The contestants didn’t have number tags on them; this was also to prevent cheating, so there was no need to worry that a contestant’s identity would influence the judges’ or audience’s judgment.

The host continued introducing other games, and this incident became just a small interlude, laughed off by many.

Adam Brooks felt the timing was about right and secretly opened the virtual screen on his wristband to use the Super Focus Device.

He had already tested it before—this virtual screen could only be seen by him, so he could use it freely even in public.

Then, Adam Brooks locked onto the three judges and most of the audience, exactly five hundred people, focusing all their attention on his own game.

A countdown appeared on the virtual screen: 10 minutes. During these 10 minutes, the attention of these 500 people would be completely drawn to Adam Brooks’s game.

After finishing all this, Adam Brooks sat quietly in his seat and waited.

As the saying goes, do your best and leave the rest to fate. Now it was time to leave it to fate.

……

In the audience, a student opened his tablet, preparing to find a game to play.

He hadn’t planned on touching “FlappyBird” at all, but somehow, as if possessed, his finger clicked on it involuntarily.

“Huh?”

A bit confused, but he vaguely felt a strong voice in his heart calling out: Play it, just play it…

“Isn’t this that ridiculously simple, infuriating little game… Doesn’t seem fun at all.”

“……”

“Oh well, I’ll give it a try.”

The student still tapped the screen and started the game.

A couple was originally playing a two-player co-op flight shooter, but the girl suddenly felt bored.

“This is so boring, let’s play something else,” the girl said.

The boy nodded, “Sure, I think it’s pretty boring too. But, what should we play?”

Their eyes scanned over twenty games, and somehow, they both stopped on the icon of that fat, silly little bird from “FlappyBird.”

The girl said, “This game seems to be online and has a ranking system. How about we try this one?”

The boy hesitated, “Alright, but is this game any fun?”

The girl said, “You won’t know until you try. Besides, there’s an online ranking—let’s see who gets the higher score.”

The boy nodded, “Okay!”

The two of them tapped the “FlappyBird” bird icon together.

The effect of the Super Focus Device was truly immediate. All five hundred people, as if under a spell, opened “FlappyBird” and started playing.

Even the three judges were no exception.

William Clark was still fuming. When he saw “FlappyBird” being introduced on the big screen, he almost stood up to demand that this No. 7 designer be disqualified.

After all, William Clark was the oldest among the three judges, and as people age, they tend to become more conservative. In his view, this could be considered a game? It was simply nonsense—an insult to game designers!

How did this kind of person even pass the preliminaries? Didn’t the organizers properly review his abilities?

Or… was it connections?

Even this competition has a dark side—how infuriating!

But anger aside, William Clark suddenly found that his gaze seemed a bit out of his control. Among the twenty game icons on the tablet, that silly, fat little bird just seemed so eye-catching, as if it took up the whole screen.

“……”

“I want to see just how bad this can be.”

William Clark tapped the silly, fat bird icon and entered the game.

He felt a bit embarrassed, thinking that playing this kind of game was beneath him. He sneaked a glance at the other two judges sitting beside him, and to his surprise, their screens were also showing “FlappyBird”!

William Clark: “……”

Looks like he wasn’t the only one.

The other two judges, Henry Green and Brian Cooper, were also playing “FlappyBird.”

The reason Brian Cooper was playing wasn’t entirely due to the Super Focus Device’s influence. When the host introduced the game, he had already keenly noticed a problem.

Why would such a simple and monotonous little game bother to implement online and ranking features?

It seemed completely unnecessary. With that effort, it would be better to make another level or develop another character.

With this question in mind, Brian Cooper tapped the silly, fat bird icon.

The game’s start screen was very simple, telling players that just tapping the screen would make the bird fly upward. Other than that, there were no other instructions.

There was a 0 at the top of the screen, which should be the score.

The game’s visuals were exactly the same as the demo video on the big screen—extremely simple pixel art. The bird looked like a ball, with two lifeless big eyes, a sausage mouth, and two little wings. No matter how you looked at it, it was just silly.

But, oddly enough, it was kind of cute in a weird way.

Brian Cooper tried tapping the screen.

The silly, fat bird struggled upward just a tiny bit, like a salted fish about to drown, then immediately nosedived and crashed into a pipe, dying instantly.

Brian Cooper: “……”

What the heck is this?!

Chapter 6: This Game Is Addictive