(Warning: This article contains a lot of spoilers)
On January 21, an ADV game called "Heavy Dependence on Anchor Girls" (hereinafter referred to as "Heavy Dependence") was launched on Steam. On its description page, the producer wrote: "The live streamer named 'Super Cutest Angel Sauce' has a strong desire to be recognized by others, and players need to help her with her daily live broadcast... And at the same time trying to increase her number of fans... Whether the story has a happy ending or not, you need to look for it. ”
I've been looking forward to Heavy Dependence for a long time. On the one hand, almost everyone will see the introduction as a "sick female anchor little boyfriend simulator" and be eager to try the fun that may appear in the game; on the other hand, several countries I follow have predicted early that the game will be broadcast live on the day of release - playing "Heavy Dependence" as a "network anchor" will most likely create an unparalleled program effect.
After actually playing Heavy Dependency and watching the live stream of the plural Vup, I must admit that it expresses far beyond my expectations. "Heavy Dependence" is not just a female anchor's little boyfriend simulator - it tries to use a cynical narrative to dissect the essence of the anchor, the audience and even the Internet, using everything that happened to a beautiful girl with serious mental problems in the dream of the anchor in just 30 days to discuss the modern people who grew up on the Internet and the redemption we expect.
All of the game's scenes take place on a desktop computer with an old-fashioned Windows system installed. Players who are called "A P" by the beautiful girl "Sugar Candy" have to be producers and lovers for 30 days to help Sugar Candy, who incarnated as "Super Cute Angel Sauce" (Super Sky Sauce) in the live broadcast, get out of the shadows and become a million-fan anchor step by step from earning rent.
Like the traditional cultivation game, Sugar Sugar has four indicators that affect the plot and ending, such as the number of fans, favorability, pressure, and darkness, of which the last three overflow or zero will almost lead to the direct end of the game; each day is divided into three time periods: morning, evening, and evening, and players can choose what Sugar Sugar does in each time period. It is worth mentioning that only night can be broadcast live, and most live content will increase the pressure of sugar sugar.
In addition to live broadcasting, A P can let Sugar Sugar go out to collect style, play games, watch videos, brush forum anonymous versions or self-search, these actions will not only affect the indicators, but also bring live content and materials to Sugar Sugar: for example, going out to collect style will increase goodwill, reduce pressure and darkness, and trigger the topic of "buying a new little dress", leading to live broadcast content such as "live try-on". In addition to these normal behaviors, the game also has options such as "drugging", "doing color things", and "dating" - naturally, they are all convenient means of stress reduction; but over-reliance on these means will obviously lead to the consequences of getting out of control.
Therefore, all the player has to do is to play a gentle "little boyfriend", while balancing the various indicators of sugar and sugar, arrange as much live content as possible, and let her get more fans before the 30-day deadline arrives - if that is all, "Heavy Dependence" may just be a fun hot sketch game.
You see, in the game's introduction page, the producer specifically mentioned that "whether it is an individual, a legal person, a profit, a non-profit, etc., you can use the game image in the video and live broadcast for introduction, live, commentary, etc.", which makes people have to suspect that it is deliberately made to achieve the program effect of "the anchor plays live, and the fans take care of themselves" - this thing really happened.
In Station B, there are many anchors, especially virtual anchors, who have a shallow taste of the game in the live broadcast, and the communication with the audience is often focused on the similarity between sugar candy and themselves - this is understandable. Although the sugar candy in "Heavy Dependence" is set as a female anchor who appears in the real person, the process of its first transformation on the broadcast, the operation of the surface Tweet (oh, it is "Tuibo") and the huge contrast between the scale and the synchronous update, and the completely different personalities of "The Man in the Middle" and the "Holster" all look closer to the form of VTB.
Traversing the stories that have happened in the V circle in the past few short years, you will find that Sugar Sugar's overslaught with Ah P while raising gachi blog posts in the game, privately scolding Ah Zhao for being disgusting in the surface thanks to everyone's attention, habitual vomiting because of excessive intake of drugs and huge pressure from Sunspots, etc. have all really happened in reality.
Among them, the most familiar is the easy to use soft business. As long as you put down your body to try soft, the number of sugar candy fans will take off in an instant; and the mentality of the anchor will change in the process. In the end, Sugar Sugar even decided to carry out a *H-free live broadcast, if this option is really chosen, then the live broadcast room will be blocked, and the game will end directly - just in response to the phrase soft goes fast, but not necessarily far.
On this point, the game also discusses the stories of the Up lord who mixed soft pornography in the main business for the sake of popularity through Sugar Sugar and Ah P's Jine chat, and finally abandoned the main business - in today's day, we often call this transformation "volume", and this reality seems to me to be the tragedy of the traffic age.
While the online world gives the anchor malice, the anchor is also passing out the malice. Such tragedies are played out all the time.
If there's one word to describe Heavy Dependence, it's "reality." This is also the reason why the game's Steam Chinese comments section is occupied by pipers: people who have gained solace in the mirror will one day lose themselves in the difficult reality, and it is difficult to judge whether what this journey brings them is good or bad.
