Chapter 96 - #96: DaddyHunt, You Crossed the Line!

The players who had successfully secured a spot on the crystal trophy leaderboard suddenly received an automated inventory notification from Steam.

As the digital copies dropped into their accounts, a collective wave of question marks practically floated above their heads. Everyone in the gaming community knew Nova’s very first game. They had all heard the legendary horror stories of its psychological torture.

Getting Over It was the kind of game that everyone loved watching other people suffer through, but absolutely no one wanted to play themselves.

Despite being the cheapest title in Sprout Studio’s entire catalog, it was the game that gamers were the most terrified to actually own.

[ Shakekiller: Steam literally read my mind! If I can’t get the crystal trophy, I want those tryhards to suffer too! Copperwolf: LMAO the Steam completionists are literally throwing up right now. You know those guys that physically HAVE to 100% every game in their library? Runarsson: Exactly. The hardcore pro gamers are going to be forced to beat it. When I saw the gift drop into their libraries, I actually cried laughing. Eins: Steam using a five-dollar indie game to inflict maximum emotional damage is a masterclass in hating. Highest quality work right there. Haru: This is such a spiteful, toxic gift, and I fucking love it. ]

The immediate reaction from the masses had been: If you can’t afford a real gift, just say so. But that was before the players actually booted up Call of the Wild. When they finally realized they couldn’t even track a virtual rabbit to save their lives, the community sentiment instantly flipped.

Well done, Steam!

Carter had fully prepared himself to get roasted alive by the internet. He had authorized the giveaway in a moment of pure, blinding gamer rage.

Over the past few hours, he had regretted the rash decision more than once, constantly thinking that if he could go back, he would have picked a more universally loved gift to satisfy the platform’s users.

But when he finally logged onto Twitter and saw the massive wave of support pouring in from gamers all over the globe, he was totally dumbfounded.

[ kcline: As expected of a Steam regional executive. The man has incredible vision. Crystal trophies and custom Xbox consoles only make the 1% happy. Gifting Getting Over It makes the 99% happy. Nheka: Xbox caters to the elite, Steam caters to the masses. NicoGab: Friendly reminder: the whales who grinded out those trophies are severe OCD gamers. Get ready for the “Getting Over It Speedrun to fix my Steam Library” streams. KAKKERA: Honestly, thanks for the laugh Steam. Really smoothed out my frustration from losing a deer earlier. ]

Carter hadn’t expected his spiteful, impulsive decision to gain so much overwhelming support.

Now that he sat back and thought about it, the logic actually made perfect sense. He couldn’t help but smile, clicking a ‘Like’ on a comment praising his diabolical marketing tactics.

With the social media crisis averted, he booted up Call of the Wild again. Real-life hunting was an incredibly heavily regulated and expensive hobby, but Nova’s masterpiece allowed players to experience the thrill with unparalleled freedom.

Not long after spawning into the Layton Lake reserve, Carter spotted a massive herd of Moose drinking by the water. There were four of them—two males and two females.

The colossal, sweeping antlers on the males were incredibly fierce and majestic. Seeing them rendered in such stunning detail made his heart race.

But he just watched them through his binoculars from a distance. He didn’t pull the trigger.

It was only the second day of the game’s release, and the global quota for Moose crystal trophies hadn’t been filled yet. But if a player thought this was a golden opportunity, they were dead wrong.

Through his binoculars, Carter saw the number ‘8’ hovering next to the bull’s UI tag. It was a Mythical-tier animal. It was a massive, high-level beast that fundamentally could not be ethically harvested with the low-tier starter ammunition he currently had equipped.

Any novice who tried to get lucky and take down a massive bull with a basic starter rifle would instantly be hit hard by reality.

This brutal realism was the core soul of the game, and it was exactly why the players were so deeply addicted to Nova’s designs.

When transitioning to this game, casual FPS players would instinctively flick their crosshairs straight to the animal’s head.

