The virtual empire starts from the game

Chapter 689 The Developer Who Worked Hard, Playing Hide-and-Seek with Death

While Xiaomeng was frantically issuing invitation codes for the early access test of the Creative Competition, developers around the world were working themselves to the bone.

Over the past few months, they have all experienced a development process full of twists and turns.

At first, they were all troubled by the same thing—

How to create the most exciting, fun, and creative game with the smallest possible game size.

Game developers—or rather, almost all creators—face similar choices during the creative process:

There are many things I want to do, but due to considerations such as energy, ability, cost, market, and target audience, I have to make choices.

What can be done, and what must be given up?

This is especially evident for game developers.

In the past, any idea to be incorporated into the game required a significant investment of time and money.

However, the results of these investments are not always good.

Therefore, in this area, they have become accustomed to making choices very carefully.

Not to mention that the creative competition gave such a short time that almost all teams had "controlling the size of the game" firmly in mind from the very beginning of the project.

However, once they actually finished the [Genesis Engine] user guide and started building, they quickly discovered—

Limiting the size of the game is completely unnecessary!
The power of the [Genesis Engine] can only be truly felt when you actually use it.

In the context of virtual world development, this thing is practically a wish-granting machine, with a daily output roughly equivalent to a week's worth!

The four months of development time given by Xu Meng was more than enough for them to complete the work of the past two years.

even more!

By this time, game developers worldwide had clearly realized:
My initial plan was far too conservative.

Limiting size?

Restrictions my ass!

If you want any grand scenes, just add them in!
If you don't add it, your competitors will.

When everyone else is making big-budget productions and grand events, and you're just making a one-hour mini-game, what's the point of comparing?

As a result, development teams scrapped their initial plans and began to shift from "small-scale games" to "large-scale productions".

That was the most arduous, but also the most exciting time.

With incredibly powerful tools, for the first time they were completely free from concerns about production capacity and cost, and could produce almost any idea or creative concept and cram it into their projects.

And the speed is so fast.

If you have an idea today, after working hard for a day and a night, you can see the prototype of the idea being produced in the project, and three days later it can be turned into a playable demo.

This effect, which is almost like a dream come true, has captivated developers around the world, making them unable to stop.

Aside from eating and defecating, they truly spend all their time working themselves to the bone.

sleep? Get some sleep!

With a dream machine at your fingertips, even sleeping becomes work time!
This excitement and fervor lasted for a long time.

It wasn't until their mental and physical condition deteriorated, and their brainwaves began to fluctuate abnormally due to long-term high-intensity work, preventing them from logging into the dream machine, that they finally woke up from their dream and realized that this state was unsustainable. They had no choice but to adjust their work schedules and make time for rest.

After calming down, some development teams suddenly realized that their projects had new problems.

They went a bit too far.

They got so excited that they added far too many things to the project, almost turning their game into a hodgepodge.

Mature, large-scale development teams don't make this kind of mistake, but there aren't many teams in the world capable of developing large-scale game projects.

Especially after Xu Meng released the [Genesis Engine] tutorial, the number of developers participating in the creative competition was astonishing.

The vast majority of them are small development teams like Yu Liyan's, or even independent developers with only one person.

Among independent developers, there are many who have always wanted to make games but have remained in the preparation stage.

Xu Meng's "Global Developer Creative Competition" not only provided them with a perfect opportunity, but also offered them completely free tools.

As a result, a large number of "potential developers" were activated and joined the competition.

These people have very little or no game development experience, and they make games entirely based on intuition.

This has led to a large number of developers making similar mistakes.

With the testing deadline fast approaching, and his project becoming increasingly bloated with an ever-growing list of projects to be developed, he belatedly realized the problem and had to suspend development to streamline the game.

Keep the core gameplay and storyline, and remove irrelevant or even conflicting content and gameplay.

It looks simple, but it's actually quite complicated to do.

It may be hard to believe, but many developers are actually not clear about the core gameplay of their games.

When it's time to streamline things, it's a real headache, and I can't decide what to delete.

Only as the advanced testing drew closer did they have to decide between two options—

Regardless of the consequences, let's first streamline the process based on our intuition, and then make adjustments based on player feedback from the advanced testing phase.

