The Mad Rat’s Lab

“Hey there! How are you doing? Me? I’m fine, thanks!”

My voice resounds in the laboratory. I’m inside the game talking alone. As usual.

“It’s been some time since we last talked! Hmm…. was it a week?”

“Yes, it’s been around a week.”

“Well, there’s been very little things happening this week… but let me explain the small bits that ARE important!”

“Fine, go ahead. I’ll listen.”

I reply in a bored tone. I mean, I already know what happened. So why would I be interested in myself explaining it again to me? Boring, right?

“In fact, there’s only one very important thing that happened this week. And it’s that I leveled up to player level 4!”

*Clap, Clap, Clap!*

“And the only other important things that happened in this past week are that I leveled up my champion and also my strongest mobs: the Lab Assistants.”

‘How is it that you only did this in a whole week?’ you might be asking. The answer is easy: I had exams! And as much as I would have preferred to play, I’m not that stupid to prioritize my game sessions over my future!

Though I do know of somebody that spent most of the time playing instead of studying and then was complaining that the exams didn’t go so well.

Yeah, at this point all of us already know I’m talking about Ricard.

“If you really want to be a game programmer in the future, why do you slack off by playing games instead of working hard!? You won’t be able to develop games if you don’t actually learn to program them, even if you have played all the games in the world!”

*Cough, cough!* “...Anyway, returning to what I was saying… This is the message I received when I leveled up.”

As you can see, the most important new stuff at player level 4 are the Boss monsters! Fucking awesome and player-shredding Boss monsters!

“But as usual, I need to get the bodies for the units that I’m going to use to create the Boss monster… And I didn’t have too much time to play… So I don’t have a Boss monster. Yet! Because I swear I’m going to create it next week! I don’t have any more exams, so I can spend all the time playing and looking for the best first-boss ever!”

Oh, and Boss monsters have the same rules as Champions: they get a buff that increases all stats by 100% when used to defend the dungeon. So they can actually be on the same level as the Champions and have a chance to defeat them in a straight fight.

Regarding Boss monsters, there’s also a special rule. DMA only allows you to substitute a boss monster by completely removing the previous one. This is to prevent easy boss-swapping with the objective to surprise or kill dungeon invaders.

“Basically this is translated into: you can only have one boss monster for each allowed slot. If you want to create a new one, you must permanently delete the old boss monster. To make it even harder, you can’t use an already created unit as a boss. It must be a new unit.”

Of course, nobody would put a weak unit as a boss (unless they are stupid). This makes changing bosses a very big cost in both cp and ‘special resources’, and most players only substitute them when they get access to even stronger units.

“Or leave them as they come, to make a feeling of progression through the dungeon. The prime example being those players obsessed with creating dungeon floors, as in an RPG. As they progress, they create new floors and put the new and stronger monsters there. So each floor is harder than the last. Once they create a Boss, its strength remains forever the same.”

As I already explained, I didn’t have time to go look for the bodies to create my first Boss. But I’m sure of one thing. My first boss is going to be either a Hybrid or a Basic Chimera.

And I also have some ideas of what units I would like to use. Like a troll. Or maybe a troll. I would also like to use a troll. …did I mention the troll?

Maybe it’s because we had a very hard time against that troll boss, but every time I think about what units I can use, the troll keeps appearing. All the time!

“Yeah… I still need to think a little bit about it. Although a troll is stupidly resilient and strong, it wouldn’t fit the theme of the dungeon that much. Because all units are tricky in one way or another, and the troll definitely isn’t.”

And the last ‘perk’ of the level up is that now other players can enter my dungeon with parties of up to two players.

“Yeah… this isn’t really a good thing. But I suppose it’s needed for balancing. I mean, I could have a stupid amount of strong units plus a boss. And the Boss can be as strong as a Champion, or even stronger. There’s no way to beat something like this as a single invader… unless you are a higher-leveled player.”

 

Returning to what I did last week… Let’s go for the Champion level up first!

The first idea was to balance the skills by getting another triggered skill. But then I thought: wouldn’t it make more sense to level up a skill?

