574 ‘Desperate Escape’

Qiao Liang looked around and sighed with emotion. Boss Pei was always able to come up with new tricks.

The experience of the Thriller Hostel was different from other places.

Basically, all the buildings were remodeled by the old industrial zones so they had a sense of age. At the same time, the style of the entire area was very uniform. There was no feeling that a certain building was particularly outstanding.

The feeling of the entire area was that it was very open, just like a park.

Many amusement parks need to purchase entrance tickets to limit the flow of people so they would appear relatively closed. Tourists were more anxious after entering because time was limited. They all wanted to hurry to the famous projects, queue up, and play so they would not feel at ease to hang out.

What was different here was that they could enter and exit at will. It gave people the feeling of walking in the nearby park, which was more relaxing.

In no time, everyone came to the central square and saw the peculiar maze and healing fountain in front of it.

Looking towards the distance, they could see large workshops where the three projects were located. The road signs clearly pointed out the directions. The names of the three projects were: Desperate Escape, Haunted House Nightmare, and Ultimate Horror.

There were leaflets at the entrance of nearby shops which could be picked up by tourists. In addition to the map of the entire Thriller Hostel, there were also introductions to the different projects.

Someone took a few leaflets and distributed them to everyone.

"Fu*k, the prices differ so much? Desperate Escape is only 10 yuan when Ultimate Horror is 100 yuan?"

"Ultimate Horror sounds like something that spent a lot of money to build."

"'Ultimate Horror' had no introduction, only two words: Don't go? Fu*king advertisement, I'm more tempted to go now…"

"But there is definitely a big problem with this pricing strategy? Reading the introduction, Desperate Escape seems to be a replayable model like Be Quiet. Since it was replayable, shouldn't the price be sent higher? At least 30 yuan?"

"The Ultimate Horror is rather expensive. It's just a large factory space. Many people were scared out of it within five minutes. Wouldn't most people be worried about their wallets and not dare to go?"

"Who knows? Let's enter and see how it is."

It was still the year 2011. Jingzhou was a second-tier city so 100 yuan on a haunted house ticket was relatively high. Of course, Desperate Escape, which cost only 10 yuan, was very affordable.

Since the park was just open and it was still Friday morning, the flow of people had yet to reach the peak. Desperate Escape had a queue, but it was not too long.

They quickly entered the tail of the queue.

Judging from the number of people—other than those wandering around and shopping in the Golden Maze, 70% of the tourists were prepared to experience the first project, 30% went to the second project, and none were at the third. The sporadic few asked about it but were soon told to pass the second project first.

It was obviously best to queue for the first project when there were still few people.

In the process of queuing, Qiao Liang observed the number of people they let in each time. He found that they would let in about a hundred people each time and then wait for fifteen minutes to let the next set of people in.

Qiao Liang looked at the leaflet in his hand again and realized that the interior of this large factory building was divided into ten parts with a total of five different decoration styles. Each of them was more than four hundred square meters which could be experienced by ten people.

Therefore, the queue walked fairly fast, but many tourists from the exit ran to the end of the queue again, seemingly excited and wanted to play a second time.

Qiao Liang and others were in rather advanced positions. It was his turn after waiting for fifteen minutes.

Everyone had seen the specific rules of this project on the sign beside it while in the queue. It gave Qiao Liang the feeling of a simplified version of Be Quiet. The scene seemed to be similar, probably used similar art styles in the game.

That added on to his anticipation.

Before entering the project, a staff handed out a special bracelet to everyone to be returned after the game.

This bracelet seemed to have a heart-monitoring function. It also had a bright and every eye-catching light on it.

Everyone could choose the scene freely before entering. There were mental hospitals, lunatic villages, country hotels, castles, and schools. These scenes were obviously consistent with the classic scenes in Be Quiet, just a miniature version.

Moreover, it was certainly impossible to build an old castle in the factory, just as close as possible in style.

The map was reduced, gameplay simplified, and the pace accelerated. It was obviously to reduce the time required to learn and only retain the most interesting gameplay. It was so that the tourists could understand the gameplay in the shortest time and have fun while at it.

Desperate Escape was a special escape room from the point of view of the rules. All tourists play the role of ordinary people being locked in. Everyone's common goal was to find the decryption spell in the setting, activate it, and find an exit to escape.

The decryption spell was arranged in advance and scattered throughout the entire venue. There were a few dozen of them, but only one dozen of them would be activated in each round which created randomness.

The tourists would be able to accumulate their progress by bringing their wristbands near to the decryption spells. It would be permanently activated, bringing them one step closer to winning the game.

There would be a staff who acted as a lunatic, wandering around the venue. He would have a portable speaker, playing terrifying roars and BGM to remind tourists that terror was approaching

The staff looked like they were trying to capture tourists, but they would not really chase after them lest it caused them to fall and become injured. There were potential safety hazards.

Therefore, the only correct way to play was to search for the decryption spell while the staff slowly patrolled the entire venue. They immediately found a place to hide while the staff approached them.

Moreover, the wristbands given to the tourists were the sanity meter in the game, Be Quiet.

