Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 121: Collapse! Rebel! Heaven! Gang!

Chapter 121: Chapter 121: Collapse! Rebel! Heaven! Gang!

Instructor Ding’s mood soon settled down.

However, he didn’t start the fourth round of the game right away; instead, he opened the forum to see what discussions other players had.

If it were according to his former personality, he would definitely have started a new game immediately and kept going until he hit a wall.

After all, every confident player doesn’t want to be spoiled; they prefer to figure out the best solution on their own.

But after being tempered by several games, Instructor Ding understood that this approach was obviously not suitable for Nitiandang’s games!

The problem with Nitiandang’s games is that there are simply too many wrong options, and even if hundreds of thousands of players played together, they might not be able to quickly uncover the core mechanics.

Therefore, at this time, checking the forum wouldn’t lead to spoilers; instead, it could help him eliminate wrong answers.

As expected, the forum was still full of lamentations!

Although everyone had already expected the games from Nitiandang to be challenging and stopped giving negative reviews immediately out of anger like they did at the beginning, "City of the Abandoned Gods" was still torturing them severely.

"This game seems to be utterly unsolvable!"

"This little girl is just impossible to please—touching the Demon Ruins won’t do, not touching them won’t do either; pampering her doesn’t work, and being harsh is even worse!"

"This isn’t like raising a daughter; this is clearly my own strict father!"

"It’s not enough, no matter how you calculate, the resources are never enough! The resources in this kind of game are fixed; if you give too much to the troublemakers, then you definitely won’t have enough for warfare later. It’s an unsolvable problem!"

"I tried, and if you’re fairly familiar with the gameplay and your calculations are accurate, you can manage to defend against the second Crusader invasion without completely losing Xia Mi’s affection. Perhaps if you operate perfectly, there would be something different."

"But I don’t think that’s the intention of the game, is it? Racking your brains to allocate resources meticulously, only to barely hang on by a thread? Where’s the fun in that game?"

"Maybe the game itself is not meant to be enjoyable at all; maybe it’s meant to torture you?"

"Impossible! With Nitiandang’s games, the more frustrating the early game is, the more enjoyable it is once you discover the core gameplay! I must not have found the best solution yet!"

Sure enough, everyone had arrived at more or less the same standard answers through their attempts.

After all, the gameplay of this kind of game is relatively fixed, and everyone has been trying the conventional routines—which naturally led to similar outcomes.

But if these wrong answers have been eliminated, what could the right gameplay be?

Instructor Ding pondered for a long time, clueless.

But just then, he suddenly saw a negative review of the game.

"I came for the fake-AI, but could you Nitiandang designers tell me, what does this crappy game have to do with fake-AI?

"The official statements were puffing up ’Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon’ as the best application of fake-AI Technology to date; what about this new game then?

"There’s absolutely no freedom at all!

"This game even has a chat box, which is outrageous for a single-player game. I tried saying a few words, and guess what? NPCs just repeat the same old platitudes over and over again, how is that any different from those lousy companies that use fake-AI indiscriminately?

"In summary, disappointed! Very disappointed!"

Obviously, this player heard that "City of the Abandoned Gods" also used fake-AI technology and expected to experience the high degree of freedom as in ’Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon’; thus, feeling utterly let down after finding out the reality was quite different.

"Heh, just another noob drawn in by Nitiandang’s recent popularity, so impatient."

Instructor Ding didn’t quite agree with the content of these comments, but one sentence did catch his attention.

"A chat box? There’s actually a chat box in this game?

"I’ve been playing for several rounds and simply failed to notice..."

On reflection, it seemed there really was one.

A chat panel in the bottom left corner of the screen indeed displays what the NPCs say.

However, some key dialogues, like the ones about Xia Mi’s decreasing affection, would directly pop up in the middle of the screen.

The chat dialogues shown in the bottom left corner were usually trivial banter like, "The Guard yawns and says ’To be on duty in this ghastly weather...’"—mere atmosphere builders, leading Instructor Ding to instinctively ignore them.

Moreover, this area does not show the chat input box by default, and without thinking to press the Enter key, Instructor Ding hadn’t noticed it for a while.

