My dad is lying on the ground, next to a bushy-green spruce splashed with his blood - shuffling gently in the cool spring breeze.
There is a definite smell in the air and the rasp of a large animal breathing heavily somewhere. I can't see it. I stand still.
The mulch underfoot rustles and the footfall of this beast is heavy and increasing in speed. A few seconds and I realise the animal is leaving us to our little spot in the forest, moving away. My heart is racing.
I creep over to my father and hold his head in my hands.
One eyelid has been taken off by a claw, the other closed over and his chest is still and covered with bloody, thick saliva. His fur shirt is torn from the shoulder down to his stomach and bright red muscle glistens in the morning light. He looks straight through me with with his one staring eye.
He is dead, taken for the care of the Gods, and I am alone.
---
And so describes a typical starting point in UnReal World, an old and wise Roguelike crafted lovingly over the course of several decades by Sami Maaranen.
---
A cry, a yelp - the recognisable mew of a fox. The little bastard can smell my small stockpile of fish pulled out of the lake this morning, and has been systematically picking clean the various small morsels I have been using to try and lure him to a deadfall-induced brain haemorrhage over the last week or so. But the little git is too clever for my rudimentary traps - maybe he can smell me on the wood - or more likely he is just plain a better engineer than me.
At least I can fish, so I won't starve, but I could do without this. I'll take a few of my dried lavaret and go a couple of days south to clear my head.
---
It's a game that demands to be roleplayed and taken very seriously. If you don't, you will die. But if you do, you will get entirely sucked in and probably cry when this little slice of iron-age Finland inevitably crushes you.
I've fallen in love with Unreal World again and it has recently gone free-to-play donationware in lieu of the previous purchasing method, with a view to giving the developer less of an admin overhead and thereby giving him more time to develop the game.
I hope it is a success, and we get another few decades of progress.
http://www.unrealworld.fi/
