Parallel World Game Developer

Chapter 2: Chapter #2: Silver’s Descent Into Madness

The stream chat was already moving at a rapid clip, a wall of emotes and text laughing at the sheer absurdity of the premise.

For the viewers, watching streamers suffer through the janky, half-baked graduation projects of these new designers was premium content. No normal gamer would ever actually spend real money on these bizarre, inexplicable student games.

The file size was incredibly small.

In the time it took Silver to adjust his microphone, the download had already completed and installed.

"Look at this game description," Silver chuckled, leaning closer to his monitor. "I’ll read it for you guys. ’This is a rewarding rock climbing game, designed to train the player’s mentality. If possible, I hope everyone can play this game with a smile. After clearing the level, you can sincerely say something: It’s very simple!’"

A soft chime from the Nexus client confirmed the installation was ready. Silver cracked his knuckles and focused on the center of his screen.

"Alright chat, today we are playing Getting Over It," Silver announced, his broadcasting voice slipping into its usual smooth, confident cadence. "Let’s get this first run started and see what this kid cooked up."

He clicked the play button with a grin. The screen faded in to reveal a bizarre, shirtless man wedged halfway into a black metal cauldron.

The man gripped a slightly rusted climbing hammer in his calloused, sun-beaten hands. With no visible lower body to speak of, the strange protagonist just sat heavily in his pot on top of a patch of earthy, brown dirt.

"I saw the thumbnail and thought this guy was dressed for hard manual labor," Silver said, staring at the screen with a mixture of amusement and utter disbelief. "But looking at him in-game... he really is doing hard labor! Half his body is a pot!"

The mechanics were instantly clear, though bizarre. The protagonist held the hammer with both hands, relying entirely on the tool to push, pull, and hook onto surfaces to drag his metal-bottomed body forward.

Watching the sheer jankiness of the game screen, the chat immediately started tearing into it.

[voidwalker_gg: I would literally never buy this garbage in my life LMAO]

[CriticalHit88: I admire Silver for not refunding it on sight]

[xXSlayer99Xx: what is that character model 💀]

[sunfish_real: game design major? the industry is doomed]

[MooseTracks47: mods ban him, don’t let this dev graduate]

[quietly_gaming: honestly it’s so bad it’s hilarious]

[voidwalker_gg: the dev just wanted to meme on stream]

"It really is something else," Silver commented, glancing at his second monitor. "What is this dev trying to say here? Is this an artistic statement on physical disability?"

He jiggled his mouse experimentally. On screen, the man in the cauldron mirrored the movement, swinging the heavy hammer in a jerky arc.

Pressing the hammer down hard against the dirt physics object, the little man suddenly vaulted into the air, flopping heavily forward.

"You know what, guys?" Silver raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised. "Don’t knock it. This control scheme actually feels kind of... fluid? It’s weirdly decompressing."

He adjusted his grip on his mouse, controlling the cauldron-man to vault directly onto a small, sloping rock.

The physics response of launching upward while encased in cast iron actually felt surprisingly responsive.

Just past the starting slope stood a solitary, simple little tree with bare branches. It was a strange set piece; in a landscape constructed entirely of earthy brown rocks and scattered junk, the lone tree stood out sharply against the background.

Silver couldn’t help but glance at it as he dragged his character past. At the time, he didn’t understand why it was placed there.

Looming just ahead was an uneven rock wall, composed of jagged, overlapping stones.

As one of the top gaming creators on the platform, Silver’s gamer intuition kicked in immediately. He read the geometry of the level design in a single glance.

He swept his mouse upward. The hammer in the character’s hands rose high, hooking cleanly onto a protruding lip of the rock wall.

With a slight, practiced flick of his wrist, Silver launched the cauldron-man up, landing safely on the top of the cliff.

"Oh, I see how it is!" Silver laughed, taking one hand off the mouse to gesture at the screen. "It really is very, very simple!"

It had only taken him seconds to decode the core gameplay loop. It was a pure physics-based climbing game; you just had to manipulate the hammer with your mouse to scale the obstacles.

But just as he triumphantly placed his hand back on the mouse to continue his ascent, the optical sensor caught an erratic twitch.

The sudden, violent input caused the hammer to strike the rock, violently shoving the protagonist right off the ledge he had just conquered.

With a heavy, metallic clank, the cauldron slammed back down into the starting dirt.

Silver blinked, completely stunned. He looked down at his own hand. ’Was the physics engine really that sensitive?’ he thought. He had only moved the mouse a fraction of an inch too far.

"Just a tiny mistake, chat, no big deal," Silver said, nodding coolly to his webcam. "Let’s do that jump again."

