Chapter 485: What the Hell Kind of Puzzle Game Is This?!
The next level had yet another bizarre side-scrolling action style.
Ahead was a solitary pipe, and in front of the pipe hung a question-mark block.
Old P, momentarily forgetting the game’s malicious nature, jumped up and hit the block.
As a result, a whole row of immovable blocks appeared directly above his head, covered in text: “If you don’t court death, you won’t die!”
“Damn it! I knew it was a trap! This is Chen Mo’s scheme!”
Old P was speechless. After trying to hit it several times, he finally confirmed that, yes, this block couldn’t be hit. Hitting it made the level impossible to complete!
Left with no choice, he committed suicide. Intelligence -50!
The next time, Old P learned his lesson and tried to jump on top of the block.
But the moment he landed, a Piranha Plant popped out of the block and bit the protagonist right on the leg.
Dead! Intelligence -50!
“Damn it! Another scheme!”
Old P was at a loss for words. After respawning, he chose to feint first, luring out the Piranha Plant before stepping onto the block. This time, he jumped toward the pipe ahead, only to fall right through it!
The protagonist dropped out of the pipe in the upper left corner and ended up back at the starting point.
Old P: “...”
But it wasn’t over. When Old P tried to jump onto the block again, he found he couldn’t! Because all the previously hidden blocks had activated!
And the text on them had changed: “Even if you don’t court death, you’ll still die!”
“What the f*ck!”
[Resentment Value: +66!]
Old P was utterly speechless. There was no way to guard against it!
After stepping into every possible pitfall, Old P finally reached the castle at the end.
“Finally, I can clear this level. I’m starting to doubt my own intelligence...”
But just as Old P walked toward the castle gate without any caution, the king pushed the door open, and that push sent Old P tumbling off a cliff!
Dead! Intelligence -50!
“Huh, strange. Did someone just knock?” the old king muttered to himself.
Old P was practically coughing up blood. What the hell was this?! Even the final part of the level had to mess with you? Where was the trust between people?!
Old P didn’t give up. He started over and, after an immense struggle, finally made it to the right side of the castle gate.
“Hmph, you can’t push me off this time, can you?”
Confidently, Old P walked toward the main gate. But the door opened again—it was the same old king. He pushed the door, and once again, Old P was sent flying off the cliff!
Dead! Intelligence -50!
“I f*cking hate this!”
Old P was dumbfounded. Why wasn’t it following the pattern?!
Why did it not matter whether he stood on the left or the right—he still got pushed off the cliff!
Old P had no idea what to do. What was the correct approach?
After being subjected to the old king’s fancy door-pushing routine multiple times, Old P finally gave in and clicked the [Hint] button in the top right corner.
[That foolish developer tells you there are two ways to get a level hint.]
Coercion: Slap his face. There’s a simple sketch of Chen Mo’s self-portrait on the left. Just swipe the screen to slap him. After enough slaps, the hint will unlock.
Bribery: Pay 1 yuan...
Old P’s mouth twitched. He decisively chose Coercion!
Pay money? No way! One yuan was still money, and besides, paying would be a blatant insult to his own intelligence! He couldn’t do it!
He absolutely would not encourage this kind of corrupt behavior!
And besides, this was the perfect chance to slap Chen Mo good and hard!
After frantically slapping “Chen Mo” 125 times, the hint appeared.
A little finger pointed at the castle gate.
???
Old P was confused. What did that mean? Could it be...?
He tried clicking on the castle gate, and the door opened...
The door opened...
Old P stood there, utterly bewildered!
A side-scrolling platformer! And you had to manually click on things!
[King: Gousheng, I’ve finally been waiting for you. Lately, kids keep knocking on my door as a prank. It’s so annoying!]
[Gousheng: ... (I’d better not find out you did that on purpose!)]
Old P was practically spitting blood. This game even had its own built-in commentary! But why did he still feel an overwhelming urge to punch Chen Mo? Why?!
You’re way too good at taking your revenge on society!
After meeting the old king, the king gave Gousheng a book.
The book contained a bunch of key information, and at the end, it asked: “So, the question is, who is the most handsome person in this game?”
Obviously, this was another level.
Below were four options, including character names from the game and real-life names.
Old P, completely baffled, selected all four options one by one. The result? All wrong!
“What the hell? As expected from this game’s nature—there’s no way it’s any of these options!”
Old P opened the hint interface and found a new button under the [Coercion] section, below Chen Mo’s portrait. An arrow pointed at the portrait: [It’s him!]
Old P tried clicking it, and he cleared the level!
Apparently, “the most handsome person” referred to Chen Mo himself!
Even the viewers in the live chat couldn’t take it anymore, flooding the screen with comments.
“Holy crap, I’ve never seen such a shameless person!”
“Hahahaha, it’s Chen Mo himself! I knew the answer wouldn’t be simple, given this game’s nature!”
“Playing this game too much really messes with your intelligence!”
“My brain circuits have been completely derailed!”
“Haha, the most handsome person is the designer himself? Isn’t Chen Mo afraid of getting struck by lightning?!”
During the gameplay, Old P discovered that the game also had a ton of extremely malicious achievement systems!
For example, clearing a level on the first try unlocked the achievement [Prodigy: You cleared it with an IQ of 250? Looks like I didn’t make it hard enough!]
When the player’s IQ was deducted into negative numbers, they unlocked the achievement [Negative IQ: Impossible! It must be the world’s fault!]
Answering “the game’s designer” to the “most handsome person” question unlocked the achievement [Realist: To clear the level, I have to accept this setting...]
This left many of the chat’s designated commentators jobless, because Chen Mo had already done all the complaining himself!
Official complaining left nothing for others to complain about!
Old P was tormented to the point of ecstasy by this game. Every seemingly harmless spot hid a trap dug by Chen Mo, just waiting for players to fall in...
Even deliberate caution was useless. It was impossible to guard against!
For example, one level required the protagonist to pick up wings on the ground and play Flappy Bird. But if you picked them up, you could only fly right, and no matter how long you flew right, you could never clear the level...
The correct approach was to jump to the right of the wings and pick them up, allowing you to fly left. After dodging two flying salted fish and two spiky clouds, you had to land precisely on the target point to clear the level.
Who the hell would think of that?!
Old P was on the verge of a breakdown. Some levels were simply beyond the scope of a normal person’s thought process. And every time the protagonist died, his IQ kept getting deducted. By the later levels, Old P’s IQ had been deducted to over -800, making him feel like Chen Mo was silently mocking his intelligence...
That feeling was terrible...
And the game’s hints were also infuriating. You either had to slap the face 255 times or pay 1 yuan. Both methods made you feel like your intelligence was being insulted...
“What the hell kind of puzzle game is this?! It’s practically intelligence-extinguishing, okay?!”