If a prominent content creator invited you
to a mysterious compound for unknown reasons, and then forced you to participate in a series of
deadly challenges for a chance at YouTube fame, what would you do?
No, this wasn’t my idea; setting up all these different games
takes too much work. If it were up to me, I’d just throw you all in a giant pit and come
back after a month to see what’s left. Still, I gotta appreciate our MCs setup. Each game
is designed to test your mind, your body, or your people skills, and some of them test all
three. It’s pretty much the kind of thing you could see Mr. Beast doing if YouTube relaxed their
content guidelines a bit. One can only hope.
If a prominent content creator invited you
to a mysterious compound for unknown reasons, and then forced you to participate in a
series of deadly challenges for a chance at YouTube fame, what would you do?
I’m going to break down the mistakes made, what you should do, and how to beat
the DEATH GAMES in THE OCTOGAMES.
Jaxpro hates the fame. Don’t get
me wrong, he loves the money, but overtime having to wake up every morning and
dance like a trained monkey for an audience of bedwetters just wears you down. I can relate.
At any rate, he’s devised what he feels to be the perfect exit strategy. All he needs to do
is make one last video, and it’s gotta be big. To that end, he’s invited fifteen promising
content creators out to the middle of nowhere to compete for the ultimate prize: full control and
ownership of Jaxpro’s channel and all his social media accounts. So, yeah, it’s basically Willy
Wonka, only a little more psychopathic.
Ya see, I neglected to mention what happens
to the losers, and apparently, so did Jaxpro, which is why our contestants all look so chipper
going into our first game: Simon Says.
Now, in case you were raised in a doomsday cult,
the rules of this game are simple. Contestants must obey any command that begins with the words
“Simon says…” For example, Simon Says like this video, and then share it on your LinkedIn without
context. However, if players follow a command that doesn’t begin with “Simon says…,” like this
idiot who just put his hand on his head, they are eliminated. Easy right? Well, you’d better hope
so, because this is the price for failure:
Dang, dude. Good luck getting
this one monetized.
Of course, Simon also didn’t say “attempt to
flee” which knocks out three more contenders at the hands of Fantastic Mr. Fox
and a sharpshooter, and while I can understand the shock of watching someone
get smashed to death right in front of you, you gotta believe they’re not just going to let
you walk away after witnessing a murder. Clearly, this is the reason they took everyone’s cellphones
upon entry. Right now, the only real option is purposeful compliance. Just play along until an
opportunity presents itself to run or fight.
Sure, if we all worked together, we could probably
overpower the fox dude and start smashing red shirts before the triggerman could pick us all
off, but without coordinating ahead of time, there’s no way of knowing whether the others
would be willing to join in. After all, some of us might still want to play the game.
In that case, the strategy here is pretty basic. Pay close attention to the commands and don’t
take your eyes off the game master. The former is self-explanatory. As for the latter,
maintaining a degree of tunnel vision will prevent us from copying the movements
of those around us should they make a mistake. Plus it’ll keep us from looking at
the bodies and psyching ourselves out.
As for the commands themselves, they’re not that
complex, but the aforementioned strat could help when we’re told to stand on one leg while holding
our breath. Staying calm allows you to hold your breath for longer periods, and fixating on a
single point off in the distance can help you keep your balance. There’s also some evidence
that suggests the average person is better at balancing on their non-dominant leg, although it’s
far from definitive so your results may vary.
Ordinarily, Simon Says goes on until only
one player remains, but in this case, the game ends once we’re down to eight, hence the
oct in OCTOGAMES. With the first round concluded, the surviving contestants are sent to the barracks
to rest up ahead of the next challenge.
For brevity’s sake, and because it’s
really not all that interesting, I’m going to skip over most of what goes down
between games, but there are definitely some things worth going over here. First and
foremost, it’s important to remember that politics is inevitable. Lean too hard into the
strong silent routine like Steven aka Squish, and you’ll paint a target on your back. At
the same time, trying too hard to make friends will make you seem untrustworthy, and can even
result in you getting your arse kicked.
