Cthulhu Gonfalon

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Sui Xiong was very good at thinking randomly.

This wasn't surprising, because he had been alone in the boundless sea when he had just time travelled to this world, living through countless lonely years. If he hadn't been good at occupying himself to fight against the loneliness, he might have gone mad.

To be honest, many people thought that he was actually a madman. However, compared to real madmen such as the God of Madness and the God of Destruction, he still retained much of his mind, only going crazy occasionally.

Whether Sui Xiong was mad or not was another research topic. However, at least nowadays, this kind of random thinking that was considered madness was actually very useful.

For example, he had thought about online payment, then finance, then online shopping, then the Internet, and then online gaming.

Well, he often thought about online gaming, not just once or twice, but this time, he thought about it very seriously.

Sitting in the Sanctuary of the God's Kingdom that was full of wires and USB cables, he was looking at the wires around him and couldn't help but have random thoughts.

"Think about it carefully. It's not a bad idea to create an online game…"

To make an online game, a platform, software, and a server were basically necessary.

There was no way to get a platform and a server. Sui Xiong couldn't even make a blast furnace, so he naturally couldn't make a computer with his bare hands. However, after all, he was a God. If he didn't care about the cost, he would definitely be able to use Divine Power to make a computer that could receive and send signals, which meant that all the operations were placed on the server. If they had been on earth, the stupid guy who had designed this would have been thrown out a window by his boss. However, it didn't matter here, because he could be the server.

He still had to consider the aspects of the software, because he wanted to design a popular, not brainless, game. It wasn't just about leveling up by killing monsters brainlessly, or eight people fighting against each other with all kinds of tricks in a small area…

"I remember that many online games used tasks, as well as dungeons, so maybe I can design one this way, too…"

He began to try it while whispering.

Compared to the blast furnace, which he couldn't make a breakthrough on, it was obviously more interesting to make an online game.

As for the problem of the blast furnace… After the repeated explosions and researching for so long, it had seemed that he really hadn't discovered the key problem. Edison's approach was obviously not suitable for him, so he had handed it over to Palin to research, who was at least a professional scholar, much better than him, who just dabbled.

Strong execution was always Sui Xiong's strength. About half an hour later, he made the first "computer."

This thing had a screen (nonsense), a keyboard (nonsense), and a mouse (nonsense again). The keyboard only had 11 buttons, including up, down, left, right, one, two, three, four, start, pause, and end. The mouse only had left and right buttons, as well, with functions too simplistic for people to approve of.

When operating this computer, the operator could select the location the character wanted to go to with the mouse, then open it and select the function menu with each button. In general, it was cumbersome, but easy to understand, so even fools could learn it.

This computer was actually an empty shell which could only accept or send data. The data wasn't zero and one, either, but actual instructions and images. In other words, although it was simplistic to the point of being stupid, it actually took a maddening time to load. If it had been on earth, it certainly would have been cursed by players.

However, it didn't matter here, because first, the server was powerful enough, and second, the players were few enough—Sui Xiong planned to make no more than 500 computers, so even if only half of the people were online, 250 players would be quite a few.

Anyway, he didn't plan to make a big game. He remembered that when he had been in college that year, their counselor, a senior fellow apprentice who hadn't graduated for a long time, had set up a simplistic private game server for them. He had also said that it had been "The World's First Graphic Online Game." That sh*t game had usually had nearly 100 players online, yet everyone had still played happily…

The game designed by Sui Xiong was actually similar to the one designed by the counselor at that time. The player designed a character, then the character took adventures and accepted tasks in the game world. Some tasks asked them to go to other cities to find people or go shopping, and some asked them to go to the underground maze to kill monsters, hunt treasure, or save people. In general, the feeling was similar to the real lives of adventurers.

In this game, players could earn money, experience, reputation, and equipment through adventures, as well as purchase items and update equipment… Although it was simple in general, the content was quite rich.

It took a full month for Sui Xiong to design this game. The images needed to be drawn one by one, as did the maps, and various interfaces and dialogues needed to be designed. If he hadn't been a God who could directly convert images and texts into game contents without even programming, he wouldn't have been able to finish it even with 100 times more time!

"Perhaps… If I can return to earth, I'll be the world's strongest code farmer, the well-deserved programmer king of the gaming industry who could defeat the combination of second to tenth place with no sweat!" Sui Xiong said and laughed. Like that, he turned his ideas into the contents of the game little by little.

After a month, the game testing began.

