Group Plot Synopsis
College leaver Sarah lives a typical life of an 18 year
old. She wakes up every morning at 6:30,
gets ready and goes to work. Ready to
set off to university Sarah is excited to meet potential boyfriend, Jake along
with future house mates Katie and Noah. Meeting through their university social group
online Sarah and Jake become fond of each other and they all plan their
fresher’s week in a group chat. . After planning a fun filled week of partying
and alcohol a strange unknown user joins their group chat claiming to be a
student studying ‘Digital Games Production’ at the university they will
attend. The unknown user asks the four
friends to try out a new game he has created for an important module on his
course and claims that if and when it becomes profitable each player that test
the game will receive 10% of the profit.
Sarah, Katie and Noah are interested in what the game is and want to try
the game out however Jake doesn’t see it as a great idea and is yet to agree
with the decision. Jake discusses with
Sarah away from the group his thoughts on testing the game out and how he
doesn’t know whether he can trust the creator as they don’t know what the game
is and if what he is saying is safe. As
Sarah convinces Jake that the idea is a bit of fun his affectionate feelings
towards her forces him to gives in and he agrees to test the game along with
the others. After they all accept the
challenge the game maker tells them they will receive an email to confirm they’re
players. Minutes pass and they’re yet to
receive an e-mail, they begin to think it is all a joke but wonders how he
joined their group chat without being added.
Sarah, Jake, Katie and Noah all forget about the game and carry-on
planning their new beginnings in university.
As soon as the conversation dies down they all receive an email with an
attachment to what they think will be the game that they hope to play. The
email also states how to enter the game which will include clicking the link
but the game maker has manipulated the players into thinking they will be
playing the game online but they will be taken from their homes, almost like
kidnapping and be taken to a games centre where the players will be unconscious
and have a hat like device placed on their head which will then activate a
virtual reality character of themselves that will be controlled by the players
unconscious mind. However, as soon as
Sarah clicks the link her doorbell rings and she goes to answer it, not giving
herself a chance to read the email.
Sarah then answers the door to find an unknown figure who knows her. As of that moment she is unconscious. Audience see’s the message in the link.
All four players are taken to the games centre where virtual
reality head sets are placed on their heads.
They’re now in control of the game.
Their virtual reality characters are all placed inside of a gaming dome,
however, the virtual reality headsets tricks them into thinking they’re at
their own homes. Sarah wakes up, gets up
from her bed to open her curtains to find that nobody is around; however; there
is an unusual large red arrow on the road.
Sarah goes back to her bed to find a note on her laptop. The note reads that each player needs to
follow the arrows to a field where they all meet to find a table with a map
on. The map reads the directions to the
first challenges and games they have to play and succeed which will challenge
their intellectual ability when playing the virtual game. Each game will
determine whether a player will survive if they succeed at the challenge or if
they fail to complete it in time. The
first challenge which will include cog direction will test their ability with
hand and mind co-ordination, recognition, 3D movement and photographic memory.
One of the ‘players’, Noah, failed at first hurdle. Because of this, the game
maker rules him out and takes him out of the challenges and traps him in a cage
due to them only wanting the most intelligent players to be left over. The rest
of the players continue to play the game and follow the map after they have
completed the first mind challenge. The players continue to follow the map into
a wooded area, whereby they see the next challenge in front of them. They continue to complete the challenges until
they approach another that all the remaining players complete apart from Katie
which causes her to be killed off by the game also taking trapped player, Noah
with her.
Sarah and Jake continue the game and follow the map to a
wooded area to which they’re faced with what they thought was their last
challenge, an unscrambling task. This task was to test their mathematic skills,
for every number resembled a different letter. Set in an IT room, they both
each unscrambled the numbers, working out that the sentence read, "You are
the winner". Sarah and Jake were
timed 5 minutes to unscramble the encrypted numbers. They both finish with 0.1
second spare and they both think they're the winners of the game. They follow
the map down to the field to collect their 'prize', the gate to the end of the
game which proves to be a problem when they both discover that there can only
be one winner. Taken back to a field where Sarah and Jake first met was a map.
Following the ‘clues’ that were featured on this, they both find two guns with
a note reading ‘Who will survive? You decide’. This situation is the fault of
Sarah, who uses Jake’s intelligence and growing ‘lover’ for her throughout the
whole game to get to the end of it, collecting her prize, which is not the 10%
profits that the game maker agreed to give, but to meet the game maker for the
very first time. Sarah, throughout game, wanted to complete it to get to the game
maker who she claims to love and has been in contact with before she began
talking to the others. However Jake oblivious to this puts Sarah before everything
and ultimately wants Sarah to win because of his love for her.
However, there still needs to be a death of one of them in
order for the other to win. The two players find themselves separating further
apart from each other whilst holding a gun in their hands. As they find a good distance apart, their
faces become more distant to one another, making it less painful for Sarah to
ultimately pull the trigger. Both
players arms rise with the guns locked in their hands when Jake breaks down,
pointing the gun to his own head, revealing that he cannot live a life without
Sarah, who he doesn’t know used him throughout the entire game. Sarah with a
guilty conscience cries out “STOP!” before a gunshot fires.
All four players wake up from the game shocked and confused
as to what happened to them. As they
come around they find a laptop in front of them showing how each member was
killed in the game which they thought was reality. After watching the ending
with Sarah and Jake she finds herself guilty about what she had done and is
surprised by what Jake had done for her. She had then come to realise that
someone who is prepared to put her before everyone and everything, has helped
her to realise that in fact, she loves Jake. Sarah never meets the game maker;
she lives a life in university happily with Jake, however still scarred by
their experiences of the game.