On the other hand, this may be a bad stereotype of a webcaster – so one Vup angrily said in the dynamics after his initial play: "The content [of 'Heavy Dependence'] is too purely malicious, and it is full of stereotypical malice for both the general audience and the mentally unstable patients... Feel a kind of boredom on top. Won't be broadcast. ”
But in fact, "Heavy Dependence" conveys more than "boring malice". As mentioned earlier, the game achieves a total of 23 different endings based on the metrics at the end of the line. The player's (or A-P's) choice can greatly change the trajectory of the mentally unstable girl's life. The names and introductions of these endings allude to a lot of allusions, and in them you'll see the production's reflections on the relationship between the host, the audience, and the Internet.
In different endings, there are great successes, moving into a new apartment to start a good life, there are super sky sauce to lead everyone to withdraw from the Network together, leading to the decline of the Internet, there are open love with well-known artists, there are menhera attacks and stab A P, there are people who are crushed by online violence to collapse, and there are also denial of their own meaning to end their lives in the live broadcast. Whether it looks like a good or bad ending, the game gives a relatively pessimistic characterization – which is why many people think that "preaching is too heavy".
For example, you can refuse all the out-of-the-box moves, try to make her a normal person, improve her good feelings, reduce the darkness and pressure, although the fans have not reached 500,000 but it seems to be a good change - but the ending will tell you that sugar sugar suddenly disappears after 100 days, and a line on the screen jumps out of the line "Do you think it is happy to live healthy?" ”。
The name of the ending is Label is evil, and according to NGA notes, the Japanese version of the introduction comes from the song "Red Lantern", to the effect that "although you can only have the luxury once a month, you still have some wine." "I think, from the producer's point of view, for a girl like Sugar Candy, a "shallow taste" is far from enough. As stated in another ending, "love and data are her best antidote," the warmth of the internet's kindness and traffic is the secret recipe for satisfying sugar's inner bipolarity and emptiness — whether that warmth is false or not.
I think that modern people who grew up on the Internet have a mental state that is more or less the same. More or less, the Internet has brought us a channel to show ourselves, and has become an indispensable spiritual pillar or emotional outlet in the long process of development. People dump emotions that cannot be expressed in real life on the Internet, pin down feelings that have nowhere to release, enjoy the wonderful experience of the edge of the Internet and the normal communication that is gradually lacking in reality, and indulge in the feeling of being concerned and cared for.
The Internet has brought people cheap and fast "happiness", and naturally it has also brought the cost of this speed. When pillars break and exits collapse (two things seem especially easy in the virtual world), it's easy for people to start falling into bad emotions that we often refer to today as "late-night emo." It is likely that this strong emotional fluctuation has led to an increase in the frequency of mental problems in contemporary people, and "jade jade" is often a joke, and many times it is also a signal for distress on the edge of the cliff.
Would it be a good choice to leave the Internet with Super Sauce? What role do streamers and fans play in each other's spiritual lives? More importantly, as a modern person who grew up on the Internet, how can you maintain mental health and emotional balance? The game throws up some poignant questions but doesn't give answers — in "Data0", which is unlocked after going through all 22 endings, Sugar Sugar finally reveals the secret document she's been hiding. It turns out that Ah P is actually a character she created—or rather, another personality of hers. In TE, Sugar Sugar left A P, independently completed the goal of 30 million fans for 30 days, adjusted her mental state and stress, and decided on live content herself - it is worth mentioning that she has not touched soft once. The true ending gives a sugar candy who looks emotionally self-consistent and has a sound personality, but writes in the document "Next pinch a fiancé", suggesting that her mental illness is not cured.
The ending is called "Comment te dire adieu," which means "how to say goodbye." It is an old French song about lost love and the name of the theme song of the well-known poison wave game "さよならを教えて(sayo教). In Heavy Dependence, you'll find a lot of homages to sayoism, and even the despair of this hidden ending that "hasn't healed" is very similar to sayoism.
Many people are dissatisfied with such a true ending – yes, when you have a sugar candy in your head and spend more than a dozen hours finally playing a hidden ending, it is naturally difficult to accept such a setback.
But life is often exactly that. People find happiness and salvation through the Internet, but this happiness and redemption is obviously not permanent. Humanity can never reach the understatement of "happy and happy together" as in a fairy tale world– we are always facing repeated collapses and breaches, and then rebuilding them again and again. Warmth and kindness can heal your shallow wounds and bring the spiritual world back into balance, but no one can really heal you fundamentally.
NGA Super Sky Sauce "Anonymous Version"
"Super Sauce" on Twitter
Looking back, in "Heavy Dependence", sugar sugar dependence is not actually the "little boyfriend" Ah P, who has never really existed, but the self who struggles hard in the vast ocean of the Internet - the only one who can save you from despair is always yourself.
Heavy Dependency is not a nurturing game, nor is it a sweet Galgame. We are the audience in the live broadcast room, the angel-turned sugar candy, but not the Ah P who controls everything, not the calm god off-screen.
Anyway, I'll remember this particular game, and this one-of-a-kind teenage girl.
† Ascension †