《Manny's Burger Shop》is a super interesting story, filled with various elements that are both expected and unexpected. Its massive popularity also tells us a truth: In the internet era, miracles can happen, as long as you don't mind their abstraction.

  The story begins with a UP main.

Flash Ball, an UP whose name isn’t known by many, focuses on game pranks and story-driven games. His speech is fluent, his voice is pleasant, and he has a light Northeastern accent that sounds internet-friendly. His video editing and recording are of average quality, and he can be considered a dedicated UP. Despite this, his account has an unremarkable 59,000 followers—some people watch, but he has no significant influence, with video views often hovering in the thousands. In the winner-takes-all Bilibili gaming section, his presence is as inconspicuous as his signature, and the money he earns may not even cover the cost of a 大会员 (Bilibili 大会员).

It was this UP 主 who produced a video with nearly three million views at the end of April, this guy's three major representative works, the first had 2,700 plays, the second had 4,100 plays, the third, 299,

  ten thousand.

The work that made him famous is Manny's Burger Shop. It must be said that, looking back from this point in time, there was a sense of destiny in the mutual achievement between Flashball P and Manny's Burger Shop, because Manny's Burger Shop is a game with abstract graphics and an excellent storyline, perfectly aligning with Flashball's expertise. Flashball really loves this game, and the entire video is fully engaged, providing a viewing experience that even a million-level UP might not be able to offer.

Now, bilibili and Douyin (as Flash Ball also invested in Douyin) suddenly saw a surge in popularity for Mani Burger Shop, but all of this was actually quite unreasonable. Because Flash Ball wasn't the earliest to do it, Hua Shaobei was earlier; nor was it the best, Bo Hai Zhi Yu made it a day earlier and had higher views, but from the perspective of dissemination, Flash Ball directly made the game go viral.

Hua Shaobei made "Manni Burger Shop," and he himself said in the comment section that the click rate is the lowest in history

Bóhǎizhǐyú made "Mannie Burger Shop," and it's already quite impressive that he achieved eight million clicks with a budget of four million, right? But the number of comments in his review section is only a little over a thousand.

Flash Ball, three million views, nearly two thousand comments in the comment section.

  Pierced, friends.

Being a UP on Bilibili is a winner-takes-all game. For the same content, when top UPs create it, they will directly monopolize the views, because under the condition of unique content, mainstream video users have no need to repeatedly watch works by different UPs, and traffic will concentrate on the top creators. In a situation where multiple top UPs have already recorded videos, the final breakout point lands on a knee-level UP. The exact reason is unclear; this is the internet, a place that constantly creates tiny miracles.

  The game is also in this situation, what about the game?

"Manny's Burger Shop" is a game independently developed by Bonesaw577. Since Bonesaw577 is a bit long, we will call him bone fish from now on. He himself also knows this is his name; I guess he recognizes these three Chinese characters.

Bone Fish is not a technical expert, so the visual quality and gameplay design of Manny's Burger Shop have no particular strengths, but he cleverly avoided the shortcomings in the game's visual and entertainment aspects, for example, the character faces are directly printed from photos, and Dead Souls sent congratulatory messages.

《Dead Souls》 uses real human facial capture technology, while 《Manny's Burger Shop》 doesn't have that much money, so it's fine that they just put photos on the model. Combining real human faces with immature technology can produce a rather bizarre flavor. Sometimes, you can really feel the emotions expressed by human actors through the human skin mask, though it's not refined, the information is there. More often, you just find this thing too strange, crude yet avant-garde, naturally suited for horror games and bizarre games.

Because of poverty, the human mask in Manny's Burger Joint is still the polygonal version, which makes it even stranger, and thus more in line with the game's style. When it's expressive, it's truly expressive.

  This is what is meant by fit is more important than good.

The story is a significant strength of Manny's Burger Joint. Bonefish has a real talent for storytelling, with a particularly well-paced narrative. At the beginning of the game, players have to play some boring and unpleasant mini-games to help the protagonist Brian survive after a shipwreck on a deserted island. After the first round of survival mini-games, just as players are thinking about whether to ask for a refund, the camera shifts to reveal a surprisingly grand American-style burger joint on the tiny isolated island.

If the game starts with a cutscene, then the sudden appearance of a burger shop isn't really that impressive an idea.

If the game starts with a collection of low-quality mini-games, the broken gameplay experience would not be able to sustain players long enough to see the story unfold.

This game uses its own makeshift approach to push players to the brink of "being able to take back eating shit," and then employs ultra-expansive and mature cinematic techniques to elevate the experience, thus forming -100 points jumping to 100 points of ultimate experience.

  This is what is called turning a disadvantage into an advantage.

The subsequent plot of the game mainly revolves around a walking simulator and viewing experience, with some not-so-fun chase scenes and puzzles added. The camera work maintains a very high standard, paired with subpar modeling and a rich array of human facial expressions, keeping players in a unique gaming experience that is both good and bad. This distinctive game is easily labeled as a masterpiece, especially for cloud players who can enjoy the story without suffering through the gameplay. The inexplicable popularity of Manny's Burger Shop seems somewhat inevitable, and for indie games and personal studios, having a strong enough strength is more important than anything else.

