Read an Excerpt
Wreck-It Ralph worked hard as the Bad Guy in the Fix-It Felix Jr. arcade game. Every time someone dropped a coin in the game, Ralph appeared and yelled, “I’M GONNA WRECK IT!”
Then he’d smash the apartment building in Niceland to pieces! When he was done, Fix-It Felix, the Good Guy, would arrive with his magic hammer and fix everything Ralph had wrecked. The Nicelanders always cheered for Felix. They even gave him a medal and a pie!
But they never cheered for Ralph. Instead, they threw him off the building. . . .
SPLAT! Ralph landed in a mud puddle.
The old 8-bit video game had stood in Litwak’s Family Fun Center and Arcade for thirty years. But inside the game, Ralph had grown tired of being thrown in the mud while Felix won pies and medals. It didn’t seem fair.
Why couldn’t he be the Good Guy once in a while?
One night, Ralph took a trip through the power cord to attend a meeting of Bad-Anon, a support group for video-game Bad Guys.
Ralph admitted to the group that he wished he could be the Good Guy for a change.
The Bad Guys were horrified. You can’t change who you are, they insisted. But Ralph was not convinced.
When Ralph returned home, the Nicelanders were having a party to celebrate the game’s thirtieth anniversary. But they hadn’t even bothered to invite Ralph! That didn’t sit well with him. “I’m going to that party!” he grumbled.
The party was in full swing when Ralph entered the penthouse . . . and spotted the cake. He couldn’t believe his eyes. There was a mini figure of Felix wearing his medal on top of the cake. Why wasn’t there a mini figure of Ralph wearing a medal, too?
One of the Nicelanders scoffed. “Bad Guys don’t win medals.” Ralph was so upset that he smashed the cake!
Ralph felt awful. He left the party and went to a restaurant for a root beer. At the bar, he met a soldier from the Hero’s Duty game. Ralph learned that the goal of that game was to defeat cy-bugs and climb a tower to get the Medal of Heroes.
All of a sudden, an ordinary bug skittered across the counter. The traumatized soldier freaked out at the sight of it!
Ralph quickly came up with a plan. He borrowed the soldier’s armor and snuck into Hero’s Duty to look for the medal. When the game started, huge cy-bugs swooped down—and attacked! They devoured everything in their path.
Ralph ran for his life!
Ralph made a mess, which caused the game to stop. GAME OVER! As the game began to reset, a bright light drew the cy-bugs to the tower and zapped them!
The leader of the soldiers, Sergeant Calhoun, yelled at Ralph.
She was angry at him for not following her orders. But Ralph wasn’t paying attention. He was trying to figure out a way to get up the tower and take the Medal of Heroes for himself!
Meanwhile, a player in Litwak’s put some coins into the Fix-It Felix Jr. game. She was ready to play! But Felix had nothing to fix. There was no one to wreck the building!
“This game is busted,” the girl told Mr. Litwak.
Mr. Litwak slapped an Out of Order sign on the game. Inside, the Nicelanders were shocked. What would they do if Mr. Litwak unplugged it? Where would they go?
Luckily, Felix had found out where Ralph had gone. He was ready to bring Ralph back home. “I can fix this!” he said.
Back in Hero’s Duty, Ralph had climbed the tower and could almost reach the medal. All he had to do was sneak past dozens of cy-bug eggs without touching them. Amazingly, he did it!
But as Ralph tried to make his escape with the medal, he accidentally knocked over an egg. A baby cy-bug flew out and landed on his face. Ralph staggered backward, fell into an escape pod, and blasted off!
Just then, Felix entered Hero’s Duty. He and Sergeant Calhoun spotted Ralph’s escape pod as it zoomed out of the game!
