This really was an exercise in depicting a Word document using Markdown. This is also a love letter to my fave unhinged let's play YouTuber, LGIO. Many of these moments are inspired by his videos over the years, it's nothing but him breaking games in absurd and unhinged ways.

Check out the original prompt here!!

ANNOTATED TRANSCRIPT: I Completely Broke This War Simulation By Breaking The Planet In Half - UWF Multidomain Simulator (32:09)

[Document created by F█████████ M███████: 01/04]

[6 other updates collapsed]

[Document closed by L███████ P██████: 01/29]

Hey there it's Josh, welcome back to Let's Game It Out.

Today we're playing the United World Federation's Multidomain Simulator. Developers, thank you for a key.

Forwarded Comment: Who authorized this license kry?? CC @C██████ P██████ @F█████████ M███████ @L██ L██████ FYSA, forward this to @Investigations, @Incident Support. This leak is NOT acceptable [Director L. P., 01/04]

And with that, NEW GAME!

As always, our journey begins with the character creation menu. And I love how we have such a diverse selection of Sad, Sad, Really Sad, and Insane… ooooooh, I think I'll pick you! You look like you're about to cry!

[Subject picks O-4 G██ K███ S███, GSOC]

Comment: O-4 G██ K███ S███ surfaced this video to Incident Support on Jan 3 [Link expunged]. At time of reporting, the video was #3 on Gaming, with est. 451,000 views. As of 01/20, the video has amassed 2,048,000 views and more than 86,000 likes. [Screenshot expunged] Subject's videos average between 3 to 5 million views, with his most popular videos achieving up to 40 million views. [E-7 F. M., last edited 01/20]

Comment: Analyst @C███████ S██ A██████ surfaced a no-hit no-walk speedrun submitted at time of recording by a user Let's Game It Out. The segmented speedrun, which accepts a New Game Plus, was completed at an average of 3.5 seconds per level. Both the speedrun.com account and YouTube account share the same business email: letsgameitout████████@██████.com. The subject's thought process has been illustrated in this video. [E-7 F. M., last edited 01/17]

Wow, character customization in a military simulator! Let's see, maximum, maximum, maximum, minimum, maximum, minimum. And I think he looks great with a green beard, and oooooooh, a purple mustache. Those eyes look so happy!

[Subject gives O-4 G██ outlandishly wideset eyes, dilated pupils, and enormous eyebrows. G██ is also bald, has non-permissible facial hair, and no perceivable neck. Contrary to statements, G██'s character remains displeased.]

Comment: Style guide. Refer to characters consistently, not their real life counterparts. [Task assigned to @S████ G████] [E-7 F. M., last edited 01/19]

And let's see, name. Well he looks like a [royalty-free music plays] CHAD BROSKI THE THICK MO–[royalty-free music cuts] oh, never mind. Character limit. Chad Broski the Thi then.

Comment: Shortened to Chad for the remainder of this transcript. [E-4 C. S. A., 01/05]

Oh thank God, at least the name covers two lines.

Pretty much the game's about trying to survive missions in World War Three. Wonder what the first two World Wars were about. We have all sorts of resources and meters on the side here, like bullets, blood, plastic bottles, and chicken wings, the four main food groups in any healthy diet. And we have other things we can pick up, like grenades, money, beer, and of course my favorite resource, COW. No idea how we're going to find one in this nightmare warzone, but I'm hoping to pick up a lot of those.

And what a base we've got here. Base Skya… Skye…? You know what, you're Sky Poopy Bird. Welcome to Sky Poopy Bird! Nothing but peeling paint, trash everywhere, and sad soldiers popping into existence over there. Some might call this Base a crack den, but I call this perfection.

[Subject skips through the first intelligence briefing.]

