Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 377: Seems There's Nothing Left to "Advise"
January 6th, Thursday.
In the study room, Pei Qian looked at Ma Yang, who was seriously revising, and couldn't help letting out a sigh.
Why is it that even a slacker like Ma Yang can focus on studying, while I can't concentrate at all…
It was almost exam week, and the semester was coming to an end.
Pei Qian had set a flag for himself that he would pass the exams on his own ability, but once he actually tried, he realized it was… kind of hard.
He had originally dragged Ma Yang to the study room to get a bit of a study atmosphere going.
But Ma Yang really did find his study vibe and was revising enthusiastically, while he had zero motivation.
Sitting in the study room felt like time was crawling by.
Suddenly, Pei Qian's phone buzzed with a new message.
"President Pei, the haunted house has an initial plan ready. When would you be free? I'd like to give you a briefing."
Pei Qian looked at the message from Chen Kangtuo and sighed.
Sigh… it's not that I don't want to study.
It's just that I have a lot of work.
What do you call this?
"The tree wants to be still, but the wind won't stop; President Pei wants to study, but his employees won't let him."
No choice, no choice.
He checked the time. It was 10:30 a.m., so he replied, "Come to my office at 11."
…
…
At this moment, Chen Kangtuo had already arrived at Shenhua Prestige.
He had gone to the 16th floor and found that President Pei wasn't there, so he sent that message.
Since he'd arranged to meet President Pei at 11, and there was nothing else to do for now, Chen Kangtuo decided to drop by the 17th floor to see how Li Yada and Bao Xu were doing.
When he arrived on the 17th floor, Chen Kangtuo found the atmosphere there extremely energetic, everyone was busy with work.
Seeing Chen Kangtuo, quite a few people greeted him.
After exchanging a few pleasantries with Li Yada, Chen Kangtuo asked about the development progress of GOG.
After all, Chen Kangtuo had previously been one of the people in charge of this game.
Li Yada said, "The progress is going pretty smoothly."
"Earlier, the people from Dream Fulfillment Ventures gave a lot of suggestions for changes. We only implemented a small portion of them, but the results were unexpectedly good."
"From the feedback of players at Moyu Internet Café, most players welcome this easier-to-pick-up 'simplified' game mode even more."
"So recently we've been busy gradually modifying all the remaining content as well."
"Unfortunately, Dream Fulfillment Ventures will soon have new tasks, so they won't be able to keep playtesting the game and giving more suggestions."
"But He Desheng said that he's basically already given all the suggestions he could think of."
"For the next period of time, our main tasks are to continue modifying the core gameplay according to these suggestions, create more characters, and adjust the game balance."
"The new batch of recruits are quite talented. They picked up game development quickly, and the overall development efficiency of the project has clearly improved a lot."
After chatting for a while with everyone in the Tengda Group game department, Chen Kangtuo checked the time and headed downstairs, preparing to report to President Pei.
…
…
Inside the office, Pei Qian was flipping through the preliminary haunted house proposal that Chen Kangtuo had just submitted.
The haunted house was named "Fright Hostel."
According to Chen Kangtuo, the name was chosen mainly for three reasons.
First, there would be no ghosts or monsters in the haunted house, and it wouldn't promote superstition, so there wouldn't be words like "ghost" in the name.
Second, they hoped visitors would come back to experience it multiple times—"hostel" is essentially another word for "hotel."
Lastly, it was because the basic setting of the haunted house was themed around a hotel. Although there would be some scarier scenes later on, they would all be derived from the hotel theme.
Just from the name alone, Pei Qian didn't have any particularly strong feelings.
Although hotels are a fairly common setting in horror themes, compared to places like graveyards, asylums, or the underworld, they're relatively less common.
You could say the theme was somewhat fresh, or you could say the scare factor might not be strong enough, it really depended on how it was executed.
Pei Qian continued reading.
Fright Hostel had three major sections. The first was a multiplayer interactive section, and the third was a very scary traditional haunted house walkthrough. These two sections only had a few rough ideas so far, with no concrete plans yet.
The second section, meant as a transitional segment, already had some detailed plans written out.
At present, six small mini-experiences were planned. All of them were very simple, each requiring only a few to a dozen square meters of space, and each could accommodate only one person at a time.
The sets for these mini-rooms were all built inside shipping containers. Wheels were installed under the containers so they could be moved, and their order would be periodically shuffled, so that the experience each player encountered would be random every time they entered.
Pei Qian read through these mini-projects one by one.
Mini-Project 1: The Bathroom
The set was a very cramped bathroom, with a mirror, sink, toilet, bathtub, and so on, laid out like a typical bathroom.
However, the entire scene was aged and grimy. The lighting was dim and yellowish; the sink, mirror, and bathtub were filthy, as if they hadn't been cleaned in a long time. In the shadows of the bathroom corners, there seemed to be dark-red congealed bloodstains.
The visitor entered the bathroom alone and had to complete a series of steps according to preset instructions.
Completing all the steps counted as a successful challenge; failing to complete any step meant failure.
First, the visitor had to lock the bathroom door from the inside, pick up a red candle from the side, and then turn off the bathroom light.
Then they would light the candle, use its glow to walk over to the mirror above the sink, and place the candle on the shelf for toiletries in front of the mirror—that is, between themselves and the mirror.
They had to cover their eyes with both hands for more than three seconds, and then look into the mirror.