Despite his nonchalant tone, his mind was racing, recalibrating the mouse sensitivity in his head.

It had only been a ten-foot drop from a single rock, but the sheer suddenness of the fall had made his heart skip a beat.

The game’s background track—a gentle, soothing jazz melody—continued to loop, entirely unbothered by his failure.

Just as he dragged the character back to the rock wall to attempt the jump again, a deep, calm male voice cut through the music, delivering a dry, rambling narration.

"Well, thank you for starting this journey with me," the voice over the speakers resonated, smooth and perfectly modulated. "Whenever you want to quit, I can understand. Just find a safe place to stop, and quit. Don’t worry, I’ll always save your progress... even if you make a mistake."

The moment that last line landed, the stream chat absolutely exploded.

[milfSlayer69: LMAOOOO THE NARRATOR]

[CriticalHit88: bro this dev can’t code but he knows how to tilt people]

[MooseTracks47: KEKW he’s actively mocking you]

[sunfish_real: one mistake and the game is already taunting]

[voidwalker_gg: alright I’m buying this just to leave a bad review and refund it]

[quietly_gaming: Silver is malding already]

The smug, philosophical timing of the narration completely derailed Silver’s train of thought. A dull buzz of irritation flared in his temples.

’This kid actually built a system just to attack the player’s mentality!’ he realized.

Silver let out a sharp, angry laugh. He gripped the mouse tighter, refusing to let a student project get the better of him.

He guided the cauldron-man forward again, his movements deliberately slow and hyper-cautious.

But the more careful he tried to be, the more rigid his wrist became, and the more brutally unforgiving the game’s physics revealed themselves to be.

Moving the mouse controlled the hammer’s arc, but the character’s rigid arm joints severely restricted the pivot points.

The control scheme was deeply, intentionally anti-human. If you didn’t perfectly account for the angle of leverage, the hammer would simply launch you violently backward into the void.

If the first fall had been simple carelessness, the next dozen falls were a systematic dismantling of his ego.

For three grueling, agonizing hours, Silver threw himself at the same obstacle course, his renowned composure slowly fracturing into dust. He was on the verge of a total meltdown.

"Don’t worry chat, don’t worry. We just need to stabilize," Silver muttered, his face inches from the monitor. "Hook it, take off, and pull up."

He gripped the mouse with a white-knuckled intensity, desperately forcing his right hand to stop shaking.

The cauldron-man vaulted high into the air, soaring toward a treacherous upper ledge.

Silver held his breath, gently nudging the mouse to hook the very tip of the hammer onto the lip of the rock wall.

But after three hours of a death grip on his peripherals, his palms were slick with sweat.

Right as the hammer head made contact with the digital stone, a micro-tremor ran through Silver’s hand.

Squeak—

The sickening, high-pitched screech of metal slipping on rock echoed through his headset.

The hammer lost its purchase, and the man in the cauldron began plummeting rapidly back down the mountain. Silver’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.

"No, don’t!" Silver screamed, panic entirely hijacking his voice. "Don’t! God, please! No—!"

His mournful roar blasted out to tens of thousands of viewers in the live broadcast.

Desperate, Silver jerked the mouse violently in mid-air, trying to blindly hook the hammer onto a passing outcropping to arrest his fall.

But the physics engine was merciless.

The metal hammer merely slammed against a flat surface, and the resulting kinetic recoil instantly punted the character far out into the open sky.

He had just lost everything.

The cauldron-man sailed backward, falling past the perilous orange cliffs he had spent an hour conquering, past the nightmarish tower of discarded furniture, plunging through the open blue sky until he slammed squarely into the familiar, earthy brown dirt of the starting area.

The protagonist sat there, entirely unfazed, still holding his hammer high in the air.

Clang!

The freefall had lasted a full three or four seconds. In that agonizing window of time, every single viewer watching the broadcast felt a phantom pain twist in their own chests.

The loss of progress was physically painful to watch.

Staring blankly at the screen, Silver saw it. Standing right next to his fallen character was that familiar, solitary little tree with its bare branches.

The starting line.

Right on cue, the soothing jazz swelled, and the calm, deep male voice began its slow, mocking philosophizing once more.

"No feeling can be more unforgettable than starting over," Ethan’s recorded voice murmured softly. "It feels like... like the day before a major assignment is due, and you accidentally delete the file. Well, that’s what I did. Starting over is harder than starting up. If you’re not ready—like you’ve had a bad day, and you’re dealing with stress you shouldn’t have to face at your age—you can take a break and come back. I’ll be right here for you."

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