Star’s Tale

Star the Gamer

Vroom! Star was ecstatically whizzing from one end of the bungalow to the other, playing her own real-life game of Mario Kart. The slick wooden floors acted like one gigantic banana peel, but they were no match for her. She’d long ago mastered the art of zooming across the slipperiest of surfaces, making her nigh unstoppable!

It had been a year since she had liberated the garden—from the plants, or the plants from the garden? Either way, the garden was now exclusively hers to romp in. Star was now three years old, officially a fully grown young adult. Yet, she neither behaved nor looked it. Inside and out, she remained the same boisterous puppy she’d always been.

Whoosh! On what must have been her hundredth lap, the floor was suddenly lava, and Star catapulted herself into the air, dive-bombing onto a couch. Her games of Mario Kart invariably evolved into exhilarating rounds of the floor is lava. Undefeated, she deftly launched herself from couch to couch, artfully avoiding the floor until she triumphantly declared victory. Star aptly dubbed her fusion of these two games Stario Kart.

Star spent much of her life surrounded by video games, and they would often shape her reality. This influence was evident in her daily frenetic episodes of Stario Kart. But her favourite game was tug of war, which she had observed from a Mario Party mini-game.

One toy day, she found a little rope toy in her stocking, and it quickly became her most prized possession. Since then, she perpetually challenged any willing rival to tug of war matches. While she wasn’t very skilled at it, especially with the banana peel floors complicating her efforts, it never deterred her determination or impacted her joy. In fact, she grew to relish the slipping and sliding facet of her tug of war matches.

As summer gave way to autumn, Star was about to embark on an epic new adventure with the arrival of a new video game console. When a parcel arrived on a Tuesday in September, Star was instantly on the scene to investigate. After meticulously inspecting it with incessant sniffing and licking, she was keen to unveil what was inside the big brown box. Unamused, she found yet another box inside—this one green, and atop it was a video game entitled Destiny.

Destiny was a gateway to a mystical universe of light and darkness, where brave Guardians across the solar system embarked on an epic quest to push back the forces of the encroaching darkness. Star was ready to rally among them with anticipation to protect her solar system from malevolent entities in a decade-long quest that would span the rest of her life.

Star was the very essence of Destiny’s Hunter Guardian class. Just as the Hunter moved with grace and stealth, so too did Star. Despite the rigid floors of the bungalow amplifying the subtlest pitter-patter of her paws, she could move around in total silence when she so desired, seeming to appear out of nowhere and then vanish without a trace. Like any true Hunter, she preferred to roam beyond the borders of her bungalow, exploring the wilderness. Agile, adaptable, instinctive, and cunning, she was a true master of her frontier.

As the years passed, Star’s life was about to get much more stimulating when the creatures known as Pokémon invaded the real world, brought to life through augmented reality. Their emergence would upend Star’s life in more ways than one, presenting her with more opportunities for open-world excursions that were lengthier, more interactive, and engaging with new objectives to discover and complete.

One such outing took Star on a journey to the grandest park in all the land. It was a wondrous realm of winding paths and enchanting nature with vibrant gardens and a vast sparkling lake reflecting the whispers of its ancient woodlands. Star weaved through the woods hot on the trail of a wild Vaporeon, a sleek aquatic blue water-type Pokémon resembling a cat with a mermaid-like tail. With her vivid imagination, she believed she could practically sniff it as it seemed to flee from the lake. “That way!” Star determined, hastening through the rose gardens towards the extravagant fountain at the heart of the park. No power on earth could have stopped her from reaching it when unexpectedly…

Splash! In a hasty burst of enthusiasm, Star leapt into the air and plunged into the fountain after the elusive Vaporeon. It was a choice she would instantly come to regret. Although the Vaporeon escaped, Star emerged from the fountain resembling one herself, for its water had dyed her fur blue! Shocked by her new appearance, she now faced her least favourite game of all: the game of baths. Bath time brings out her very worst trait, her notorious husky scream, which she would use to alert the entire universe to her plight as she attempted every conceivable escape from the bathtub. This was one game over she always appreciated, relieved just to still be alive.

To Star’s astonishment, a new Pokémon species closely resembling her was soon to be discovered in a tropical region far away, where the sun and moon dance in harmony. Named Lycanroc, this agile, wolf-like rock-type Pokémon had sandy brown fur and a plush white mane adorned with sharp protruding rocks. Its face featured a mask pattern remarkably identical to Star’s, mirroring her own distinctive markings in every way but colour. This striking similarity quickly made Lycanroc her favourite Pokémon.

Not long after she completed her first-ever open-air adventure in her first-ever Zelda game, Star was ready to depart her bungalow and commence a new chapter in her life journeying north. She would establish her new base in an ample apartment in a lively part of town right next to the park where she once chased that Vaporeon. However, to claim her new home, she faced a boss fight against a new foe like nothing she’d ever encountered—stairs. 

For her whole life, her bungalow was all she had ever known. Until now, stairs had never been an obstacle, and she was afraid. They were her most formidable nemesis yet. After howling every possible cheat code she could conjure at them to no avail, she lunged towards them and conquered them one step at a time without ever stumbling. Despite the pride she felt from her rousing success, she remained apprehensive in her rematches against them.

Awaiting her at the top of the stairs was the spacious interior of her new abode. She was immediately content with its large rooms and the elongated passageway connecting them, already plotting her future Stario Kart tracks. Perhaps she’d race around the couch in the middle of her new enormous living room? Or zoom down the hallway? Or both? She couldn’t wait to play because, at long last, the slippery floors were no more. For her apartment was outfitted with ultra-soft carpets, finally providing Star with the friction beneath her toes she had long desired. 

It was in this apartment where Star would immerse herself in a magical world of boundless seas and shimmering sunsets in Sea of Thieves, where crafty pirates set sail on whimsical ships in search of buried treasure, encountering mythical sea creatures along the way. Some of Star’s fondest gaming moments were spent forging legendary tales on the high seas as she howled along to many hours of shanties. She hoped to one day embark on such a voyage with the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow.

Over the years, Star would go on to enjoy and experience a wide assortment of video games, from the soothing experience of creating her island paradise in Animal Crossing to the thrilling challenge of surviving the storm to be the last dog standing in Fortnite. Video games were a constant presence in her life, shaping the sort of husky she would become. Through her impish antics and exciting adventures, she brought her favourite elements of these games into reality, making them a part of her everyday life. However, Star had never embarked on a real ocean voyage like those in her Sea of Thieves adventures—but that was soon to change. After all, this apartment was but a temporary stop on a much larger journey north.