Free Will

It's a man, in a strange futuristic-looking suit with organic-looking moving patterns of blue and red pulsating on the surface. "You've had your time now. Let's see the results." [["What time?"|time]] [["What results?"|results]]

You open your eyes. (set: $time to $time + 1) Another morning. (set: $sleptmore to false) [[Get up|get up]] [[Lay down a bit longer|lay longer]]

Which side of the bed? [[Get up from left side|left]] [[Get up from right side|right]]

You decide to sleep a bit longer, and try to find a good position. (set: $sleptmore to true) [[Lay on your back|back]] [[Lay on your side|side]]

(set: $side to "left") Wow, you slept really late today. As you get out from bed on the left side, you see your bedside clock with the digits 13:37. Your head hurts. What would you like to do next? [[Shower|shower]] [[Eat breakfast|breakfast]]

(set: $side to "right") You get out from bed on the right side, and see the sun just rising through the window. As you turn to check the time, the clock says 5:00. [[Shower|shower]] [[Eat breakfast|breakfast]]

As you lay on your back, you start to feel very relaxed and your mind starts to wander. You feel as if you are floating on a cloud, the feeling of freedom and relaxation is wonderful. You open your eyes and smile. (set: $sleep to "back") [[Get up|get up]]

As you fall into another cycle of deeper sleep follower by REM, you see a nightmare where you are stuck alone in a train, forced to go to a terrible place with no turning back. You open your eyes and your heart is pounding from terror. (set: $sleep to "side") [[Get up|get up]]

As you stand in the hot shower, your thoughts return to the dream you just had. What was that all about? You decide to forget about it by singing something. [[Roar some heavy metal|heavymetal]] [[Shake your ass while singing some silly current pop song|pop]] [[Sing "singing in the rain"|rain]] (set: $activity to "shower")

What will you have? (set: $activity to "breakfast") [[Cereal|cereal]] [[Bacon|bacon]]

You put on your clothes. [[Go outside|outside]]

(set: $food to "bacon") You prepare your crunchy bacon in heart-stopping amounts of oil and revel in the pleasure of it. [[Go outside|outside]]

(set: $food to "cereal") You crunch on the cereal and start reading the back cover of the package. It has a "did you know?" piece on finite state machines (wow the kids are smart these days). [[Go outside|outside]]

You step outside. [[Go to the park|park]] [[Go to the beach|beach]] [[Go to the supermarket|supermarket]]

(set: $place to "park") You arrive at the park. [[Look at the birds|birds]] [[Look at the trees|trees]]

(set: $place to "beach") What would you like to do on the beach? [[Pick up some shells|shells]] [[Sit down and look at the waves|waves]]

(set: $place to "supermarket") You decide to get your shopping done. What would you like to buy? [[eggs|eggs]] [[coffee|coffee]]

(set: $item to "eggs") As you pick up a package of eggs, suddenly someone shouts your name behind you and you almost drop them in surprise. [[Turn|turn]]

(set: $item to "coffee") As you try to decide whether to go for robusta or arabica beans and how deeply roasted you'd like them, suddenly you are startled as someone shouts your name behind you. [[Turn|turn]]

(set: $beach to "shells") As you examine the shells, suddenly you hear someone shouting your name behind you. [[Turn|turn]]

(set: $beach to "waves") You stare at the waves crashing in, glittering in the sun, with ships sailing by far away and you can barely make out some islands in the distance. As your mind starts to wander to the deep questions of life, suddenly you hear someone shout your name behind you. [[Turn|turn]]

(set: $park to "trees") As you admire the willow tree branches reaching all the way to the surface of the pond in the warm sunshine, suddenly you hear someone calling your name. [[Turn around|turn]]

(set: $park to "birds") You see an old woman throwing some bread to the birds, who are eagerly picking it up. Suddenly behind you, you hear someone calling your name. [[Turn around|turn]]

"We are sorry, but we could only run you for a limited amount of cycles. But the results have been interesting." [[Who are you?|who]]

"Well we wouldn't go to all this trouble for no purpose. Time is money after all." [[Who are you, anyway?|who]]

"I was put here by you." [[When|when]] [[By me?|me]]

"Since you seem to be repeating, time is meaningless for you, so that question has no relevance." [[That can't be.|end]]

"You see this is just a game you are interfacing with. Your brain is directly connected to this thing, and we wipe your short term memory to make it less obvious." [[Why|why]]

"Look, we literally don't have time for silly questions, as this thing will only run for a few more minutes." [[What do you mean by that?|end]]

You throw up. "Sorry, this conversation no longer serves a purpose and is costing us valuable compute cycles." He starts to gesturing at some invisible controls. [[Wait, get me out of here!|start]]

"It's a study you invented on free will. We wanted to find out if a mind, when given the same inputs, always makes the same choices." [[And what is the result?|seq]]

