SUBREDDIT: r/RetroGaming POSTED BY: u/GlitchMiller_TV FLAIR: Rare Find:
I found this weird "dev unit" at a yard sale for $20. No serial number, and it smells like burnt hair? Streaming it LIVE in 10 mins.
u/GlitchMiller_TV: So, I was driving through the boonies outside Blackwood (you know, near the old mill roads) and saw a sign for a garage sale. It wasn't really a sale, just an old guy sitting on a porch with a card table and he had this thing.
It looks like a cross between an SNES and a toaster. Grey plastic, heavy as a brick. No branding, and just a label made of masking tape that says "VORTEX 9000 - TEST."
The old guy didn't talk to me.
He just took the twenty then shoved the box in my hands, and went inside.
I grabbed a stack of cartridges too, but they are not actually in good condition.
I'm booting it up for the first time on stream!!!
LINK: Dwitch.tv/GlitchMiller
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THE APARTMENT,
Rain lashed against the window of Ben Miller's apartment, blurring the sign of the liquor store across the street into a smear of pink and blue. Inside the apartment, the air was thick with the scent of stale energy drinks and the heat of an overworked PC tower.
Ben rubbed his eyes, adjusting the noise gate on his microphone. He was twenty-four years old, but under the harsh ring light, he looked older. The bags under his eyes were deep enough to carry groceries.
His viewer count had been stagnant for months, stuck in 40 to 50.
He needed a win.
He looked at the console, which was on his desk. It was an ugly, angular thing. The grey plastic was yellowed in spots, stained with something that looked like coffee or rust.
"Alright," Ben muttered to the empty room. "Showtime."
He hit Go Live.
"What is up, Glitch Gang!"
"Welcome back to the channel. Tonight, we are doing something special. We are doing archaeology."
He angled the webcam down to the console.
"Behold. The Vortex 9000. I have no idea what this is. Even google has no idea what this is. But we have a cartridge, we have power, and we have a fire extinguisher nearby just in case LOL."
He picked up the first cartridge.
The label was torn, but a faint marker scrawl read "S.S. KART."
"Super Sunshine Kart? Sonic Speed Kart?" Ben guessed. He blew into the cartridge slot and jammed the plastic square in. It landed with a heavy, mechanical thunk that vibrated through the desk.
He pressed the power button.
There was no boot-up jingle. No logo. Just a harsh burst of static that made half the chat spam "RIP HEADPHONE USERS."
Then, the screen flickered to life.
SUPER SUNSHINE KART.
Copyright 1996.
The colours were green and oversaturated blues. An armadillo mascot revved a go-kart in 16-bit glory. The music was a frantic, high-pitched calypso beat.
"Okay, okay," Ben laughed, relieved it actually worked.
"We got a Mario Kart clone. Let's see how the controls feel."
He selected Grand Prix.
The character select screen: The Armadillo, A Cool Cat, A Robot, and A Girl in Pink.
Ben picked the Robot.
The map loaded: SUNNY BEACH.
"Let's get this W," Ben said, leaning forward.
The race started. The gameplay was surprisingly smooth. The kart drifted around palm trees and pixelated sand castles. Ben was actually having fun. He was in first place, drifting around a sharp corner near the ocean.
"Look at those pixels!" Ben shouted. "This framerate is actually insane for a console this old, whoa."
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[CHAT LOG]:
xX_Slayer_Xx: LUL get wrecked
RetroKing99: Wait, did the music just slow down?
ModZilla (MOD): Ben, check the background textures.
PogChamp2020: GLITCH GLITCH GLITCH
RetroKing99: Why is it dark?
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On screen, the skybox had changed.
Ben hadn't noticed at first because he was focused on the track, but the bright sky of Sunny Beach had instantly swapped to a dark, grainy grey.
The pixelated sun was gone, replaced by a static moon.
"Uh, dynamic weather system?" Ben joked, though his thumb slipped on the controller. "Way ahead of its time."
He rounded the final bend of Lap 2. This part of the track was supposed to be a drive through a dense palm jungle.
But the trees weren't palm trees anymore.
The sprites had changed and they were tall Pine trees.
The cheerful yellow sand texture under the tires shifted into a muddy, brown sludge. The sound of the kart's engine, usually a high-pitched vroom dropped an octave, sounding more like a wet, gurgling idle.
"Okay, the ROM is definitely corrupted," Ben said, his voice losing its streamer lilt. "Chat, you seeing this texture rot?"
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[CHAT LOG]:
ModZilla (MOD): That's not texture rot. Those are Douglas Firs.
TrueCrimeJunkie: Why is there a car in the woods?
Lurker55: @TrueCrimeJunkie where?
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Ben saw it too.
He stopped the kart. He wasn't trying to win the race anymore. He turned the character around, driving the wrong way against the invisible walls of the track.
There, nestled between the glitchy pine trees in the background layer, was a car.
It wasn't a cartoon go-kart, but it was a digitised photo of a real vehicle, downscaled to 16-bit. A dark red sedan.
The front bumper was crumpled against a tree, and its headlights were smashed.
"Is that... an easter egg?" Ben whispered.
He moved the kart closer. The camera clipped through a tree, allowing him a closer look.
The license plate was a smear of white pixels, but the first two letters were legible.
"Guys, this is creepy. I think someone modded this cartridge," Ben said.
He felt a sudden chill, a physical drop in temperature in the room.
The hair on his arms stood up.
The upbeat music had stopped entirely.
In its place was a low, rhythmic thumping sound coming from the TV speakers.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
It sounded like a shovel hitting packed earth.
Suddenly, the game froze.
A dialogue box appeared at the bottom of the screen, the kind used for tutorials. But the portrait of the cheerful Armadillo mascot was glitching, his eyes blacked out by missing pixels.
The text scrolled slowly, accompanied by a discordant typewriter sound.
TEXT: THEY DIDN'T RUN AWAY.
"What the hell?" Ben reached for the console.
TEXT: CHECK THE TRUNK.
The screen cut to black. The console powered down instantly.
Ben sat in the silence of his apartment. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He looked at the chat.
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[CHAT LOG]:
RetroKing99: WTF was that???
ModZilla (MOD): Ben... look at the clip I just sent you. I enhanced the plate.
ScaryGameSquad: Scripted?
ModZilla (MOD): It says OR-592. That's the plate from the Blackwood disappearance.
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Ben stared at the grey plastic box on his desk. It wasn't humming anymore. It sat there, cold and inert, smelling faintly of wet pine needles and old blood.
He slowly turned to the camera, his face pale.
"I... I think we're done for tonight, guys."