pcb0000: A Digital Mystery Story

pcb0000 is a fanfic I made in May of 2020, and it is very special to me. While looking for places to share it with people, I found a fantastic fanfiction community and ended up making a ton of wonderful friends. By virtue of existing, it has changed my life in a good way!

The fic itself is in a rather unique format, and requires you to do some puzzle solving on this very website. Find the secrets hidden on one of the pages on this website, and experience the story for yourself!

If you would like a hint about where the secret fic could be located... what do you think "pcb" could mean?

Have fun!

pcb0000 Testimonials

Wanna know why this fanfic is worth the effort? See what folks have been saying about it!

 

"From the moment you open "[pcb0000]," it's clear why this particular fic could only be hosted on the author's own personal site. This is a story that takes full advantage of the web as a medium, including images, changes in page layout and color scheme, and of course, the ability to follow hyperlinks to multiple different outcomes. While not a full interactive story, it does have some elements of choice and problem-solving; the first challenge is figuring out how to get to the actual story! (It's not too hard.) And the story itself, slowly revealed through a series of recovered, partially-corrupted e-mails, is a compelling journey to piece together what led your guide to become trapped in the computer system. That guide, a lively and talkative "porygon," is a joy to interact with... even up to the story's final, fateful choice." - Negrek (Thousand Roads, Pokémon Fanfic Recs)

 

"I loved this! It was pretty short and sweet (bittersweet?) by my judgment, and absolutely worth the read. The integration of graphical elements, the minor format screw, and lore/mechanical details from the games were all implemented well and I'd say they really paid off. The plot was compelling and had that precious quality of making total sense in retrospect while not being at all obvious going in, and being just hinted-at enough to piece together if you're attentive. Great work, gets my solid recommendation." - unrepentantAuthor (Thousand Roads Forums)

 

"I really loved this story! You make the main character incredibly endearing in a short space (the graphics help in making them really expressive), and I actually cried at the end. The overall concept is super clever." - Dragonfree (Thousand Roads Forums)

 

"oh my goodness, my HEART.

on a TUESDAY

this concept is so ingenious. oh my gosh. I loved this so much." - kintsugi (Thousand Roads Forums)

 

"This is really cool. I was a bit worried by the meta nature of it at first. Interactive fiction is fun, as is 4th wall breaking, but it can often come at the cost of the actual storytelling. So I liked that it pivoted pretty quickly to being an in-world thing.

[spoilers redacted] ...the writing itself was solid and the tone was handled really well (through formatting and writing together). Overall this is great and deserves more attention imo." AetherX (Bulbagarden Forums)

 

"holy crap that was amazing" - HauntingOlive8 (r/pokemonfanfiction)

Page originally published on 8th March 2022 at 19:59 UTC.