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[Game] Chapter 21: Playtester Utaha Kasumigaoka
🕑 Added 2024-11-11 18:05:42 +0000 UTCSunday morning
After having breakfast, Utaha received a call from Ichin. She informed her parents before heading next door.
As Utaha was leaving, her mother, who was busy in the kitchen, peeked out with a teasing smile, saying, "Ah, to be young…"
The doorbell rang, and Ichin, waiting in the living room, came over to open the door for Utaha.
"Good morning, come on in," Ichin greeted.
"Good morning," Utaha replied.
After changing into slippers, Utaha followed Ichin to the living room, where she saw a laptop set up on the table. The screen displayed the game interface, which was far more polished compared to the unfinished version she had previously tested. This time, there was a complete start menu and a version number labeled at the bottom left corner: 0.9.1.1.
"Have a seat. What would you like to drink? Coffee, tea, juice?"
"Coffee, please. Thanks."
As she sat down, Utaha gripped the mouse and clicked on the start button of the game. Yesterday, Ichin had given her feedback on the second volume of her novel, and today, it was her turn to test his game.
Unlike the initial version she played, which only featured a single armored warrior, this time a new character called "Silent" was also available.
"Hmm~~ Draw two cards per turn? This is totally different from the last one. And I can't heal after battles," Utaha mused aloud. After some thought, she chose the familiar Armored Warrior(Ironclad) to play with.
Since brewing fresh coffee took some time, Ichin spent a few extra minutes preparing it. When he returned to the living room carrying two cups of coffee, Utaha had already made it halfway through the first level.
Without enabling higher difficulty modes, the game wasn’t too challenging for each character, especially in the early levels. The main limitations came from the locked relics and cards. With multiple playthroughs, everything would eventually unlock, making these easier stages quite manageable as long as luck didn’t turn against you.
Of course, if the card dealer messes with you, that’s a different story.
"Here you go, freshly brewed coffee," Ichin said, offering a cup.
"Thanks," Utaha replied, pausing her game to take a sip. She smiled and remarked, "You've got everything here, huh?"
"I get tired when developing games, so I bought some coffee to stay energized," Ichin explained. He pulled up a chair beside Utaha and asked, "So far, have you encountered any bugs?"
"No bugs, but sometimes after finishing a room battle, there's a slight lag. Sometimes it's smooth, though," Utaha responded.
"That’s an optimization issue on my part," Ichin nodded thoughtfully, jotting down her feedback in a nearby notebook for further improvements.
Utaha's game continued. Perhaps it was due to the beginner’s protection period, but every card dealt to her by the dealer in each battle room was quite good. She quickly became familiar with the basic strategy: building defense, enduring enemy attack rounds, and then attacking. Utaha even learned how to streamline her deck while passing through the shop, without needing Ichin's reminders.
Before long, she arrived at the last campfire before the first level boss. After upgrading a card, she asked, “I haven’t made any basic mistakes so far, have I?”
“No, you haven't,” Ichin shook his head. “You seem to have a talent for this; you picked it up really quickly. I thought I’d need to give you more tips.”
“The difficulty of this type of game isn’t that high. It mostly just requires some calculations and a bit of luck. Once I got the hang of the mechanics, it didn’t feel complicated at all. It’s actually pretty fun to play,” Utaha said as she entered the boss room.
The boss she encountered was the Slime King, a boss that was not strong at all. For Utaha, as long as she understood its attack patterns, defeating it would be easy. Just as Ichin had thought, once Utaha figured out the boss's movement sequence, she quickly took it down and advanced to the second level.
Upon entering the second level, she noticed that both the regular and elite monsters had increased in difficulty, but it was still within Utaha's capabilities. As she progressed from room to room, she became increasingly cautious, taking more time to strategize.
Finally, after spending an hour, she stood before the boss of the third level. This boss was a dual encounter: one resembled a donut while the other was an orange octahedron, both of which looked formidable.
Even though it was a one versus two situation, Utaha maintained a serious expression and didn’t ask Ichin for hints, instead choosing to figure it out on her own.
Ichin, who was aware of Utaha's deck, mentioned, “If you lose, you can just exit and challenge the boss again.”
“Oh? There’s that mechanic too? That’s nice,” she nodded, then focused intently on the fight.
In her first attempt, she predictably lost, but Utaha quickly exited the game and restarted the boss battle. After two consecutive failures, she finally defeated the dual boss and arrived at a large heart at the end of the level.
Following the prompts, she clicked on the heart, which received a series of damage and was destroyed, but then her character fell.
“Does this count as clearing the game? Ah, did I unlock something?”
“Yes, you could say you cleared it,” Ichin replied with a smile. “However, even after clearing the game, you can continue playing because there are still some cards and relics to unlock. Plus, once you clear it, you can unlock advanced difficulty options. Each time you clear an advanced difficulty, the challenge level will increase by one.”
“That sounds quite challenging.”
Looking at the game that had returned to the main menu, Utaha smiled and said, “I really like this game! When will it be released? I want to support it.”
“Not yet; I still need to find more people to help me test it and identify more bugs for fixing before I can launch an early access version. Oh, right, if you’re not busy…”
As he spoke, Ichin picked up a USB drive from the table and placed it in front of Utaha.
“This contains the game’s running program. You can continue playing at home and help me find more bugs if you can.”
“You want me to be a tester?”
Though she said this, Utaha didn’t refuse and accepted happily, “Sure, I’ll do my best to find more bugs in the game. But who else are you planning to ask for help?”
“Isn’t there a game club at school? I plan to ask those members to help me test it.”
“A tester, huh…”
Utaha suddenly thought of someone and suggested, “I know someone who might be a good fit.”
“Who?”
“A silly golden retriever.”
…
Comments
Some guy
Tftc
