Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players
Chapter 53: My Heart Can't Take Much More of This
After closing the wooden door, Sun Yixie switched on the camera's night-vision mode and pulled down the breaker.
A sound resembling a machine engine starting up echoed through the room.
Sun Yixie cautiously hid himself in the corner.
After waiting for about six or seven seconds, it seemed like nothing had happened.
"Brother Sun, why are you still crouching there? Come on, trust me. While the psychiatric patient hasn't come yet, hurry up and leave. Don't wait until you've actually got him coming after you," Huang Donglai chimed in from beside him.
"Wait a bit. I'm kind of nervous. Let me calm down first."
Sun Yixie was panting, but he started moving as well. After checking the room and finding nothing he could pick up or collect, Sun Yixie prepared to open the door.
At this point, Huang Donglai continued talking to him.
"Oh, what the hell are you nervous about? That monster isn't going to spawn right outside the door."
As Huang Donglai said this, the doorknob slowly began to turn.
The wooden door was pushed open.
The moment Sun Yixie opened the door, a deathly pale face appeared right in front of him.
"AAAAAHHHHH!"
A high-pitched scream that could have sent Pavarotti into retirement burst from Sun Yixie's mouth.
His entire body immediately fell backward into the chair.
The psychiatric patient from earlier was standing directly in front of him, practically face-to-face.
It was completely unexpected and scared the living daylights out of him. He even knocked the camera beside him askew.
Meanwhile, in the game, the psychiatric patient swung the spiked wooden board in his hand and struck Sun Yixie's character.
"I'm not dead! I'm not dead!"
Although he had practically been scared out of his wits, Sun Yixie noticed that his character was still alive. He quickly pulled his chair forward and started controlling the character to flee.
The background music in his headphones changed into shrill orchestral music, but its melody was incredibly eerie. Combined with the pursuit and the night-vision visuals, Sun Yixie's heart began pounding violently, and cold sweat broke out across his back.
"For fuck's sake! Where the hell am I supposed to run?!"
"Come at me! If I had a weapon in my hands, I'd fucking kill you!"
Controlling his character, Sun Yixie darted around the dark basement like a headless chicken.
Whenever he saw a passage, he charged into it. Whenever he saw a box, he vaulted over it.
Sitting in front of the computer, sweat had already appeared on Sun Yixie's forehead. His normally narrow eyes were now wide open.
Even the hand gripping his mouse was trembling slightly.
Because this game was simply too fucking terrifying.
The environments, the background atmosphere, the pacing—what the hell kind of horror game was this?!
Listening to the heavy footsteps of the psychiatric patient behind him, Sun Yixie didn't dare turn around.
At this moment, he had only one thought.
Run.
As for everything else?
He couldn't care less.
Sun Yixie's character was completely following his instincts. He didn't even know where he'd ended up anymore.
Then, after turning a corner and vaulting over an obstacle that looked like a step, a burst of electrical static suddenly crackled.
The red battery bar in the upper-right corner of the camera blinked twice.
Then the night-vision image shook, and the screen plunged into darkness.
He had kept night vision turned on for so long that he hadn't noticed the camera's battery level.
Now, the battery had finally run out.
"How did it run out of power?!"
"What button do I press to change the battery again?!"
Sun Yixie completely panicked. For a moment, he'd even forgotten how to replace the battery.
The passage was pitch-black.
Under these circumstances, Sun Yixie had completely lost his sense of direction.
Even worse, through his headphones, he could hear the psychiatric patient's growls and footsteps.
They seemed to be getting closer and closer.
Finally, with a click, Sun Yixie managed to replace the battery.
But the moment he turned night vision back on, Sun Yixie let out another world-class high note worthy of Pavarotti.
Because the psychiatric patient from earlier had already rushed right up to him.
Under the night-vision mode, the man's face looked like something straight out of a nightmare.
It nearly scared Sun Yixie's soul clean out of his body.
"You motherfucker! Get the fuck away from me! Get the fuck away!"
At this point, Sun Yixie didn't even know what he was saying anymore.
All he knew was that he had to run in the opposite direction.
When he reached a corner, he spotted a wooden door and charged straight through it without a second thought.
Inside the wooden-door room was the final switch.
But at this moment, Sun Yixie's attention wasn't on the switch at all.
Because besides the switch, he had also discovered two lockers in the room.
It was like a traveler in the desert suddenly seeing an oasis, or a starving jackal spotting its prey.
The moment Sun Yixie saw the lockers in front of him, he was practically ecstatic.
He sprinted forward two steps, triggered the locker interaction, and immediately hid inside.
Then, moments later—
Bang! Bang!
A series of heavy blows against the door rang out.
With the sound of the wooden door being smashed open, the psychiatric patient walked into the room.
Just like before, he wandered around the room for a while. After opening the locker beside Sun Yixie's, he muttered to himself and left.
Only then did Sun Yixie let out a long breath.
He leaned back in his chair and covered his heart with both hands.
Then, without a word, he saved the game and quit.
"Alright, alright. That's it for today."
Sun Yixie sat back up and covered his face with his hands.
"My heart really can't take much more of this... Sorry for the pathetic performance. Sorry."
He wasn't making excuses.
He genuinely felt like he was reaching his limit.
After all, he had never been particularly brave to begin with. And honestly, if you thought about it, the things in this game that made it scary weren't exactly unprecedented.
Getting killed the moment you opened a door.
Being chased by monsters.
Other games had those things too.
But in most other games, once they scared you, that was basically it.
Outlast was completely different.
The sound design and atmosphere throughout the entire game were simply too effective.
In particular, the camera's night-vision function was an incredibly clever mechanic, making the entire game feel like it had almost no downtime when it came to tension.
By tying the most uncomfortable aspect—darkness—to the night-vision mechanic, the game ensured that the player always had a thorn lodged in the back of their mind.
And because they needed to search for more batteries, they inevitably had to venture into unknown areas.
Then there was the fact that the entire game wasn't dark all the time.
There were actually plenty of areas that were quite brightly lit.
That constant shift between different environments created a persistent sense of psychological pressure, subtly making the player question their own sense of safety.
All of these elements, combined with the game's various frightening encounters, created the oppressive atmosphere that made Outlast so terrifying.
And now, when Sun Yixie thought about the fact that he might actually have to play this game all the way to the end, there was only one thought in his mind.
Despair!
But he wasn't the only one feeling that sense of despair.