This Is Not a Bug but a Game Feature

Chapter 335 - 214: Ancestor Tree (2)

Chen Ba laughed and explained, "Never underestimate how obsessed these middle-aged men can get with gaming!"

"It’s still different though..."

Yang Dong explained, "The reason for their obsession is probably because the gains from ascending to the throne in this game far outweigh the investment!"

So far, the average recharge revenue of "Don’t Leave After School" has completely stabilized.

Take a popular server as an example.

If you can become a game partner on a popular server for a month, just from the revenue share, you get about 1.5 million in a month.

Isn’t that money coming in sweet enough?

Work for two months and it’s like hitting a first prize lottery jackpot, work for a year and you’re financially free, go wherever you want.

Such a stable business is naturally going to attract attention.

The dark side of the game has also emerged.

A player in server two, because they knew the holder of the Permission Bead in real life, had the idea of kidnapping his friend and forcing him to hand over the Permission Bead.

Luckily, his plan was seen through as soon as it started, avoiding worse consequences.

However, it also served as a warning for many Permission Bead holders, especially those ordinary people with no background or status in real life.

The authority and status granted by the Permission Bead only apply in the game, there might still be someone hiding malicious intents in reality.

After this, everyone was more careful about privacy protection in the game, not wanting any personal information leaked to other players, to avoid being targeted by bad guys.

This is not making a mountain out of a molehill.

With the importance and represented benefits of the Permission Bead in "Don’t Leave After School," it’s enough to make many people take extreme risks.

After all, some cases that resulted in loss of life started over just thousands or tens of thousands of yuan.

How can Permission Beads be worth just tens of thousands?

...

Tree Planting Day, the outskirts of Jiangning.

To cheer up Dong, who was feeling down, Chen Ba simply called the whole studio team to go tree planting in the outskirts.

Tree planting was a means, the aim was to lift Dong’s spirits a bit and do a bit of team building.

However, during the process of planting trees, a piece of foreign news told by Lu gave Chen Ba a new game idea.

The news Lu told was actually about a cemetery abroad that provided a special tree planting service, where a tree is planted after the deceased is buried.

The nutrients for the growth of this tree mostly come from the decaying body...

This sounded quite special.

Chen Ba had also heard this news a while ago, there were many netizens joking and playing with various gags online at the time.

For example:

"Mom, why is this apple so sweet?"

"Silly child, your second uncle had diabetes, of course, this apple is sweet!"

At first, like ordinary netizens, he took it as just an amusing anecdote, listening casually without taking it seriously.

But now that Lu brought it up again, coupled with the fact he was planting trees, Chen Ba suddenly had a strange idea.

What if this was made into a game?

"How would you do it?"

Although Lu was the one who inspired Ba, he only shared a foreign anecdote to liven up the atmosphere, how would he know what connections Ba made?

"Have you heard of ’Yu Gong Moves the Mountain’?"

"Generation after generation, endlessly struggling! With the efforts of generations, even towering mountains can be moved."

Chen Ba explained, "My idea is that the protagonist has a mission they must complete, a mission that might take a lifetime, or even a hundred lives to complete."

"So he will die, die in pursuit of his dreams, turning into a fruit-bearing tree full of rich fruits, waiting for followers to harvest."

An adventure game!

The protagonist is not alone, to be precise, each time he dies, his generational status decreases by one.

Similarly, every time the protagonist dies, a tree grows at the location of death, each tree possessing some special tool or ability the protagonist had before dying.

"The levels are very long and numerous, but you can’t save midway... do you know what I mean?"

"I roughly understand!"

Yang Dong thoughtfully added, "The trees left by ancestors, though not save points, are better than save points."

Because these ancestor-trees provide descendants with various tools, abilities, etc., they acquired in life, and even healing abilities.

So theoretically, a skilled player could complete the game without dying.

But in reality, most people pass the game by passing down from generation to generation, planting countless "ancestor trees" along the way."

Yes, truly winning by lying down!

What if a certain level is particularly difficult, nearly impossible to pass?

Well then, die!

Die several times on this level, so when the map of this level is filled with your own "ancestors," passing the level would be a piece of cake, wouldn’t it?

So this game, due to the inability to save, sounds as terrifying as ’Digging for Promotion’, where one wrong move will send you falling from the clouds back to the dream’s starting point.

But in reality, because the game has the "18 generations of ancestors transform into trees" set-up, the further you play, the easier it gets.

The level maps are everywhere filled with trees sprouted from my ancestors’ deaths, I wonder how to lose, I can clear this level with my eyes closed!

If you still can’t pass?

No problem!

My son, Dad has also turned into a tree, so this level’s difficulty just lowered again, inherit my will, remember the glory of our ancestors, and stride forward!

"So in this game, the ending of passing the level is a family sacrificing dozens of generations to achieve the dream, only for the last descendant to reach the end?"

"Dozens of generations?"

Chen Ba thought for a while, then shook his head and said, "Maybe not! According to my concept, it would normally take several hundred generations of effort to reach the final goal."

Of course, skilled players are exceptions!

Skilled players are generally not taken into account, as they are not in the same league as regular players.

Skilled players playing this kind of game can basically clear it after figuring out the mechanics and level points after dying two or three times.

Ordinary players don’t have that kind of finesse or reflexes, so they need to die a few more times and plant a few more ancestor trees...

In a word: Want to get rich, plant more trees!

Death is not the end, but a new beginning! The previous deaths were not in vain, but provided solid support and impetus for descendants to advance.

"The game aims to convey that all happiness and beauty are hard-won, while enjoying the present, we must not forget the ancestors who paved the way and ultimately transformed into ancestor trees."

When Chen Ba said this, he had just finished planting the last sapling, wiped his sweat, and asked, "What do you think?"

"It’s nice, but the difficulty of the levels is hard to balance..."

Lu expressed his opinion, "The game’s theme and gameplay have no major problems; it’s a very traditional adventure game. But because of this ancestor tree mechanism, the level difficulty is tough to manage!"

If the difficulty is too high, even with ancestor trees, excessive deaths may lead to a strong sense of frustration, causing some players to quit.

If the difficulty is too low, the existence of ancestor trees already lessens some difficulty, thus reaching the end and clearing the game might not feel as rewarding.

Finding the difficulty balance is the most challenging part of this game.

"Not only that."

Yang Dong also shared his thoughts: "You mentioned each ancestor tree has a different effect and is based on the tools and abilities carried during life; doesn’t that imply this game has roguelike elements?"

"A little bit!"

Chen Ba explained, "It’s not heavily roguelike, it’s lightly roguelike, merging randomness in tools and abilities obtained each time you challenge, while the map and monsters remain the same."

"Then it might as well be entirely random!"

Lu sneered, "If tools and abilities are already random, then why not make maps, monsters, and traps random too. Only the placement and outcome of ancestor trees remain unchanged."

Grandpa gives acceleration shoes, and nothing else, dad gives shield enhancement, and similarly, nothing else.

This level of randomness, in Lu’s view, is what a roguelike game should have.

As for being lightly roguelike?

Rather than calling it roguelike, it’s more like a basic roulette lottery system...