Chapter 49: I’m a Tough Guy! What’s There to Be Scared Of?
Listening to the wind in his headphones, and looking at the asylum on the screen in the distance...
Sean paused for a moment.
“Before I keep playing, let me ask you guys something. If... I’m just saying if... what if I say I have a problem, can I not play this?”
"Alright then… how about I turn on the light, okay? Don’t rush."
After saying that, Sean stood up, leaned forward a bit, and hit th...
2025-08-05 00:02:56 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 48: Horror games are as easy as breathing for me
By mid-November, about 70% of Outlast's content was completed.
The remaining 30% mostly involved voice acting, scene building, and cutscenes.
For Lucas, the biggest takeaway from working on Outlast was gaining a much deeper understanding of how to use the game editor.
At the same time, the game’s content still fit well within his monthly 2048 resource limit, so he had no issues there.
Besides game develop...
2025-08-05 00:02:54 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 47 – Players and Industry Buzz
At midnight on October 31st, Lucas uploaded the pre-recorded video to his official account right on time.
He also posted a message: “Guess what the new game is?”
Even though it was late at night, quite a few night owl fans were still keeping an eye on Lucas’s account.
The post quickly caught the attention of some players.
“What’s going on here? Look what I just found—Lucas has a new game?”
“Whoa, he p...
2025-08-05 00:02:52 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 46 – “Down to Earth” Doesn’t Mean Down to the Underworld!
Lucas also got in touch with a motion capture studio to start producing various assets.
At the same time, he led the team in developing Outlast.
The cost of this game wasn’t exactly low, but it wasn’t sky-high either.
After finishing the budget report, the total development cost for the game—including future marketing—was tentatively set at 1 million dollar.
Of course, that number m...
2025-08-05 00:02:51 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 45: Come on, Boss Lucas, Be Human
On October 8th, right after the National Day break, Lucas called Anna, Rachel, and the heads of all departments into his office.
“I already mentioned this before the break—next, we’re going to develop a much larger game.”
“It’ll involve quite a bit of action, so Hector, get in touch with a motion capture studio. We’ll need a lot of that material later on.”
Lucas was talking to a young man who looked about twenty...
2025-08-05 00:02:49 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 44: Outlast
Not even twenty minutes after the interview ended — before Lucas even made it back from the game department to Nebula Games — the media already had their reports published.
“Exclusive Scoop: Nebula Games’ Next Game Might Be…”
“Lucas: I Think I’m a Warrior of Love”
“No New Game Yet, But Lucas Hints That Nebula’s Next Title Could Be a Heartwarming Love Story!”
“Rising Indie Dev Star: The ‘Warrior of Love’ — Lucas!...
2025-08-05 00:02:48 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 43: I Think I’m a Warrior of Love
The award ceremony for the game department’s sci-fi competition was held at the department’s office in Magic City.
Specifically, it was in the conference room of the building.
They called it an “award ceremony,” but it really didn’t live up to that name.
Even though it was during the National Day holiday, the game department still had quite a few staff working.
It wasn’t clear whether they were full-time emp...
2025-08-05 00:02:45 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 42: High Praise
Amid all the discussions from players and the media online—
At 3 PM, the Game Division’s website and all its official channels, including social media account and their game account, all released the latest results.
“To the Moon” won first place in the event, while “Galaxy Heroes” came in second.
Lucas from Nebula Games also got a call from the Game Division.
They invited him to attend the upcoming award ceremony.
At the ...
2025-08-05 00:02:44 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 41: Final Decision
As time passed, To the Moon kept climbing in sales.
At the same time, many media outlets in China that were following the competition started releasing articles.
“Unforgettable Love — ‘To the Moon’ Will Bring You to Tears!”
“Game Review: A Story That Hits You Right in the Heart!”
“Top Contender for the Game Awards — Is ‘To the Moon’ Really a Sci-Fi Game?”
“A Game That Made Countless Grown Men Cry”
2025-08-05 00:02:42 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 40: Hot Topic
In the Magic City Game Division—
At this moment, in the Magic City Game Division, the officials and judges in charge of the sci-fi game jam were holding a meeting to go over the results.
Unlike regular players, these judges have to try every game. So they base their ratings on summaries from their review teams, plus their own gameplay impressions.
Let’s be real—there’s no way they could play through every story from start to finish with so...
