Chapter 2: Breaking In

You win the game, and Melvin soars up and out of the water. “Yeah! Way to go, Player! We did it! In your face, fisherman!” 

The fisherman chuckles. “That’s some good fishin’, Player. It does my heart good to compete again. My memory is coming back a little, I think. It makes me wonder where all the other Players are.”

Melvin looks around. “Hey, yeah,” he says. “Where is everyone? The last time I played Fishing Derby, there were Players lined up to compete for screens and screens. Now there’s…” he zips around, looking in all directions, “just you.”

“Yeah, anyway,” you break in, “the fisherman and I were talking about how I could get home. He said if we played, he might remember how I could get out of here.”

Melvin stares at you, floating quietly in the air. “What do you mean, Player? What game do you want to play?”

“I don’t want to play any game! I don’t know how I got here, and I want to go home!”

Melvin is quiet. “Player, if you want to leave, just leave. Players come and go as they please.”

“How do I do that, exactly?” you say, somewhat annoyed.

Melvin looks over at the Fisherman, who shrugs. Melvin looks back at you and chooses his words carefully, which clearly is not his habit. “Players… just stop playing. I don’t know how they do it, exactly, they just decide they are done playing, turn off the power switch, and poof, they are gone.”

“What power switch?”

Melvin circles slowly, kind of pacing in the air. “I’ve always wondered how it works, myself. All I know is that Players exist in two worlds. The so-called real world, and the world here, in the Atariverse. I don’t know how they do it, but that’s what makes Players special. They put in a cartridge, flip on the power, and here they are. But they are still back in their world, somehow. When they are done, they flip the switch off, take out the cartridge, and they’re gone.” Then, with some irritation, “So, do that, if you’re so eager to leave.”

You think for a moment and look around. “But… I’m not in two places at once. I’m just here. Yes, I turned on a power switch, but then, I was just here, nowhere else.”

Melvin sort of squints. “Are you sure you’re a Player?”

The Fisherman speaks up. “You must be a Player. You have a whistle and a reset button.”

Melvin considers this, and thinks out loud “Yes… and also, I’m a missile, I should know. I can feel that you’re a Player. Players and missiles have a special bond, you know. But at the same time, there is something strange about you… I can feel that, too.” Melvin floats and glows silently, and the water laps at the dock.

“Want to go two out of three?” asks the Fisherman, breaking the silence.

“WAIT A MINUTE!” shouts Melvin. “This is like the legend!”

“What legend?” you ask.

“You know!” exclaims Melvin, excitedly zipping around. “The old story that one day the Rainbow Castle will fall, and a Player will come who cannot leave until the kingdom is restored! It’s a dumb kids’ story. And it doesn’t help us because the Rainbow Castle hasn’t fallen.”

The Fisherman shakes his head. “What rainbow castle? Missiles are always full of nonsense.”

Melvin is stupefied. “What Rainbow Castle? Old man, you must have slipped a chip. How dare you insult our Queen! She should feed you to your shark. ‘What Rainbow Castle?’ he says.”

The old man seems embarrassed. “It’s true… my memory isn’t right anymore. It’s like part of it has been taken away. All I know is it has been years since I’ve even seen a Player, and I am starting to remember dark stories of terrible things happening.”

“WHAT?” shouts Melvin. “There’s a Player RIGHT HERE.” Melvin comes in close and whispers. “Don’t listen to this old man, he’s crazy. Let’s just get out of here. No one likes Fishing Derby anyway, that’s why there’s no Players here. The castle is just over this hill, in the center of Sunnyvale. We’ll seek audience with the Queen, glory to her name, and she and her advisors will know how to get you home.” Melvin zips through air up the hill.

You look back at the Fisherman. “Um, thanks for the game. It was… fun.”

The Fisherman looks dark and moody. “Be careful, Player. Something isn’t right.” He casts his rod and returns to his fishing.

“Come ON!” shouts Melvin from several hundred feet up the hill. You clamber up after him, but take one look back at the Fisherman, and the dark shape of the shark in the water swimming back and forth somehow gives you chills. You feel like it’s watching you.

“Do I have to carry you?” shouts Melvin. You keep climbing up the path and meet him just at the crest of the hill, the top of which is covered with blocky pine trees. “Okay,” says Melvin, visibly excited. “Get ready. You and I are going to walk over that ridge, and you will get your first glimpse of the most beautiful thing in the Atariverse. The Rainbow Castle of Queen Stella.” You solemnly walk up the path to the crest of the hill and look down into the valley below. You see no rainbow castle, but instead a depressing ruin of gray bricks that looks like a child smashed the world’s dullest Lego building. Melvin practically explodes. “NOOOO!!!! Nooooo!!!!” His voice trails off as he zips in a beeline toward the gray ruin.

This place is called Sunnyvale? The whole area feels creepy, as there is a gray haze over everything, and once you walk into it, even the sky is gray, and the sun is nowhere to be seen. “Melvin, wait up!” you shout as you jog down into the cold, gray valley after him.

Panting, you arrive at the ruined structure that might have been a castle once. Melvin is zipping everywhere, examining every ruined brick. “How could this have happened?” he shouts. “WHEN could this have happened?” He slows down and just floats, exhausted from all his zipping around. “The whole valley is gray. And there’s no one here.” He shakes his head, not that he has a head, exactly. “This makes no sense.” He hovers, thinking, in the cold, clammy air.

“Maybe there’s someone inside?” you suggest, seeing that enough of the building is still standing that it does have an inside.

“I thought of that,” says Melvin. “I looked all over, but the windows and the doors are blocked with wreckage. Our Queen would never leave us. Which means… she could be trapped inside!”

You are doubtful that anyone could still be inside such an old, abandoned ruin. “But we can’t get in, so…”

“But we CAN get in!” says Melvin. “These walls were once made of two thick layers of pure spectronium, which is indestructible, but something horrible has been done to them, and while they are still hard, I think we can break through it.” He looks at you. “And I do mean, ‘we.’ This isn’t something I can do by myself. I tried when you were coming down the hill. Are you ready for a little paddle action, player?”

You stare at him uncertainly. “I guess?”

“Great! Then pull that reset switch, and let’s do this!”

Pulling the switch, it suddenly transforms into an elongated white rectangle. Melvin comes flying right at your face, and instinctively you slide the rectangle to protect yourself. Melvin bounces off shouting “Whee!” and goes flying at the damaged castle wall.

Place the Breakout cartridge into your Atari 2600. Set the Color/BW switch to BW. Use game selection 1, and set the left difficulty switch to b. Play until you have 864 points. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself completing the challenge.