In the past few days, a game called "NEEDY GIRL OVERDOSE" (hereinafter referred to as "N") has set off a lot of waves in some small circles in China, but it has not made much progress in the wider circle of gamers.
N is a pretty special game, a game that encompasses too much culture. The author spares no effort to cram all kinds of cultural fragments he likes into the game. It looks like a nurturing game similar to Pretty Girl DreamWorks, where the player's goal is to cultivate the value of the beautiful girl's sugar candy to achieve a different ending. But in reality, N is more of a subcultural compressed package, or Pandora's box.
The task manager located to the right of sugar sugar shows various values of sugar sugar, too high or too low will have an impact on the outcome
This is a risky approach: once the developer is incompetent, the game will be reduced to the common kind of cheap "terrier game" - lackluster plot and gameplay, supplemented by gimmicky network memes that are easy to seduce people's screenshots and forwards, and eventually become a carnival between the author of the terrier and the player who recognizes the terrier.
"N" does have a lot of memes, but it's hard to say that it's using stems as gimmicks. First, the memes in the game are so dense that they are almost entirely made up of stems—you can hardly say that they are merely embellishments of a gimmicky nature; second, the authors have clearly sifted through them. These memes, or allusions, can be roughly divided into two categories: one is related to the subcultural works around 2000, which play an atmospheric role in the game; the other is related to the current Internet anchor culture, the mine culture, menhera (that is, mental instability). The game's heroine, Sugar Sugar, is the product of the condensation of these two cultures.
Although today, landmines have become more and more synonymous with a style of wearing makeup, menhera still maintains its original meaning - psychopathy, instability. It can be said that Sugar Sugar's outfit is a mine style, and her spirit is in the state of menhera.
A microculture of the turn of the century
Pixel art. Chip music. Noise mosaic. Blue screen garbled. 4:3 screen ratio. Steam waves.
Everything in the N promotional video is telling people, at least visually, that the game is going to go retro.
Based on blue-green-pink-purple, the color combination named "unicorn color" appears on the background and the heroine's avatar of The Super Sky Sauce
The reason for this is that the developer born in 1994 , "wants to make a beautiful girl game" because the developer , "wanted to make a beautiful girl game." The "beautiful girl game" here is a narrow concept, referring not to the kind of games that contain beautiful girls that are now all over the street, but to the visual novels that became popular at the end of the last century. It can be said that a large part of the content of "N" is a tribute to the beautiful girl games at the turn of the century.
Shizuku, one of the most well-known beautiful girl games of the last century
The game's heroine Sugar Sugar uses a controller similar to the dreamcast controller popular at the end of the last century, and the "brain strike" in the lyrics of the theme song "INTERNET OVERDOSE" is a popular advertising slogan for the Sega Saturn console that year. Not only that, but this theme song, which imitates the masterpiece from the lyrics to the composition and performance of the picture, really highlights the developer's love for beautiful girl games.
For example, the lyrics of "Love that can erode even the universe" correspond to the slogan of "Saya" released by Nitro+ in late 2003, "That is, love that erodes the world", and likewise, the slogan also hints at the end of the game's Shaye blossoming and eroding the world.
"Tenderly wrapped in the poisonous waves that have been transmitted countless times" corresponds to the scene in 1996's Shizuku produced by LeafShare, in which the protagonist arrives with her own body as a receiver and smiles in front of the blood-red sunset (the next moment the protagonist will faint because she pretends to be able to receive the electric waves of Theoriko and is repeatedly sent by her repeatedly sending poisonous waves).
The upper part of the picture is the promo screen, and the lower part is the game screen of "Shizuku", and it can be seen that the composition of the two is very similar
"A dreamy and enchanting melody is played on a shining rooftop", which is the famous scene in the famous work "Su Sunny Day ~ Discontinuous Existence ~" in which Tachibana Breaks the Railing with a Baton on the roof and says, "This is music".