Looks like he can.
For real though, they’re freaking shooting people in here. You think they give a freak
about who hits who between rounds? After all, even if Squish had beaten Ruth to
death, killing him as punishment would just cost them another contestant.
That being said, he’s still a fool for doing that. No one is going to want to work with
someone so quick to fly off the handle. Fact is, teaming up might seem like a waste of time
since you’ll almost certainly be forced to compete against each other eventually, but that
only matters if you live long enough, and flying solo is a great way to wind up dead.
Key to remember here is that we’ll want to surround ourselves with people we know are
weaker than us in some way to give ourselves the best chance of defeating them when the
time comes. Knowing this, we’ll want to give off the appearance of perfect mediocrity. Seem too
competent and people will be afraid of you. Seem too worthless and you’ll be seen as dead weight.
Just keep in mind that if someone asks to team up with you it’s because they think they have an
advantage, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as long as you can play your cards right.
Of course, the fact we’re all effectively being held hostage also presents a unique opportunity
in that we can act as though we don’t care about the game at all and are simply biding our
time until we can escape. Building a team around this shared goal like Carrie, Maxine,
and AJ do, will create an element of trust which we can exploit later on, so this is
definitely the approach I would take.
So, with all that out of the way, let’s jump
right into our second game: HOPSCOTCH. The rules of HOPSCOTCH are HOPSCOTCH. Move from one side
of the pattern to the other by placing one foot in each box. However, the organizers have added
in a twist by crossing the game with Redlight, Greenlight. Make a move while the lights
are red and you’re eliminated.
Honestly, this one is probably the easiest out of
all of them, and since it only ends once someone is eliminated, I could totally see us going
again and again until someone makes a mistake or people start dropping from exhaustion.
The most important thing to remember here is taking it slow. We weren’t given a
time limit, and the faster you move, the more momentum you’ll carry, meaning it’ll
be much more difficult to stop on a dime when the lights turn red. I’d also want to linger a bit
on the two-square steps to try and avoid stopping while standing on one leg. It’s not clear
whether the light changes are random or not, but it’s still worth a shot regardless.
Ultimately, Ms. Sunshine winds up getting herself eliminated by moving on red, and
even then, only because Squish managed to reproduce the sound played during the light
change. Either way, rules are rules.
That sucks.
As for what we can take away from that chick’s run, it seems to me
like panic is what really did her in. She went into that single step just fine, but clearly
started freaking out after losing her balance, which likely contributed to her taking Squish’s
bait and hopping into an early grave.
Now, I’m sure some of you are lauding the dude’s
use of perfect pitch, but just like putting the smackdown on Ruth, this was a mistake. The way
I see it, Sunshine probably would have fallen over no matter what, so pushing her over the edge
like that only serves to make others dislike you, especially if she was part of a team. Guess
we’ll see how that works out for him.
Moving on to round number three, this one is a
bit different. First off, it’s only optional, with the prize for completing it being the chance
to go home early, and yeah, I’m not buying it. I mean, do you really think for a second they’d
let someone go straight to the police while the game’s still going on? Besides, even if they
actually send you home, they never said whether you’d still be alive when that happens.
Whatever the case, only one contestant takes up the challenge. According to Jaxpro, all she
has to do is traverse the inflatable obstacle course in under a minute. However, what she
doesn’t find out until it’s too late is that there’s a furry freak with a pipe wrench in
there waiting to bash her brains in.
Yeah, in terms of strategy here, the best way to
win is not to play. Only an idiot would assume Jaxpro’s telling the truth about letting us
go, and without being able to study the course ahead of time, there’s know way of knowing
whether it can even be completed at all.
