Horror Game Developer: My games aren't that scary! novel Chapter 54

Chapter 54 - Your account has been reinstated [1]

"Huaam."

For once, I woke up on time.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was 8 AM. Rubbing my eyes and stretching my body, I got out of bed before taking a quick shower and getting ready to work.

'Right, I did say I would check once I woke up...'

As I was brushing my teeth, I turned my attention towards my phone.

I suddenly grew curious about the game.

How was it doing?

Opening the phone, I stared at it nervously, my thumb hovering over the Dock app. My heartbeat was a little too fast as I tapped the icon, watching as the app loaded slowly.

The moment it opened, my eyes were drawn to the account status: Suspended.

My heart sank, just a little, but it wasn't like I hadn't been expecting this. I just hoped they'd have resolved the situation by now.

'It's not strange, though, they usually take a day or two with this stuff.' 

I was still confident I'd get my account reinstated soon enough.

What was most important was to see how the actual game was doing. Did the marketing stunt work or not?

I swallowed my saliva while nervously typing the name of the game in the search bar.

My mind couldn't help but wander to the worst possible scenarios. I started to think about Kyle's reaction and the things I'd have to do in case I failed the mission.

The few seconds it took for me to type the name of the game felt like forever, and once I searched the name of the game and pressed on it, a series of results appeared.

Soon, my eyes fell on my game, and my expression slowly grew slack shortly after.

Tak! 

The toothbrush fell from my mouth, my mind blank.

It took a moment for me to snap out of it, and when I did, I felt the toothpaste slip away from my mouth.

"That... that...."

Quickly whipping the toothpaste away, I blinked to make sure I wasn't seeing things. I even double-checked to see if it was the correct game that I pressed on.

But even as I blinked, no change occurred. It was the right game, and it was all real.

"A-h."

[Recent Reviews] (Neutral) 731 reviews

My hand shook as I stared at the number of reviews that were on the game's page.

While the 'neutral' on the review page meant that the game had mixed opinions, what mattered was the number of reviews.

731...?

That was a ridiculous number of reviews! This was especially so when taking into account that only a small player base would go out of their way to send a review.

This meant that the game had sold quite a lot of copies!

"H-ho."

I could hardly contain my excitement as my chest trembled with each breath, and I started to search for my game on the web.

I wanted to see the reason for its sudden explosion in popularity.

"Is it because of the stream? If so, I should do it more often..." _{ƒгeewёbnovel.com}

However, the moment the first search loaded, my excitement almost faded. In its stead, I found my face slowly starting to stiffen.

"Well..."

This... I wouldn't be sent to jail for this, right?

I didn't even know how to react when staring at the first title that appeared.

[Screams rattle neighborhoods, flooding police lines with panicked calls. The culprit? A game called A Regular Day in the Office]

I clicked on the website to see a long article about the events that transpired this past night, and how several neighborhoods were terrorized by such screams.

"H-haha."

I forced out a laugh before finally looking at the reviews on the game.

The more I read them, the more I covered my face.

[Terrible! Just terrible! I couldn't sleep at all because of this! The police were called, and everyone was questioned! Terrible!" 

[Awful game! Just awful!]

The page was flooded with negative reviews.

Most of them seemed to come from the victims who had suffered the previous night due to the screams. However, there were also quite a few nice reviews right beneath.

[I am not an avid fan of horror games, but I decided to try this because of the stream. The quality of the game is nothing to be proud of. The rendering sucks, and I could tell the developer cut corners in several areas. But... but... despite all of these flaws, the game managed to make me scream. Loud enough to make my neighbors concerned. And for that, I can only give it a high score. I recommend.] 

Beep! Beep!