Blah blah blah, world is ending, blah blah blah, Unkie Willie [GENERAL C██████], who looks like Elon Musk but worse, is sad that his goldfish died, Unkie wants to raid the border town of– and actually, speaking of RAID, INTRODUCING–

Comment: Can we cut out the ad segment? [E-4 C. S. A., 01/05]

Comment: Approved. Remove all future ad segments [S-4 H. D. 01/05]

Comment: Thank you. I hate them. [E-4 C. S. A., 01/06]

Linkie in the description so you can check out the game for free! And now back to the game. Oh right, Unkie Willie said we're deploying at 2100. I noticed that you can skip 8 hours at a time by lying down on the nearest horizontal surface. So I wonder what happens if we just don't leave this room.

[royalty-free music plays for 5 seconds over a black screen: “SEVERAL DAYS LATER…”]

So, funny story. I forgot I left the game running for a week. But it's now 2100! The year, I mean. 73 years have passed. I'm looking out the window, and I can see one, two, three, four broken trucks. And as you can tell, this seems to be causing issues with the frame rate. Do you see this? Willie is still here, I've tried to push his character but it looks like he can't move. But I did actually find this! A broom! You can sweep most things in the room, but it interacts with objects too! Like this chair, this closet, but not Unkie. But that gives me an idea.

Alright, let's split the difference. 50 years. Sky's normal, he's still boring, I need to test something.

Oh. My. God. The broom works out here too. Look, I can sweep those leaves up, a real important part of being a soldier. And this lady here too, 'scuse me. And look, a truck!

[Subject sends the truck flying into a wall. The sound of a woman groaning in pain has been added. Subject bursts out laughing. Audible banging is heard.]

She's fine. But hold those thoughts and prayers, that gives me an idea!

[royalty-free music plays for 5 seconds over a black screen: “FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER”]

Oh hey there. Look at what I've found. It turns out this broom interacts with every physical object out here. [Camera pans to a pile of DIVLOG trucks and DIVARTY Rovers.] I love a game that lets me send vehicles flying.

[Prerecorded footage plays. Subject bounces a truck repeatedly in the air using carefully timed sweeps.]

In fact, I discovered that if you hop on a vehicle like this. [Subject fails.] Like this. [Subject fails.] Like. This. [Subject hops onto a Rover's engine.] And you press X to sweep, you get this!

[Subject's character and the Rover shoots upwards at supersonic velocities.]

Comment: Didn't we fix this in 1.51? Subject is on ver. 1.64 from 3 months ago. @QA [Analyst J. A., 01/22]

Comment: Bug replicated. Might be a collision detection issue. Added to Taskmaster. [Dev H. J-B., Last edited: 01/25]

I also learned that you're supposed to bag up the trash and throw them in the dumpster. See, that gets me 2 whole dollars! I also learned that you can take them out of the dumpster afterwards and there's no penalty. And I checked, you can't just throw it back in for another 2 dollars. But we could bring this allllll the way back to Unkie's office and add it to the pile we made.

[Subject throws the trash bag at GENERAL C██████, who is barely visible. The character model yelps in pain.]

What a lovely office we've made for him!

[Three other bugs have been expunged from this draft for internal circulation. One occurs when the player hits a certain keybind while autosaving, one is a race condition that allows for memory leaks, and one is a bug when the player's name exceeds the given character count in a mission briefing. All 3 bugs have been patched as of ver. 1.66a.]

You know it's a good game when I'm two weeks into recording this and we still haven't completed the tutorial. I'll skip the boring bits. There are levels, various classes you can specialize in, and skill trees. Look at how massive the tree is! But there's one class I'm really interested in.

[The camera pans and zooms towards the UWF Special Forces skill tree, before zooming into the tree next to it, the UWF Logistics Division (DIVLOG). It then cuts to the subject's character customization screen.]

Behold! Corporal [Chad], UWF Chef! You can tell he's a chef because he's wearing a chef hat and he has a French mustache. MMMMMMMM mucho delicious! Most of the chef's perks are quite useless, but one really important trait is this, and this!

[Subject refers to Perk Storeman VII-B2 and SPEC Perk Culinary Specialist XIV-C1. STORE-VII-B2 allows the character to multiplicatively increase carrying capacity by 1.01% per month of service and CULSPEC-XIV-C1 allows the character to multiplicatively increase strength by 1% per unit of unused inventory.]

