15: A Black Carnival Dominating the Charts with a 9.8 Score

At 3:07 AM, Cheng Mo's finger was still hovering over the Enter key, like a spring stretched to its limit. He didn't move, and the screen didn't move; only the hum of the server fan rose slightly in pitch, like a silent urge.

He pressed it.

The seventh test initiated.

The character appeared at the edge of the platform, jumped, and took flight, the trajectory unfolding in a wave-like pattern—this time the arc was flatter, and the descent speed suddenly slowed midway, as if the air had thickened. The landing point was slightly to the left, but still within the safe zone; the character swayed twice and stood firm.

Cheng Mo stared at the playback frame count, dragging it millisecond by millisecond. The gravity fluctuation range was controlled within ±0.5, and the wind resistance coefficient automatically adjusted with input jitter—no gaps, no sudden mutations. Seven tests, seven different paths, all successful.

"It's stable," he whispered, not to anyone in particular, but as a confirmation to himself.

He closed all debugging windows. The background logs showed no crash records for the past two hours, memory usage was stable, and the CPU load had dropped back to 68%. He right-clicked the project directory, selected `Jump_Nightmare_v0.2.0a.exe`, and dragged it into the upload box of the Steam Developer Channel. The progress bar advanced slowly.

5%... 13%... 47%... Upload complete.

Version submitted, marked as "Release Candidate," and the publishing mode set to "Visible to Test Server Only." He casually checked "Enable Reverse Rating Sync," and the system popped up a prompt: "Current user negative feedback data locked. Rating updates will take effect within 30 minutes."

He leaned back in his chair, the knees of his cargo pants rubbing against the edge of the desk with a slight frictional sound. The time in the bottom right corner of the monitor jumped to 3:21 AM. His left hand rested on the edge of the keyboard, while his right thumb unconsciously rubbed his earring, its silver surface polished bright. Dark circles hung under the cold light like two old Band-Aids stuck to his face.

The room was so quiet that the clicking of the hard drive reading and writing could be heard.

He didn't look at his phone, didn't stand up, and didn't even blink. This silence felt wrong. It was too smooth. The previous six refactors had all stalled at the third step, and this time it actually went through in one go? He suspected it was a hallucination or a system glitch. Last time he thought he succeeded, only for players to collectively disconnect within three minutes during the live test. If it failed again this time, he might have to swallow that broken pen to calm his nerves.

He opened the background monitoring panel and filtered the player behavior data for the last 24 hours. Negative rating rate: 89.3%. Refund requests: 417 cases. Average failures per round: 23.6. There were 87 new hate posts on the forum, with keywords including "scam," "brain damage," and "refund." One top comment read: "This game wasn't made by a human; it's a recruitment notice from hell."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

This was it.

This was exactly what he wanted.

Just as he was about to minimize the page, a new notification popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen.

【Steam System Announcement】

Current overall rating for "leap platform nightmare": 9.8 (Calculated dynamically based on the latest user feedback)

Cheng Mo's finger froze.

He blinked and leaned closer to the screen.

9.8?

He clicked on the details page. The rating curve showed that in the past thirty minutes, the score had shot up from 7.2, stabilizing after breaking 9.0. The recommendation weight increased simultaneously, and the game had entered the "Featured Indie Games" rotation on the homepage, expected to reach tens of millions in exposure within 24 hours.

Before he could react, the email icon flashed.

Sender: Steam Partner Team

Subject: Congratulations! Your work has been shortlisted for the Innovation Game of the Year

The body was very short:

"Dear Developer,

'leap platform nightmare' has been nominated as a candidate for this year's 'Innovation Game Award' due to its unique design philosophy and intense player interaction feedback. The final selection will be announced next month. Please stay tuned."

Cheng Mo stared at the email, his finger hovering. He didn't forward it or take a screenshot. First, he pulled up the browser developer tools to check the email's source code, confirming it wasn't a spoofed page. Then he opened his local screen recording software to play back the entire process of the notification pop-up. Finally, he pressed Print Screen and saved the original interface to an encrypted folder, naming it '2025-03-15_0327_steam_verify'.

He breathed a sigh of relief, leaned back, and his Adam's apple bobbed once.

It wasn't a dream.

It really worked.

He opened his messaging app and found the chat window labeled "Chen Hao (Anti-Peep Easter Egg Activated)." The conversation had stopped three days ago when the other party sent: "v0.2.0a compilation passed, waiting for you to merge." Below that was his reply: "Run it seven times first; if it doesn't die, then we publish."

He typed:

"Remember when we only had 237 yuan?"

Sent.

No emojis, no exclamation marks, just one sentence.

He closed the chat box immediately after sending it, as if afraid he would regret it. Turning around, he opened the financial backend and logged into a third-party payment platform. The account balance showed: 237,486.12 yuan.

He stared at the number starting with "237" for three seconds.

The exact same beginning.

It felt like a cycle, and also like a response.

He didn't smile or speak; he just slowly moved his left hand away from the keyboard, his fingertip brushing against the dried ink stain on the edge of the Enter key. Then he stood up, the game controller in his cargo pants pocket bumping against the corner of the desk with a dull thud.

He walked toward the water dispenser in the corner. Disposable paper cups were stacked on the tray, over a dozen layers deep, the top one already showing slight cracks. He pulled one out and filled it; the stream of water hit the bottom of the cup with a soft "tap-tap" sound. When it was 70% full, he stopped and watched the surface of the water ripple slightly.

The monitor was still lit.

The rating page was still open.

The number 9.8 hung there quietly like a red-hot iron plaque—no clamor, no celebration, only announcing in the coldest way: You have been seen.

He walked back holding the water, a bit of moisture clinging to the rim of the paper cup and printing onto the callus on the web of his right hand. He sat down and placed the cup to the right of the keyboard, not far from the broken pen barrel. His gaze swept over the account balance, then moved away, landing on the main screen.

There, the latest stream of player feedback was scrolling.

A new comment had just refreshed:

"I fucking spent forty minutes jumping on the same platform. On the eleventh try, I almost made it, but the wind direction suddenly changed by half a degree—is this game fucking watching me?"

Cheng Mo stared at this comment for two seconds.

He raised his right hand and lightly tapped the space bar, refreshing the page downward.

A new wave of curses flooded in.