So far, 偶然性与必然性 makes "Manny's Burger Shop" a work full of randomness and inevitability. What elevates the entire story to the ultimate level of abstraction is the keen sense of the author 骨头鱼.

Before "Manny's Burger Joint" became popular, Bone Fish had already registered a Bilibili account.

At this time, "Manny's Burger Joint" is only popular within small circles, such as domestic friends who specialize in niche games and those who look for gold in the dregs of bad games. Bone Fish is quite willing to gain recognition among them, to increase exposure for itself and its game.

  For this, he even registered for WeChat.

Bone Fish evolves quite quickly, to cater to the preferences of Bilibili's audience, it basically does whatever they ask, and dynamic text is also translated into full Chinese through machine translation. This point hits the bullseye for the niche player community, foreign author + proactive operation + a lot of activities, making player fans and viewers feel unprecedentedly pampered.

At this point, the number of followers for the Boney Fish account is around one thousand, with daily comments ranging between three to four hundred. The followers are very fresh and highly engaged. If this continues, the account should eventually have four to five thousand followers, with an average of about one hundred comments per post, similar to his popularity in foreign communities.

  But fate gave him a chance to speed up.

Yes, "Manny's Burger Shop" has gone viral, and Bone Fish quickly followed up, engaging passionately in the comment section of the game's UP and 引流疯狂. (Note: "引流" is a Chinese internet slang term that means "to 引流" or "to drive traffic," but it doesn't have a direct English equivalent. It is often used in the context of marketing and social media to describe efforts to attract more viewers or users. In this context, it can be translated as "driving traffic" or "attracting more users.") However, since the instruction is to provide translation only and no notes, here is the revised output: Yes, "Manny's Burger Shop" has gone viral, and Bone Fish quickly followed up, engaging passionately in the comment section of the game's UP and driving traffic.

  And he himself also posted quite a magical video.

He has a deep understanding of his identity, and unlike the stereotypical image of independent game developers who are generally not sociable, Bone Fish was born to eat the internet's bowl of rice. He appears in person, makes official merchandise, shoots Bilibili exclusive Q&A videos, and spends a lot of time figuring out how to be a streamer in China. He gives me the impression of being extremely dedicated, treasuring the hard-earned opportunity to become a sensation.

  He even opened a Taobao store.

  This pace of progress, this level of effort, really surprises me.

Do you know how I feel? I feel that he's not really trying to sell anything; he's just grabbing every opportunity to show his face and presence because he truly understands that there are only one or two chances in life to ride the wave of opportunity. He has a pure obsession with success. What can I do? I can do more! Come on! Let's do it! Not doing it would be the regret!

To some extent, this is indeed a positive and interesting aspect of white culture.

It was this kind of interesting that made the work go viral, and as a result, Bone Fish also gained ten thousand followers on Bilibili.

Achieving 100,000 followers, Bone Fish posted a dynamic to express gratitude and made a short film titled "Manny's Burger Shop" to 回馈 fans, the title is very straightforward. (Note: "回馈" is a Chinese term that means "to give back" or "to 回馈," but it seems out of place in the English translation. It should be "回馈" to "give back to" or "reward." Here is the corrected version:) Achieving 100,000 followers, Bone Fish posted a dynamic to express gratitude and made a short film titled "Manny's Burger Shop" to reward fans, the title is very straightforward.

You'll find this person is particularly smart and clear-headed.

He aggressively marketed himself but not to become a celebrity. He was very clear about where his 100,000 followers came from, why they followed him, and how he should thank them. So, instead of appearing in person in a thank-you video or saying how much he loves China blabla, he made a very abstract video that catered to his fans.

And this person has a particularly awesome thing, he arranges the characters in such a way that it doesn't make you feel like he's pandering to the fans.

He genuinely feels that it would be nice if the protagonist and the second male lead were a couple.

He didn't originally intend for the two characters to be together, but since the audience likes it, he thinks it's also good for them to be together, as long as there's emotion.

  This is a very strange sense of relaxation.

You say this person is eager for quick success and does shoddy work? The cinematic feel of *Manny's Burger Joint* and the serious tone of the QA videos can also show you his dedication to creation. You say he is dedicated and has a desire to express himself? Yet, he doesn’t have the obsessive control over characters like many independent producers do; whatever, I’ll do it however you like.

Games to him are neither purely utilitarian nor idealistic vehicles. Bonefish himself seems as elusive as the human skin mask technique, with one foot in the sky and the other on the ground, and his works and the author show a high degree of consistency in essence. I don't mean to say that Bonefish is a very simple and pure person; what I want to say is that he gives off a feeling of being simple, direct, interesting, and lively, which makes him very likable. I even think he might stumble in the future, because this persona is hard to maintain consistently, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Audiences change, and authors can get tired.

Anyway, the story surrounding "Manny's Burger Joint" is quite interesting, but I don't think others can really replicate it.

  It's both bad and weird, how to learn it.