Firstly I realise that there is another article about The Hunger Games in this weeks issue, however they are going to be quite dissimilar. This article is intended as a sort of diary from the perspective of someone inside the crew spot.
So starting from the beginning, why did I join? I didn't join for the prize but when reading through the game description I think it epitomised what playing Bootleggers is all about to me. Using the resources you have collated and employing strategy to give yourself an upper hand over your peers.
At first I registered for district four, and wasn’t surprised that I didn’t get a place as only one in five would do so. However everyone that registered that didn’t get a place was placed into a dicegame and two of these players would get the wildcard positions. Out of 40 people in the dicegame I was number 20, exactly half way and for some reason felt weirdly confident, and low and behold 29 and 20 are selected.
I received a bootmail from the game manager to tell me that I had twelve hours to get ready and had to have applied to the crew spot before then. I was obviously focussing on bullet count, I knew before I joined that regardless of the game plan I was going to employ bullets would be the most important resource. I asked around all the crews that hold a BF wether they would be willing to sell me some bullets from their crew bullet bank, they all declined however. So I resided myself to the fact that I was going to have to sell points. Eventually I entered the crew spot 3 hours early with $7,800,000, 50,000 bullets and about 6,000 points. That was it, there would be no way to get more cash apart from OC’s and crimes so I had to use it wisely. Unfortunately I had now decided on my game plan, and thought I would set an early tone, I decided to search everyone in the crew spot. Then an hour later the rules were set, and I had to delete my multimillion dollar searches, another set back.
The first danger states were chosen, and myself and four others were now vulnerable for the next twelve hours. I started search on the other four and overkilled them all. At this point I decided to deny any kills, I knew that people did not believe me but I kept up the deceit regardless. I also think that in this early stage that no one expected every kill to be made by the same person. So now things were out of my hands, for around six hours. I didn’t message anyone from the game. Eventually the safe time passed and this would be the first and last time I was vulnerable.
I went on to search, find and kill every account apart from one. The only player that had messaged me substantially was Krait, he had mentioned that he promised not to attempt me at all, and asked me to do the same until only 5 people remained. I kept him on search but honoured our agreement.
The climax of the game saw only me and Krait left, I had spaced out my money perfectly for all the kills, but due to the set backs with searching when I first entered the spot, I had only $200,000 left to search him, and as he hadn’t made one kill he had around 60,000 bullets, more than enough to take me out. But there was nothing I could do, none of the tributes were allowed outside assistance, I searched all the states using a combination of the first three investigating agencies, he was offline when I started searching and this would be my saving grace, working out the timings for average search times I knew that if my timer got to 4 hours or more before he started his searches then I would win, around 3 hours would be 50/50 and anything under 2 hours and he would have the first shot. It was a tense 4 hours, but when my search timer hit 8 hours without him coming online the relief set in, I found him after about 8 and a half hours, and made my final kill.
So that was the game from my perspective, I mentioned at the start of this article and to all my friends before I went in that it was never about the prize, and that is genuinely true, I made a loss of around 2.2k points and $7.6mil. But I can honestly say that it was the most fun I have had on BL in a long time.
From a player point of view there are a few suggestions that I have to improve the game in the future, but all in all the game was an overwhelming success, the original concept and excellent control over the rules was a winning formulae, a massive thanks to Mika and Aldarion for making it all possible. And to everyone that took an interest whilst spectating. Also I must say thanks to the other players, I hope all realise as I did that entering into the competition meant risking your account, and that nothing that happened was personal.
If this competition would be run again I would surely enter to try and retain my crown, but with all due respect intended better competition next time would be ace.
May the odds be forever in your favour?? No: Make your own luck.
