5: What kind of games can you create with 237 yuan?

Cheng Mo stared at the funds bar in the holographic projection, frozen at 256 yuan, his fingers still rubbing the silver stud in his right ear. He didn't move or speak, but the corner of his mouth was curled up. The phrase 'turns out hate is the best fuel' was still spinning in his mind. He felt his whole body burning up, like he had just won an impossible match.

When the door was pushed open, the hum of the fan covered the sound of footsteps.

Chen Hao walked in, carrying two plastic bags containing instant noodles and bottled water. He placed the items on an old table in the corner, took off his glasses to wipe them, and put them back on. He glanced at the projection, then looked at Cheng Mo.

"You plan to use these 256 yuan to burn out a game that makes the whole world hate you?"

Cheng Mo didn't turn around. He knew Chen Hao would say that. This person never wasted words, only asked about results.

"Not burning money," he said. "It's using their anger to exchange for resources."

"Whose anger?" Chen Hao walked over and opened his laptop. "Platform users? Players? Or the army of negative reviews you fantasized about?"

He typed a few keys, pulling up a string of data. "Domain name, eight yuan. Lowest-tier cloud service, ninety-nine monthly. Sound effects package Starts at fifty. The cheapest art assets are at least thirty. Right now, you can't even make a decent icon. You have a few dozen yuan left."

Cheng Mo finally turned his head. "So what? We make a game that makes them comfortable? Release another 'Click Fun' type? Let players finish it laughing, then one day at three in the morning, lie in bed thinking 'what have I done with my life'?"

He stood up, walked to the wall, and tore off a yellowed newspaper clipping. It was an old news article: 'Independent Developer Dies Suddenly in Rental Apartment; Lifetime Downloads of His Work Exceed 100 Million.'

"This was my roommate," he said. "He made a healing game, gentle music, clean visuals. Everyone said it warmed hearts. But in the end, he took a whole bottle of pills. His suicide note said, 'I can't feel pain anymore.'"

The room was quiet for a few seconds.

Chen Hao closed his laptop. "So you want to do the opposite? Make a game that makes people collapse, earn money from them cursing you?"

"That's how the system rules work," Cheng Mo said, pointing at the projection. "The more they hate it, the higher the rating, the more recommendations it gets. I'm not deceiving anyone; the system is rewarding genuine reactions."

"But you need users first," Chen Hao said. "No players, no one to curse you. You can't even keep a server running for three days."

"Then we make a game that doesn't need promotion at all," Cheng Mo's voice lowered. "A game that, as soon as someone opens it, they can't help but curse, can't help but quit, can't help but screenshot and post it on forums."

"For example?"

"For example... a game that Starts tormenting you from the very first second."

Chen Hao sneered. "Sounds like a bug collection."

"No," Cheng Mo shook his head. "It's design. Every freeze, every misjudgment, every irrelevant dialogue response is intentional. What we're making isn't a bad game, but a game where people know it's a trap yet can't help but click Start."

"Why?" Chen Hao stared at him. "Why would players torture themselves?"

"Because they want to know the limit," Cheng Mo said. "Modern games are too safe. Failure has hints, death allows save reloads, choices are always correct. People have forgotten what it's like to lose control. We're just giving that feeling back to them."

Chen Hao was silent for a moment. He took six phones from his backpack, checked the signals, and after confirming no anomalies, looked back at Cheng Mo.

"Do you know what operations fear most?" he said. "Not server crashes, not traffic spikes, but the system running too smoothly. So smooth that no one notices problems until suddenly the entire line collapses."

He walked to the main computer, pulled out an old USB drive, and threw it on the table.

*Thud.* The sound broke the frozen air.

"This is an experimental engine framework I wrote in my junior year," he said. "Originally used to test the limits of human cognitive load. It has an operation feedback delay system, error penalty mechanisms, dynamic difficulty scaling models. The only problem is—"

He paused.

"I left a module undeleted."

Cheng Mo picked up the USB drive and plugged it in. The screen flickered a few times, then displayed a code directory.

"Which module?"

"The comfort zone," Chen Hao said. "As long as it exists, players can always find a chance to catch their breath. No matter how difficult the level, they can survive using saves, skips, hint systems. But now—"

He walked to Cheng Mo's side and pointed at the screen.

"Delete it."

Cheng Mo looked at the folder named "Zone_Comfort" and slowly moved his right hand toward the enter key.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"I'm not," Chen Hao said. "But I'm sure of one thing—if what you say is true, that the system grows through negative feedback, then we can't give players any placebos. We must keep them on the edge every second."

Cheng Mo pressed enter.

The deletion progress bar slowly advanced.

10%

30%

60%

The fan's sound suddenly changed pitch, as if pulled by something. The indicator lights on the main panel turned from green to red, flashing like a heartbeat.

90%

100%

"Deletion successful."

The entire basement seemed to tremble. Not a physical vibration, more like something intangible had been pulled away. The air grew heavier, even breathing felt more resistant.

