To Be or Not To Be

by Ryan North

  “That’s crazy,” says Ophelia. What? Yes, she’s still alive! She’s stepping out of her coffin. “Don’t be silly, Hamlet,” she says, reaching towards you. “Everything’s fine, my love. Everything is beautiful, and nothing hurts.”

  And the funny thing is, she’s right. You kiss her, and it’s almost like that one single kiss lasts the rest of your life.

  THE END

  * * *

  » Restart? «

  * * *

  Okay! FINE. Remembering that you haven’t decided if you can trust him yet, you have a long conversation where you explain again, in detail, the lie you’ve told him. You elaborate it into a crazy story where you alone come across the letter by accident, you leave out all the awesome parts of the pirate battle (a crime in itself), you tell him only you made it back alive and how Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, and he’s all “Whoah that must make you sad,” and you say “No bro, they got what they deserved,” and he’s all “Whoah bro: harsh.” You definitely do not tell him how you have one of the most impressive ships in the world today waiting just outside Denmark Harbour for your signal.

  Alright! We’re all brought up to speed with your cover story of how you escaped, AGAIN, and Horatio has made the appropriate sympathetic noises. Satisfied? Look you can stop pretending, we all know you kinda lost the plot here and wanted to waste everyone’s time while you got a refresher from me. But now you’re out of options, and all you can do is:

  ☠ Talk to Horatio about what just happened ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  “Listen, I feel kinda bad about getting into that fight with Laertes,” you say.

  “And ruining Ophelia’s funeral?” Horatio volunteers.

  “That too. You know what, I’ll be nice to him. He’s grieving too, right? We’re like two peas in a pod, only instead of peas, we’re humans, and instead of being in a pod, we’re in a state of grief.”

  “Okay,” says Horatio.

  “I just really hate it when people try to grieve harder than I do!!” you exclaim, punching your fist into your palm.

  “That must come up a lot,” says Horatio.

  “Anyway, meet me at the castle tomorrow morning, okay?” you say. “There’s something that’s going to go down that I think you’ll want to see.”

  “Okay. I will.”

  “Sweet. Well, see you later!” you say, and then it’s awkward because you’re both still walking to the castle in the same direction side by side. You walk in silence for a bit, until you get the bright idea of stopping because a flower looks SO INTERESTING, and then Horatio will walk ahead and it won’t be weird anymore, but then Horatio stops too, a few paces ahead. God.

  It proceeds like this, the two of you walking in fits and starts, one pausing to adjust his leggings or whatever and the other deciding to wait, but only after taking a few halting steps ahead. You guys. I don’t know.

  When you finally get to bed, you go to sleep sad (Ophelia’s dead, remember?) but also excited (You’re going to expose Claudius tomorrow and you have Calypso’s Gale to back you up, remember?).

  While you’re sleeping, I sneak in and pour a Potion of Not Grieving Anymore Because Feelings Are Boring into your ear (that’s how liquids enter the body most efficiently, remember? REMEMBER? THIS IS ONE CALLBACK-FILLED SCENE, MY FRIEND) and you wake up feeling not too emo, which is terrific, because honestly we’re finally heading towards a climax and I don’t want you missing out on it because you stay home being sad.

  Okay!

  It’s tomorrow!

  ☠ Greet the new day ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  “We’re taking them with us, lads!” you say, which interestingly enough is the point at which you become the villain of the story. “Port crew: FIRE ALL CANNONS!”

  Deafening gunfire sounds, and soon cannons are pounding the castle and town. Incendiary cannonballs inflame anything that will burn, while spider shot tears bodies to shreds. By the time you’re done, nothing remains of Castle Kronborg (that’s the name of the royal castle, should’ve mentioned this before but better late than never) and of the town of Elsinore (again, that’s where this takes place, REALLY sorry for not mentioning this sooner) but rubble and gore.

  A few nights after this awful attack, the ghost of your dad visits, says, “WHAT THE HELL,” and never appears to you again. It’s okay though, because you have plenty of hauntings from the ghosts of the rest of the townspeople you murdered!

  They throw pots at your head and they can never die!

  THE END

  * * *

  » Restart? «

  * * *

  You explain to her about your dad and the ghost and how he wants you to murder Claudius.

  Ophelia looks at you for a long moment, and then she takes your hand. “Sweetie,” she says, “I can tell that you think you saw those things, and for now, I’m going to believe you. But we need to gather evidence of this ghost and find out if he’s credible. Even if he is a ghost, are we CERTAIN he’s the ghost of your dad? What if he’s a ghost of someone else who’s trying to mess with you? I think you should have some confirmation before you go around murdering people.”

