Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players
Chapter 33: Full of Questions
Continuing his conversation with the two little brats, Dr. Neil learned another piece of information: whenever Johnny wasn't sick, he would often go to a lighthouse by the cliffs.
And Johnny had built his house in such a remote location just to guard that lighthouse?
There was obviously something going on here!
So Dong Zhen followed the two children toward the lighthouse.
On the way there, everyone chatted about all sorts of random topics, making the otherwise boring journey a little more entertaining.
Boy: "Do you play role-playing games too?"
Dr. Neil: "Uh... no, I don't."
Girl: "He's not cool enough to play them!"
Dr. Neil: "As long as I want to, there's nothing I can't do!"
Just as he finished speaking, the two children spotted a squirrel sleeping soundly nearby and cried out in excitement.
"Look! A squirrel!"
At that moment, Dr. Neil suddenly became extremely serious.
"Oh no! A terrifying squirrel monster!"
What?
Dong Zhen, sitting in front of his computer, was completely dumbfounded.
The next moment, an intense battle theme started playing. The squirrel, Dr. Neil, and the two children faced one another as a crude RPG turn-based battle interface appeared on the screen.
"Don't be afraid, children! I'll protect you!"
The two children behind him looked at each other, shrugged, and wore helpless expressions.
At the same time, two options appeared on the screen:
Attack and Defend.
"What the hell? There's actually a system for this? Why does this feel so weird?!"
"Oh, for crying out loud!"
Dong Zhen was completely stunned as the game's visual style suddenly changed.
He selected the Attack button, and four skills appeared.
"Volcanic Jump Kick, Whirlwind Palm, Decisive Punch, Shoes?"
Dong Zhen stared blankly at the screen and randomly picked one.
A new option then appeared:
Volume of Shout
There were three choices:
Loud, Louder, Loudest.
What kind of nonsense was this?!
What were these supposed to be?
Dong Zhen was completely speechless.
He decisively chose Loudest.
"Your turn is over, Squirrel Monster!" Dr. Neil shouted at the top of his lungs.
At that moment, the two children behind him stepped forward.
"Stop! Otherwise, I'm going to tell Mom you're abusing animals!"
"Yeah! She'll call the police and have them arrest you!"
The RPG interface immediately disappeared.
The squirrel glanced at Dr. Neil as if he were an idiot, then turned around and ran away.
"What the hell was that?! I was just getting into it! I totally fell for the joke!"
At this point, Dong Zhen finally understood.
Obviously, this was a joke based on the turn-based RPG games within the game itself.
After all, most RPG games follow a similar structure.
The livestream chat was also exploding with comments.
"Holy crap, I really thought it had turned into a turn-based RPG!"
"I just got into the scene and then it immediately broke the immersion!"
"Hahaha~ I was wondering why the art style suddenly changed."
"Damn, they totally tricked us!"
"Chen Xu is such a troll!"
"I actually think it's pretty funny. Is this secretly a comedy game?"
"Haha, maybe! Everything so far has been full of humor!"
In the game, Dong Zhen continued progressing step by step until he finally reached the lighthouse by the sea.
There was a tombstone in front of the lighthouse.
The name of the person buried there was River.
"The old man's wife."
Looking at the grave in front of him, Dong Zhen remembered that the housekeeper had mentioned earlier that Johnny had a wife, but she had passed away a long time ago.
Obviously, this was the grave of the old man's wife.
But why had she been buried in front of the lighthouse?
What did this lighthouse mean to the old couple?
With these questions in mind, Dong Zhen entered the lighthouse and climbed all the way to the top.
There were paper rabbits here, just like the ones he had found in the basement earlier.
But one of the paper rabbits was different.
It had been folded using paper of two different colors.
Making something like this would take much longer than folding an ordinary paper rabbit, and it was considerably more difficult.
It could also be collected, which made it look like an important item.
Yet Dong Zhen's confusion only grew.
After going all the way around like this, it seemed that none of his questions had been answered.
Instead, he had come away with an entire stomachful of new ones.
The lighthouse, the paper rabbits...
What exactly did all of this mean?
With countless questions still lingering in his mind, Dong Zhen returned to Johnny's room and joined Dr. Eva, who was already prepared to activate the machine.
Johnny, the old man lying on the bed, was about to have his entire life revealed before everyone.
But just as before, entering Johnny's memories required a medium.
Their goal was to reach the old man's childhood memories so that they could implant the dream of becoming an astronaut. Through the machine, this dream would become a goal that Johnny had supposedly pursued throughout his virtual memories.
Then, at the end, Johnny would be able to construct an imaginary future for himself—a future in which he became an astronaut and successfully landed on the moon.
In this way, they could fulfill the old man's final wish.
So, in order to accomplish this, they had to gradually work backward from Johnny's more recent memories toward his childhood memories, moving through his life step by step.
Before embarking on their journey, they discovered a piece of sheet music beside the piano on the first floor of Johnny's house.
It was titled "For River."
And the composer was Johnny himself.
Clearly, he had written it for his wife.
Behind the house, the two doctors found Johnny. But after talking to him, they discovered something rather strange.
Dr. Neil curiously asked Johnny why he wanted to go to the moon.
But even Johnny himself seemed completely confused.
"I'm sorry, but I really don't know."
"I just... want to go."
Looking at the confused Johnny, Dong Zhen, like many of the viewers in the livestream, was also somewhat dumbfounded.
He didn't even know why he wanted to go to the moon?
Then why was he so obsessed with it?
"Could this be the origin of an alien invasion of Earth? No, that doesn't make sense either."
Dong Zhen was filled with confusion.
Driven by curiosity, he continued progressing through the game's story. Using the rabbit he had obtained earlier from the lighthouse, he initiated a memory transition and began moving backward through Johnny's memories.
As time shifted, the game brought them to Johnny's later years.
The house was filled with paper rabbits, while old Johnny simply sat at the piano, playing the piece he had written for his wife, River, over and over again.
Clearly, River had already passed away by this point.
"Those paper rabbits... What deeper meaning do they have?"
At that moment, Dong Zhen became almost certain of one thing:
The paper rabbits must somehow be connected to Johnny's wish to go to the moon.
But the crucial question was: what was the connection?
This section of the game was similarly straightforward. The objective was simply to search for objects connected to Johnny's memories.
Once all of them had been found, the player had to complete a relatively simple puzzle. After solving it, they could continue progressing through Johnny's memories.
By this point, one thing had become clear:
To the Moon wasn't a game with particularly rich or varied gameplay mechanics.
It was primarily a story-driven game.