Underworld Maze fell into the category of “troll games,” relying on unpredictable traps to cause unexpected and sudden player deaths, while NPCs constantly mocked them, thereby igniting the players’ competitive spirit and refusal to admit defeat.

This type of game was extremely well-suited for live streaming. However, merely being popular on a few streaming platforms fell far short of Xie Yunfan’s expectations.

One of the avenues to expand its reach was the “Mobile Games Hub,” the largest third-party mobile game download platform, where 80% of mobile gamers went to find new games.

If Underworld Maze could secure a spot on the homepage’s recommendation list, it would be discovered by many more mobile gamers. The probability of this demographic downloading the game was far higher than that of viewers simply watching streams for entertainment.

As a relatively fair “game rating website,” all recommendations on the Mobile Games Hub were automatically ranked by the system based on game data; spots couldn’t be bought with money.

For instance, the “Top Grossing” and “Trending” charts automatically updated at 8:00 AM every Monday with the previous week’s rankings. Due to the high number of games recently launching public betas or expansion packs, and the fierce competition of the winter break, Underworld Maze‘s download and revenue figures weren’t high enough to break into these charts just yet.

Xie Yunfan wasn’t in a hurry. His game had only been out for three days. Next week would be when Underworld Maze truly started to exert its strength.

Of course, promotion on social media platforms couldn’t be ignored either. Weibo in this alternate world had over a billion users. If he could spark concentrated discussions, it could elevate the game’s popularity to another level.

Xie Yunfan logged onto Weibo. His studio account currently had fewer than 200 followers. To get more players to follow the official account, he needed to post some interesting content.

What kind of content would be best?

Xie Yunfan thought for a moment and decided to post the background lore of Underworld Maze.

Players here were very unfamiliar with the lore of the Underworld, making it the perfect opportunity to educate them on the origins and stories of the NPCs. With a more fleshed-out background, players would find more enjoyment in playing the game.

Xie Yunfan opened his computer and began designing graphics.

He adjusted the size of the original artwork for the Black and White Impermanence and placed it on the left. On the right, he wrote out a general character introduction, their background stories, and their duties in the Underworld in text.

From now on, all Underworld NPCs would be presented in this uniform format, with the color scheme adjusted according to their attire, treated as a “poster series” for easy collection and understanding by the players.

By the time he finished the lore poster for the Black and White Impermanence, it was already 11:30 PM.

Xie Yunfan saved the image, took a shower, and went to bed, planning to pick a suitable time to publish it later.

---

On the morning of Monday, January 23rd, the rankings on the “Mobile Games Hub” updated right on time.

The new game Elf Kingdom, developed and operated by “Dream Wings,” once again seized the number one spot on both the Top Grossing and Trending charts with formidable momentum!

In second place was the shooter game Desert Island Crisis, which had an incredibly broad player base. Rumor had it they had released a bunch of new season limited-edition weapons and a lottery for out-of-print weapons, driving players crazy with microtransactions.

The games ranked 3rd to 10th were all old titles operated by well-known companies.

Xie Yunfan’s Underworld Maze was nowhere to be found on the homepage.

He clicked on “More Rankings” and scrolled all the way down… Finally, at 105th place, he spotted the familiar black-and-red game icon, looking pitifully mixed in among a bunch of famous games.

It was fine. He believed Underworld Maze would slowly climb its way up.

At the same time, at the Dream Wings Group’s operations headquarters.

Fang Jiming, the Operations Director for Team C, glanced at the Mobile Games Hub rankings and said with satisfaction, “Excellent! With our carpet-bombing marketing, Elf Kingdom has once again taken the number one spot on both charts. Our revenue this month will definitely look great. We need to keep this up.”

He scrolled down as he spoke: “Let’s see how the other games are doing.”

Because the data from “Mobile Games Hub” was considered authoritative, companies within the industry frequently referenced this chart. As Fang Jiming scrolled down, most of the games were familiar products from competitors, along with some works from other operations teams within Dream Wings…

Wait, why does this game look a bit familiar?

