Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 66: New Game "Prometheus

Chapter 66: Chapter 66: New Game "Prometheus

Gu Fan was shocked, "How can a survival building game collect negative emotions? Wait for the players to finish their houses, then knock them all down? An earthquake simulator?"

Lilith’s eyes lit up, "Hmm? Don’t say, that’s a good idea!

"But the method I’m thinking of is even more extreme.

"Since the main fun of a survival building game comes from surviving and building, then if our game has neither survival nor building, won’t that do the trick?"

Gu Fan’s eyes widened, "A survival building game with neither survival nor building? President Li, do you want to listen to what you’re actually saying...

Lilith said confidently, "This is very easy to achieve!

"Didn’t you say that the main factor of fun for your humans from these games lies in ’creation’?

"If I don’t let them create, but just have them move bricks, won’t that continuously produce negative emotions?"

Gu Fan nodded in realization, "I see. What you’re talking about has already existed since ancient times.

"In ancient times, it was called the corvée system, in modern times, it’s called civil engineering...

"Depriving humans of their creativity and forcing them to engage in simple, tedious, and meaningless repetitive labor is indeed a form of torture!"

Lilith wore a proud expression, "Right? I told you this idea would work!

"Although this type of negative emotion isn’t an explosive outbreak that has an immediate effect, over time, it will accumulate and the impact will grow.

"There certainly won’t be any issues with passing the review, and it has a strong element of misdirection!"

Lilith revealed a truly demonic smile.

"As long as we slap the label of a survival building game on it, players will willingly come in to serve their cyber corvée. By the time they realize they’ve been tricked, I will have already made a fortune in negative emotions!

"Great, I’m going to write the proposal right now!"

Having said that, Lilith disappeared at the speed of light, full of fighting spirit.

She didn’t seek further advice from Gu Fan, obviously still adopting a cautious attitude towards him. She wasn’t planning to let him meddle too much in the details of the design.

And Gu Fan didn’t really want to give her more advice either.

Getting involved more deeply in the design details could give Gu Fan greater control over the game, but it would also exponentially increase the risks he had to bear.

The more you say, the more mistakes you make. The game was bound to have some bizarre bugs, and when Lilith comes to settle the score later on, if Gu Fan couldn’t clear his relationship with those, it would be troublesome.

Speaking this much was just right for the time being.

As for where exactly to introduce a bug?

At this moment, Gu Fan certainly hadn’t thought it through; he needed to wait for Lilith to come out with a concrete plan to ponder it slowly.

However, Gu Fan had one advantage, and that was time.

Lilith was an impatient demon, often completing all the design work within a day or two; such designs were bound to have flaws.

And Gu Fan, with a development timeframe of one or two months, could perfectly write the code while considering where to subtly introduce a bug.

...

...

The next evening, Lilith indeed came with a new design proposal.

"Gu Fan! ’The survival building game with neither survival nor building’—I’ve totally got it! Look at this proposal, isn’t it perfect?

"I have a premonition that this time we’ll be able to collect negative emotions en masse, just like your Mortal Realm’s combine harvesters cutting wheat!"

Lilith said this while proudly placing her hands on her hips.

Not paying much attention to Lilith’s strange analogy, Gu Fan reached out and took the new design proposal.

Then, the first thing he saw was the name of the game.

Prometheus.

Gu Fan asked, "This seems to be derived from Western mythology as well? The Prometheus who stole fire? But isn’t that a story from Greek mythology, are you from the same system?"

Lilith waved her hand, "Ah, that’s just a name, it doesn’t matter."

Gu Fan continued to read on, and as expected, although the game was called Prometheus, it actually had nothing to do with Prometheus.

Players were neither playing Prometheus to steal fire nor needed to be tied to a cliff and have their entrails pecked by an eagle.

It’s called "Prometheus" because of the game’s main gameplay.

The map of this game isn’t very large, roughly equivalent to the main city of a typical MMORPG and its surrounding area.

The entire map can be roughly seen as a "poached egg" structure:

The innermost circle is the "Divine Realm," somewhat akin to the resplendent main cities in MMORPGs, towering into the clouds, grand and imposing; whereas the outer circle is the "Mortal Realm," featuring towns, villages, as well as mountains, rivers, cliffs, plains, and wilderness.

But don’t be blinded by the scenery, this is actually a world full of crises!

The central Divine Realm, although it appears magnificent and stunning, is actually home to Angels who show no mercy to any Humans who enter, roasting them with powerful Holy Light until they’re dried meat or even turned to ash.

The surrounding Mortal Realm isn’t much better, entirely lacking any idyllic rural views or bustling towns, just spot after spot of corvée labor points, desolate wilderness, and ferocious beasts.

The game itself supports multiplayer online, with up to 16 players playing together.

And there are two core gameplay mechanics.

The first, as the name implies, is "stealing fire."

Players can enter the Divine Realm to steal all sorts of building materials, including stone, lumber, seeds, etc. These can all be used for construction in the Mortal Realm.

And "stealing fire" means taking the Divine Fire from the Divine Realm.

In this game, Divine Fire is the foundation of everything; without it, all buildings in the Mortal Realm will decay and collapse.

Thus, every construction project requires offering up a cluster of Divine Fire.

The fire is also hidden in the most dangerous corners of the entire Divine Realm.

The second gameplay mechanism is "construction."

In the Mortal Realm, a variety of grand projects are under construction everywhere, which may be roads beside paths, Great Canals connecting two places, magnificent palaces, or prisons built atop cliffs.

Just looking at these two core gameplay mechanics, they actually seem quite interesting.

Isn’t this a standard survival construction game?

Adventure, gathering materials, building your home, then activating the tech tree to obtain more powerful equipment, and venturing into even more dangerous places to harvest higher-level materials...

This also counts as a very complete system, and if it’s made with care, it could definitely become a good game.

But since it’s designed by Lilith...

Then there’s no doubt it must have some bottomless pits.

And the pitfall of this game is that it actually has neither survival nor construction!

The core joy of these two systems has all been cut out!

Firstly, the core joy of survival is "free exploration." But "Prometheus" explicitly doesn’t allow players to explore freely.

According to normal logic, players would build in the Mortal Realm, and when they find themselves short of materials, they’d venture into the Divine Realm for an adventure, grab the materials, and then return to continue construction in the Mortal Realm.

But "Prometheus" restricts players to only two roles: "Manual Laborer" and "Flame Thief."

Manual Laborers are forever confined to the Mortal Realm, forbidden from entering the Divine Realm; Flame Thieves are always in the Divine Realm, and even if they gather enough materials and are able to briefly return to the Mortal Realm, they must immediately go back to the Divine Realm after handing over the materials.

In other words, players have no choice of when to explore, and can only forever run for their lives in the perilous Divine Realm, constantly at risk of death.

What about Manual Laborers then? Are they any better off?

Not at all!

In "Prometheus," all construction is predetermined, and players have no space for creativity.

Manual Laborers can only use various materials to stack them onto specific constructions in a fixed manner according to the blueprints.

For example, when digging the Great Canal, the route of the canal is fixed, where the ferries and docks are located is fixed, and even how many bricks and planks are on the docks are fixed!

Players can’t even move a brick.

If a mistake is found, a Supervisor with a long whip will come over to teach the player a lesson.

As a Manual Laborer, all you can do is carry bricks and place them at designated spots, endlessly repeating this cycle.

Without a doubt, there’s no fun to be spoken of here, purely cyber corvée.

Even more outrageous is that once the construction progress on the map reaches a certain value, the Angels will appear and launch a devastating Earthquake, randomly collapsing the buildings in some areas, forcing players to start all over again!

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