If it had been an online game, maybe he would have hit Enter right away to start trash-talking, but after all, this was a single-player game, right?

Talk to whom? NPCs? I don’t have schizophrenia."

But even after discovering a blind spot, it seemed unlikely to have any substantial impact on the game.

Just like the earlier comment said, even if players spoke, NPCs would still use fake-AI to automatically reply with canned responses, and this seemed no different from how other game companies used fake-AI.

Instructor Ding stroked his chin, deep in thought.

A moment later, he proceeded into the next round of the game.

"Guys, I suddenly had an idea!"

"This definitely won’t help us with clearing the game, I’m just messing around for the show."

"Even if there really is some core mechanism, I’m afraid it won’t be discovered until tomorrow."

Instructor Ding said this while beginning to operate.

This time, he completely chose a different strategy from before, which simply put is two words: slack off!

"Xia Mi? Ah, my good daughter, meeting for the first time, please, just call me Little Ding.

"We might have had some minor misunderstandings before, but that was all just a mistake. I know you’ve forgotten all about it, so how about we start this round of the game with a loving father-daughter relationship?

"Come on, let’s see what my good daughter’s attitude towards the refugees is?

"Oh, taking them all in? No problem, let’s take them all!

"What? You want to personally deal with these government matters? No problem, it’s all yours!

"You’re my not-so-related but very own dear daughter, if you say the word, how could I not oblige? You go ahead, from now on you’ll handle all the affairs of the city, and I’ll just stand to the side and cheer 666."

As Instructor Ding spoke, he directly let Xia Mi deal with all the matters in the city.

The result, of course, was obvious: supplies dropped rapidly, satisfaction surged!

As for Instructor Ding, he really had nothing to do now and didn’t dare to explore the Demon Ruins for fear of losing favor.

All day he just controlled the city lord aimlessly wandering around the city, receiving cheers from the citizens.

Of course when the Rogues invaded, Instructor Ding would still fight.

At this point, the development of the City Forsaken by Gods was booming, but soon enough, problems arose.

There wasn’t enough food! There weren’t enough shelters!

And Xia Mi’s solution was to split the remaining food equally, letting everyone starve without discrimination.

This was very much in line with her character.

But obviously, such behavior could not satisfy the other NPCs, and Instructor Ding saw the city lord’s satisfaction begin to drop.

This was exactly the kind of show effect Instructor Ding was going for.

He hit the Enter key and started typing next to Xia Mi.

[Daughter, how can you let everyone go hungry?]

[The famine victims are human too, they should also enjoy the most basic rights. If they don’t eat enough, they could get sick, or it could lead to even more serious consequences.]

[I think you should at least provide them with enough food. After all, I entrusted you with the handling of these affairs, it was my trust in you. Don’t let down your father’s kind intentions!]

After typing this, Instructor Ding still wasn’t satisfied and added another line.

[({The city lord’s favorability towards you has decreased.})]

Seeing Xia Mi running to the shelter again, Instructor Ding continued to type.

[Daughter, these new refugees still have nowhere to live, can you bear to see them exposed to the elements?]

[Refugees are human too, they also have the most basic right to survival. Why isn’t your newly built shelter ready yet?]

[How about I help you move bricks too?]

[These refugees are looking at you with hopeful eyes, you can’t let them down!]

...

Seeing Instructor Ding’s actions, the audience burst out laughing.

"Well played, turned the game into a text adventure, huh?"

"Pffft hahaha, completely reversed the situation!"

"Damn, he’s using all the lines I wrote!"

"Sis, weren’t you acting all high and mighty before? Show us what you’ve got! How come you’re letting the refugees starve too?"

"Hahaha this is hilarious, he’s using their own tactics against them, huh? Little Ding, you really get how to produce a show!"

"Right, support the continued righteous smackdown! Who cares if the Crusaders come, just throw them out! But first, let’s enjoy trash-talking a bit!"

"Proof that you shouldn’t trust the opposition, they’re all the same after they get in power!"

"If our roles were reversed, I’d show you what cruelty is! Who can’t talk a big game?"

"Toss Little Ding a free gift! Although I know this probably won’t do much, with this show quality, today’s stream was totally worth it!"