Works such as "Snow that will fall someday", "lain", "Moon.", "101 Ways for Dissatis" —The Capital Is a famous beautiful girl this year. Yingyen Uta-Uta,Yuyu-ryu-chun-chun Koya-Jokai.
During the gameplay of "N", if the option of live streaming the game reaches the fifth time, then the heroine will live broadcast a 2001 beautiful girl game "さよならを教えて comment te dire adieu" (i.e. "Sayo Teaching"), and the girl who appears in the picture is obviously the heroine of the game, Sugamo Muzuki. Sugamo Muzuki is an angel in the eyes of the male protagonist of "Sayo Sect" - the heroine of "N", who calls herself an angel in the sea of electrons, is not the same angel in the eyes of the audience?
The most difficult achievement in the game, "megaten", is not only the abbreviation of "True Goddess Rebirth", but also parodies the urban legend of "True Goddess Rebirth 2": it is said that players have a 1/65536 chance of triggering the screen full of "Quick Delete" red characters at the beginning of "True Goddess Rebirth 2" - in "N", the red word becomes white, and the trigger probability is adjusted to 1/100.
On the left is the opening red letter of "True Goddess Rebirth 2" in urban legends, and on the right is the ending with a 1% chance of appearing in "N"
Another interesting meme is the Rainbow Girl ending, which is triggered by Sugar Sugar taking too many psychotropic drugs. Sugar Sugar will start speaking to the player across the screen, thanking the player for guiding her. And the player will have the option to respond to her, which is somewhat similar to the male protagonist speaking to the screen at the beginning of "The Gate of the Stone of Destiny", but it is actually closer to the scene of the D line in "I/O": the male protagonist will also speak to the player on the opposite side of the screen when he is ill, and then there will be an option - respond or not: if he does not respond, everything will go as usual; if he chooses to respond, the male protagonist will shoot himself.
Realistic game
If "N" nostalgia for the past is a romantic parody and tribute, then the depiction of Japanese anchor culture can be said to be whipped into it, almost a 100% realistic reflection.
Although in the game, the anchor super sky sauce is only the state of the heroine sugar candy makeup - some players therefore refuse to call her Vtuber, and also feel that "N" is not a Vtuber-related game, but the game does involve a considerable number of Vtubers to rub the edge ball, and it is not impossible to see it as a Vtuber live broadcast ecology.
The most typical thing about the edge ball is -
And sentences that basically only appear in the Vtuber world: I am in love with the person in the middle (the real anchor behind the virtual anchor), and the holster (the virtual image of the virtual anchor) goodbye.
Ridiculing the current situation of Vtuber, there is also "swinging apex" - if you don't know what to broadcast, then it is right to broadcast APEX.
And ridicule of the live broadcast industry's increase in fans of soft pornography:
And the common phrase of female anchors", "Everyone will always accompany me":
As for the warmth of the group in the forum, it is the trauma of some players and the audience.
With a glimmer of hope, the futile search for a deleted live archive on the forum (here anonymous) reminds one of 4chan, who also lost angels.
And one of the most offensive aspects of the game is the player's own identity in the game — the player himself is both Sugar Sugar Producer (similar to an agent) and her boyfriend. As a result, N earned the title of "Virtual Idol Boyfriend Simulator" – although players who open the game will realize that this is not the case.
Sugar Sugar accepts gifts from fans while frantically currying favor with players. Gifts and money from the audience will eventually become the lubricant of love with the player. Obviously, once the player quits the game, he will instantly change from the "anchor's boyfriend" to a general audience, and if there is money for the female anchor to send gifts on weekdays, he will feel some discomfort.
The developer is clearly happy to provide trauma to the player, and in the interview he bluntly said: "If only I could create a work that leaves scars on the player's heart." Congratulations, he did.
It's already closed
The other side of the game's realism lies in the portrayal of menhera girls who are mentally unstable and have a great dependence on specific people.
