GDYARVE # Chapter 62: Was It Intentional or Accidental?
# Chapter 62: Was It Intentional or Accidental?
"I suspect that releasing this game after Hollow Knight is Old Thief's biggest malice!" Yin Zi angrily wanted to smash his keyboard.
Especially after just finishing the Path of Pain and opening this game, his whole body felt a tingling sensation on his scalp.
That comment from earlier perfectly expressed his feelings. After entering the game, his muscle memory kept telling him:
Shadow Dash! Monarch Wings! Super Dash! Down Slash! Down Slash! Down Slash!
When climbing walls, he thought about using the Mantis Claw, but Celeste has a stamina system. Holding onto the wall would make the character tired and fall.
Constant wall-jumping also consumes stamina.
Forcibly correcting muscle memory is particularly uncomfortable.
"Huh...?" Xie Lingjiang looked at Ye Feng in confusion. "Is there really such a big conflict between the key settings and game mechanics of this game and Hollow Knight?"
She was watching the live stream with Ye Feng, and the comments were all saying that they wanted to down-slash whenever they saw spikes.
"Was it intentional or accidental?" Xie Lingjiang couldn't help but laugh at the painful expressions of the streamers.
She even saw one streamer, after dying, look at the map in confusion and ask, "Where's my body? Where's my soul?"
In Hollow Knight, after dying, you could go to the place where you died to find your soul, and killing the soul would recover lost money and repair the vessel.
Everyone was used to seeing a black soul hovering in the air at the place of death, rushing towards the protagonist with bared fangs and claws.
Now, the quick respawn after death felt a bit uncomfortable.
"Where's my Mantis Claw? Where's my down-slash? Where's my soul? Where's my super dash?" Yin Zi couldn't help but complain as he played the game.
"It was intentional," Ye Feng confidently answered Xie Lingjiang's question, puffing out his chest.
The game's death penalty is minimal, and the levels are small. Even if you die accidentally, you'll just start over from one end of the map. After adapting to the game's controls and mechanics, players even find the quick respawn a bit unreal.
'There's no chair far away, I can die infinitely!'
'What is this? This is Old Thief's mercy!'
'I'm playing both games simultaneously. When I switch to Celeste, I only dash horizontally. When I play Hollow Knight, I always try to dash in weird directions.'
...
In just the first chapter of the game, Yin Zi couldn't help but start roaring.
"Black Star calls this a platformer? Where's my platform?!" Yin Zi slammed his keyboard.
Almost all the platforms had spikes and no safe spots to land. Suppressing the urge to down-slash was really difficult.
Before entering the game, he saw it described as a platformer, but after entering, he realized most of the levels had no platforms.
Changing direction in mid-air and dashing was common.
In the frustrating jumps, he slowly began to understand the game's story.
The red-haired girl came to Celeste Mountain, hoping to cure her depression through climbing.
At the foot of the mountain, Madeline met a strange old woman who told her that Celeste Mountain would reveal her true self.
In the game, red strawberries float in the air, in corners... in various hard-to-reach places.
"These strawberries are in such tricky spots," Yin Zi repeatedly jumped and landed on spikes.
Black screen, respawn.
The cycle of respawning and dying took less than three seconds.
Sometimes, stubbornly trying to collect a strawberry, repeatedly landing on spikes, and failing to down-slash instinctively, made him feel increasingly frustrated.
'Bad but loves playing and collecting.'
'Roughly two hundred times now, terrifying.'
'If you're forcing yourself to collect strawberries now, what will you do in the second level?'
...
Fans couldn't help but tease him as they watched him stubbornly try to collect a visible strawberry, dying dozens of times.
Over an hour into the game, some players had already reached the second level without collecting anything or insisting on strawberries.
Those who moved quickly reached the second chapter. At the start, a friendly reminder appeared in the center of the screen.
[Strawberries will impress your friends, but that's all. Collect them only if you really want to!]
When Yin Zi finally reached the second level and saw this message, he almost wanted to punch his keyboard.
Thinking it was some important game item, only to find out in the second chapter that it's optional.
'So considerate, with a reminder too.'
'I don't believe strawberries are useless. Why collect them otherwise?'
...
In the second chapter, the protagonist wakes up next to something that looks like a bonfire from Dark Souls.
Beside her is a huge stone tablet.
[Celeste Mountain]
[In memory of those who lost their lives in the pursuit of climbing]
The background looks like countless blue stars falling in the night sky, and the BGM becomes eerie.
After getting used to the controls, Yin Zi followed the spike-filled platforms to a mirror.
Xie Lingjiang watched him play. This was also the moment during development when she felt the game truly began to shine.
Madeline walked up to the mirror, and instead of seeing herself, she saw another person with purple-black hair and red eyes.
The figure in the mirror looked exactly like Madeline, more like a dark version of herself.
Sinister red eyes stared at the protagonist outside the mirror, and with a glance, shattered the mirror.
The dark version emerged from the mirror.
Yin Zi had a bad feeling. Even though the dark version had run away, he couldn't forget those red eyes.
As the game continued, his protagonist finally found the dark version of herself.
'Why does the other me look so creepy?' Madeline pouted, looking at the dark figure.
'Oh, then overcome it,' the dark version mocked with a mix of ridicule and scorn.
'I can't tell you how easy it was to finally escape from your mind,' she smirked, reveling in her escape.
'I want to climb that mountain, even if it sounds crazy,' the protagonist earnestly shared her thoughts, undeterred by the ridicule.
'You can do many things, but you're definitely not a climber,' the dark version sneered, eyes closed, voice firm.
'You can't handle it. Give up climbing, let's go home together,' the dark version said, eyes downcast, dismissing the protagonist's climbing efforts.
After a brief argument, Madeline chose to run away, unwilling to listen anymore.
From this moment, the game turned into a nightmare, with the dark version relentlessly chasing her.
Following her trail, never giving up.
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(The End of This Chapter)