He had made 20 computers and selected 20 experienced adventurers from the staff of the Void Mask Land to ask them to play the game.

As a result, there were some small jokes. The adventurers couldn't understand how to play the thing at first. When they started playing, they yelled and wrangled with it. Someone shouted, "God! How can you keep a living soul as a plaything!"

Someone else shouted, "My soul! Has my soul been sucked out?"

Sui Xiong had to explain to them one by one. With various ways of persuading them, he finally made the bumpkins understand that that it was just a fictional game. The people and monsters inside were just fictional things; neither the souls imprisoned inside, nor their own souls, were being sucked out.

Then they also made a lot of mistakes when they were playing the game. More than one person tirelessly talked to the NPCs repeatedly, then told him, "The characters inside are too stupid.The amount of information that can be provided is too small, so the adventure will be very dangerous"; others were stunned while going to the store to buy adventure supplies, expressing that there were too few things available to buy. With such few things, there was no difference between going out to take adventures and looking for death; as for killing monsters, they made countless mistakes in various ways. Every day, Sui Xiong was deeply troubled because of those, feeling how inexperienced and short of imagination he was.

The most frustrating thing for him was that at least a third of the adventurers tried to steal from the store. The reason was simple: there were many things in the store, and the owner didn't look strong. The city didn't seem to have strong guards. One trip would get them enough to live a lifetime.

Hey! You're great adventurers! Elites in this profession! You're really not afraid of going to hell when showing a robber's mentality so directly and clearly?!

For the whole winter, Sui Xiong was busy testing the damn game. Until spring came with its blossoms, with countless versions being modified, the public beta version, which was completely different from the original version, was finally completed.

The public beta version was designed in a world called Mount Snake-sky—Sui Xiong had originally wanted to call it the Mount Dragon-sky. Later, he had been reminded that joking about the dragon race wasn't very smart, so he had changed the name. The world had three layers, each with a main city and two suburban cities, as well as ten mazes. Players played as adventurers, traveling this world of three layers. They could accept various tasks and complete them, or they could simply kill monsters without any tasks. They could also rent land to farm, and even open a small shop or something of the like.

Thanks to the variety of information provided by the 20 experienced adventurers, Sui Xiong had designed this small world to be quite comprehensive, and the combat system had been designed to be perfect. In addition to the turn-based system which had always been criticized, other aspects had almost won all the adventurers' approval.

But this wasn't enough. When he increased the number of testers to 100 and released the public beta version, various problems appeared again, because many of the people who participated in the beta were not adventurers, various beginner mistakes occurred frequently. Many players had lost their character's lives because of mistakes before understanding what was even going on.

Sui Xiong realized that he should write a player manual to teach players the basic knowledge they should know in the game.

It took him more than half a month to write this player manual. He had questioned a lot of adventurers during that time, and finally had something that could be used as a guide for green adventurers. It was amazingly thick with a great deal of content.

In other words, if someone wanted to read and understand it, they were required to have had a slightly high level of education…

Obviously, this thing had no practical value. Those who knew the facts in it beforehand had the right conditions to learn all the adventuring knowledge, and if they couldn't even read, what could they do when they received it?

Sui Xiong had to find a way to make a batch of magic items, infusing the contents of the player manual. The players would just have to wear a magical item shaped like a hat to sleep, and that knowledge would be transmitted into their minds.

Whenever they used something in the future, they would naturally have some knowledge of it. Just by reviewing and reflecting, they could turn that knowledge into their own experience.

Eventually, when the public beta was completed, a group of experienced adventurers who enjoyed being armchair strategists showed up in the Void Mask Land. They had a wealth of adventure experience and perfect adventure knowledge, but they had no practical experience at all. In the face of problems and difficulties, they could think of several solutions, but they couldn't execute any of them.

In the eyes of Sui Xiong, this was normal. A game was only a game, after all. However, Leon, who knew this, said that he might continue to make adjustments to this game.

"How about… designing the abilities of the characters inside the game to be equal to the players' own abilities," Leon said. "Players can make money and buy things in the game, but to improve their strength, they must rely on real-life exercise."

Sui Xiong stunned for a moment, then he asked, "What's the use of that? Isn't that too boring?"

"No, in this case, the game can be used to train adventurers," Leon said, smiling. "I think, if you adjust it a little more, it can be used to train soldiers without any problem."

Sui Xiong opened his mouth and widened his eyes, looking incredibly confused.

"I just wanted to make a game to have fun. How could it have become a virtual military camp?!"