This is not a horror game at all!

It should be classified as a sports game!

This was Shen Miaomiao’s thought.

Sprinting, long-distance running, hurdling, obstacle cross-country.

Players sprinted out from the ward where lunatics gathered, passed through narrow, cramped shower rooms, encountered towering explosions, and waded through sewers filled with rivers of flowing blood.

The psychiatric hospital’s grim atmosphere was fully displayed, with a barrage of restricted-level scenes unfolding one after another.

And!

Apart from that terrifying fat man who threw players off the second floor and relentlessly chased them like a shadow,

more and more lunatics were escaping from the wards!

Some lunatics charged at you, roaring, but just brushed past you.

Others merely walked toward you but suddenly struck you with a stick once they got close!

This hellish design left players utterly unable to predict the next scare!

All they could do was run!

They played as the brave reporter Miles, chasing the truth, dashing through wards, climbing broken walls, crawling through ventilation shafts, never daring to stop for a moment!

At the same time, the DV camera in their hands recorded everything here!

Tense chasing sounds and screams alternated constantly; players’ average heart rates remained above 130!

Under this intense tension, players’ mental states slowly began to change.

From initial paranoia and heightened alertness—

“This door definitely has a door scare! I’d rather stand on my head and eat crap if it doesn’t! No… I’m serious, save it first… anyway, one more pile won’t hurt…”

“No way! I’m not going out! I’m sleeping in this closet today! Nobody’s dragging me out! There must be a ghost outside!”

“Ah, what the hell was that! Oh—oh, it’s just my shadow, damn it…”

“No no no! Did I just hear the fat brother’s footsteps? No? Huh? Auditory hallucination?”

“…”

Then gradually going numb, calming down—

“Wait, don’t rush, let me plan a route first…”

“A closet! Damn, another closet! Wait, I’ll film the button, then we go in the closet immediately…”

“Battery’s running low, let’s switch to night vision to check the environment first, if no monsters then we sneak through the dark…”

“There’s light this way, probably the right path, wait, don’t rush, let’s change the battery first…”

“…”

And eventually completely letting go, self-abandoning, joining the madness—

“Whoa—guys, you playing basketball with human heads? Okay, you really love sports, play on…”

“Yo! Sassy-bly, hey brothers! Wanna run two laps?”

“Wuhu, fat brother is back to play tag with me! I love playing chase with fat brother, hehe!”

“Who’s the good lunatic? Who’s the bad lunatic? I can’t tell! I really can’t tell, hahaha! Run!!!”

“…”

Fear the lunatic, understand the lunatic, become the lunatic!

There’s an old saying: Life is like being violated; if you can’t resist, just lie down obediently and enjoy it.

Since we can’t see through Old Thief’s schemes, then let’s just treat the whole psychiatric hospital as the source of horror!

Run! Now!

If PT lets players wait for judgment in an extremely narrow, cramped space,

Escape lets players flee death’s pursuit through complex passages.

Do you think this game’s design is complicated?

Not really.

It’s just a cat-and-mouse game: he runs, it chases, it’s impossible to escape.

Players’ actions are limited, even minimal.

After all, this game has no guns or weapons; players just need to hold the DV camera firmly and keep running.

But is this game design simple?

Not at all.

That overwhelming sense of pressure is built by intertwining many game design elements.

Modeling, lighting, sound effects, scare triggers…

Missing even one would seriously weaken the horror atmosphere.

Moreover, this game has one amazing feature even a rookie designer like Shen Miaomiao can notice—

Its map design is brilliant!

Since the game’s release until now, they’ve watched almost an hour and a half.

During this time, almost all streamers, though panicking wildly when chased by horrific enemies, seemingly running in disarray,

actually managed to find escape routes by looping around a bit, unknowingly entering the next game stage!

Even experienced players like Pure Black, like having GPS navigation installed, though screaming in fright and almost suffocating, could instinctively zigzag and find the correct path to quickly escape danger.

This amazed Shen Miaomiao greatly.

“Strange, how do they find the way?”

She asked Gu Sheng puzzled:

“All the paths look the same to me. How do they always find the right one?”

“This thing… how do I explain it to you?”

Gu Sheng clicked his tongue:

“Have you ever studied Left 4 Dead’s map construction?”