However, if I just had to do this, I would strip
down to my underwear to make it harder for fox bro to grab hold of me. In fact, getting caught up
nearly lands Jess a beat down right beside the finish line, but with a little quick thinking
and some strip-mall self-defense training, she manages to reach the other side.
Too bad it just wasn’t fast enough.
Yup, saw that coming.
All right, next up we have Musical Chairs.
Just like normal there’s only five chairs in the
middle and six of us. Music will play while we walk around the chairs, and when it stops, we
all try to sit down. Whoever’s left standing is out of the game, and according to Jaxpro, the
first person out also gets eliminated.
Now, if you’ve played this game before, you
might think the best strategy would be to keep your back angled towards the chairs as you
move to cut down on your sitting time. Of course, you probably weren’t also fighting for your
life in a competition where violence was not only allowed but also encouraged. Guess it
depends on where you went to preschool.
As far as I can tell, the best way to play this
game is to stay low and be prepared to fight to the death over your seat. Immediately attacking
the person in front of you is also an option as you’d only need to take one player out to ensure
you had a spot. Either way, once I sat down, I’d hook my feet around the chair legs and keep
my hands up to try and deflect any incoming blows. And if I landed in the same seat as someone
else, like what happened with AJ and Ruth, you can bet I’m going to elbow them
in the face until they give up.
Instead, AJ simply tries bumping Ruth
off the chair while still sitting down, which only serves to level the playing field and
help her fight him off. Of course, it wouldn’t have ever come down to this had he, Carrie, Maxine
worked together as a team, ya know, like they were supposed to. As a matter of fact, this is the
first game we’ve seen so far wherein working as a team would lend you a major advantage.
Think about it. The round doesn’t end until all the chairs are taken. So, Team Nerd could
just stay on their feet and single out one of the other competitors each time until we
were the only three left. And since only the loser from round one is getting eliminated,
it wouldn’t really matter by then, right?
Well, about that. In addition to offering the
winner of this challenge $1 million dollars, Jaxpro decided to mix things up by eliminating
whoever comes in second place instead. This brings us to Squish and Ruth to rehash that little
dust up back in the barracks. Unfortunately, for the latter, the best strategy here
is to treat this round more like a cage match than a parlor game, and we all know
Squish is no stranger to violence.
Chill, dude. Leave it to the professionals.
After all, this video is going public. No point in going through all the trouble of winning just
to get nailed for first degree murder. Simply competing in the games is one thing since
you can just claim you were under duress, but as far as the law’s concerned, fearing
someone will kill you doesn’t justify killing an innocent third party. And besides,
this isn’t even part of the challenge.
Oh, well. At least he doesn’t have to worry
about Ruth screwing him over at the very end, or does he? We’ll find out in a bit.
For now, the five remaining contestants are headed into game 5, Hide and Seek. And this
one is even more breakable than that last, especially if you have a team. Ya see, in normal
hide and seek, the game ends once everyone is found, but in this case, it’s over as soon as
fox guy kills someone. That means instead of using the-sixty second head start to hide in this
dump, we can use it to savagely beat one of the other players and leave them bleeding at his feet,
like an offering to a vengeful ancient god.
On the other hand, if we’re solo, all we have
to do is wait until everyone else hides and then make a trail with our clothing to lead the
freak right to them. And don’t worry, this is the last time in this video I’ll suggest stripping
down as a legitimate strat, well probably.
Of course, if you’d rather keep your clothes
on, another approach would be to squeeze into someone else’s hiding spot and then toss
them out in the open once the seeker gets close. This is ultimately the approach that
Walt and Squish use to cross out Maxine, with some pretty interesting results.
Jesus, who the heck is this guy?
Oh, by the way, nice teamwork, you guys, yet
again. Not only could you have ganged up on Squish to make sure he got squeezed out first, both
Carrie and AJ had a chance to grab that bayonet and jam it through big-bad’s eye holes. I mean,
if you’re still trying to escape, this might have been the best and only chance you’re going to get.
