God's Imitator

Lin Sizhi took the planning document from his desk drawer.

After flipping through it from beginning to end, he found that this design invitation had quite high freedom, without too many restrictions or very obvious design guidance.

”That is to say, what the Gallery wants this time is a game similar to ’Blood Poker.’

”But with fewer restrictions and more room for imitators to develop.

”And most importantly, the ’community confrontation’ element must be clearly added.”

For Lin Sizhi, the Gallery’s intention wasn’t hard to guess.

This game invitation could also be viewed as ’distribution-type,’ mainly used for distributing visa time, with no need to design deadly traps.

This could also be seen from the planning document format.

’Screening-type’ games would require imitators to fill in expected mortality rates, while ’distribution-type’ games had no such requirements at all.

On the related props list, there were no weapons that could kill people but compared to ’Blood Poker,’ this design requirement had obviously changed.Because ’Blood Poker’ was the first time distributing visa time, there was no need to design too many punishment mechanisms.

Even if players adopted relatively stupid strategies or were deceived in the game, the losses wouldn’t be too severe.

Everyone could earn some visa time, it was just a matter of more or less.

But this time the keyword was ’redistribution.’

This meant that some more severe punishment mechanisms could be added, such as: additional deduction of large amounts of visa time when failing in the game.

As for the keyword ’community confrontation,’ this was also reasonable.

Because the community had just updated rules allowing community member changes within games, this meant the reorganization and evolution speed of communities in the New World would significantly accelerate.

This game might be a rehearsal.

Those proposals that could prompt players to change community members in games would inevitably be prioritized for adoption.

Of course, no matter how this game was designed, large-scale reshuffling of community personnel was unlikely.

After all, most players had lived in communities for so long that unless they were doing too poorly, it would be difficult to truly make up their minds to go to a completely unfamiliar environment.

Even if member changes occurred, there probably wouldn’t be too many but this game would inevitably further intensify existing conflicts within communities and widen cracks.

After serious consideration, Lin Sizhi put the planning document back.

He decided to abandon the design of this game.

This game invitation had no compelling reason to participate and wasn’t related to others’ life and death.

Even though all players would be forced to participate and Lin Sizhi would have to participate too, even failure would just mean deduction of visa time, which wasn’t a serious problem for him.

Of course, these were only secondary reasons.

The main reason was that Lin Sizhi wanted to see more designs from other imitators.

For imitators, figuring out the Gallery’s rules as much as possible and getting their games selected was certainly important, but after making initial progress on this matter, another issue had to be considered:

Who would be the most likely future enemies?

Smart players?

They could certainly pose threats to imitators, but under the Gallery’s rules, the positions of both sides were completely unequal. In confrontations between the two, imitators would have absolute initiative.

Under current Gallery rules, what could pose the greatest threat to an imitator would most likely be another imitator but this created a very interesting problem:

The more games an imitator designed, the easier it became to be exposed.

Because games designed by imitators would more or less reveal their knowledge structure or subjective intentions.

If confrontations between imitators really occurred, what ranked first might not be the ability to design games, but information gaps.

If two imitators, one knew of the other’s existence first, they would have absolute initiative.

Whether making targeted life-and-death games to calculate against the other, or seeking self-protection after being pulled into games designed by the other, everything would be more effortless.

Therefore, Lin Sizhi decided to use this opportunity to further observe other imitators in the Gallery. This might influence some of his future decisions.

”Sometimes, experiencing games by other imitators might not be an uninteresting thing.”

...

Two days later.

All members of Community 17 gathered in the lobby. Some were reading, others were simply staring at the big screen, waiting silently.

Because everyone knew that based on timing, the Gallery would most likely start soon.

Sure enough, after somewhat annoying waiting, new broadcast appeared on the big screen.

[Good morning, players!]

[The ’Gallery’ will open in 1 hour.]

[This game is called ’Conglomerate Nation.’ The game objective is ’visa time redistribution’ and ’community confrontation.’ All players in the New World are required to participate.]

[Communities can freely form 4-person teams to participate in games. Each game session has a total of 12 players from 3 communities participating.]

[Please prepare, players.]

Then a one-hour countdown appeared on the big screen.

59:59 59:58

Seeing this broadcast, many people showed joyful expressions on their faces.

”Huh? A distribution-type game! Am I seeing this right?”

Among the game types that had appeared so far, distribution-type games could be said to be the most player-friendly.

Because judgment-type games and screening-type games both had quite high mortality rates, but distribution-type games didn’t.

