Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 307 - 316 President Gu’s Indirect Tactics

Chapter 307: Chapter 316 President Gu’s Indirect Tactics

Wei Chengjie scribbled furiously, noting down all the key points discussed earlier.

However, when he had finished and looked back at the content related to the game design, he couldn’t help but gasp.

Man, the workload for this game is not small at all!

Everyone had been speaking their minds freely before, so there was no deliberate limitation on the game’s scale and content—it was all about where the ideas took them. As a result, some system functions that severely exceeded the expected workload inevitably appeared.

The special abilities Wei Chengjie proposed didn’t have particularly large workloads by themselves.

For example, the Fire Element’s ability was simply an explosion. The Earth Element’s ability was wall-phasing and burrowing, which had some difficulty to it but wouldn’t be too complex.

Grabbing objects with the Wind Element and halting time with the Time Element were also acceptable.

The Water Element, which bonded objects, was relatively the most challenging to develop. It could attach to various items, enlarging them or combining different items to create various effects.

Thus, the more items there were in the game, the more complicated the reactions would be after enlargement or bonding, necessitating optimization for the vast majority of the items in the game.

Even if one were to create a generic program or categorize the items by their functions to take some shortcuts, there would still be a need for extensive testing and verification afterwards.

But regardless, the workload for these functions, at their core, remained within the scope of a large single-player game’s development.

However, President Li’s suggestions played a role in "pouring gasoline on the fire," increasing the workload even more!

For instance, in-game forces of Wind that could lead the player astray or underground creatures that devoured players not only needed to have their features developed but also placed great demand on level design and scene construction.

It’s safe to say that the designers responsible for level design are in for a sweaty ride.

In addition, President Gu’s requirement, although it sounds good, is very difficult to actually implement.

At a glance, it seems like simply adding a weight attribute to each item and having game characters perform different moves or attacks based on the weight of the items, but this places extremely high demands on the physical engine system used during game development.

For a small team with average development skills, just calculating and balancing the weight of various items to make them look right when used by the characters would consume a lot of time in repeated adjustments.

Moreover, this is just the tip of the iceberg in the game. If we were to design according to this plan, there would be many more related derivative problems.

For example, if players can use earth-moving techniques to phase through walls, it would result in revolutionary changes to the entire game’s level design.

As we all know, the more restrictions on player movement, the easier it is to design levels.

If players don’t have the ability to jump, a small mound of dirt could block their path.

But once you add a jump function, players will make their way into many bizarre places, finding shortcuts through carefully crafted levels.

Giving players the ability to phase through walls suggests that traditional level design will inevitably have too many shortcuts, which naturally places higher demands on level designers.

Otherwise, the levels are prone to two extremes: either they are too simple, passing them simply by phasing through a wall, or they are too complex, confusing players no matter how much they phase.

In either scenario, it would be a significant flaw in the game’s level design.

Moreover, to better reflect the roles of the Water and Wind Elements in the game, there needs to be a considerable amount of water- and wind-related content, suggesting that the game is highly likely to be an open-world game.

Overall...

After pondering, Wei Chengjie finally said, "President Gu, President Li, with that said, the game’s general framework is more or less established.

"Considering the content design of the game itself, I suggest making an open-world game that allows players to explore freely. Meanwhile, the design of different elements indicates that the game would best fit a Western Fantasy, cartoon, or fantastical style.

"As for the narrative framework of the game, I think traditional motifs such as ’Hero fights the dragon’ or ’Hero saves the world’ will suffice. The story should not be overly complex. After all, the game mechanics are already complex enough. If we add a complex storyline, the development costs of the game will become somewhat uncontrollable."

Gu Fan nodded, "Mhm, acceptable."

As for Lilith, she did not say much because she did not care about the specific content of the game at all.

As long as the game could meet her demands and induce enough negative emotions in players, that was enough for her.

To her, the efforts Wei Chengjie poured into refining the game were at best a beautiful facade, merely a tactic to lure players to play.

Seeing no objections from the two, Wei Chengjie quickly continued to write fervently, recording all his previous thoughts as well.

Throughout this process, Wei Chengjie gradually realized something.

President Gu... seemed to always be deliberately guiding President Li.

Initially, Wei Chengjie thought President Gu was more like a hands-off manager or an aggrieved little wife, completely powerless against the whims of an investor, simply at the mercy of President Li’s caprices.

Facing the outrageous suggestions from President Li, President Gu had no choice but to acquiesce silently, and then sneakily introduce bugs into the game during development, attempting to salvage its reputation post-launch in a roundabout way.

But after this meeting, Wei Chengjie suddenly realized that maybe President Gu was not as passive as he seemed?

Take this game, for example. It seemed as though he was the one offering suggestions during the meeting, with President Li having the final say, with most of the functionalities decided by her.

Yet in fact, President Gu played a decisive role in the background, acting as a filter.

Whenever President Li came up with seemingly redeemable ideas, President Gu kept silent or even voiced staunch support.

On the other hand, for those proposals from President Li that had serious issues, President Gu would ingeniously suggest alternatives. On the surface, his ideas might seem even more impractical, but upon closer inspection, these new approaches undoubtedly left much more room for creativity.

For instance, President Li’s idea that the Water Element would cause special bonded items to shatter later on was clearly too far-fetched.

President Gu’s suggestion to add a weight property to items, although initially seeming to impose major limitations on the player and introducing more work by adding an entire gravity system to the game, also meant that the more complex the system, the greater the possibility for loopholes and operational flexibility.

Reflecting on this, Wei Chengjie couldn’t help but feel a deep respect.

Indeed, it had to be President Gu holding Nitiandang tightly in his grasp!