Chapter 116: New Channel — “Masterpiece Showcase”!
Chapter 116: New Channel — “Masterpiece Showcase”!
In just over an hour, Qiao Liang had already reached the first ending of the game.
Obviously, this game encouraged multiple playthroughs. After finishing the first ending, he was brought back to the initial room, ready to start all over again.
The difference was that, starting from the second playthrough, players would receive a certain amount of starting funds based on the previous (or a combination of the previous several) endings.
There were some special game types in the simulation, like MMORPGs, that required a large amount of development funds. If a player chose to make that kind of game right at the beginning, unless every decision they made was perfect, it would almost certainly fail due to a broken funding chain.
However, with the accumulation of funds from a second playthrough, choosing these more investment-heavy genres would have a higher chance of success.
Qiao Liang didn’t immediately dive into a second run. Instead, he fell into deep thought.
‘This game... is quite something!’
It was hard to put the feeling into words.
At the start, Qiao Liang had been completely confused. The game constantly shattered his expectations, crushing all his common assumptions about game design into dust.
The game was called Game Producer, and it delivered on the title. The player assumes the role of a game developer, creating a game that must then face the scrutiny of the market.
At first, there wasn’t much to be impressed by. In fact, it was a bit off-putting.
Though it supported both keyboard-and-mouse and controller input, the player could only move and look around. The entire gameplay experience was basically just constant running. There were no actions like opening doors or using items, let alone any kind of combat system.
You’d run into a room, choose a door to enter, and that would count as progressing to the next major decision point in the game.
If not for the game’s distinct art style and the way each scene’s silhouetted visuals were atmospherically presented, Qiao Liang felt he might’ve quit right at the beginning.
Another frustrating aspect was the narrator.
At first, Qiao Liang assumed the narrator was just there to provide a brief intro to the story—but as he kept playing, he realized the voice was with him for the entire game, constantly making its presence felt.
It keeps mocking him and never shuts up!
Every time he entered a room and made a decision, the narrator would give some smug, punchable-sounding suggestion.
For example, when choosing a monetization model, the narrator would try its best to coax the player into selecting the most aggressive, pay-to-win model.
What made it worse was that the narrator seemed like a pro MMO tank—it had an aggro-drawing ability maxed out to absurd levels!
Ignore its suggestion? It would mock you.
Follow its suggestion and still end up with a failure? It would still mock you!
In short, the narrator’s entire purpose seemed to be spouting bad advice, then constantly tearing down the player’s confidence.
Maximum sarcasm. Maximum troll energy.
There were several moments when Qiao Liang got so pissed off that he wanted to reach through the screen and strangle that smug narrator voice.
Qiao Liang couldn’t help but wonder—what was even the point of having this narrator?
Was it just there to mess with the player?
That didn’t seem right!
Confusion and frustration were Qiao Liang’s first impressions of the game.
But gradually, as the game progressed, he started to feel something different.
He realized that trolling the narrator might actually be the real core mechanic of the game!
For many choices, if you deliberately went against the narrator’s suggestions, it would trigger different reactions.
At first, the narrator didn’t seem to care too much—just a few sighs and mild complaints.
But over time, it grew more impatient, starting to earnestly explain the consequences of ignoring its advice.
Eventually, the narrator became outright irritable, speaking with increasing sarcasm and leaving no room for politeness.
When pushed too far, it would explode in anger.
And by the end, it would spiral into a “fine, let’s see what kind of mess you make” sort of attitude—giving off the vibe of someone who had completely given up.
Each ending brought out a particularly amusing reaction from the narrator.
If the player followed the narrator’s advice and still failed, it would mock them for being spineless and lacking judgment—basically saying they deserved the failure.
If the player ignored the narrator and failed, it would still mock them—claiming that if they had just listened, they’d have easily succeeded, so they got what was coming.
And even if the player ignored the narrator and succeeded, it would stubbornly insist that they would’ve done even better had they followed the advice!
Though the narrator was always mocking the player, its tone changed notably depending on the outcome. When the player succeeded, its voice became sour and bitter, which made it even more entertaining.
Qiao Liang developed a deep interest in the voice actor—curious about how someone could portray the narrator’s shifting emotional states so perfectly, with such layered nuance and comedic timing.
