Reflecting carefully on several traps. The door shooting steel needles, for instance, won't be discussed, as it's a trap with no technical merit solely designed to disgust people. Opening and closing doors, filling and draining water also can't be considered traps, as they can be manually controlled. The first system that can be considered a large-scale trap is the balance mechanism.
However, the balance mechanism system not only includes the balance in the room but also consists of the balances in three rooms plus the six ceilings supporting above. This entire system together forms the balance mechanism system.
This mechanism system isn't lacking in sophistication. Because it's clear and evident that achieving smooth operation of such mechanisms using purely physical methods requires a certain level of expertise. Although it eventually broke, it only failed under violent destruction; the operational aspects within the rules had no issues.
But, the entire mechanism served merely as a tool, completely uninvolved in the game process. Using the balance to show players the lowering and raising, at most using the side with blood to let players judge if they were the first to arrive. However, the entire game process had nothing to do with the balance.
The game relied on players judging the goodness or evilness of other players who arrived earlier or later. However, the mechanism offered no information to make such judgments, including but not limited to: how many people donated blood, how long they stayed in the room, whether one person or two people from the team donated blood. These are important pieces of information.
If there are cooperative checkpoints later on, similar information should be provided beforehand. Even if it drags into this level, at least the mechanism could have provided some. But precisely, there was no information. The balance mainly served as a tutorial for beginners, at most letting players know that blood donation might have some use.
Anatoli pointed this out, but Stark was clearly displeased. He said, "Then tell me, what more important role could the mechanism play?"
"Your biggest mistake was hiding the blood," Anatoli said, "Of course you'd argue that was because the mechanism required mixing water with the blood, hence it couldn't be exposed. But designs based on this rationale are flawed."
"If it were me, I'd design the mechanism around the state of the blood. Because the blood's quantity and coagulation state can provide information on the number of donors and the duration they stayed. Also, the coagulation stages could be used to trigger the mechanism. For instance, liquid can flow through pipes; semi-solid can stay on a sieve as counterweight; completely coagulated dried blood can be used to secure something."
"At this point, blood donors would shift from merely thinking 'should I donate blood' to 'how should I donate blood to maximize the effect'. This is the right way to encourage them to donate blood, rather than using such a superficial mechanism that relies entirely on player speculation to complete this step."
"There can be many interesting ways to use blood. For example, a blood lottery machine, where each player waters a square with blood, and only by hitting the jackpot can they progress. Or a blood bank, achieving different benefits based on the temperature of the vault and the volume of stored blood. Temperature can determine the coagulation speed, while blood coagulation speed can set the time limit for achieving objectives. If finished within the limit, you can win back your blood and replenish your body. If over time, you can't win it back."
Pamela listened with gritted teeth; she whispered to Harley, "Honestly, if it were designed like this, we definitely wouldn't make it."
"That guy's design is coercive, whereas what he describes is purely inducement. Where oppression exists, resistance will follow, but where gold exists, gold seekers will follow. If donating blood has interest, even if you might not win it back, I have to give it a try."
"But the so-called interest might just be lowering the difficulty for the next level," Pamela said, "You can't take anything out even if you win."
"Playing the game isn't necessarily for profit," Harley said, "Using your own thinking and strategy to reduce the difficulty for subsequent games, isn't that a sense of accomplishment?"
"It seems like you just have a gambler's mentality," Pamela sighed, "Luckily, the designer of this level is relatively weak. If it were really designed as he says, you'd end up sacrificing all your blood there."
"I'd still be willing," Harley said with hands on hips, "Even losing is better than the two of us standing there guessing for ages, and then you knock me out and drag me away by force."
It has to be said, if Anatoli hadn't spoken up, most players hadn't even realized the problem. But now that he did, many people reacted—they realized the dungeon's interest was hardly credited to the mechanism, which served no function.
No, to be exact, it functioned negatively. First, by getting stuck, it provided players some rest time, then with a huge slap in the face, it sent itself flying.
In terms of fun, it did have a bit. The mechanism hardly contributed to the storyline but indeed made some comedic contributions.
Of course, although it's a mechanism-heavy room, it doesn't necessarily need the mechanism to be the main theme. If another designer were to take over, someone like Superman, they might openly admit it and say "providing assistance to the game is already pretty good." And truly, it is like that, with player competition as the main focus and mechanism as a supplement, it's not impossible.
But who is Stark? Especially since this isn't the regular Iron Man, this is the White Can, the evil version of Iron Man, which amplifies Tony Stark's arrogance more than tenfold. How could he possibly accept being a supporting character?