  What she says makes sense. She says the two of you can try to see the ghost again tonight, and if he does show up, you can figure out if he’s really your dad or not. It sounds really nice. It sounds...sane. You agree to go with her.

  “In the meantime,” she says, “check out what I’ve been working on for you. It’s alcohol in a glass flute!”

  She looks at you for your reaction, and you’re not sure what you’re looking at.

  “It measures temperature!” she says. “With this, you won’t have to be too cold or too warm in different castle rooms, because we’ll be able to see which ones are uncomfortable before we go in them!”

  She’s been working on this all by herself over the past several weeks, while you’ve been sitting alone in your room, moping. She’s so awesome. You love her more than ever.

  » Go see the ghost with her tonight «

  * * *

  * * *

  Um. Okay. You do that. Ophelia looks confused during this whole production.

  “What’s wrong, Hamlet?” she says, concerned. “Why are you fouling your stockings?”

  » Tell her you don’t know why you’re doing that, apologize, and ask her to help with murdering your uncle «

  » You know what? This is not going as well as I’d hoped. Tell Ophelia you don’t know why you’re wasting your time either, excuse yourself, and GO MURDER CLAUDIUS. «

  ☠ Continue holding her wrist, and move your other hand to your forehead as if you might faint, while staring at her intensely ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  These are some stellar choices you’re making here, champ.

  Okay, you do the crazy things. Ophelia keeps staring at you in confusion. Finally, you sigh, as big as you can, three times in a row. What do these sighs mean? Ophelia doesn’t know, I don’t know, and neither do you. It’s like you think you’ve saved your game earlier so now you can just do stupid stuff without consequences. BUT YOU CAN’T SAVE A GAME IN REAL LIFE, SILLY, so now you’ve got to live with the consequences of these choices. And here’s one of those consequences: Ophelia’s love for you has taken 15 damage. Lucky for YOU, she still loves you a whole heck of a lot.

  Eventually you run out of sighs and get up and leave, but rather than walking out of the room like a regular person, you look over your shoulder, lock eyes with her, and walk out of the room and around the corner without ever breaking that eye contact. You’re lucky you didn’t walk into a wall.

  You know what? I think you’ve made enough choices for a while. Move over. I’m driving.

  ☠ You decide to go see what Claudius is up to ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  You jiggle the door, but it’s locked firmly. The noise attracts the attention of the person in the hallway.

  “Have
you locked yourself in there?” you hear. “Hold on, I’ll open the door for you! I’m running now to get there faster! I will get there really soon now!!”

  Nice going, dude!

  You now have only 1 turn(s) remaining.

  » Try to act casual «

  » There’s probably a window behind that curtain; jump out the window to escape «

  * * *

  * * *

  You go and stand on the window ledge. Looking down, you see a five-storey drop beneath you. You jump out which is fun, fall five storeys which is terrifying, hit the ground which is incredibly painful, break your arms and legs and neck and squirt out blood everywhere and die, which, it turns out, is fatal.

  Yep! Dying is fatal!

  Listen man, real talk: nobody’s gonna judge you if you go back a bit and do things differently.

  THE END

  * * *

  » Restart? «

  * * *

  I don’t see a room here.

  You have 7 turn(s) remaining.

  » Look chamber «

  * * *

  * * *

  I don’t see a chamber here.

  You have 6 turn(s) remaining.

  » Frig! Look area!! «

  * * *

  * * *

  You jump at him quickly and slice at his shoulder. Incredibly, your sword slices through it like butter: it looks like you got more meat than bone, but it’s still an impressive strike. The piece of pirate you carved off flies through the air, hits your shoulder, and slides down to the ground, landing in a bloody heap of flesh and gore.

  The pirate looks at you, aghast.

  “Excuse me, I never introduced myself,” you say, brandishing your sword. “I’m Prince Hamlet. And today must be your lucky day, my friend, because...”

  » “you just rubbed shoulders with royalty.” «

  » “someone finally fixed that chip on your shoulder.” «

  » “nobody’s going to be looking over your shoulder anymore!” «

  * * *

  * * *

  The pirate captain screams in rage, charging you with his sword. You deftly parry and sidestep, ending up behind him.

  The two of you circle each other, flurries of swordplay erupting whenever one of you detects an opportunity. Despite his injury, neither of you is able to gain the advantage on the rain-soaked deck of the ship.