Fang Jiming paused and turned his head to ask, “Little Chen, Underworld Maze… is that the game made by Sailboat Studio, the one we contacted before?”

His assistant, Little Chen, replied immediately, “Yes, Director Fang. You asked me to contact their manager and offer a 2 million buyout for the copyright, but they rejected it.”

Fang Jiming raised an eyebrow and scoffed, “This game only has a hundred thousand downloads or so, and it’s ranked way past 100. If they had known better and handed it over to us to operate, it wouldn’t have just achieved these results… Young people nowadays really have eyes bigger than their stomachs; they have no clue about their own actual capabilities!”

Little Chen agreed, “Yeah, who knows which operations company they ended up finding. The game has already launched, and I haven’t seen a single trending search for it.”

It was true; he hadn’t seen a single trending search. It had flopped without making a splash.

A niche game like this didn’t warrant any more of his attention.

Fang Jiming quickly ignored Underworld Maze and continued scrolling down… It was just a messy clump of small games, with few worth noticing. He closed the rankings, stood up, and said, “Tell everyone there’s a meeting at 10:00. The second wave of events needs to start warming up.”

At 10:00 AM.

Uploader Black Bird woke up, opened his backend, and took a look… Holy crap?!

Overnight, his followers had increased by 200,000?!

Black Bird rubbed his eyes, both surprised and delighted. He was just about to share this good news with someone when he suddenly received an internal private message from “Little Sailboat”: “Black Bird, I think the video you edited was very interesting. Could you edit another one for me? I can pay.”

Black Bird hurriedly replied, “Boss, I’ll edit it for you for free, no charge! After yesterday’s video was published, I gained 200,000 followers! The popularity of your game has already taken off, and I was just worrying about lacking material.”

Last night, Underworld Maze had stayed on the homepage of A-Site’s Top Ten Trending Videos for a full four hours due to the high level of discussion, netting Black Bird 200,000 new followers.

Other uploaders were green with envy—this windfall of traffic was too enviable.

Some uploaders opened their private messages, remembering how they had previously rejected Sailboat Studio’s promotional offer, and their intestines instantly turned green with regret… They simply hadn’t expected this kind of game to become popular!

How did Black Bird foresee that this game would be a hit?

In reality, Black Bird was just too broke recently; seeing the promotional offer, he shamelessly accepted it. He never expected that by sheer luck, he would become the first uploader to recommend Underworld Maze and reap such massive benefits.

He remained deeply grateful to “Little Sailboat.” Not only was the boss quick to pay, solving his financial difficulties, but he also allowed him to ride the coattails of success and gain some popularity.

With such a great patron, he definitely had to collaborate more in the future!

Black Bird asked eagerly, “Boss, what kind of video do you want edited?”

Xie Yunfan replied, “Make a compilation video of the various ways streamers die in Underworld Maze. I’ve recorded some live stream footage here, and you can also check out other gaming streamers on Blue Fish and Civet TV over the next two days. Compile them and edit together a funny video.”

A compilation of streamers dying? Editing this kind of video was so wicked!

But the viewers would definitely love watching it. The boss’s promotional ideas were truly bizarre.

Black Bird received the footage: “Alright, I’ll get to editing right away. A compilation of streamers dying, set to some troll music, edited in a comedic style, right?”

Xie Yunfan: “Yes, thanks for your hard work.”

Black Bird: “You’re too polite, Boss!”

During the peak streaming hours at 8:00 PM, Black Bird clicked into the Blue Fish live streaming platform and found quite a few streamers broadcasting this game.

Every live room was filled with the sounds of streamers breaking down.

“Holy shit!”

“Save me, save me!”

“Fam, my mental state is collapsing!”

Watching them individually was already very entertaining. If he edited clips of the streamers dying in various creative ways into one compilation video… it would truly make the viewers die laughing.

Black Bird hurriedly opened his screen recording software. Using two computers, he opened several live rooms simultaneously, recording any interesting clips he saw.

After gathering the footage, he began editing the video seriously, even picking a very funny background track.

“Underworld Maze: A Compilation of Creative Streamer Deaths!”