Alternatively, they could simply skip this advanced test and participate directly in the December competition.

The result was unsurprising: the number of teams that chose to participate in the test and gather player feedback far exceeded the number of teams that opted out.

So I had no choice but to continue working myself to the bone.

There was even a surge in recruitment efforts.

The small development team worked hard to expand and took out loans to recruit new people.

Those who can't afford it should simply merge.

Some individual developers even discovered during exchanges that their project worldviews were very similar, so they hit it off and directly activated the "fusion card" to turn the two games into one.

While working overtime like crazy on development, communication among colleagues has become more frequent than ever before.

A passionate and excited atmosphere spread throughout the industry.

It's almost as if people have forgotten that just a few months ago, the game development industry was facing severe unemployment and recession due to the collapse of Soford Game Box and Sony Game Station.

The players were too busy playing to notice how dangerously dangerous their actions were.

But Xu Meng saw it all.

—When many people had abnormal brainwaves and were refused login by the Dream Machine, Xu Meng received a system warning.

So on November 12th, three days before the advanced testing began.

He then allocated 10000 advanced testing slots and randomly distributed them to the developers who participated in the testing as a reward for their hard work.

This also makes it easier for them to draw inspiration from the works of their peers.

The developers who received the spots were overjoyed—it was proof that Mr. Xu valued them! So they posted on social media to express their gratitude.

They also took the opportunity to promote their own game.

On November 15th, there were simply too many games undergoing advanced testing at the same time.

They had to find ways to promote their game so that more players would try it out.

The players' reaction was naturally one of extreme envy; they all rushed to Xu Meng and Xiao Meng to complain:

"Boss Xu! We play games every day and it's hard work! I want an invitation code too!"

"Mr. Xu! Wake up! Zhumeng now has 7 million users! Not 7!"

"Exactly! 30000 invitation codes? That's not even enough to fill a tooth gap! Are you trying to appease a beggar?!" ...

Xu Meng felt that what the players said made sense.

So on November 13th, another 10000 slots were offered.

However, this time the items were not given away randomly, but instead auctioned off at Youkexin Auction House in Mansheng Metropolis.

Cash is not accepted; only credit points are accepted for auction.

This move left the players stunned:
"What's this? A reward for a major client??"

"Mr. Xu! You've forgotten your original aspirations!"

"Waaaaah, Boss Xu has abandoned his poor buddy..."

"Waaaaah, I'm so sad... What a load of rubbish! Just kidding, credits are going up in price! If I don't sell now, when will I ever get another chance?! I've got my living expenses for this month! Thank you, Boss Xu!"

……

Players said they didn't have enough money and definitely wouldn't be able to win, but their bodies still couldn't help but rush to the auction house to participate in the auction.

The auction lasted for a full day and night, and the scene was extremely lively.

Because these auctioned slots are not bound to each other, players can resell them after winning the bid, which further drives up the final auction price.

Even players who tried to snag a bargain early in the game, before the big shots got into the swing of things, couldn't buy anything for less than 20 credits.

The cheapest spot sold for 38 credits.

As for the most expensive one...

The auction resulted in a record-breaking price of over eight million credits!

Even converted into real currency, this price would be worth hundreds of thousands of Xia Yuan.

Considering that Xu Meng did not give prior notice, a large number of whales rushed to buy credits at the same time, causing the price of credits in the market to soar. It is possible that the rich man paid more than a million yuan for this one spot!

This is an outrageously unreasonable price.

But looking at that guy standing in the auction hall, taking off his hat and waving to the cameras of the many players and streamers, Xu Meng strongly suspected that he wasn't trying to play the game early, but simply wanted to show off.

They might even think it's a great deal...

You can guess what's going on in the minds of the wealthy, but it's hard to say what's going on in the minds of the super-rich.

Putting aside others, Xu Meng herself would also burn through hundreds of millions or even billions of yuan to do things she's interested in.

For example, subsidizing retired elderly people in rural areas, providing subsidies to graduates of aerospace engineering programs nationwide, and recklessly building rockets while ignoring industry rules...

