Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 110: Renting Out the Venue for the Game Release!

Chapter 110: Chapter 110: Renting Out the Venue for the Game Release!

"Why did President Gu have to fix my BUG?"

Zhou Yang was a bit puzzled.

The investors were stubborn, and President Gu, in order to make the game profitable, the company sustainable, the players happy, and the employees rewarded, was forced to cram BUGs into the game. The logic and chain of reasoning seemed pretty clear and solid, right?

If we helped President Gu insert a few BUGs to make the game hotter, that wouldn’t be a problem, would it?

But why would President Gu strike a blow at his own allies?

Could it be that...

Zhou Yang pondered the BUG he had submitted and suddenly had an epiphany.

Got it, it’s because this BUG was too repetitive, too basic, and too simple!

It wasn’t smooth or natural!

The reason Zhou Yang had thought of this BUG was because he was inspired by "Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon."

After all, the "Strategic Dragon Synergy" BUG in that game was critically acclaimed and considered a classic among BUGs. And when Zhou Yang saw that this design draft included a skill similar to "Brocade Bag" called "Hell’s Bounties," he subconsciously wanted to copy the standard answer.

But on closer examination, one would find that while these two BUGs seemed similar, their actual effects were vastly different!

The "Strategic Dragon Synergy" BUG was unprecedented, whereas the "Hell’s Bounties" BUG was merely an imitation and replication, which players might easily guess, losing its novelty.

What’s more, it was very likely to be discovered by investor President Li!

After all, President Li was already quite dissatisfied with the "Strategic Dragon Synergy" BUG. Now, they had come up with the "Hell’s Bounties" gameplay without specifying any restrictions in the design document. Who knew if it was a fishing expedition?

Besides, even putting those concerns aside, those two BUGs were also quite different from a narrative and gameplay standpoint.

The skills "Observing Stars" and "Brocade Bag" used in "Strategic Dragon Synergy" were generic and didn’t feel out of place on anyone.

But "Hell’s Bounties" inherently meant bestowing a demon’s power on a certain target, yet the game had a "Good-Evil Value" mechanic, and angels and demons were always diametrically opposed.

To most people, these two were incompatible.

Bestowing Hell Knowledge on an angel’s human form? That action seemed a bit too forced.

If angels’ human forms were so easily brainwashed, what would be the point of being an angel? Heaven might have been infiltrated by Hell a long time ago.

Moreover, from a gameplay perspective, this BUG didn’t seem to be novel enough.

Before the BUG, players racked their brains using demonic power to fight angels, and after the BUG, they still racked their brains using demonic power to fight angels—so what was the point of the BUG then?

In short, it lacked depth!

With this realization, Zhou Yang suddenly saw the light.

"So President Gu isn’t opposed to us adding BUGs, but to us adding BUGs without technical substance!"

"These BUGs not only don’t help, but they also drag him down, disrupt his plans, and even cause unnecessary suspicion.

"Could it be that President Gu already has in mind where to place the next BUG?"

"Hmm, it seems I still have a lot to learn from a genius game designer like President Gu."

Strictly speaking, Gu Fan should be considered a technical director, maybe stretching to game producer, but he’s not really a designer.

After all, he hasn’t touched a single word of the game’s design proposal.

Yet no one at Nitiandang has ever dared to doubt President Gu’s ability to design games. After all, with just a simple BUG, President Gu transformed an investment pitch that was a mess into an entertaining game. Such an ability could only belong to a top-notch game designer, right?

Zhou Yang firmly believed that, given the chance to freely design, President Gu could definitely create a very fun game!

So, Zhou Yang wasn’t defeated by this minor setback. Instead, he resolved to continue learning President Gu’s philosophy of game design, to study these BUGs thoroughly and to try to present a solution that would satisfy President Gu next time!

...

...

September 30, the last working day before the National Day holiday.

"City of the Abandoned Gods" and "Hell Inferior Demon," two games, released simultaneously!

It must be said that on Hell Frontline’s side, Azazel was indeed ambitious.

After securing the investment from Lilith, he resolved the company’s financial troubles and quickly produced the game’s art and music resources with the help of Hell’s art and music teams.

