Nazrax

Early access game
I'm trying an early access version of a new game. I start out in a room with stairs going down. The environment is mostly painted in shades of dark gray. Proceeding down the stairs I have to battle an enemy (some kind of armored alien soldier), then find myself in a smaller room with a narrow waterway passing through it. Crates are floating along the waterway, so I jump onto one and ride it over to the next area. I pass through a fairly small room where a bunch of the crates all come together and make a nicer sort of raft for me, then move on, now on my crate raft. Now I'm in a really large, circular room. This place is still mostly dark grays, but it has a more industrial feeling with stuff hanging from girders on the ceiling and pipes running here and there. At one end are some HUGE doors - they're very wide and many times as high as they are wide. There's a walkway running around the room, much higher than I can jump. I'd been wondering when this demo would end, and I suspect this room is it, that I'm not meant to get to the walkway or open the door. I decide to see just what I can manage to do, and I decide I really want to get to that walkway. I stack a couple of crates and stand on them, but it's not nearly enough. I start looking through my weapons to see if there's one that could propel (or blast) me up to the wall, and I try a couple that look promising, but I'm still not able to do it.

Games in the basement
I'm in the a fairly large bedroom in the furnished basement of a house. In the middle of one wall is a good sized bed, probably king-sized. A twin bed is in the corner left of the king bed (if you look at them from the other side of the room). On the opposite wall is another twin bed with its long side touching the wall. My family has their stuff scattered among the beds, and a couple of them are still in here getting everything arranged just so.

Now there are a bunch of other kids in here, most of them older pre-adolescents. They've congregated on the king bed and don't look like they're going anywhere any time soon. A boy is reading his book in my spot. I can't bring myself to move them, so I start looking at the other beds, especially the one on the other side of the room. Both twins are heaped with clothes and a few stuffed animals, but I figure I can shove most of it onto the floor. I hope these beds are fairly firm and don't squeak too much - we've had a lot of trouble with beds in vacation houses in the past.

Now I'm watching Elizabeth try some clothes on her son. He's grown a lot since the last time I saw him (probably 8 or 9 in the dream; about 2 IRL), and both the shirt and pants are too short for him by a couple of inches. She tries another shirt on him, but this one is way, way too big. Somehow I end up holding the huge shirt and look for a place to put it, eventually tossing it on the pile of clothes on the twin near the king.

Now Elizabeth's son is sitting on a settee, and he's wheezing noticeably. I'm standing at the open doorway to the next room, looking to the right where my wife is sitting. I tell her that we need to tell Elizabeth that her son isn't doing well so that she can start treating him now, but my wife doesn't want to, remembering what a rough time Elizabeth has already had on this trip (one of the other guests is a doctor, and he's been nagging her the whole time) and she doesn't want to add to Elizabeth's troubles. I'm persistent, saying that we wouldn't be *causing* her trouble, we'd be helping her help her son before he gets worse, but my wife doesn't give in.

Now I'm talking to Tedd, getting ready for our game. We face each other, standing one on each side of the doorway. Between us are two pools of liquid: his is mostly clear with a touch of gray, and mine is bluish. We both squat, holding out our arms to our sides as if we were going to grapple. Our respective pools surge forward and start trying to get past each other. Tedd and I both use our hands and arms to direct our pools, which by this point are starting to break up and slip through each other (without mixing). Eventually, my pool makes it all the way past Tedd's and into his room, and Tedd's follows suit and makes it into mine. I think I won, since I think my pool got into his room first, but I'm really not sure.

Now the two of us are talking on camera. Our game was webcast to our followers, and we're doing a post-game wrap-up. As I'm talking, Tedd sidles up and gives me a "you're forgetting something" look. I remember now, but I can't remember the right words, so I have to ask him for a reminder. "Encore," he reminds e. I ask our audience if they want an encore, though from Tedd's reaction to my words we were just supposed to go ahead and do it without asking for an opinion. Looking to the side at a monitor showing our viewer reactions, I can see encore votes coming in from, especially from the ones in Japan. We get enough votes and so get ready for another match.