Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players
Chapter 31: First Experience with To the Moon
The days passed one after another, and the deadline for the Game Design Competition drew closer.
Game developers and companies across the country uploaded their entries to the official gaming platform.
There were both mobile and PC games. Most were single-player games, although there were also some online games.
Clearly, some participants were aiming to win awards, while others were simply there for the experience.
After all, some companies already had projects in development, so if they could enter those projects into the competition at the same time, they might as well do it.
What if they happened to win an award?
Once the entries had been uploaded, they went through a preliminary review.
Games containing problematic content or those that were obviously poorly made would be eliminated.
This part of the process wasn't open to the public. However, even the games that were eliminated would still be uploaded to the gaming platform.
Of course, despite this rule, not many games were actually eliminated each year.
After all, the prerequisite for participating was being a game designer who had obtained the necessary qualifications.
Such designers generally had at least some ability.
This time, however, there was one particular point that attracted the attention of both the industry and players.
Everyone wanted to know whether Chen Xu's game, which had supposedly been developed in little more than ten days, would survive the review.
"Here it comes! I checked the full list. Not a single game was eliminated!"
"Holy crap! Does that mean the Ministry of Games has approved Chen Xu's game for participation?"
"So at the very least, we can be sure it's actually playable, right?"
"Found it! Found it! Chen Xu's new game is called To the Moon."
"Judging from the name, it sounds pretty legit. Does it involve space or something?"
"It's really cheap! Only 15 yuan?"
"Looks like there are actually two versions, one for each platform."
"What do you mean, two versions? Even Undertale didn't get that treatment!"
"I'm definitely going to see what kind of game Chen Xu managed to make in just over ten days!"
As the competition entries became available, countless interested players began finding the games that caught their attention and downloading them to try out.
Naturally, Chen Xu's To the Moon was one of the first games they checked out.
.........
On Shark TV's gaming channel, numerous streamers also began testing the games submitted to the competition.
This was essentially Shark TV cooperating with the event's promotional campaign.
After all, the competition was being organized by the Ministry of Games, so it carried a certain degree of official significance. Even though the Ministry hadn't specifically approached Shark TV, the platform certainly wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to promote it.
Just because nobody had asked them didn't mean they couldn't show some initiative.
As a Shark TV streamer, Dong Zhen was also aware of the event.
So he started his livestream early that morning. The title of the stream was "Trying Out the Entries from the Game Design Competition."
"Mornin'!"
"What's up, bro? You're streaming this early today?"
"Holy crap, which zoo did this monkey escape from?"
"Little Dong is here this early?"
The moment Dong Zhen started his stream, he was greeted by a screen full of all kinds of teasing comments.
Looking at the barrage of messages, Dong Zhen laughed.
"Ahem!"
"Alright, alright. Good morning, everyone. Today we're going to try out some of the entries from this year's competition. We've got a lot of work ahead of us!"
While adjusting his streaming equipment, Dong Zhen entered his username and password and logged into the official gaming platform.
"For the first game, let's try the new game from the creator of Undertale."
"Honestly, I've been looking forward to this for a long time."
"Why have I been looking forward to it? Well, obviously we have to talk about Undertale. That game was genuinely good."
"But this new one is called To the Moon. I heard it was made in just over ten days, and the key thing is that it wasn't eliminated by the Ministry of Games. I'm seriously curious what kind of game this actually is!"
As he spoke, Dong Zhen opened the official gaming platform and searched for To the Moon.
"Changing memories, and an old man's dying wish is to go to the moon. Damn, this is going pretty wild!"
"Today, I, a seven-foot-tall man of honor, am going to see what secrets this game has in store."
The game wasn't very large, so his broadband connection downloaded it quickly.
Looking at the screen full of question marks flooding the livestream chat, Dong Zhen ignored them without hesitation and launched the game.
The game was quickly installed.
The game's icon was simple: two children sitting on a wooden post, looking at the moon in the distance.
When the game was launched, the Nebula Games logo was skipped.
A full moon and a lighthouse appeared on the screen. Stars filled the night sky as several clouds slowly drifted past.
The name of the game, To the Moon, was written across the moon.
At the same time, the camera slowly moved downward.
A warm piano composition began playing in the background.
It was quiet and peaceful, like moonlight.
There was a lighthouse, a grassy field, and a large house sitting on the edge of the cliff beside the lighthouse.
The camera slowly moved inside the house, where a girl was sitting at a piano and playing. A young boy was sitting nearby.
At this point, the background music changed. A simple piano melody began playing.
If you closed your eyes and listened, it almost felt as though you were standing in a forest with a small stream flowing in front of you.
"Putting everything else aside, this music is really good!"
"Exactly. Whatever else you think about Chen Xu's games, the music in his games is genuinely top-notch!"
"Yeah, these two piano pieces are really nice."
"And Undertale too. The music added a lot to that game!"
"Not just Undertale. The music in Mirror was also really good!"
"Caught a wild gentleman!"
Looking at the barrage of comments in his livestream, Dong Zhen nodded to himself.
The game hadn't even really started yet, so he had no idea whether it was actually fun.
But the music?
That was genuinely good.
Just as everyone was immersed in the beautiful piano melody, the sound of a car engine suddenly came from outside, followed by a loud crash.
As the impact sounded, the game screen appropriately shook.
The scene shifted outside the house.
A black sedan had crashed into a tree.
Two men and women wearing white lab coats, looking somewhat like doctors, got out of the car.
"Where were you looking while you were driving, Neil?!"
"Uh, sorry. I was just bravely trying to avoid that squirrel that suddenly ran out in front of us."
"...But either way, you still ran over it. And then you crashed into a tree."
"Look, there's nothing to worry about. It's a company car."
"Are you kidding me? The boss is going to kill us!"
"Hmm... We'll just say I saved a puppy. He likes dogs, right?"
"He likes cats more."
"Why does the world have to be so complicated? Fine, whatever the hell he likes, crisis averted!"