After that, they had to turn on the faucet and wash their hands.
Next, they would lie down in the bathtub, cover their eyes with both hands, and no matter what happened, they were not allowed to remove their hands. They had to hold on for three minutes.
Beside the bathtub there would be a rusty timer. After pressing it, it would make a "click-clack" ticking sound as the hand rotated. After three minutes, the ticking would stop.
At that point, they would stand up from the bathtub and leave the room, completing the challenge.
It sounded simple, but during the process, a series of random "accidents" would occur.
For example, when turning off the light, the dim bulb might flicker violently a few times and then make a "pop" sound, as if the bulb had burst.
When the visitor covered their eyes for three seconds and then looked into the mirror, the reflection might suddenly show a face with torn flesh, or a pair of red eyes, or the mirror might appear cracked and seeping blood.
While washing their hands, the clear water might suddenly turn black or blood-red, possibly mixed with prop chunks of bloody flesh.
After the visitor lay down in the bathtub, a series of events could also happen in the bathroom: the previously broken light suddenly turning back on; the faucet turning on by itself with the sound of running water; the toilet flushing; the door opening as someone drags heavy footsteps into the bathroom; or even someone pulling back the shower curtain and leaning in close to the visitor's face.
In short, all of these would be decided at random and uniformly controlled by the staff, so each visitor's experience would be different every time.
At the same time, there were many hidden cameras inside to monitor the visitor's condition at all times. That mirror was also specially made: on the surface it looked like an ordinary mirror, but in reality it was a display screen. Not only could it show effects like blood-red eyes or bleeding, it could also create effects such as "your reflection in the mirror suddenly disappearing."
Mini-Project 2: By the Window
The set was a narrow inn corridor. After entering, the visitor similarly had to lock the door themselves.
There were four windows in the corridor, and each window's condition was slightly different.
The first window was completely broken and stood wide open. Under the night wind, the window frame without any glass would occasionally bang against the wall, making noises, and the curtains were often blown about chaotically.
Mixed into the sound of the wind were occasional hisses and roars of some unknown creature.
Of course, this scene was just a set inside a shipping container. The "outside" of the window was still within the container and pitch black, while the breeze effect and the monster's roars were all artificially created.
The second window looked cracked, with several distinct bloody handprints on it, as if someone had once repeatedly slapped the glass with blood-soaked hands.
The third window had its curtain slightly drawn.
The fourth window had no curtain at all; outside was pitch-black, and nothing could be seen.
The visitor needed to stand with their back to the fourth window. No matter what happened, they were not allowed to move, turn around, or make a sound. After holding out for five minutes, the challenge would be considered a success.
During this time, any of the windows could trigger random events.
For example, the monster's roars outside the first window might suddenly grow louder, as if it were about to leap inside at any moment.
Outside the second window, someone might suddenly start pounding on the glass while crying for help in a miserable voice. But after a few seconds, the screams would fade away, as if the person had been dragged off by some terrifying creature.
The third window might suddenly be smashed open, with a monster's huge hand reaching in and grabbing wildly, even snatching away one of the mannequin props in the corridor.
As for the fourth window—the one the visitor had their back to—it might also emit rhythmic knocking sounds, or the scraping sound of fingernails across glass, and so on.
In addition, enormous shadows might pass by outside the windows. Faintly, the visitor could hear heavy footsteps, the dragging of chains across the ground, and the low growls of monsters.
Once the timer stopped, the visitor could leave the window area and unlock the door they had bolted themselves to exit.
But at that moment, the fourth window—right where the visitor had been standing with their back to it—would suddenly fly open. A huge monster would poke its head in, open and close its blood-red maw that reeked of stench, and let out deafening roars.
Of course, the actual pass condition was simply that the visitor didn't move, turn around, or make a sound during the three minutes of the timer. That final scene was purely for dramatic effect and didn't affect whether the challenge was considered cleared.
The subsequent mini-projects included: the television, the staircase, the ceiling, and under the bed.
All of these mini-projects shared one common trait: none of them were traditional horror settings in the usual sense. They weren't highly stimulating scenes like graveyards, the underworld, or morgues.
And these scenes also didn't rely on exaggerated horror elements—no carefully costumed "ghost" staff, no extremely complex mechanisms, and no exquisitely detailed scary props.
Instead, they relied more on psychological effects to achieve their scares.
Further down was the pricing policy for Fright Hostel, but it was clear that Chen Kangtuo hadn't really thought through the specific pricing yet. He had only briefly written: visitors are allowed to buy one ticket and play multiple times.
Pei Qian stared at the proposal and fell into deep thought.
Logically speaking, the first and third major sections should have been the highlights, but unfortunately, Chen Kangtuo hadn't fully figured out the concrete plans yet, so there were only rough ideas.
How was he supposed to "give guidance" on that?
The second major section did have concrete plans, but it always gave Pei Qian a sense of being neither here nor there.
If you looked at the second section alone, for thrill-seekers with strong nerves, it might not be intense enough; but for people who were easily scared, it would still be terrifying and they wouldn't dare try it.
Moreover, the process was relatively short, the gameplay rather monotonous, and it was limited to single-player only.
It looked like something with a high probability of failure, and there really wasn't much room to tweak or improve it.
After thinking for a moment, since there wasn't much to change in the concrete plans, Pei Qian decided to make a fuss over the pricing instead!
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