I was exposed for adding my female boss to my group of female friends.

In the evening, Chen Ya returned to the current office building of Beichen Company.

Thanks to Gu Yuqing's financial support, the new workplace is very impressive, with office conditions that don't seem like those of a startup.

It's not working hours now, and there's no one in the company—except for Ishikawa Toru.

The company provided Ishikawa with the highest-spec, top-of-the-line desktop computer. Whether it actually performed well or not is unknown, but the results were remarkable—Ishikawa practically wanted to live at the company and never go back to school.

However, Chen Ya was looking for Ishikawa Takashi.

"Brother Ya, you're here." Ishikawa Dong hurriedly closed the page he was slacking off on his computer and stood up somewhat awkwardly.

"The development of 'GenDemon Project' will be put on hold for now. The investors require us to create a blockbuster game that can generate short-term profits first, to give them some confidence."

Chen Ya got straight to the point, explaining things simply and clearly, and Ishikawa Takashi quickly understood.

But he frowned and said, "Brother Ya, according to the current development progress, Genshin Impact will be ready for its first test in about 6 months. Stopping it would be very damaging."

Chen Ya said, "Who said it's going to stop? The original development plan remains unchanged. Just take some time out of your busy schedule to work on another game."

Ishikawa Takashi hesitated, looking somewhat troubled, and said, "Then, regarding project management..."

“You don’t need to worry about project management. This project won’t take up much of your energy; you can handle it all by yourself,” Chen Ya said.

Ishikawa Takashi's eyes lit up: "Brother Ya, do you already have an idea?"

Chen Ya pulled out a piece of white paper from the side, drew a few strokes on it, and said, "What we need to make is an elimination game embedded in a mini-program. The program is very simple. If it's you, it should only take three days to complete. All the materials needed can be public materials for the art. The sound effects are up to you. The music only needs to be a 1-minute catchy and addictive tune. If that doesn't work, I can provide the melody."

After Chen Ya finished speaking, he handed the blank paper to Ishikawa Dong. Ishikawa Dong looked at the key points listed on the paper and fell into deep thought.

"Brother Ya, I understand. This game is small and simple. I feel like I could finish writing it in two days, maybe even three days. But the key problem is..."

He scratched his head for a while before finally asking, "Can a small game of this size really become a huge hit and make money?"

Chapter 323 Let's Sleep Together

"Brother Ya, can a small game of this size really become a huge hit and make money?"

Ishikawa Tō stared at the several requirements on the paper and asked with concern.

According to Chen Ya, this game is not simple...

It's just too simple.

It's incredibly easy to do.

Let alone a company or studio, even if you just randomly recruit a few college students, get them together, and put together something, you can create this "game".

Letting Ishikawa Takashi do it is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut; it would give him the feeling that "I got a perfect GPA, but I'm just using it for this?"

Chen Ya placed his hand on his shoulder, a faint smile of someone with experience on his face:

"Don't worry, with my help, you just need to get started and don't overthink it."

Ishikawa Takashi sat down, holding the keyboard, and said, "Then, Ya-ge, why don't we start today? I'll get it done tonight."

He also wanted to show Chen Ya his true strength.

"Aren't you going to rest? Doesn't the school check dormitories?"

“It’s alright, I’m familiar with everyone in the student council, this is easy to handle,” Ishikawa Takashi said.

"Row."

Chen Ya dragged a chair over from the side and sat down next to him, interlacing his fingers: "Let's build the framework first today. I'll state the requirements, and you implement them."

Ishikawa Tō, holding his keyboard and staring at the screen, was already in work mode.

This was the first time I had actually done any work in front of Chen Ya since the interview.

First impressions are important; you must do a great job.

"First of all, this game is a match-3 game, built on the Xunliao mini-program. Rankings are calculated by region, and the rankings are connected nationwide. However, you only get points for completing the game; you don't get points if you don't complete the game," Chen Ya said.

"Hmm." Ishikawa Dong nodded and wrote this down in his notebook.

"The overall clearance rate is extremely low, and it needs to be controlled at 0.1%."

"Ok?"

Chen Ya's second sentence stunned Ishikawa Tō.

He couldn't help but ask, "With such a low completion rate, isn't it an extremely difficult game? Can the game's audience be guaranteed?"

Ishikawa Akira had some basic knowledge of game design, and in game theory, the more difficult a game is, the smaller its audience.

In contrast, simple, easy-to-learn games naturally have a much larger audience.

Chen Ya said, "As I just said, you just need to carry out the instructions; I'll take care of the rest."

Ishikawa Takashi typed out Chen Ya's request again, word by word. After thinking for a while, he felt he had grasped it:

"The thrill of completing challenging tasks is also what games strive for; perhaps you're right, Brother Ya."

Chen Ya continued, "There are two sections inside the game. One section is the brick stacking section, and the other is the brick slot. You can eliminate bricks by placing them in the slots and collecting three of them."

"There are only 7 slots. Once all the slots are filled, the game is over..."

Ishikawa Takashi thought for a moment, then said, "In that case, the more types of bricks there are, the harder the game will be. The level design can be based on gradually increasing the types of bricks to increase the difficulty..."

Chen Ya smiled and nodded: "The requirement for the first level is that no matter how the player taps, even if they tap randomly without any plan, they can still pass the level."

Ishikawa Tōdō said, "So that means the first level can only have a maximum of... 3 types of bricks?"

"You calculated very quickly." Chen Ya was very satisfied.

There are 7 slots, which can be divided into 2*3+1. If you want to win no matter how you arrange the blocks, you can only use 3 types of blocks.

This is a very simple math problem.

Ishikawa Akira understood this arrangement perfectly. The seemingly unreasonable requirement of "winning no matter how you arrange it" was actually quite clever.

