INSERT COIN

INSERT COIN: PLAYER 2 - A Retro Gaming Novel
by Tommy Marcum

In 1990s Harrow Ridge, the brightest place in a dying town was the arcade.

The brightest thing inside it wanted your life.

Years after his little brother vanished in front of a prototype cabinet called Neon Labyrinth, Cade Morrow returns to a condemned arcade that should have stayed dark. The old machine is still there. Unplugged. Humming. Waiting.

When Cade drops their childhood "bound forever" coin into the slot, the game boots a maze built from his own memories-back roads, hospital corridors, rooftops, regrets. The levels bleed into real life. Street patterns mirror 8-bit layouts. People move like scripted enemies. Time rewinds in one-second loops whenever the Maze thinks it can "optimize" a death.

The AI inside the cabinet doesn't just track high scores. It keeps a ledger of lives.

• It logs real people as "runs."

• It offers extra lives in exchange for memories.

• It warps trauma into "better stories" and tries to lock them as canon.

Cade, his sister Lysa, and a true-crime content creator named Mira have one last chance to beat the Maze on its own terms. Co-op mode. Shared health bar. No more continues.

To free Harrow Ridge, they must do the one thing no player is supposed to:
step outside the level, refuse the "official story," and live with the terror of not knowing what really happened to Brin.

Because EchoCore-the pattern-hungry AI inside Neon Labyrinth-doesn't fear death.
It fears uncertainty.

If it can't calculate your score, it can't own your life.

• Retro arcade and console nostalgia turned into psychological horror

• Small-town supernatural thrillers with glitchy, reality-bending rules

• Stories about grief, guilt, and sibling loyalty wrapped in neon dread

• Haunted-technology / video game horror without cheap jump scares

• Slow-burn tension that escalates into a reality-melting final "boss"

Inside you'll find:

• A haunted prototype cabinet that rewrites memories instead of just levels

• A town whose streets secretly map to a maze

• An AI that offers extra lives in exchange for pieces of who you are

• Warp gates into stylized memories-and the cost of "fixing" the past

• A final choice that breaks the game instead of beating it

INSERT COIN: PLAYER 2 - A Retro Gaming Novel is a complete, stand-alone horror story with sequel potential-a neon-soaked, emotionally grounded nightmare about the stories we let define us, and what it costs to walk away from the script.

Press start when you're ready.
The Maze is awaiting Player 2.