Qiao Liang observed his surroundings while sighing in admiration—indeed, worthy of Mr. Pei, always able to come up with something new.

The experience upon entering the Shudder Inn was quite different from other places.

Almost all the buildings had been converted from structures in the old industrial district, so they had a distinct sense of history, and at the same time, the style throughout the entire area was unified, with no building feeling particularly out of place.

The whole park gave people a feeling of openness, like a public park, not enclosed at all.

Many amusement parks require tickets for entry to limit visitor flow, so the parks tend to feel relatively enclosed. Visitors are in a hurry after entering because time is limited, wanting to quickly line up for famous attractions without much mood for casual strolling.

But this place was different—people could enter and exit freely, giving the feeling of strolling in a nearby park, more relaxed.

Soon, everyone arrived at the central plaza and saw the unusually shaped Golden Maze, as well as the Healing Fountain in front of it.

Looking into the distance, they could see three large factory buildings housing the different attractions.

The signposts indicated the directions, with the three projects named: Escape from Desperation, Haunted House Nightmare, and Ultimate Horror.

Near the shops, there were promotional flyers available for visitors to take. Besides a map of the entire Shudder Inn, they also included introductions to the different attractions.

Someone went to get a few flyers and distributed them to everyone.

“Wow, the prices are so different? Escape from Desperation only costs 10 yuan, but Ultimate Horror costs 100 yuan?”

“After all, from the name ‘Ultimate Horror,’ you can tell it was built with a big budget.”

“‘Ultimate Horror’ doesn’t even have a description, just two words: ‘Don’t go’? What a damn advertising genius—after reading that, I want to go even more…”

“But isn’t this pricing strategy problematic? From this description, Escape from Desperation seems to be a replayable mode like ‘BE QUIET.’ Since it’s replayable, shouldn’t the price be set higher? At least thirty yuan, right?”

“Ultimate Horror is priced a bit high—it’s just the space of a large factory building. Many people won’t last five minutes before being scared out. With such a high price, aren’t people going to be reluctant to spend the money?”

“Who knows? Let’s go in and see.”

It was still 2011, and Jingzhou was a second-tier city, so a haunted house ticket for 100 yuan was already considered quite expensive. Of course, Escape from Desperation at just 10 yuan was indeed dirt cheap.

Since the park had just opened and it was Friday morning, the flow of visitors hadn’t reached the day’s peak yet. Although people were queuing at the entrance of “Escape from Desperation,” it wasn’t very crowded.

Everyone hurried to join the end of the queue.

Judging by the current numbers, apart from visitors wandering around or shopping in the Golden Maze, about 70% of the visitors preparing to experience the attractions were gathered at the first project, 30% at the second project, and only a few scattered visitors inquired about the third project, but were quickly informed that they needed to first complete the second project.

It was most appropriate to first experience the first project while there weren’t many people.

During the wait, Qiao Liang observed the number of people allowed in each time and found that about 100 people were let in, with the next group entering after 15 minutes.

Qiao Liang looked at the promotional flyer in his hand and understood that the super-large factory building was divided into 10 sections, with a total of five different decorative styles. Each section was over 400 square meters, accommodating 10 visitors.

So, the queue moved fairly quickly, but many visitors who exited through the exit ran back to the end of the queue, seemingly eager to play a second time.

Qiao Liang and his group were relatively near the front of the queue, so they only waited 15 minutes before it was their turn.

While in the queue, everyone had already read the specific rules of this attraction on the notice board nearby. To Qiao Liang, it felt like a simplified version of “BE QUIET,” and the scene seemed similar, probably using the original art from the game as design inspiration.

This made him even more excited.

Before entering the attraction, staff members distributed specially designed wristbands to everyone to be returned after the game ended.

These wristbands seemed to have heart rate monitoring functions, and also had a very bright, eye-catching light.

Before entering, visitors could freely choose a scene: a mental hospital, a lunatic village, a roadside inn, an ancient castle, or a school. These scenes were consistent with the classic scenes in “BE QUIET,” just miniaturized versions.

And of course, it wasn’t possible to actually build a real castle in a factory building—the style was just made to resemble one as much as possible.

Smaller map, simplified gameplay, faster pace—designed to lower the learning curve, keeping only the most interesting gameplay elements so that most visitors could understand the rules in the shortest time and derive pleasure from it.

“Escape from Desperation,” from the rules, was a special kind of escape room. All visitors played ordinary people trapped in this place, with the common goal of finding decoding spells scattered throughout the scene, activating them, and finding the exit to escape.

The decoding spells were pre-arranged, scattered throughout the entire area, numbering in the dozens. However, in each game, only about a dozen would be activated, thus creating randomness.

After visitors found activatable decoding spells, they could accumulate progress by bringing their wristbands close to them. Once the progress was complete, the spell would be permanently activated, bringing them one step closer to winning the game.

A staff member would play the role of a lunatic, wandering through the area. The portable speaker would play terrifying roaring sounds and BGM, reminding visitors that terror was approaching.

On the surface, the staff member was capturing visitors, but in reality, they wouldn’t chase them, as chasing could cause falls and injuries, posing safety hazards.

So the correct gameplay was for visitors to search for decoding spells, while the staff member leisurely patrolled the entire area. When visitors heard the staff member approaching, they had to immediately find a place to hide and wait for them to walk away.

