Chapter 94 – Multiplayer
Proud of her achievement, she started to convey the process to him.
"We were losing at the start because we had a lot of weak players in our team. But I found someone who was very good and we teamed up until the end of the game. With our duo, we killed all the opposite team players one by one and they couldn't do anything until the end. And we won with only the two of us left!"
Benjamin smiled and congratulated her again. When she was done with her story, he questioned her.
"Now that you accomplished your goal for the day, do you want to play something together?"
"Sure! What do you want to play?"
"Hm, what about a multiplayer game this time? We both have a computer so we can play together through the Internet or on LAN."
"Then there is this cooperative zombie survival game I wanted to check for a long time. Want to try it?"
"If you recommend it, that's fine with me."
She instructed him on how to get the game and he went to his room to boot his computer. Following her instructions, he downloaded the free game and launched it. That was when they heard a loud voice coming from the first floor.
"I'm home!"
Chloe had come back from her activity and they soon heard her coming up the stairs. This gave him an idea and he exited his room to greet her.
"Hey Chloe, how was your football game with your friends?"
"It was cool, we played a lot! I'm tired now after running so much."
"That's nice. Say, we are going to start a multiplayer game with Olivia, do you want to join us?"
She looked surprised for a second but then agreed happily.
"Yeah!"
Fortunately, all the family members had their computers, even the youngest one Chloe. A perk of having a doting mother. Even though she was strict with money, she never hesitated to spend it on her children. He repeated the instructions he had received from Olivia to Chloe, who listened carefully. At that time, Olivia came out of her room.
"Chloe is going to join us. Is that okay, Olivia?"
"Of course, the more the merrier."
Once she understood what to do, they all went to their respective rooms again. However, that was when Grace came back home. The process repeated itself when Benjamin also invited her to play with them and she easily agreed, seemingly happy to do something together. When their grandmother, mother, and Nova reached home, they were all invited to join in turn. Their grandmother accepted without any discussion, looking intrigued to do something she was not used to. Their mother was happy to see her children doing a joint activity and gladly joined them. Nova was a bit reluctant at the start but a sincere request from Benjamin convinced her to join the fun. When the whole family decided to play the game together, the one who looked the happiest was Olivia, delighted that her family members would join her on a computer game, something that she would usually only do by herself.
Because they were now seven players, they couldn't play the same free game anymore. There was another similar game that allowed more players but it wasn't free. Fortunately, now that their mother was playing, she was easily convinced to buy the game for everyone. They all went to their respective rooms and downloaded the game. When everything was set up and everyone was ready, they started their first family multiplayer game session. They used live chat software to communicate between themselves to avoid having to leave the doors open and shout what they wanted to say. They could have moved their computers to the living room and created a LAN there but they found it too tedious since they all had their setups in their rooms and most used desktop computers. There were many other alternatives but didn't want to bother when the Internet worked just fine.
The seven of them spawned in a small house with a minimum amount of furniture and food. Looking out of the windows, zombies were roaming the streets in all directions. They began trying to understand how the game worked and what they had to do.
"I think first we should barricade our house to be safer in here."
"We need wood for this but we don't have any."
"You can dismantle the table to get some."
"Are you doing okay, Grandma, Mom?"
"Ahah well, the last time I played a video game was Maria with your mother when she was young. This looks nothing alike for sure."
"As for me, I am alright. I was a bit of a gamer when I was in high school."
Olivia went to their grandmother's room to instruct her on the commands and on the way to play the game. After a few minutes, they could see her character starting to move around and work on defending the house. She got the hang of the game quite fast and was soon as good as the others, a very impressive feat for someone who didn't play video games for tens of years.
They soon made the house safer but ran out of materials and food. They had to go out, explore the town and scavenge for what they needed. Unsure of how they would fare against the zombies. they decided to all go together. They exited the house and the zombies instantly noticed them and headed in their direction. Fighting wasn't easy for the first time and their grandmother and Nova got wounded in this first battle. They decided to leave them back at home so they could recuperate from their wounds and the rest of the expedition team continued until they reached the next house.
They carefully entered it but were still ambushed by two zombies inside, one of them wounding Benjamin. He had to go back to their house to get treated, joining his grandmother and Nova. After a few minutes, the rest of the team returned from their scavenging with some more materials and food, allowing them to last for a little longer. They used the goods to finish barricading the house and by the time they were done, the sun had set and the first day in the game was over. They wanted to go to sleep but there were only three beds in the house. They let the injured ones to sleep in the beds and the rest of the team had to sleep on the floor. They concluded their first day by agreeing that they should build or transport more beds from other houses during the next day.