Put the juggernaut down and then try to ambush the other two and take their weapons. Instead, no
one even moved a muscle until Maxine got her neck snapped. Then again, maybe getting away isn’t as
big a priority as they were letting on. Hmmm.
And yes, I did see the part where Carrie had
a chance to run away after one of the henchmen seemingly turned a blind eye, but remember, this
entire house would have to be rigged with cameras to make this game work. It is for a YouTube
video after all. Chances are had she gone out that window, the other guard would have smoked her
on the spot. At least I would certainly hope so. I dunno. Maybe I’m doing their work for them.
In any case, we’re headed into game number 6: Tetherball. This one will be decided
by three rounds of one v one, with the losers of rounds one and two squaring off in
round three to see who gets eliminated.
The game itself is fairly straightforward.
First one to wrap the ball around the pole wins. However, like all the other games, there’s
a twist. Well, maybe. It’s been a while since I last played this game and I don’t remember
the ball looking like a morning star.
Regardless, the best strategy here remains the
same. Try to hit the ball downward at a steep angle so that it swings up over your opponent’s
head. This approach will be particularly useful for AJ and Squish who are both taller
than their respective adversaries.
Naturally, the spikes introduce an extra layer
of difficulty, but there’s still ways we can work around them. First, we need to take off all
our clothes and… nah, I’m just kidding. It’s just our shoes this time. By slipping our shoes over
our hands, we can hit the ball harder without worrying about hurting ourselves. Obviously, the
moment we do this everyone else will follow suit, but at least it brings this game closer to the
recess version. Plus, if we lose our first match, at least we’ll still have uninjured
hands for the elimination round.
Now, if protecting ourselves like this isn’t
allowed, I’d make sure to only hit the ball with a clenched fist to protect the palms of my
hands as damaging them will make it a lot more difficult to manipulate objects effectively,
something we can’t afford to risk when there’s still two more games remaining.
I mean, just look at how screwed up AJ, Squish, and Walt are after only a single round.
Go two rounds slapping at it open handed like that and you’ll never play piano again, and this
is where Carrie’s able to get ahead. After seeing the damage sustained by both players in the first
round, she opts to simply throw her match against Squish without even touching the ball. This
ensures she’ll have fresh hands going up against Walt, which is really bad news for him.
That’s pretty good for an airsoft gun.
Gotta hand it to Carrie and AJ. I never would
have thought to try something like that, probably because the thought of losing at anything makes
my teeth hurt. Thankfully, it only ever happens when the rest of my team is pure garbage.
So, anyway, onto game number seven: Hangman…oh, sorry, I mean, Hangperson. I’m sure you could
easily imagine how this could be turned into a death game, but in this case there’s no
actual h*nging involved at all. It sucks, I know. Don’t get too disappointed though
because it does involve e*ectroc*tion, which is the next best thing.
Just like the regular game, everyone will take turns guessing the letters
used in a particular phrase. However, instead of drawing a stick figure, each incorrect guess will
result in a progressively more intense electric shock. Players will only have two seconds to guess
a letter during their turn or they can attempt to solve the phrase for a chance at being released
from their chair. First one to die loses.
Honestly, there’s nothing here in terms of
strategy that differs from regular hangman, although for such a childish game it’s really
more complex than one might expect. Obviously, vowels are the best place to start, but which
ones do you start with? Well, going off the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the letter “A” is
the most common vowel in words four letters or less, and the letter “E” is the most common in
words ranging from six to twelve letters.
Looking at the board, we have a six-letter
word, a four-letter word, a three-letter word, and a nine letter word, so we’ll want to
start with either “A” or “E.” After that, things fall more into chance, so we’ll want to
pick out letters based solely on their frequency of use in English vocabulary until we can start
to recognize the words on screen. In order, that’s “R,” “I,” “O,” “T,” “N,” “S,” “L,” “C,”
“U,” “D,” “P,” “M,” “H,” “G,” “B,” “F,” “Y,” “W,” “K,” “V,” “X,” “Z,” “J,” and “Q.”
