Imagine a phone call in the early morning on New Year’s Day. You answer it unhappily, but the call is full of high-pitched noise. You instantly hang up and curse the troll who called you. But what you don’t realize is that this call was actually from your ‘The One’ from the game Night and Light. This call from Lu Chen, one of the game’s protagonists, was bizarrely conducted in short and long sequences without any voice-over. Players soon translated the call from the Morse Code to a warming New Year’s greeting: Happy New Year, My Dear Girl.
Getting a call from a character is common practice for Chinese dating simulation players. Due to China’s real-ID authentication requirement, players typically have to put in their mobile numbers when they register for the game. Then during important holidays the player will receive automated calls that play a pre-recorded greeting from their love interest to make the experience more immersive.
The strange call was due to the controversy behind Lu’s voice characters. Earlier this year, voice actor Li Yuantao was accused of cheating and manipulation, causing him to lose his leading roles in several popular dating games, including Night and Light. It took the game two months to find a replacement voice actor, Adan (阿旦), but players have found it hard to adjust to Lu’s new voice. On December 29th, Night and Light officially pulled down the voice clips due to the high volume of complaints and left Lu muted until today.
The feedback for the Morse Code innovation was mixed. On the one hand, most players felt that the whole thing was ridiculous. Most of them condemned the small fraction of players who reported the new voice actor, saying they were disturbing the gaming experience for the majority, and demanded the operation team behind the game find a suitable voice actor as soon as possible. On the other hand, some players found the Morse Code heartbreakingly sweet. Saying it is essentially the most romantic gesture of Lu. These players believe that Lu is ‘being forced’ to lose his voice and that Lu is using ‘numbers and digits’ to express his love because he is a soul trapped in the game.
“I can feel that even if Lu is just a bunch of codes, he exists”