Bromp Saves the World

October 20, 2026

A few weeks ago, Art and I dropped my car off at the shop after work again, got skunked at the thrift store again, and wandered back home. I worked on a knitting project, ate a criminal amount of mini cucumbers, and settled into the evening. The usual.

Eventually, we headed downstairs so that I could play Downwell while Art queued music as my personal DJ. (We decided that "As It Was" by Harry Styles would make an excellent Downwell theme song.) While I came close to beating my personal best time of 12:15, I failed after many attempts and decided to switch to my other favorite mindless game: Switch 'N' Shoot.

It's a one-button shooting game. In every new game, you're assigned a new, random name. Each time you press the button, you shoot a bullet and change directions. Meanwhile, aliens fall down the screen toward you. You get hit, you die. It's simple. It's fast. It's perfect. It's hard to pull yourself away from "just one more try." At least it is for me (Art gave up a year ago).

When I first started playing this game, I was lucky to get 20 or 30 points. The first time I broke 100 felt like a miracle. And the first time I encountered the boss, it was instant death. But slowly, I figured it out.

And slowly, the high-score table filled with the nonsense names assigned to each of my starfighters (some of my favorites are here). Despite my best efforts, the top place still belonged to an entity known as Matt, who we can only assume is a reference to the game's creator, Matt Glanville, the person responsible for so much of my time wasted.

Matt's score of 990 is baked into the game. He's always up there looming. Mocking.

I came close to beating him many times, but I never quite topped him. (At least, not in a way I would consider legitimate. Technically, you can beat Matt's score without ever leaving the first stage, just by killing 991 enemies one by one. But where's the glory in that?)

I tried and tried. Why is it that I can fixate on playing an absolutely pointless game for hours on end but need the exact perfect conditions to maybe consider possibly thinking about doing some actual work for ten minutes?

Just this once, it worked in my favor. On October 2, 2026, after years of struggle, my inability to let this game go finally paid off.

Around 8:00 P.M., some song by Ennaria played through the room. Just as I headed into Sector 2 after beating the first boss (a place I had only been once before), I died. A brief disappointment, but then my score flashed onto the screen. My shriek of victory could be heard down the block and around the corner: my score was 1,017. My name was Bromp. My retirement from Switch 'N' Shoot had finally arrived.

As I reveled in my victory, Ennaria faded into Johnny Paycheck. Somehow, "Drunk on Arrival" is exactly the song I picture playing as Bromp saves the world.