Chapter 92: A Unique Text Adventure Game
In the experience store.
Chen Mo ran a final check on the plot of *Lifeline*, then said to Su Jinyu and Zheng Hongxi, "Alright, it's passed."
"Yes! Awesome!" Su Jinyu couldn't help but cheer.
This was essentially a game completed independently by her and Zheng Hongxi, with Chen Mo barely interfering, so it held great commemorative significance.
(Unless you count Chen Mo guiding Zheng Hongxi through seven or eight revisions of the plot as interference.)
Zheng Hongxi also breathed a sigh of relief, a smile spreading across his face. Although Chen Mo had made him revise the plot several times, with two or three major adjustments along the way, it was finally finished.
Throughout this process, Zheng Hongxi had deepened his understanding of game storytelling and sharpened his ability to grasp players' psychology.
Now, Zheng Hongxi was also looking forward to seeing how players would react to this game. Would they like his story?
Chen Mo installed *Lifeline* on his phone and handed it to Chang Xiuya. "Come on, be the first guinea pig."
...
Chang Xiuya was also curious.
Over the past few days, she knew Su Jinyu and Zheng Hongxi had been tinkering with a text adventure game, but she had no idea what the game was about or what the story was like.
In this world, text adventure games were quite common and considered a classic game genre. Many game designers who favored storytelling often started with text adventure games as their entry-level projects.
Because this type of game was so easy to make—all you needed was a good script. The rest was just buying a nice set of character sprites and hiring someone to do voiceovers, and you were done.
However, precisely because there were so many text adventure games, it was hard to stand out in this field.
The text adventure games in this world were very similar to those in Chen Mo's previous life, with themes mainly focused on urban settings and ancient time travel. This was because many text adventure games targeted female players, and female players... tended to prefer these two themes.
Chang Xiuya herself often played text adventure games, but the ones she encountered later felt repetitive—the same mold with different stories. It was easy to get tired of them after a while.
If text adventure games only differed in their stories, she might as well just read female-oriented web novels!
Chang Xiuya was a bit worried that *Lifeline* might be too similar to other text adventure games. But then she thought, this game was personally overseen by the store manager, and his games...
Well, aside from *I Am MT*, which was a bit of a letdown, the creativity in his other games was excellent.
The game's icon had a predominantly black color scheme, with a small figure on it wearing what looked like an astronaut suit. In the upper right corner of the icon was a mysterious radio wave symbol.
"Hmm... Could it be a sci-fi theme? That's pretty rare."
Chang Xiuya tapped the icon and started the game.
Upon entering the game, a small prompt window appeared: "*Lifeline* is an interactive story told over several days. Taylor will stay in touch with you at any time. Please allow this game to send you notifications, as this may affect your gaming experience."
Chang Xiuya clicked the "Allow" button.
What appeared before her was an interface that looked a bit like a chat app. Soon, a series of message prompts popped up.
[Connecting communication]
[Establishing connection]
[Receiving messages]
"Hello? Hello?"
"Can this thing work?"
"Is anyone receiving this?"
Three consecutive questions left Chang Xiuya a bit confused. She saw two options below: [Who's talking?] and [I'm receiving].
Feeling that both options meant roughly the same thing and probably wouldn't affect the outcome, she clicked [I'm receiving].
"Oh, thank goodness! I can actually reach someone! Great!"
"I've been waiting for hours!"
Two more options appeared: [Who are you?] and [What happened?]
Chang Xiuya thought for a moment, decided it was better to ask about the person's identity first, and clicked [Who are you?].
After these two choices, Chang Xiuya already understood how this game differed from other text adventure games.
In *Lifeline*, there were no narration or background descriptions. The entire game was just a chat app, except the person you were chatting with wasn't real—it was a virtual character in the game.
The game's interface was designed to look like a slightly sci-fi chat app, all to create a sense of realism. This included sending notification messages to the player, giving them the illusion that a real person was talking to them.
Following her instincts, Chang Xiuya began chatting with this astronaut named Taylor.
Through the conversation, Chang Xiuya learned that Taylor was originally an astronaut on a cargo ship that had crashed on some moon. However, Taylor was completely clueless about the situation. He was originally a student who had boarded the ship to conduct an experiment, and he had no preparation for how to survive in an emergency.
Still, Taylor seemed pretty optimistic, even finding the leisure to crack jokes in this situation...
Chang Xiuya couldn't help but laugh at this chatterbox.
"So, the ultimate goal is to help this astronaut escape? It doesn't seem too hard—probably easier than those wild palace intrigue plots..." Chang Xiuya thought.
"There's a white mountain nearby, a few miles away. But this mountain... it's a bit weird. It's perfectly symmetrical, doesn't seem natural."
"As for the crash site of the *Varia*, it seems closer to me than the mountain. What do you think I should do?"
Two options appeared below: [Go to the crash site] and [Go to the mountain].
Chang Xiuya quickly realized this was probably a key plot choice. Since Taylor had hinted that the mountain looked strange and was farther away, it obviously made more sense to head to the crash site!
She chose [Go to the crash site].
"Yeah, that makes sense. There might be survivors there..."
"Alright, I'm heading south. It'll probably take at least an hour. I'll let you know when I get there."
After saying this, the system displayed "Taylor is busy."
Chang Xiuya was stunned. What did that mean?
There were no further options, and Taylor didn't say anything else. The game stopped there with no prompts.
Chang Xiuya looked back at Taylor's earlier messages.
"Wait, do I really have to wait an hour for him to contact me?!"
Chang Xiuya was baffled. This was the first time she'd encountered a text adventure game that made the player wait an entire hour!
With no other choice, Chang Xiuya temporarily went to do something else. She didn't dare close the app, afraid she might miss Taylor's message when he contacted her.