How to be a videogame tester

Game 51 Rise of the Dragon Wire is Blue

Written by Ilmari

Blade Hunter’s secret diary, part 3: I feel like I am getting so close with Karyn after our night together. It’s good that my case requires me going and asking her for information. It’s so nice to bask in her radiance frequently!

The game is going like a blaze and I seem to be progressing quite nicely! I am just hoping I haven’t lost an crucial item… But now I am getting ahead of myself. A brief recap of the plot thus far: some bad drugs killed mayors daughter, Chandra, who had a best friend called Jake, who knew Chandra had been hanging with a guy called Chen, who was then turned into slimy goo by a guy with an eye patch. An eventful first day, Id say!

Last time I had just returned to home from my nightly adventure with Blades girlfriend, Karyn. I decided to head down to her office right away, since she had said she might help me in analysing stuff - and I had plenty of stuff I had got the previous night from Chen’s apartment. I started by giving Karyn the drug patch, which she promised to give to lab boys to investigate. The analysis wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow, so that didnt provide me anything new to do yet. I also gave her the paper I had found in Chen’s safe. Karyn didn’t recognise the symbols, but suspected it was some archaic dialect of Mandarin Chinese. She also suggested visiting some Chinese scholar and I knew right away who to call!

Bearded, underpaid fellow, who has no idea of references to modern world-- yes, clearly a scholar!

My Chinese friend in the warehouse complex could translate the paper, which told that Rise of Dragon was soon about to happen and target was Hollywood water reservoir. The paper also contained a reference to Bahumat, who according to the scholar was an evil magician living in year 3000 BC. Bahumat could turn himself into a dragon and he tried to rule the world. Bahumat was killed by a white magician Gin-Su or Knife (I can see where this is heading…), who banished Bahumat to netherworld for 5000 years, but got himself killed in the process. The old Chinese knew also a prophecy of the return of Bahumat:

But Mr. Tarantino said there would be some dogs here!

With nothing else to do, I went to visit Jake again. He was pleased that Chen was dead and told me that Chen had had some connection with Chinese mafia, who was working in some warehouse right under the nose of City Hall. I tried to show him the evidence I’d collected, but nothing useful came out. He did take one of my chocolate bars for safe keeping. I hope this act of charity will not come and haunt me in the future.

I knew eye patch meant no good

Bingo! Now I’ve got the address of Johnny Qwong, the henchman

I went straightaway to Qwong’s house. It was a huge villa, guarded by armed patrols walking on the roof. I couldn’t get in, but I could go down the sewer, although the local bum tried to warn me.

Rats? Great, I can start grinding!

The only thing I could access in the sewers was a locked box.

What’s that on the box? A treasure map?

Oh for Pete’s sake! I guess I should have studied electronics!

The lock went out with one of my explosives and I was not too happy to find out a mess of wires waiting me.

Yes, a minigame! Just what I was expecting!

I knew that this is where my wire tester was going to be handy. I had to tap into Johnny Qwong’s phone line and listen to his Vid Phone conversations (wireless technology must have been forgotten by then). The manual had pretty good instructions. I had to make three connections: red wire to positive, blue to negative and yellow to ground. My first attempts were not successful.

I guess I should leave changing the light bulb to more capable hands

It went on like this for almost an hour and I was already planning on rants of how bad puzzles developers could think of. I had noted that I could connect the wires, whenever both the meters were pointing on green area, and when the pointers went back to red, I was fried. My first idea had been that I had to be quick enough - the wire tester had three wires, and I thought I had to plug them all in before the pointers returned to red zone.

It’s good that Blade knows, when this contraption is ready, because I sure don’t

Getting back to Blade’s apartment, I took a look at what Mr. Qwong had been chatting with his buddies. He had received one call from “voice of Bahumat”, who now revealed his name: Deng Hwang. Qwong was told to stop all further delays in the production schedule and to check progress in the warehouse. I then remembered Jake telling me about Chinese mafia having a warehouse near City Hall, where I traveled now.

Any suggestion what these might be?

I tried using one of my explosives with it and the results were far more satisfying than I expected.

If his career as a detective doesn’t work, Blade could become a demolition man

Getting back to the main map, I noticed a new place: Deng Hwang’s corporation headquarters. This proved to be another dead end.

But I was just going to sell these fine leather jackets!

I then returned home to see if Johnny Qwong had been notified of the explosion. Indeed, the news had reached even Deng Hwang, who reprimanded Qwong for failing to do anything to prevent the damage. He also asked Qwong to visit him in the headquarters. Soon I watched a cut scene.

He sure doesn’t like mistakes

Nice to know they care for me

Session time: 2.5 hours
Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please...try not to spoil any part of the game for me...unless I really obviously need the help...or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, Ive not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!