In came six people, kidding and cuddling each others as teens. But they seemed to be at least in the middle twenties. They were three woman and three man. The Shopkeeper smelled the slight odor of alcohol, coming from them. But always professional, he stayed friendly and asked:
"What can i offer Mary as a birthday gift?"
The group was as drunk, that they didn´t find it curious, that the stranger in the shop knew their need, their names, and that it was Marys birthday. They were old friends from school times, and studied at different universities, Bob and Ryan were roommates, as Mary and Dina were. Tobi and Lissi went alone. Marys Birthday was a good reason to see each other during the weekend.
"We wanna make a lovely birthday party, but we can´t go dancing anymore, because of the alcohol we drank all afternoon in the sun!", answered Bob. And Lissi added: "We want to buy a game or some stuff like that. Like we did when we once met at the youth club!" She giggled.
They all chatted on, and the poor shopkeeper wasn´t able to understand anything more. Then he went to the storeroom, and took out a special game from the board.
When he came back, the six young people searched through his other magic stuff. He said smiling: "That´s a special interactive game for people like you. It´s called: DoubleTrans"
They all came to the counter and payed for their other kinky stuff. Bob had found some really cool sunglasses, Ryan who was a roleplaying freak held an odd amulet, Dina had an earring, Tobi a book, Lissi a lovely puppet dog which barked when squeezed, and at last Mary wanted to pay for the ring, she decided to take. But the shopkeeper didn´t want her to pay. She smiled lucky, and hugged him with a huge kiss.
He smiled, and then showed the game to the group. "It is all crafted from natural Materials, and believe me, it is magic!" He rolled with his eyes in a spooky way. Everyone started to laugh. Ryan wanted to know something about the rules, and the shopkeeper explained:
"There is a rulebook for every possible question inside. But listen:
1) at the beginning of every phase, everyone draws three cards, and discards to five then.
2) The game display gives a task to the group and rebuilds the setting.
3)the players can play different cards on themselves or each other, to help them solving the task.
4) The players describes what they do.
5) Repeat step three and four until the cards are empty (The group lost the round) or the task is solved.
you can see it isn´t that simple, but i thought you would be the right ones to play this new kind of interactive game!"
Ryan agreed immediately, and the others followed. They bought the game and went to Marys home. They sat on the ground in Marys old room, and it felt like in school times. Marys mother brought sweets, cake and coke, and they took the new game out of the box. It had a plain wooden surface with hexameters on it, and in the middle was a kind of plain smoky crystal. There were eight pins and bundles of cards in the box. Everyone got a chard, too. After Bob and Ryan shuffled the cards and everyone took five (Only at the beginning, as Tobi read!).
They started to play...