As long as neither of our fellow contestants do the same, following this sequence as best
we can between their choices gives us the best chance of not getting shocked, and really
that’s what this is all about. Otherwise, it all comes down to blind luck and recognizing
the phrase sooner than anyone else.
What we really don’t want to do is say nothing,
because as Squish finds out twice, “nothing” is not a letter, and you will get zapped. But just
when Marlfox is about to crank it up to eleven, Squish saves his own skin at the last second
by guessing the phrase, “Maxine lost the Octogames,” which she most certainly did.
Now we’re down to just Carrie and AJ, and with a new phrase up on the board, the only thing either
of them can do is take it from the top. This time, we’ve got a six, a five, and a four, so I’d
definitely start with “E” instead of “A” before running through the rest of that series. Lucky
for Carrie, she can just run straight through the list, as AJ refuses to play if it means
she gets eliminated. Isn’t that nice of him? You can tell how touched Carrie is by all the
crying, although she sure as heck doesn’t try that hard to talk him out of it. Later bro.
Wow, imagine finding out your son let himself die so some chick he just met could blow up
on YouTube. Or at least try to, anyway.
There’s still one last challenge separating
our last two contestants from the grand prize, and the grave: game 8, Capture the Flag.
And since we haven’t actually heard from Jaxpro this entire video, I’ll let
him explain the rules himself.
Seems a little too simple for a final game if you
ask me, but whatever, dude. It’s your legacy.
As for strategy, if I knew I was faster than
my opponent, I’d just burn them in the race and watch them die, plain and simple. However, if
it looked like a toss-up, or I was up against a much more physical opponent like Carrie is in this
situation, I wouldn’t let it come down to a race in the first place. In that case, the only option
as I see it would be to immediately grab onto the other player and start clawing and scratching at
their face, biting their extremities, and just generally making life unpleasant for them.
The idea here is to instigate physical violence without doing any real damage in the hope
that they will, in turn, hit us back hard enough that we can pretend we’re knocked out. Or
maybe they’ll actually knock us out. Either way, according to Jaxpro, if it looks like they
knocked out their opponent, they lose, which should mean that we win, or at very least go
onto a solo challenge. That’s right; we’re going to flop. It works for the pros, after all.
Of course, this isn’t going to get everyone, but in this particular case, we know
that Squish has a history of losing his cool and attacking people, which pretty
much makes him the perfect sucker.
Unfortunately, Carrie chooses to play it straight,
and as a result she’s left to watch in horror as Squish achieves ultimate victory, or so he thinks.
Just then, Squish notices one of the Octogames henchmen waving at him with a torn off sleeve,
but by the time the significance of this sinks in, it’s already too late. Ya see, it turns out
Ruth actually survived their last encounter during musical chairs, and apparently, Jaxpro
liked the cut of her jib so much he brought her on board and let her rig the final round.
The flag Squish is holding right now is nothing but a decoy meant to distract him from the real
one, the one that Carrie just grabbed three seconds ago. And you know what that means.
That’s what he gets for playing the tough guy.
And with that, Carrie will go on to begin her life as a YouTube star with
a massive community guidelines strike. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the channel and all
associated social media accounts are immediately nuked for promoting what is effectively a snuff
film. Here’s hoping it was all worth it.
In the end, only two of the starting contestants
survived, although this was pretty much going to happen no matter what. That being said,
by sticking to the strategies we proposed, I’m confident we could have beaten each
of the games, thereby granting us eternal glory as YouTube’s greatest creator,
which of course, I already am.
For that reason, I think THE
OCTOGAMES was Beaten.
Moral of the story, fame comes at a price.
Oh, and I’m looking for volunteers for an in-person event I’m hosting. Hole-digging
experience is a plus, but not required.
