Comments
Hello. Perhaps few remember me, but to understand what happened to me, you need to read my first story. It's been about four months since the Incident. A lot has changed since then: there was the funeral of my friend Guilherme, and his parents moved to a city in the countryside. Even so, I still couldn't forget that damn version of Pulseman.
One day, while studying alone in my room, I remembered a detail. In the original Pulseman game, there are seven stages, including the Galaxy Gang's lair and the final battle with Dr. Waruyama. However, in the version I played, there were only three levels. I finished the study and stopped for a moment, wondering if I should really do that. I decided so.
I opened the wardrobe and took the cartridge from the drawer. He looked exactly as I left him, with Pulseman's white eyes and a sad expression, plus the blood-red "RIP" acronym on the cover. I remembered my friend Guilherme, who died inexplicably after playing this cursed game. With a mixture of sadness and anger, I controlled myself and put the cartridge in my Mega Drive.
The game started with a black screen that stayed like this for about five seconds, until an animation appeared typing texts that appeared one by one:
"SO, DID YOU HOLD OUT THIS FAR?"
"NOT BAD FOR SOMEONE LIKE YOU."
"BEFORE I CONTINUE, I SAY...""YOU
DON'T KNOW WHO YOU'RE PLAYING WITH."
"I'M CRUELER THAN YOU THINK."
"WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A LOT OF FUN!"
After the last text disappears, the screen has changed to the title screen, which is quite different from the original. The Pulseman name was dark, broken, as if it was abandoned, and there was only one option: PLAY. I hit the START button, and the game skipped the stage selection screen, going straight to level 4, the aquatic stage in Thailand. It started with a cutscene, but instead of Dr. Waruyama, a thin, young voice declared, "MY WAVE OF REVENGE IS JUST BEGINNING." The phase began, with the melancholic song "Brain Wash". But there was something strange: there were no segments of water or enemies. Although monotonous, I completed the level quickly.
After completing it, I fell into a submerged segment, with no suspended platforms. A strange whistle or bell sounded three times, at four-second intervals. Then Sonic's drowning song began to play, a game unrelated to Pulseman. Unable to do anything, I just watched as Pulseman struggled until he drowned, with sprites I had never seen in the original game. The screen went dark, and instead of the usual cause of death, I saw the word "DROWNED" and a picture of a bearded man in black and white, with a stripe covering his eyes.
The game went back to the phase selection, and I moved on to Alaska, the ice phase. On the screen, a phrase in English said "RUTHLESS". The level was strange. Instead of the original music, only the sound of a blizzard could be heard. Again, there were no enemies, and as I progressed, a thick fog covered the screen, until only Pulseman's silhouette was visible. Then, corpses of enemies began to appear. The stage fell into complete silence, and shortly thereafter Pulseman froze to death. Another phrase appeared: "FROZEN". This time, a photo of a blonde woman, also in black and white, with her eyes covered. I started to mand question whether the game had any connection to real events.
Then a last sentence appeared: "THE LAST". I understood that this would be the last phase, which took place in a bloodstained forest and completely silent. After a few minutes of wandering, I saw a text in red that said: "THEY STOLE MY IDEA...". Who was speaking? Unanswered questions boiled in my mind, while other phrases emerged:
"THEY NEVER SUPPORTED ME IN ANYTHING"
"THEY PLAGIARIZED ME IN THE FACE""EVERYONE
WILL PAY DEARLY"These
words shocked me. He had already finished the level when the next level, a black background, began to show names in sequence: James, Leonard, Edward, Daniel, Alice and Carl. The story didn't make sense anymore, but I just wanted to end it. The screen cleared up and revealed the room of the final battle against Dr. Waruyama. Instead of the villain, I saw a 16-bit rendering of William, my friend, hanged, in the same clothes as on the day of his death. Pulseman was paralyzed in the center of the screen. That figure looked at me, opened his mouth and said, in a voice similar to Guilherme's, only more serious: "YOU ARE NEXT, FERNANDO." At that moment, both the TV and the Mega Drive exploded.
Two days later, I returned from the hospital. My parents said they found the TV and Mega Drive broken and melted. Today, while looking for information about the game, I found the cartridge ad. I explained to the seller what happened, and he told me something disturbing: in 1993, Sega signed a contract with SixNine Entertainment to develop a game. At the meeting, Yury Yelstin Barbosa, a Brazilian developer, suggested an idea, but was ridiculed and removed from the project. Shortly after, upon seeing the new game, almost identical to his proposal, he was furious. Within days, the crew members were brutally murdered, each killed in the same ways that Pulseman had been killed in all the first six phases of that version:
James Ferguson - 24 years old
Date of death - 11/9/93
Cause of death: Stabbed while walking home, his body burned so badly that it was almost impossible to tell him
apart Leonard Walker - 26 years old
Date of Death - 10/11/93
Cause of Death: Crushed by an industrial machine after being pushed by someone
Edward MacDylan - 28 years old
Date of Death - 12/11/93
Cause of Death - Shot to death while returning from a neighbor's party in his neighborhood
Daniel Flint II - 32 years old
Date of Death - 12/11/93
Cause of Death - Drowned in a river flowing near his home, his body was found with whip
marks
Alice Thompson - 22 years old
Date of Death - 13/11/93
Cause of Death - Abducted, held in private captivity and 2 days later, placed naked by a masked man inside a room with extremely low temperature, dying soon after.
Carl Higgins - 25 years old
Date of death - 14/11/93
Causthat of death - Strangled inside his apartment. However, his body was hung from a rope, trying to prove a suicide.
After the crimes, Yury disappeared.
In the end, Sega hired another company, Game Freak, and they adapted the project to release Pulseman in 1994.
After hearing this story, I was in shock. I don't know if I'll be able to play or even look at a Pulseman cartridge in the same way again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm developing this game based in this story . That's why it's not possible to download it yet. The only thing available about this game is its story and the screenshot above. #horror #platformer