As he continued to tease and outwit the narrator, Qiao Liang began to discover even more qualities worth praising in the game.
On closer inspection, the visual style wasn’t just “pretty good”—it was exceptional.
The silhouette-style scenes did an incredible job of setting the mood. Combined with just the right music and sound effects, each room—though limited in space—delivered a densely packed, vividly expressive atmosphere.
The art direction gave the entire game a highly artistic, premium feel.
Starting with the second playthrough, as Qiao Liang made new choices and reached different endings again and again, he found that every conclusion was unexpected.
The first time, he followed the narrator's advice and picked a heavy pay-to-win model. The game earned money, but its reputation tanked. The sequel bombed, and the narrator mocked him for it.
The second time, he went for a more ethical, consumer-friendly model. But the lack of monetization points meant players didn’t spend much, and the game couldn’t recover its costs. The narrator mocked him again.
The third time, he did everything the narrator told him—and ended up with the worst failure yet, drawing even harsher ridicule.
Qiao Liang was practically ready to smash his controller.
“This game is trolling me! No matter what I do, it leads to a bad ending! How am I supposed to play this?!”
But after all that frustration, he began to reflect more deeply—and then he saw the brilliance hidden beneath it all.
The player, after all, is playing the role of a game developer. And everything he experienced was… exactly what real developers face in their day-to-day lives.
That annoying narrator? It could represent greed. Or maybe the noisy backseat drivers and self-proclaimed experts in the community.
The narrator gives advice—some of it randomly right, some completely wrong.
As a game developer, it's incredibly hard to avoid outside interference.
If you lack any independent thinking, you're bound to fail.
If you’re too stubborn to listen to advice, you’ll likely fail too.
Only by listening carefully, analyzing thoroughly, and making the right choices in the majority of dozens of decisions can you eventually succeed!
And really, it’s not just game developers—anyone who creates in the cultural or creative industries goes through the same thing.
On this path, most creators are alone. It’s a hard journey.
But that’s also exactly why the fruits of success taste so sweet in the end!
Before he realized it, Qiao Liang noticed his eyes were a little moist.
Because Qiao Liang himself was a content creator.
Making videos and making games—they’re both forms of creative output. The emotional journey is strikingly similar.
Qiao Liang couldn’t help but recall everything he’d been through:
Pouring his heart and soul into a video, only for no one to watch.
Taking sponsorships to survive, and then getting flamed by fans so badly that he didn’t dare show his face online for days.
Reading long DMs from fans expressing their disappointment and saying they were unfollowing—it always stung.
But over time, he got used to it. After all, no gathering lasts forever.
He warmly welcomed new fans, and always stayed sincere toward his long-time followers.
If someone chose to leave, he just wished them well and moved on.
Sometimes, a video would go viral by riding a trending topic.
It seemed like luck, but that luck was only possible because of the massive amount of work and content he had built up beforehand.
And in Game Developer, Qiao Liang truly felt all of that resonate.
He realized: the person behind this game must be a genius.
At first glance, the game seems punishing, cruel, even kind of hostile—but isn’t that just how real life works?
In the real world, what game developer doesn’t come out battered and bruised?
Who hasn’t been mocked or dismissed by countless people?
Some get worn down and quietly quit the industry.
Some keep going, never forgetting why they started.
Some abandon their ideals and become the very thing they once hated.
Every one of these mindsets is captured in this game—if you dig deep enough to notice.
It’s like a cup of fine tea:
At first taste, a little bitter.
Then, a bit of sweetness creeps in.
And as you savor it, you realize it contains the full depth of life—its highs and lows, the warmth and the coldness of the world.
Even after the tea is finished, the aftertaste lingers.
Sitting there in front of his computer, Qiao Liang suddenly felt full of emotion.
“So I was wrong about President Pei…”
“Someone capable of creating a game like this—how could they possibly be petty or narrow-minded?”
“I have to make another video!”
Qiao Liang opened the background dashboard of Fanshu.com once more.
He looked at the two channels he had active: “Trash Game Roast” and “This Month’s Recommended Games.”
He hesitated for a moment. Neither of them seemed quite appropriate.
After thinking about it briefly, Qiao Liang created a brand-new channel:
“Masterpiece Showcase”.
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