Chibi-Robo! -- Part 2: Strange Things
3I was on top of the vase living high, the rose was in my head's pocket dimension. I was living the life, things were just the way they should be.
I had friends. I had lots of friends, but now all my friends are gone. (Except for Telly. I don't think you can get rid of him.) I'm doing my best to carry on.
All of the sudden, some strange things started happening to me.
(Strange things are happening to me, ain't no doubt about it.)
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Er... what? Yes! Let's get out there and play the game! Clean! Pick stuff up! Make people happy! ... ... ...what the heck is THAT?!
That is... Sophie, apparently. She's one of Tao's chew toys, and she's keen on confiding not-too-secretly her love for one... Drake Redcrest, whatever THAT might refer to. Er... chew toy. Diary. Lovestruck... somehow the phrase 'Drake Redcest" even without context is the least bizarre in this situation.
So yeah, this is a setting where toys moving around on their own isn't particularly unusual (surely THAT has never been done before!), but it's a masquerade kept up only while humans aren't watching. Why Chibi-Robo is exempt from this policy is a bit of a mystery, since he DOES regularly interact with the family of the household. And I mean, just because he himself doesn't talk doesn't mean a word from Telly wouldn't blow this mystery wide open!
...I... I think I need something... mundane to do. Goodbye, Sophie. I must... I need to clean something. I need happy... points... yes... good idea. By comparison, a little four-inch robot cleaning service is downright NORMAL. Oh? Just going to climb some stacks of booksto get on top of the furniture and clean crumbs out from under the sleeping occupants? Sure!
Actually, it's pretty ...uncontrollably zen to pick up trash and shove it in your head's hammerspace zone. It's just a shame that we don't come with a standard Chibi-Scrubber or something, because it's seriously impacting our potential as a one-robot cleanup crew! ...so naturally, we must do the reasonable thing and STEAL A TOOTHBRUSH! ...even petty theft is adorable, especially when you see how much better use one must imagine Mr. Sanderson probably got out of it. (Shop Citrusoft! Buy a Chibi-Robo and it'll go all Borrowers on your house! ...but at least it'll be clean!)
I'm... not sure who's paying us for throwing away trash around the house, though... or why Chibi-Robo even gets paid at all, since he's apparently quite the hot-ticket consumer electronics luxury item is beyond me, but I guess it beats paying Citrusoft directly for the nickel-and-dime free-to-clean add-on items. If Moolah, like most fictional currencies in games of Japanese origin, is anything like Yen in its scale and relative value, though, I guess it's like giving him the nickel you found in the sofa after he cleaned it. (These people leave perpetually-spinning pocket change all over the house, too!)
Okay, nice. So normal... I'm feeling much less freaked out than before with that weirdness of talking to... y'know, what was so weird before? I've already willfully forgotten about anything as insane as peeking at a chew toy's diary musings!
...uh, wait... I know we saw a brief glimpse from afar during the birthday party, but this is... very clearly a weird little silver, Chibi-Robo-looking panel with blinking eyes. Uh... what? It seems... excessively and intentionally compatible with Chibi-Robo and had to have been present long before our little silver buddy arrived, particularly in such number and general distribution.
Well, it has an outlet, let's stick our prongs where we probably shouldn't just because they clearly belong too well! ...huh, wow... that was... actually kinda draining. Why would a socket exist to DRAW power from a very signature device that can plug itself in and turn the ..."lock," I guess? Anyway, we paid our toll, so let's go on i-- SWEET MERCIFUL TRIPPY EYEBALL SWARMS WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS?! ...at least there's... money? (is it really worth all the Chibi-Therapy we'll need to get over whatever inexplicable flavor of madness we just sampled?)
...okay, so... that's a completely different variety of weird. This house is weird! Why is it so weird?! (And, no, I'm not just taking a shot at Mr. Sanderson's quirky behavior! ...yet...)
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Uh, anyway, so far, just doing very simple and basic tasks is actually very engaging so far... and I'm pretty sure it's just me. A side helping of the strange is merely to make the familiar and excessively grounded take on a combination of things that wouldn't necessarily make for engaging gameplay on either of their own. (But I can't help but feel exceedingly stressed out already by how EVERYTHING you do consumes your battery life, and even things a normal 3D platformer star could do without even batting an eye suddenly comes with a very real and ever-dangling cost.
Intrigued? Creeped out? The door's over there, but it's got eyes that blink at you and can only be opened by giving it a poke with your jumper cable!