“So I chose my two most important skills and looked at their upgrades. I’m talking about Chain Lightning and Shared Voltage, of course.”

“Believe me when I say I had a LOT of trouble deciding on what upgrade to pick. They all looked so good! Except for the Deadly upgrade for the Shared Voltage, which would kill enemies, and remove the whole reason why I picked the skill in the first place. Because I won’t be able to capture them if they’re dead.”

It also made me think that a specialization into a single skill wouldn’t be that bad. I mean, just look at the Chain Lightning upgrades and imagine picking all of them at the same time. As long as you aren’t against a single opponent, you can electrocute so many enemies and deal so much damage with a single skill, that it’s absurd.

“Clearly, this is where the balance between specialization and diversification comes. If you specialize so much in a single skill, you would be more powerful but won’t be able to adapt to situations that go against your build.”

There was also one extra thing I had to consider here: the Shared Voltage upgrades would also affect any other lightning skill I pick in the future.

After discarding most upgrades, I ended with the two that actually increase the damage I deal. But then I came into a dilemma.

“Should I pick the High Voltage upgrade so that I can deal more damage directly, or should I pick the Battery upgrade so that the damage builds after each jump when multiple enemies get stunned at the same time?”

In case you don’t understand what I’m talking about, the Battery skill increases the damage by 20% after EACH jump. So in a situation where I would deal lightning damage to an enemy and it gets stunned by the Shared Voltage skill, the remaining damage would increase by 20% before jumping to another enemy. And if that enemy gets stunned too, it’s an extra 20% damage AGAIN. It can quickly build up to an absurd amount.

“Though with it I can’t create eternal lightning zones anymore… Because now the lightning can’t jump to an enemy it has already struck. So no infinitely multiplying damage here.”

It’s the perfect upgrade against multiple weak enemies, because each time one gets stunned, the next one takes more damage, so the chain can continue until all of them have been stunned.

This increased damage after each jump, paired with the fact that I had just upgraded my champion and it now has a lot more SPI, which means more damage with any spell, made me choose the Battery skill in the end.

“So… this is what my current status looks like. Strong, right? Hahahaha!”

“Now for the last thing that I did this week. When upgrading the Lab Assistants, I thought that the best approach would be to upgrade one of their skills too. In fights they always end very low on mana because of the Fire Aura and the Fireball skills, so adding even more damage skills would be a bad idea.”

“Also, they are already tanky enough. And I don’t want to give them MP draining skills because it doesn't fit the image of a fire and ice battlemage. So a skill upgrade to increase the damage they deal, or how tricky they are, would be the best.”

As you can expect, I chose the upgrade that was the trickiest and also increased the damage the Lab Assistants do.

“The upgrade makes the Lab Assistants generate two different ice novas as his HP decreases. The first ice nova is going to deal less damage than the second because of the different HP amounts.”

I also changed the AI so that they save the last 100 MP for the second skill trigger.

“Now they are a lot tricker because the invaders can get immobilized two times instead of one, and the damage from the two novas is also about twice as the damage the skill could deal before. Best of all, the mana cost stayed the same! Completely free! Hahaha!”

This is how the Lab Assistants look right now.

“You might be asking why I only leveled up my Champion and the Lab Assistants. The reason is simple: I’ve already said this multiple times, but I don’t want to make this dungeon stupidly difficult. I only want it to have a lot of unexpected stuff and surprises.”

If I level up all the units to level 5, the difficulty would spike because everything would be harder to beat and deal more damage. But the current ‘feel’ of the dungeon would be destroyed.

“That’s all, folks! This is the only relevant stuff that happened this past week!”

 

“Since today’s Friday and I don’t have anything to do today, I’ll start looking for some bodies to capture! Hahaha!”

Just as I’m saying this, everything starts to shake. I even feel myself shaking with the dungeon.

“An earthquake!? There’s no way! I’m inside the game! This shouldn’t be possible!”

Then, a message from the game appears in front of me.

The shaking stops, but I still don’t understand anything.

