God's Imitator-Chapter 329: Design Pitfall

Additionally, players could spend 20,000 minutes of their own visa time to purchase items or chips.

Without needing to think, the vast majority of players would definitely spend money, after all, this concerned their own life and death.

These 20,000 minutes of visa time wouldn't be considered their own earnings but would be considered other players' earnings.

In other words, suppose Player A used 20,000 minutes of visa time to purchase some chips for gaming. Without considering rake and transaction tax, his own earnings would be 0, but if Player B earned these chips through games, then Player B's earnings would be 20,000.

Therefore, each player's 20,000 should be included in the game lobby's total visa time.

Twenty players together totaled 400,000. Adding the previously calculated 600,000 in funding, the total visa time in each lobby might very likely reach around one million.

For every 10,000 minutes of visa time, one could obtain an 'equipment card'. Collecting five different equipment cards provided death exemption.

Although card pieces might duplicate, players could trade with each other.

If distributed absolutely evenly, each of the 20 players could obtain 50,000 in earnings and get 5 'equipment cards'.

That is, while obtaining one death exemption opportunity, they could also bring back about 30,000 in net earnings.

But in the actual game process, it definitely wouldn't be this optimistic.

Because player earnings would definitely show polarization and couldn't possibly be evenly distributed.

Moreover, each God's Imitator needed to earn at least 50,000 minutes of visa time, so in each lobby, God's Imitators needed to earn away 20,000 to ensure they wouldn't die.

There were 6 games in a lobby, meaning at least 120,000 minutes of visa time would be earned away by God's Imitators.

Some greedy God's Imitators would earn even more.

Thinking this way, it would definitely reach the Gallery's default 30% elimination rate.

Xu Zhao looked at the numbers he calculated and fell into contemplation.

This data was still very important. If God's Imitators couldn't accurately calculate these values and overestimated or underestimated the lobby's total earnings, it could cause deviations in game design thinking.

Because in a game, whether total earnings were high or low would very likely directly determine players' gaming methods and strategies.

If total earnings in a game were sufficient, players would be more inclined to adopt cooperative strategies, because even obtaining baseline earnings would be acceptable.

But if total earnings in a game were very limited with relatively high mortality rates, then players would inevitably start deceiving each other, and the game environment would take a sharp turn for the worse.

This situation was clearly the latter.

Although Xu Zhao wasn't previously a God's Imitator, he had participated in quite a few games and could have this awareness.

He began formally considering the specific game rules.

"Time is quite tight. Designing overly complex rules definitely won't make it in time.

"Moreover, looking at this game invitation, it seems the Gallery doesn't suggest God's Imitators design overly complex games either. After all, there are six game rooms in each lobby.

"What kind of game should I make..."

After contemplating for a long time, Xu Zhao first wrote four characters on white paper, the core gameplay in the game, then further refined related rules around the core gameplay.

'Logic Puzzles'.

To cram and design games with relatively good depth and difficulty, using some relatively classic logic puzzles was a good approach.

Xu Zhao himself was relatively interested in these logic problems, and there were corresponding books available in the community.

There were many types of logic puzzles. Well-known ones included: the red-blue eyes puzzle, the three gods puzzle, the seven-colored hats puzzle, and so on.

Using these logic puzzles to design games had three benefits.

First, these puzzles, just looking at the questions, were relatively easy to understand. They wouldn't be obscure and difficult to comprehend like professional questions that immediately discouraged players.

Second, these puzzles themselves contained a large amount of information with good depth. If one didn't know beforehand but instead thought about them after seeing the questions, very few players could deduce the answers in a short time.

Finally, as a God's Imitator, Xu Zhao himself knew the answers to these logic puzzles very clearly. This was equivalent to naturally mastering the game's backdoor, basically ensuring he remained undefeated.

Therefore, such questions were typical questions that were 'extremely favorable to the designer'.

Xu Zhao could completely deliberately seek some relatively obscure logic questions when posing them, ensuring the vast majority of players didn't know the solutions. He should be able to easily earn visa time.

"I can set a relatively low problem-solving threshold. For example, directly give players 1000 chips at the start, allowing players to answer once for free. As long as they answer correctly, they can get generous chip rewards.

"Logic puzzles all seem simple but actually have great depth when solving. After players fail to answer the first time, they'll mistakenly think they were almost able to solve it. This way, they'll continue using their own visa time to exchange for chips to solve problems.

"But each subsequent answer requires more chips. The more sunk costs players invest, the more obsessed they become. This way, earnings can be continuously obtained.

"Besides this, according to the game's difficulty, I can also provide paid services like 'hints'.

"This way, if I can encounter my own game unit, I can obtain a lot of visa time from it. If I don't encounter it, I can still earn income from other players."

Xu Zhao felt this plan should be feasible. As long as he ensured the logic puzzles themselves had good depth and were relatively obscure, he should be able to stably obtain earnings.

He tried writing the basic rules for this game unit, such as what rules the chips required for each answer would specifically increase by, and how to handle multiple people participating in games.

But two hours later, Xu Zhao suddenly realized something and stopped.

He re-examined this game's prototype, and his brows furrowed.

"No, I seem to have fallen into a pitfall...

"If I really submit this game, then no matter how well I design the details, I'm definitely dead..."

Xu Zhao suddenly awakened, even feeling cold sweat break out on his back.

Because he discovered he had just brushed past death.

Such a game design, if used to complete previous game invitations, wouldn't have too big a problem.

Because in previous games, after Gallery approval, players had no choice and could only bite the bullet and play.

The worst result would just be not being selected.

But this game was different. Players could make choices among 6 game rooms.

In other words, no matter how well this game was designed, as long as players didn't play, then Xu Zhao as a God's Imitator would only have a dead end.

He directly crumpled the paper full of plans into a ball and threw it in the trash.

"The Gallery really has pitfalls everywhere..."

Xu Zhao took over a new sheet of white paper with completely different thinking.

"This game isn't entirely a game with players, but also a game between God's Imitators.

"So I can't freely do as I please. Designing overly complex and obscure game rules is equivalent to discouraging players.

"If I don't realize this point, it's equivalent to reading the question wrong from the start and will be viewed as an 'unqualified God's Imitator'. It's equivalent to suicide..."