Passing through the basement door that marked the start of another loop, Gery fell silent as he looked at the scene ahead.
The hallway was still the same hallway, but something was different.
Before, the lights were dim, but at least he could still see a little.
Now, except for one lamp at the entrance, all the lights further down were completely out.
"So this is the price I pay for taking the flashlight?"
Gery lowered his head to look at the flashlight in his hand, then looked at the pitch-black hallway ahead, swallowing hard.
And then, the radio that had been quiet all this time came back on, once again reporting the massacre news from the start.
But the voice was broken and full of static, and with the darkness around him, it made everything even creepier.
"It's nothing, just darker than before." Gery whispered to himself, taking cautious steps forward.
Step by step, aside from the static of the radio, there didn't seem to be anything else.
Except… his footsteps sounded a little off.
But at this moment, Gery didn't think too much. He just whispered the core values under his breath, hoping it would drive away the fear in his heart.
When he reached the corner of the hallway, he let out a small breath of relief, his tense nerves loosening just a bit.
Because right ahead, next to the radio, there was actually light.
Although it was dim.
He glanced at the bathroom door. At this time, it was tightly shut.
Gery tried turning the knob, but it wouldn't open.
And the baby's crying and the ghostly sobbing were gone.
As he got closer to the radio, he noticed something different on the table. On the wedding photo that originally belonged to the house owner, a big X had been drawn over the bride's body.
And there was a line of words written on it: Dig it out!
Seeing this, Gery reached out to touch the photo. When his finger touched the right eye of the bride in the photo, that part of the picture was directly gouged out.
Looking at the smiling face missing an eye, the black hole staring back at him, Gery swallowed hard. The image was just too creepy.
And just as he was about to move forward, the radio that had only been playing static suddenly became clear.
"Don't touch that phone dial. We're just about to begin!"
"And also, you can't trust the tap water."
After saying those two sentences, the radio went back to static.
Don't touch the phone dial, don't trust the tap water!?
The phone… wasn't there a phone on the cabinet at the corner earlier?
Why can't he touch it?
Hearing this, Gery instinctively turned his head to glance at the phone behind him.
But the moment he turned, he immediately understood why.
At that exact second, a pale shadow suddenly pressed right up against him.
At the same time, the game's view shook violently. Then, a bloodless face suddenly pressed up close to his. This time, he finally saw the true face of the ghost he had been "longing" for.
Her skin was deathly pale, her right eye an empty hole—clearly gouged out cruelly. Her left eye was almost all white, as if she had suffered something like suffocation torture while alive. Her mouth, full of yellow teeth, leaked pus-like liquid.
The two of them were almost face-to-face. The sudden impact, combined with the fear and tension that had been building up all along, exploded at once.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh—!!!"
At that moment, Gery's vocal cords carried everything he had bottled up.
At the same time, the screen in front of him suddenly went black.
He knew the game pod had cut him off from the game.
Whether it was a staff member who cut the connection or the pod's self-protection, that didn't matter anymore.
What mattered was—he was finally free!
As the pod opened right away, Gery staggered as he stepped out.
A staff member quickly supported him.
"I'm fine, just my legs are a bit weak." Gery took a deep breath.
"Take a moment, it's just a game. Relax your breathing," the staff member comforted him.
Meanwhile, Felix and Quinn, who had no idea what Gery had just gone through in the test, exchanged a nervous look.
They knew Gery's ability well.
So what on earth scared him this badly!?
"Let me take a break first, I really can't handle it." Gery looked at the wide room and the crowd around him, and for a moment he even felt like crying.
God knows how much pressure that cramped game environment had put on him.
Then he glanced at the clock on the wall—and froze.
20 minutes!?
That long, torturous experience inside the game… had only lasted twenty minutes!?
"Gery, in this DEMO test, which parts or elements made you feel uncomfortable?"
A staff member came over, asking as usual.
Hearing this, Gery, still trying to calm down, couldn't help recalling what he had just gone through in the game. After hesitating a moment, he said, "I… I feel like everything made me uncomfortable."
Staff member: ?????
Looking at the confused staff member, Gery could only give a helpless smile.
Because that was truly how he felt.
The realistic visuals, the detailed sound effects and lighting, and the oppressive pacing of the game—it all came together into a complete, all-round feeling of discomfort.
Hearing Gery's words, the staff wrote "pending" in his notebook, then turned to Felix and Quinn. "Next, which one of you wants to go first?"
Hearing this, Felix and Quinn exchanged a glance. With the unspoken understanding between coworkers, they both raised their hands at the same time.
Rock-paper-scissors!
......
Using the most old-fashioned way to decide who would go second in testing Silent Hill PT.
In the bright hall, a group of game designers from the industry sat there. The big screen had already been turned off.
Many of the designers didn't look too good, some even looked a little pale.
Everyone was staring strangely at Lucas, who sat calmly to the side.
God knows what those twenty minutes had just put them through!
At first, they thought they had seen it all. What horror game hadn't they seen before?
But Silent Hill PT, this simple demo, honestly amazed them.
So many people, and they were just watching, not even playing. It wasn't 3D or VR, just a simple big screen.
Yet even so, the atmosphere in the game managed to shake some of them.
"Lucas, how long is the demo? About how much did we just see? And how much of it was horror content?" Marcus asked a question everyone in the room was curious about.
"About one-third of the full thing. Even though it's a demo, I actually made the gameplay and content pretty complete. The puzzles though, I did them a bit willfully. If you don't play it several times and really study it, it's pretty hard to clear.
As for the horror parts, that 'look-back scare' is just like a starter dish. I didn't really put in that many jump scares in this demo. That look-back scare isn't even the core. The real focus is on the story and the atmosphere of the setting. There are several key points later on. After all, this demo is mainly for the Game Division to test VR functions, so they can make improvements later." Lucas explained with a smile.
Hearing Lucas's words, and remembering the scenes from earlier, everyone went speechless.
This was just a starter dish?
Holding it in for a long time, Marcus finally took a deep breath and said seriously to Lucas, "Lucas, we game developers, when we make games, it's fine to keep things grounded. But grounded shouldn't mean sending us all the way to the underworld!"
(End of The Chapter)
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