Cheng Mo didn't speak. He stared at the screen, his eyes growing brighter.

"This isn't venting," he whispered. "It's an experiment. We're not making a game; we're testing human reaction thresholds under sustained pressure."

"You can think of it that way," Chen Hao said, sitting back in his chair. "But I only care about one thing—what do we use to launch? No art, no music, no copywriting, not even a login screen."

"We have this engine," Cheng Mo pointed at the screen. "It creates delays, amplifies mistakes, turns every click into torture. We just need to add a goal—for example, jumping over a platform."

"Call it 'The Platform'?"

"No," Cheng Mo shook his head. "Call it 'leap platform nightmare'."

Chen Hao glanced at him, took out paper and pen, and wrote the first line of the record: "Project codename: leap platform nightmare. Development cycle: seven days."

"Seven days isn't enough," Cheng Mo said. "We only have seven days."

"Why?"

"Because the system prompted a countdown," Cheng Mo pointed to a corner of the projection where a new line of small text had appeared that wasn't there before. "First review in seven days. Unpublished works will have their funding pool frozen."

Chen Hao frowned. "When did you see that?"

"Right after the deletion completed," Cheng Mo said. "It was hidden, only appearing after we made our choice."

The two looked at each other.

No extra words were needed.

Cheng Mo opened the code editor and created a new folder. He typed the name: Core_Mechanics. Then he created the first script: Player_Fatigue_System.

Chen Hao connected six test phones, setting different resolutions and network environments. He installed a frame rate monitoring tool on one phone, connected an external microphone to another, ready to record the first reactions of testers.

"You're responsible for mechanics design," Chen Hao said. "I'll make sure it runs stably. But there's one condition—"

"What?"

"All functions must be trackable and quantifiable. I need to know at which minute players get irritated, after how many failures they choose to quit, and the frequency of their curse keywords."

"You want to build a database?"

"I want to build a rage index model," Chen Hao pushed his glasses up. "To predict the breaking point."

Cheng Mo smiled. "Then you need to add a line—when players Start smashing their keyboards, mark it as a high-risk signal."

"Already added to detection items," Chen Hao opened the terminal and entered a command. "Now, tell me the first parameter to change."

Cheng Mo stopped spinning his pen. The tip was almost broken.

"Compress the jump detection window to 80 milliseconds," he said. "Normally it's 150. We want every jump to feel like a gamble."

"What about landing feedback?"

"Add a 0.3-second delay. Make them wait half a second after jumping to know if they fell."

"Will the camera shake?"

"Increase shake amplitude by 5% for each failure. By the tenth time, the screen should look like a video shot by someone with shaky hands."

Chen Hao typed the code. A compilation success prompt appeared on the screen.

"The first version is ready for testing," he said.

Cheng Mo picked up a test phone and unlocked the screen. The game didn't have an icon yet, just a white square with "Start" written on it.

He pressed it.

A loading screen appeared, the progress bar moving slowly. Ten seconds passed, only reaching 30%.

"Add a fake progress bar," Cheng Mo said. "Stuck at 20% for the first seventy seconds, then instantly fill up."

"Added," Chen Hao refreshed the configuration. "Now loading takes one minute twenty seconds, actual time eight seconds."

"Perfect," Cheng Mo nodded. "Make players think we're incompetent."

He continued testing. The character appeared on a dim platform, the sky a murky yellow. He tried to move and noticed a slight delay in joystick response.

"Make the delay dynamic," Cheng Mo said. "The closer to the edge, the higher the delay."

"Terrain detection module connected."

Cheng Mo jumped. The character jumped off-target, hit an invisible obstacle in the air, and fell.

He retried.

Second attempt succeeded.

Third attempt, he hit it again.

"No obstacle warning?" Chen Hao asked.

"None," Cheng Mo said. "Let them doubt if they're just bad at it."

He jumped five times consecutively, succeeding three times. Each landing had a slight freeze, like a network issue.

"Make that freeze the norm," Cheng Mo said. "Make them unable to tell if it's a tech problem or a design trap."

Chen Hao nodded, marking in the log: "Network deception mechanism activated."

Cheng Mo put down the phone. "We need one more thing."

"What?"

"A tutorial."

"No tutorial," Chen Hao said. "Let them figure it out."

"No," Cheng Mo shook his head. "There must be a tutorial. But it's wrong."

Chen Hao looked up.

"Teach them to clear levels using the wrong method," Cheng Mo's lips curled up. "Once they're used to it, change the rules."

Chen Hao wrote a new entry on paper: "False guidance system. First phase teaching content contradicts actual mechanics."

Cheng Mo stood up and walked to the wall. He picked up a marker and sketched a level layout. Platforms spaced farther apart, moving obstacles added in between, background color gradually darkening.

"The final level," he said. "After jumping, a line pops up."

"What line?"

"'Congratulations on completing a game no one wanted to complete.'"