diymy Chapter 68 Viral Spread
Chapter 68 Viral Spread
"call……"
TurboDuck stared at the familiar game over screen, still shaken, and patted its chest. "My God, that really scared me to death!"
It's no exaggeration to say that even now, his hands are still shaking uncontrollably because of his wildly beating heart.
The comments section was also buzzing with discussion:
"The old duck died so quickly, did anyone see clearly how it died?"
"It seems that while the old duck was observing the house, someone stood behind it with a knife. The old duck turned its head... and was instantly killed."
"Got it, as long as the old duck doesn't turn its head."
"That makes sense, useful experience +1. Quick, Old Duck, let's start another round and see what happens this time we don't turn back..."
"No, no, this won't do."
The turbocharged duck glanced at the comments, waved at the camera, and said, "I'm not coming today. I need to take a break... my heart can't take it..."
Upon seeing the turbocharged duck's apparent weakness, the viewers in the live chat immediately began to mock him.
"Tsk tsk, that old duck has no guts..."
"Old Duck is really getting worse with age. It's only died twice, and it's already done for... Before, when we played 'Double Happiness,' Old Duck died and came back to life so many times, it was practically a mini-collection of deaths..."
"Huh, does this mean 'reunion' is more terrifying than 'double happiness'?"
"You can't look at it that way. I watched Lao Ya stream both games, but when I watched him play '囍', we didn't really grasp the unique horror of the red-clothed game back then, so we didn't get a lot of the scary parts of '囍'..."
"The reason why the 'reunion' theme is generating such a strong reaction now is probably because the horror-related concepts that 'double happiness' (囍) previously instilled in the duck have already been implanted in the duck's mind."
"If you don't believe me, you can go back and watch the videos related to '囍' now. You'll find that many things you didn't think much of back then are now quite chilling upon closer inspection."
"That's right, that's right!"
When TurboDuck saw this long string of comments, it immediately regarded the fan who posted them as a kindred spirit and was moved to tears.
"That's right, that's right!"
When he played "囍", he was completely in a state of ignorance and fearlessness; it was only after dying a lot in the game that Turbo Duck started to study the game of the red-clothed man, and then, the more he studied it... the more he felt that there was a unique kind of horror hidden in the game.
The more games you play, the more timid you become.
This is also why he was willing to take on the promotion of "Reunion"—
A horror game with a red dress is truly unique!
"That's an overstatement, isn't it? Maybe the streamer got paid off..."
"Exactly, it feels like you guys are glorifying a new producer like Red Dress. Her horror games did create a different genre, but the games aren't that good, are they? Just look at the streamer's death just now, it was clearly poorly designed! It was purely intentional to make the player 'die,' it doesn't make any sense at all..."
"Exactly, if I were a player, I probably wouldn't have any gaming experience at all... And you're still bragging about this?"
"Who said the old duck was in a hopeless situation?"
"Huh, isn't that the same deadly situation as in 'Double Happiness'?"
"There are no guaranteed death situations in 'Double Happiness'! I played 'Double Happiness' with a friend who's an instructor in some legion (I won't say which one), and he'd never played it before. He didn't know about those guaranteed death situations mentioned online. I was originally planning to mess with him, but he encountered one and managed to escape it thanks to his physical abilities and combat skills!"
"Really? ...Why does it sound so fake to me?"
"It should be true... Although I don't know how to avoid the inevitable death trap in 'Double Happiness,' during the part where Old Duck played 'Reunion,' firstly, Old Duck didn't fully explore the environment, and secondly, if you listened carefully when Old Duck was leaning against the door, you could actually hear some footsteps."
Jiang Yi raised an eyebrow in surprise when she saw this comment.
Indeed, as the comments said, the place where the turbocharged duck "died" before was not a sure-fire death situation.
Or rather, most of the "inevitable death situations" in her game are only for ordinary people. For example... she glanced at the person next to her. When Li Xingzhuo first tried out that scenario, he directly dodged the female protagonist's attack.
Some inhuman creature even suggested removing the footsteps and the sound of the lady of the house talking close to the player, leaving only the "surprise" of the player finding another head next to their own when they've had their fill of the scene inside the door and are about to get up.
—Then it was directly rejected by Jiangyi.
Unfortunately, the players were unaware of her good intentions:
"What?! There are still footsteps?! I was looking inside the house the whole time."
"Who would be paying attention to what's going on around them at that point! Wow, thinking about it now, that was such a vicious design!"
"Indeed, the scene inside the room at that time completely captivated our attention..."
"Speaking of which, I'm so curious about what the little boy was doing on the bed!"
"Right, right!" Turbo Duck felt the comments on the screen had hit the nail on the head; his previous "death" was clearly not his fault: "That scene was really scary!"
"It doesn't seem like there's anything scary about it, but it just looks really strange, kind of weird..."
Just thinking about that scene sends chills down my spine.
"That's enough, streamer, you're overacting..."
"I know you got paid to promote the red-clad woman..."
"I didn't act!" Turbo Duck felt wronged; he was genuinely terrified!
"By the way, you can see my mental power!"
He quickly pulled up his mental strength stat and showed it to the camera: "Look, this is my mental strength stat when I first started playing the game."
On the mental strength value curve he showed, you can see that the value has been slowly decreasing since the start of the game, and there are two obvious drops at the time when the turbo duck "dies" out of the game.
"I'm here to vouch for Lao Ya, this game is truly terrifying! I only watched Lao Ya play it in the live stream, and my mental strength dropped significantly. If you don't believe me, you can check my account; I've posted the stats on my feed."
"Huh? You guys too?! I just realized my mental strength has decreased; I thought I was seeing things!"
"Really? That scary... I mean, that effective? When is the next broadcast? I want to call my sister over to watch with me! She's a bit timid and has never dared to play horror games. If watching the streamer play games can lower her mental strength, that would be great!"
