Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 279: 277: Boss, are you going to be unreasonable again?

Translator: 549690339

Perhaps due to a shared source of inspiration and creative method among creators, the development team led by Little Chun has many elements that are similar to those in the Deep Sea Seasonal Map developed for “Light Encounter.”

For example, both maps have divided the island parts above water and the seafloor parts below water.

Similarly, there are glowing Distant Fish underwater, oxygen-supplying aquatic plants, bioluminescent microorganisms, caves, and architectural ruins. Although the details are not exactly the same, they all feel somewhat familiar to Lincoln.

However, the differences are also very noticeable—

The seafloor in the original game was constrained by the mobile phone’s performance, resulting in many compromises. The density of underwater scenery was not very high, and the wall details of caves and buildings were also lacking, leaving some areas looking bare.

But the virtual reality version of “Light Encounter” does not have this limitation.

With the performance constraints removed, the girls designed the seafloor boldly with numerous glowing plants and aquatic creatures, making it look vibrant and full of romantic colors.

Even the oxygen-supplying bubbles have been designed with different sizes and shapes, slowly drifting upwards while changing their shape with the change in water pressure.

Most impressively, as the bubbles change their shapes, the refracted light on their surfaces also changes, creating a colorful rainbow effect.

The result is a beautiful, fairytale-like atmosphere.

They also created two huge “landmarks” as the standout “memory points” of the seasonal map—

The first one is a gigantic whale.

This whale is adorned with glowing corals and strange plants, making it absolutely eye-catching from afar.

When it emits its calls while swimming elegantly near the players, its beauty is truly breathtaking!

Upon seeing it, Lincoln instantly recognizes that the team is undoubtedly composed of primarily talented artists, as it’s just so beautiful!

The second landmark is no less impressive, being a huge sunken ship at the bottom of the sea.

What sets this ship apart from ordinary shipwrecks is that, despite being sunken, it doesn’t look dilapidated or old-fashioned at all. Thanks to the combined effect of bioluminescent plants, glowing fish, crystals, and glass, it looks more like a treasure ship from a distance.

This ship lies quietly on the thriving seafloor, looking extremely dreamy!

Players can even enter the ship to explore and discover hidden treasures!

Both aesthetically and functionally, it’s already very mature and even outstanding!

Lincoln generously applauds everyone: “Great job, truly amazing! It’s even better than I expected!”

The girls all beam with joy, knowing that if their boss approves, players will surely love it!

After all, their boss is widely recognized as a “genius game developer”!

But after praising them and making them happy, Lincoln laughs and says, “It’s really amazing! But after seeing your design, I have some special ideas, and I feel that we can add more interesting things to the map. You won’t mind, will you?”

The employee girls don’t see any issue with it and are even very interested in Lincoln’s ideas, expressing their support:

“Of course not!”

“Not a problem at all!”

“We can’t wait to see what the boss will design!”

Only Little Chun, who is somewhat familiar with Lincoln, looks at his smile and suddenly gets an ominous feeling for some reason…

Lincoln wastes no time getting to work.

First, he designs a task to save the exploring divers, then creates a vast and enormous abyss in the ocean depths.

As the girls follow Lincoln, extending beacons and diving deeper, they look at the gradually dull and dark ruins on both sides, then glance down at the pitch-dark caves below, and finally share Little Chun’s intense sense of foreboding.

As the abyss becomes narrower, cramped, and terrifyingly dark, this sense of foreboding grows stronger!

In the end, right in front of everyone, Lincoln begins designing an extremely large and frightening “King of the Abyssal Dragon.”

Unlike the ones in Murky Earth, which are long and slender, this one is massive and muscular like a colossal deep-sea creature, exuding an unstoppable, majestic power at first glance.

With a body as black as ink, and a head with blood-red eyes that were densely packed in a chilling manner…

Just looking at it from afar made their scalps tingle, their breathing accelerate, and their limbs tremble!

But it wasn’t over yet!

This terrifying abyssal creature didn’t just sit there for them to look at.

The players had to engage in a thrilling, life-and-death race with this thing!

And what was most outrageous was that, as they looked at the boss’s design, the players would desperately try to rescue their ancestors and float upward but still end up failing to escape. They would be swallowed in one gulp by the horrifying, gaping, bloody maw!

This was ridiculous!

As they tested the process and were caught and swallowed by the terrifying abyssal creature, their hearts nearly leaped out of their mouths when they saw the sharp, dense fangs of the bloody maw coming to tear them apart!

Although in the end, the outcome returned to the beautiful, romantic style of “Light Encounter,” the whole process leading up to it was just too horrifying!

It was entirely different from the bright, romantic, fairy-tale style that Little Chun led her team in creating. It was the complete opposite!

“Boss, this is a game for all age groups…” A girl on the team hesitantly voiced her thoughts. “Isn’t this a bit… too inappropriate?”

With someone taking the lead, the other girls chimed in for support:

“Yeah, right! There’s no foreshadowing either. Won’t it be too scary?” “What if a player gets frightened and has an incident? That wouldn’t be good…”

Lincoln blinked: “You don’t need to worry about that. You might not be aware, but the safety mechanisms of Mirage are actually very comprehensive, and they are especially sensitive in distinguishing neural signals. If there’s any content beyond a player’s tolerance, it’ll kick them offline.”

Lincoln wasn’t sure whether he was trying to reassure his employees or show off the technology: “Moreover, after kicking a player offline, if the player doesn’t remove their headband, Mirage will continue to monitor their neural signals for several seconds. If it detects any abnormalities in the player’s condition, it will directly dial emergency services.”

“But you did remind me of something.” Lincoln thought for a moment. “If a player has a weak heart, that would indeed pose some safety risks.”

“Right, right!” The employees saw hope and quickly chimed in.

However, Lincoln’s thought process was nothing like theirs. His first thought was whether it was possible to sync all the players’ medical records? This would not only help avoid risks but also potentially provide targeted help to players in special situations.

Of course, he quickly realized that this wasn’t very feasible…

Daxia hadn’t established a unified electronic medical record system, and residents’ medical records were scattered across various hospitals, with no unified data among hospitals either because the records were held by the residents themselves.

And to have all players expose their private medical information like this to Cloud Dream?

Er… how to put it…

Where would they get the nerve?

“Let’s have players fill out a simple questionnaire before logging in. It doesn’t need to be too detailed, just ask about conditions that potentially pose risks, and allow players to choose whether they have them or not. It shouldn’t cause any dissatisfaction.”

Lincoln ultimately decided to use a rudimentary solution for now and find a way to perfect it later.

This was also something Cloud Dream would eventually have to do.

Many things could be ignored when you only had a few million players, but they became harder to overlook when you had tens of millions of players.

And once the number of players reached hundreds of millions, there were some responsibilities that you simply couldn’t escape and had to bear.

As Cloud Dream’s number of players grew, the differentiation of players and the content provided for different groups of players would have to be customized to a certain extent. This was all inevitable.

This was just a small step for now.

In the end, Lincoln summarized: “The map is fantastic, and players will definitely be amazed! This is all thanks to everyone’s efforts!”

After praising them, he thought for a moment and said, “Well, don’t include my name.”

The girls were all puzzled.

So you do know how to be afraid, huh??