God's Imitator

After serious consideration, Zheng Jie said, ”So he should have chopped the position on his forearm, right? Especially the area slightly above the wrist. The subcutaneous tissue in this place is relatively thin, only about 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters. If he chopped this place, it definitely wouldn’t be enough.

”Chopping his biceps or deltoids would have been fine.”

Cai Zhiyuan touched these two muscles on himself, ”But he was probably afraid of causing permanent disability, so he didn’t dare chop these two positions.

”When games in the Gallery are quite targeted, the ratings are basically adjusted upward accordingly.

”This game is quite targeted toward gambling degenerates.

”The safest way to exit this game is to directly grit one’s teeth and use the axe to chop off a section of one’s pinky finger.

”But gambling degenerates often have quite strong wishful thinking. After seeing two ’unharmed’ faces on the dice, they would subconsciously think there’s a one-third probability of rolling ’unharmed,’ so they’re more inclined to throw the dice and take their chances.

”And after not getting ’unharmed’ on the first try, he was already forced to cut himself once. This is equivalent to increasing the sunk cost, making him even more unwilling to chop off his pinky finger.

”Moreover, the rules clearly stated that the more times the dice is thrown, the higher the probability of ’unharmed.’

”All these factors would prompt him to keep throwing the dice, throwing at least three times.”Although the player wouldn’t die if they were ruthless enough, because of these reasons, the Gallery probably adjusted the rating upward.”

Wei Yinzhang added, ”There’s also another point. I feel that the first batch of single-player test games were generally given slightly higher ratings.

”After all, at that time, all God’s Imitators were designing games for the first time. They hadn’t seen other excellent designs, had no reference experience, and the time for designing games was very short.

”And they were single-player games, which are relatively less likely to design too much interaction and variety.

”So when the Gallery rated this batch of games, they should have loosened the standards slightly, so the overall scores were somewhat higher.”

Wang Yongxin said thoughtfully, ”In other words, God’s Imitators who design games actually can’t control all the details within the game. Many times unexpected situations also occur.”

Wei Yinzhang nodded, ”Of course!

”Anyway, in my own games, I often have various oversights. As long as they’re not too fatal, it’s fine.

”Plugging all the rule loopholes is too difficult. It’s like no matter how skilled a programmer is, the game they write can’t possibly be completely bug-free, right? It’s just a question of more or less.”

She took a sip of water and continued, ”Then I left the game venue, walked around aimlessly for a while, and arrived at Community 6.

”I naturally chose to hide my Imitator identity because the Gallery specifically warned that exposing one’s identity might bring danger to oneself.

”After entering the community, I would receive game invitations from the Gallery on the private computer in my room.

”I don’t know exactly how many invitations the Gallery sends out, but I can only receive one.

”I suspect that each time the Gallery sends out different invitations, each invitation going to several different God’s Imitators. These God’s Imitators each make their designs, and after the Gallery reviews them, they pick one to select.

”Exactly how they divide and pick, I don’t know.

”As for timing, if two games are about a week apart, then roughly one to two days after the previous game ends, I’d receive a new invitation. I’d submit the game planning document and complete the review the day before the next game officially starts.

”The time in between is the time for designing.

”However, these times aren’t absolute. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. The design time and requirements left by each invitation are also different.”

Fu Chen asked somewhat curiously, ”What exactly are the Gallery’s game design invitations like?”

Wei Yinzhang explained, ”Actually, it’s just a planning document in standard format. Inside are items that can be selected for the next game, additional rules or themes, files on criminals to be judged, and things like that.

”God’s Imitators write the specific rules of the game on it. When they write the four words ’Design Complete’ in the lower right corner of the last page, it’s automatically submitted for review.

”But whether it passes review or whether it’s adopted after passing review, generally there’s no separate notification. You can only find out when the next game opens.”

Wang Yongxin caught an important point, ”Wait, the items available for each game are different?”

Wei Yinzhang nodded, ”Of course they’re different!

”The Gallery does limit available items. For example, in that very first game for obtaining Imitator identity, there were clear limitations: any gambling tools, any cold weapons, any firearms, and so on.

”Haven’t you noticed that in the first batch of games, there were more things like dice, board games, and roulette wheels?

”Of course, these items don’t all have to be used. They can be self-selected. For example, in ’Loaded Dice,’ I only selected an axe from the cold weapons and didn’t select any firearms.

”But God’s Imitators generally can’t design other items outside the item list at will.

”Unless the item list separately gives other large-scale items that can be freely designed, and the quantity is sufficient.”

Li Renshu nodded in realization, ”I see. We really didn’t notice this point before.”

Cai Zhiyuan lowered his head in deep thought for a long time, then said, ”Indeed, thinking about it now, the designs of the first batch of games actually have certain commonalities.

”For example, the ’Loaded Dice’ and ’Redemption Roulette’ that you designed, both games are related to probability.

”At first, I thought all these God’s Imitators favored probability. Thinking about it now, it should be that the planning document provided items in the category of ’gambling tools,’ so it had a certain guiding effect on God’s Imitators.”

Wang Yongxin asked, ”So is the Gallery actually manipulating each game? Are God’s Imitators making games actually just implementing the Gallery’s will?”

This question stumped Wei Yinzhang a bit.

She thought about it, ”I can’t really say.

”The Gallery definitely has some kind of will, because when sending design invitations, sometimes it includes an extra sentence.

”For example, what left a deep impression on me was that after completing ’Loaded Dice,’ when I first received a game invitation at Community 6, the Gallery said that ’Loaded Dice’ was designed pretty well but still had flaws, and to keep up the good work.

”Also, in a previous game invitation, the Gallery said, ’Just as players will slowly change communities, God’s Imitators will also slowly change the Gallery.’”

Everyone was somewhat surprised and thought seriously about this sentence.

Li Renshu considered for a moment, ”We did indeed make such a speculation before: God’s Imitators might change the Gallery’s form, and players’ improvements to community form are actually ’placing bets’ among God’s Imitators with different philosophies.

”Now we can confirm the existence of this rule.

”As long as there are enough God’s Imitators persistently exerting influence on the Gallery, its review standards and inclinations can also change.”

Qin Yao suddenly realized something. She looked at Wei Yinzhang, ”So that’s why you made this ’Fool’s Game’?”

The others didn’t yet know what the specific content of this game was, so for a moment they couldn’t connect this sentence with the characteristics of the ’Fool’s Game.’

Qin Yao was a participant, so she realized this point.

Everyone brought up the game rules for ’Fool’s Game’ again.