With So Many Fans on My Side
I had figured out the rules for Hotel Escape. Start on the 8th floor of the hotel and descend all the way to the 1st floor to clear the game. But if I just charged through the hallways like a normal building, ignoring the oddities, my character would get snatched up by monsters and have to start over from scratch.
“So this isn’t some scary, gross thing that suddenly jumps out and forces us to use basic human instincts to make us go ‘I’m scared, right?’ It’s genuine terror—like making it all the way to the 3rd floor, then the 2nd, then the 1st, only to realize I missed something and have to restart from the beginning. That heart-pounding feeling.”
- Tti-hwak-jjit: You analyze games so well lol lol lol
- SilverPantea: The boss already mapped out the entire game lol lol lol
- Nerfbill: I’m a newb with a small chest so it’s terrifying… monsters pop up everywhere all the time
- AskaZero: He’s actually terrified too and curls up like a squirrel lol lol lol
“No. It’s not because I’m scared. It’s just surprise. Surprise and fear are completely different. The real fear comes when I’m running out of lives and there’s no way to earn more, so I’m thinking about how to die without hurting myself. That’s the feeling.”
- BB14: They’re just teasing and he immediately rage-quits
- AskaZero: I’m sorry…
- LexiaQueen: uuuuuuu
- SilverPantea: T_T Boss, you’re not thinking of something bad, are you? You have to become a pro gamer, win World Champs, and lift the championship cup!
- NoelCupThief: Lifting up the Noel who lifted the championship cup
“Oh, of course I’m not going to do that now. Thanks to you guys, I’m having so much fun playing games, and I even got a call asking if I’m going to become a pro. Anyway, if I’m scared, I’ll really say I’m scared, so please don’t misunderstand.”
The viewers had misunderstood for a bit, so I quickly clarified.
I kept playing exactly according to the rules I had figured out. Every time I missed something, I had to start over from the beginning. When something felt uncertain, I’d note it down in my head just to get past it and move forward.
Honestly, if it had just been escaping the building from the 2nd or 3rd floor, I could have gambled and passed it. But since I had to safely cross the entire 8th-floor corridor, wouldn’t it make more sense to try uncertain paths first and learn from them?
In League of Champions, when you’re debating whether to win or lose from a certain angle, the answer is to just fight. Even if you lose, the experience will stack up, so next time you’ll make better choices. If you win, then you can keep fighting that way. It’s just trial and error, which is possible in a game.
Twenty minutes passed, and my best record was still only the 5th floor.
But I wasn’t rushing at all.
I had logged all those mistakes in my head, so one day I’d check every single item on the list and make it straight through to the exit.
But I had already said something like that, hadn’t I? The viewers were starting to poke fun, saying my game was too slow and I was different from everyone else in these unfamiliar games. I only play League of Champions well.
Of course that’s true. Very few people excel at everything from the start. Maybe if someone has a natural talent for it, but honestly, I can admit I’m bad at this game.
The tone annoyed me, though, so I answered calmly.
“Oh, the person who keeps saying I’m rushing forward mindlessly—let me explain. Honestly, I’m just advancing and seeing what happens. If there’s nothing odd, it’s fine. If it’s wrong, I note it down as a mistake. Next time I’ll remember not to do that. Honestly, I’d love to memorize every default hallway like a genius, but I can’t.”
- SilverPantea: You don’t get it wrong twice though lol lol
- Tti-hwak-jjit: For real lol, you notice the small details fast
- AsherWillen: Honestly, figuring out the exact number of ceiling lights is going a bit far…
- Sistato: But really, this feels like it could drive you insane lol lol. Some streamers even count every square drawn on the ceiling
- GFE2047: How many are there?
- Sistato: I counted and gave up, just speedran it, but I didn’t know the ceiling originally had no pattern, so I got lost anyway
- IDWDanya: lol lol lol
- CRCE4: I counted it—exactly 1019. Developer’s daughter’s birthday
- LexiaQueen: Oh… I love this Easter egg
“Oh, right. Sometimes there’s one, sometimes there isn’t. Spotting those is what keeps you alive in this game. Anyway, I’m not going in blind. Well, there are moments where I’m just gambling and advancing, but… oh, there’s an Easter egg? That’s fun.”
Thanks to that, the viewers all got it.
And this was a completely different kind of fun from League of Champions.
In League of Champions, I’d show off what I was good at and viewers would feel satisfied or learn something. This was pure content—me just playing the game and enjoying it.
Yet the viewers kept watching happily.
Of course, once I became their fan first, more people started watching these other games too. But they still haven’t ended the stream and kept enjoying it.
