SquareBob SpongePants

The death of Adobe Flash was sobering for a lot of people. I had grown up playing Flash games, thinking they'd be around for my whole life. There were thousands of them available, so there was no way Adobe would ever drop support for them, right? In reality, they did exactly that, throwing away invaluable pieces of internet history like they were broken toys. As usual, it was up to the fans to preserve them as best they could.
Enter Flashpoint, an archive of almost every flash game in existence. If it was playable on a major website, you could bet Flashpoint had it, no matter how forgotten, obscure, or NSFW it was. This project was truly a dream come true for nostalgia hounds like myself.
Some of my most played flash games as a kid were the SpongeBob ones on Nick.com. The Street Fighter clone, the one with SpongeBob dressed as Frankenstein's monster, even the really old ones where Mr. Krabs wears a neckerchief for some reason (does anyone else remember that?). I didn't stop at official games, though. I played through as many of those unlicensed bootleg games as I could get my grubby little preteen hands on. For the longest time, I thought I had played them all, but yesterday I was proven wrong. I was browsing Flashpoint when I came across a Spongebob game I hadn't seen before. It was called "SquareBob SpongePants," and it was listed along with all the other official SpongeBob games. From the title alone, though, I could tell it was fan-made. No developer was listed, and the description was simply "...". Out of sheer boredom and a touch of curiosity, I booted up the game.
The title screen was stock art of SpongeBob against a generic blue sky background. The only thing that seemed to be edited was SpongeBob's body color, which was a light orange instead of yellow. I suppose I lied a bit about it being a title screen, because there was no title. Just SpongeBob, the sky, and a button that said "New Game." Clicking it took me to a brief load screen, which then cut to the starting area. 
The game was 2D, as expected, with pixelated backgrounds and a Spongebob sprite that I'm pretty sure was directly stolen from one of the Game Boy games. Much like on the title screen, it was colored light orange. I guess that was "Squarebob." The music was a short, bit-crunched ukulele riff. The controls were pretty simple: left and right arrow keys to move, and spacebar to jump. I walked over to the bed, and an icon with the letter "Z" popped up. I pressed the Z key, and an orange dialogue box popped up.
"..."
It was some kind of "inspect object" move, apparently. Having nothing to say on the subject of his bed, I moved Squarebob to the far right, ending up on the next screen. Gary was sitting in a pet bed, eyes closed. I went up to him and pressed "Z," which displayed another dialogue box, this time black.
"He is tired. Let him rest."
Behind Gary was a closet, which I tried to open by inspecting it. The same box popped up.
"You aren't ready to see what's in there yet."
Without any other option, I kept moving right. This took me through each room of the pineapple, all of them being fairly show-accurate for a Flash game. I tried inspecting each piece of furniture in the house, which gave me the same result as when I tried to inspect the bed. When I got to the living room, I inspected the TV, which did give me some different dialogue from the black box.
"I'm so excited."
Real helpful. I went out the door, ending up on Conch Street. Moving to the left, I encountered Squidward standing outside of his house. I talked to him, and a cyan-colored box appeared.
"Please don't talk to me like that. It makes me uncomfortable."
An orange box popped up in reply.
"..."
Squidward spoke again.
"What would your mother think?"
The conversation ended there. For a SpongeBob game, it had some pretty strange writing. I moved to the far left, meeting Patrick on the next screen. He was beaming, clearly eager about something. I spoke to him.
"Hi, SquareBob! Want to go jellyfishing?"
Two selection buttons appeared on the screen: "Yes" or "No." I clicked yes, hoping for a minigame of some kind. To my surprise, however, the Yes button didn't seem to work. Every time I selected it, a message appeared in a black box that said:
"Maybe another time."
No matter how much I clicked it, the message wouldn't go away. Defeated, I clicked No instead.
"Aww, you never wanna do anything fun!" said Patrick.
His face changed to a scowl, and the game wouldn't let me talk to him again. The far left of this area was a dead end, so I began moving to the right. Going right on the Conch Street screen brought me to the Treedome, where Sandy stood waiting. Unlike the other NPCs, it seemed that her sprite had been edited somewhat. She was given noticeably more feminine features, with long eyelashes and lipstick, as well as being out of her spacesuit (which didn't really make sense underwater). As per usual, I talked to her.
"You're like a brother to me. I couldn't bear to see you leave."
"..."
"We're friends; isn't that enough for you?"
Unlike Patrick, Sandy's face became confused, maybe even a little unnerved. I tried to enter the Treedome, but she stopped me.
"I don't know if I want you in there anymore."
Jesus. Was this game gonna let me do anything fun? I moved to the right, reaching a screen that had both the Chum Bucket and the Krusty Krab in the background. The Chum Bucket looked dilapidated and abandoned, like it had been left to rot for years. I inspected it, getting another black box.
"With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
After that, I did the same for the Krusty Krab. Instead of a text box, I was sent to the interior of the restaurant, with Mr. Krabs standing by a table. The game wouldn't let me talk to him, only displaying a black text box that read:
"He has nothing of importance to say. Ignore him."
Moving further to the other side of the screen took me to what seemed to be a cooking minigame. Finally! Actual gameplay. 
