 Are you familiar with the game 100 Doors of Revenge? If not, I'll explain the concept. Simple problem, such as getting into the elevator to continue on. Complicated solutions. Games like that kinda get under your skin until you can move on and finally beat the game. Then someone made a game called Saving Skyler. When asked about the older style graphics, the developers replied they had a lot going on in the last level and wanted the game to run quickly without taking too much storage. They sort of teased the game informer readers by being all mysterious about the winning level. They gave a little info on the background though. A boy's mother abandoned him, and he starts drawing pictures on a computer of her in death traps with a little hero trying to save her and failing. You play the hero in the picture, trying to make her live on until the next picture level. Sam, a big fan of iPad games of that genre, could hardly wait for it to come out. When it did, he played every time he got the chance. Level 1 was an apt demonstration of how the game worked. Skyler was shackled to the floor. There was a sandbag attached to a rope, and Sam unwittingly picked it up. The rope snapped and a blade descended on Skyler's head. Her arms flew up, blood sprayed, and the words I went flashed on the screen. Sam tried again. He tried to move her before the blade came down. He checked if the shackles were really locked. He tried using the sandbag to block the blade. He was legitimately pissed when he noticed the tiny bit of gold at the foot of the stairs. A key. Bam. He unlocked the shackles, and he and Skyler ran off, only for her to get lost and trapped again. Knowing how the mechanics worked, Sam got pretty far. One level stumped him only because it was so simple, but he figured it out. Then he reached level 60. It was Skyler in a glass tank. There was a shovel on the floor, as well as knobs and a stick. The graphics were different. Not exactly moddered, closer to the early Sims graphics. First Sam picked up the stick and picklaught the tank. It opened, then he climbed inside to fetch her and the doors land shut behind him. The time went on fast forward to a month later. Starving he and Skyler were eating each other. Skyler won. The wind flashed again. Sam was disturbed by the blood, but he wanted to win the game. Next plan. He took the shovel and started beating the cage with it. Sam noticed the hero looked irritated. And the more he beat the cage, the more the walls fell in. Skyler was crushed. Sam almost had at the screen when the wind flashed yet again. He hadn't beat 59 levels to stop now. He flicked the first switch when the level reloaded. Skyler shot from the walls of the cage, leaving a seared convulsing corpse. Sam almost dropped the iPad. He was used to go on big screens, not in these games. I win, yet again. Sam wasn't going to be freaked out, irritated and startled only to lose. He pressed restart level. The second switch this time. It would have to work eventually, right? Yes. Completely right. Acid, piranhas, blades, cheese grazers, vomiting up insides, everything. Sam couldn't count how many times he watched Skyler die, but the game kept track. It had just played the gun-run sound when Sam hurled the iPad to the floor and started running. The horrifying angry look on the hero's face. Skyler's dying screams, over and over, changing only in intensity. And those words. I win. Sam had never won. It was all for nothing if you couldn't beat the game. And he couldn't. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, running down the street with only the vague idea of killing boarding studios. He could feel the nightmares coming as you can feel the snapping of a branch. Two months later, Sam had died in his sleep in a ditch. No one had found his body yet, but people had found a different thing to talk about. Agedio was making its rounds in YouTube. The 60th level of saving Skyler beat him. Well, not really beat him. A guy had hacked the system to make it run over while all had to go down before you'd won the game. According to the guy, you had to lose 500 times before a special item appeared. A pistol. By this point, the hero's face was contorted with rage. It was a clue. Take the pistol. Kill Skyler. When the hero did this, shooting hurt four times between the eyes, I win. Didn't flash. Instead, in a child's voice you heard. But, but no. You can't do that. You're supposed to save her. All I wanted to do was scare her into loving me again. The child's voice sogged during the credits.