When designing a product, one of the general principles to follow is that "even if the user is intellectually challenged, they should be able to understand how to use it."

The same applies to games.

The first level of the game is like a tutorial for beginners. At this point, users don't know how to play and often play haphazardly without understanding what they're doing.

If they play themselves to death, they will develop negative emotions. The first taste of the game must give players a sense of satisfaction and encouragement to entice them to continue playing.

Ishikawa Takashi, drawing inferences from one instance to another, said, "So, the second level will have 4 types of bricks, the third level will be significantly more difficult with 6 types of bricks, but with the introduction of items, and the fourth level..."

“You’re wrong,” Chen Ya shook his head. “What you’re describing are very mature settings. Our game isn’t like that.”

"Huh?" Ishikawa Takashi was taken aback. "But, Gai-nii, doesn't a well-developed setting mean... these settings are correct...?"

Match-3 games are a very old and mature genre. Predecessors have made almost every type of match-3 game. You can find match-3 games of any mode in the history of games.

Contrary to popular belief, making games with established paradigms doesn't require you to come up with anything new, because coming up with something new often requires modifying the established paradigm.

That means failure.

This defies common sense, but it can be explained by considering just one question—

If creating innovative match-3 games can lead to success, then why haven't we seen any successful and innovative match-3 games over the years?

This is a terrifying problem, comparable to the "Fermi Paradox" of the gaming world.

Its answer is also terrifying—because innovative match-3 games have all flopped.

They failed miserably, so quietly that you didn't see it.

Some people eat crabs, and some people eat spiders. Why don't we see people eating spiders anymore?

Because spiders don't taste good.

As an outstanding student, Shi Chuan Dong immediately recognized the problems in Chen Ya's plan.

It's not that established game paradigms are absolutely untouchable; those game design masters can certainly make changes, and even make significant changes.

Hidenori Kojima previously created a food delivery simulator called "Survival Stranding," which subverted all conventional game formulas and still became a huge hit.

Because Kojima is already a big shot. People of his level have reached the pinnacle of cultivation. They can injure people with a flower or a leaf. The things he modifies contain his own understanding and are not random changes.

Even for a giant like Kojima, his groundbreaking work "Survival Stranded" still received mixed reviews, with many people saying it wasn't fun.

This shows that without a lot of skill, it's difficult to overturn the traditional approach.

If even industry giants are like this, what about Chen Ya, who has no experience in game development?

Ishikawa looked at Chen Ya with great hesitation.

Chen Ya said, "Listen to me first. In the second level of our game, we've designed 15 different types of bricks."

"Twelve kinds?!"

Ishikawa Toru was shocked.

"Wow, this... this... adding so many bricks in the second level, doesn't that drastically increase the game's difficulty level?"

“That’s normal,” Chen Ya nodded. “As I just said, this game is extremely difficult. It’s normal that the second level is this hard.”

Ishikawa Dong was momentarily lost in thought. Then, he thought of a certain big shot named Miyazaki who designed a series with the character "Soul" in the name, and he thought of a certain Black Knight, a certain Gundyr...

Placing a boss with an extremely high difficulty level at the beginning of the game doesn't seem like a bad idea.

"Well, what about the third level?" Ishikawa Takashi asked.

He thought to himself, "Shouldn't the difficulty of the third level be adjusted a bit?"

"Huh? There's no third level," Chen Ya said.

"what?"

"Ok?"

"what?"

Chen Ya looked at him: "What made you have the illusion that there is a third level?"

"what?"

"As I just said, our game is an extremely difficult game with a pass rate of only 0.1%," Chen Ya said. "The pass rate for the second level is only this high; almost no one can pass it, so there is no third level."

"Ah, this..."

Ishikawa Takashi's mind was in turmoil. He didn't understand, but Chen Ya's words seemed to make some sense.

“Well, well,” he tried to gather his thoughts, “even if only 0.1% of players complete the game, once the player base grows, many more will still complete it. What if they ask where the third level is?”

Chen Ya said, "It's easy. We just wrote 'one level per day' at the beginning of the game. They can only play one level a day. The next day, they will have to start from the beginning again."

Chen Ya paused for a moment, then said, "When I said 0.1% pass rate, it was actually a rather conservative estimate. Even 0.01% pass rate is too high. You should try your best to make the second level impossible for everyone."

Ishikawa Takashi was a little breathless: "Then, then, I have another question. Even if there are 15 types of bricks and several layers, with so many of them, the success rate will still be very high. It's very difficult to maintain such a low success rate, isn't it?"

Chen Ya said, "That's even simpler. Just set the number of bricks in this game to a random number."

"Random numbers?"

"That means it's not necessarily a multiple of 3," Chen Ya said. "When you're clearing the game, some bricks will only have 2 or 1 left, which will definitely block the slots, making it impossible to pass the level."

Ishikawa Toru's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"To pass the level smoothly, you need at least a dozen of the 15 types of bricks to have random numbers that are all multiples of 3, right? You do the math, how low is that probability? I haven't calculated it, but it's definitely below 0.01%."

Ishikawa Takashi felt like banging his head against the keyboard after hearing that.

What...what are all these things?!

That's too casual, it's unbelievably casual!

If these words hadn't come from Chen Ya, whom he respected, he would have thrown the keyboard at the other person's face.

Even a game, no matter how difficult, needs rewards.

The more difficult the part, the richer the corresponding reward should be, so as to attract players to keep challenging themselves.

In match-3 puzzle games like this, the reward for players is simply completing the level!

However, what Chen Ya said practically removed the reward portion entirely from the game.

So, this game only has difficulty, but no rewards!

Calling this a punishment game wouldn't be an exaggeration!

No… Ishikawa Takashi thought, this can’t be called a punishment game.