Playing "Drunken way to Home": Getting a Drunk Middle-Aged Man Home Using Only Left and Right Clicks

The setting is a nightlife district. The man has drunk so much that he's completely plastered, barely able to make it home. The player can only use left and right clicks, and at first the commentator doesn't even know how to make him walk. Mashing the buttons gets him to stand up, but he immediately looks ready to topple over again. Falling on his head reduces his HP.

The location of his home isn't given. He nearly wanders into the road, the commentator tries to turn back, and confirms that left-clicking rotates him to the left. But he dies before he can regain his balance. On death, a description of how he died appears, such as "ending up on a filthy street surrounded by cigarette butts and Strong Zero cans," followed by "...or so I dreamed," which serves as the respawn. The commentator notices an arrow briefly visible behind him in that dream, decides his home is probably in that direction, and turns around.

About the way he clings to a handrail, all limp and floppy, the commentator says "I can really relate to this," praising how the movements of a drunk middle-aged man are simulated with physics. Backing up and then turning toward home, they gain ground by repeatedly standing, turning, and moving forward. However, when he falls along the way, his HP gets cut down significantly, and at one point the commentator grumbles about whether there's any way to heal, like Dark Souls' Estus Flask.

Just when things seem to be going smoothly, a bicycle comes along, and the man is killed in a hit-and-run. After respawning, the commentator switches strategy to move along the wall to avoid bicycles, and makes it to the front of a signboard. There, crawling along, he successfully dodges another bicycle that comes by. The commentator says "This game is Dark Souls," explaining that from their experience with the Souls series, they figured it would come again. Continuing to crawl forward, they reach the first checkpoint. Compared to the start, when they couldn't even move in a straight line, they've gotten much more used to the controls.

Following the arrow, there are rows of signs reading things like "All-you-can-drink 1,980 yen" and "Izakaya Anaguma." The commentator says the slightly off Japanese in the wording feels typical of this kind of game and is oddly comforting.

Beyond that, the road narrows into a thin path with a cliff on one side. The commentator compares it to a valley in Dark Souls, saying it's not a route anyone in their right mind would choose, but the man is not in his right mind. While trying to correct his direction, he falls headfirst off the cliff and respawns after dreaming "Office worker of no fixed address falls to his death at construction site."

Here the commentator explains the trick to getting through. The basics are simply "wait until he stands, then move once he's standing." Sometimes his legs glitch out and he can't stand, but they say that happens often in real life too, and he should be able to get back up after a short rest. Also, his stride is large when moving while standing, so when you want to proceed carefully, move while he's crawling. You can fine-tune his direction by watching which way his torso is facing. Using this approach, they get through the first narrow path and pass a checkpoint, despite plowing into a pile of garbage.

The commentator sees the next section as terrain that seems to demand player skill. They advance to the base and try to turn right, but he stands up at a bad moment, falls into a garbage pile, and dies. After that, they switch to carefully crawling forward, "licking the ground." His movements are chaotic, but according to the commentator, he's making steady progress even though they're barely doing anything. Throwing in a parody of the famous line "Don't you ever stop," they reach the next checkpoint.

Finally, what looks like an apartment building comes into view, but there's a dog there. The commentator once again invokes Dark Souls, saying the strongest enemy in Dark Souls is the dog. Thinking he'll definitely be finished if spotted, they try to circle around from the side, but he gets attacked after they lose track of the dog. They also notice there was another dog further back, and reflect that dying from a dog attack on a dark street is a "sad" end.

After respawning, they analyze that stepping into the open area was the mistake, and switch to waiting for the dog to move away before advancing. At the same time, they admit that after repeatedly dying and respawning, figuring they could always come back, they had started to feel a bit reckless. When the dog moves off, they hurry toward the stairs. His home might be on the first floor, but the commentator guesses that if this is Dark Souls, his home will be at the far end of the second floor.

Repeating a jump-then-crawl motion, they keep moving, even as his body gets caught on pillars. Perhaps because it's dark, the commentator feels the dog's detection range is surprisingly narrow. He has very little health left and seems likely to be done after hitting his head a few more times. There's a dog to the right where they don't want to go, but going left means bicycles. Amid all this, they pass a checkpoint.

All that's left is to climb the stairs, and the commentator figures the dog won't follow him up to the second floor. But once standing, the man trembles, inches forward like a slug, and ends up falling down the stairs and dying.

After respawning, his HP has been restored. The commentator says that as long as his HP is restored it's "easy mode," reasoning that although he's been taken out by cars and bicycles, he's actually fairly tough to begin with. Even so, a mere six steps are a struggle.

After reaching the landing, he's attacked by the dog again. The commentator plays dead, trying to become just another object in the surroundings from the dog's point of view. They hope the dog will get bored after a while, but it doesn't work. Deciding that backing down would be bad, they switch to moving forward, pressing left and right clicks hard and praying. The dog nearly eats him through a gap in the railing, but then it leaves, and he somehow makes it to the second floor.

All that's left is to cross the hallway, and the commentator calls it "basically a victory lap." But the man crashes into a shelf in front of someone else's door, gets caught on a large sake bottle, and can't move forward. At one point he gets completely stuck and can't move at all. Along the way he looks like he's trying to open someone else's front door, and the commentator is relieved that it was locked. With his HP running low, he clambers over the sake bottles and heads for the room at the very end. The commentator presses on, saying it would be hilarious if that weren't his home, and that they're a little curious what the despair would feel like if it weren't.

The room at the very end is the man's home, and he has finally made it back from the nearest station. Looking back on the journey, the commentator lists how he was hit by a car, hit by a bicycle, fell to the bottom of a valley, and was attacked by a dog on a dark street, saying it's been a long time since a trip home was this moving. Finally, they ask whether viewers now understand how frightening drinking can be, and close with "Drink, but don't let the drink get the better of you" — enjoy alcohol in moderation.