Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 377 - 386: Trying the Demo

Chapter 377: Chapter 386: Trying the Demo

Soon, Elios’s desktop companion program and figurines kicked off a promotional campaign online!

Since they were both important components of the early publicity for the new game "Heartbeat Dream," they were directly funded by the development and marketing budget, making this campaign unprecedented in scale!

Quickly, net users learned the news through various channels.

While learning about the details of the desktop companion program and figurines, net users also received a crucial piece of information: both products would be directly related to Nitiandang’s new game "Heartbeat Dream," as part of the initial pre-launch activities!

This led to a surge of discussions on the internet.

However, Gu Fan didn’t pay much attention to the discussions among net users, because every core employee at Heavenly Games knew that no matter how much the users speculated, it was unlikely they could guess the true nature of the game.

After all, their discussions were merely about how cute Elios was, if any big shots could make a side business out of it, under what conditions the desktop companion would activate special dialogues, unboxing the figurines, and so on.

As for guesses about "Heartbeat Dream," most players speculated it was a sequel, while others guessed it to be a romance simulation game.

A very small number of players believed that given Nitiandang’s unique design philosophy, it was very likely that everyone had guessed wrong and it would be an unprecedented type of game.

But these players couldn’t provide any concrete evidence, nor could they articulate what kind of game it might be.

After all, it’s hard for people to imagine something they’ve never seen before.

Those unbelievably grand activities, if not actually occurring in the real world, are hard for people to believe.

...

...

September 30th, Wednesday.

In the blink of an eye, almost a month had passed since the promotional campaign for Elios’s desktop companion program and figurines.

At this moment, Zhou Yang was facing a difficult decision.

"President Gu, are we really going to release it?"

He turned to look at Gu Fan, his eyes filled with hesitation.

Gu Fan spread his hands indifferently, "You’re the producer, and you’re asking me? Didn’t President Li arrange everything already? Just relax and go ahead."

Zhou Yang nodded, "Okay, then I’ll release it.

"It seems that being low-profile all this time has its perks, at least I can be a bit more at ease now. I don’t have to fear being assassinated by players on the street or anything...

"They shouldn’t know my personal information, should they?"

As Zhou Yang clicked the mouse, the "Heartbeat Dream" demo was officially submitted to the official platform.

Once it was approved, players would be able to play it freely.

The demo itself contained the main setting of the game, Eden, including four romanceable characters, and of course, Elios was among them.

In the demo, players could smoothly play most of the "normal" game content, including chatting and interacting, etc.

There were many interactive games in the demo, such as beach volleyball, swimming, surfing, reading, and more. Players could freely talk to the characters, increase affection ratings, and unlock more scenes, as well as sweet memories.

As for the horror game part... that was completely omitted.

Just from the demo, it appeared to be a very serious romance simulation game—innocently pure.

Of course, there were still some Easter eggs hidden within, but at most they were on the level of Elios suspecting she lived in a virtual world, as seen in the desktop companion.

Just by casually mentioning it amidst the unrelated dialogue, players wouldn’t think too much about these snippets of phrases.

In a nutshell, this demo could be precisely described with two words: fraud!

Its sole purpose was to mislead players’ impressions of "Heartbeat Dream," making them believe that this game was purely a romance game.

Then, when the official version of the game was released, it would deal a fatal blow to the players.

This challenging task was now in the hands of Zhou Yang.

If Zhou Yang had previously been very high-profile, giving interviews everywhere as "producer of Heavenly Games," and showing his face all over, he truly feared the day when angry players would knock him out cold and bag him.

Luckily, Zhou Yang was rather cautious. Ever since joining Heavenly Games, he had maintained a low profile, hardly ever spoke on social networks, and declined all promotional events, thus he didn’t have a high profile online.

He could, to some extent, breathe a sigh of relief.

The other employees at Heavenly Games were mostly the same, except for Wei Chengjie, who was more familiar to players due to his history with Shengjing Group. The rest of the staff were virtually invisible online.

There’s no choice; the online world is dangerous, and everyone must learn to protect themselves.

Seeing the words "Submitted for Review" appear on the screen, Zhou Yang let out a sigh of relief.

Tomorrow would be a holiday, and as development progress at Heavenly Games was on track, they naturally had regular days off.

This period would be perfect for players to try out the game’s demo, continue sustaining the game’s popularity, and then wait for the day the game was released.

As for whether they would be scolded like dogs when it was launched, or scolded like dogs?

Only heaven knew.

...

At 8 p.m., Instructor Ding started his livestream on time.

"Brothers have arrived quite early, hey brothers!

"You all probably already know what tonight’s stream is about, right?

"Heavenly Games’ new DLC is out, gotta experience that properly, right?

"What? Not interested in romance games, don’t want to watch?

"Brothers, you’re mistaken—romance games are the most fun, brothers. Being so love-starved in real life, shouldn’t you enjoy it in the game? I’m doing this not just for myself, after all, I’m not lacking sweet love, this is mainly for the welfare of the brothers.

"I think with romance games, it also depends on which manufacturer made them.

"Heavenly Games is still trustworthy. After all, this company is clearly a bunch of nerds who’ve never chased women; their romance plot is bound to be full of cheesiness, which can’t be savored enough.

"What, a brother has already tried the demo, saying it’s very sci-fi?

"Isn’t that even better!"

While chatting with the stream’s chat, Instructor Ding launched the demo of "Heartbeat Dream."

Although romance games were niche and the demo didn’t have much content, it garnered decent popularity upon release.

After all, the Elios desktop companion and figurines were quite successful.

Instructor Ding himself had downloaded a desktop companion, and they had gotten along quite well over the course of a month. Especially hearing that there were a few new, vigorous, no, gentle and lovable new characters added in this demo, and considering the high quality of the previous Elios, he definitely had to dive into the game and experience it thoroughly.

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