…

On Tuesday evening, Black Bird sent the edited video to Xie Yunfan.

Xie Yunfan praised, “It’s very interesting. Go ahead and publish it officially.”

The video made by this uploader was concise and sharp, without a single word of nonsense. The opening grabbed attention immediately, and the pacing of the background music was perfectly timed, doubling the comedic effect.

The streamers cursing while repeatedly dying, scrambling and crawling through the maze, paired with funny music and appropriate bleeps for the swearing, had Xie Yunfan thoroughly amused.

Black Bird published the video with trepidation.

He wondered if this video would be as popular as the last one.

He nervously refreshed the backend.

Over the past few days, thanks to the promotion by various streamers, Underworld Maze had gained more and more players, and Black Bird was currently the only uploader making edited videos of this game.

As soon as the video was published, the bullet comments exploded.

[Hahaha, laughing like crazy!]

[The uploader is amazing for making this kind of compilation video.]

[The streamers died so miserably, but I just want to laugh~]

[That girl who hit the pillar at the corner and got scorched made me die laughing!]

[The one who fell into the ice hole yelling for help is so funny too!]

[Hahaha, getting stabbed to death right at the exit, the streamer’s mental state definitely collapsed.]

[I heard so many bleeps, I can only imagine how dirty the streamers were cursing at the time.]

[This game is toxic!]

Black Bird watched the dense, snowflake-like bullet comments, his face full of pleasant surprise.

It seemed he had mastered the code to generating traffic?!

One hour after its release, the video “Underworld Maze: A Compilation of Creative Streamer Deaths” once again surged onto A-Site’s Top Ten Trending Today list.

Passing viewers couldn’t help but laugh out loud after taking a look.

The comments in the comment section were also skyrocketing.

“What is this game? It looks so psychopathic!”

“Where can I download it?”

“You can find it by searching directly on the Mobile Games Hub.”

“Is it worth 15 bucks? People who have played it, tell me.”

“It’s a game from a new studio, the quality is quite good. I think it’s worth the price.”

“A 15-buck buyout is relatively generous, no extra spending. Even if you get stuck temporarily, you can play it slowly.”

“Highly recommended, this game is really fun.”

“I’m playing it right now, dying miserably, but it’s very addictive!”

Xie Yunfan looked at the constantly refreshing comments, feeling a bit complicated.

His game had generated its first batch of spontaneously recommending “organic fans.”

This was truly wonderful!

---

Many gaming uploaders on A-Site discovered the traffic goldmine that was Underworld Maze.

Hitting the site’s Top Ten Trending list two days in a row—was this game really that popular lately?

Maybe I should also edit a video guide or something? Otherwise, I’ll look so out of touch, not even having played the ‘Underworld Maze’ that netizens complain about every day!

A-Site had a defining characteristic: once a certain game, TV show, or movie became popular, it would trigger a “team building” among uploaders. Complaint videos, recommendation videos—various types of videos would swarm out like bees.

On Wednesday afternoon, a well-known uploader with over 1 million followers released a complaint-style video: “A Review of Those Bizarre Traps in Maze Games.” In it, besides classic old games, he also mentioned the new game Underworld Maze, praising its trap design.

On Wednesday night, another well-known gaming uploader released a video: “A Different Kind of Horror Maze: A Comprehensive Review of the New Game.”

In just a few short days, edited videos about Underworld Maze multiplied, presenting the first wave of explosive, geyser-like growth!

Following its explosive popularity in the gaming streamer circle a few days prior, the four words “Underworld Maze” now bathed A-Site’s gaming section in blood—

Underworld Maze: An Analysis of the Different Gameplay Styles of the 18 Levels of Hell

Recent Generous Game Recommendation: First Experience with Underworld Maze Nightmare Mode!

Looking at the Development Prospects of Single-Player Mobile Games Through Underworld Maze

Some Thoughts on the Creation of the Horror Atmosphere in Underworld Maze

Different uploaders, different video styles, analyzing this game from various angles.

This momentum of breaking out of its niche circle was simply unstoppable!