Ordinarily, most soldiers only have 2 or 3 slots of unused inventory, which are measured in kilograms. Which isn't much, but I have more than 13 tons!

[Character has 13,170 unused inventory slots. The camera cuts to the bottom left corner, which states that the character is currently carrying 5 kg out of a maximum of 13,175 kg.]

Which lets me do this!

[Subject walks up to a cargo truck and lifts it. Subject then pockets the truck into his inventory.]

Comment: Bug. @QA [E-6 S. G., 01/06]

Comment: Closed, not a bug. Trucks are classified as a logistics item. DIVLOG soldiers can hold logistics items in their inventory e.g. DIVLOG specs can carry shop carts and pallet jacks in inventory. [Dev H. J-B., 01/23]

And it does amazing things to the frame rate when I open it.

[Subject looks down and removes truck from inventory. After some stuttering, the player model is launched upwards at high velocities, before dying to fall damage.]

Now let's start on Mission 1. It says we need to get from here on the map to there. And while the game wants me to walk, I have a better idea!

[Subject looks forward and spawns a truck. It does not launch him upwards.]

It turns out trucks have no HP bars, since they probably weren't intended to spawn in most levels. And while this is good, this is BETTER.

[John Cena's introductory music plays, as the subject reloads the level and spawns a smaller tracked material transporter.]

Comment: Bug. @QA [E-6 S. G., 01/06]

Comment: Closed, not a bug. This is a Japanese tracked transporter for rough terrain, classified as logistics item. See above. [Dev H. J-B., 01/23]

Built like a wall of bricks, and as aerodynamic as one! 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3 working days or your money back!

[Music ends.]

Since this isn't a tank and it was never meant to come up here to the front lines, it wasn't modelled with any HP and cannot be damaged by objects on the road.

[Subject speeds up in-game footage. The tracked transporter moves forward, crushing two machine gun nests and a platoon-level fortification, draws an obscene image in the snow, and dumps a full truckload of sand into the enemy command bunker to secure a victory.]

0 out of 5 stars, and 50 civilian casualties, yay!

The next mission has us escort an entire bomb defusal team to a target. And while I tried to have them stay behind my tank, and (believe me I tried) they weren't having it. So I placed them in the back of my tank, placed the tank in my inventory, and drove there with my second tank.

[Subsequent montages of subject's property destruction and vandalism have been expunged from this draft for internal circulation. Montages largely follow the same pattern of vehicular manslaughter, terrain reconfiguration, and bug exploitation.]

In fact, all problems can be solved by placing things in one tank, driving there with another, and occasionally, this.

[Subject's character spawns a tracked transporter beneath him. By pocketing the transporter while the game stutters, the subject retains possession of the transporter. As subject descends, subject spawns a transporter and enters it mid-air. By shifting loads in the transporter's cargo bed, subject crudely maneuvers themselves into an approximate landing zone.]

[Transporter lands after est. 30 seconds of falling. The sound of bones crunching was added.]

Oh, get up, you'll be fine. It's just a lower back injury.

Comment: Possible military service. [Investigator. L. L., 01/14]

Comment: FYSA @Incident Support. No matches to internal personnel databases. Team, refer to draft [(P0) Comprehensive Threat Assessment: Josh LGIO] [Investigator. L. L., 01/28]

Occasionally, we end up in situations where people shoot at us and we can't reach them.

[Subject exits vehicle. According to SITMAP 2-15-A4, players are pinned down by suppressive fire from a GPMG and a sniper at different bearings from across a ravine. Both sets of enemies are located outside the playing area, making it impossible for players to travel there.]

But I think we can reach them from here.

[Subject sweeps his broom, launching a transporter in each direction. When the transporters arrive, they despawn explosively.]

Silly me, I thought this game was hard!

Comment: Bug. @QA [E-6 S. G., 01/06]

Comment: Closed, not a bug. Subject's strength is modelled correctly. 1.01^13100 = an e56 multiplier to strength. Subject can lift 81000x the universe's mass. Cap on multiplicative stat boosts will likely be introduced in next patch. [Dev H. J-B., 01/28]

And this gives me an idea. So hold please!

