Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 399 - 407: Copying Character Files No Longer Works?

Chapter 399: Chapter 407: Copying Character Files No Longer Works?

At night, returning to his residence, Zhang Qifeng continued to battle through the game.

While other players still used Elios as the guide, Zhang Qifeng deleted Elios’s file, appointing Yarvette as the new guide, and he could noticeably feel his progress was faster than that of other players.

This was mainly because after Yarvette became the guide, the game no longer triggered any horror content, so the romance rhythm with the female characters was not interrupted, and his progress significantly accelerated.

Zhang Qifeng continued to advance the game’s progress while also collecting various texts within the game.

He played on into the night, growing somewhat drowsy, but considering Sakura’s affection was close to reaching the Three-Stage Full Affection, he still forced himself to stay awake, wanting to view the new content before sleeping.

In this game, the female characters’ affection levels also were divided into several stages, which based on what players had discovered, were typically three stages.

As for whether there are characters with more than three stages of affection? Perhaps, but none have been discovered yet.

Zhang Qifeng had also watched some videos. Sakura’s affection had at most three stages.

The first stage was before the activation of the horror content by these female characters, ending with the female character confessing her love to the player.

In this stage, the overall romance plot was more science fiction-themed, the girls hardly got jealous, they took the initiative to show affection to the player, and even if the player chose the wrong answers, the girls generally didn’t lose affection points.

The second stage required unlocking by playing through the horror content.

When the players first completed a horror level, the girls’ affection would reach the second stage, at this point, the girls started to get jealous and showed more human-like characteristics; if players then chose the wrong options, they began losing affection points.

The third stage was even stricter to unlock, often requiring players to pass through a series of difficult horror levels, needing not only courage but also skill.

In the third stage, although the girls still got jealous, increasing affection points was significantly quicker; it could essentially be seen as the sweet after the tough stage.

Normally, according to the standard game progression, many players would suffer for over a dozen hours just to reach this point, but Zhang Qifeng didn’t have to because he found that after deleting Elios’s file, the horror content was altogether absent, and there was no need to break through stages of affection limitations.

He just followed along with the dialogue easily reaching the third stage!

Clearly, not many people online had discovered this yet, and Zhang Qifeng felt quite pleased with himself, even eager to share this with everyone.

However, as a game editor, he still wanted to accumulate more content to share with the players, after all, if it were only this one thing, at best, he could post a tweet, but it wouldn’t suffice for a long-form article to boost the website’s popularity.

"What happens when the third stage of full affection is reached? Really looking forward to it.

"Up to now, there’s only one video online of Sakura’s Three-Stage Full Affection. I wonder what it’ll be like on my end.

"I’ll record it."

Zhang Qifeng immediately opened the video recording software, ready to start recording.

Because of the previously mentioned reasons, players who actually reached the Three-Stage Full Affection were quite rare, and considering that so many different characters would divert players, those actually uploading videos were even fewer.

Not only that, but Nitiandang had also created four to five different Full Affection interactions for each character.

Of course, these interactions were all rendered in real-time, it wouldn’t be feasible to create each one as CGI because the cost would be unbearable.

But even with real-time rendering, since the models themselves were of extremely high precision and featured performances by professional motion capture actors, every cutscene still highly anticipated.

For example, Yarvette’s first stage confession scene had players watching it over and over again.

Especially the scene where she turns around in a swimsuit under the sunset, which was nothing short of iconic.

Of course, turning around to make a scary face is a different story altogether.

Nitiandang had programmed the full affection interactions for these characters to appear randomly, and each account could only activate one.

For instance, Yarvette’s Three-Stage Full Affection had four or five different interactions per stage, adding up to thirteen or fourteen in total.

And players could only activate one fixed interaction per stage.

As for which specific one got activated, it seemed to be purely a matter of luck.

If someone wanted to collect them all, they needed to create new save files and maximize the affection all over again. This way, they could save them into the "Bestiary" and "Gallery" features and view them anytime.

Of course, the system would prioritize activating scenes that had not been activated before, which was somewhat merciful.

Zhang Qifeng had only seen one of Sakura’s Three-Stage Full Affection scenes online, which meant there were likely three or four different new scenes yet to be activated.

If he could achieve one, posting the video online might even earn him some views, given that many players also adored the character Sakura.

"Hey, isn’t it all about finding a shortcut? If it weren’t for discovering the deletion of the Elios file, I probably wouldn’t have completed the Three-Stage Full Affection so fast with my timid nature."

Zhang Qifeng couldn’t help but feel smug about his ingenuity. While other players had to continually tackle difficult horror levels to activate affections, he had skipped all that. Wouldn’t he be quick?

Eagerly preparing to watch the third stage scene.

What new trick has my cyber wife prepared to please me this time? I’m really looking forward to it!

However, just as the screen went black and was about to transition into the scene, Zhang Qifeng suddenly heard a "thud" warning sound in his ears.

At the same time, a pop-up appeared on the screen.

"File Error: ’characters/Sakura.chr’, file may be missing or corrupted."

Zhang Qifeng was shocked, "Hey! What’s going on! Don’t mess with me!

"Didn’t I already delete Elios?"

He was all too familiar with this pop-up. He quickly checked the root directory and, as expected, Sakura’s file was gone.

Zhang Qifeng was puzzled; theoretically, these issues shouldn’t occur anymore after deleting Elios’ file, right?

What’s going on here?

Fortunately, there was still a way to remedy the situation. Zhang Qifeng hurriedly copied Sakura’s file from another save file and pasted it over.

Although the affection levels might be slightly different, a few more gifts could probably smooth things out.

But even after reloading the save file, it still didn’t work!

The same pop-up kept appearing on the screen, and when Zhang Qifeng opened the root directory again, he found that Sakura’s file had vanished again!

"What’s going on? Why isn’t the game playing by the rules?

"It used to work before, didn’t it? Why not now?

"So does this mean my file is completely dead? Don’t let that be the case!"