cc:
re: re: Room 127 Feature
Steve,
I know you and Dave were e-mailing a lot about the game last week. Did he send you any messages over the weekend? I just went into his office to grab the disk and the USB drive. The place is a mess. He came into the office like he said he would, but he wasn't working on the videos we needed to have up today.
Don't worry. You're not in trouble. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm just trying to figure out what's been going on. I haven't been able to reach Dave.
In better news, I put your story up on the site. Hopefully we can get a better idea of what this damn game is about.
Ken
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/3/13, 4:19pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: Room 127 Feature
Ken:
Sorry, haven't heard anything from Dave since Friday. If he was playing Room 127, he wasn't keeping me updated on his progress.
Good to see the article up! The nice thing about the internet is that there are probably a hundred people out there waiting to correct me on everything I got wrong about that damn game.
Steve
[email protected] (Thomas N. Smith) 6/3/13, 6:44pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: warning
You need to take down your article. You don't know what you are doing. Please just delete it and forget any of this ever happened. Please.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/3/13, 8:02pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re fwd: warning
Ken:
I just received this e-mail. Should I respond to it or ignore it? Is it something I should worry about?
Steve
[email protected] (Ken Greene) 6/3/13, 8:54pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: fwd: warning
What do you think? It's just someone being dumb. The internet is full of people who are dumb. That's pretty much all the internet is. Just delete it and move on.
[email protected] (Vivek Archer) 6/3/13, 10:19pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: Your Article
Mr. Norman:
I just read your article. Interesting work. I thought I thought I'd never hear the name of Room 127 again in my life. You seemed curious about the game, so I thought I'd send along some of its history.
As far as I can tell, Room 127 began its life as an urban legend on the rec.games.video newsgroup back in 1996. It was started by a poster who went by the name of Alex Gogoasa. He wrote a lengthy description of a mysterious disk that he allegedly found in a thrift store. At first, he was just asking for help getting it to work. He was assisted by a second poster who was only known as Admiral Decker.
For several weeks, this was a lengthy discussion thread that largely only had two participants and mostly talked about subjects unrelated to the game. They went off on many tangents during the thread, discussing other computer games and even mundane aspects of their personal lives. Eventually, Gogoasa gave up trying to get the Room 127 disk functioning and offered to send it to Decker to keep working on the project.
Decker managed to install the game on his computer and continued to post in the thread about the strange adventure game. It was very similar to what you describe in your article. Mostly it sounded like a buggy Maniac Mansion rip-off, with creepy notes to piece together that formed some kind of story. I don't remember it much now, because what came afterwards overshadowed the game itself.
Decker, who had not posted much on the board before the beginning of the original Room 127 thread, became a major participant in several PC gaming threads. He was belligerent, pushing his opinion and generally trolling. His posts got more and more erratic over time, then abruptly stopped.
A third poster by the name of Hobbes Hhallas, that, again, was completely new to the group submitted an article a few days after Decker's disappearance. It was about a strange suicide that Hobbes claimed to be the board's own Admiral Decker.
At this point, Gogoasa shows up. He replies to the story about the suicide minutes later and posts a single message:
“I thought he would like it. I was right :-)”
None of the parties ever posted again. Not Hobbes, Gogoasa, or Decker. For a few days, the board went crazy. We all freaked out. Eventually, though, after some investigating, the members of the board who'd been watching the threads decided that it was an elaborate hoax. Gogoasa, Hobbes, and Decker were all the same person under three different names, playing a bit of a trick on the rest of us.
I suspect what you've stumbled upon is a sort of “fan game”. One of us back from the rec.games.video board who was caught up in the original frenzy decided to try and code something resembling Alex Gogoasa's Room 127. Maybe they eventually planned on showing it off, but never quite got it right. Maybe they just decided it was dumb like the rest of us. But somehow their unfinished build made it out into the wild.
If you decide to update the story with this information, I'd appreciate if you cite me. I haven't chatted with anyone from rec.games.video in almost fifteen years and maybe they'd get a kick out of seeing my name when they stumble upon this.