He felt it was a good deal, but many people online didn't understand his approach.

—He could have saved a huge amount of money by simply adjusting his approach, but he just wouldn't.

Xu Meng shook her head and went to prepare for the next day.

At 8:11 AM on November 14th, the day before the advanced testing began.

Xu Meng posted another update:
"Hello everyone!

The global creative competition's advanced testing is about to begin. I'm sure everyone is as excited as I am, but also annoyed because they can't get the qualification to participate, right?

So, let's have a warm-up activity first!

Xiaomeng and I will carry a lot of invitations and hide in the Flourishing City.

In each round of hiding, the first three players who discover and attack us will receive an invitation.

If you can catch us, we'll teleport you to another location after sending out 10 invitations.

If someone manages to kill me, it will trigger the "Big Explosion" mechanism, releasing 50 invitations at once!

This game of hide-and-seek begins the moment you see this post and ends at midnight tonight.

How many invitations you get depends on your own efforts!
Now, let the game begin!
-
The comment section exploded instantly:
"Boss Xu! I knew you hadn't forgotten your poor buddy!"

"Awesome! Hide and seek in death! Get ready to eat my super bomb!"

"Couldn't you have told me about something this important sooner?! I didn't even have time to ask for leave!"

"I feel sorry for those who have to work on Saturdays - Respectfully presented to the noble weekend gamer."

"Charge! Charge! We're determined to get this invitation!"

"I'm here! Testing doesn't matter, I just want to blow your head off!"

……

Players around the world instantly got excited!
They rushed into the bustling metropolis, fully armed, and stormed the streets.

Even players who were engaged in street battles in London, training in Lavacol, or building dams in the Worry-Free Meadow all dropped what they were doing and rushed to the Sprawling Metropolis to participate in this grand cat-and-mouse game.

Soon, the entire Mansheng City became packed with people.

Players searching for and hunting down Xu Meng practically filled every street, every building, and every room!
Normally, although Zhumeng's servers are powerful enough to accommodate all players gathered in one mirror, Zhumeng did not do so.

Because the carrying capacity of a sprawling metropolis has its limits.

If all players were put together, it would only result in all streets being overcrowded and all shops having long queues, greatly diminishing the players' gaming experience.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, players will still be diverted into individual mirrors.

The number of players in a single mirror image will not exceed 1000 million.

This is the number of people that makes Mansheng Metropolis look lively, but not overloaded.

But it's not appropriate for Xu Meng to continue playing hide-and-seek.

He could certainly switch between different server mirrors, but that would be considered cheating by players who were thoroughly searching for him.

Xu Meng naturally disdained cheating.

So he made a bold move and changed the distribution mechanism, allowing all players who wanted to find him to gather in one mirror.

This tactic greatly reduced his space to move around, making it much more difficult for him to hide.

To prevent the game from becoming unplayable, he decisively activated the abilities that players had just acquired in Animal Kingdom—

[Animal Metamorphosis]
But the complete Pokédex version!
Ever since——

After finally finding Xu Meng, the players saw him transform into a giant polar bear, slapping a circle of players away with a few blows. Then, he leaped into a swallow to dodge the bullets fired by the players, and finally transformed into a porcupine above everyone's heads, crashing into the dense crowd.

As the players screamed in agony after being pricked on the head, he transformed into a weasel, darting quickly through the chaotic footsteps of the players and bursting out of the crowd in a few breaths, disappearing into a shop on the side of the street.

At this moment, in the middle of the crowd, the players were still covering their faces and screaming in pain.

After a while, everyone realized that Xu Meng had slipped away, and then they gradually quieted down.

When they looked at each other, their faces were full of question marks.

Everyone knows about the ability of animals to transform, but this is the first time we've seen the power of using multiple forms together!

It's not fair to blame them for being slow to react.

After all, no one has completed the second round of migration yet, so for now there is only one transformation—well, if you include the transformed frog, then there are two.

After gathering together and thinking for a moment, everyone quickly came up with a solution—

Take control of all the native animals in the city (mainly NPC pets).

All the animals we see afterward must have been transformed humans.

So regardless of whether it's Xu Meng or not, let's kill her first!

(End of this chapter)