God's imitator

Chapter 330 Design Pitfalls

In addition, players can pay 2 minutes of visa time to purchase items or chips.

Without a doubt, the vast majority of players will pay up, since it's a matter of life and death for them.

These 2 minutes of visa time will not be considered as your own gain, but will be considered as the gain of other players.

In other words, suppose player A uses 2 minutes of visa time to buy some chips for the game. Without considering commission and transaction tax, his own profit is 0, but player B earns those chips through the game, so player B's profit is 2.

Therefore, each player's 2 should be included in the total visa time of the game lobby.

With 20 players totaling 40, plus the previously calculated 60 in funding, the total visa time in each hall could very well reach around one million.

For every 1 minutes of visa time, you can obtain an "equipment card". Collecting five different equipment cards will grant you immunity from death.

Although card parts may be duplicated, players can trade them.

If the distribution is absolutely equal, then each of the 20 players will receive 5 in profit and 5 "equipment cards".

In other words, you get a chance to escape death and also bring back a net profit of around 3.

However, the actual gameplay will certainly not be so optimistic.

Because the players' gains will inevitably be polarized and cannot be evenly distributed.

Furthermore, each copycat needs to earn at least 5 minutes of visa time, so in each hall, a copycat needs to earn 2 to ensure they don't die.

There are 6 games in the lobby, which means that at least 12 visa time will be earned by copycats.

Some greedy copycats will earn even more.

If we consider it this way, we can definitely achieve the default 30% elimination rate of the arcade.

Xu Zhao looked at the numbers he had calculated and fell into deep thought.

These data are still very important. If copycats cannot accurately calculate these values ​​and overestimate or underestimate the total revenue in the lobby, it may lead to deviations in the game's design.

Because in a game, whether the overall reward is high or low will very likely directly determine the players' gameplay and strategies.

If the total rewards in the game are high enough, players will be more inclined to adopt a cooperative strategy, because they will be willing to accept even a guaranteed minimum reward.
However, if the total rewards in the game are very limited and the death rate is relatively high, then players will inevitably start to cheat each other, and the game environment will deteriorate rapidly.

This time, it's clearly the latter.

Although Xu Zhao was not a copycat before, he had participated in many games, so he was able to have this awareness.

He began to seriously consider the specific rules of the game.

"Time is tight, and there's definitely no time to design overly complex rules."

"Furthermore, judging from this game invitation, it seems that the arcade does not recommend that copycats design overly complex games, after all, there are six game rooms in each hall."

"What kind of game should we make...?"

After pondering for a long time, Xu Zhao first wrote four characters on a piece of white paper, which were the core gameplay of the game. Then he further improved the relevant rules around the core gameplay.

A logic puzzle.

If you want to design a game with depth and difficulty at the last minute, using some classic logic puzzles is a good idea.

Xu Zhao himself is quite interested in these logical problems, and there are also relevant books available in the community.

There are many types of logic puzzles, some of the more well-known ones being the Red and Blue Eyes Puzzle, the Three Gods Puzzle, and the Seven-Colored Hat Puzzle.

There are three advantages to designing games using these logic puzzles. First, these puzzles are relatively easy to understand when you look at the questions alone, unlike professional puzzles which are so obscure and difficult to understand that they might discourage players from the start.

Secondly, these puzzles contain a great deal of information and have considerable depth. If players don't know the information beforehand and instead try to solve the puzzle after seeing it, very few can deduce it in a short time.

Finally, as a copycat, Xu Zhao himself was very clear about the answers to these logical puzzles, which meant he naturally had access to the game's backdoor, essentially giving him an advantage in terms of invincibility.

Therefore, this type of question is a typical example of a question that is "extremely advantageous to the designer".

Xu Zhao could deliberately choose some less common logic questions when creating the questions, ensuring that the vast majority of players don't know the solutions, which should make it easy for him to earn visa time.

"I can set a relatively low threshold for solving the puzzle. For example, I can give players 1000 chips at the beginning so that they can solve the puzzle for free once. As long as they answer correctly, they can get a generous chip reward."

"Logic puzzles are all problems that look simple but are actually quite complex to solve. After a player fails to solve one on the first try, they may mistakenly think that they were almost able to solve it, and thus they will use their visa time to exchange for chips to solve the puzzle again."

"But each subsequent answer requires even more chips. The more sunk costs players invest, the more addicted they become, thus generating a continuous stream of profits."

"In addition, depending on the difficulty of the game, I can also provide some paid services such as 'hints'."

"In this way, if I encounter my own game unit, I can gain a lot of visa time from it; if I don't encounter it, I can still earn benefits from other players."

Xu Zhao thought this plan should be feasible. As long as the logic puzzle itself has good depth and is relatively niche, it should be possible to generate stable profits.

He tried to write down the basic rules for this game unit, such as the specific rules for increasing the chips required for each question and how to handle situations where multiple people participate in the game.

But two hours later, Xu Zhao suddenly realized something and stopped.

He re-examined the prototype of the game and frowned.

"No, I think I've fallen into a misconception..."

"If I actually submit this game, no matter how well I design the details, I'm doomed..."

Xu Zhao suddenly woke up with a start, and even felt a cold sweat break out on his back.

Because he realized he had just narrowly escaped death.

This game design would not pose a significant problem if used to complete previous game invitations.

Previously, once a game passed the gallery's review, players had no choice but to play it against their will.

The worst outcome is simply not being selected.

But this game is different; players can choose from six game rooms.

In other words, no matter how well the game is designed, if players don't play it, Xu Zhao, as a copycat, will only face death.

He crumpled the paper full of plans into a ball and threw it into the trash can.

"The arcade is really full of traps..."

Xu Zhao picked up another blank sheet of paper and adopted a completely different approach.

"This game is not only a game against players, but also a game against copycats."

"Therefore, you can't just let your whims run wild. Designing overly complex and obscure game rules is tantamount to discouraging players from playing."

"If you don't realize this, it's like you've misunderstood the question from the start. You'll be seen as an 'unqualified copycat,' which is tantamount to suicide..."

　Asking for a monthly ticket~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)