They squeezed the programmers a little more, making them work overtime desperately, and successfully compressed the game’s development time to one month.

And it was released today along with "City of the Abandoned Gods".

Of course, the unlucky programmer at Hell Frontline’s coding ability was nowhere near Gu Fan’s, but after all, the gameplay of "Hell Inferior Demon" was relatively simple. There were many ready-made templates for climbing and jumping games to use, so the development seemed fast.

"City of the Abandoned Gods" continued the previous pricing, still 98 yuan.

However, the price for "Hell Inferior Demon" was quite low, only 18 yuan, consistent with the initial pricing of "Infernal Trajectory"!

Moreover, this game also adopted the "try playing for two hours before paying" strategy.

Lilith was once again infuriated to the point of exploding. Crossing the river by feeling the stones shouldn’t be done so obviously, right?

This is plagiarism! This is theft!

It was bad enough that they copied the gameplay of my game, but how could they even copy my marketing strategy? Shameless!

If this game really could collect a large amount of negative emotion, then Lilith would vomit blood, her intelligence and wise schemes would all benefit others.

Lilith still didn’t know what kind of "surprise gift package" Gu Fan had prepared for "Hell Inferior Demon", but by now, she could only choose to trust.

At 6 pm, "City of the Abandoned Gods" officially went on sale!

The employees of Nitiandang Games went to a cinema near the company, walked directly into the VIP Room No.1, and found seats at their leisure.

Zhou Yang was munching on popcorn and complained, "Brother Haiquan, to be honest, I’ve worked at many game companies, but this is the first time I’ve encountered a game release in a cinema.

"We’re not watching a movie premiere!"

Before the game release, Lilith had passed a message through Gu Fan that she wanted to watch the game release with everyone this time.

Lilith had already booked a VIP room in a nearby cinema in advance and had made arrangements with the cinema so she could switch to her own livestream.

In recent years, many cinemas have rolled out this kind of service; it probably started with offline viewing of esports competitions.

After all, the cinema primarily makes money off the venue fee, and as long as they don’t show anything illegal, it’s fine.

From Lilith’s perspective, this decision was quite reasonable.

Before, she and Gu Fan watched the game releases together in the living room of their rental, and if the game gathered a lot of negative emotion, she could only share her joy with Gu Fan alone; if the game had bugs, she could only see Gu Fan’s reaction.

But now, Nitiandang Games after all had so many employees, and it was better to enjoy things together as a group.

For a game release viewing party, President Li wasn’t short on money!

But for the employees of Nitiandang Games, this event seemed quite bizarre.

If it was a movie crew watching their film’s premiere at the cinema, that would be somewhat reasonable, but it’s unheard of for a game company to do this!

Game companies usually release games during the day and then have all staff on standby at the company, ready to fix fatal bugs or apologize to players at any moment.

It’s just that Nitiandang Games has always been extraordinary.

Everyone took their seats, and Lilith sat in the most supreme seat No. 1 of the whole VIP theater, surrounded by employees, with a mountain of various snacks and beverages in front of her.

And Gu Fan sat on her left hand side, ready to provide answers to tough questions, commonly known as passing the buck.

The livestream of Instructor Ding appeared on the big screen.

Watching a livestream on the big screen of the cinema felt absurdly like "using a golden hoe to farm," but Lilith didn’t mind. She opened a can of Coca-Cola and waited for the show to begin.

...

"Damn it, why did the sugar daddy’s game release time get moved up? This makes me very uncomfortable," said Instructor Ding, his face full of the unhappiness of being forced to work.

He usually started streaming at 8 pm, and most of the previous games from Nitiandang Games were also released at that time; the consistency in timing was very tight.

But ever since Instructor Ding fell out of favor, he found that his relationship with the sugar daddy was gradually drifting apart.

No more contracts, no gold trophies, and now even the release times didn’t match!

Nonetheless, Instructor Ding was unwilling to fall behind others by two hours right at the start, so he had to start streaming earlier, albeit reluctantly.

With less than 10 minutes to go before the official game release, Instructor Ding completed the pre-download and then entered "Prometheus," showing all the players the fruits of their nearly two months of hard work.