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In the middle of the night, after Camillo passes out on top of his covers but before he wakes up in the morning to drag himself to class, a new app is quietly installed on his phone.
camillo gets a magic app
Camillo's alarm goes off at seven. He fumbles for his phone and shuts it up.
On the bus, he catches up on his webcomics, texts his bestie, makes a little cookie run and jump across the screen. By the time he makes it to the chemistry auditorium, his cookie is out of energy and he's flipping through apps for something else to distract him from stoichiometry.
The app starts up with a flourish of animated background details, mosaic tiles fading in and their colors painted by invisible brushes. There would probably be a little intro tune, if his phone weren’t always on silent.
In the center of the screen, there’s text:
Welcome to Sultana!
Tap to learn how to play.
It directs him to the menu bar at the bottom of the screen —
Tap to open your Stable.
And then to a plus in the top right corner—
Tap to add someone new.
—and then opens up the camera, currently pointed at his desk.
Point and tap to add someone new.
Okay he thought this was a game but maybe it's some kind of address book, or possibly a slightly weird bug ID app?
Camillo takes an experimental shot of the desk surface. This is fine. Just take him through the intro.
So they actually bothered to put in some kind of face ID.
All right, this professor is a pretentious jerk and Camillo doesn't care if Chinese spyware steals his identity. He tries his best to be surreptitious about snapping a picture of the front of the room.
The picture loads, and every head in the audience has some tiny text hovering above it.
If he zooms in, he can see a name above each student (and above the professor), and what looks like a star rating. Most people in the class have one star — the professor, and a few people he’s worked with on group projects or studied with, have two.
Tap a name to select.
Okay so this is some kind of social-media-enabled thing and it's apparently really popular? Weird.
Better to tap on a random classmate, in case it's going to send them a friend request or something. Professor might be awkward. There's probably an academic policy about friending your students.
Ethan Moore, one star, shows up on his screen.
It’s a startlingly detailed likeness, in the clothes he’s currently wearing, with his name and age and a few statistics listed next to him.
It doesn’t give him that much time to linger.
Tap to enter the Shop.
There are only three things listed in the Shop — one BodyTool, listed as FREE, and one Measles Cure, listed for 10 [Pearl]s.
Okay so this is ... some kind of Tamagotchi thing? With other players as pets? Wild.
He'll claim the free tutorial BodyTool.
It sends him back to the Stable, already on Ethan’s page, and has more instructions for him.
Tap to open your Tools.
Tap to use the BodyTool.
It returns to the view of Ethan, centered on the screen now (with a List View and Advanced button he’s not allowed to click yet).
Tap the hands to zoom in.
The hands zoom in. There’s a set of sliders you can scroll through at the bottom of the screen — the first one is highlighted.
Move the slider to the right to increase PALM SENSITIVITY.
Ethan drops his pencil.
Your change is affecting Ethan’s life!
Ethan will now produce Pearls for you, even when Sultana is not open.
The app zooms out. It highlights a counter beside his feet in the app, and one in the top left corner that shows 10 pearls.
Let’s head back to the Shop.
Click to buy “Measles Cure”.
It costs him his current 10 pearls.
There’s a brief loading icon, and then it disappears from the screen.
We’ll send you a notification when your reward is complete!
Tap the DRAW tab.
This is a dizzying page of…
Gachas. It’s definitely gachas.
It directs him to the second item on the screen, a holographic deck of cards icon with the label PREMIUM TOOLS.
Pull the lever to draw!
There’s a flurry of sparkling rainbow animation before the machine onscreen prints out a card. The item in the window that pops up is an icon of electrodes on someone’s forehead, captioned BrainTool.
You have a new premium tool! The BrainTool is extremely versatile and adaptable. You’ll be upgrading it with many different subtools as you play.
Let’s try this out!
It directs him back to his Stable, back onto Ethan’s page, into the tools menu. BrainTool. Basics tab.
Slide left slightly to decrease Ethan’s IMPULSE CONTROL.
It even has a convenient little marker for where to stop.
Why are all the graphics so charming? Why are there so few ads? Why are those the two most confusing things about this app?
...well, fine. He slides the little slider.
The app highlights the little pearls per minute counter, which has increased to 0.3.
The more you change, the more pearls your Stable will produce!
Ethan’s hands, which had been set firmly on his thighs, have begun to slide back and forth just barely enough to see from two rows back.
That's -- normal. That's a normal fidget which is normal to do. Normal people do that.
Can he slide the little arrow further.
Yes he can. He can slide it all the way to the left, actually.
At which point Ethan starts unbuttoning his pants.
