side of the screen? Get another life till you run out of them lives. Earn more life by collecting shiny coins. I mean this is after all a video game right? Then there is Best’s tubie human floating in saline solution or amniotic fluid or some cool stuff. Dead or alive?.
Best is a hard core gamer, we all know them. He will be back with a 3 hour video showing how he solo’d the hardest dungeon using a toothpick glitch. Only his will be how he solo’d an entire other dimension!
Considering that HR I think it was said that Best still showed brain activity, like he’d been transported to another world…
Unless we’re going to get yet another world introduced to us, I’m fairly certain that Best is a denizen of the digital world now. It’s quite possible he’s WAV.
I know of a MMO that recently added some hard mode options. The hardest one does have permadeath, tjough you can unlock two revives if you live long enough.
So much to take in. Upon further inspection our mostly pixelated monster seems to have the pupil of his eyeball in sharp focus. The iris is evocative of the vagina lookin thingie which appears when people in this comic strip are lookin across the gap which must not be crossed.
Can you link to other appearances of this vagina lookin thingie in this comic?
Gonna take sime time 2 find em tommorrow I will link Busy night tonite Come to think I B busy tomorrow nite too, Casandra. see what I can do.
http://guildedage.net/comic/chapter-27-page-12/ biggmac called it the Death Pussy in the comments which were as snarky as usual on that day, November 7, 2013
Sometimes an iris is just an iris.
Except when it’s a vagina lookin thingie. Then it’s a vagina lookin thingie.
“Look into that place you dare not go. You will find me there, staring back at you.”
+1 Internet for the first to correctly get the reference.
What would Muad’dib do?
Here’s your +1.
Considering that the reference was not vague or obscure in any way, I knew it was only a matter of time.
:D
So THIS is how viruses look like from inside the machine ? Japanese tentacle monster style…
So I guess your antivirus is some half-naked school girl?
No, that’s the data it infects. The antivirus is probably a woman in samurai gear. It doesn’t always guarantee her victory.
Or it’ll be some kind of cyborg. Maybe even capable of transformations that take forever & a day to finish before it can fight.
Holy fuck, *jaw dropped*
“It’s evil! Don’t touch it!”
What is this Eye? Don’t even.
While somewhat impressive, this monster still looks like something from Commander Keen or old child cartoons =\
Hoped for something more… realistic, detailed, or creepy. Dunno =\
It’s creepy in context. Consider that the thing appears to be highly disordered noise…static, introduced into ordered data. To a digital universe, this is effectively the purest symbol of entropy it can experience while still existing/being online.
It can’t be realistic because it is antithetical to reality. It lacks detail because, by nature, it opposes the concept of detail. Think of it as something like the Nothing’s event horizon…not terrifying because of how it looks, but the alien terribleness of what it represents as it intrudes into their world, converting it vertice by vertice into more…nothing.
An excellent analysis of the situation, Radio Silence, and one with which I completely agree. Terror is something that really only makes sense in context and, in this context, it is unimaginably horrifying.
Well done, Guilded Age creators! :)
Ahem.. But, then, why d this thing even have this eye-mouth-thing?
To be honest, this thing would be actually somewhat more menacing to me if it were without anything ike this at all. Like one of these sentient oozes/slimes in horror films. Faceless, limbless, mouthless, but still capable of feeling you, moving to you, and frigging consume you whole.
Or, conversely, with a lots of eyes. You never can go wrong with a lots of eyes. Lots of eyes are always FTW, in my book.
Looks like a giant one eyed Jabba!
Seriously? 39 comments and still no Mike Wizowski reference?
It will all be okay. Just think romanticable thoughts.
Enemy Unknown? That’s it, I’m calling the creature X-Com!
The Commander does not have it in the budget to respond right now.
Next add-on : Guilded age, Enemy Within. Complete with Goblaurence-made mech troopers and Exalt cultists.
Who invited Rosie O’Donnell?
Why do you suck so much?
I love this so much! That monster is TERRIFYING!
