Chapter 1151: Design Competition: Horror Game
The alarm went off.
Chen Mo casually slapped it, accurately turning it off.
"Had a nightmare, actually. The system suddenly turned into a big boss and enslaved all of humanity, and I ended up leading the humans in a tough struggle..."
"Damn, this plot is way too cliché. I must have been thinking about doing a Terminator thing last night. What you think about during the day, you dream about at night..."
Chen Mo yawned, grabbed the water glass on the bedside table, and took a sip.
The curtains automatically opened, letting in harsh sunlight. Jarvis began reporting the day's weather in a very calm voice.
"The weather in the Imperial Capital today is clear and sunny, with a high of 33 degrees Celsius, a low of 25 degrees Celsius, a perceived temperature of 47 degrees Celsius, air quality: excellent, humidity 43, east wind level 2, UV rays strong, heat index: hot as a dog."
Chen Mo sat up very reluctantly. "Why, as a rich guy, do I have to go out in this kind of weather? Can someone tell me?"
He looked to the side. Li Jingsi was already awake, probably making breakfast.
Jarvis replied, "Probably because... today's game design competition finals are hosted by you?"
Chen Mo made a pfft expression. "Shut up. You talk too much."
Jarvis was very aggrieved. "You asked first."
Chen Mo: "...I think it's necessary to research an AI 2.0 version. What do you think about calling it Jiwei Si?"
Jarvis: "(=′ロ`=)"
After washing up, he went to the dining room. Breakfast was indeed already prepared.
Chen Mo casually ate two slices of bread, checked his watch, and said, "I need to head out."
Li Jingsi frowned. "So early? Who set this damn time?"
Chen Mo: "...I did."
Li Jingsi: "..."
Chen Mo said very helplessly, "Every drop of sweat I shed going out in this scorching heat, I think back on it as the water that once flooded my brain."
Li Jingsi smiled, sipping her coffee as she asked, "So, today's the final review, right? Seems like the theme for this competition is horror games?"
Chen Mo nodded. "Yeah, horror games. But when I looked at the contestants' demos last time, nothing really stood out to me."
Li Jingsi smiled. "Making something that stands out to you—that's a high bar."
Chen Mo finished eating and drinking, stood up, and said, "I'm heading out. I'll probably be back in the evening. Don't wait for me for lunch."
As soon as he stepped outside, he felt that Jarvis's claim of a perceived temperature of 47 degrees Celsius wasn't an exaggeration.
But luckily, he went from the front door straight into the car, so the heat exposure was less than a minute.
Arriving at Thunderbolt Interactive's headquarters, he took the employee elevator from the underground parking lot directly inside, met up with the staff, prepared a bit, and then headed to the main venue.
The main venue for the game design competition was right at Thunderbolt Interactive's headquarters. This competition had already supplied the company with many excellent designers, many of whom were now involved in the development of Oasis.
For many young people aspiring to enter the gaming industry, this game design competition had become the most important event of the year, far surpassing recruitment fairs at any multinational corporation.
Thunderbolt Interactive hosted the game design competition twice a year, targeting fresh graduates and experienced designers separately, using different evaluation criteria.
This competition was aimed at fresh graduates, right in the July graduation season. Honestly, the weather reminded Chen Mo of many years ago, when he had just graduated and participated in the game design competition on an afternoon just like this.
Chen Mo suddenly remembered why he had set the time so early. It turned out he was afraid of the heat...
Back then, he had thought that setting the competition's start time at 8 a.m. would make it less hot than before.
Looking back now, that idea was really stupid.
As for why Chen Mo made such a mistake? Obviously, it was because his long-standing routine was to start work at 10 a.m., and he didn't know that in the Imperial Capital, 8 a.m. was also this hot...
Now, the design competition had entered the finals. These fresh graduates, or would-be designers, had been busy for a week preparing their final works.
During that week, they all stayed in nearby hotels, coming to the specially prepared competition venue at Thunderbolt Interactive's headquarters during the day to make their games using the official editor and assets.
Today was the day the awards were announced. Whether they could win the favor of the competition's judges would directly determine if these would-be designers could enter the gaming industry and get a high starting point.
Some particularly outstanding designers even had the chance to join the development of Oasis, something everyone could brag about for a lifetime.
Game introductions.
Audience playtesting.
Judge reviews.
The theme of this game design competition was horror games, so the official assets prepared were mainly horror game materials.
Various grotesque monsters with twisted faces, vengeful spirits, terrifying scenes, lots of blood, and plenty of music and sound effects that could make people's sanity plummet if listened to for too long...
Designers could use them freely.
This was always the case with each design competition: the art assets were very rich, and designers could draw from the art library without worrying much about overlapping art, with a wide range of options.
The effect was immediate. At today's finals, it was obvious that the live audience was about half the usual size...
The big screen was introducing the works of each contestant designer. The settings were all over the place—schools, hospitals, cemeteries, haunted houses, ruined cities, and so on. The live audience was trembling in fear, not knowing which game to try.
The game type was still the traditional form of VR games, the kind with consciousness signals. There was no need to prepare so many bulky VR pods on site; the latest Matrix glasses were enough to experience them.
Although lacking haptic feedback and neural linking were drawbacks of traditional VR, for the live players, this was probably a good thing.
When the audience playtesting session began, screams rose and fell from the audience seats. Many players took off their glasses to catch their breath after playing for a short while, clearly scared out of their wits.
Chen Mo was also wearing the glasses, experiencing the games. Silently, he started from the first game and played through all the entries.
After that came the player voting, data analysis, and judge evaluation phases.
Player evaluation and voting focused on two aspects: first, the game's scare factor, and second, the game's quality.
Data analysis used various data collected by the Matrix glasses for auxiliary analysis, such as: average playtime per player in that game, scare index, emotional fluctuation changes, and so on.
For a horror game, a crucial factor was the atmosphere creation and control over player emotions, which could be demonstrated through data.
In other words, if players played through from start to finish without any pressure, or if players were scared away as soon as they entered, neither counted as a good horror game.