Chapter 548: This Familiar Malice (Requesting Subscriptions, Monthly Passes)

“Players don't understand me, but don't you guys understand me?” Chen Xu said righteously.

Everyone grumbled inwardly. Of course, they understood Mr. Chen too well!

Two happy mini-games released consecutively, wasn't this just to pave the way for the new Resident Evil title, 'Village,' at the press conference?

“Alright, who wants to try this map?” Seeing their expressions, Chen Xu took off the development prototype and picked up the touch pen beside him to draw the map.

After all, the Switch also had a touch screen, and considering the map-making gameplay of Super Mario Maker, players could also use a touch pen for more convenient drawing.

About twenty minutes later, Chen Xu had finished.

Yang Xin, Ruan Ningxue, and the others looked at the game screen.

“Want to play it?” Chen Xu handed the controller to them.

“Me! Me!” Yang Xin was the first to jump in.

Unlike their previous map, this new map Chen Xu had created seemed somewhat complex.

An arrow on the background clearly served as a guide.

After taking two steps forward, Yang Xin stopped. Before her was a jumping challenge; the surroundings were completely filled with spikes, and there were even turtles on the jumping blocks, making it look extremely dangerous.

However, Yang Xin quickly noticed that at the intersection ahead, there was a mushroom quietly clamped by a shelf mechanism.

“Ah! Why did a black flower fall down and block my path when I went in?! I can't get out?!”

Feeling delighted, she went in and just ate the mushroom when Yang Xin heard a switch click. Then, to her despair, a huge black flower descended from the sky.

In Super Mario Maker, there are three types of flowers.

One is the ordinary Piranha Plant, one is the Fire Flower that can spit fire, and the other is the black flower.

The black flower has collision volume, which means even if players use the invincibility frames from status effects, they still cannot bypass this flower.

So this meant she was trapped!

Looking at the seemingly unremarkable game screen, Yang Xin suddenly felt a strong sense of malice wash over her.

Chen Xu, standing nearby, smiled faintly: “A mousetrap. You always put some bait on the trap to catch mice, right? Of course, this is a relatively low-level trap.”

“The previous level doesn't require eating power-ups to pass, and I even pointed the way with an arrow!”

“And don't worry, this is just the first small trap; there are more malicious levels to come!”

Hearing Chen Xu's words, Yang Xin's eyes widened.

He directly admitted to malice!?

And there's more malice later?

Be a human, Mr. Chen!

Yang Xin, clutching the controller, suddenly felt a pang of regret.

She turned to look at the others, but as soon as they noticed Yang Xin's gaze, some pulled out their phones from their pockets, others picked up documents from the table and tidied them, horizontally then vertically, then vertically then horizontally again.

“I originally wanted you all to experience the first map Mr. Chen made, but if you don't want to play, I'll enjoy it myself! This game and map are so fun!” Seeing no one intended to take the controller, Yang Xin huffed.

So for the next ten minutes, she endured truly horrific treatment.

“Oh no, died again!”

“What the heck, I can't get past this even with a power-up?!”

“Ahhhh! Why did I go into the pipe and come back, I returned to the spawn point?! And I even hit a save flag?!”

“Isn't this a side-scrolling game? Why am I swinging a big hammer in it?!”

Yang Xin, in front of the screen, looked utterly despairing, while Ruan Ningxue and the others laughed heartily at her suffering.

After yet another death, Yang Xin finally took her hands off the controller. She declared that she was a little disoriented.

Heaven knew what she had just experienced; this familiar malice was indeed ingrained in Mr. Chen's bones!

Seeing a mushroom and running to eat it, only to find it was a mousetrap, and once inside, she couldn't get out.

A power-up fell from the sky, not looking like a mousetrap at all. She cautiously ate it and found no danger, but before she could be happy for two seconds, she discovered that the path ahead could only be passed without eating the power-up.

A pipe appeared in the game; she happily went in, only to be instantly teleported back to the spawn point, and even hit a save flag, making it impossible to return to the previous save point after dying.

“Mr. Chen, this map is too hard!” Yang Xin couldn't help but complain.

Chen Xu couldn't help but smile: “This is hard? This is just the beginning!”

Frankly, these were 'troll' maps, but they primarily tested the player's familiarity with Mario's various mechanisms and their own judgment.

Although Super Mario Maker seemed like a very simple platformer game.

It was a standard 'easy to learn, difficult to master' game.

This was also the style of Nintendo, the developer of this game in his previous life; most of their games followed this style.

In the game, from relatively simple basic operations like accelerating from a standstill, sudden stops, and triple jumps, to advanced operations like wall jumps and short jumps.

As well as a series of high-difficulty operations like shell-climbing and spin jumps.

Not to mention some pixel-perfect jump operations that micro-management players loved, such as squeezing through tight spaces and edge-grabbing.

These operations and techniques would definitely put players in this state:

Eyes: I understand!

Brain: I know what to do!

Hands: Have you considered my feelings?

Of course, in addition to the game's inherent content, Chen Xu also made arrangements for how to let players quickly experience the game's charm.

After all, players new to this type of game would definitely be bewildered.

It was foreseeable that in the early stages of the game, various maps would be subpar, and interesting maps would be very few.

So, their official involvement was needed to guide players through this initial learning period, providing them with some fun maps to play and inspiring them.

“Our main task during this period is to enrich this game with official maps,” Chen Xu said.

“Like yours, Mr. Chen?” Yang Xin probed.

“How can you have such malicious thoughts? From easy to slightly difficult, just the guiding kind.” Chen Xu shook his head.

These maps certainly wouldn't be like the one he just made for Yang Xin to play! After all, in the early stages of the game, a large number of clumsy players needed to feel the joy of the game, and even if there was full of malice, they couldn't show it officially!

“Of course, after the official release, you, as players, can also create content,” Chen Xu added, clearing his throat.

After arranging these matters for the game project, Chen Xu was also preparing to discuss with Zhang Yida's Marketing Department about the relevant activities for the upcoming carnival.

(End of Chapter) <>