I suppose, in all of the discussion last strip about what to name the beasty, we forgot the Eldritch God that was born on the internet
Z̧̤͗͛̽̋a̘̬͈̠̰̲͓ͫlg̸̜͚̪̗̦̓ͬ̓̈̃̊ͩö̪͉̮̝͔̹̦́ͯ͐̈́̀̚
i wonder what the players in the real world think of this.
So, lemme get this straight without reading back through:
The cultists who are in the game, want to kill everyone else in the game, so they are basically exploiting a glitch/virus/whatever to do just that, and the CREATOR of the game is HELPING them do this, in the name of trying to… what-was-it? Shut off the tubes or wake up the guys inside? Or kill them in-game in order to wake them up, because somehow he can’t?
Am I on the right track? :I
Pretty much, yeah.
HR’s a hard dude to figure out.
I love this. There seems to be a quite huge moral dilemma behind this: Which status has a artificial reality? A universe that’s simulated in another one? But with persons who have phenomenal experiences of their own.
You’re describing the primary conflict in The Thirteenth Floor. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.
It’s also the main conflict…and huge plot twist (IIRC, it’s revealed about halfway through the second disk)…of the video game Star Ocean: Till the End of Time. (Kind of a huge spoiler, but it’s a 10 year old game, so…) Though SO makes the dilemma a bit less muddy by making all the player characters, and all but a handful of the friendly NPCs people who exist entirely within the game world, making it a lot clearer that the Eternal Sphere has full independent existence.
Not to mention Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
Thanks, I haven’t seen it yet but I will!
Don’t forget HR’s quest for godhood!
I know it’s supposed to be an intimidating beast of horror, but my Zelda training has conditioned me to want to just immediately wail on that vulnerable eyeball ad nauseam.
And you know if the screen doesn’t freeze and flash momentarily for the hit, you’re aiming at the wrong spot.
Was the bow, sling shot, or hook shot the tool you got in the dungeon? You better bet that eye is the weak spot.
ZALGO! IT’S ZALGO! HE WHO WAITS BEHIND THE WALLS HAS COME! THE HSQ HAS GONE OFF THE CHARTS!
But eye don’t want to.
eye would like to see this being defeated, if eye have anything to say about it, hopefully eye am seeing it straight and they put it out of its misery by aiming for the eye.
Eye see what you two did there…
Here’s looking at you, kid.
Eye ca-roomba, you people should be punished,
Drawn and quoted even.
(Then run over by a tiny circular robotic vacuum.)
Instead, I think I’ll grab a bowl, open up the freezer & scoop up a big helping of:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EyeScream
Quick! Use Data Drain on it!
Sadly, Tectonicus is certainly not a little pale girl. Though, I bet he’ll cry like one after encountering something like this creature. After all, HR is the creator of this universe. To the gods of this world, he is like Eru Ilúvatar to Valar.
Goddammit so much, Lord Woot has to keep playing the same character model no matter WHAT game he’s in, doesn’t he??
/Misses Elf Only Inn
Stab stab stab!
I stabby you!
Oh no, drowning in nostalgia!
Not the only one. You ever just go back and read the archives, for old-time’s sake?
The XCOM and Catherine are strong in this one.
Tho it shall be lost at the ass end of this comment sections, I hereby do predict that when Frig and Penk meet up there will be some hot romance! It just came to me seeing this page, for some reason…
Go for the eye! Clearly, that is its vulnerable spot.
That is…significantly bigger than I was expecting.
that’s what she said.
Hail, denizens of this site, I have traveled long to reach thee, and now wish to give my salutations to you all…
But seriously, started reading this comic (like 3 days ago) and just finished reading from chapter 1 up until now, and I can say that I love this place, especially the puns
Hey, it’s that one guy!
No, you must be thinking of my cousin, you know, that other guy.
Are you certain you don’t confuse him with That Guy Over Here?
But which one of these guys is the evil twin?
This creature attacks at the data structure level. It’s like a D&D monster that does damage to character sheets.
You mean, the DM’s dog?
Lock up your PC sheets! Lock up your dice! At least your daughters & wives are safe.
…or are they?…
That’s kind of creepy.
That is one big virus that needs bustin. Where is MegaMan when you need him?
It’s much bigger than a house, now… It’s a McMansion!