Fang Cheng's games were always small in size but high in quality, as always.
Seeing the [Horror] tag on the game, Wang Say Games chuckled and said, "Can't brush it off during the day, can't hide from it at night, tonight is a perfect night to play a horror game."
"Wang, don't die..."
"Don't panic, I know my limits. Let's make a rule: if I get scared, I'll go straight to bed. Alright, let's go!"
The title "Towards Death and Life" appeared, set against a gray and murky sky that looked more tragic than terrifying.
A massive, unidentified object soared into the clouds, its spiral body structure resembling the mythological Tower of Babel, reaching towards heaven.
There were no living creatures around, the trees looked dark due to the lack of sunlight, and the place where Wang was standing looked like a huge plaza—only it was devoid of people.
"The graphics are still so good, the details flawless. The various props have created a strong atmosphere of the apocalypse. Fang Cheng is absolutely a master of environmental atmosphere," he praised.
After his moment of appreciation, Wang Say Games began to control his character, executing some moves to become familiar with the character's traits.
Unlike "The Forest's Second Son," "Towards Death and Life" emphasized the character's weakness and vulnerability by deliberately setting their strength very low.
However, to give players a stronger sense of escapism, he gave them robust thighs, allowing them to jump as high as possible.
According to Fang Cheng's idea, upon entering the game, players would immediately see the massive Star-devouring Beast, and its terrifying presence would shatter their sanity, making them feel a profound sense of despair in comparison to its size.
But Fang Cheng had overlooked one issue.
That was the matter of size.
An Immortal with Divine Sense could instantly perceive the enormity of the Star-devouring Beast, but humans couldn't.
In the eyes of the Star-devouring Beast, humans were the size of viruses.
It couldn't even sense the presence of humans and could only wait blankly according to the commands left by Fang Cheng for the so-called "little guys" to arrive.
To humans, the tentacles of the Star-devouring Beast were like a towering Tower of Babel, impossible to fully perceive, unable to feel the horror within.
After getting the hang of the controls, Wang looked around and asked, puzzled, "Strange, what's the game's mission? It doesn't seem like you can gather resources from trees here. Will there be jump scares?"
Jump scares are when something terrifying suddenly appears with a frightening visage, startling the player and causing their heart rate to spike and limbs to chill.
There's nothing wrong with jump scares, but they are being overused lately, with most horror games on the market utilizing this feature, leading to a certain rigidity in game design.
However, Wang Say Games felt that Fang Cheng wasn't that kind of person.
A gaming genius like him should have more interesting ways to deliver horror.
While Wang was scouting his surroundings, someone in the live stream commented, "Wang, look up, there's something on your head!"
Quickly looking up, Wang saw something shining with a green light atop the immense tower, seemingly beckoning him forward.
"Wow, there really is something. It seems like it's telling us to go there."
"How do we get there?"
"Isn't there a tower beside us? Let's just follow the tower."
Wang nodded in agreement and then began to leap continuously, climbing up along the tower.
Minutes later, Wang was growing to like the game even more.
Even without a tutorial for beginners, he quickly understood the gameplay, which was 3D platform jumping.
Usually, 3D platform jumping games have problems with perspective and scale, causing players to misjudge their focus and fail to estimate their landing point, leading to failed jumps.
But in "Towards Death and Life," this issue was perfectly resolved.
Wang Say Games didn't know what the other party's solution was, he only knew that they had perfectly solved the issue of perspective change, allowing players to precisely judge their landing spots, making the previously difficult platform jumping easy and pleasing to the eye.
It was as if... he was truly jumping on platforms.
Although he had fallen a few times in the process, Wang quickly mastered the jumping technique and successfully climbed higher and higher.
By the time he was three hundred meters above the ground, he could see further buildings, the abandoned city, and collapsed landmarks. The ruined sights came at him, making him feel that this was not just any platform jumping game, but one with a world of profound background.
What happened here?
What lies at the end of the towering Tower of Babel?
Why was the city destroyed?
Where are the other people?
A wealth of details built a world that was both real and detailed, immersing Wang Say Games in all kinds of minutiae.
However, when he reached one thousand meters, the joy of jumping gradually faded, his flow state slowly diminished, and he became sleepy.
"It can't be that I have to jump all the way to the top, that would be too sleep-inducing."
"Exactly, the difficulty is unevenly created, it doesn't seem like Fang Cheng's work," a viewer in the live stream chat agreed.
"Jump another hundred meters, then sleep after that."
Just as he was about to stop the stream and go to sleep, a viewer in the live stream chat suddenly said, "Wang, stop playing for now and watch this video!"
Confused, he clicked on the link sent by the viewer and found it was actually a Bilibili video.
Since it was late at night, the video didn't have many views, but the like-to-coin ratio was incredibly high.
"Thirty minutes! 'Towards Death and Life' clear!"
Seeing this time, Wang felt a pang in his heart.
He had downloaded the game first thing but only played it roughly for thirty minutes. He had to go back to his "hometown" several times and start over, and in the end, he probably had not even climbed a quarter of the way.
But now, someone had already completed the game, gotten to the crux of it—how was that possible!
He hastily opened the video and immediately started watching, only to realize there was a problem right away.
The starting point was different!
His starting location was an abandoned plaza, but the other player's starting location was a dilapidated spaceship. Although the goal was the same for both—to climb to the top of the tower—the entire process was completely different.
He thought this time difference might be key, but Wang soon realized that the other player's gaming concept was different.
This newcomer YouTuber named "Xiao Douzi" had posted many videos, but had only a few hundred followers.
In his gameplay, he never spoke, just purely played the games, and the content was often speedrunning and guide-oriented, showing he was a player who loved to delve into games.
The quality of the videos was high, but because they were too hardcore and didn't include antics, they could never stand out in this somewhat restless era.
But after playing the game himself and then watching Xiao Douzi's videos, Wang only had one feeling.
Brilliant!
Truly brilliant!