On the other hand, if you'd rather leave Room 127 a mystery, I totally understand. It's a lot less fun when you know the backstory.
Vivek Archer
FiftyNineNine Networking Solutions
Systems Analyst
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/4/13, 9:45am
to: [email protected]
cc: [email protected]
re: fwd: Your Article
Ken:
Looks like I was fooled. This is all just part of an old internet hoax. Kind of disappointing. Think we should add this part of the story or leave it be?
Steve
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/4/13, 10:01am
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: fwd: Your Article
Hey Sam! I know the last thing you want to hear about is Room 127. I'm probably lucky if you actually read my article yesterday. But I thought I'd forward it along. What a silly thing to get fixated on.
Hope you're having a great day!
Love,
Steve
[email protected] (Ken Greene) 6/4/13, 10:19am
to: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
cc:
re: Dave
Seriously guys, this isn't funny. Have any of you heard from Dave? I'm starting to get worried. Check your phones.
I think I'll probably swing by his place on the way home tonight if we don't hear from him.
Ken
[email protected] (Ken Greene) 6/4/13, 10:55am
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: fwd: Your Article
Huh... To be honest, I think that's actually more of an interesting background for the game than I expected. I figured for sure this was just the freshman project of some game design student. Didn't make any sense why it was on a floppy disk but then again freshman art projects never make sense.
If someone actually coded this back in 1996 as a response to a hoax on a message board, that's pretty cool. I wonder if you'll hear from any of the other rec.games.video crowd. I posted on their for a while, back before '96 though. The name Alex Gogoasa even sounds vaguely familiar.
I'd wait to see if the story is corroborated by another commenter before posting an update on the story. It's also possible that this Vivek Archer character is making this all up. Internet, man. Internet.
Ken
[email protected] (Brett Jackson) 6/4/13 12:12pm
to: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
cc:
re: re: Dave
Ken:
This is going to sound weird but I talked to Lawrence in maintenance this morning and he said Dave came into the building on both Saturday and Sunday this week. Lawrence didn't know what the fuck he was doing, but apparently he stayed in his office for several hours on both days.
I feel weird ratting him out, like I shouldn't be telling you this. But I figured you should know. I'm worried about him, too.
Brett
[email protected] (Samantha Strickland) 6/4/13, 1:50pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: fwd: Your Article
Well, Steve, I guess it's good to have closure. Now you know where the game comes from—it's based on nothing but an old internet urban legend. It's the Slenderman of 1996. Still weird that someone sent it to GameCore, but maybe its creator thought it was time someone experienced it.
E3 is coming up. Are you excited about that? What are GameCore's plans?
Thinking of you,
Sam
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/4/13, 2:41pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: fwd: Your Article
I really don't know what the plans are. Last year the GameCore crew went down to LA for the show, and presumably they'll do the same thing this year. They haven't said anything about taking me along, but I can hope... I haven't wanted to bring it up. Weird things are going on around the office. Dave hasn't been in the last couple days and no one's heard from him.
If I do go down with the crew, I wish there was a way I could stop in Fresno. I still feel like I need to make up for this weekend.
Love,
Steve
[email protected] (Thomas N. Smith) 6/4/13, 3:53pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: what did i tell you
Why is your article still up? Didn't you listen to me? Don't you get it? Quit fucking around. Take it down before someone gets hurt.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/4/13, 4:27pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: what did i tell you
Mr. Smith:
I'm going to need more than that if you want me to take down the story. What are you talking about? Who is going to get hurt by the story? I don't get it. If you want me to take it down, you're going to have to make me understand.
What is going to happen if I don't take it down?
Steve Norman
[email protected] (Thomas N. Smith) 6/4/13, 7:01pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: what did i tell you
It took almost twenty years for the wounds of Monmouth Valley to heal. Don't re-open them.
[email protected] (Steven Norman) 6/4/13, 9:53pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: what did i tell you
Mr. Smith:
I realize you are probably being obtuse for a reason, and probably because you're just trying to troll me or something. Good job. You got me to spend an hour and a half googling “Monmouth Valley”. Are you talking about the 1995 bomb scare? That's the only thing I could I could come up with. Because that couldn't have anything to do with Room 127. Room 127 wasn't around until 1996 at earliest.