Anatoli doesn't know White Can, but from the previous levels, he could see his character. As he said, putting just one mechanism in a room and nothing else clearly shows a desire for others to focus solely on his mechanism.
Such a person is extremely self-centered, believing his designs are true works of art while others' ideas serve as mere support. In the entire escape room, he sees himself as the biggest contributor, deserving all praise, thinking the whole Battleworld wouldn't spin without him.
It was precisely this deduction that prompted Anatoli's approach. Stark indeed took the bait, trembling with rage, and shouted: "You have no idea, the key intricate structures and stable fit of mechanical engineering..."
"Let me interrupt," Charles said, "Mr. Scorpion here, I fear I must remind you that your designed mechanisms have neither intricate structure nor stable fit."
Bruce chimed in from below: "You don't think the polygon structure of the balance mechanism you created is intricate, do you? If not for it, I wouldn't have been able to easily deduce the location of the central energy room."
"Haha, so it seems you're now being chased due to your own actions," Harley retorted, laughing heartily, "Your own circular design destroyed your safe house, your own balance betrayed the most crucial structure of your escape room, and now your designed mechanism room has trapped you. Without you, who else would entertain us with laughter?"
"Don't say that, miss. He's actually helped us a great deal," Loki followed up, "If he hadn't designed these mechanisms, we wouldn't have cleared the levels so easily. If you ask me, this escape room is somewhat simple, completely wasting our high-difficulty ticket. After we leave, we must give him a poor review..."
"Indeed," Shiller echoed from below, "I think the gentleman upstairs had it right. 'The mechanism is like a giant championship trophy stuck in the middle of a soccer field. If it serves any purpose, it's probably nothing more than tripping up his own teammates.'
Everyone burst into laughter, and the joyous atmosphere filled the entire level. There was no time for mourning Stark, as laughter soon echoed from the monitoring room.
The Joker was laughing so hard he fell off his chair, wiping his tears, he said: "Remember what he said? 'Soviet is his nemesis!' Not very smart, but at least he's self-aware! Hahahahahahahaha!"
"Ha, this guy keeps a stern face all day, calling others mechanical engineering idiots. Now he's hit a wall, hasn't he?" Scarecrow, harboring grievances for a long time, chimed in as well, since their collaboration in designing this escape room wasn't exactly pleasant. White Can's arrogance predetermined his inability to get along with most people.
"No wonder this escape room feels off to me," Mephisto said, "The storyline is weak, there's no cutscene or anything, relying purely on the contents of the room to uphold. But the room has no content, just mechanisms and nothing else. Even a few corpses or skeletons would enhance the atmosphere."
Although other Madmen didn't like placing corpses, deeming it shallow, they did agree with Mephisto's point that the room's content was too sparse, leading everyone to focus intensely on the mechanisms, which is the main reason why the mechanisms get destroyed violently.
If you just added more heretic arrays, company documents, victim notes, or arranged some unexplored escape rooms or passages outside the levels to tire these people out, it wouldn't result in them looking for ways to destroy things.
Originally, it was Stark who insisted against everyone else, claiming the simpler the level design, the better. Adding too many distractions might be called brainless fluff. Greed happened to want to cut the budget, and was too lazy to write the storyline text, which led to this outcome.
If the mechanism itself was fun, it wouldn't matter, but the interactivity is too poor, the information provided is limited, the parts that can be researched are insufficient, leading the whole process to be too linear and lacking in exploration enjoyment.
It can be said, if not for the fact that the individuals participating in the game are alive, creating their own exploration options when none existed; the limited information could be used to make numerous speculative guesses and strategies utilizing their astonishing wisdom and Mind Reading Technique, it could very well end up receiving poor reviews for being dull and monotonous.
"Your excessively inflated desire for praise has ruined everything," Anatoli summarized, "You think players aren't worthy of touching your meticulously designed mechanisms, so you electrified them, leaving people no room to act, resulting in zero interactivity; nor do you believe players can understand mechanical engineering, thus have no intent to lead them to explore the principles of mechanical structure composition, which leads to everything you designed being extremely shallow and dull."
Anatoli reached the climax of his critique: "If your shallow and impoverished Psychic_Battlefield can't bring us enjoyment in philosophy and art, at least you can use your developed limbs to slightly reduce our level difficulty. Let us, purely out of charity and pity for you, refrain from publicizing your stupidity witnessed here—I've said it, this is your only chance."