Game Making: Start By Healing the Player

Chapter 52

As the gameplay continued, Sun Yixie and Brother Lemon settled into a familiar rhythm of bickering. To an outsider, it would have sounded like they were teetering on the verge of a scuffle, but to the loyal viewers of the channel, this was simply the norm.

The playful atmosphere helped stabilize Sun Yixie’s mentality for some time, but when the protagonist began the trek into a dark, decrepit, underground path, an unwelcome tension stirred in his gut.

Up until this point, the game hadn’t gone truly dark yet.

Sure, there were the darkened corridors and rooms, but those were always supported by small light sources scattered about in the environment.

But this was different.

It was pitch black, with a darkness so heavy that even the small bits of light seemed like frail candles in the wind, just barely keeping themselves from being consumed and snuffed out. The visibility was basically zero.

To navigate, Sun Yixie was fully dependent on the night vision mode of the handheld camera.

And though he had mentally prepared himself, and even brought his own hype man, the dread still ate at him incessantly.

He stared at the in-game prompts sourly.

He felt the sense of dread growing, this dark basement zone was already terrifying enough, but now he was forced to look for some switches and pumps inside it?

Why is the world so cruel? How could anyone do this?

Why did he foolishly challenge this horror game in the first place?

But now it was too late to turn back, he couldn’t afford to lose face in front of the viewers and his best friend.

“Alright, alright, alright! There’s nothing to be scared of!”, he bellowed (weakly) to hype himself up and began slowly creeping around and exploring, sticking closely to the walls and swiveling the character around nervously.

Brother Lemon couldn’t help but chuckle, earning himself a string of curses.

Sun Yixie headed left first, eventually reaching a door and opening it.

The room was dimly lit, allowing him to see without the need for night vision. At the back of the room was one of the gas pumps, along with a long row of rusty metal cabinets.

“Yes!”

He felt such excitement to see a pump so soon, a third of the objectives would soon be complete, hopefully ending this suffocating segment of the game.

The chat exploded in dismay.

• [What kind of luck is this? I wanted more suffering…]
• [Already found one? I was hoping to see Sun get freaked out more.]
• [There were actually arrows painted on the walls, brother Sun didn’t notice.]
• [Uh oh, those cabinets look kinda like the one in the security office.]
• [Uh ooooooooh]
• [Lmao ur rite 😂]
• [💀rip brother sun, you’ll be missed]
• [lul rip]

As the comments rolled on, Sun Yixie also took note of the cabinets, testing them out and finding that he could indeed make the protagonist hide inside each of them.

“So if I turn this gas pump on, the monster will appear, and this cabinet will be for me to hide in?”

It was a logical conclusion, the game devs had to leave a way out for the players.

There was no point in hesitating further, the game would not progress if the objectives were not completed. So he interacted with the gas pump.

A loud, tortured grind echoed throughout the basement as the pump was turned.

And soon, Sun Yixie could hear something moving closer to the room.

He scrambled to hide inside a nearby cabinet.

After a few seconds, the sound of something heavy smashing its way through the door was heard.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Then came a horrible crack as the door splintered and gave way, followed by uneven footsteps and a faint muttering too jumbled to make out the words.

Inside the cabinet, Sun Yixie did not turn off the night vision. He wanted to see what was hunting him, but he also leaned back into his chair and pulled his hoodie tighter across his head.

In the green glow of the camera, he saw a lanky figure enter the room.

The creature was a patient of the asylum once, judging by the torn clothes it wore, but his visage was off-putting, as if it were a flayed man wearing his former skin as a mask.

His movements were twitchy, jerking this way and that in erratic movements. In his hand was a torturous instrument, a piece of wood studded with sharp nails all over. There were dark stains all over the nails, it was hard to tell if it was rust or dried blood.

The monster looked around the room, allowing a better view of its face. What a horrible day to have eyes.

“Good thing I’m smart, hiding in the cabinets as soon as I could,” Sun Yixie gave himself a pat on the back and let out a sigh of relief.

But then the monster did something unexpected, shocking him into silence and sending the chat into a frenzy.

The monster moved to the nearest cabinet and slammed it open. Checking one after another. Sun Yixie felt his heart leap from his chest as the monster got closer.

Fortunately, it stopped checking after two or three cabinets, losing interest and moving out of the room while still muttering a string of unintelligible words.

“Shit, that was close,” he swallowed nervously. The situation is a lot more dire than previously thought. Not only did he have to search for the objectives, he had to do so while avoiding the new monster that now roamed the basement.

Half a minute later, when Sun Yixie was sure that the creature would not return, he creeped out of the cabinet slowly.

Looking out from the now broken door, he spotted another door with an arrow painted on it. He moved towards it and looked inside, seeing another gas pump.

The only difference was that this room did not have any cabinets to hide in.

“Shit, now what?”

His nerves were acting up as he looked at the scene then back at the chat. Many were poking fun at the situation, but some were trying their best to backseat, it was them that he looked to with hope filled eyes.

Unfortunately, the game was a fresh release, hot off the oven. There were no guides or tips available yet. Many in the chat provided suggestions, but they seemed unreliable – perhaps some of the game devs were watching as well, holding their silence and watching him struggle with glee.

Brother Lemon, the fivehead intellectual, offered his opinion on the matter.

“Sun, maybe you’re overthinking it.”

“The cabinets were placed for a reason, so if no cabinets were placed, maybe it means the monster won’t show up here?”

“Besides, there’s still an intact door. The monster will have to break down the door to get you, right? So at least there’s a heads up.”

Sun Yixie turned to look blankly at his friend, who had headphones on and was listening to cheerful music.

Why did he have headphones on? Well, to be honest, he was somewhat frightened by the game too…

By focusing more on chat interaction, and drowning out the eerie sounds of the game, Brother Lemon had avoided the brunt of the psychological damage.

“You know what? That actually makes some sense.” Sun Yixie decided to cling to hope and delude himself.

But somewhere in the back of his mind, it still felt like the wrong answer.

Ah well, nothing to be done about that now, he just wanted this segment to be over soon. And the suggestion seemed logical enough…

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