Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 397 - 405: Collecting Log Documents

Chapter 397: Chapter 405: Collecting Log Documents

No sooner said than done, Zhang Qifeng soon began a series of experiments.

However, the results of the experiments were somewhat disappointing to him.

If he continued to delete Yarvette’s files, the game would indeed select a new unlanded character to be the guide. If the player kept deleting, the system would keep replacing, until there were no other sci-fi characters left.

At that point, the Save would be completely corrupted.

Even if the player tried to copy the character files back into the Save folder, it couldn’t fix the issue, and the player would have to start over from a previous Save.

However, this operation was obviously very risky, as there were many characters in the game, and with each deletion, the game would generate a new Save when reloaded, sequentially "promoting" a character to become the guide.

If the player hadn’t saved beforehand, and the auto-saves had been overwritten, that would be quite embarrassing.

Fortunately, the likelihood of this was not high, and as a veteran player, Zhang Qifeng’s reflex was to make sure his Saves were in order, so he didn’t run into any issues with corrupted Saves.

If he deleted Elios first and then copied her files back after the system had promoted other characters to guides, nothing would happen.

At that time, Elios’s file would be like a redundant file that would no longer serve any purpose. Elios would no longer be the guide, nor would she become a romanceable character.

It seemed that deleting Elios’s file was an irreversible action in the current Save.

This line of speculation had yet to be validated, so Zhang Qifeng had to return to his previous approach, continuing to romance the girls while observing various plot details in the game.

Up to this point, there wasn’t much information about the plot of "Heartbeat Dream" online.

The main reason was that the plot of the game was divided into two parts.

One part was the romantic content with the girls, which was actually plentiful, with numerous videos available online. However, they were mostly sweet nothings and lovey-dovey talk, strictly speaking, and didn’t really introduce anything about the overall worldview of the game.

The other part was hidden in various details within the game.

For example, in the nooks and crannies of the game, one could find special collectible items, or books, letters, notes, etc. Even during the horror game segments, whether escaping from peril or killing monsters, players could gain informational items.

This part of the plot was far more complex and clearly contained more about the worldview.

It might be because the game had only been released for a short period, so most people’s attention was primarily on the romantic aspects. They were figuring out how to romance the girls, unlock more sweet scenes, and weren’t paying much attention to the fragmented item information.

After all, most people were still playing it as a romance game. Why bother with the worldview?

Whether it’s a peaceful age or the end of the world shouldn’t affect romancing the girls, right?

However, having discovered the "cheat" of being able to delete characters, Zhang Qifeng felt there was much more to delve into with this game. After understanding the plot more clearly, maybe he could find more to gain.

Therefore, Zhang Qifeng began to consciously wander to various places, collecting all kinds of objects, books, and letters.

He found that visiting a specific place at different times resulted in different items being collected.

For example, there are places in the game like libraries and reading rooms, and such places are easy spots for collecting special books and letters.

Sometimes, when the guide isn’t around, I sneak a peek at her computer and can pick up some notes and memos.

At this time, Zhang Qifeng’s guide was Yarvette, and the information he collected was also diverse, including summaries of daily life, work records, and some minor grievances, or reminiscences of the past...

Clearly, most of these contents also seemed to have been generated by fake-AI.

This wasn’t surprising, after all, the information Zhang Qifeng had gathered was just the tip of the iceberg, and Nitiandang had even arranged similar content for all the characters in the game. If people were to write all this content themselves, just the sheer volume would be enough to write someone to death.

But with AI’s help, they first set the character traits, then bulk generate content, and finally, have staff do a simple review, which greatly reduced the workload.

First and foremost, what intrigued Zhang Qifeng was Yarvette’s opinion of the protagonist.

According to the game’s settings, the character played by the player is quite popular, the males are handsome, and the females are gentle and beautiful.

That was an inevitable setting; after all, having an ugly protagonist would affect players’ sense of immersion.

Plus, it would seem too fake if all sorts of girls actively chased after an unattractive protagonist, and it could easily break the immersion for players.

From Yarvette’s various memos and casually recorded pieces of text, it was clear that she had a good impression of the protagonist. Although she seemed a bit aloof on the surface, her heart was actually quite passionate.

This gave Zhang Qifeng a bit of a secret thrill.

At this moment, he felt like he was secretly flipping through the class belle’s diary, only to find it full of entries about himself, and the belle had a rather good impression of him.

In addition, Yarvette also had different impressions of other female characters, some she really liked, others she disliked intensely.

Zhang Qifeng wasn’t quite sure how these impressions were determined—were they directly arranged by the officials, or did the system calculate them based on the different backgrounds and character traits of the two roles?

If they were generated by AI, then it was possible that these impressions might change over time, but for now, Zhang Qifeng hadn’t found any way to alter them.

Of course, aside from these, there were two particularly important pieces of information.

One was Yarvette’s fond memories of the past, which also revealed some information related to the world setting.

This actually tied in with the game’s opening CG; players already knew it was a world with a post-apocalyptic setting, and from Yarvette’s nostalgia for her hometown, more details could be perceived.

The other was some of Yarvette’s minor complaints.

For instance, she would grumble about accidentally leaving her diary in the reading room again, or forgetting to set a password for the notepad files on her computer. She even found her own behavior ridiculous - after all, who keeps a diary these days?

Not only writing one’s inner thoughts in a diary but also leaving it unlocked and scattered around was even more ludicrous; not even a child would do that.

But in Eden, this seemed to be quite common, after all, she seemed to have come across someone else’s diary before, just couldn’t recall exactly what it was called.

Zhang Qifeng was almost speechless: "The officials of this game are pretty humorous, mocking their own game, huh? But could they focus their energy elsewhere?"