She Had Yet to Realize How Serious the Problem Was

Lu Xiu had previously had no concept of game development whatsoever—or, more accurately, she had some notions, but most of them were hearsay.

So she often found herself unable to see things clearly.

She had always been very curious about the testing phase after a game was completed.

But she had never experienced it herself... She could only rely on her imagination to guess at their workflow.

Until now.

Only after she began testing the "game" herself did it finally feel real.

So... that was how it worked.

Strictly speaking, Lu Xiu's inspection at the moment was somewhat different from the traditional game development testing process, but the purpose was the same: to confirm that the game's functions, experience, and quality met the standards.

After all, nobody wanted a game to still have bugs that affected the player experience after release.

And Lu Xiu had no idea what problems might arise after her instance dungeon was deployed for real.

So, somewhat worried, she pushed Ethan—the core of the interaction—through the storyline to test core gameplay, quests, combat, items, and other features, while also going through every nook and cranny of the map.

The map was fine.

She did not know whether the Visual Mindscape construction feature was simply powerful, or whether Visual Mindscape truly was Lu Xiu's golden finger.

In any case.

Lu Xiu simply could not find a single thing that needed changing.

But the core gameplay, quests, combat, items, and the rest were different.

The environment was static, and with Visual Mindscape, Lu Xiu only needed to recall the specific setting.

But the dynamic portions of the instance dungeon were troublesome.

That required explaining the process of constructing an instance dungeon first. Once the entire setting was built, the constructor had to turn the core gameplay, quests, combat, items, dungeon progression, and so on into text, writing something akin to a design document.

After submitting that design document to the system, the system would directly generate the entire game progression based on the environment and the contents of the document.

But that was where the problems began.

Lu Xiu's initial design document had not been badly written, considering she had a completed game as reference, but it had indeed overlooked quite a few details.

As a result, the instance dungeon generated by the system was riddled with problems whenever she ran through it.

And when issues appeared in this part, she could not handle them like the environment by simply imagining a solution. Although the Visual Mindscape function could assist her, modifying the progression involved a whole pile of subsystems.

Lu Xiu could only run through the process while looking up tutorials, using Visual Mindscape to help her make adjustments.

The process was maddening.

It felt a lot like when AI had first appeared. Her instruction was clearly to go east, but the AI insisted on going west. After much coaxing and persuasion—

It seemed to understand, but when she checked... great, it had gone north instead.

At the same time, Lu Xiu understood why encountering bugs during late-stage game testing could drive people to the brink.

Who wouldn't break down?!

"Where's the recording? Play the recording! It's supposed to show the player the way! Why is it gone?!"

"The corpse is supposed to float up! It's not supposed to grab his leg underwater! Don't add extra scenes! Let go!"

"Wait! Where are my bolt cutters?"

"Mia... thank goodness, Mia's head isn't pointy."

"..."

Lu Xiu was in a frantic rush, muttering to herself as she repeatedly hit pause to patch the problems that arose while advancing the progression.

And the process finally reached the part Lu Xiu had been most worried about.

After Ethan rescued his wife, Mia, the instance dungeon gained another character the player could interact with.

What if players entering the dungeon said something strange? How was the NPC supposed to respond?

Just as Lu Xiu looked at the unconscious Mia before her and began worrying about this—

[Interactive target detected.]

[NPCs will provide dynamic feedback based on player responses.]

[The constructor may preset some fixed dialogue and actions.]

[The system will automatically generate responses based on factors such as the backstory, instance dungeon progression, emotional beats, the character's experiences within the dungeon, and personality provided by the constructor.]

[Warning: NPC personality will depend on the text provided by the constructor.]

"...I see. This really is better than preset dialogue."

Lu Xiu looked at the prompt that had appeared and fell into thought. "But can this system really handle it?"

It was not unreasonable for her to think so.

Although the game progression she had submitted—the design document—had all sorts of issues.

She had not even thought about adding extra scenes... yet this lousy system had already added them on its own.

For example, in the flooded corridor section, it would have been enough for the corpse to float up and give Ethan a scare.

But the system had insisted on making the corpse grab Ethan's leg.

And when it was actually time to add something, such as just now, when Mia was locked in the cell and Ethan could quickly see her by finding bolt cutters to cut the chain, Lu Xiu had forgotten about it—and the system had not generated it either.

What was that supposed to mean?

Was the player entering the dungeon and playing Ethan supposed to snap the chain with their bare hands? Or were they supposed to figure out a way to get Mia out themselves? Having bolt cutters beside the cell was somehow unreasonable?

Was that how it increased the difficulty?

Lu Xiu even suspected that the system might have been doing it deliberately... Perhaps the system's AI simply thought that made it more immersive!

Under such circumstances, could she really let the system make NPCs respond dynamically based on player reactions without something going wrong?

Lu Xiu was worried.

But after thinking carefully for quite a while, she could not come up with any good solution. She could only temporarily set aside her concerns and continue advancing the progression.

She had Ethan shake the sleeping Mia awake, then began presetting the fixed dialogue.

It was the dialogue from the original game.

Like a bystander, she methodically had the husband and wife talk, then had Mia lead Ethan away.

Lu Xiu also followed the original game's presentation exactly for every detail of their interactions.

Then Mia suddenly went mad. She pinned Ethan down and drove a knife straight through his left hand.

This was an event that would inevitably trigger.

Which meant... once players reached this point, they were guaranteed to suffer some physical pain.

Just watching from the side made Lu Xiu's hand hurt.

The players were really going to have it rough.

After sighing, Lu Xiu found no problems and continued onward.

Perhaps her bad luck had already run out... The upcoming combat sequence did not encounter any issues, and the presentation was perfect.

Mia fell first, then suddenly got back up and, with immense strength, threw Ethan into a room.

Ethan picked up a hand axe and began dodging Mia's attacks while chopping at her.

That famous scene of marital bliss.

And when Ethan buried the axe in Mia's neck, Mia finally collapsed.

Ethan thought it was over. After finally getting hold of the fuse... Mia came back to life. At first she was tender and affectionate, then she suddenly pulled out a screwdriver, pinned Ethan's left hand to the wall, grabbed a chainsaw, and charged at him.

She sawed Ethan's left hand clean off.

This, too, was an event that would inevitably trigger.

And that was not all.

After heading up to the attic, Ethan and Mia had another fierce battle.

In the end, Ethan won that battle, which was full of twists and turns, but immediately afterward, his father-in-law appeared.

Lu Xiu advanced the sequence to the point where Ethan had finally managed to defeat Mia.

Then his father-in-law suddenly appeared and, like Superman, knocked Ethan out with a single punch.

Seeing this, Lu Xiu had the same thought again... The players were really going to have it rough.

It had to be said.

The first chapter of Resident Evil 7 really was incredibly tense.

And at this very moment.

Lu Xiu merely sighed... She had yet to realize how serious the problem was.