Smiley RPG

"In the early days of the Gameboy Advance, a company by the name of "PlayIt! Incorporated" was planning to make an RPG called Smiley RPG for the GBA. The purpose of the game was to teach people new to RPGs how to play them. It was a fairly simple game with a fairly simple story. The Smiley Princess has been captured by the Frowny Wizard and your goal is to save her by defeating the Frowny Wizard's goons on the way to his tower. The game was one of the best RPGs for new players, according to play testers. However, this game was never released for various unknown reasons. Only one copy was known to exist, and it was destroyed."

That was the Wikipedia page for Smiley RPG. Now that you know more about the game, I will begin to tell my story. It was an autumn afternoon in September. School had just begun for the children. I was the school counselor at Southern Middle School. The first few days of school were usually busy for me, but there weren't many children coming to my office. A seventh grader with short blonde hair and freckles came into my office to talk about something. I did the usual deal, asking him what was wrong and assuring him he'd be fine.

"Uh... I found this game on an empty. It's pretty creepy-looking and I don't know who it belongs to."

I looked at the cartridge in question and identified it as a Gameboy Advance cartridge. It was bright blue and had no label. On the front the word "SMILEY" was written in all caps with red permanent marker. I told the kid that I'd ask around and see if I could figure out who owned it. He thanked me and left. I called the secretary and told her to make an announcement to figure out who owned the game.

"Teachers, pardon the interruption. Anyone missing a light-blue video game cartridge with the word 'SMILEY' written on it with red marker, please report to the guidance counselor as soon as possible. Thank you."

No one came to claim the cartridge. When school was over, I decided to bring the cartridge with me. I mean, why not, right? After a bit of digging through my childhood keepsakes, I found my good ol' purple Gameboy Advance and popped the cartridge in the machine. The game started up and I was greeted by a title screen with cheerful music. The words "Smiley RPG" could easily be seen on the screen in a big, fancy font with a castle in the background. I pressed start and saw there was only one option; continue. Thinking nothing of it, I chose the option. My character was a horribly blurry smiley face in a suit of armor. I was in some large, dark room. I chose to walk to the left and see what happened. I ran into a wall and a BUMP sound played. Tried going right. Nope. Up. Nothing. I could only go down. As I went down, the screen got slightly redder and various bloodstains were on the sides. I tried to walk to them, but I couldn't. Eventually, a smiley face in a wizard's robe with blood-red pupils started walking to me from the top of the screen. I tried to outrun him, but there was no sprint button. Once he caught me, he just stood there for a minute until a text box popped up.

"Your quest is OVER."

Then, a blurry smiley face in a suit of armor slowly faded in. His pupils were blood-red like the wizard's and he was crying blood tears. His face also had a creepy smile. I still remember that image to this day. Then, all of a sudden, the GBA got extremely hot. In my confusion, I dropped to the ground. It melted into a sticky mess. Out of nowhere, I heard a deep laugh. I hear the laugh every twenty minutes or so... oh, there it is again. So, now you know my story. Listen to me. Avoid the cartridge at ALL COSTS. Unless you want to end up like me, on the brink of suicide. You have been warned.

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