I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 577 - 182: The value of this game is still increasing!_4

Chapter 577: Chapter 182: The value of this game is still increasing!_4

The grotesque mouth gaped open, accompanied by filth-soaked blood all over its body.

And from the depths of the earth, two would burrow out at once!

Their method of attack was quite straightforward.

Moving in a rectangular pattern within the room, it wasn’t difficult for players to dodge.

Moreover, the BOSS’s defense was also very fragile.

But the main difficulty with this BOSS lay in the obstacles.

Rock blocks would appear in the BOSS Room like dots in a matrix, evenly distributed, one after another.

And as the BOSS moved along its path, it would also produce excrement.

If the player did nothing, before long, the BOSS would fill the entire room with feces.

What’s worse, if you attack it in the middle of its body, where it’s weakest, as it passes by.

There’s a good chance the BOSS will split in two like an earthworm.

And each separated part of the BOSS, after moving, would produce more feces.

Greatly hampering the player’s movement, until they are cornered and then crashed into head-on.

It could be said that if the player’s attack power isn’t high enough,

then cleaning up the continuously produced feces becomes a very difficult task.

But this was no trouble at all for Josiah.

Because in his hand he held Divine Wind (the name of the baseball glove) + Bomberman.

A little area explosion, if you please!

Thus, the feces produced by the BOSS did not trouble him in the least.

Instead, it became his money-making tool (a small chance to drop Gold Coin when feces are cleared)

Finding the right angle, he furiously hammered the space bar and sent the BOSS to its doom!

Just like in the first level, the dead BOSS left behind a brand new item.

[Breakfast]

It looked like a box of milk.

Only, this milk seemed to be spoiled, and the icon even had a bunch of flies buzzing around the milk box.

Josiah couldn’t help but frown even more.

The thing called lunch was a bowl of raw, fishy-smelling innards.

And breakfast was a carton of spoiled milk...

Thinking back to the opening animation, where the mother considered Isaac a demon and locked him in his room,

"Wait a minute, guys... I feel like there’s something off about this storyline."

"These dungeons, could they be implying that our current situation is actually inside Isaac’s room? With him being locked up, it wouldn’t be strange to call this place a ’dungeon.’

"Then, combining this with the rewards after defeating the BOSS... What the hell is with these breakfasts and lunches? They’re simply not edible food!"

The comments were abuzz with discussion at that moment.

"And the blood! This game is filled with lots of blood! Various monsters are bleeding from the eyes or limbs, and the BOSS is the same, like Meng Sijuo with its bloody lips in the first level, and the Candy Gourd Snake bleeding in the second level."

"Is Isaac not only imprisoned but also abused?"

"More crucially, why is there so much feces in the dungeon... It’s hard not to speculate that Isaac’s mother didn’t even allow him the right to go to the bathroom... forcing him to deal with it in the room?"

"Moreover, his attack method is tears... This setting was very peculiar when it first appeared, but it’s equally terrifying upon deeper consideration!"

"Oh fuck! I’ve pieced together a scene: Isaac, tormented and abused by his mother, can only eat spoiled food, and because he cannot leave the room, the room itself is his toilet, reeking and smoke-filled. Poor Isaac spends his days in tears, which also fits the tear bullet setting... My dear little Isaac, what have you endured!"

Watching the commenters’ intense debate, Josiah suddenly realized something.

This game wasn’t just about gameplay that attracted players.

It also excelled in creating a sense of immersion!

Typically, due to limitations in graphical expression, 2D games struggle to achieve a sense of immersion.

So they generally rely on gameplay to win players over.

But this game, Isaac, combined its obscure storyline with various items.

The top player had designed these items rather strangely.

But it was precisely this strangeness.

That made players find it refreshing at first glance, and more terrifying upon further thought.

Think about it.

Which game would use feces as an obstacle in level design?

What game would give players rewards of spoiled food after a BOSS battle?

