Airplaneniner - Niner - Tumblr Blog
honestly kissing is way less gay than whatever the fuck these two have going on
FAN 1 AND 2 ARE REAL????
One bocchillion viewers to the bocchi movie.
-Pa-san
NOOOO I GOT MY OCEANLINER HISTORY WRONG WHAT THE FUCKKKK
call me Isambard Kingdom Brunel the way I [JOKE PENDING]
The way she's my...Great Eastern...? Anyone? No...?
call me Isambard Kingdom Brunel the way I [JOKE PENDING]
Simulating Tag Across Europe: The Marne Valley Gambit
Sometimes I play simulated versions of Jet Lag: The Game over Google Maps and Discord with a few friends — usually existing formats with some tinkering to make them work on a new map. This is a story from one of those games, about the greatest gambit I ever pulled.
Let's set the scene. We're playing a version of Tag Across Europe. It is the start of my run, and I am in Clermont-Ferrand, France. My endpoint, the place I'm trying to reach without getting caught, is in Sweden.
This is a slight problem.
A much larger problem is that my run started at exactly 7:16pm, local time — 44 minutes before the game pauses for a rest period. Theoretically, I have a 45-minute head start on the chasers, but since there are no useful trains out of Clermont-Ferrand before 8pm, nearly all of that head start is wiped out. The game restarts at 6am the next morning, and the chasers can start running after me at 6:01.
I spend 44 minutes doing challenges, and then walk back to the station.
In recent games, we've started rolling dice every time we board a train to see if it's delayed, and by how much. This game was played before we started doing that, for which I am very grateful, because my plan involved getting a train to Lyon leaving at 6am on the dot.
To explain what happens next, I need to explain a notable rules difference between the real Jet Lag and this simulation: in our game, the chasers are not a team. They move independently, and they do not know where each other are. Roles do not rotate — you become the runner by personally tagging the current runner.
This is relevant, because it means that one of the chasers is not starting the day in Clermont-Ferrand with me. I have made an educated guess that they are instead waiting at a minor station en-route to Lyon called Vichy, and so as I board the train I post the following message in the chat:
okay so first of all, y'all can tell me if i'm allowed to do this: on the train i'm about to take, i would like to be looking out of the train window at every stop to see if i can spot [Chaser] waiting on the platform can i do that?
There is brief befuddlement from the other players before they eventually agree that this is allowed under the rules. The chaser confirms that they are indeed waiting on the platform at Vichy.
I immediately use the budget I accumulated the previous evening in Clermont to drop a freeze powerup, forcing them to stay on the platform for ten minutes rather than board my train and tag me.
I make it to Lyon unscathed.
Somehow, this is only part one of the gambit.
I have time to do one challenge in Lyon and earn some more budget. Because our map is quite large compared to the ones used on the actual show, transit costs about half as much, so this one challenge could get me all the way to Paris on a high-speed train, but no further. I know that I cannot get out of central Paris without being caught.
Some trains do a weird thing where they split partway through the journey — so all passengers in the front half of the train go to one city, and all passengers in the back half go to another. (This can occasionally cause logistical problems, especially when Deutsche Bahn is involved.) My ride north out of Lyon is one such train: one half goes to Gare de Lyon in central Paris, while the other half - the half I board - goes to a station about twenty miles away called Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy TGV.
This train takes about two and a half hours, and it only switches tracks at the last second, which means the chasers don't realise what I'm doing by the time they get to Lyon, and decide to get on the next train to central Paris, one hour after me...
...which does not split like mine does.
Nor does it make any stops between Lyon and Paris.
The chasers are now stuck one hour behind me, on a train they cannot get off, which is going in the wrong direction.
This is the view outside Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy TGV station:
I have roughly an hour and a half to do challenges at Disneyland Paris.
This accumulates a lot of budget — enough to buy a very expensive powerup and still make it onto another high-speed train that goes all the way to Strasbourg, on the French-German border.
In this time, I realise that the train to Strasbourg I want to take out of Marne-la-Vallée leaves twelve minutes after the chasers could theoretically get here. Luckily, one of the challenges I pull is "get 300m from the nearest building", which a) has a very high reward, b) is possible within walking distance because Disneyland Paris is basically sat in the middle of the French countryside, and c) gives me an excuse to be some distance away from the train station.
Specifically, I position myself to be about nine minutes' walk from it.
As I walk past the very grumpy-looking chaser, who will remain stuck on the platform at Marne-la-Vallée–Chessy TGV while my train to Strasbourg barrels away, I hand them a piece of merch I picked up during my stay:
And that is the story of the single best eight-hour period of any Jet Lag sim I've ever played.
Jet Lag S11 spoilers under cut
NOOOOOOO EVERY TIME I DON'T WANT SAM TO WIN HE WINS WHY DID ADAM HAVE TO GET SO SCREWED OVER AFTER THE GAMBITSSSS
Also I'm guessing next season is gonna be Hide and Seek Japan
