Kamen Rider and the Frog
Much to my relief, the cafe quickly became active.
At first, viewers had been grumbling about things like "Let's just take over a gallery," "Let's absorb a decent ghost gallery," "The cafe UI is inconvenient," and so on... But as I kept preaching the importance of the cafe, they started using it diligently.
Yeah, yeah, I'd put in my own share of effort to make this. Yu Sia had worked harder than me, of course, but isn't it natural for a boss to feel uneasy watching their employee struggle? I'd suffered mentally too, so I could say I'd endured just as much as Yu Sia.
It would've been devastating to pour all this effort into something only to have nobody use it. I genuinely wanted my viewers to find the cafe useful.
Every time I refreshed, new posts kept regenerating. The regeneration rate was unusually high. At this pace, it wasn't even inferior to a decent gallery.
Of course, it didn't quite have the fan cafe vibe of the other cafes I'd referenced during creation, but whatever. Good is good.
Since the core of my stream was inherently gallery-oriented, it would've been difficult to strip away that flavor entirely. I decided to embrace it as part of the cafe's personality. This is what Kayak's fan cafe feels like.
We still hadn't settled on a name for the cafe.
Several candidates had been proposed—Kayak's Playground, Kahaha, Kakas—but no name had gained consensus among viewers, and I couldn't pick one I truly liked either. For now, we'd just leave it as "Kayak's Fan Cafe."
I'm terrible at naming things, and it seems my viewers inherited that trait from me, since none of the suggestions were particularly catchy. Other streamers always come up with great cafe names. How do they do it? Maybe I should spend more time on it, or even hold a naming contest.
Anyway, creating the cafe had enriched my stream in ways I hadn't expected. I could now run my broadcasts as I'd originally envisioned.
In other words, I could interact with viewers while monitoring the fan cafe.
Ignoring the chat that seemed to self-regulate somehow, I continued reading the posts that kept appearing.
-If Kayak's fan cafe continues like this...
"It'll be Kamen Rider, right? This is too obvious. I've seen this a lot before. Bring something more original."
As expected, clicking the post revealed nothing but a photo of someone posing as Kamen Rider.
People were running out of things to write, but since it was the cafe's opening day and I kept reading posts, they were squeezing out whatever they could. Still, occasionally interesting posts would surface, so it wasn't entirely a waste of time.
-Breaking: Abyss Camilla hotfix frog...
"Camilla hotfix? I'm a supporter who reads the patches, and there's nothing like that. And why specifically Camilla? It's too obvious it's clickbait. If it were Lenox or Lily, maybe. But Camilla is a hero who doesn't even fix bugs, calling them Easter eggs."
Camilla's fear duration being slightly longer was an Easter egg.
Unlike other heroes' Easter eggs that gave minor advantages like +1 Gold or +1 damage—things that barely affected gameplay—Camilla's directly impacted play. 0.1 seconds was a significant value, arguably a considerable disadvantage.
That's why I'd asked them to fix it during my recent visit to headquarters, but I hadn't received a positive response.
Apparently, Camilla's character code was so intricately tangled that altering one part could trigger a domino effect of errors. Since I knew nothing about programming, I could only nod and say "I see."
Anyway, I'd already adapted to it by now. It was a bit disappointing, but they'd promised me a new Camilla skin, so I could tolerate it.
So what was this post about Camilla getting a hotfix? It looked like clickbait at first glance.
Thinking back, both the Kamen Rider post and the earlier ones felt like clickbait. These kinds of posts were gradually increasing.
It was like a state of oversaturation. When about a third of a page was dominated by such posts, it felt like time to impose some mild penalties.
However, the content of the post I clicked was completely unexpected.
-Breaking: Abyss Camilla hotfix frog...
Frog~ Frogfrog frog~
(GIF of a frog and Camilla dancing together)
"Hahaha! What is this."
Oh, this was truly an unexpected attack.
Honestly, it wasn't the kind of post that should've made me laugh this hard. The title and content were just the typical nonsense you'd see wandering through communities.
Yet I'd laughed because I'd let my guard down. I'd clicked the post without thinking, only to find Camilla dancing with a frog.
Oh, this was embarrassing. I'd considered myself a skilled comedian who could make people laugh, with a refined sense of humor. I never expected to crack up at such a simple gag.
Composing my face, I continued exploring the cafe.
The cafe didn't just make me laugh. It gave me something to do during the stream when I had nothing else to do, and it even created new content opportunities.
-The realism of feeling like a real police officer. Become a police special forces and carry out missions!
"Hmm..."
A review. A game review.
Since I'd recently had nothing to do during streams, posts had started flooding in, gaining viewer recommendations and spawning several strong candidates.
This review video was no exception. The gameplay footage included in the video looked genuinely fun.
Shooting guns, sneaking around, completing missions without being detected... It was a game full of romance. I could understand why viewers liked it.
"But isn't this more like a special forces unit than police? They do everything."
"I see."
Setting aside the viewers' half-baked knowledge, the game itself looked incredibly fun. The review claimed it had excellent real-world research, incorporating actual special forces' rules of engagement.
You could die during a mission, or a hostage you were rescuing could be killed. It was a tense, nail-biting game.
The only catch was that it was better played with others rather than alone. Just like real special forces don't operate solo, this game encouraged multiplayer. I'd need to find people to join me as fellow special forces members.
It wasn't impossible. In the old days, when I was isolated, it might've been, but now I had plenty of people to call on. Just thinking of faces that came to mind, I had more than enough candidates.
But what caught my attention was something else.
<RXomega donated 1000 won!>
-Teacher, you can play this in VR instead of on a computer. It's more immersive in VR.
"VR?"