On top of that, the bloody elements make it hard for players not to speculate.

And once players start to think deeply,

It just proves how engaging the game is in this respect!

Of course, Josiah had only completed two levels so far, and everything about the game’s storyline was just conjecture.

But he had to admit.

These bizarre items were also another layer of attraction that enticed him to continue delving deeper.

"This game’s plot doesn’t feel like a simple escape story from an underground passage... I’ll keep exploring."

Josiah murmured as he picked up the spoiled milk.

The heart container increased by one.

An increase in the maximum health, for the high blood-consuming playstyle of Divine Wind, was likewise an enhancement.

After reaching the third level, the difficulty rose once more.

The variety of monsters was upgraded again.

Even for this simple, sketch-style 2D game.

Josiah noticed that the designs by the top player were not done half-heartedly.

They didn’t just repeatedly enhance monsters and hand them over to the players.

Instead, they kept designing newer monsters with a more diverse range of attacks.

However, not long after the third level began.

Josiah made a mistake with his blood control.

Originally, he had one red heart left, and he planned to activate Divine Wind with half a red heart left, use it to blow up the monsters and clear the room, and then return to the original room to pick up the red heart to recover health.

As a result of an operational error, he touched a monster first, losing half a heart.

He then hit the spacebar, using up the last half of his health.

Under Josiah’s stunned gaze.

Isaac let out an ’Ugh’ and fell asleep.

The settlement screen popped up, displaying a diary filled with childlike sketch-style drawings.

It illustrated the items Josiah had acquired throughout his adventure, all expressed with very childlike doodles, yet they were just recognizable enough for players to guess what the items were.

For example, the Divine Wind Baseball Glove he’d acquired was scribbled in a tangle of lines in the diary, but the outline of five fingers could still be made out.

What struck Josiah even more was a sentence Isaac left in the diary.

"Dear diary, today I died. I was killed by this thing/picture. I’ll leave my possessions to burp cat. Goodbye, cruel world."

Who is burp cat?

Why does Isaac mention it in his diary?

This also made Josiah couldn’t help but want to start another game to continue unraveling all the unsolved mysteries.

Moreover, what made Josiah even more regretful was...

If he hadn’t made that mistake just now, he could have gotten much further with his Divine Wind Gloves...

"I have to start over, I hope I can still get the Divine Wind Gloves..." As Josiah was readying to restart the game, he was reminded by a viewer’s comment.

"Why not try using the seed? I remember ’Slaughter Spire’ had seeds. ’Isaac’ is also a work of the top player, so they should keep that mechanism, right?"

Josiah was slightly taken aback.

Although he had played a few other roguelikes, he wasn’t familiar with Slaughter Spire.

After a careful exchange with the viewers,

Josiah learned.

The seed function was quite interesting.

Its existence seemed to be there to help players make up for their regrets.

Since roguelikes are full of random elements, each round players get wildly different things.

The advent of seeds allowed players to lock in and obtain the exact same contents as the previous round.

"With this, can’t excellent runs be infinitely replicated? My God!"

"With seeds, who needs luck!" Josiah hurriedly called his clip assistant to review the footage.

He found the seed from just now.

After quickly entering it,

everything was so familiar.

In the starting treasure room, he found the Onion Head.

Soon after, in another room, he acquired technology 1.

With the experience from the first run, it wasn’t so hard when fighting Meng Sijuo, the first level BOSS, this time.

He quickly moved down to the second level.

As usual, he got the Divine Wind Gloves.

Then he unlocked the hidden room and got Bomberman.

He commenced his wanton bombing spree.

Having already played the second level once, and due to the effect of the seed, it was all the same—it was somewhat tedious to watch again.

Just as the viewers were urging him to hurry up and fight the BOSS to go down to the third level,

a mechanics unlike anything ever seen in roguelikes was inadvertently tested by Josiah.

The entire live stream exploded with excitement!