As for Lucas's so-called ga confession on his blog—
Players collectively said: not a single word of this can be trusted!
Sure, plenty of dia editors reposted it.
But the players aren't that naive. Even if a few actually believed him and went into the ga—
A few minutes later, or even ten minutes later, when the fitting background music plays and they see that beautiful midair fall, they'll finally understand what this ga is really about.
Life is suffering? What nonsense! Do you really believe that?
Even though this hamr-swinging ga broke Nebula Gas' record for the lowest rating and scored a failing 5.1, its download numbers kept climbing every day, and discussions around it were just as lively.
The main reason? This ga blew up on streaming and video platforms.
After getting crushed by it, many players realized that playing this ga themselves was pure torture.
But watching soone else play? That's a whole different story.
Two words describe it: pure joy!
Especially when they see the strear reach so key point, only to fall from the sky and land right back at the start.
That makes it even more fun.
In streams for this ga, you'll often see comnts like:
"Welco ho!"
"Just start over!"
"Gas are ant to be played with a smile."
"The place where dreams begin."
Countless strears and video creators kept playing this ga while feeling both joy and pain.
The joy ca from discovering how great it worked on stream.
The streaming effect was way better—more viewers, more comnts, even the vibe was nicer.
In other gas, a single mistake would fill the chat with toxic comnts like:
"This strear sucks."
"How do you even die there?"
"Scatter so rice on the keyboard and let a chicken peck—it'd play better than you."
That kind of stuff was common.
But in this ga, when you ss up, the comnts are always the sa.
All laughing and cheering at your pain.
Everyone's here to watch you fail. If you don't fall, they're actually disappointed!
The only tough part is that playing this ga can seriously spike your blood pressure.
Your poor heart can't take it!
Blood pressure pills have beco a household necessity.
On video sites, clips of strears completely losing it are everywhere.
That empty, broken look on their faces after falling back to the start shows just how badly this ga crushed them.
Because of all this hype, tons of new players, curious after hearing about the ga, decided to give it a try.
And after playing, they ended up leaving self-mocking comnts like, "I'm an idiot."
So strears even went the extra mile, copying Nebula Gas' expo setup with the water tank, sofa, and hamr, dressing up like the pot guy and playing with motion controls.
It looked like they were trying to laugh through the pain and enjoy it sohow.
Of course, most viewers just thought, "Yep, another player who's lost it."
But not everyone went crazy—speedrun videos started popping up online.
One player even beat the whole ga in just a little over two minutes.
That earned endless respect.
They were so good with that hamr swing!
How many tis did they fall from the junk mountain to master that?
And wait, the ga's actually that short?
For most players, though, watching is enough.
...
While "Hamr to the Heavens" was blowing up among players, ga industry designers were left scratching their heads.
"Anyone paying attention to Lucas' ga? This makes no sense!"
"Yeah! The ga isn't anything special. The quality is rough, so why is it so popular?"
"Exactly! Lucas' past gas either had great stories, great levels, or fresh gaplay. But this? Everything feels weak. The only good thing might be the music when you fall?"
"Right, and I don't get it either. The hype is almost as big as 'It Takes Two.'"
"This is crazy. What's going on with this ga?"
"I played for ten minutes and quit. I just don't see what's fun about it!"
"You're looking at it the wrong way. The actual play rate is low. Most of the attention cos from curiosity, streams, and videos. But for a low-budget ga, whether it's cheap to buy or free promo, if they can get even half or a third of this hype, that's a win."
Many ga designers were discussing in the forum, but so of them had already figured out what was going on.
You could say that this type of ga, like Swinging the Hamr, is pretty much a standard streaming ga.
A "streaming ga" ans a ga that looks fun to watch.
In a sense, gas like It Takes Two, Dark Souls, and Outlast also count as streaming gas.
But the difference is that these gas have a core gaplay at their heart.
The viewing experience is just a bonus.
The content of the ga itself is already enough to win over players.
But Swinging the Hamr is different. The original purpose of the ga was to let the creator watch players suffer and enjoy himself.
Suffering is the core of this ga.
That's why watching others play it is way more fun than playing it yourself.
After all, you're not the one suffering.
Because of this, its popularity on streaming platforms kept rising.
After all, when players play it themselves, most of them can't stick with it.
But strears are different. Viewers love to watch, and strears, for the sake of entertaining their audience, will keep playing even when they're dizzy from frustration and their blood pressure is through the roof.
With both sides pushing it, this simple-looking ga quickly beca a huge hit.
And when lots of people are watching, so players will naturally want to try it themselves. Of course, their fate is already sealed.
In Nebula Gas' office, Lucas was explaining the features of this unique ga to Hector, Rachel, and the others.
"So, Lucas, what you posted on the official blog before was all fake!" Rachel clearly wasn't focused on the ga.
"Exactly, Lucas! You just wanted to watch players suffer!" Anna stared wide-eyed at Lucas.
"Lucas, does this an the warrior of love has no love left?" Hector couldn't help throwing in a jab.
"Alright, everyone, back to work! We need to speed up the progress on Dark Souls: Age of Fire! Our lovely players are waiting for us!" Lucas coughed twice to change the topic.
Watching everyone go back to work, Lucas stretched.
The whole "warrior of love" thing didn't matter anymore because the players' misunderstandings and assumptions were getting worse.
They didn't believe a word he said anymore, and that really hurt him.
Shaking his head with a sigh, Lucas started confirming plans for the overseas version of Dark Souls: Age of Fire with Target Software.
There were still two months left before launch, and at the current pace, it wasn't a problem at all.
But the translation and early negotiations for promotion channels still needed to be settled with Target Software.
(End of The Chapter)
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