Asking your own boss if he knows his own product!

That’s pretty abstract.

But when it comes to Golden Wind, this question makes perfect sense.

And Shen Miaomiao lived up to expectations, showing an awkward but polite expression: “…No.”

“Alright, no need for that face,”

Gu Sheng waved his hand, signaling Little Nezha not to be embarrassed:

“Expected.”

“Hey! What do you mean by that! You look down on me!”

Shen Miaomiao crossed her arms, pouting like an angry little lamb, bumping her head against Gu Sheng’s:

“Though I haven’t played it, I can still understand, you know!”

“It’s not that you don’t understand,”

Gu Sheng leaned sideways laughing:

“This stuff, either you have experience designing related levels or have studied level design logic,

or you can only experience it yourself.

What you see outside is definitely different from the actual in-game experience,

kind of like…”

Gu Sheng thought for a moment.

He gave a fitting analogy:

“You’re stomping, but your feet are numb.”

“Hmm…”

Shen Miaomiao pouted, thinking.

“Alright, if you don’t get it, stop thinking about it. You don’t dare to play anyway. Forgot last time when PT scared you to tears?”

Gu Sheng pointed at the projection screen:

“Just be a viewer and enjoy the fun. Watching streamers scream is hilarious.”

Horror games’ live broadcast effect was good to begin with.

Plus, this game was solely created by Gu Sheng, so seeing players scream like crazy was even more entertaining to him.

Especially when players screamed wildly, he could see his system’s emotion value surge sharply.

However!

Before he finished speaking, Little Nezha puffed out his cheeks: “Who says I’m scared to play!”

No way!

I’ve seen so many horror movies, no way I’m scared of this!

Shen Miaomiao felt Gu Sheng was clearly looking down on her!

Back during PT, this bad guy acted all smug!

Though she ended up scared to tears, that was because PT was truly terrifying—the global completion rate was terrifyingly low and it was recognized as the scariest game in the world!

But this time was different!

By now, streamers’ mental states had completely collapsed; simply put, they were numb from fright.

So overall, while the live broadcast effect improved, the sense of horror compared to the game’s start had already lessened.

Plus, various playful chat barrages continuously teased and joked.

Shen Miaomiao thought this game was nothing special!

“Go push the motion-sensing pod out! This time I want to redeem myself!”

Saying so, Shen Miaomiao nudged Gu Sheng, urging him to bring out the motion-sensing pod.

“Oh?”

Gu Sheng was surprised; he didn’t expect Little Nezha to still be stubborn after the PT baptism:

“You sure?”

“I’m absolutely, positively sure,”

Shen Miaomiao said:

“But can you adjust the game progress here? I’ve seen the earlier parts, no challenge!”

Following Shen Miaomiao’s finger,

on the projection screen Pure Black had just exhaled deeply, escaping from the blood-filled sewer, crawling through a dog hole into the maintenance corridor.

Gu Sheng chuckled!

“Today he can do it! Whether he can or not, he must!”

What’s better than watching Little Nezha’s live stream?

Besides, Pure Black’s sewer escape was right at an auto-save point.

So without much effort, Gu Sheng adjusted the game progress and pushed out the motion-sensing pod, then started setting up connections.

“What are you doing?”

Meanwhile, Little Nezha was ready to enter the pod to try it out, but saw Gu Sheng busy connecting wires and grew curious.

“Connecting the projector.”

Gu Sheng answered naturally.

“You’re a dog, Gu Sheng?”

Shen Miaomiao was shocked!

“Are you treating me like a live stream?”

“Hey, that’s wrong!”

Gu Sheng frowned and waved his hand:

“I’m collecting player feedback, and at the same time guiding you, right?”

“Really?”

Shen Miaomiao looked at Gu Sheng suspiciously.

“Honestly!”

Gu Sheng patted his chest:

“Do I look like a schadenfreude type? Trust me!”

He extended his fist.

“Alright… alright,” Shen Miaomiao also reached out, fist-bumping Gu Sheng: “Trust.”

After tidying up, everything was ready!

Shen Miaomiao took a deep breath and entered the motion-sensing pod, still a bit uneasy before the door closed, reminding: “Trust me, Old Gu! Trust!”

“Trust!” Gu Sheng nodded solemnly: “I’m standing right here protecting you!”

