SOLVED. Game AI that starts to infiltrate into characters heads. [s]

[Spike1]

Hello!(Hopefully I'm doing this right :)). I've been looking for a book I read about 10 years ago. By then it was already around 20 years old. It's part of a three or four book series.

It's about this game that gets sent to the main characters letter box (Its a tape). The game's main character takes the form of whoever playing it. As it turns out, the game itself is some sort of advanced AI system, and it's looking for a more usable host. Slowly as the story goes on the MCs (Main characters) start to experience more and more strange things from the game, until something....

I'm fairly sure the MCs are in highschool, and the game was made in an Asian country. Throughout the series the AI starts controlling more and more people through threats and manipulation (There's a scene in one of the last books where the AI blows up one of the electronic advertisement boards in a shopping mall killing a disobedient persons friend).

Thanks if you can help :).

[Andy]

Sounds a bit like Fred Saberhagen's "Octagon" Octagon

[Kris]

Spike, what's the game experience like? Do you enter a virtual world, become different characters, what does it look like?

What do you remember about the different players, the main characters?
What's the real-world location - U.S., big city, etc.?

[Spike1]

Thanks Andy, but unfortunately that is not it :). I probably didn't explain the game well enough. The players play the game like any normal console game. The games character just ends up looking like whoever is playing. I think the game was a platforming game although I could be wrong :).

I don't remember anything about the main characters sadly, although there were about 3-4 or something, all in high-school.

Hope that helps :)

[Kris]

Space Demons by Gillian Rubinstein?

[Spike1]

Yes! Thanks so much, been trying to re-find it for ages before finding this place :D. Thank-you :).

[Kris]

You're welcome! That was a tricky one to track down. Glad we could help. :)