Chapter 1171: Starting the Trial Play
On his first day at work, Jiang Huan still felt a bit nervous.
Earlier, Zhou Peng had told him that a tester’s main job was to test those “experience-type” games, and a large portion of them were horror games. The goal was to use various methods to stimulate players’ emotions, thereby assessing whether such games would have any adverse effects on ordinary players and whether they could be widely promoted. If not, some adjustments to the games might be necessary.
However, Jiang Huan wasn’t particularly worried about this. He believed his mental fortitude was decent enough that he wouldn’t be scared out of his wits by a horror game. Besides, since he had passed the specialized test, it meant he should be fine—after all, the pass rate was only 15 percent.
After Jiang Huan settled into his workstation, Zhou Peng gave him a rough overview of the basic workflow, then went off to handle his own tasks.
In simple terms, it involved entering the game pod to experience the game, after which the system would automatically generate corresponding data. Testers weren’t just supposed to clear the game once; they also had to play through multiple rounds. All this data would be automatically compiled by the system, and the entire gameplay session would be recorded automatically.
At the same time, the system would flag segments where the tester’s emotional fluctuations were intense or abnormal—meaning they deviated from what the AI system expected. Testers had to note their thoughts and feelings at those moments. If they thought a design was unreasonable, they were to write down what they believed the problem was.
It seemed like a simple job, but during this one-month probation period, the AI system and other experienced testers would review Jiang Huan’s work to see if it met the requirements.
Moreover, this job wasn’t just about being diligent enough. Diligence was only one aspect; what mattered more was being different from others.
The selected testers were basically all different types of people, with varying mental fortitudes. Some were immune to horror games, some had a strong sensitivity to touching storylines, some had minor personality flaws, and so on.
In other words, the testers represented different personality archetypes. There was no need for too many testers of the same type, so the key to staying on was whether one could demonstrate traits distinct from the other testers.
As for what those traits were exactly, they could only be uncovered through the work itself.
Jiang Huan checked his computer—all the testing programs were running normally. With a hint of nervousness, he lay down in the game pod.
This wasn’t his first time in a game pod, but he hadn’t played many games, simply because he was poor.
“So, the game to trial this week is… Resident Evil?”
“Sure sounds like a horror game, but it shouldn’t be too hard for me.”
Jiang Huan wasn’t blindly confident; he knew very well that he was naturally slow to react.
It wasn’t just about fear—he was slow to respond to all kinds of feelings. For instance, when watching a very touching movie, the entire cinema would be sobbing uncontrollably, while he sat there completely baffled. Or when watching a comedy, everyone else would be laughing hysterically, and he’d be totally clueless. The same went for horror movies. Even with those universally terrifying jump-scare scenes that made many people scream in fright, he felt nothing.
This sluggishness had caused him plenty of trouble. For example, one of his ex-girlfriends had called him “cold and heartless,” saying he wasn’t like a real person. But Jiang Huan didn’t think it was such a big deal—why did everyone have to be so emotionally rich?
Still, on second thought, maybe that was one of the reasons he had been chosen as a tester.
Upon entering the game, there was first a brief cutscene.
It followed the typical horror game formula: a wife goes missing, and the husband, determined to find her, drives alone into danger, arriving at an abandoned farm in the middle of nowhere.
Three years ago, the protagonist Ethan’s wife, Mia, had vanished mysteriously. Three years later, Ethan received an email from Mia, telling him to come pick her up at the Baker farm in Louisiana. So, without hesitation, the protagonist came here.
Parking, turning off the engine, getting out of the car—Jiang Huan found that he had already gained control of this body.
He looked down at the protagonist Ethan’s physique—fairly sturdy. He searched through all the pockets on the body and found only Mia’s email and a photo of the two of them together.
Jiang Huan put the email away and started walking forward.
Since this was a test, he had to thoroughly play through all the content; otherwise, it wouldn’t serve the purpose of testing.
The vegetation around the farm was extremely lush, with weeds growing wildly, and the chirping of insects stirred an inexplicable irritation. Moreover, both the trees and the weeds showed an eerie yellowish hue, as if they were growing in an unhealthy way.
In the distance, he spotted the farm’s iron gate, but it was locked and wouldn’t open.
Jiang Huan hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should risk pressing the doorbell. When he did, no sound came out—it was clearly broken.
He looked up at the iron fence. The already tall fence had barbed wire strung on top, making it nearly three meters high. Trying to climb over it was a pipe dream.
Jiang Huan roughly assessed that this body was indeed stronger than an average person, but scaling that fence was still out of the question.
“Basic trope—there’s bound to be a side path.”
Jiang Huan knew that horror games loved pulling this trick. Letting the player walk straight in through the front door was absolutely out of the question. Instead, they’d have to take a winding side path, maybe even crawl through a dog hole or two, to build up the atmosphere beforehand.
He glanced to the side and, sure enough, spotted a path hidden among the trees. Following it to the end, he found an abandoned white van and a gap in the fence.
“Hmm?”
Jiang Huan pulled open the van door and searched inside for anything valuable.
A friend had once joked that Jiang Huan had obsessive-compulsive disorder, but that wasn’t quite accurate. He just had a hoarding habit—no matter what game he played, he loved collecting all the collectible elements, even if it meant grinding through the game a dozen times.
All next-gen games had a special option called “Key Item Hints.” Turning it on would highlight items related to the story, while turning it off made them look just like ordinary objects in the scene.
Take the project proposal Jiang Huan found in the van, for example.
He hadn’t turned on that option, so at first glance, the proposal looked like a piece of trash casually left on the van’s seat. But when he picked it up and examined it, some information appeared.
“Project Proposal: Infiltrate a Haunted House in Louisiana.”
Jiang Huan opened the proposal and flipped through it. It actually contained a lot of content—a TV show planning to sneak into a haunted house in Louisiana to film a program. Everything, from the exploration route to the camera setup and related promotional content, had already been mapped out.
“A haunted house in Louisiana? That must be this place.”
Jiang Huan looked at the abandoned tripod next to the van, clearly meant for a camera. It was just a mystery why it had been left here—probably because the cameraman had carried the camera in and didn’t need the tripod?