Playpen
Dana is a new player in the game and she’s been stealing Ian’s assets. She’s concerned about the story not being told properly and whether or not she can get away with it. But someone seems to be remotely stealing her assets, so Dana has to figure out who it is.
David is not pleased with the new monetization of Mythic Quest. He’s unhappy about the way that Brad, Rachel, and Carol were grilled for their part in this, undermining the executive producer. When Carol takes responsibility for the NFT gig, Montreal immediately message and want to talk to her.
The head office has apparently decided that the NFTs are a good thing, and have promoted their development director, Ms. X, to the position of Unexplored Development Initiatives Director – DUDI. She is failing up, and now has a budget to hire whoever she wants. ..
Ian and Poppy confront Dana, who reveals that she’s taken “Playpen”–a software that allows users to create their own virtual reality games–and made her own games inside. Of course, there’s a fishing minigame! Poppy enjoys the games, but wants to play more. ..
Ian shows up to see David, questioning the movie and their new lead character. Eventually David caves and agrees to let him on in an advisory role, despite not working for the company anymore. As for Rachel, she’s encouraged to take up a Head of Monetization job, given she has some great ideas. She stands with Brad, who agrees to be her number two. ..
Meanwhile, Poppy begins questioning her motives and how she’s not able to make a fun game. Despite spending a year building Hera, she’s not able to see what’s actually fun. She calls herself a glorified mechanic and that she’s only able to build systems. She wanted to experience what Ian feels and hasn’t managed to achieve it. ..
Dana decides to let her see Playpen, and all her classmates that have gathered together in this VR space to pay their respects to her. As applause rains down, Poppy has a proper lightbulb moment.
As the episode ends, Poppy decides they should ditch Hera and work on Playpen instead.
The Episode Review
Poppy has learned the hard way that a game needs to be fun in order to be enjoyed. This is a lesson that Poppy has learned the hard way and it collided into this big revelation for her to now work on the VR game.
Meanwhile, Brad’s plan is starting to come into focus, with him very clearly wanting to get into the monetization side of things and using Rachel and the more unsuspecting victims in Mythic Quest to get there.
This is another solid chapter in the ongoing story. There’s plenty more plot to come in the upcoming chapters. ..