The wristband given at the beginning represented the “san” value in the “BE QUIET” game.

The wristband would monitor the visitor’s heart rate. When a visitor was frightened and their heart rate suddenly rose or remained high, the wristband would record this and gradually change the color of the light on the wristband.

Green represented healthy, yellow represented dangerous, and red represented out of control.

The staff member also had a small remote control hidden. If a visitor appeared in their line of sight, the staff member could directly alter the heart rate calculation of the visitor’s wristband, making it turn red faster.

Once it turned red, the visitor could no longer activate spells with their wristband. On the contrary, when a visitor’s red wristband appeared within a certain distance of other visitors, a “contagion” phenomenon would occur, turning other visitors’ wristbands from green to yellow to red.

However, correspondingly, the game also had a “safe house” design. Some specific areas could only be entered by normal visitors, not by red wristband visitors or staff members. In these areas, wristbands were not affected by outside influences.

Therefore, it was foolish for a red wristband visitor to fixate on “infecting” a single visitor. The best approach was to wander around scaring people, thereby causing contagion.

If players escaped within the time limit, all “healthy” visitors won; if they failed to escape within the time limit, the “out of control” visitors won.

…

Fifteen minutes later, Qiao Liang and his group left through the exit, their faces showing expressions of wanting more.

“That was so interesting! It’s even kind of addictive, I want to go again!”

“Not enough! But the immersion was strong, it felt like playing a real-life version of ‘BE QUIET’!”

“That staff member seemed to understand the game. When I heard him coming, I quickly hid in a cabinet nearby, but he knew I was in there and deliberately wandered around, even peering through the cracks in the cabinet. My heart rate accelerated with fear, and my wristband turned yellow right then!”

“Qiao, you were simply a troublemaker! Your wristband turned red, but you still came out to chase us—are you even human?”

“Exactly! We were almost about to complete the level, but then you came and messed it up. My wristband was yellow, but after you scared me, it turned red, and I could only join you.”

Qiao Liang defended himself vigorously: “Those are the game rules, and the fact is I won—how about that?”

Everyone expressed that they had never seen such a shameless person!

Although he was scorned by everyone, Qiao Liang himself had thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now he could understand why many visitors immediately returned to the queue after playing once—because this attraction was truly addictive!

As a gaming content creator, Qiao Liang could see many mature game design concepts in this attraction’s design.

The basic gameplay of this attraction was actually quite primitive—hide and seek, packaged with the theme of “BE QUIET.”

But compared to many escape room attractions and haunted houses, its biggest advantages were two-fold: replayability and moderate horror.

Due to space limitations, most escape rooms and haunted houses have monotonous layouts, making visitors reluctant to experience them a second time. But “Escape from Desperation” was a multiplayer game, and through randomly refreshing spell locations, it ensured that each entry provided a different experience.

Staff members playing lunatics would adapt to different visitors’ reactions, cooperating in the game. Each time, their action trajectories were random and unpredictable.

Each player’s heart rate changed differently, “losing control” at different times, and behaving differently after “losing control,” thus having different impacts on the overall situation. So each time they played, the strategies players needed to adopt would also change.

The horror level of this attraction was moderate—a bit scary, but not to the point where people were too afraid to participate.

Through environmental cues, staff members dressed as lunatics, and the terrifying BGM played by staff members, the game successfully created a scary atmosphere. Visitors had to remain vigilant and observant while searching for decoding spells, quickly finding places to hide when hearing BGM approaching.

At the same time, the staff members moved slowly and didn’t catch people, and the visibility in the scene was decent, preventing excessive fright.

So, even someone as timid as Qiao Liang could persevere in this attraction and enjoy it.

Qiao Liang himself was a loyal player of “BE QUIET,” and in his view, this attraction simplified the complex gameplay of the game, making it more suitable for offline play.

In short, such an enjoyable attraction cost only ten yuan per entry—not playing it three or four times in one visit would feel like a waste!

Qiao Liang looked at the end of the queue, which now seemed to have several hundred people. Estimating the waiting time, it had probably reached an hour.

A fan exclaimed in shock: “There are already so many people? Will the queue for this attraction start at three hours in the future?”

Qiao Liang shook his head: “Not necessarily. It’s normal to have more people recently, after all, the Shudder Inn’s advertising has been so extensive, many local Jingzhou residents have come to experience it. The key is whether this level of enthusiasm can be maintained after the first wave of visitors passes—that’s crucial for subsequent profitability.”

Everyone thought about it and realized it seemed to be the case.

Many haunted houses and amusement parks that eventually closed down were certainly bustling when they first opened. The key to long-term operation was what would happen later.

“So what do we do now?” someone asked.

To experience “Escape from Desperation” again, they would have to queue for at least an hour. Although this waiting time wasn’t long by the standards of other amusement parks, there were two other attractions with far fewer people right next door.

“Why don’t we try Haunted House Nightmare? We need to pass Haunted House Nightmare to play Ultimate Horror,” a fan suggested.

“Yes, since we’re here already,” someone agreed.

Qiao Liang hurriedly shook his head: “I don’t want to go! There must be a reason why there are so few people! I’m going to be scared to tears!”

The fans exchanged glances and directly grabbed Qiao Liang: “That’s all the more reason to go! We agreed to stick together—no one gets to run away!”