Chapter 6
Most of the gamers didn’t immediately start playing, but instead looked at the main screen. They waited for the introductions, only playing a game when they felt it was interesting enough.
The deep voice of the male emcee boomed throughout the venue.
“Contestant number Seven, entry: FlappyBird!
20“In this game, the player controls the flight of a bird through tapping the screen, navigating obstacles. For every obstacle you clear, you gain one point.
“The game also has online capabilities and a leaderboard. Um, yes. Leaderboard?” the emcee stuttered during his delivery. He was in the middle of trying to make the game sound impressive, but alas he had failed.
Shi Huazhe was still furious. Upon seeing the introduction for FlappyBird, he’d almost stood up and requested they cancel designer number Seven’s entry.
After all, Shi Huazhe was the oldest of the three judges. People tend to become a stick in the mud when they get older. According to him, this wasn’t considered a game, a joke maybe, and most definitely brought shame to video game designers.
6-How can someone like this get past the preliminaries? Did the organizers not review their abilities properly?
-Or perhaps… family connections?
-Even competitions like this have a shady side. What a shame!-
Shi HuaZhe was still angry, but he found that he couldn’t control himself. Out of the twenty icons on the screen, he felt that the stupid fat bird the most compelling, as if it took up the entire screen.
“… I do want to find out how crappy it can be.”
1Shi Huazhe tapped the stupid bird icon and started the game.
He still didn’t feel too good about playing it, as if it was degrading him. When he finally glanced at his fellow judges, they also had FlappyBird on their screens!
“…” It looked like he wasn’t the only one.
The other two judges, Lin Hai and Qiu Hengyang were also playing FlappyBird!
—
Qiu Hengyang wasn’t playing because of the influence of the Super Focuser. He had noticed a problem when the emcee was introducing the game.
Why would anyone spend the time and effort to add online and leaderboard functions to such a simple game?
It felt completely unnecessary. Why not design a few new levels, or a new character with the extra effort?
1With this question in mind, Qiu Hengyang tapped the stupid fat bird icon.
1The initial image was very simple, telling the players to tap on the screen to make the bird fly upwards. Other than that there weren’t any other hints.
On the top of the screen was a zero, probably referring to the score.
The graphics of the game were exactly the same as the one shown on the main screen, so simple it was offensive. The bird looked like a ball, along with two emotionless eyes and hotdog lips, and two small wings. No matter how you look at it, it just looked stupid.
1Furthermore, there was another point of interest.
Qiu Hengyang tapped the screen while trying the game.
The stupid bird flew like a drowning salted fish, flying slightly upwards just a tiny bit. Then it immediately took a nosedive, dying once it hit the pipes.
3Qiu HengYang, “…”
-What is this even?!-
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