Playpen
Episode 5 of Mythic Quest Season 3 starts with several plotlines advancing at once. Ian is really bothered by the MQ movie and that the story may not be told properly. A s for Poppy, she’s taken the “fun” to heart and she’s contemplating whether to set up difficult word puzzles for Hera. That is, until someone seems to be remotely stealing their assets. And that person? It’s Dana! David is not pleased. He’s unhappy about the new NFT monetization inside Mythic Quest, with Brad, Rachel and Carol grilled for their part to play in this, undermining the executive producer. When Carol takes responsibility for the NFT gig, Montreal immediately message and want to talk to her. It turns out the head office like the NFTs so much, they’re promoting her up to the position of Director of Unexplored Development Initiatives – the DUDI. She’s failing up, and now has a budget too so she can hire whoever she wants. Ian and Poppy confront Dana, where they learn she’s actually taken “Playpen”, and made her own VR games inside. And of course there’s a fishing minigame! Poppy enjoys the games though and wants to play more. Ian shows up to see David, questioning the movie and their new lead character. Eventually David caves and agrees to let him on in an advisory role, despite not working for the company anymore. As for Rachel, she’s encouraged to take up a Head of Monetization job, given she has some great ideas. She stands with Brad, who agrees to be her number 2. Meanwhile, Poppy begins questioning her motives and how she’s not able to make a fun game. Despite spending a year building Hera, she’s not able to see what’s actually fun. She calls herself a glorified mechanic and that she’s only able to build systems. She wanted to experience what Ian feels and hasn’t managed to achieve it. So naturally, Dana decides to let her see Playpen, and all her classmates that have gathered together in this VR space to pay their respects to her. As applause rains down, Poppy has a proper lightbulb moment. As the episode closes out, Poppy decides they should ditch Hera and work on Playpen instead.
The Episode Review
At the end of the day, a game needs to be fun and if it’s not then it’s destined to be resigned to the backburner for eternity. That’s a lesson that Poppy has learned the hard way, and it’s eventually collided into this big revelation for her to now work on the VR game. Meanwhile, Brad’s plan is starting to come into focus, with him very clearly wanting to get into the monetization side of things and using Rachel and the more unsuspecting victims in Mythic Quest to get there. There’s plenty more plot to come in the upcoming chapters, but for now this is another solid chapter.