[Royalty-free music plays for 5 seconds over a black screen: “SEVERAL HOURS LATER”]

Alright I've just gone through the in-game wiki, and it looks like this is the most efficient way to pack explosives. As a logistics specialist, I can order up to $100,000 of munitions per level. As a chef however, I can order up to $300,000 of supplies at a time. Most munitions aren't supplies, but I can order gas tanks and fertilizer (which are apparently really explosive), and they arrive in tracked transporters. I can pack one gas tank and 32 bags of fertilizer on each pallet, along with one claymore on each side. And heck, let's add a few more claymores.

Since my tank is immune to gunfire, these pallets in the back are indestructible. Pallets don't increase the weight of my vehicle, so let's go with 100,000 pallets. So I can just launch myself to the enemy–

[Royalty-free music plays for 5 seconds over a black screen: “SEVERAL HOURS LATER”]

I think we moved. Barely. My god you can hear my CPU.

[Subject loads Task Manager. All 256 GB of RAM have been operating at 98%. MDS is Not Responding.]

Alright let's go with a safer 10,000.

[Montage expunged from this draft for internal circulation. Aside from vehicular manslaughter and terrain reconfiguration, montage also features indiscriminate use of incendiary weapons.]

And this has got me thinking. What happens if everything goes off at once? And what if we really try to make the biggest explosion. I mean, look!

[Subject sets off a stack of 25 pallets in a warehouse. The resulting explosion demolishes the warehouse and its neighbors while killing the player character.]

Yup, it's time for my favourite game: IS THERE A LIMIT?

[screenshot of IS THERE A LIMIT expunged]

Comment: Style guide. Avoid irrelevant screenshots. [Task assigned to @C███████ S██ A██████] [E-7 F. M., last edited 01/19]

Oh hey. Didn't see you there. So I might have gone a little overboard.

Let me give you the grand tour. I was looking in the in-game wiki trying to figure out what else I can order, and did you know the UWF deals with ore mining and agriculture? Here we have a field kitchen. Wheat goes in one end, distilled alcohol goes out the other. For a game about killing civilians and blowing stuff up, this is really detailed!

But that's just the proof of concept. All this is still done manually by my happy little minions. Isn't that right, Private G████?

[E-2 G████, who is suffering from the OVERWORKED, DEHYDRATED, and FATIGUED status effects, does not respond.]

Here's where we automated everything! So these lovely machines right here are mobile nuclear reactors. Each reactor is hooked up to this power grid right here, and this powers… THIS.

[Camera zooms out. John Cena's introductory music resumes. The countryside outside Joint Base SPB has been subjected to significant environmental modification and replaced with a massive hodgepodge of buildings.]

I've set up an ore refinement facility here, and yellowcake comes in here via the loading bays and adds it to my favourite thing in the world, conveyor belts. And as you can see, we have a lot of them right now. Yellowcake goes in here, ignore the crackly sounds, and pure uranium comes out here! All that gets fed into this manufacturing machine in this building, and after just a few moments–

[A tinkle is heard in-game as the Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separator powers up.]

– we have ourselves a beautiful baby ball of green liquid! After that, all that goes into a manufacturing facility.

[Character opens a door. The in-game Geiger counter exceeds its maximum readable dose. Character takes one tick of damage.]

Unfortunately I can't go in there, but I can tell you what happens.

[Classified information about W-92 warheads expunged (TS-SCI//SAR-CD239//NC2-ESI//RD-CNWDI)]

–So for us, it just means we're going to have to do this the hard way, in more controlled bursts. Until the whole planet goes like this.

[Subject sets off a surface burst in ██████. Buildings up to the horizon are levelled in seconds.]

My understanding is that every level in this campaign occur on the same global map. What you do in one level affects subsequent levels, and if you really want to push things, you can bypass some levels and play them out of sequence. Now I don't think this is what the developers had in mind, but fine by me. After all, there's more nukes where this came from.

