Welcome to Springwood test drive meme! The purpose of this meme is to give potential players a preview for how the game's setting works and see if their characters work well with it.

All of the game's main information is available through our Player Guide, and if you have any questions not answered there, we have a Questions Page here.

Feel free to jump in at any time, and have fun!

OOC NOTES: The following prompts are the ways playable characters are introduced into the chapter setting. Players can also choose to use their test drive threads as a jump-off point for the introduction log if they like, but it's not required.

Players can use all 3 prompts and connect them together (for example, Prompt 1 leads to 2 then 3, or at random order), or use them separately as options.

Finally, this test drive leans heavily into horror scenarios, and as such contains described instances of graphic violence. Content rating is PG-13 and up.

What's the last thing you remember?

Well, hold on to that memory. You're awake, though you don't remember having fallen asleep, and any major injuries you've had are now gone. Your skin is smooth, blemish-free, except for a strange dark scar on a patch of exposed skin. They almost look like... fingers? A whole hand? Whatever it is, it isn't fading, but it doesn't hurt either. It's just there, somehow.

But where are you? The answer seems to be an empty grocery store. It's dark outside that you can see, and you can't seem to find an exit or break through the glass fronts. There's a large store clock above where the main entrance would be, and it reads 3:33 AM in blinking neon red numbers. You stare at it for a few seconds, feeling as though you should be moving on - but where to?

When the time changes to 3:34 AM, you hear it—movement among the aisles, as though someone (or something) is dragging a heavy object along the linoleum floor. Do you check it out? Do you wait for the figure to come into view? It sounds like it's headed for you anyway.

Let's hope you're not truly alone, because whatever this figure is, it doesn't sound like good news.

OOC NOTES: The Grocery Store prompt involves a being that takes on the form of a meaningful person in the character's life (they can appear as other playable characters), and will pursue the character with the intent to harm them and them only. They will not be speaking, and do not seem to die; if they are fully incapacitated, they will take 1 minute to regenerate or otherwise heal, with each succeeding instance of complete incapacitation (blow to the head, decapitation, et al) doubling the waiting time.

Characters will not have their own weapons on their person, but any and all usual items and/or equipment found in a standard grocery store are available to use instead. Characters in the same thread will be followed by each of their figures, and can interact with each other's figures as well.

Each figure is dragging along or carrying with them a rucksack containing the character's personal belongings, or if they've found their personal items in another prompt, a meaningful non-powered item from their canon. The store doors will unlock once the time changes to 6:00 AM, causing the figure to disappear and leave the rucksack behind and allowing the characters to exit the store. The rucksack can be taken from the figure at any time, but with difficulty.

Are you tired?

You must be, because whatever you were doing has lead to an unintended nap. But when you wake up, you're not where you were when you fell asleep—you're now standing in the middle of a paved road, with heavily wooded areas on both sides stretching as far as you can see. There's a car parked ahead of you, on the side of the road, its engine coughing on idle. The lights are on, and the keys are still in the ignition, but the doors are locked. Do you know how to drive?

If you can't, then you better learn fast, because someone is approaching at a steady pace, and they're armed. Whether it's with a shotgun, an axe, or an honest-to-goodness chainsaw, they're coming to hurt you, and you need to get out of there right now.

OOC NOTES: The Ghost Car prompt involves a figure that takes on the form of a dead family member or an enemy of the character. The figure will attack the character and attempt to kill them, but their speed is limited to how fast the character is themselves moving.

Characters can interact with each other's figures, as they can be distracted to attack another character if they're in the way. Characters will find their personal belongings in the backseat or trunk of the vehicle. For characters who have claimed their personal belongings in other prompts, they will find one of the following weapons in the trunk or backseat of the car: a fireman's axe, a sawed-off shotgun with 12 rounds of ammunition, or a battery-operated bonesaw.

The figure will be defeated once they've been fully incapacitated 6 times; their defeat will allow the character/s to find the Welcome to Springwood sign leading them into town. Characters who attempt to drive away from the figure will keep driving in a loop, chased by the figure, until the figure has been defeated. (Running them over is very much an option.)

Sometimes the scariest thing in the world isn't what you can't see, but what you can.

You're in the middle of an empty playground, or in front of a closed Starbucks, or behind an official-looking statue in front of town hall. It doesn't matter where you are, or how you even got there in the first place. What matters is that you're not alone; there are other people that you can see, seemingly just as lost as you are. Do you approach them? Do you call out to them? Do you even want to?

You ought to decide soon. Up there in the sky is a very big light, shaped in the word EXIT, and if you wait long enough, it blinks out just for a minute. Nothing too scary, really. But when it blinks back in sight, there's a figure that appears to you in the middle distance, maybe about a hundred meters out. They look familiar, don't they? Like... you're staring in a mirror.

Is that really what you look like?

OOC NOTES: The Blinking Exit prompt involves a figure that takes on the character's own appearance from a positive or significant canon point. The figure will approach the character, behaving very similarly to the character, and once they are close enough to reach out and touch, will attack.

The character themselves cannot cause serious injury to the figure, but can ask other characters to help them instead. However, the figure will try to confuse participating characters, attempting to convince others that they are the "real" one. The figure will be carrying the character's personal belongings with them, or a significant memento.

To defeat the figure, characters must convince another character to kill their doppelgänger. Once done, the blinking exit sign will disappear, and characters will find themselves suddenly standing in a populated version of their current location. (Please minimize wearing too much blood spatter to not alarm the locals.)