Chapter 1
A Private Game?
“Work work work!” In an office building in the Timo Business District of Yoder City Center, a newly-listed game review company just began their busy day at work.
In this enterprise, there were over two hundred game reviewers. But evidently, they were still short-handed. It was normal for them to work overtime mainly because the game market was too large. In this industry, the number of employees had already reached the millions, yet it seemed far from being saturated. Every year, there would still be a large number of graduates joining this industry.
Ever since the founding of the D-Planet Federation in the twenty-third century, artificial intelligence had begun to spread extensively throughout the globe. Most jobs that required human labor were filled. Hence, the tasks humanity could do gradually became lesser, resulting in large amounts of idle time. On the contrary, the entertainment business became increasingly developed, and the improvement of the gaming industry, as one of the important parts of the entertainment business, naturally saw rapid progress.
“[Storm Tribe], [Imperial Conqueror], [Spirit Sword Sealing Demons Record], [Yin Yang Master 28]…” In the office, Little Chen who had just entered the office began to open up the list of games that needed to be tested. He glanced at this list of huge IPs as envy shone in his eyes.
These games were all products of large companies and big productions that had immense numbers of advertisements since two years ago. The company he worked for could actually get so many high-caliber games for testing. It seemed like its connections and capabilities were extraordinary. But sadly, these had nothing to do with him.
As a newbie, these huge IPs would never be given to him to review and test. Only experienced veterans would be invited to conduct accurate evaluations and risk estimations for these games.
And as for newbies like him, the games they reviewed were usually privately designed.
Because artificial intelligence had developed greatly, the gaming platforms, templates, and frameworks were extremely mature. The basic costing wasn’t high, leading to many private gaming enthusiasts who didn’t have a lot of money to create virtual games using their creativity. But because they sorely lacked a game creation team and art designing team, the privately designed games could only attract audiences if they had elaborate creativity.
After the barrier of entry was lowered, private games flooded the market. For quality privately designed games, it was rare to find one even in ten thousand games. The majority of the games depended on selling scantily-clad female characters or the BL (boy’s love) genre. But even so, for such games, a portion of gamers who stayed at home also wouldn’t buy them. In this world, those who could afford to stay home and do nothing but play games wouldn’t lack money either…
Little Chen scrolled the screen, searching for some game products that were of slightly higher quality. All of a sudden, he saw a black-colored metal icon.
“The logo isn’t bad!” Little Chen felt a little more energetic when he saw the game icon of ‘Star Ocean’. The logo had a metallic feel to it and from its title, it seemed to be a game of the sci-fi genre. But sci-fi couldn’t accurately describe it. Many major gaming productions wouldn’t dare to touch the sci-fi genre, let alone private game designers.
Most of the sci-fi games were hanging the heads of sheep while selling dog meat, falsely advertising their content. Either some hot babes would accompany you to travel the universe, or it would be a hack-and-slash game like [Legend] that was covered under the guise of ‘science-fiction’ where one would level up while killing space monsters. Warriors and mages in normal hack-and-slash games would have their titles changed to origin force soldiers. The dragon-slaying saber would change to forcesaber—everything was just blatant plagiarism covered by new names and titles.
It was unknown how many people were still playing [Legend], and how many more generations of people would still be cheated by such a method?
With a heart like he knew everything, Little Chen clicked into the game. It was still better for him to test a hack-and-slash game like [Legend] early in the morning than to test a bunch of similar privately designed games. After all, there were many past examples that he could draw references from.
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“Welcome to [Star Ocean]. Come, sign the contract and become a subject under the authority of Overlord Xiye!”
A clear voice broke the dumb-founded look on Little Chen’s face. He raised his head in a startled manner and stared at the unusually formidable-looking NPC. His entire person began to shiver.
“Damn. Is… is this really a privately designed game?”
“Isn’t this model too realistic?”
Little Chen stared at the surroundings with disbelief etched on his face. The scene was a temporary military base fixed up with metal. Inside were all sorts of unknown instruments, robotic arms, and many pieces of equipment that he didn’t recognize. He suddenly felt too excited to speak.
Right now, the highest-evaluated sci-fi game in the market was [Titan], created by the Rainstorm Company. [Titan]’s ID was sold at $8,800 federal dollars and was known as the most expensive game in the market. When he was still studying, he had to scrimp and save for three years before he could barely have enough money to buy an account. But the sense of reality projected by this game’s design and the quality of the NPC model could basically trash [Titan]!
The details, the metallic feel, the NPC model, the lines of his face, the heaving rhythm of his muscles when he breathed in and out. The sense of reality was even more real when compared to sci-fi movies!
