Fortunately, Utaha didn't throw the controller at Ichin. Instead, she calmly placed it back on the desk.
But the mont she set it down, she pounced onto Ichin and began pounding his chest with her small fists.
"You totally did this on purpose, didn't you? Didn't you?! You made this just to ss with !"
After defeating that ambusher, Utaha thought the remaining torch-wielding enemy would be a piece of cake—but she never expected to get instantly combo'd to death before she could even react.
Or more accurately, she never even got the chance to react.
Ichin made no attempt to dodge her blows and simply let Utaha vent her frustration and rage, grinning all the while.
After about a minute, Utaha finally cald down and sat quietly on Ichin's lap.
Ichin hugged her gently and kissed her cheeks twice, then said, "Your reaction just now tells that once the full ga cos out, unprepared players are absolutely going to be wailing."
Utaha's reaction was sothing Ichin had experienced himself when he first played Dark Souls—he even nearly threw his controller once.
After exhaling deeply and regaining her composure, Utaha looked at Ichin and asked, "So this Dark Souls ga… is the whole thing going to be filled with traps like this?"
Ichin quickly denied it. "Of course not. If the entire ga was like that, it'd just make look like a one-trick amateur. Traps are only effective when used in the right places—that's what makes them impactful. Relax, I'm no rookie at ga design. When it cos to player psychology and difficulty curves, I know exactly what I'm doing."
Utaha nodded and glanced at the screen, which had reset the scene and returned the character to the start.
"You planning to let anyone else try out this test build?"
"Hmm… not just yet."
Ichin shook his head after thinking for a mont. "There's still too little content. I'll add a couple more scenes and a mini-boss first. Once that's done, then I'll let the others give it a go. It can wait until after our interviews at Todai."
This was just a simple combat test after all—it wasn't sothing Ichin would stress over. Compared to that, the Todai interview deserved more of his attention.
Of course, before that, they still had the second promotional livestream to prepare for, and Utaha's new book was also scheduled to release around the sa ti.
Letting Utaha rest for a while, Ichin picked up his change of clothes and pajamas and headed to the bathroom for a shower.
Once Ichin was gone, Utaha looked at the computer screen, then at the closed door. After a mont of thought, she picked the controller back up.
"Only three enemies. No way I'm letting this go."
Restarting the ga, Utaha carefully maneuvered the character to the room's entrance but didn't step inside. Instead, she slowly rotated the cara toward the right side of the doorway.
Sure enough, she could clearly see the enemy that Ichin had deviously hidden there.
Scoffing internally at Ichin's trickery, Utaha opened the item nu and checked her inventory.
Three healing flasks and five throwing knives—that was it. Pretty sparse, but understandable for a test build.
Utaha, having spent plenty of ti around Ichin, had co to understand his design philosophy quite well.
"These throwing knives definitely aren't just for show."
Muttering to herself, she swapped out the healing item for the throwing knives and locked onto the torch enemy, then threw one.
With a shunk, the knife hit its mark, shaving off 5 HP—basically no damage.
But it worked. The torch guy was now alerted and began slowly walking toward her.
"Heh. I knew this was the way to do it!"
Smirking smugly, Utaha raised her shield and began retreating slowly, expecting a nice one-on-one duel. But just two steps back, another figure erged behind torch guy—the sword-wielding enemy stepped out as well. The simple 1v1 suddenly beca a 1v2.
"…"
Even though her shield had 100% physical block, torch guy's weapon clearly dealt fire damage. The combined attacks of both enemies quickly drained her stamina, leaving her unable to dodge. Then ca the longsword's stagger hit, and finally, torch guy finished her off with a Lord of Cinders-style five-hit combo.
> YOU DIED <
The grayscale screen and bold letters brought a mont of doubt to Utaha's mind.
Why is Ichin making this kind of ga? Is this really fun?
But then she rembered what Ichin had said earlier—and she understood. For players, it might not be fun.
But for a developer like Ichin, seeing players get wrecked by the traps and ambushes he designed, screaming in frustration at the screen, failing over and overthat was fun.
It was similar to Hollow Knight, but Ichin hadn't gone full malicious in that one. After all, that was a 2D troidvania-style ga—not 3D.
In a 3D ga, the designer had far more room to craft imrsive scenes and place devious traps. They could set up ambushes that made naive players walk in clueless, only to be shocked and defeated monts later.
Kind of like a horror ga, maybe?
Utaha didn't play horror gas. In fact, she rarely even watched horror movies. She couldn't handle the jump scares.
"With how Ichin designs things… I bet he'd be a natural at making horror gas."
About ten minutes later, Ichin returned from his shower—only to see Utaha, controller in hand, standing in the now-empty room where all three enemies had fallen.
"Oh? Playing again?"
Utaha put down the controller and shot him a sharp look.
"You put throwing knives in the item bar, but when I used one to lure the torch guy, that damn ambusher near the entrance ca too. That's basically a forced 1v2!"
"Hahaha, yup, that's exactly what I designed it to do. Of course, I won't make every encounter like that in the final ga. I'll definitely tweak enemy aggro behavior and pacing to raise the skill ceiling."
Now that Utaha had beaten it, there was no reason to keep the test program running.
Ichin closed the program, wrapped his arm around Utaha's shoulder, and the two of them started scrolling through the comnt section for The trono in Love Episode 11, which aired the previous night.
The ani had begun airing in August and was now nearing the end of its first season.
The second season had already been greenlit and was in production. It wouldn't follow imdiately after the first season ended in October, but it was scheduled to resu in January next year.
***
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