The viewer count was actually growing.
I was happy, too.
Because I was communicating live with the viewers.
Of course I didn’t ignore the chat like I did in League of Champions. There were plenty of times when I was in a real fight and the chat was just background noise.
But I almost never just chatted with them.
Sure, the chat wasn’t full of only nice comments. As the viewer count grew, people who were jealous, or whose feelings were hurt, or just plain annoyed started leaving harsh words—calling me disabled, mocking how slow my game was, or asking if I was going to take my clothes off now that my face was known…
But even after reading them, it didn’t bother me at all.
After all, in League of Champions, the chat gets really heated. Keyboard warriors are already fighting each other’s parents, protecting their own. Anything they say there is just pathetic. Plus, those comments vanish within seconds, and the managers are working hard to delete them.
And the viewers don’t react at all to them.
With so many fans on my side, why should I let people who aren’t my fans ruin my mood?
So I could just focus completely on the game…
- ItIsNot: Hey, isn’t this just passing it through pure luck? lol lol
Yeah.
But I couldn’t ignore chats that downplayed the game’s actual difficulty.
“Well, if I’m extremely lucky, maybe. But passing eight floors through luck? The probability that a floor is normal or abnormal—there are two possibilities. I have to clear that eight times. That means multiplying the probability by 0.3 to 0.4 percent. 256 times. That’s 0.3 to 0.4 percent. If the probability of a normal floor is lower than abnormal, it drops exponentially.”
I explained it simply and boringly.
Somehow, though, the non-fans still showed up.
- Tti-hwak-jjit: 0.3%? That’s doable.
- Sistato: Isn’t this less generous than other gacha games?
- Harallaya: No way, most games have at least 0.5% for 5-star characters
- Tmorge: Compared to forcing grind in RPGs with 0.01% rates, it’s still better?
- LexiaQueen: Well, it’s actually 0% if you calculate it properly, so they were lying lol lol
- Tmorge: Yeah lol lol. They got hit with a 10 billion won fine or something
Why were they suddenly bringing up weird stuff?
Should I not talk probabilities in front of these people?
They hadn’t insulted me, but the subtle anger in their sentences made me not want to respond.
While the viewers stayed quiet, I kept stacking mistakes.
Still, after more than twenty minutes, maybe it was because I had learned all the types of mistakes carefully.
By now I had reached the 1st floor without ever being sent back to the 8th floor, even when I sometimes needed to go backward.
It was better to backtrack a few times than to mess up and start over from the top.
I had never gone below the 5th floor in a long time.
While the viewers vented their anger about probability, this time I finally reached the 1st floor.
A woman in a sharp suit stood straight at the front desk, greeting guests.
This wasn’t a normal hotel that only accepted people—the main lobby was full of all kinds of monsters wandering around.
All of them were the same monsters I had met during my mistakes. They had eaten me once and sent me back to the 8th floor, but standing here again felt strangely nice.
“Well. I made it to the 1st floor. Did everyone come to see me off?”
- Tti-hwak-jjit: What? Already on the 1st floor?
- SilverPantea: lol lol lol He really crammed the mistake notes lol lol
- EUSSN: Whoa, the Noel who couldn’t even reach the 5th floor and was panicking has a beautiful chest now. My heart is soaring
The viewers were amazed by my gameplay.
Their reactions made me feel great. All the comments saying I suck at the game or rely on luck disappeared.
Yeah. Apart from everything else, saying I can’t play the game stung my pride.
I was going to be a pro gamer.
“So then… we’ve cleared Hotel Escape…?”
Proudly crossing the main lobby toward the exit.
After walking a bit, a group of monsters suddenly charged forward screaming.
In the absurd situation, I just kept running and shouted desperately.
“Hold on, what’s going on? Haven’t we already beaten this?”
- SilverPantea: lol lol lol lol lol
- LexiaQueen: Haha got baited lol lol lol
- ISFR: This is the Easter egg that appears after spotting every single anomaly lol lol All the monsters appear at the main lobby to greet you
- madoon: It had to be at the 1st floor, of course lol lol lol lol
Ah.
I had figured this was the scene that always plays on the 1st floor.
Since it’s the 1st floor, I assumed there would be a lobby instead of rooms.
In the end, my slower character got eaten by the monsters.
The monitor flashed the starting point of the 8th floor again.
“Grrrrrrrrrrrraaaah!”
“Oh haha, I guess you were playing a pretty tough game.”
Maybe that was why I had suddenly become stressed out and my head was fuzzy because of the game.
It wasn’t until later that I realized the sister who lived next door had come over. I had been so caught up in everything I hadn’t noticed sooner.