Don't steal video games.

For the 5th random game in my Halloween Special 2025 block, I got to take a look back at No Players Online. A game I last played on... well... my last Halloween special. Hey there's always a good excuse to come back to this game right?

It had been so long since I last played that I've at this point forgotten really what I last did. All I remember is that I have to log into the John Mullard account with the password "Sentimental". It's easy to know that because it's plastered on the damn screen. I guess I had downloaded some games... in this game last time I played it. The first of which being "Fishing with knives II". I explore the contents of the game. Which isn't much. Just the character sprites, game music, and background. And a... very accessible config file. You know I totally have to give myself a trillion dollars so I can instantly get all the upgrades! The game itself? It's not really anything special. You slash fish with knives and the fish get bigger at the bottom... that's it. 20 summer days is the other game in this game. And uh oh is No Players Online promoting piracy? Before I can access 20 summer days, I have to use a keygen to brute force an access key so I can play the game. Wouldn't you believe it? It's a visual novel! Oh we so about to get weeby now. We follow the path of Park Song-Lee, a masters student who seems to be in perhaps some sort of summer camp. Not sure what's being taught here. Doesn't seem like Park is very interested in it. A reticle becomes active on my screen and I can move it around to observe different things in the view. It appears Park is getting a little tired so he decides it's best to close his eyes for... "a little bit"... which turns out to be a long ass bit. Park is awoken by a girl. Not much happens between the two. The girl just wanted Park awake and also maybe to embarrass him for missing the class. At least Park seems to have some sudden interest. Oh yeah... it's a visual novel. Outside the Kyung-Lee university, Park and I make a call to his mom. Seems like Park and his mother have a... "good" relationship. After a brief talk with Park's buddy Seo-jun, mostly about summer jobs, Park heads to a coffee shop where he finds the same girl that woke him up in class. Oh yeah he is flustered now. He wants to get the girls number. But given he has zero balls of any sorts, he's like... fuck it nevermind. He heads back to his dorm room and... yeah it's your everyday young adult man's dorm room. Messy ass bed, computer in the corner of the room, guitar in the other, and other dorm room essentials. Seems like Park has some fan fiction going on. Oooooh! I can only imagine how spicy it was.

Park realizes a phone number was written on the napkin he got at the coffee shop. How convenient? He didn't ask for the girl's number and he still got it anyway! Ain't it his lucky day? He has to go back to the campus pay phone to call her. Oof... he doesn't have his own phone? Park calls up Min-Hee, the girl he had been talking too. Park wants to take Min-Hee on a date but then this is where things take a turn. It seems like Min-Hee was just fucking with Park... wait... no... not Park... but... me? How convenient is it that this game has anti-piracy. Oh yeah I used a fucking keygen for this game. Park gets thrown behind bars and I am given the bad ending. Damn. I honestly had no idea how long 20 summer days was going to go. I almost forgot I was playing a game called "No Players Online". After taking a brief look at some other files, I unpack an indev version of capture the flag. Before I check that out though, I check out some other apps and files including the ProjectPull Enterprise. Though I can't do much with it. I need a password to access John's account. That I do not have nor will I try to guess. Here's the meat and potato of the lore in this game. The soul transfer and infuse notes. I check out the infuse notes first. These notes... long story short explain that 2 unrelated games when fused together have a deeper story to tell. And when combined, turn into a stone that contains the soul of the games now buried inside said stone and contribute to brand new gameplay. New gameplay for a bigger "capture the flag" game. 5 stone total make this flag capturing game whole. The soul transfer notes is a much more basic diary. With each file showing more significant progress being made to the game. From the executable file being made, to running it but it crashes quickly, to graphics being loaded, to a playable state, to soul stones being able to combine elements of other games into this game, to the souls seriously upgrading the game, to a stable game. Seems like these games are more than just games. I look back at that indev version of capture the flag. Seems like it's one of the earliest builds. The one that crashes as soon as I join the game. I check out that soul transfer app and try fiddling with it. I try putting in the 2 capture the flag games as sources. But it looks like the transfer app doesn't like that. It seems like the later beta version of the game can be put in the infuse tab in the middle as the "vessel". The icons perfectly match too. So what goes in as the soul sources?