2025-08-05 00:02:40 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 39: Then We'll Meet on the Moon
For the first time in the game, the background music changed from instrumental to a song with lyrics.
“Everything’s Alright.”
It felt like the song was singing out River’s feelings.
With the sad music playing, River was slowly removed from Johnny’s life.
At the stairs where Johnny thought he met River for the first time, the platypus and River were both gone. Only a book about the lighthouse was left, flipping in ...
2025-08-05 00:02:38 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 38: What "Going to the Moon" Really Meant
Why did Johnny want to go to the moon?
Because even though his childhood memories had been clouded by beta blockers,
Even though he had forgotten that he had already met River before—
He still remembered that promise.
“If you get lost or forget...”
“Then let’s meet on the moon.”
After River left Johnny, this thought slowly surfaced from deep in his memory.
He had forgotten everything...
2025-08-05 00:02:36 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 37: The Whole Truth
The boy who got hit wasn’t Johnny—it was his twin brother, Joey.
And Joey wasn’t some grandfather’s name, either. After the accident, Johnny’s mom had a mental breakdown and started treating Johnny as if he were Joey.
That’s also when Johnny was given the beta-blockers.
Everything from before finally made sense.
Why Johnny always slept in a double bed.
Why his mom kept calling him Joey.
Even things like his favo...
2025-08-05 00:02:33 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 36: The Truth About to Be Revealed
As the game continued, Eric was starting to feel worse and worse inside.
But Dr. Neil and Dr. Eva were still working, trying to help Johnny become an astronaut and land on the moon.
After all, they’d already signed the contract in the real world.
No matter what, they had to help Johnny achieve his dream.
Time moved forward again, now showing Johnny in high school. That’s when they learn from Johnny himself why he lik...
2025-08-05 00:02:30 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 35: River’s Illness
The whole game uses a reverse timeline structure.
Most players have already figured that out.
With all these questions in mind, the story keeps moving backward.
On the night before River and Johnny’s wedding.
They were both dressed up, sitting by the lighthouse, looking at the moon and chatting.
That night, the lighthouse got its name—Anya.
Under the moonlight, River and Johnny went up to the lighthouse.
Their s...
2025-08-05 00:02:23 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 34 – What Do the Paper Rabbits Represent?
As Eric progressed through the story, Johnny's memories moved from his old age to his middle years.
Johnny was standing by River’s window. By then, River was seriously ill, with a platypus plush sitting at her bedside.
And the floor was covered with paper rabbits.
“There’s just enough. Even after the surgery, we’ll still have just enough left… so don’t worry,” Johnny said to River.
But River just l...
2025-08-04 23:57:51 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 33: Full of Confusion
While chatting with the two kids, Dr. Neil got another piece of information—that Johnny used to visit a lighthouse near the edge of a cliff often, back when he was still healthy.
And Johnny built his house in such a remote place just to be close to that lighthouse? Clearly, something’s going on here!
So Eric followed the two kids toward the lighthouse.
On the way to the lighthouse, everyone started chatting about random stuff, which ma...
2025-08-04 23:57:50 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 32: Why Did It Suddenly Get Spooky?
As the two scientists talked, Eric could finally access the game’s control screen.
The simple, slightly sarcastic dialogue stood out. When they walked up to the squirrel, the back-and-forth between the male and female doctors continued.
“This game’s attention to detail is really solid. The writing too—it’s all very sharp, just like Undertale. Every little thing counts,” Eric said as he played.
For example, when th...
2025-08-04 23:57:49 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 31: First Look at To the Moon
Days passed, and the deadline for the Game Challenge was getting close.
All kinds of game developers and companies uploaded their entries to the official game platform.
These included mobile games and PC games, most of them single-player, though there were a few online games too.
Clearly, some of them were in it to win, while others just joined in for fun.
Since they were already working on a project, they figured they might ...
2025-08-04 23:57:47 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 30: What Did I Do to Deserve This?
“This is the worst roasting a clown has ever taken.”
“Let’s be real—a clown brings people joy. What about Mr. Bell?”
“Come on, hasn’t Mr. Bell brought us enough joy?”
“LMAO, thanks to Lucas I found out about Mr. Bell. I was in a bad mood, but reading his old quotes cheered me up.”
“But seriously, I’m still curious what Lucas’s new game actually is. It just doesn’t sound reliable.”
