Parallel World Game Developer

Chapter 4: Chapter #4: Top Recommended!

In just one day, Ethan Vale’s game shot to the number one spot on the Nexus download charts. The massive spike in traction was entirely thanks to Silver’s broadcast.

Countless clip channels and gaming news accounts had ripped the funniest moments from the VOD. They flooded social media with compilations of him gnashing his teeth and destroying his peripherals.

The short, thirty-second clips perfectly captured his descent from a rational, composed human being into a completely unhinged primate. Just watching the video—seeing that little pixelated man in the cast-iron cauldron fall—was enough to give anyone phantom chest pains.

Because Silver’s reaction was so hilariously abstract, the algorithm pushed the clips far beyond the usual gaming circles, landing on the feeds of ordinary people.

[Casual_Scroller: this is so funny. I don’t even play games but is this actually how gamers act? 💀]

[Cynical_Steve: feels staged tbh. good marketing stunt for the dev though]

[milfSlayer69: honestly looks pretty simple. marketing team popped off]

[voidwalker_gg: nah I’m a Silver sub, there’s no script. I watched him malding live for four straight hours]

[jesus_is_real: I’m gonna go try it, looks easy enough]

There were simply too many clips of Silver’s meltdown circulating online. Every single frame of that four-hour stream was premium content.

"Is his mouse made of hot lava? Why is he throwing it across the room just because he fell?" Zoe asked, watching a compilation video her viewers had linked in her chat.

The moment the man in the cauldron slipped, the video showed Silver launching his mouse at the wall, dragging his hands down his face in pure, unadulterated panic.

"He’s over-exaggerating so much. Is the game really that broken?" Zoe bit her thumbnail, staring at her monitor with a teasing glint in her eyes. "I have to admit, the guy knows how to farm content. He knows exactly what his audience wants."

"No, I’m going to give it a try. I don’t believe it’s actually that tilting," Zoe said, shaking her head. She shifted her shoulders, giving the webcam a playful, confident smile.

[imdrax18: u couldn’t even beat Boba’s time in Mario]

[CriticalHit88: TOS mods are watching Zoe careful now]

[MooseTracks47: dev is about to claim another victim]

[quietly_gaming: she’s gonna get banned if she keeps edging the mods LOLLOLOL]

Zoe didn’t bother responding to the chat’s teasing. She was entirely used to the back-and-forth banter with her audience, taking their jokes in stride.

A soft chime from her desktop signaled the Nexus download had finished.

"I’m telling you guys, I am not going to break down over a two-dollar indie game," Zoe promised confidently before booting up the executable.

... xz

Half an hour later, that confidence had completely evaporated. Zoe’s usually flawless hair was a frizzy mess.

She kept aggressively running her hands through it every time the hammer slipped.

"I’m seriously asking, who designed this garbage?" she snapped, glaring at the monitor. "Does this developer need a psychiatric evaluation? Are they okay?"

Another thirty minutes passed.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The entire webcam feed shook violently as Zoe slammed her palms down onto her desk. The relentless pounding sounded like a localized earthquake.

[voidwalker_gg: earthquake warning LOL]

[sunfish_real: I wish I was that desk T_T]

[MooseTracks47: nature is healing Zoe is slamming the desk again]

[quietly_gaming: just give up Zoe the hammer always wins]

[imdrax18: another streamer broken]

With one final, violent slap to the desk, her water bottle tipped over. The cold liquid spilled directly across her expensive mechanical keyboard, pooling over the keys and the desk mat.

Normally, if she ruined a piece of streaming equipment, Zoe would have instantly started swearing up a storm.

But this time, she stared down at the puddle of water, a wide, unconcealable smile spreading across her face.

"Oh no! The water spilled! It spilled everywhere!" Zoe gasped, her voice dripping with fake devastation. "My keyboard and mouse are totally soaked! I can’t play the game anymore! I’m so incredibly sad!"

She threw her hands up in mock defeat. "It’s not that I want to quit, guys, it’s just that my gear is ruined. You all saw it happen."

"I have to wait until I get a replacement before I can play again," she continued. "It’s a shame, too. This game is actually really easy. If my hardware hadn’t shorted out, I would have cleared it by now."

The stream chat instantly filled with a wall of question marks calling out her blatant excuse. Zoe swiftly alt-tabbed out of the game, only to be greeted by an automated pop-up from the Nexus storefront.

"You’ve been playing for a while, please leave a review! Would you recommend this to a friend?" Zoe read aloud. She immediately reached for her supposedly ’waterlogged’ keyboard and began typing at lightning speed.

[ZoeStream: This game is incredibly simple. Honestly, you just need hands to beat it.]

After hitting submit, Zoe immediately pulled up Discord and found her friend and fellow streamer, Boba. A wicked, malicious grin spread across her face.

"Bo, you have to play this game I just found. I highly recommend it!"

Sending that recommendation instantly lifted Zoe’s spirits. She finally understood why the entire Nexus review page was flooded with ’Very Easy’ scores.

Every single one of these reviewers was just as evil as she was! None of them had an ounce of basic human decency.

Would a good person trick someone into playing a psychological torture simulator? Of course not. But in the gaming community, this wasn’t considered a trick. This was just a highly effective, word-of-mouth recommendation!

Across the city, Boba was already live on her own broadcast. When the notification chimed, she pulled up her second monitor. "Oh wow, Zoe just sent me a DM!"

"She’s asking me to play a game called Getting Over It. Is it any good chat?" Boba murmured, opening the Nexus client. She had been asleep before her broadcast started and had completely missed the viral clips tearing across the internet.

"Zoe is so sweet for recommending this! Look at these reviews, the scores are insane!" Boba’s eyes widened in surprise as she scrolled through the store page.

It had been a long time since she had seen an indie game with such universally positive feedback. Of course, the game had a few negative reviews sprinkled in.

But the reasons for the negative reviews were just as inexplicably vague as the positive ones, all boiling down to variations of ’it’s too easy.’

"If everyone is saying the same thing, it must be a masterpiece!" Boba said excitedly. She clicked the purchase button without hesitation; a two-dollar price tag was essentially pocket change to her.

But just as she was excitedly waiting for the installation to finish, she noticed a massive shift in her stream chat. Everyone was spamming the exact same question.

[imdrax18: DO YOU REMEMBER THE BET?]

[MooseTracks47: the swear jar bet from 3 days ago Bo]

[voidwalker_gg: $50 for every swear word ROFL]

Boba frowned, her brow furrowing behind her glasses. She thought for a solid two minutes before her eyes lit up in realization.

Three days ago, she had confidently set up a challenge for herself live on stream: for every swear word she let slip, she had to drop fifty dollars on the broadcast.

"I remember now! The fifty-dollar swear jar!" Boba announced, pointing confidently at her webcam. "Don’t worry, guys! I’m a woman of my word. Look, I haven’t dropped a single bad word in three whole days."

"If I curse even once, I’ll drop fifty gifted subs right then and there. I don’t back down!" she declared proudly, puffing her chest out in defiance.

Still, as the game executable booted up, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of suspicion. Why was chat suddenly so hyper-fixated on the swear jar rule right at this exact moment?

She felt like she was missing a crucial piece of context, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

The screen faded in, and Boba immediately burst into laughter when she saw the bizarre, shirtless man wedged into a cast-iron pot.

"What the hell is this character model?" Boba giggled. "He looks so incredibly stupid!"

— — — — —

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