I try digging through chats and other files but I can't seem to find any big clue. I try combining a lot of files with the indev version of capture the flag but that doesn't seem to work. Opening the beta version of the game doesn't do much. It's playable but nothing special happens. And then it hits me... 2 games... 2 games... well... what 2 other games do I have? That's right... Fishing With Knives and 20 summer days. There's no way this works... holy shit it worked. I just combined those 2 games into a new one. I open it up. Looks like we have a new visual novel here. I don't think we're with Park and Min-Hee anymore. But instead 2 new people we'll just call... Rin and... Long... Despite Rin offering to take out the dog for a walk, Long insists they'll do it. Despite the night time atmosphere making it not safe. Long simply says it'll be a quick walk around the park and Rin reluctantly agrees to let Long walk the dog. It's not long before the walk starts going haywire as it starts getting harder to see where Long is going. Suddenly the game goes blurry but I can still make out the text. Long has gone blind but keeps going. Which turns out to be a very bad idea. Very bad. It's hard to tell what's happening. But I don't think Long nor the dog made it... once the game crashes, I get the soul stone. I put the stone in the infuse ring and that soul now becomes part of the capture the flag beta. The game now has elements of Fishing With Knives and 20 summer days infused in it as puddles of water with fish are now seen and text boxes will pause the game temporarily to explain the surroundings. The blue flag now rests in a completely different location just above a puddle of water. The dialog just isn't an outside narration. It's someone actually talking. I can't grab the flag. No matter what I do. Am I waiting for an opponent? Nope... someone is already in the game with me. Hence why a match is infinitely active. Jumping into a small pool of water makes the player remember some music. Maybe from Fishing With Knives? And now a total of 4 players are mentioned. But when I check the active players, it still only shows 2. Unless the other 2 are represented by something else? So now what? This is where a big majority of my wasted time comes in. I can't escape the game so I know my next quest is somewhere here. But... where somewhere? A long pillar is seen leaning and I can actually climb it up. Surely this is where I am supposed to go.

I jump over the small wall to get to the edge of the pillar. There's an area up top it looks like I have to go. But how do I get there? It's not easy but I can just climb along the edges of the ceiling areas. It's a fine line however and I find myself falling down a lot. Whether back to the map itself or into the void where I then respawn. Regardless of if I go left or right, I can't seem to go anywhere. There are these 2 smaller pillars to the left after I climb up the bigger pillar. Thinking I can get on those. But no matter how many times or how hard I try, I just can't get there. It almost seems like it's impossible to jump on certain ceiling edges. After nearly 20 minutes of pure insanity, I concede and use a walkthrough. Turns out I could not have been more fucking wrong on what I was doing. What I actually had to do was go under the blue flag, and find a fake wall to swim through. Well shit now I am really glad I looked up a walkthrough. This time, swimming into the void doesn't have me respawn. But instead I am now in a deep ocean with this... demonic looking sea creature who spins around me. Doesn't seem like it can hurt me nor can I hurt it. I notice an opening and while at some points it doesn't seem like it, I am getting closer to it. And going through it leads me to... a very interesting room. Very bright and small with a door in front of me. Going through it leads me to... a very... corrupted area. The game does load it but it feels like it's not loaded properly. Looks to be like a couple portions of a corrupted house level. Headed to the other area reveals what looks to be furniture. But it's all fucky and corrupted. With this... blue... energy box floating in it. Stepping inside it shows the corrupted furniture. But once again I don't know what I am doing here. I have to use the walkthrough again. Turns out I am supposed to line up the blue boxes to make them into one big frame. Doing so gives me the reticle I can use to observe key objects. In this first case, an art easel. The next blue frame being at the staircase. I think these sections are telling a story in itself. Perhaps between Rin and Long? Or maybe another couple? The longer I advance the story, the more portions of the house I unlock. Like a kitchen. Well let's say theoretically these memories are between Rin and Long, it seems like their relationship wasn't great. That Long was more focused on his work which caused the 2 to spend less time together. Even in the house. The last memory literally speeds by and now I am teleported to a new area. A floor below me and a door in front. All in the midst of space.

Going through the door takes me to an even more corrupted area. So corrupted that it feels like I am looking at it through an old 2008 YouTube video. All I can do is walk down the linear path and hope like hell something doesn't rush at me. Eventually, the path ends. And all that is left is... a blue square that slowly gets bigger and bigger as it reveals the capture the flag map. It's hard to make out what the text says. But whatever this was, it was leading to something bigger. Something that can only be found out when the full game is released. Well well well... we got a big adventure to look forward to. When No Players Online releases on Steam, November 6th, 2025.

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