[Subject sets off a second nuclear warhead in the crater created. The screen goes white.]

And boy is this satisfying. Oh hey, we made a new personal amphitheatre in this city!

Trees, how are you feeling? Mountains, how about you?

[Subject performs more environmental modifications outside ██████.]

You know, I might be here for a while. So hold please.

[Royalty-free music plays for 5 seconds over a black screen: “This took.”]

[Royalty-free music plays again, this time slower over a black screen: “So. Long.”]

Well hello there, weary traveler. I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we've taken a massive chunk out of the planet.

[Subject opens a GEOINT brief. There is a noticeable trench running across ███████ and much of the Asian continent from orbit, and a second trench running up from █████ ██████ towards the Middle East. The original crater in ██████ is also visible from orbit.]

An unbelievable amount. I had to set up a high-speed rail network to distribute these warheads efficiently, and I might have also expanded my inventory in the process.

[Subject is now an E-9 Chief Culinary Officer. Subject has 114,127,975,963 unused inventory slots. The camera cuts to the bottom left corner, which states that the character is currently carrying 15 kg out of a maximum of 114,127,975,963 kg.]

But at least the trains are still running! And good gosh is it fun to see the sights now! It's like flying through the Grand Canyon, except well… you'll see.

The bad news is that since we've blown up so much of the world, it appears we're on borrowed time. The frame rate gets more glorious as we travel further into the distribution zone, and while it's spectacular to see our effects on the landscape, I fear we might have flown a little too close to the mushroom cloud. There's a point where we start measuring things in seconds per frames and the game decides we need more RAM.

I'm not even kidding. Look at Task Manager. Do you see what I see? MDS taking up all of my RAM?? I upgraded my computer in the process and it's still taking up all 320 gigs.

[Subject loads Task Manager. All 320 GB of RAM have been operating at 99%. MDS is Not Responding.]

It was at this point where the game not only crashed, but it also took out my audio and video recording software before my computer eventually blue screened. So while we didn't manage to crack the planet in half, we did do a fair number on the landscape and you know what, there's always next time!

I also wanna thank our sponsor, [advertisement expunged]. So I hope you have fun, I know I did! And thanks for watching.

Oh and, you don't miss much with completing story mode. You become a war hero and then it's the credits or whatever.

[Subject shows a few seconds of the ending cutscene.]

Comment: He didn't show the speedrun, did he? [E-6 S. G., 01/06]

Comment: I think it's obvious how he defeated the campaign. [S-4 H. D. last edited 01/12]

Comment: Lads, keep the doc free from chatter. [E-7 F. M., 01/20]

I recently picked up writing again and started brainstorming for something I'd enjoy. The genre I landed on was Colonial Horror, as I thought to lean into my passion for history. The story would be about European settlers arriving in America and then being driven off by something akin to Skinwalkers. I have always loved media with body-stealing/voice-stealing creatures; it is one of the most mentally disturbing concepts in horror. Prior to my research, I knew "Skinwalkers" originated from Native American culture and beliefs. After my research, however, I found that the term "Skinwalker" specifically comes from the Navajo people. Though there are similar concepts all around the world, what we see in media is from the Navajo.

The last thing I want to do is dishonor Native Americans and the culture that has repeatedly been stolen from them. Because "Skinwalkers" are more than just some spooky story, they are a part of the very culture itself and represent so much more than what we see in media today. I already decided that the world I would write about would not be historically accurate, as I would not reference a particular European settlement/person and not name the Native tribe but combine aspects from tribes on the East Coast, I also wouldn't use the term "Skinwalker" but not naming the creatures at all.

The creatures would only take the form of humans, not animals, like the Navajo's "Skinwalker." They also wouldn't be a witch but rather unknown entities that the story's tribe knows of and avoids, the Natives being the "good guys" of the story. Even with the changes and no direct references, I fear that, as a non-Native, this could be seen as appropriation. I won't move forward until I am confident I am not writing about something that isn't my story to tell. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!