We're on an epic quest (advertisement)
 A version of the advertisement kept in the company's files, which names the console the demonpore 2600 and its website MolecularTV.com | |
| Advertiser | demonpore, inc. |
|---|---|
| Product | "the world's first Molecular Gaming Console™", later the demonpore 64 |
| Medium | |
| First run | 2021 |
| Spend | "a few hundred dollars" |
| Response | "around 800" sign-ups |
"We're on an epic quest" is an advertisement that demonpore, inc. ran on Facebook in 2021, the year the company took the name Molecular Reality Corporation. It introduced "the world's first Molecular Gaming Console™", a nanopore instrument built as a home video game console, and listed eight "Molecular Games™" to be played on it with real cells and molecules. Under the headline it promised a future "so bright, you'll need triple-thick welder's goggles just to look at it".
According to the company, the advertisement cost "a few hundred dollars" and brought "around 800 people" to its wait list. They were the first members of the community now called the Molecular Streaming Corps.
Content
It is laid out as a magazine page, with the headline "We're on an epic quest." set over the parenthesis "(We want a future so bright, you'll need triple-thick welder's goggles just to look at it)."[a] In the left column, after introducing the console, the copy asks: "Our epic question: How do we reach a future free of disease*?" Its answer begins "By having fun." Players of the games would be "doing actual science", the text continues, "with actual cells and molecules that you put into the console". The asterisk leads to a line at the foot of the page, which says that the console is "strictly a scientific research tool; it is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease."[1]
The right column, headed "Molecular Games™", gives each title a single line, with the title in red small capitals and a trademark sign.
| Title | Line in the advertisement | Later history |
|---|---|---|
| Bloodstreamer | "the game of real-time blood biology across families and species" | Dropped; listed as BloodStream on later versions |
| War on the Dragon Tyrant | "help defeat the greatest cause of biological suffering", which it names as aging | Renamed Dragon Tyrant Must Die!, then Labyrinth of the Dragon Tyrant |
| 2021: A SARS Odyssey | "the quest to stop all infectious disease transmission begins!" | Renamed SARS Invaders |
| Raindrop Planet | "adopt a complex and unique microbial civilization within a raindrop-sized vessel" | Kept in the 2022 memo, with new samples |
| Poop of the Gods | "explore the sacred stinky" | Described in the 2022 memo as "in fimo biology" |
| Molecules of Mars | "explore possibilities & prospects for Martian life using realistic mimics of Martian soil" | Given an astrobiology entry in the 2022 memo |
| Genomic Ranger | "adventure across the genomic landscape of structural variations" | Expanded in the 2022 memo to some 20 kinds of sample |
| Backyard Universe | "go out and find cells and molecules and view them in Augmented Reality" | Dropped; its line later went to Raindrop Planet |
A photograph below the columns shows the console, with a row of colored sample tubes standing in a rack along its back.
Design
The company meant the page to look like a magazine advertisement from the first years of the personal computer, and set it partly in typefaces that Apple had used to advertise the Apple II.[2] The console in the version kept in the company's files has the wood-grain front and ribbed black top of the Atari 2600, and a company chatbot later said that the prototype had been "housed in a repurposed Atari 2600 case".[2]
Its headline is older than the company. In 2013 the founder wrote an unpublished text, the Book of the Church of Sequence Space, which opens "We are on an epic quest." and already contains the phrase "a future so bright, you'll need triple thick welder's goggles just to look at it".[2] The subtitle recalls "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades", a 1986 song by Timbuk 3, which no company source mentions.
Placement and response
The company's December 2022 overview reproduced the advertisement and called its campaign "only a perfunctory level of promotion": "a few hundred dollars on Facebook for the ad seen here, targeting demographics interested in synthetic biology and citizen science". After it, the overview reports, "we had around 800 people sign up for our 'epic quest' wait list".[1] A badge in the company's management game, Epic Quest Bio, still goes to those members: "You saw a promo in 2021 that said 'join our epic quest', and you did!"[2]
The sign-up form asked each applicant for a favorite science fiction book or film, which of the early games they would choose, and what excited them about the demonpore 64, the name the form used for the console.[2] Dune was the book named most often (see Favorite books and films of the Molecular Streaming Corps). In a sample of 135 answers to the question about games, "Dragon Tyrant Must Die!" received 26 votes, "Raindrop Planet" 25, "2021: A SARS Odyssey" 23, "Genomic Ranger" 18, "Poop of the Gods" 16, "Molecules of Mars" 14 and "Gastromancy" 13.[2] Gastromancy does not appear in the advertisement. Bloodstreamer and Backyard Universe do not appear in the tally. The overview also printed some of the answers to a poll question, "what excites you most about our project?"[1]
Versions
File:Epic quest ad 2022.webp At least three versions survive. The one printed in the 2022 overview has gaps where the console's name would stand. It reads "Introducing the", then a space, then "world's first Molecular Gaming Console™". Its second column says "Your gaming experience with the", a space, and "requires only the console itself and our online portal", with the last five words in a smaller bold type that matches nothing else on the page. Its players form "a global army of Player Scientists™".[1]
A version in the company's files fills each gap with "demonpore 2600™". It sends players to "MolecularTV.com™", the place "where a global tribe of molecular gamers will gather to solve biology", and lists BloodStream in place of Bloodstreamer and MoliGotchi, in which players "adopt a complex and unique microbial civilization within a teardrop-sized vessel", in place of Raindrop Planet. A banner at the bottom carries the demonpore logo and the motto "Advanced scientific instruments disguised as toys™".[2] The name MoliGotchi recalls the Tamagotchi, the virtual pet that Bandai began selling in 1996.
A later remake gives the address epicquest.bio, registered in March 2025, and offers the games for "the MR series of Molecular Streaming Devices". It renames two of them Lab of the Dragon Tyrant and SARS Invaders, gives Raindrop Planet the augmented-reality line of Backyard Universe, labels the console "Just one possible form factor!" and adds a second motto, "Civilization engineering hiding in plain sight as a game™".[2]
Later use
The console was never sold; see demonpore 64. Its slogan outlived it. Epic Quest Biotechnology, later Epic Quest Bio, became the name of the company's management game, and the essay that introduces it says: "We're on an epic quest to free mankind from disease."[3] In 2026 the company's mascot, Keltar, wrote to the people who had signed up in 2021, describing his purpose as "to reconnect with you about a mailing list you signed up for in 2021".[2]
See also
Notes
- ^ Welding filters are graded by shade number. For looking directly at the Sun, eclipse-safety guidance calls for shade 12 or darker.