Other Books by Dustin Brady

Trapped in a Video Game

Trapped in a Video Game: The Invisible Invasion

Trapped in a Video Game: Robots Revolt

Trapped in a Video Game: Return to Doom Island

Trapped in a Video Game: The Final Boss

Superhero for a Day

Who Stole Mr. T?: Leila and Nugget Mystery #1

The Case with No Clues: Leila and Nugget Mystery #2

Bark at the Park: Leila and Nugget Mystery #3

Escape from a Video Game: The Secret of Phantom Island copyright © 2020 Dustin Brady. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

Andrews McMeel Publishing

a division of Andrews McMeel Universal

1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106

www.andrewsmcmeel.com

I’ve hidden a message on pages 86–89.

Another clue will tell you how to decode the message.

ISBN: 978-1-5248-6728-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937421

ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND BUSINESSES

Andrews McMeel books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail the Andrews McMeel Publishing Special Sales Department: specialsales@amuniversal.com.

Introduction

You know the deal with books by now, right? Left to right, top to bottom, keep turning pages until you see The End. You’ve probably read so many books that you could write a book on reading books. (Please don’t. It would be a very boring book.)

Well, this book is different. It’s so different, in fact, that you probably need to read a book (or at least this introduction) to figure out how you should read it.

1. Only turn to pages you’re instructed to in boxes that look like this:

29 Grenade launcher.

20 Wingsuit.

If you read the book in order, you’ll be confused and leave a devastating one-star review.

2. Choose wisely. Because this is a video game, wrong moves will often bring death. Just like a video game, though, death isn’t permanent. Each death sends you back to a checkpoint where you’ll get to try another decision.

RETURN TO CHECKPOINT ON P. 43

3. Some of the puzzles you’ll find in this book are challenging. If you have trouble solving any of them, try slowing down and rereading the directions. Ask an adult for help. If you’re totally stuck, turn to the back of the book for hints and solutions.

4. On your first read-through, focus only on beating the game while losing as few lives as possible. Don’t go back to try different options, and don’t worry about the secret letters associated with each ending.

5. Once you beat the game, go back and find every ending. Record the secret letters associated with each achievement in the back of the book to discover a code you can use to unlock a whole new story. Here’s what the secret letters look like:

6. The e-book version of this story features several modifications to make it easier to read. First, all choices have been hyperlinked so you can navigate with a single tap. In some cases, you’ll have to find a specific page number rather than make a choice. When that happens, simply tap the table of contents button to quickly jump to that page number. Finally, visit escapefromavideogame.com to print a worksheet that will allow you to fill in secret letters and solve puzzles easier.

You can make this book feel more like a video game by keeping track of your deaths. Each time you lose a life, return to the last checkpoint and cross a life off this page. If you lose all your lives, you must restart from the beginning.

The Adventure Begins

close your eyes

and picture the greatest video game experience of your life. Maybe it came from a twist that turned your world upside down. Maybe a particularly beautiful level transported you somewhere you could never imagine on your own. Maybe you’re thinking of a sequence so intense that it caused a full-body sweat.

Got that moment? Good. Now, open your eyes and understand this: that game is a pile of wet garbage compared to the wonder of Cooper Hawke and the Secret of Phantom Island.

Cooper Hawke and the Secret of Phantom Island could be the greatest video game in the history of video games. It’s the third and final entry in the Cooper Hawke series, a series that has to date inspired seven professional video game journalists to weep actual tears of joy during their review.

What makes Cooper Hawke so great? First, he’s a treasure hunter, which is such a cool job that it only exists in video games and cable TV. Also, Hawke pulls off feats like surfing on crocodiles, diving into erupting volcanoes, and defeating ancient forces of evil without breaking a sweat. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, his signature weapon is a grenade launcher.

Now, listen. Should a treasure hunter consider a signature weapon that’s less likely to explode the very treasure he’s hunting? Should he rethink even having a signature weapon in the first place, since treasure isn’t known for fighting back? Should you stop asking lame questions? Grenade launchers are awesome, Cooper Hawke is awesome, and you’d probably be a lot more awesome yourself if you took a few minutes to chill out and launch some ’nades.

A perfect hero needs a perfect villain, and Cooper Hawke could not ask for a nastier nemesis than Declan Redgrave. In the previous game, Redgrave kidnapped Hawke’s mom, stole his dog, and blew up his treasure collection with Hawke’s own grenade launcher. And that was just in the first five minutes. The Secret of Phantom Island promises the final showdown between Hawke and Redgrave. There are rumors that the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence engine is powering Redgrave for this game, so you know the confrontation is going to be intense. Think you’re up for the challenge?

Unfortunately, you’ll never find out. Neither will anyone else. That’s because Cooper Hawke and the Secret of Phantom Island was being developed by Bionosoft, a video game com- pany that got shut down by the U.S. government a month before the game’s release because the CEO committed high crimes and misdemeanors. High crimes and misdemeanors is a boring lawyer phrase that usually refers to boring crimes such as dereliction of duty. Not this time. This time, it means trapping people in video games.

Bionosoft figured out how to put real people into real video games. There are about 10 million sweet things you can do with that discovery (over a million of which involve grenade launchers). Bionosoft didn’t do any of them. Instead, they immediately hatched a plot that would doom the entire human race. Just before the company could launch their plan, they were stopped by a pair of 12-year-olds named Jesse Rigsby and Eric Conrad. Everyone was super grateful to Jesse and Eric for saving them, but also like 2 percent mad that this meant they’d never get to experience Cooper Hawke and the Secret of Phantom Island for themselves. (As Game Guru magazine put it, Our tears of joy have turned to tears of anguish.)

It’s been 11 months since the collapse of Bionosoft. In those 11 months, 1.2 billion new pictures of cute dogs have been uploaded to the internet. The world has been doing its very best to keep up with all those doggos, which hasn’t left time for much else, especially remembering events that happened 11 whole months ago. As a result, almost everyone has already forgotten about Cooper Hawke and the Secret of Phantom Island.

You’d forgotten the game yourself until you spotted this book on the shelf two minutes ago. The title and cover both intrigued you, but what interested you more was the faint humming sound you heard.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

When you pulled the book off the shelf, the humming grew louder.

HMMMMMMMMMMMM.

And now, while you’re reading this, the humming is even louder still.

HMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Books don’t usually hum, do they? That’s because they don’t contain the kind of technology this one does. You see, this book can