In the game, Sugar Sugar will send messages to the player from time to time, and if the player misses even a few replies, it will enter a bad ending, and can only read the file and start over. For a numerical cultivation game, this is quite irritating. Some players think this setup is unreasonable – unfortunately, the game is very realistic on this point... If you don't reply to the message, you will really break up.
For mentally unstable, dependent girls, frequent "texting-being replied" can establish a sense of security, and the loss of this security will drive them crazy. As for sugar sugar's other manifestations: constantly guessing whether the object is true love, and even testing where the player's first date is, how many times so-and-so has done something, it is also a common behavior in reality. It can be said that the developers have a deep understanding of this type of girl.
The numerical design of the game also always reminds you that "this is a reflection of reality": such as the hard work of ten times the increase in the number of fans of A-house Radio, it is not as good as a soft pornography live broadcast; in the early stage of the game, brushing the forum will only increase the pressure, and with the increase in the darkness of sugar sugar, the brush forum sprayer will begin to reduce the pressure - this process of turning from ordinary netizens to network trolls will more or less make players feel related.
A colorful prism that maps the player's heart
On Steam, the comments section of N is quite interesting. Some people commented that "just as the virtual idol audience is more interesting than the virtual idol, the game comment area is also more interesting than the game itself."
What's even more interesting is that the commentary in each language, Chinese, Japanese, and English has its own characteristics.
In Japan, where the game terrier originated, most of the reviews discussed the game itself — such as "a lot of nostalgic things" and "Mine Girls are well portrayed," and very few mentioned Vtubers or even anchors.
"It is particularly worth mentioning that the portrayal of the common メンヘラ女 is very clear."
English players, far from East Asian cultures, mainly commented on their own gaming experience.
"It's really hard to believe that even though I did my best to help her get out of her predicament, I still ended up feeling like a bad guy."
As for the colorful Chinese comment area, if it is summed up in four words, it is a "virtual idol". Specific manifestations are: "break the defense", "ptsd", "will become unfortunate", "how many people have you ruined their lives", "sugar candy I like you so much, for you, I want to..." "You take me away". If you don't watch virtual streamers, you may be confused about these words – of course, from all angles, you don't know that these things are good for physical and mental health.
It can be said that the number of times the Japanese-English comment area mentions virtual idols is not multiplied by ten times, and the comment area is not more than Chinese, it is difficult to describe why this phenomenon is exactly why - is it that 90% of the Chinese players of this game are or have been virtual idol audiences, while Japan and England are not?
How to say goodbye
The game flow of "Anchor Girl Heavy Dependence" begins with Sugar Sugar inviting you to assist in the live broadcast, and after hundreds of stems, it returns to Sugar Sugar saying goodbye to live broadcasting, and also saying goodbye to you - some people are touched by Sugar Sugar, some people are not.
On the way through the game, the more familiar you are with the origin of these memes, the more players will wonder: is Sugar Sugar a person who is complex enough and diverse, or is it just a fit of a bunch of retro and contemporary realistic elements?
In any case, for players it is more than ten hours, for Sugar Sugar it is the end of 30 days of live broadcast life. She left the player and the livestream with her own will and headed for her new life.
Her favorite movies are Fight Club and Train Guesser, her favorite animation director is Yuki Tomino, she loves watching Kamen Rider and The Wonderful Channel, she likes to play a lot of games around 2000 with dreamcast-style controllers, and she loves VOCALOID.
She wants to turn into a monster and step on the company that makes the social animals cry. In addition to indulging in fun, she will also think hard about how to do a good job in the next live broadcast.
She is mentally weak and needs to rely on medication and cut her wrists to vent her stress, but she also goes out alone for a fun day.
From time to time, she would say famous lines like, "Today, I went to see the sea." No more scared", making you wonder if she's serious or just playing with the terrier.
She has a strong desire to be recognized, but now she doesn't need your approval anymore.
She said goodbye to you, leaving an empty chair. When you finally turn off the game, you'll also receive a "good night."
This is a memory from around 2000, a story with the anchor girl.
【End】