“What the hell's going on!? Is it a bug? Why is the game disconnecting me!?”

The ten seconds pass, and I’m forced out of the game. After a white flash, everything turns dark. I’m fully disconnected.

As I take my VR helmet out, I see my sister, Clara, inside my room, staring down at me. What are you doing here!?

“W-what’s happening? Why was I disconnected from the game!?”

I look around, trying to find a cause. Maybe the power cable was removed? No, it is in its proper place…

The only unusual thing in my bedroom is my sister’s presence. Don’t tell me…

“Clara… What are you doing here? Don’t you know it’s rude to enter other’s rooms without permission?”

As I stare at her, she returns a happy smile. Hello? Shouldn’t you be feeling remorse, at least!?

“Andreu, Andreu! You know what!?”

“No, I don’t know.”

She’s clearly trying to change the topic. But I won’t allow her to. My playing time is sacred and nobody, not even my cute little sister, is allowed to interrupt it!

“Don’t change the topic. What are you doing here!?”

“I just wanted to tell you something important, but you were inside the game…”

“Ok, since I’m already out of the game, you can tell me.” I interrupt her. “Just leave me a moment to find the cause of the disconnection… It’s the first time it’s happened. Something must be broken.”

“Oh, it was me! I pressed the emergency disconnection button to bring you out of the game! I wanted to tell you that I’m already level 3, so we can start playing together!”

The emergency button…? Oh, now I remember…

There’s a button in the helmet to forcefully disconnect the user. It’s a safety mechanism for when the person using the helmet must be quickly or forcefully disconnected. For example, in case of a seizure. Or if the house is on fire… And it’s also used by parents that don’t want their children to play for too long.

“And why did you press it!? Wasn’t it better to send me a message inside the game? We can send messages to each other easily because we are friends, after all!”

Making a pout, she answers. “But I wanted to tell you in person! And also to say I did well and pat my head!”

“Huh… ok. Just come here. Congratulations for reaching level 3, Clara. Just don’t ever disconnect me unless there’s a good reason, ok!?” I say while patting her and hugging her at the same time.

“Yes! Hehehe!”

Then, what was the earthquake…? Don’t tell me it was Clara shaking me, trying to make me leave the game? Well… it makes sense.

Luckily, I wasn’t doing important stuff so I didn’t lose anything. I imagine losing the progress I did the other day, while renovating the dungeon. I would have lost six hours if she forcefully ejected me then! Because of her whims!

While patting her, Clara looks up to me and asks.

“So, are we playing together now? I want to play with you already!”

“I don’t know. With my friends… we decided to play together as soon as you reached level 3 because we want to have some experience before the tournament. And it starts very soon. We don’t have too much time remaining. Let’s see what they say. Wait a little bit.”

“Ok!”

Then I take my phone and send a message to both Ricard and Laura asking what they want to do.

After some messages, we decided that the best would be to meet in person today and finish planning the team. We can play tomorrow. I agree with them and ask Clara, who’s sitting next to me on top of my bed.

“See this? We are meeting in thirty minutes. Do you want to come and introduce yourself? We will talk about the game and the team we are going to create.”

“As long as it’s with you, I’ll go to any place! Let’s go! I’m going to change clothes, so don’t peek!”

She says as she runs to her room.

“Hahaha… there’s no way I would peek at my little sister… I’m not THAT perverted!”

 

When Andreu reached level 4, the forums about his dungeon turned very active. It was because the players who were trying to conquer the dungeon thought it would be easier if two players dived into the dungeon together.

The results were… a little unexpected. Although they did have an easier time during battles, nothing prevented them from getting lost, poisoned, ambushed or tricked. So the amount of players who beated the dungeon didn’t rise by a lot.

Also, it was at this time that the players discovered the real despair caused by the Tunnel Mimic. It dived into the impassable terrain after swallowing a player, so it couldn’t be attacked by the remaining player. And even if the player inside the monster managed to defeat it, they would appear ‘in the closest available space’, usually very far from the other invader, with no way to contact one another. Which spelled certain death for those unlucky players.