Chapter 376 - The Initial Plan for the Haunted House (1/2)

January 5th, Wednesday…

Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong sat in the coffee area of the Fish-Catching Internet Cafe. Each of them had a laptop in hand, tapping away.

It looked as if inspiration was gushing through their minds. Their fingers were constantly moving, except for when they paused to organize their thoughts. Then, they would pick up the coffee on the table and take a sip.

Both of them were working on the plan for the haunted house.

During their time in the United States, they lived a dream-no, a nightmare.

“Smog Mountain’ State Mental Hospital was an abandoned hospital, which had been termed the most terrifying haunted house in the world.

During the past five days, the group of them had repeatedly walked through the haunted house. The suffering that they had experienced could not be described in words.

It had left a lasting impression in their hearts. They had learned so many things. In fact, every time they went to sleep over the past few days, they would ‘gain new inspiration’ and ‘relive the blurry memories’.

So once they returned to Jingzhou, Chen Kangtuo’s and Hao Qiong’s minds became filled with inspiration. They could hardly wait to write all of their experiences down, so that they could transfer them into the haunted house project that they had been put in charge of.

However, they did not copy whatever they saw. Instead, they criticized and analyzed their experiences.

They had spent all yesterday and this morning writing. Thanks to their highly effective working model, the basic plan for the haunted house had already been written.

“Come on, let’s compare notes,” suggested Chen Kangtuo.

Both of them sent their written documents to each other.

Ever since they returned, both of them did not communicate much. This was to avoid interrupting each other’s thoughts and inspirations as far as possible.

They had each worked on their own plan. They planned to only combine the documents after discussion so they could achieve the best results.

Of course, both of their plans contained common points. Those were the points that Boss Pei had given them about the haunted house’s general direction.

Boss Pei’s opinion had to be taken as the core standard. They could not ignore it.

‘Make it a destination where the courageous cannot spend much, and where the timid can only watch on in fear without entering.’ Those had been Boss Pei’s own words.

After Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong read and digested the standard requirements, they managed to draw two key points:

There would be three projects, and the fear factor would increase sequentially.

By offering discounts and refunds, they would charge the more courageous visitors less, and the timider visitors more.

That would allow them to maintain the haunted house’s reputation and profits. At the same time, they could take care of both types of visitors.

The only thing was that neither of them had thought about how to design the individual projects.

Thus, they had to look for inspiration from more successful haunted houses. Now, they had been inspired and frightened. It was time to come up with the actual plan.

Both of them scanned each other’s proposals.

Chen Kangtuo looked surprised. “It looks like we’re on the same page for many things. Perhaps it’s because we both have experience in the game industry as well. Maybe that’s why we are used to thinking of problems from a gaming perspective.” Hao Qiong nodded. “Yes, maybe.”

Both of their plans had converged in some areas, even though they had not discussed things beforehand.

The first project would not be that scary. It could be a game where people would be allowed to socialize.

Chen Kangtuo thought about making it a classic horror-themed escape room. On the other hand, Hao Qiong thought about making slight modifications to Be Quiet and turning the online game into a real one.

Of course, neither of them had thought much about the details yet. They had only come up with the general direction.

The second project was going to be moderately scary, and it would act as the transition from the first project to the third project. Basically, it was going to be like a single-player game. This project could have a small location, but the horror effects would not be lacking. People who could make it through this section would be qualified to experience the third project.

Both of them had thought about the same thing for this project: they would use a narrow space, measuring from a few square meters to a maximum of twenty square meters, so that visitors could go experience the project alone. However, Hao Qiong had an additional suggestion: the project could be made out of shipping containers. The shipping containers would have different settings and wheels at the bottom. That way, they could make adjustments to the project whenever they wanted, and visitors would not be able to guess exactly which setting they would be put through.

The third project would be the scariest. Both of them aimed to recreate their experience at ‘Smog Mountain’ State Mental Hospital.

However, both of their plans were different from the set-up at ‘Smog Mountain’ State Mental Hospital.

At the moment, most haunted houses had not grasped the pace perfectly.

Small-scale haunted houses in the country mostly set one fixed path, which led visitors from beginning to end. There were no exits available even if visitors wanted to escape midway through. Thus, they would have no choice but to grit their teeth and complete the journey.

The good thing about those simpler haunted houses was that no workers would be roaming around inside, and the jump scares would not be that frightening. Almost everyone would be able to complete the journey.

Large-scale haunted houses would be much scarier and would have much longer journeys. Those haunted houses would have to install sufficient exit doors along the way so that visitors could leave safely once they felt like they could not withstand it any longer.

Of course, there would also have to be enough surveillance cameras installed to observe the visitors’ mental states.

Take extremely large haunted houses like ‘Smog Mountain’ State Mental Hospital for example. Understandably, there had been many exits along the way. There had also been employees stationed inside the haunted house, ready to safely escort visitors insisting that they wanted to leave out of the place.

However, after visiting this haunted house, both men had had the same thought: ordinary people could not complete the entire journey in the haunted house, and so it became a waste!