Agreeing to Create Bad Games, What the Hell Is ‘Titanfall’? Chapter 27: A Cat Rio-like game?

"Oh! Got it, sis! I just refreshed it!"

Shark Live, in the streaming room of Empress Stone Liuliu and Prince Zhuangzhuang of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

The two were real siblings, and whenever they had ti, they'd hop on a stream together. Today was no different.

Hearing her little brother’s shout, Liuliu quickly refreshed her screen as well.

Sure enough, the hopage of the YiYou Platform had been updated with a flashy banner for the Mini Ga Developnt Festival.

"I got it too!"

"Whoa—"

Looking at the dazzling main screen, Liuliu felt overwheld.

"So many gas… my indecisiveness is kicking in."

"They say there are nearly 600 entries," Zhuangzhuang said, "I really don’t know which one to start with."

"Why don’t we look for a multiplayer one first? We can play together," Liuliu suggested.

"Sounds good," Zhuangzhuang replied, and within monts, he had found sothing.

"Hey sis, search for Xingmang Gas. I think their entry this ti is a multiplayer one."

"Xingmang?" Liuliu raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised. "Isn’t Xingmang one of the veteran studios? Didn’t expect them to join this event..."

While talking, she typed "Xingmang Gas" into the search bar.

The search results popped up imdiately.

Sure enough, under Xingmang Gas, a ga titled Brotherhood Adventure had entered the competition.

"All done downloading."

The ga was small, so Liuliu had it installed in no ti.

"Okay, I just invited you to the room."

Zhuangzhuang had already set up a room and pulled his sister into the ga.

As soon as she entered, Liuliu felt a wave of familiarity wash over her.

A rough sketch-style art, two stiff-faced stick figures—one black, one white—question-mark bricks hanging midair, and mischievous clouds drifting overhead.

Everything felt so familiar.

"Wait… is this a sequel to Cat Mario?"

Clearly, the original Cat Mario had left Liuliu with so psychological trauma. Just seeing this art style gave her a mild case of PTSD.

"This looks way too familiar."

"Nah," Zhuangzhuang said, "Cat Mario isn’t by Xingmang. This probably just has a similar art style."

With that, the two entered the ga.

After a brief black screen, a little white figure appeared with “x3” written behind it.

Then, the main gaplay screen loaded.

The little white character, controlled by Zhuangzhuang, stood under a row of question-mark bricks, with two slow-moving mobs approaching from ahead.

"Uh… this..." Zhuangzhuang’s voice was hesitant in the voice channel. "So multiplayer just ans taking turns like in Mario, with three lives each?"

"Looks like it," Liuliu chuckled wryly, a bit let down. "Go ahead and show us your skills, little bro."

"Not much to show off," Zhuangzhuang laughed. "I bet the mont I jump and hit that question mark brick, I’m gonna die."

Sure enough, he made the character leap up and headbutt the brick.

Boom—

The brick exploded on the spot and, just like he predicted, it blew him up.

"See?" Zhuangzhuang didn’t even get mad, he actually looked like he was trying not to laugh. "I totally saw that coming!"

"Pfft, big deal," Liuliu snorted. "You act like you're so master of prediction. Didn’t it take you over 40 lives just to beat the first level of Cat Mario?"

"Hey, that’s harsh, sis," Zhuangzhuang smacked his lips. "I've been through the wringer since then. Just watch—I’ll call every trap before it hits. I guarantee it!"

Then, Zhuangzhuang leapt forward and started making spot-on predictions:

"A monster’s gonna pop out of this pipe…"

"Don’t hit that question block…"

"A row of enemies is gonna fall from above…"

"Touch the cloud, you die…"

In no ti at all, Zhuangzhuang had used up all three of his lives.

The audience started losing interest.

‘This is kinda boring.’

‘Yeah, how co it doesn’t hit like Cat Mario?’

‘True, even though the graphics and gaplay are super similar, it’s just missing sothing.’

‘It just doesn’t have that sa vibe.’

‘It’s not even that hard.’

‘Doesn’t have the sa show-stopping effect Cat Mario had.’

‘Maybe Prince Zhuang's just built different now?’

‘Skip it already…’

Reading the bullet comnts, Liuliu also found it strange.

The ga looked a lot like Cat Mario, so why wasn’t it as fun?

It just felt like… sothing was missing.

Zhuangzhuang, as it turned out, had a sharper sense for this.

"Let tell you exactly what’s missing," he said, reading the confused comnts.

"This ga might look like Cat Mario, but the obstacle design? Not even close."

As a strear who had cleared Cat Mario after dying over 200 tis, Zhuangzhuang had earned his right to speak with authority.

"Cat Mario’s traps are super logical,” he explained. “The designer usually sets a decoy to bait you into ssing up, then hits you with the real trap."

"Basically, every single prediction you make gets predicted by the designer—so you end up getting trolled over and over."

Then he pointed at Brotherhood Adventure.

"But this one? It’s just trap-stacking. The obstacles don’t connect, sotis they don’t even make sense together."

"The reason you’re all not enjoying it or finding it funny is simple—the designer got outplayed by the player."

"When that happens? This kind of ga loses its charm."

His explanation was like a light bulb going off.

The comnts lit up:

‘No wonder he was secretly gaming since he was a kid—he's got insight!’

‘Man, he hit the nail on the head…’

‘His take is so weirdly deep LOL’

‘Makes you wanna cry from how true it is’

‘No joke, this is the sa guy who once smashed his keyboard live. His ga sense is elite!’

‘Yeah, these traps are way too surface-level.’

‘The dev just copied the hard part of Cat Mario, without understanding why it was fun.’

‘Next ga, sis! Skip it!’

Thanks to Zhuangzhuang’s breakdown, the viewers finally understood—Cat Mario, with all its rage-inducing tricks, wasn’t just chaos for chaos’s sake. It had smart design under the hood.

Liuliu nodded along. "Yeah, guess there aren’t many devs who can think through ga logic like that."

"Exactly!" Zhuangzhuang grinned. "Think about it, sis—I started gaming when I was seven. If a dev can make feel helpless like that, they’ve gotta have so serious skills."

Pfft—

Liuliu couldn’t help but laugh.

Then her eyes lit up. "Wait, speaking of Cat Mario, did their company join this dev fest? I rember they were a newer studio, right?"

That jogged Zhuangzhuang’s mory too. He slapped his forehead.

"Oh right! How’d I forget about them?"

After all—

Golden Wind’s two gas had totally hooked him.

With that, Zhuangzhuang closed out Brotherhood Adventure by Xingmang Gas and returned to the YiYou Platform hopage, pulling up the search bar.

"Uh… the company was called Golden Wind…"

"Oh! Found it!"

A ga marked with the "Dev Festival" tag popped up in the results—

Vampire Survivor