Essence of theOverly Simplified Minigame

By imbibing this essence, you gain the following:

• Whenever you encounter a task which is too great for you to casually solve, it is "simplified" into a much easier minigame. Winning the minigame will resolve the original situation. You can think of your life as an allegory now, with some straightforward things no longer being so simple and actually representing much deeper work. The original task must still be theoretically possible in-universe though, even if it would require prescience and improbably power levels.

  • For example, you cannot hack into an isolated air-gapped system unless there is an in-universe justification for it. If there is a way, however contrived, then a minigame can be used. If you have a satellite which can finely tune cosmic rays to remotely flip bits, but is not really programmed to do so you might get a hard Asteroids-like game. If you get physical access you can subvert it in seconds with a Fallout- or Bioshock-like hacking minigame.

  • A duel with the world's best swordsman will become a moderately difficult quick-time and button-mashing game. Enough to make you pay attention, though not too onerous.

  • Locks of all forms (whether they be tumbler, electronic, biometric, etc.) will resolve into a straightforward bobby pin game a la Fallout.

• Any special in-universe requirements are given to you, in an independent sealed system to avoid normal weaknesses of being cut off from some source. Whether it is special genetic markers that allow you to access a futuristic Super Internet (like in BLAME!), a transcendent cultivation base, or even what are supposed singular qualifications (e.g. a sword that can only be wielded by the "chosen one"), you have them as long as they existed within a setting you have visited. This only lasts for the duration of the minigame.

• There is an ambiguity between what you experience and what the outside world sees once this Essence recontextualizes the problem. You certainly perceive a vastly simplified minigame, but sometimes others will see you miraculously rising to seemingly impossible odds and other times they will see reality actually bend itself to give you an easier time. Either way, the realities you and they experience are disjoint during the minigame and it can be difficult to tell what "really" happened.