CH 20

Recently, there was a game that had become very popular. The friends around Huo Ran who have never really played games were all playing it. It was a simulation-management sandbox game(2) called ‘Happy Animal Island’. It had been in stable operation for several years but exploded into the gaming circle after a certain post was made about it on social media.

(T/N: Sandbox games refers to games where players don’t really have a goal or storyboard to follow, which allows for more creativity and freedom. An example of this genre would be Minecraft)

In ‘Happy Animal Island’, players could choose an animal as their own character before building and managing their own small island. The game had a high degree of freedom.

Because some animals  were limited by their shapes, some could not complete part of the game operations, so one could choose to live in groups in the game. Several players could jointly manage the island as long as the island owner agreed to it after approving a submitted application.

The person who made the post had a very cute squirrel and enjoyed collecting items and things. He had built many warehouses on the island, stocking a lot of food and all kinds of gadgets.

One day, Squirrel PO(3) suddenly found that some of his inconspicuous things were missing, but there was no visitor record on the island. He reported to the customer service centre to get it fixed, but the admins claimed that it was not a game bug.

(T/N: PO refers to ‘poster’. It’s a short form for the person who made the post)

Squirrel PO then observed carefully and realised that his items would decrease after he went offline, so he reluctantly sold a lot of his stored food and bought an invisibility cloak made by a master player. He put it on and squatted at the warehouse door, vowing to catch this mysterious NPC(4) thief.

(T/N: Gaming term, refers to ‘non-playable character’)

As a result, he saw a small black ant, which moved three grains of rice from his warehouse very skillfully, squeezing itself into the hole hidden in the cracks in the wood.

Squirrel PO looked at the nickname of the player above the head of the ant and was dumbfounded by the fact that some players chose to be an ant.

Only then did he remember that he had received a group living application from a player a long time ago. He had been looking forward to it for a while, but as he hadn’t seen the new player and there wasn’t a new hut on the island, he merely assumed that the other player wasn’t playing any longer.

Unexpectedly, this mini player was living underground all this time.

Squirrel PO was full of curiosity. He was too big to go down the ant’s home, so he could only send a message to the ant player in the islander list, asking what his house looked like.

The ant player replied, first expressing his apology for stealing before showing him a screenshot of his hut.

There was a luxurious golden bed made of sawdust, a petal quilt made of dried flowers, a dining table made from a flat-bottom screw, a large bathtub of egg shells, a thick water pipe made of plastic straws…

Squirrel PO was overwhelmed with cuteness that his face became flushed as he made the post about this. He felt that the Animal Island was full of incredible surprises and each player can have their own unique way of playing.

Happy Animal Island became popular because of this and Huo Sihan, who was quickly addicted to it, kept brainwashing Huo Ran to join in order to get the reward for inviting friends, coercing him and luring him to play.