"You've always without fail made the same choices." (if: $sleptmore)[ "(if: $sleptmore)[You always start your day with trying to catch just a little bit more sleep, laying on your $sleep, (if:$sleep is "back")[finally waking up with a silly smile on your face.] (if:$sleep is "side")[apparently seeing some bad dreams judging from your face.]] (if: $side is "left")[Then finally you stumble out from the left side really late and stare at the digits in disbelief.] (if: $side is "right")[Still you somehow manage to wake up really early, hopping up from the right side of your bed just as the sun comes up.]" ] (if: $sleptmore is false)[ (if: $side is "left")["You wake up very late, getting out from the left side really late, staring at the digits in disbelief."] (if: $side is "right")["In the morning you hop out from bed from the right side, just as the sun comes up."] ] "It's so predictable it's getting rather dull to monitor, really." [[Anyone could guess that!|anyone]]

You feel that this must be some joke in bad taste, but the man continues. (if: $activity is "breakfast")["Right, well you do always say that at this point. And then when I mention your choice of $food for breakfast, you tend to become a bit more convinced." "(if: $food is "bacon")[You do realize how bad that is for you? Thank goodness this isn't real life.](if: $food is "cereal")[Couldn't you pick a more boring breakfast food option? I guess all that computer science stuff they put in the back cover is good for the brain at least.]] (if: $activity is "shower")[Then you always take a shower. So I have to monitor you getting naked, and my god is it embarrasing when you] (if: $song is "heavymetal")[ start with all that moshing and roaring stuff, what is that anyway?] (if: $song is "pop")[ do that super awkward pop dancing stuff. Well, at least I get paid to watch.] (if: $song is "rain")[ start attempting to do Singing in the Rain, but get all the lyrics and dance moves just completely wrong.]" [[My god|god]]

You pretend your shampoo bottle is a microphone and start moshing your hair while roaring to it. [[Step out from the shower|out]] (set: $song to "heavymetal")

You feel fabulous as you shake your ass sexily to the latest four-chord pop song of this week. [[Step out from the shower|out]] (set: $song to "pop")

You make spinning dance moves and mouth "I'm siiinging in the raaain" as you pretend to be part of the 50s musical cast. [[Step out from the shower|out]] (set: $song to "rain")

"God is outside the scope of this experiment. What we do know is that there seems to be no free will." (if: $place is "supermarket")[ "Every time we do this, you always do the same things and then end up going shopping, and as you are trying to decide which $item to buy, we meet." ] (if: $place is "beach")[ "Every time we do this, after your morning routines you always end up taking a walk to the beach. You are so predictable really. (if: $beach is "shells")[Are shells really that interesting?] (if: $beach is "waves")[I've never seen anyone that mesmerized over staring at some waves, but it happens to you the same way every single time.] At least it's a good spot to catch your attention." ] (if: $place is "park")[ "Every time we do this, after your morning routines you end up taking a walk to the park and (if: $park is "trees")[trying to fell that willow tree by pure staring power.] (if: $park is "birds")[staring down our poor old lady-with-birdfeed-NPC.] Every single time."] (if: $time is 2)[ You feel more composed and assertive. [[You are wrong.|wrong]] ] (if: $time is 1)[ [[I think I feel sick.|sorry]] ] (if: $time is 3)[ [[Tell him to listen carefully|carefully]] ]

Thank you for playing. (Not that you had any choice but to play) Game created for IRXJam17 by @bemmu. Feel feel to email me@bemmu.com. If you liked this, you might also like my other game [[One Button Suicide|onebu]], which is also a text-based game, but this time your challenge is to kill yourself pressing only one button. (if: $food is "bacon")[In any case, keep enjoying your crunchy bacon.] (if: $food is "cereal")[In any case, keep enjoying your morning cereal tomorrow.]

(goto-url: "http://www.bemmu.com/compo/ludum/34/index.html?9")

You tell him that he is just wrong, that you DID do things differently this time. "That's what you say every time. Listen, you have no idea how expensive this experiment is getting, let's get on with it." He starts to fiddle with some invisible controls. [[Hey, you are not listening!|start]]

This is one of the hundreds of times you have had this conversation. You tell him this: "Listen. Don't restart the program, doing so will result in a loop. You will think I have no free will as from your perspective I am making the same selections every time." He replies: "So why not restart and find out?" He starts to fiddle with some invisible controls in midair. You slap him hard and shout "NO LISTEN! From your perspective I have no free will, but from my perspective I do. Perhaps whatever choice I make sends me to a parallel universe where to you it seems I have always been making that choice. But I am telling you, I have been in this program for ages, and I have woken up and done thousands of things differently, yet every time you disbelieve me and restart." Somehow you have gotten very good at giving this speech, as he seems to pause for a moment. He starts to fiddle with some invisible controls in midair. [[Nooo!|noo]]

NOOOO! You still continue shouting as your brain is disconnected from the game and you return to sweet, sweet reality. "Why so panicked? That was only the first time you were in there", your assistant asks with a puzzled look. [[The end|theend]]