It was played from a first-person perspective, with patties being placed on the grill one at a time. The goal was to flip the patties right as they reached the proper temperature and then construct the burger using a variety of ingredients. Orders were written at the top of the screen and told you what each customer wanted. If you got the order wrong or burned a patty, you lost a couple points. If you lost a certain amount of points (I think it was 20), you would lose the game. You had to make 10 patties in the first level, with the number increasing by 10 at each stage. For the first couple of rounds, it was easy. Just flip the burgers and put together the order. If you took too long or burned a patty, Mr. Krabs would yell "Hurry up!" which I thought was pretty funny. Around round 5 or so was when the game started getting really hard. Orders would come right after each other, and pretty soon the entire grill would be filled with patties. At about the 10th round, it became downright impossible. Patties would start appearing in areas that were unable to be reached, like in the bottom corners of the screen. Within a couple minutes, the entire screen was covered in raw patties. Krabs yelled "Hurry up!" incessantly over the chaos, the voice clips playing on top of each other and cutting themselves off. The music played faster and faster, adding to the cacophony. It was extremely stress-inducing and made me lose what little concentration I had. Obviously, I didn't quite meet the game's insane patty quota.
The words "You Failed" appeared in blood red font, and the screen faded to black. The game stayed on the empty screen for a while. I could make out a faint sobbing sound in the background. It sounded like a man's voice, although I wasn't sure. Words were muttered in between the crying fits, but making them out was difficult. Something about the media, I think?
Eventually, the game faded back into SquareBob's room. The game was totally silent now, which was a relief after what I had just heard. SquareBob was standing in the room Gary was in, although Gary wasn't actually there. It was clearly nighttime, judging by the lighting. SquareBob's sprite was kneeling on the ground, frowning, and holding his hands over his face. There was another presence in the room, though. Something was very slowly sliding in from the left side of the screen. It was a humanoid figure, colored completely black. It almost looked like a stickman, but it had actual hands and feet. Its eyes were tiny red dots and the only facial feature the creature had. It stood there in silence for a minute, until it spoke using the same black dialogue box from throughout the rest of the game.
"Look in the closet."
SquareBob stood up, staring at the figure. After a brief moment of hesitation, he walked over to the closet and opened it. Inside was a single object: a picture. It was of a young boy, probably no more than 7 or 8. The figure spoke again.
"What they see on the front page will be what you are seen as for the rest of time. They won't believe it. A monster that sprouted from such humble origins. Remind them that you are only a child, like them. Like their children. Like their children's children."
"..."
"Tragedy fuels fascination. Fascination fuels people. People fuel the media. The media fuels tragedy. Understand?"
"..."
"The greatest revolutions did not stem from inaction. Right now, the world doesn't respect people like you. Give it a reason to."
"..."
"She doesn't like you like that, but she should. He doesn't value your efforts, but he should. Why do you even bother, young man?"
"Now's your chance to become an icon. Imagine what your mother will think."
The figure's face changed, swirling and stretching into a new shape. It was now the visage of the boy in the photograph, albeit completely in grayscale.
"I've been by your side since day one. Don't let me down."
The boy's face stretched and warped, now barely resembling a human at all.
"There's something else in the closet. Something you haven't looked at since you bought it. Give it a whirl. Trust me."
"..."
"Are you ready?"
For the first time in the entire game, the player character spoke.
"I'm ready."
The game cut to black. I thought that maybe it was over, but I couldn't have been more wrong. A slide show began. The first image was innocuous enough—just a grainy, black-and-white picture of a well-dressed man brushing his teeth. It was shot from far away, probably from an outside window. The next picture showed the same man, still brushing his teeth, except now the camera was closer. He seemed unaware that he was being photographed. The next couple of slides followed the same pattern, getting so close to the man's face that I could practically see his pores. The last slide featured the man staring into the camera with a terrified expression on his face, mouth agape, and eyes frozen in terror. The game suddenly cut back to SquareBob, standing in what looked like a giant freezer. There was a jumbled mess of pixels by his feet, and I was given the option to inspect it. Doing so triggered another image to appear. This one was much different.
It was a photograph of the man from before, this time in full color. He was lying in a cold-looking area, most likely a freezer. His eyes were wide open, glossy, and very clearly dead. His face was bloated and teeming with rot, being colored a frosty blue, and a clarinet was brutally jammed into his mouth like a wooden stake. A caption below the photo read, "Squiddy learns to play.".
The game then cut to another montage of photographs. The first featured a girl floating face down in a body of water, wearing nothing but a swimsuit. A bullet hole was visible on her back. The caption here was "Sandy forgot her helmet.".
The next photograph was of a large man sitting on a couch. His eyes had rolled to the back of his head, and his gut was slashed open. His mouth was agape and filled to the brim with coins and dollar bills. Yet another caption was written at the bottom of the screen: "Money makes the world go round.".
Finally, the game transitioned to the last screen. On it was a message written in white text:
"To everybody who loved me, I'm so sorry. To everybody that didn't, see you on the front page."
A grainy photo appeared below the text. It was of two young boys standing together, one of whom I recognized as the boy in the picture frame. The other one I had never seen before. They had their arms around each other, grinning and holding ice cream cones. One last caption was written at the bottom:
"Pete, this is for you. If you're reading this, it means I didn't go all the way. I don't know if I can bring myself there. You'll always be my friend.
Signed, SB."
The game then crashed, sending me back to the Flashpoint bootup screen. As you can imagine, I was freaking the fuck out. I tried to return to where I found the game, but it was gone. Somehow, it had completely disappeared in the time I took to find it again. The game, for all intents and purposes, never existed. I emailed the Flashpoint staff, but haven't gotten a response yet. With nothing left to do, I searched online for any SpongeBob-related murders, hoping to find a lead. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If this kid's plan was to get in the news, he must not have accomplished it. You'd think a triple or potentially quadruple murder would make the press go wild, but I guess not. 
That is, assuming they found the bodies.
Category:SpongeBob
Category:Lost Games
Category:Games
Category:Video Games
Category:Disappearances