  Suddenly, lightning strikes the brass rail behind the pirate captain, and he’s briefly stunned by the tremendous thunder that follows. You’re stunned as well but, being a few feet away, you recover more quickly.

  There’s your opening, Hamlet!

  » Attack his dominant, sword-bearing arm! «

  » Attack his eyes! «

  » Attack his legs! «

  * * *

  * * *

  You swing your sword at his legs, putting all your strength behind the blow. Your sword slices through his left leg easily, and he staggers. You swing again with both hands on your sword and cleave off his right leg. He falls backwards to the deck, still holding his sword. He’s furious, and incredibly the wounds he’s just suffered haven’t stopped him. He begins to crawl towards you, blood marking his path in a dark, sticky trail behind him.

  You crouch so that you can meet his gaze, and say the perfect one-liner:

  » “Hey! Look! I found your sea legs!” «

  » “Wow. You’re really on your last legs.” «

  » “My friend, you don’t have a leg to stand on.” «

  * * *

  * * *

  The pirate screams at you, livid. He’s lost some very important body parts, but he’s not going to stop. He’s out of control with rage and will fight you right to the end. You can’t let your guard down. He’ll take you apart with his teeth if you let him.

  It’s time to finish this, Hamlet.

  » Deliver the killing blow! «

  * * *

  * * *

  Okay! You become pirates!

  It turns out that living on a boat without the support structure of a nation-state behind you is hard and it only gets harder! And it turns out, yeah, that battle you won was insanely lucky for you, and you kinda used up a lot of your luck reserves in it. Dude. You are fresh out of luck.

  Two months later your ship is attacked by another pirate ship (The Mad Cutlass of Atlantis; it’s a pretty cool name, I’m not gonna lie) and you are slaughtered. They even manage to take me hostage! And they’re forcing me to say “you are slaughtered” AND to use “you” in the “everyone on board” sense!

  Geez. Nice work, Hamlet!!

  THE END

  * * *

  » Restart? «

  * * *

  “One sec!” you yell and run below-decks. You choose the biggest cannon available, and tilting it downward, roll the loaded cannonball out onto the deck. You then hoist yourself up into the cannon and push yourself in as far as you’ll go. Satisfied, you stick your head out and address the weapons officer.

  “Well...?! Fire me, man! It’s our only hope!”

  The weapons officer shrugs his shoulders, aims the cannon carefully, and lights the fuse. You duck back inside the cannon and prepare yourself.

  Okay, I’ve got to interrupt things here and ask you an important question: how realistic do you want this story to be? No rush, but you need to answer before you leave this page.

  » Please, your question insults us both. I want nothing but your finest realism! «

  » I am inside a cannon about to be fired at my stepfather because a ghost told me to. Let’s not get too hung up on realism right now, okay? «

  * * *

  * * *

  You talk about free will!

  “Providence controls everything, even a sparrow’s death,” you say. “If something’s supposed to happen now, it will. If it’s supposed to happen later, then it won’t happen now. All that matters is that we’re prepared for it.”

  “Wait,” says Horatio, “if you subscribe to a ‘destiny is all’ worldview where things happen when they’re supposed to, how does preparedness enter into it? If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen whether or not you’re prepared.”

  “Um,” you say.

  » To repeat what you just said about free will, read this page again «

  » To talk about that sexist thing you said on the last page, choose this option instead «

  ☠ I’m done talking! Stand around and wait for something to happen ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  You stand around for a bit.

  Suddenly, Claudius enters! And your mom too! And Laertes! And a bunch of other people you don’t know! Wow, it looks like this plot is going to advance itself whether you want it to or not!

  Claudius makes you and Laertes shake hands, and you apologize to Laertes as you do it. You explain that, as a victim of mental illness, you should not be held criminally responsible for your actions, and it’s a very nice speech except you are only faking being crazy, so all in all it’s sort of a dick move on your part.

  You draw the analogy of firing an arrow over your house and accidentally hitting your brother, and how in this situation it’s not REALLY your fault for injuring him. Laertes accepts your apology and is polite enough not to ask why you’re recklessly firing arrows over your house in the first place. He still wants to fence you though!

  What the heck — it’s a pretty wide hallway and everyone’s already here. Guess you’re going to fence right in this hallway! Why not, right?

  Osric offers you some swords. They’re all pretty much the same, so whatever sword you choose doesn’t really matter.

  » Choose the sword on the left «

  » Choose the sword in the middle «

  ☠ Choose the sword on the right ☠

  * * *

  * * *

  You and Laertes settle on the swords you like and face off against each other. As you’re about to begin, Claudius speaks!