Whoosh—

The pod door closed.

Gu Sheng turned and lay on the sofa, crossing his legs, grabbing a soda and popcorn.

Hehe, the show is about to start…

…

Creak—creak—

The old yellowed ceiling lamp above swayed left and right.

Splash—splash—

The sewer behind gurgled, thick with the stench of blood.

“Phew—”

Shen Miaomiao exhaled nervously as she entered the game, looking around.

It was obvious this building was very old.

The maintenance corridor still had red brick walls, mottled and worn, with even the cement in the cracks falling off.

At this moment, the maintenance corridor was dead silent, no other sounds at all.

The UI above displayed the current objective—[Reach the first floor of the male ward].

After a few steps forward, an iron frame box appeared in front of her.

Shen Miaomiao began to understand what Gu Sheng had just said.

According to the game’s design, any iron frame box with rusty edges can be pushed.

So it was easy to infer she needed to push the box to find a path.

Rumble—rumble—

Pushing the box aside,

sure enough, a narrow dog hole appeared in front of Shen Miaomiao.

“This broken place…”

She muttered, squatting down and crawling through the dog hole.

However,

just as she was about to crawl out of the passage!

Bang!!!

Suddenly, a bald head appeared outside the exit!

“Ah ah ah!!!”

Shen Miaomiao screamed, like a scared kitten, bumping her head against the low ceiling.

Looking closely,

it was a lunatic wearing a straitjacket, tied to a chair.

Perhaps from struggling too hard, the chair had fallen, and the lunatic’s twisted face was right facing the dog hole.

“You’re crazy, Gu Sheng…”

Shen Miaomiao almost got kicked, drenched in cold sweat.

Gathering courage, she crawled out of the dog hole, carefully pressed against the wall passing by the lunatic, pushed the iron box again, opening the door behind it.

There appeared a long, pitch-black corridor.

Gulp.

Shen Miaomiao swallowed hard.

Playing it herself felt very different from watching.

This pitch-black, where you couldn’t see a thing, sent chills down her spine.

Though no sound could be heard in the corridor,

she always felt like someone was watching her from the darkness.

And this feeling became even more obvious after activating the DV night vision.

The eerie, pale green viewfinder flickered with noise, looking like countless pairs of eyes blinking, waiting for her to step forward in the dark.

Suddenly, Shen Miaomiao regretted it a bit.

She felt she really didn’t want to understand the map’s construction logic anymore.

Just then,

Gu Sheng’s voice drifted softly from outside the pod:

“Alright, if you can’t move, don’t force it. I admit you’re brave enough, Shen the Bold, come out and watch the stream properly~”

Ssssh—!!!

Too much bullying!

Have to admit, Gu Sheng was quite skilled at sarcastic remarks!

In an instant,

Shen Miaomiao felt a surge of anger: “Shut up! Who said I can’t move? I’m calmly observing and carefully attacking!”

Saying that,

Shen Miaomiao steeled her heart!

She plunged headfirst into the pitch-black corridor!

Three steps in two, eyes straight ahead, rushing toward the faint light at the corridor’s end!

Passing through the corridor, turning into the blood-soaked operating room, then jumping onto the ventilation duct, crawling all the way, and finally nimbly landing in a room.

“Phew—!!!”

Holding her breath all along, Shen Miaomiao saw light again and finally exhaled deeply!

Looking around!

It seemed to be a ventilation room.

Near the walls were old ventilation devices.

And in the center of the room sat a lunatic, also wearing a straitjacket, tied to a chair.

“Hmph!”

Shen Miaomiao steadied her rattled nerves and let out a triumphant snort, showing off to Gu Sheng outside the pod:

“How is it? Am I scared? Do I look scared? Don’t underestimate me! Call me Shen the Bold from now on…”

But before she could finish,

suddenly!

The lunatic sitting in the center of the room seemed to relapse!

Violently struggling and roaring!

“Meat! Meat! I want to eat meat! Aaaaaaaaah——!!!”

The sudden roar in the silent room made Shen Miaomiao jump on the spot, screaming “Momma!”

Even scarier, as the lunatic roared, outside the room’s door, two burly figures swore loudly and charged over!

In their hands, each wielded a sharp steel knife!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com