At 11:00 PM, Xie Yunfan sent a message to the power-leveler: “Which floor are you on?”

Hu Fei: “Just passed the fourth floor. Boss, how many floors does this maze have in total?”

Xie Yunfan: “18 floors.”

For a single-player game, an 18-floor maze wasn’t actually that many. If players cleared it too quickly, they’d probably get bored, right? Thinking of this, Hu Fei asked, “Does the difficulty increase with each of the 18 floors?”

Xie Yunfan: “Yes. Have you found any bugs yet?”

“None so far. I’m currently navigating the fifth floor.”

“Thanks for your hard work. I’m going to sleep now. If you find any bugs, record their locations and tell me all at once tomorrow.”

“Understood. Goodnight, Boss!”

Xie Yunfan set his phone to “Do Not Disturb” mode, went upstairs, took a shower, and went to bed.

Having died from overwork in his previous life, he now took his daily routine very seriously. He set an alarm for 11:30 PM every night, forcing himself to rest on time.

He was only 20 years old; he had plenty of time to develop games at his own pace and didn’t need to rush into the rat race of toxic overworking.

While Xie Yunfan slept, Hu Fei only grew more excited as he played.

Pulling an all-nighter was standard practice for a power-leveler. Previously, he only charged 15 RMB to play a ranked match with a client, and after the studio took its cut, he only pocketed 10 RMB.

The boss giving him a 2,000 RMB testing fee was the equivalent of playing 200 matches.

This was a massive gig, and he was determined to do a perfect job. If the boss was satisfied, maybe he would keep hiring him for beta testing in the future! After all, doesn’t a game need to be tested seven or eight times before it launches?

This was a long-term meal ticket!

Energized, Hu Fei continued to navigate the maze while drawing his map, making sure to walk into every single corner to hunt for potential bugs.

---

Early the next morning, Xie Yunfan received a message from Little Hu.

“Boss, the top corner of the sixth floor gets the player stuck; once you walk in, you can’t back out. Also, walking into the corner of the eighth floor causes a crash. I’ve marked all the locations for you.”

It was completely normal for a first-draft build to have issues. Forget a solo dev—even games made by hundreds of professional programmers at top-tier domestic studios had all sorts of bugs.

Games were slowly perfected through continuous revisions.

Xie Yunfan noted the locations of the bugs and replied, “Thank you. Once I fix them, I’ll have to trouble you to test it again. I might need to increase the testing frequency after this—how about I pay you on a monthly basis?”

Hu Fei rubbed his hands together excitedly: “No problem!”

The boss was a man of his word; he had actually sent over a bonus red packet based strictly on the “200 RMB reward per bug” rule. By holding onto this long-term meal ticket, he wouldn’t have to worry about his income anymore.

That afternoon, Ding Dong Music Studio sent Xie Yunfan a few initial sound effects to see if they met his requirements.

Have to admit, the sounds of charring, deep-frying, and skin-peeling were actually quite realistic.

Xie Yunfan asked, “You recorded these sound effects yourselves, right?”

Ding Huaian typed back with a bitter expression: “That’s right, we recorded them in the kitchen. Slaughtering chickens, pan-frying fish, deep-frying rice cakes… we were at it until midnight yesterday and almost burned the kitchen down~”

Xie Yunfan: “…”

Ding Huaian continued: “We also recorded the screams in the studio. The female voice is my senior sister, Mu Qing, and the male voice is me. We recorded several versions so you can choose.”

You guys really went above and beyond. Xie Yunfan opened the audio files. The bloodcurdling screams made his scalp tingle—not bad, this music studio had a promising future. They followed his requirements to the letter.

Xie Yunfan was very satisfied: “The sound effects are great. The background music needs to be original; can you get it to me before December?”

Ding Huaian guaranteed: “No problem!”

The music would be delivered before December 1st, and the art deadline was December 10th. Xie Yunfan planned to officially release the game early next year, ideally catching the winter vacation window.

During winter break, students had plenty of free time for gaming. If it could spread among the college student demographic, he wouldn’t have to worry about the game’s download numbers.

Of course, competition during the winter holidays was fierce. Major publishers would release new games, and classic games would drop expansion packs and new dungeons to retain veteran players. Whether his Underworld Maze could carve a bloody path through the competition was still an unknown.

But he had a lot of confidence in this game—after all, the style was completely unique; there was no substitute for it on the entire internet. As long as he polished it well, word-of-mouth definitely wouldn’t be bad.

Before the game launched, he also needed to set aside time to get a publication license (approval number).

Unless you were just making a game for your own amusement, if you wanted the public to download it, you had to get a “license,” just like publishing a book required an official ISBN.

In his previous world, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television was responsible for reviewing game licenses, and the censorship system was incredibly strict.

The main reason his boss had killed this game concept—aside from thinking it would be hard to monetize—was that getting it past the censors would be too difficult.

In his old world, a gory horror game would have a very hard time passing review.

Fortunately, the game review rules in this world were much more relaxed. Xie Yunfan had looked into it beforehand: this world had an automated review system and a strict age-rating management system.

Category A games were all-ages titles that both the elderly and children could play, mostly casual or puzzle games. Category B games could feature trace amounts of blood or violence and implemented an “anti-addiction” restriction for players under 16.

Category C games fell under “strict control.” Registration was banned for anyone under 18; only adults could play them. Consequently, the content restrictions for this category were much looser.

Xie Yunfan’s game would almost certainly be classified as an 18+ Category C game.

He didn’t make this game to scare kids to death anyway. His target audience was young adults over 18, as well as game streamers and content creators who enjoyed horror, thrills, and challenges.

