.EXE ~ A Virus Containment Game is an installment in The Murderverse. It is hosted by KungFuCutBug, with the third round being co-hosted by MadameButterflyKnife. It opens with a mysterious error message on the MAE computers. Then things get worse...
.EXE is a Werewolf (1997)-like roleplay with Roll To Dodge mechanics, and the eponymous Virus has a slight chance of converting innocents to one of them...
- Game 1
(completed) - Game 2 (completed)
- Game 3 (co-hosted by MadameButterflyKnife, completed)
.EXE ~ A Virus Containment Game contains examples of:
- Arc Words: Failure. Experiments #111387 and #024960 (Ikei and The Virus, respectively) are described as "RESULT: FAILURE." The phrase "failure" in .EXE 2 acts as the Admin's Berserk Button. Yui, the Progenitor, is executed with the Virus describing her as having failed it, after she labeled it as a failure when it was first created.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Games 1 and 3 ended with the Virus taking everyone over and winning the games.
- Bolt of Divine Retribution: Mel's execution on day 3 of the first game consists of the Admin playing the Song of Storms on an ocarina while cosplaying as Link, causing a lightning bolt to incinerate her and reveal her innocence.
- Death of Personality: The lethal injections don't work quite as their name implies, instead erasing the victim's mind. Ikei somehow survived being injected with four of these needles, and was implied to have been of at least normal intelligence beforehand. They later get used in in the third game, where the injections were used to indoctrinate the infecteds into the Virus Fragments. It's also implied that the injections are how Yui attempted suicide, and what caused her to lose all of her intelligence and memories.
- Epic Fail: Due to the RTD mechanics, day 3 of the third game involved evidence getting accidentally destroyed, 5 people accidentally shooting themselves in an attempt to examine a gun, and even one of the players falling on one of the hosts and promptly sleeping on them.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: In the third game, when people are inspecting the gun that killed Doctor Bones and 270° Chester Allan Arthur, every attempt to examine the gun ends with the examiner shooting themselves in the foot. Except Vanessa, who shot herself somewhere even worse.
- Leave Behind a Pistol: Following the reveal that Ikei is a failed clone of Timeline Master Awe, Caleb grabs a gun... and hands it over, unable to kill Ikei himself. Ikei completely misinterprets what this was supposed to mean, however, until the Admin calls Caleb out on it the next day.The Admin: I saw how you were acting towards Ikei yesterday, punk. Handing him a gun so he can commit suicide... what kind of asshole does that?Ikei: Wait, that's why you handed me that gun? I thought you trusted me or something! You wanted me to kill myself?Caleb: You looked miserable. And the way you cried... Together, it just... brought me pain to see you in such a horrible state.Ikei: So your solution was for me to commit suicide?!Caleb: It went through better in my mind, but yes. Quite bluntly.
- Magic Misfire:
- Charis in the first game, attempting to levitate a body to aid carrying it outside to bury, accidentally smashes herself into the ceiling instead.
- During day 3 of the second game, Baba attempts to enact several rules while investigating, but fumbles repeatedly, destroying all the towels in the hotel and temporarily disabling gravity.
- Non-Gameplay Elimination: Engineer was removed from the first game due to player request.
- The Pen Is Mightier: Ikei, possessed by The Virus, stabs The Admin and later Strawberry with a fountain pen in the first game.
- Poor Communication Kills: The innocents in the third game lost in the end as a result of miscommunications — first Micha mentioned Dante's death before it was discovered, attracting massive suspicion (it was a brainfart; they meant Dalek and the fact that Dante really was dead was sheer coincidence); then Junko misinterprets the evidence in such a way that she was believed to be attempting a Frame-Up (she really was just misreading things). As a result, Junko was falsely convicted, and Micha would've been next if the viruses hadn't overwhelmed them all that night anyway. Both of them tried explaining themselves, but nobody bought it.
- Reset Button: On day 1 of the first game, a bunch of chaos happened involving potted plants being suspected as murderers, a gravy flood, and rats making corrupted computer noises, resulting in the world itself crashing and the game resetting back to the beginning, though everyone has Ripple-Proof Memory.
- Shout-Out: Shafaqat's death in the first game was caused by 28 stab wounds.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The death of Shafaqat, in night 1 of the first game was caused by being stabbed 28 times.
- Uncertain Doom: At the end of the first game, the fate of Triple-Inverted Dan Quayle, Uirst, Caleb, Charis, and the Admin after being outnumbered by the virus is left unclear, though definitely not good. They do all seem alive and relatively unmarred in The Murder-Free Hotel, but the Alternate Universe nature of that thread makes the information dubiously canon to the rest of the 'verse. The second game did eventually confirm one fate; The Admin is alive and kicking, but infected now.
- The Virus: The killers in this game have a 1 in 6 chance of converting their nightkill targets into more Virus instead of killing them. To balance this, they also have a fairly high chancenote of leaving their target entirely unharmed.
