I just have to know whether anyone’s experienced something like this.
I remember the year quite well- it was 1991, if that helps at all. I even remember the exact date. June 12th, 1991.
No, that last part is a lie to be honest. I didn’t remember the exact day that it happened- I just happened to find a newspaper clipping reporting on that day and so it had to have been on that day.
I was a frequent visitor to the local arcade. I don’t think I can give out any more detailed information without betraying the identities of several people involved, most of them who are still alive today, so I’ll leave it at that.
It was a slow summer and I had managed to make my way through most of the games there. I had a bag of quarters earned from mowing lawns around the neighbourhood, but there was honestly really nothing that piqued my interest enough to play.
Until I saw it in the corner.
“Is that a new game?” I asked someone.
“Dunno,” the guy said and returned to the game he was playing.
I figured, ‘Why not give it a shot?’ and made my way over to it.
‘Treasure Defender’ it said in bright golden text. I put a quarter in.
Level One began immediately.
Now, back in the day, most games didn’t have detailed instructions on how to play them. It wasn’t even like modern times where you can just whip out your phone and get a walkthrough. As such, I was left a bit confused on what to do.
There was a map onscreen. It was divided into four rooms. Each of them was empty but led into each other. There was a circle on screen, and a triangle. Next to the triangle there was a gold coin.
‘Defend Your Treasure’ the screen said on top. No further instructions then that.
The interface only consisted of a joystick and a red button. I moved the joystick and the triangle began moving around. As I would make a move, the circle moved on its own.
Okay, so I was the triangle. The ‘enemy’ was the circle. So what did the red button do?
I pressed it and the triangle fired a shot. Alright, so that was my weapon.
The gameplay was childishly easy as the circle made no attempt to evade me. Once it was in my line of sight, I fired, and it vanished from the screen.
‘Congratulations!’
The screen flashed. I got a thousand points for clearing the level, and another thousand because my ‘treasure’ was intact.
Right, now that I thought about it, the circle was moving towards the gold coin. That was probably what it was programmed to do.
Level two was similar and I cleared it easily.
It was on level three that something strange happened. The map was more complex, there were these ‘X’ marks on the game screen which I couldn’t get past, which were most likely meant to be obstacles.
I was still a triangle, but there were two gold coins on screen. This time, pressing the red button did nothing.
I was a bit surprised, but when I look back on that memory- something stands out to me that didn’t at the time. There was the icon of an axe. It was in a different room, and I thought I could still shoot, so I ended up wasting my moves going back and forth wondering what was happening. Again, the game didn’t give me any additional info that could be helpful.
What happened was that the circle caught up to me. I had no clue what to do, so I just sort of ran at it, and my triangle disappeared.
‘GAME OVER’ came the message on the screen.
I sighed. Again, at the time, there was no real way to know how to play a game other than asking your buddies about it. And my friends were either busy that day or out of town, and it didn’t look like anyone else had played the game yet given that it was new.
Before I could put another quarter in, a message popped up.
‘Play Again?’
That was odd. Games back in the day were designed to suck out as many quarters as possible from you. This was giving me another chance just like that?
I picked ‘Yes’ for a message to pop up.
‘Will You Stake Your Own Treasure?’
I had no idea what that meant, but thought nothing of it as I hit ‘Yes.’
I frowned. The map was different from before. Again, hitting the red button did nothing.
However, I did see the gun icon in another room. I finally pieced together what I had to do and-
-huh?
The gold coin- my ‘treasure’ so to speak, was moving. This hadn’t happened before. Unsure of what to do, I went for the gun and went ahead with finishing off the circle.
The gold coin continued to move as I did this, and I was unsure if I was supposed to pick it up or not, but a ‘Congratulations!’ popped up on screen, and I also got the bonus score for saving my ‘treasure’, so it looks like what I did was right.
To my surprise, the game ended at that. It was rather quick if there were only four levels, and at this point I just walked away disappointed, looking for another game to play.
I must’ve been at the arcade for an hour before the police showed up.
There had been an incident at my house. A robber had gotten in, thankfully my dad had fetched his gun in time and well… the robber was dead, but both my dad and my little sister were safe, though understandably very shaken.
All thoughts of the dumb game left my head until more news began coming out about the day.
It appeared that there had been a string of robberies in the town that day. Mr. Jenkins had his house broken into, and the robber tried to get into his safe before he shot him down, much like my father had.
What made my skin crawl though was what happened to Ms. Bertha. I didn’t know her at all before the incident, it was when her story became the focus of that night’s news that I began to put it all together.
Someone had broken into her house as well. Only she hadn’t been so lucky, and the intruder, after having killed her, had taken her twin babies away. The local police were on high alert searching for them, but to my knowledge, nothing turned up regarding those children till this day.
And I wouldn’t have thought anything more of it- until the reporter went into the next room.
A room with an axe in it.
No… it couldn’t be…
But when my father later recounted what had happened to the cops for the twelfth time, saying how he had rushed into the den to fetch his gun, and my sister described how she was pacing around the room in terror, that I realized what had happened.
The ‘gold coins’ were treasure, but not just money like with Mr. Jenkins. For Ms. Bertha, it had been her twins, hence the two coins on the screen. For me, it was my little sister.
You might think that I’m overthinking this- but the thing is that it was highly unusual for there to be a break-in in my town. For there to be three (that I know of, I know there was a fourth level I skipped over but I never found a corresponding incident) in one night… it can’t have been a coincidence!
I never was able to find the game at the arcade again. I asked around but no one seemed to remember it.
I honestly would’ve let the matter rest, but… the thing is that I can’t get it out of my mind. I saw the image of Ms. Bertha’s dead body on the television, and it’s haunted my dreams since then. Many people in my town wondered why she hadn’t taken her children and ran, but I had a hunch I knew why.
It was my fault. I should’ve picked up on how to play the game earlier- if I had, she might’ve still been alive. And those children would’ve grown up living happy, normal lives.
It’s a burden I’ve been carrying ever since. I just wanted to know though- did this happen to someone else out there? I… I guess I just want to confirm whether my theory is right. That the game did cause everything, and that I- was at fault for Ms. Bertha’s death. If it turns out that it was just a harmless game that was recalled one day, then I guess I really had nothing to do with it. I guess… my conscience really needs it.