"I'm going to call my mom and dad over too!"
……
The phenomenon of "reunion" becoming a hit in game live streaming rooms has clearly attracted the attention of other game platforms.
At least, "Playworld" held a high-level meeting specifically to discuss this phenomenon.
"You all know how popular 'Reunion' is right now, right?"
The high-ranking officials at the round table all nodded.
"Recently, the judging process for our competition has seen a significant drop in attention; the traffic has been drawn away by 'reunion'."
"If we don't handle this properly, our competition will really be used as a stepping stone by 'New Vision'..."
"How exactly did 'Reunion' become so popular? Isn't it just a food-themed game?"
"It's obvious you haven't paid attention to 'Reunion' properly; it's not a food game at all!"
"No way? I searched online for reviews of the game 'Reunion,' and they're all food-related!"
"That's fake! It's something netizens use to trick people into playing the game. I'm telling you, you're a high-level manager at a gaming platform, can't you even check out a game stream?!"
"What did you say—"
"Alright, alright, we're here to solve this problem, not to argue about something pointless at a time like this!"
The meeting room fell silent again.
"The problem now is that almost all game livestreams are broadcasting 'reunion,' and the speed at which 'reunion' spreads is comparable to viral spread. We cannot underestimate its reach."
"I've also investigated why those game livestreaming rooms choose to broadcast 'reunion' themes—"
"It's said that simply watching game streamers play 'Reunion' without actually playing the game yourself can lower your mental strength."
"This narrative attracted many players who weren't originally fans of horror games, further expanding the reach of the 'reunion' theme."
"These players specifically sought out game streams featuring the 'reunion' theme, leading to a significant increase in viewership for those streams. This discovery prompted more streamers to follow suit and choose 'reunion' for their next stream."
"This shows the change in the number of live streams choosing to focus on 'family reunions' during this period."
The high-ranking official who spoke released a graph, which clearly showed an upward trend, with the increase becoming higher as the journey progressed.
"This is clearly a very good virtuous cycle for the game's promotion."
However, for other platforms, especially "Playworld," which had lost a lot of traffic to "Reunion," this was extremely bad news.
"But how could the 'New World' allow game streamers to broadcast 'reunions' on such a large scale?"
Someone raised their hand and asked, "Isn't 'Reunion' a story-driven puzzle game like 'Double Happiness'?"
Players have already watched the game on the live stream, so who would still buy it? Is "New World" trying to lose money to generate buzz? Then why did they set the game price so high in the first place?
"On the contrary."
The executive who had previously presented the curve data shook his head and instead showed another curve: "This is the game download data after 'Reunion' was launched."
The two curves are placed side by side, and it is clear that as the number of game live streams featuring "Reunion" increased, the number of downloads for "Reunion" also soared.
"Reunion" recently made it onto the list of new game downloads. That list includes all newly released games across the entire StarNet and all platforms!
"This is not scientifically sound!"
"Yes! Is the data being falsified at 'New World'?" Upon hearing this, many high-ranking officials were even tempted to report it.
"There was no fabrication."
The executive explaining the data shook his head: "I was puzzled at first too, so I investigated the reason."
"It all started with a food blogger."
"Yes, they are food bloggers. As we all know, when 'Reunion' was first launched, it was hailed as a food game. Some food bloggers would find inspiration in the game or use recreating the game's dishes as a gimmick to create videos."
This time, the food blogger who has gained widespread popularity has chosen the currently trending theme of "reunion".
"Initially, this food blogger planned to capitalize on the 'reunion' theme by recreating the food from the game. She even released a video teaser to promote it in advance."
"She's recreated it?"
"No, she's stopped updating."
"ah?!"
This stroke of genius surprised everyone.
"You mean, she didn't make any 'reunion' themed dishes from beginning to end, but she still became a hit?"
"Yes." The executive nodded. "Because after playing 'Reunion,' she was disgusted by the game's design, to the point that she developed a phobia of food after leaving the game. She posted a statement on her account saying she would be taking a break from updating for a while."
Not only did the promised "reunion" food culinary recreation fall through, but subsequent updates were also suspended—which silenced those who thought the food blogger was just putting on a show.
For other netizens, a game that "can give food bloggers a psychological aversion to food" is quite intriguing!
As a result, a large number of netizens were attracted and went to download "Reunion".
"The second point, and the one I'm going to focus on next—"
The executive's expression turned serious: "The reason 'Reunion' isn't worried about the plot being leaked during the live stream is because the game seems to be using a new technology—"
"As long as the experience and methods are not derived by the player in the game, even if the player watches the entire walkthrough in the live stream, he will still not remember anything after entering the game."
"How is this possible?!"
"How could such technology possibly exist now?!"
"Why not? I think it's true. Think about it, why did Red Robe suddenly withdraw from the competition? Was it just because of the game ban? In my opinion, Red Robe probably just used the game ban as an excuse. The First Legion developed this new technology and poached Red Robe!"
After all, this technology is just icing on the cake for other game developers, but for developers like Red Dress who specialize in puzzle-solving and story-driven games, it's a lifesaver.
"I still don't believe that 'New World' can do this kind of technology."
"What's the point of arguing here? Why don't we just buy a 'Reunion' and try it out?"
"If this technology really exists, we absolutely must bring it over!"
……
"Host!"
The system was gleefully reporting its recent energy collection progress to its host, who was lazily lying in bed with his eyes closed, "I feel that at this rate, we'll be able to unlock the second gray module very soon—"
"what?"
The system's cheerful voice suddenly turned somber, "Host, I feel like something's making me uncomfortable... I've entered the game..."
The woman in crimson robes slowly opened her eyes.
"Oh?"