Rushing the development in December, plus leaving time for the review process…

A winter vacation launch was already considered quite fast.

Xie Yunfan opened his “Mobile Game Producer” software and created an Underworld Maze Project Schedule. He logged the progress of every single component so he could clearly control the overall picture.

Currently, the core framework was progressing the fastest, sitting at around 80%.

Music was at 50%, Art at 20%. Since modeling was kept synchronized with the art, other elements like the UI system, item effects, transition animations, and narrative copy were also slowly being fleshed out.

For the next stretch, Xie Yunfan focused entirely on making the game.

Everything went smoothly, and the various components advanced rapidly. Every two days, new elements were added to his “unfinished house,” and the maze’s content grew richer and richer.

Xie Yunfan loved this feeling—it was like he was building a world with his own two hands.

He tweaked the maze’s architecture several times. By the time he reached the fifth iteration, playtesting couldn’t find a single bug anymore, making this the first component to hit 100% completion.

After his modifications and optimizations, player movement through the maze was finally buttery smooth, and he had added many interesting item mechanics.

On December 1st, Ding Dong Music packaged and sent him the final background music and all the sound effects. Once the audio was imported into the game, the horror atmosphere skyrocketed instantly.

December 10th was the art deadline. Both concept artists were highly efficient and delivered all their pieces strictly on time.

Every time Xie Yunfan received a drawing, he immediately handled the 3D modeling and environment rendering.

Because modeling had kept pace with the art, within a week of the artists submitting their final pieces, all the map and character models were completely finished.

He created the cutscenes and skill effects using a simple “Mobile Game Editor” during the downtime while waiting for the art drafts. Unlike an MMO, a single-player maze game didn’t need flashy, exaggerated effects; as long as the style remained consistent with the game, it was relatively simple to produce.

For the UI system: walking and jumping on the bottom left, using items on the bottom right. The two-handed control scheme aligned with mobile gamer habits. The system menus featured red text on a black background, matching the game’s primary color palette.

The maze didn’t require too much narrative. A short opening dialogue to introduce the background was enough, followed by brief pop-up text when the player encountered an NPC or got a “Game Over.”

Xie Yunfan was swamped during this period.

The game’s content was filled in and polished piece by piece. Finally, by late December, every single progress bar for his game hit 100%.

Xie Yunfan opened the game installer and navigated the player character through the maze himself. A smile crept onto his lips—he had finally finished his first game in this alternate world!

He was very satisfied with the final product and hoped the players of this world would like it too.

Xie Yunfan casually forwarded the installer to Little Hu: “Little Hu, the official version is here! Please get 5 of your power-leveler colleagues to test it together. Same rules as before: sign an NDA, look carefully for bugs, and I’ll pay you all a testing fee.”

Hu Fei had been testing the game frequently lately, watching it evolve from v0.1 to v0.5, and had grown quite familiar with Xie Yunfan. Seeing this message, he immediately replied excitedly: “Awesome! The ‘unfinished house’ versions were already super fun. Once this officially launches, it’s definitely going to be a massive classic hit like Tower of Dreams!”

Not many maze games blew up, but Tower of Dreams was the cream of the crop.

Thanks to its colorful, childlike art style and adorable pet avatars, netizens dubbed it the “most healing casual game in history,” and it was wildly popular with kids.

Hu Fei added enthusiastically: “Once it’s out, I’m going to tell my 7-year-old niece to download it first thing!”

Xie Yunfan: “…There’s really no need for that.”

Hu Fei was puzzled: “Why?”

Xie Yunfan kept him in suspense: “You’ll know once you play it ^^”

Seeing that the other party had sent “Maze Internal Test v1.0”, Hu Fei hurriedly downloaded and installed it.

At the same time, he sent a message to his group chat: “Bros, we’ve got work! A boss needs detailed testing for a game he made. There’s a testing fee, requires signing an NDA. DM me if you’re in, 5 spots, first come first served.”

He quickly received a few private messages and pulled those guys into a smaller group.

“I did MMO testing back in college. I’m a hardcore player, I’m a pro at this!”

“I didn’t get any power-leveling orders today anyway, I’ll join.”

“Little Hu, is this a closed beta? What kind of game is it?”

Hu Fei said proudly: “My boss made it himself! It’s a relaxing, cute casual maze game. I’ve already tested it a few times before. Hold on, sending the installer now.”

Group member “Little Hu” shared an installation package.

Everyone began downloading and installing it while chatting in the group.

“Thanks for hooking us up with cash, Little Hu.”

“If it’s an internal test build, does that make us the very first batch of players? Suddenly feeling a bit hyped.”

“A maze game? Something like Tower of Dreams, right? Piece of cake, easy clear!”

“Isn’t this the kind of game you can play as long as you have hands?”

“Come on, let’s see who clears it first,” Hu Fei said, rolling up his sleeves and opening the app.

The game loaded.

Suddenly, an eerie, bone-chilling track drifted into his ears, sending shivers down his spine, followed immediately by a heart-wrenching, bloodcurdling scream.

“…” Hu Fei jumped at the scream, his mind blanking for a second.

Boss, there’s something very wrong with this soundtrack…

At the exact same time, a power-leveler who had opened the game with a beaming smile couldn’t help but curse out loud: “Holy shit?! Relaxing and casual?!”

Another tester pointed at his phone screen—which displayed an NPC with a ghastly pale face and blood dripping from its mouth—turned to Hu Fei, and yelled: “You call this CUTE?!”

Hu Fei was completely bewildered.

Wait… hold on…

This NPC in a white robe, with a ridiculously long tongue hanging out of its mouth and a face covered in blood?

What the hell is going on? Boss, you definitely sent the wrong installation package!