The wristbands would detect the heart rate of the tourists. The color of the wristbands would gradually change color if the heart rate of the tourists rose abruptly or remained high.

Green represented healthy, yellow meant danger, and red meant out of control.

The staff also had a small remote control in their hand. If a tourist were to appear in his field of vision, he could directly change the heart rate calculation up to make it red faster.

Once it turned red, the tourists would not be able to activate the spell through the wristbands anymore. On the contrary, if a tourist with a red wristband appeared within a certain distance of other tourists, there would be a 'contagious' phenomenon where the wristbands of other tourists would also turn from green to yellow and then to red.

However, the game also had a corresponding 'safe house' design in the game. Some specific areas could only be entered by normal tourists, but tourists with red wristbands and staff could not enter the area. In this area, the wristbands would not be affected by the outside world.

Therefore, it was very stupid for a tourist with red wristbands to stare at other tourists to infect them. The best method was still to scare others and spread the infection.

If the players escaped within the time limit, then all the 'healthy' tourists win; if the players fail to escape within the time limit, then the victory would be in the hands of the 'out of control' tourists.

…

Fifteen minutes later, Qiao Liang and the rest left the exit with yearning expressions on their face.

"How interesting, I'm even a little hooked! I want to try it again!"

"I did not have enough of it yet. The sense of substitution is quite strong. It's a little like playing Be Quiet live!"

"That staff really knows his thing. I heard him coming so I quickly hid into the cabinet. He knew I was in the cabinet so he deliberately wandered around and looked through the cracks of the cabinet. My heart was beating so fast in fear that my wristband became yellow!"

"Old Qiao, you're such a scumbag! You actually came out to chase us after your band turned red. Are you still a human?"

"That's right, we almost cleared it, but you came out to stir sh*t. My wristband was originally yellow, but it turned red after I was scared by you so I could only join you."

"That's the rules of the game. The fact is that I won, so?" Qiao Liang retorted.

Everyone said that they had never seen someone so brazen! He might be despised by everyone, but Qiao Liang himself had fun.

He could now understand why so many tourists immediately rejoined the queue after playing it once because it was really addictive!

As a game UP Master, Qiao Liang could see many mature design concepts from the design of this project.

The basic gameplay of this project was actually rather primitive. It was basically a cat and mouse game with the packaging of Be Quiet.

However, when compared to many escape rooms and other haunted house projects, its biggest advantage was in two main points: replayability and moderate sense of horror.

Most escape rooms and haunted houses had the same layouts due to space constraints. One would not want to experience it a second time after one played with it once. However, Desperate Escape was a multiplayer game. Each entry was guaranteed to be different through the random refresh of decryption spell positions.

The staff acting as a lunatic would cooperate in the game according to the different reactions. Every action was random and elusive.

The heart rate change of every player was different. They became 'out of control' at different times; their actions after becoming 'out of control' were different which would affect the overall situation. Therefore, players would need to adopt different strategies every time they played.

This project was moderately scary but was not so scary that people would not dare to participate.

In fact, the game hinted through the atmosphere it created—such as the staff acting as a lunatic, the horror BGM, etc.—to the tourists to be always careful when looking for decryption spells. They should observe and quickly find a place to hide when the BGM approached.

At the same time, the staff moved very slowly and would not really catch people. Moreover, the visibility of the place was not too bad so they would not be overly frightened.

Therefore, even a timid person like Qiao Liang could also stick throughout the process and have fun.

Qiao Liang himself was a loyal 'Be Quiet' player. In his opinion, this project simplified the complicated gameplay in the game and was more suitable for offline plays.

In short, such a fun project only cost 10 yuan per try. He would feel it a waste not to play three or four times!

Qiao Liang looked towards the end of the line. There seemed to be hundreds of people in line. The estimated waiting time was probably going to be more than an hour.

"There are already so many people? Will the queue for this project be at least three hours in the future?" A fan exclaimed.

Qiao Liang shook his head. "Not necessarily. It is normal to have many people in the near future. The Thriller Hostel did their advertisements after all. Many locals in Jingzhou came to experience it. The key was to wait for the first crowd of people to pass to see if such a fever would remain. That is the key to subsequent profitability."

Everyone pondered on this for a moment, thinking that it made sense.

Many haunted houses and amusement parks were very popular when they first opened. However, whether they could survive for long or not would depend on its ability to sustain the crowd after the initial popularity.

"What do we do now?" Someone asked.

Experience Desperate Escape again would need them to queue for at least an hour. It might not be long compared to other amusement parks, but… there were two more projects beside them with a lot fewer people.

"Or shall we try the Haunted House Nightmare? We can only go on to Ultimate Horror after we clear the Haunted House Nightmare anyway," a fan suggested.

"Okay, we're here already anyway." Someone agreed.

Qiao Liang shook his head hurriedly. "I don't want to go! There must be a reason why there are so few people! I'll definitely be scared sh*tless!"

The fans exchanged glances before holding Qiao Liang directly. "All the more we have to go! We agreed to try everything together; no one can dream of escaping!"