Headshots were the ultimate display of skill. It was a mechanic permanently engraved into the DNA of every single shooter fan on the planet.

In the first few hours of release, countless streamers had confidently boasted about their elite marksmanship, swearing they were going to rack up a montage of clean headshots.

But when they pulled the trigger, tracked the fleeing animal for two miles, and finally found the blood splatter… the UI invariably read: Flesh Wound.

The chat rooms instantly spiraled into endless self-doubt. The players assumed their aim was off, or that the game’s hit registration was completely bugged.

It wasn’t until they actually dug into the game’s underlying mechanics that they realized the truth: for large wild animals, a headshot was rarely fatal.

In the real world, humans possess massive brains and relatively thin skulls—a biological trade-off for high intelligence, which makes headshots instantly lethal.

But wild animals have incredibly small brains, often accounting for less than one-tenth of their total head volume. The rest is pure, dense bone and muscle. If a hunter aimed for the center of the head, the bullet was far more likely to shatter the jaw or ricochet off the thick skull plating than actually pierce the brain cavity.

Even a perfectly placed shot to the forehead often lacked the kinetic energy to penetrate the bone, resulting in a superficial flesh wound that the animal could easily survive.

Nova hadn’t made a casual arcade shooter; he had meticulously simulated the realistic animal kingdom.

Carter had actually consulted a buddy from Texas who hunted in real life, and his friend had confirmed the exact same logic.

“If that game’s ballistics are really as accurate as you’re saying, I might actually have to install Steam and try it out,” his friend had laughed over the phone.

“When we hunt out in the real world, we always aim for the vitals—the lungs and the heart. Aside from the fact that a brain shot is incredibly risky, the head is the actual trophy! You want to keep the skull and antlers perfectly intact for the taxidermist!” his friend explained proudly.

“Next time you fly down to Austin, I’ll show you my real trophy room. I’ve spent a fortune getting those mounts preserved.”

“I know all about that. We have a massive Trophy Lodge built right into the game,” Carter couldn’t help but laugh. Nova was exactly that kind of developer; he ensured that every single facet of the real-world experience was perfectly simulated in the code.

“Come on, how can a virtual showroom even compare to the real thing?” his friend scoffed dismissively.

“Personally, I’m pretty satisfied with the virtual one,” Carter smiled coyly. As they talked, he forwarded his friend a highly upvoted Reddit clip showcasing DaddyHunt’s in-game Trophy Lodge.

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Damn… okay, that’s actually pretty rich…”

The next day, Thomas Vale booted up his stream. The second his broadcast went live, tens of thousands of players flooded the channel, and the chat immediately turned into a massive apology wall.

[ shroud: DaddyHunt, I am so sorry. We weren’t familiar with your game. Aidanas: This game is literally impossible! I sat in a bush for two hours and didn’t see a single thing! Vonhjin: DaddyHunt, can you actually drop a tutorial? Sorry for doubting you. The skill issue was mine. Senpai_for_hire: I’m so sorry! I need to practice more T_T Vanta: The only daddy that I can accept being called my daddy is @DaddyHunt. knapp: @Vanta ayoo… ]

Thomas read the chat scrolling across his second monitor and couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He wasn’t gloating over the apologies; he just found the sudden shift in attitude genuinely hilarious.

The community’s arrogant bravado had perfectly collided with the game’s brutal reality. Try it, and die.

“Don’t worry about it, guys. Actually, let me show you something,” Thomas chuckled.

He reached out, grabbed his webcam off the top of his monitor, and turned his gaming chair around. He pointed the camera toward the far corner of his real-life living room.

Mounted high on the wall, resting above a beautiful oak display case, was a massive, hyper-realistic, taxidermied Whitetail Deer head.

!!!

[ LIRIK: DADDYHUNT, HUNTING IN THE GAME IS ONE THING, BUT YOU CROSSED THE LINE IRL! ]

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Just finished watching Avatar: Seven Havens! What do you guys think of it? I think its peak!!! Nisha and Pavi are sooo cuteee!