Chapter 392 - 248: Metaphysics Is Essential! (Part 2)

"Alright, alright!"

After clapping his hands to signal everyone to focus on him, Chen Ba assigned the task, "We’re in the game design business, so let’s not expect any suspense or thrilling excitement."

"What we need to do now is design the puzzle-solving exploration and parkour chase scenes based on the storyline..."

Puzzle-solving isn’t Chen Ba’s forte.

He’s a complete novice when it comes to the popular "escape room" games with young people, so he needs to consult everyone’s opinions and ideas.

"Solving puzzles is nothing more than gathering clues to find the truth and solve riddles. Leave this part to me, I’m pretty good at it!"

Luo Ji voluntarily took on the challenging part, solving a difficult problem for Chen Ba.

As for the remaining tasks, compared to the puzzle-solving part, they are not so hard.

"Music will be outsourced; we, with our complete lack of musical talent, won’t mess things up for others."

At this point, Lu seemed to think of something and suddenly asked, "By the way, does a horror game of this type only have an exploration and puzzle-solving gameplay?"

"Pretty much!"

"To create a terrifying atmosphere in horror games, this exploration and puzzle-solving gameplay is undoubtedly the focus."

Chen Ba asked curiously, "Do you have other ideas? Tell me, what other gameplay can be added to a horror game?"

"You’ve already mentioned the parkour gameplay, Ba. Besides that, I think since it’s Chinese horror, shouldn’t we add some unique Chinese elements?"

"For example?"

"For instance, divination, it should be quite distinctive, right?"

Lu spoke freely, "Besides fortune-telling, we could also incorporate some of our uniquely traditional folk customs into the game."

"Fortune-telling?"

After hearing this, Chen Ba looked pensive.

Things that usually don’t get much attention might actually have a peculiar effect if added to a Chinese horror game?

Well, maybe not peculiar effects!

We can only say it could enhance the atmosphere and indirectly exert psychological pressure on players.

Let’s take an example!

A player is about to head to a new location to find new clues to solve puzzles, and before leaving, they drew a divination, good, great misfortune!

The cracked copper coins suggest the danger and horror of the journey.

When this trigram appears, even if the player hasn’t encountered anything unusual, they would inexplicably feel heavy and depressed, always tense, with a feeling of suffocation.

"This is fun..."

Luo Ji chuckled, "Playing this kind of horror game, truthfully, if they encounter a trigram predicting great misfortune, they’d be scared before they even start."

Is this reliable?

Reliable like a hammer! Smart people can instantly see it’s just an illusion; the game designer is messing with the players’ minds!

But it’s a bit intimidating; in reality, few people put faith in this because most have received higher education and don’t firmly believe trigrams can represent everything.

But this is a game!

And it’s a game filled with mystical and mysterious colors!

In such a game, if a trigram shows great misfortune, wouldn’t you feel heavy-hearted? If it shows great fortune, players would instantly feel confident, and all demons and monsters would have to back off.

"That’s how it is..."

Chen Ba admitted, "In reality, if you were to tell me I have signs of great misfortune, I would probably kick that person."

But in the Mountain Village Memories game, it’s different.

It’s a horror game; having some mystical elements is normal. Since you’re playing the game, you must have guessed it contains some ’off-reality’ content.

Given that, if the trigram shows great misfortune and you’re chased to death by a terrifying monster, isn’t that quite reasonable?

"Let’s combine them!"

Lu suddenly had an idea, "This trigram can be integrated with the game content, expanding the application scenario and range of this divination function."

For example, a bizarre creature is chasing me from behind, and there’s a fork in the road ahead.

Don’t panic, trust the power of mysticism, and divinate yourself first!

Okay!

The trigram indicates the left is the ’way of life,’ and the right is the ’way of death.’

Mysticism can’t save you from misfortune, paying can’t change fate?

Joking! Other games might say this, but playing Mountain Village Memories and you don’t trust mysticism? What is it chasing behind you, cough syrup?

"It can be like this..."

Lu’s analogy opened up everyone’s thinking, so Liu Jinfu gave a practical application example too.

These types of horror games usually face many "timing" choices.

So the divination application, besides offering good or bad warnings, can also add the ’choosing days’ function that comes with divination.

"What do you mean?"

Lu didn’t quite understand what Old Luo meant by choosing days?

"The trigram shows today is unsuitable for exploration! Then you go, and today the strange events are more numerous than usual, the monsters more keen and troublesome than usual..."

Old Luo explained, "Perhaps this means nothing to you, so I’ll put it another way. A fortunate time presents normal or easy difficulty; an unfortunate one presents hard or hellish difficulty."

"I get it."

Lu understood now; applying this choosing days feature in the game is basically giving players a chance to freely choose the difficulty level.

If you don’t want to wait for so-called fortunate times or days, then ignore the trigrams and tackle it at the hard difficulty; if you’re scared to tears or to pee, no one can be blamed.

If you think it’s too dangerous and want to play it safe, not rushing exploration or searching for clues, then wait for lucky times or days, the difficulty will slightly decrease, and the scare factor will be manageable.

"Is the difference huge?"

Chen Ba was concerned about how significant this difference between fortunate and unfortunate times would be; if large, Mountain Village Memories might create two extremes.

One group says this game is frightening, terrifying, it scared the soul out of me!

Another group says this game isn’t scary at all, not as frightening as XX...

"Not to that extent!"

Luo Ji shook his head, "If we really do it, the difficulty gap won’t be that big; even during fortunate times, it’s still thrilling and exciting."

"That’s good!"

Chen Ba thought for a moment, finally looking at Lu, who had proposed the idea, and asked him, "Since you brought it up, how about you handle this divination content?"

"I can’t..."

Lu shook his head in refusal.

Though he proposed the idea, he really couldn’t write the code for it. Despite it sounding simple, implementing it is quite complex.

After all, this "trigram" ties into multiple aspects like game difficulty and game content.

Plus, it has a high level of randomness.

Everything in the game is a controllable factor, but players are an exception, they’re the only uncontrollable factor in the game.

No one can predict where, when, or how a player might use this feature, so the trigram can’t be static.

Once the trigram changes, other game content must follow suit...

Gosh!

Just thinking about it makes Lu’s head hurt; this is no small workload. Implementing this divination function needs Ba to step in.

After all, Ba’s technical prowess and code volume are studio-recognized, indisputably top-notch.

The code Ba writes is the God of Gods; what Lu Jing can’t achieve doesn’t mean Ba can’t. Everyone who underestimated Ba ended up with swollen faces due to his actions.

Merely a divination function, although highly random and sizable in workload, can it really stump Ba?

"Well said, keep it coming!"

Chen Ba grinned at the compliments, feeling as refreshed as if he’d just left a spa, without hesitation accepting this task.

Though he guessed this was likely Lu’s flattery tactic, that’s not a big deal, after all, Lu’s words ring true as well.

This task could only be done by him; others probably wouldn’t cut it!