From the situation with ’Blood Poker,’ except for a very few gambling addicts and unlucky people, almost no one would die in this type of game.

Everyone could earn visa time, it was just a matter of earning more or less.

Moreover, many people were also looking forward to this being like ’Blood Poker,’ with some kind of backdoor for earning over 200,000 visa time at once.

That would be a huge profit.

’Blood Poker’ opened too early, it was the first game everyone encountered after entering the New World. At that time, everyone didn’t have awareness of looking for hidden mechanisms in games, so many people regretted missing it.

Now, the Gallery had finally shown mercy again, opening a new distribution-type game.

Jiang He was somewhat puzzled and instinctively looked at Wang Yongxin, ”Another business-type game? Two in a row.”

Many people had the same confusion.

So far, many people had realized that game content was often directly related to the imitator’s knowledge system or preferred fields.

A typical example was ”Blind Date Game.”

This was normal, because when imitators designed games, they would inevitably create questions based on their existing knowledge systems. At the same time, when entering their own games, they would also have greater home field advantage.

Two consecutive games related to making money and business appearing, did this mean the imitator who designed these two games was someone quite strong in the business field?

Wang Yongxin felt the gazes cast by everyone and inexplicably felt like he was being wrongly accused.

Fu Chen clapped his hands, ”Everyone quiet down. The most important thing now is to group up.”

Everyone nodded.

Since they couldn’t see specific rules from the name, there was naturally no way to predict the game’s content.

Instead, specific grouping would have some considerations.

According to the rules, the community would be divided into 3 four-person teams, and after entering the game, they would be matched with 4-person teams from 2 other communities to play together.

Then actively grouping and arranging personnel within teams became the most important current matter.

Li Renshu considered for a moment and said, ”If divided into three groups, Lawyer Lin, Brother Wang, and Officer Cao, can each of you lead a group?”

The three nodded respectively, ”We can.”

Wang Yongxin asked first, ”Can I choose people myself?”

Li Renshu nodded, ”Of course, as long as the other party is willing.”

But before Wang Yongxin pointed out specific candidates, Cai Zhiyuan said, ”Team leaders choosing people is certainly possible, but I think the three most disadvantaged players in the community should choose first.

”Otherwise, if the three people most needing care are all assigned to the same group, there might be situations in the game where the carry can’t handle the burden.

”After the three of them choose, team leaders can then select the remaining two vacancies.”

Everyone thought about it and felt this made sense too.

Li Renshu nodded, ”Alright, then let the three people most needing care choose first.

”Dr. Zheng and Luo Wei are new members and still need special care.

”As for the last spot... Jiang He, Qin Yao, either of you can choose first, just don’t get assigned to the same group.”

Although Jiang He and Qin Yao had earned quite a bit of visa time in ’Blood Poker,’ everyone knew that was purely the result of teaming with Lin Sizhi.

The two of them were quite lucky, they hadn’t been forcibly selected by Gallery games since ’Blood Poker.’

But considering their intelligence levels, they were still quite worrying.

Cai Zhiyuan looked at Luo Wei, ”Luo Wei, this is your first time entering a game. I personally suggest it’s better to team with Lawyer Lin.

”Of course, you can also choose freely.”

Luo Wei didn’t think too much, ”Alright, I choose Lawyer Lin.”

This made Wang Yongxin somewhat disappointed. If he could choose three team members himself, Luo Wei would definitely be among them but since Luo Wei had already made her choice, there was nothing he could do.

Zheng Jie actually also wanted to choose Lin Sizhi. After all, he had felt extremely secure in the ’Blind Date Game’ before but since it had been said that the three weak players couldn’t be assigned to the same group, he could only choose between Cao Haichuan and Wang Yongxin.

”Then I’ll choose Officer Cao.”

Jiang He looked at Wang Yongxin, ”Then I can only choose you, Brother Wang.”

Wang Yongxin nodded, ”Of course, welcome.”

For him, although Jiang He wasn’t as good as Luo Wei, she was still someone he could try to win over.

As for the remaining candidates, they were actually quite clear.

Wang Yongxin would definitely prefer Yang Yuting and Xu Tong.

Fu Chen and Li Renshu were assigned to Cao Haichuan’s side.

The remaining Cai Zhiyuan and Qin Yao naturally went to Lin Sizhi.

Although this grouping result couldn’t be called particularly perfect, at least it could satisfy most people.

The countdown ended, and everyone instantly disappeared from the lobby.