You're going to have to be a lot clearer if you really want something from me.
Steve Norman
[email protected] (Delivery Subsystem) 6/4/13, 9:54pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: what did i tell you
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
[email protected]
Technical details of permanent failure: The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try double-checking the address of the recipient for typos. See information located at support.izmail.com.
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/5/13, 8:55am
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: Technical Question
Hi Anna! Don't worry, I haven't messed up my computer again. I actually had a random question that you might be able to help me with. Is there any way to trace an e-mail? God I probably sound like such a dumbass asking that, but I've never really had to try and my computer experience is mostly limited to playing games to be honest.
Don't worry, I'm not asking for any creepy reasons or anything. It's actually about that weird game I was going on about last time we talked. Someone sent me a few messages about it. When I tried to reply, I got a message that the user didn't exist. I still have the e-mails, though, and I'd like to get more info about the sender if possible. His name, unfortunately, is very common and googling his e-mail address gets me nothing. Is there anything I can do?
Thanks for your help,
Steve
[email protected] (Ken Greene) 6/5/13, 9:31am
to: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
cc:
re: Update on Dave
Hey guys:
I went by Dave's apartment last night to check up on him and try to figure out what's going on. I figured he would be home, at the very least. He wasn't. I knocked on the door several times and couldn't get a response. Didn't hear anything inside, either.
I'm not sure what to do now. Please let me know if any of you hear from him. I'm considering calling his father, though if he has some legitimate reason for falling off the map it feels like a dick move. But we're headed out to E3 this weekend and I need to know what' sup.
Ken
[email protected] (Anna Walker) 6/5/13, 10:14am
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: Technical Question
Steve:
That's sort of a tough question, and it depends on what kind of client the e-mail's sender was using. If he was accessing his account through a web browser, it's very likely there's nothing you can do to find out any more about him. Same if he happened to be using a proxy. If this guy didn't want to be found and had even a bit of sense about how to go about hiding himself, he's hidden and there's nothing you can do about it.
That said, if he used an e-mail client independent from the service—Outlook, Thunderbird, or something like it—there's a chance his IP address will be included on the e-mail. Go into your izmail account and pull up the full original header. Look for the part that reads “Received: from” followed by a number in brackets. That's the IP address. It won't tell you everything, but it will tell you an approximate location for the sender.
There's really nothing much you can do beyond that. I hope this helps.
Anna
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/5/13, 10:33am
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: Technical Question
Anna:
The IP Address of the sender was [216.66.121.188] What's the next step?
Steve
[email protected] (Ken Greene) 6/5/13, 12:19pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: Your Big Break?
Hey kid, so here's the thing: I wish it didn't have to come up like this, because I'd much rather it be a fun surprise, but I guess I need to know ahead of time whether you'll be able to go down to Los Angeles for us for E3.
We'd planned to invite you along from the beginning, but now it looks like we might really need you with Dave going incommunicado like he has. I like having someone from the site at all the major conferences and meets. Looking at the schedule, we can divide up Dave's work mostly among the rest of us but scheduling conflicts are giving me a headache on like three things. It would be way easier if we have a fourth body along. You won't get the fun stuff, but yo
u'll get to represent GameCore on your own.
If you can't come down with us this weekend, that's fine. It's not part of your internship or anything, but we could use the help and hopefully you'd have come along anyway.
Let me know.
Ken
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/5/13, 12:33pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: re: Your Big Break?
Ken:
I'm definitely free to come along this weekend. To be honest, I was hoping I'd be able to join you guys. I just wish the circumstances were better. I guess there hasn't been any more news from Dave today?
Steve
[email protected] (Steve Norman) 6/5/13, 12:58pm
to: [email protected]
cc:
re: I'm going to E3!
Hi Sam! Since we talked about it earlier, I thought you'd want to know that I am headed to E3 this weekend with the GameCore crew. I bet this will be my chance to show up in some video content, so keep an eye out!
Love,
Steve
[email protected] (Anna Walker) 6/5/13, 1:11pm
Room 127 Page 5