God's Imitator

After reconsidering, Xu Zhao changed his mind.

He realized this game was best approached using relatively common, mature gameplay: such as chess games.

”Previously, I wanted to use logic puzzles as the core and design a relatively complex set of rules. If it were a previous game where players had no choice, that would be fine, but this game definitely won’t work.

”There will actually be two fatal flaws.

”First, the game lacks elasticity. When players don’t know the corresponding logic puzzle, it’s very difficult to solve, but once they know it, it becomes very easy.

”There are many players participating in this game, and players in the lobby can all communicate with each other. If a certain player happens to have seen this puzzle, it would be disastrous.

”This game isn’t a replayable type. Once cracked, it might be impossible to salvage.

”Second, the game rules still aren’t simple enough. Although simpler than previous game rules, they’ll most likely be more complex than games designed by other God’s Imitators in the same lobby.

”Other God’s Imitators are very likely all veterans. What I can think of, most of them can definitely think of too.

”The more God’s Imitators who choose to design simple games, the less room there is for God’s Imitators who design complex games to survive.”In the lobby, players have six different games to choose from, and game funding increases with the number of plays in the room.

”In other words, players might even only play in one or two game rooms.

”Even if everyone designs games with relatively simple rules, players will still pick the best few games to repeatedly play until reaching the maximum number of plays.

”So this game design invitation only seems very free, but thinking carefully reveals there are actually many restrictions.

”Hmm...

”Analyzing it this way, I’ll make a ’Chinese Chess Endgame’.”

After analysis, Xu Zhao discovered chess games were the best choice for average God’s Imitators.

Because compared to original games with complex rules and high difficulty, chess games had very low comprehension costs. The vast majority of players knew how to play.

If players had to choose between two options, one being a game they’d never played and the other being chess games, then under similar other conditions, players would definitely all choose chess games.

Xu Zhao had some research on Chinese chess and remembered some relatively classic endgame positions.

There was obviously a reason why chess endgame positions could become classic scams at street sides, overpasses, and stations.

First, chess rules weren’t complex and were almost universally known. Even if players themselves were bad at it, they could at least understand.

Second, in normal games, the skill gap between both sides would be large, but endgames gave people an illusion that they could completely win within a few moves.

Finally, chess games were replayable games. Unlike logic puzzles that, once cracked, allowed all players to freely farm money.

Relatively speaking, they had sufficient elasticity, allowing players to spend more time in the game, activate higher funding ceilings, and thus earn more rake.

Therefore, making a game unit with ’Chinese Chess Endgames’ was far more in line with this game’s requirements than making a game unit with ’Logic Puzzles’.

Although it seemed a bit like overpass fraud and not very presentable, surviving was more important than anything.

Of course, currently there was only a simple prototype. To truly make a complete game unit, many supplementary rules still needed to be added.

Xu Zhao first decided to set up six different chess positions. Two were normal games with all pieces, while the other four were specific endgames with different difficulty levels.

He did have several classic endgames in his memory that could be used. However, to be safe, he decided to find a time tomorrow when no one was around to look for similar books in the community library area to see if there were more suitable endgame positions.

This could be changed at any time and had very little impact on the game.

These six chess positions could accommodate up to 12 players playing simultaneously. Players could freely choose to play red or black.

”Next is to determine some key values, including the initially gifted chip amount, winning and losing chip amounts, game rake percentage, transaction tax on produced items...”

Xu Zhao made a simple table of these values involved in the game. After filling them in one by one and making minor adjustments, he finally confirmed them.

As long as they entered the room, each player defaulted to receiving 1000 chips.

For the six different chess positions, the chips for playing one game had three different tiers: 200 chips, 500 chips, and 1000 chips.

Among them, the chips required for the two standard games were 200 and 1000 respectively.

The chips required for the four endgames were 200, 500, 500, and 1000 respectively.

In all chess positions, red moved first, so when players chose to play black, the bet chip amount could be reduced by 10%. In other words, if it was a 200-chip game, black only needed to actually pay 180 chips.

In games, Xu Zhao as God’s Imitator would receive a fixed 10% rake.

Suppose two players played a 1000-chip game and red lost, then after the rake, black could actually win 900 chips. If black lost, then considering the bet chip reduction and rake, red could actually win 810 chips.

Among them, raked chips would be recorded as Xu Zhao’s own earnings. When dividing room funding through chips, Xu Zhao himself could also get a portion.

Additionally, if players wanted to trade various items produced from Xu Zhao’s room, Xu Zhao could also obtain a 20% transaction tax.

Actually, there were only two types of tradeable items. One was equipment cards that could be used for death exemption, the other was chips from game rooms. And purchasing both required visa time.

Suppose a certain player held a certain amount of chips from Xu Zhao’s room and successfully earned 10,000 minutes of visa time from the room, they would obtain one equipment card.

This player chose to sell the equipment card, listing it for 20,000 minutes of visa time. Someone bought it, so Xu Zhao could directly obtain 4000 minutes of visa time as transaction tax.

Selling chips worked the same way.

’10% rake’, ’20% transaction tax’, these two numbers weren’t very high, but Xu Zhao didn’t dare set them too high.

As said before, this game also needed to consider competition with other God’s Imitators.

If other God’s Imitators all set them very low while he set them high, causing players not to come play, that would be troublesome.

But setting them too low definitely wouldn’t work either. If before players earned away all the room funding, the God’s Imitator’s earnings hadn’t met standards, that would be certain death.

So after repeated consideration, Xu Zhao still set these two numbers.

Neither discouraging players nor allowing his own earnings as God’s Imitator to meet standards.

Finally, there was one more point: whether to write ’rake’ and ’transaction tax’ information on the display screen at the room entrance.

Xu Zhao could choose not to display it, but couldn’t display false information.

After serious consideration, he made his decision: ”Display rake, don’t display transaction tax.”