...
2025-08-04 23:57:46 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 29 – Player Discussion
The next day, at the Nebula Games office, Lucas handed the finished concept draft—along with design notes for main characters like Johnny, River, Watts, and Neil—to Anna and Rachel.
Looking over the concept draft and script in their hands, both Anna and Rachel were clearly moved.
But this wasn’t the time to get lost in the story. They quickly brought up what was on their minds.
“Wait, I thought this was a sci-fi game? Boss Lucas...
2025-08-04 23:57:45 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 28 – To the Moon
“But the event deadline’s only about two weeks away! Can we really make it?” Anna asked doubtfully.
Even though registration doesn’t start until early September…
This announcement had already been posted back in June.
That means most game studios or devs aiming for this contest have already been working on their projects for two or three months.
“Yeah, and for a sci-fi game, we probably don’t have nearly enough people righ...
2025-08-04 23:57:44 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 27: The Next Game
Anna and Rachel looked completely confused.
“You’re not making a sequel to Undertale, and you’re not making another META game either?” Anna just couldn’t wrap her head around it.
Rachel felt the same way.
Right now, the media is still filled with reviews and articles about Undertale.
On game dev forums, where many industry professionals hang out, there’s a ton of discussion analyzing the design and structure of Undertale.
...
2025-08-04 23:57:43 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 26: What's Next
With Undertale earning both great reviews and great sales, the term “META” suddenly caught the attention of tons of designers in the industry.
If we’re only talking about story, Undertale is definitely solid, but that alone wouldn’t have earned this level of praise and success.
Once the META element was added though, everyone who played it had only one thing to say—
it blew them away.
It wasn’t just indie game developers paying...
2025-08-04 23:57:42 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 25: One Million Sales
“Thanks to all the players for your support—Undertale has now sold over 500,000 copies.”
Right after Lucas posted that on his blog—
A bunch of indie game devs and media folks who followed him were stunned.
Why?
Because they’d seen a similar post not long ago.
The game passed 100,000 sales just three days after release. Now, barely a week later, it was already at 500,000?
That growth was insane.
And just li...
2025-08-04 23:57:40 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 24: This is clearly the player’s love!
It had been quite a while, but Jason still couldn’t get over the genocide ending.
He only understood part of the game’s story.
But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he felt extremely down.
The genocide ending… made him feel absolutely terrible.
Yes, he regretted it.
Just like when he played Mirror. At first, he was excited. Then he lost interest and started to wonder why he even launched the ...
2025-08-04 23:57:39 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 23 – The Multiple Endings of Undertale
Even setting the META stuff aside, Undertale’s story on its own is already very well-written.
The game is filled with fun and memorable characters.
Like Sans, who shakes hands with the main character using a whoopee cushion, and his brother Papyrus, who’s obsessed with using puzzles to block the player’s path.
Sans comes off as super laid-back and likes using skeleton-related puns to mess with his brother.
Pa...
2025-08-04 23:57:39 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 22: Praise and Sales—Double Win
As more and more players discovered Undertale, the game’s numbers kept climbing fast.
It had already made its way onto the recommended lists of several third-party platforms.
Even though Lucas, just like in his past life, wasn’t a fan of these parallel-world platforms...
Right now, putting Undertale on those platforms was all upside and no downside. You’d have to be a fool to leave that money on the table.
Even if h...
2025-08-04 23:57:38 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 21: Overwhelming Praise
The next day, Lucas arrived at the office at 7:30 in the morning. But to his surprise, Anna and Rachel were already there before him.
When they saw him walk through the door, both rushed over excitedly.
“It blew up! Boss Lucas, the reviews are amazing!” Anna said, holding a laptop with an excited look.
On the screen was the rating from the official app store.
9.9—an insanely high score.
And that wasn’t even all. By th...
2025-08-04 23:57:35 +0000 UTC
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Chapter 20: The Shock of Breaking the Fourth Wall
What does that mean?
It knows I loaded a save?
It’s talking to me, not the character in the game?
Everything I’ve done has been tracked?
William suddenly felt a chill down his spine. He even looked behind him at the empty office out of instinct.
Clearly, the in-game character Flowey wasn’t talking to the game’s protagonist.
She was talking directly to him—the player sitting in front of the sc...
2025-08-04 23:20:45 +0000 UTC
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