Could he really have encountered the ‘legendary’ divine work of the mortal world?
Little Chen involuntarily stretched out his hand, wanting to touch the NPC. But even before his hand came in contact, an imposing might suddenly gushed over. Little Chen couldn’t react in time and fell onto the ground in fright. The sense of pain traveling up from his bum caused him to feel even more bewildered as he silently mused, “A 100% tactile feel? This game is too gusty!”
“You are not allowed to touch this overlord!”
“An all-intelligent NPC?” Little Chen drew in a deep breath. Right now, A.I. technology had matured, and so an all-intelligent NPC wasn’t anything rare, but the personality of this NPC was pretty interesting.
After thinking about it, he didn’t continue to antagonize the other party. This game had a 100% tactile feel. If he was somehow smacked to death by this NPC, that feeling would be extremely hard to bear. As he contemplated, he turned his gaze to a huge metal door at the side.
There was a window on the door. Through the window, he could see the scene outside the temporary base. It was filled with desolation, as the scarlet red ground had no greenery. This place should be built according to the scenes on Mars.
This would save some trouble in the creation process, but the details were extremely precise. The quality of the sand and gravel on the ground looked extremely real. The flowing effect of their physical interaction with the wind was also very good. There were no problems at all!
After thinking about it, he pushed his hand forward, wanting to open the door to see the outside world. But all of a sudden, he felt a shock current bouncing his hand back. Just when he was astonished, the NPC spoke, “Mortal, your current body can’t survive on this planet. After signing the contract, this overlord will commence a biological modification for you. Once the number of people here reaches 500, this overlord will organize all of you into different teams to harvest resources outside to build your home base!”
“Oh…” A look of sudden enlightenment flashed on Little Chen’s face as he mused, “So it is still unavailable to the public!”
But after pondering, it should be the case. For a production of this quality, just the amount of work needed for the details of the different backgrounds and scenes alone would be enormous. Private designers naturally wouldn’t have the ability to open up too many zones. After understanding this logic, he instantly knew that this was a semi-finished product!
Such semi-finished products weren’t rare on the market. Many private designers had high standards, but they weren’t able to finish the game due to a lack of funding. They would always first design an opening model to attract investors to fund their game.
When he thought of this, he immediately began to score the game professionally.
Game quality: Semi-finished.
Game scene performance: Five stars. Perfect details, excellent quality. Just from the scene alone, one can tell that this game will be one that can span across eras!
Game model: Five stars. Exquisite, detailed, fully exhibiting the talent of the art design team.
Game playability: Unknown. Temporarily unable to play. It is a game that’s looking for investors.
Overall game evaluation: A semi-finished product that has very high potential. It has a very strong art design team. I believe that if there’s a good game-planning team, this might be a product that can replace [Titan]. Investment risk: Three and a half stars. The reason being the content right now is too little; there’s almost no content. This made me doubt if there might be completely no planning done for this game in the future. I suggest investors to ask the creator carefully first, or to hire a good planning team on their own terms!
After having a conclusion in his heart, Little Chen excitedly went to write his report. It was like finding gold in a shithole. This was already considered a good accomplishment.
But suddenly, he discovered that there was no menu popping up. He then glanced at the only intelligent NPC on the scene. “Might I ask how do I exit the game?”
This time around, the NPC didn’t say anything at all. It expressionlessly pointed to a transmitter at the center of the base that resembled a transfer device in sci-fi movies.
The node exit system?
Little Chen was startled. Although it could make the game seem more real, it evidently was much more troublesome. In the currently fast-tempo entertainment game models, this wouldn’t be liked. It seemed like this game truly lacked a good planning team.
After contemplating it, he didn’t hesitate and entered the transfer device. After activating the menu, he chose the option to exit [Star Ocean]. He also took the opportunity to quickly hand up his report before anyone else discovered this game. He must not let credit for such an accomplishment escape him!
After that, a flash of light manifested, and Little Chen who was in the transfer device vanished completely. The NPC that had a look of arrogance on his face suddenly sat down after he saw that Little Chen had left. He removed his imposing metal helmet and revealed a handsome face!
“This overlord is so fatigued!” The NPC actually began to mumble to himself. “That silly fool finally left!” After that, he spoke to the air, “A.I., can we really get away with it by me acting like this?”
“Overlord, please rest your heart at ease!” An electronic voice rang out suddenly from within the base. “Overlord, you only need to wait patiently. Not long later, there would be an unending stream of subjects flowing in!”