A Game About Crates

Crates are everywhere: homes, schools, offices, funerals, even the Moon. And at the largest warehouse in the Neo Unites States of America, forklift operator Dave Mahoney spends his days loading them so dopamine-addicted consumers can get their fix.

Bad luck is part of the routine. Minimum pay. Endless overtime. System glitches that work him until he passes out on a pile of cartons. A ramshackle forklift that should have been scrapped before Dave was old enough to drive.

But tonight is supposed to be different. Dave has a date with a girl he met online, and for once, he has a plan that does not involve unrewarding work or late-night video games.

Then a last-minute call sends him to store a mysterious red crate from an unscheduled shipment in the most obscure part of the facility. It should be an easy job. Instead, a chain of accidents throws him deep into the warehouse aisles, beyond the zones any employee was meant to enter.

Now Dave must rely on the survival skills gathered from years of resource-management games and tortilla-chip dust to navigate a strange new environment, find a way out, and destroy every crate blocking his path.

A Game About Crates, created by the independent developer Froggi, is a game world playable on the desktop and virtual reality social platform, VRChat. After sinking more than a healthy amount of hours into it, I grew interested in exploring the lore behind it and decided to make my own fan-made interpretation of that universe.

For those curious, it is a Cookie Clicker-like experience about smashing crates, collecting money, researching upgrades, and crafting gear to further increase your crate destruction potential and become the most productive employee of CRATE Mega Corporation.

This is an experimental story with LitRPG elements inspired from the game itself, full of comedy in a dystopian world. I will be releasing chapters in time as my schedule allows.

Cover art by zeniityy.