Chapter 5: Independent Game Developer

Any black mage would know that.. while forbidden spells similar to "Black Magic: Undead Army" appeared impressive, such spells were, in actuality, rather useless.

The reason was simple. Whether it's a "Resurrection" spell that revived the dead using corpses as material or a "Summoning" that called upon undead directly from the demon dimension realm, the product would be nothing more than toys with no combat power. Slow, clumsy, and with an IQ equivalent to zero meant that even a chubby kid could catch up with them.

The few thousand corpses that Yang Qiu had summoned from the swamp didn't have the slightest bit of spiritual fire in their eye sockets and could only amble about with difficulty thanks to the magic that Yang Qiu provided.

As soon as Yang Qiu withdrew his magic, these corpses fell to the ground.

Of course, Yang Qiu didn't expect this cute skill to be useful.. He just wanted the corpses.

Next, Yang Qiu rolled up his sleeves and squatted down in the middle of this heap of corpses and picked out complete skeletons.

After slogging away for several hours, slightly over three hundred relatively intact skeletons were picked out.

Then, Yang Qiu imbued magic into these over three hundred corpses and got them to line up in rows behind the undead horse and follow it back to the spawn point.

Next up was another huge challenge—adding the simplified Mind Imprint and a simple teleportation array for non-living things into these corpses.

Asking that players don't wander, make a mistake, and die was something impossible.

Could one be called a gamer if they didn't gallivant? And could a game without all that be called a game?

Even though Yang Qiu had chosen the Taranthan wasteland, which used to be an ancient battlefield, as the game field, there still weren't enough intact corpses to use. Thus, he needed to consider what to do if the gamers died.

Teleportation arrays that could move living beings were out of the question. He didn't have the money, materials, or ability to create one! A teleportation array that worked on non-living beings was simpler.. He just needed to modify the summoning technique used by spellcasters for calling their servants from the dimensional realm.

Hmm, this kind of modified summoning spell can't be used on inanimate objects because they can't respond to the beckons..

In any case, after a player dies, the modified Mind Imprint Core acting as a "respawn point" sends out a summon (teleportation) call. The player can respond to it, and this solves the problem of resurrection.

"It's a good idea, but goddammit.. Adding two arrays together doubles the amount of mental energy consumed!" Yang Qiu had discovered yet another major problem as he was halfway through. historical

The intrinsic mental strength of Earthlings, or rather, youngsters of China, was relatively good. At least it was better than natives of this magic plane.

According to the evaluation standards that Yang Qiu had come up with, if a mage apprentice's mental strength value was about 80 points, then the average of Chinese youngsters would be around 40 points, which was still at least 30% higher than most native to this magic plane.

The reason for this, as Yang Qiu hypothesized, was because the mental world of young Chinese people was relatively complete, and from a young age, most had established a world view of "believing and relying on humans themselves rather than gods."

This wasn't just a random guess. Yang Qiu had evidence to support this: To become a spellcaster in this plane, the first criteria was that a "spellcaster must never pray to a god."

Young people of China, who didn't believe in gods but more so themselves, had strong foundations in their mental world.. though there weren't any magic rules on Earth, so strong mental strength didn't mean they could become extraordinary.

In short, the segment of young Chinese people with relatively high average mental strength gave Yang Qiu the confidence to develop Earthlings into "OtherWorld gamers." But if the mental consumption caused by the double-tiered array engraved on the "game character" exceeded the endurance of young Chinese people, then Yang Qiu's game couldn't be continued..

Would players suspect a problem with the game if they become mentally drained after playing for a few hours? Would they refrain from coming online? How can there even be sustainable development then! Yang Qiu clutched his head and mulled.

"Wait a moment! Players only need to be resurrected at the respawn point when they die, and the summoning spell.. uh, respawn teleportation, doesn't have to be maintained all the time!

"If the respawn teleportation is activated only when the player dies, and adding a death penalty.. Yes, a death penalty! Upon dying, the player is forced to disconnect and can't return back to the game for half an hour, Earth time. A half-hour break can replenish the mental consumption of the respawn teleportation!"

After coming up with a solution, Yang Qiu continued working happily. He had finally solved the problem of death and resurrection.. but even more problems emerged.

"There needs to be a mechanism to reward players to ensure they stay online for long periods; otherwise, they won't feel a sense of achievement and may quit the game. Oh, and a leveling system is required!

"Also a class system.. Without an abundant class system, players would be just like newly hatched fledglings no matter how they play, and once the novelty wears off, they would get bored and quit!"

Realizing that these issues needed solving in order to retain players once the game was launched, Yang Qiu stopped his work here and returned to the internet cafe back on Earth to study a mountain of game commentary (criticizing) videos.

After multiple times traversing back and forth between the two planes, an exhausted Yang Qiu finally managed to come up with a barely functioning "game mechanism" and prepared over 300 suitable "game characters." All of these already took more than 20 Earth days to complete.

Following that, Yang Qiu faced the super difficult task of turning the motorcycle helmets he bought online into "magic VR headsets"..

Engraving the Mind Imprint wasn't hard, but the main issue was getting it to connect with a USB system.

The USB system Yang Qiu wanted to install in the helmet wasn't some high-end device. It was just either a simple video transcoding mechanism or an operation interface that even a primary school student could make following a tutorial.

When playing games, players definitely wanted to take screenshots, record clips, or even livestream.

As for how to transmit video and audio via the consciousness channel to Earth, decode, and compress it into a playable format on the computer.. This gave Yang Qiu a real headache. Magic couldn't solve this technical problem.

After contemplating for a long time, Yang Qiu decided to cheat. He would buy a server and use the spatial rift to create a physical connection. Screenshots and recorded videos would have to be uploaded to the server via a designated spot at the spawn point. And after players logged off the game, they could download these media from the game's official website using their VR headset.

To avoid increasing the load and cost, Yang Qiu decided that not all players would be able to freely take screenshots and record videos. A certain in-game contribution had to be achieved before they could apply for this perk. Only then would Yang Qiu install the recording apparatus onto the applicant's "game character."

..Actually, it was just cameras bought online. The sort that can't connect to the internet and only store footage locally.

As for live streaming, that idea could be thrown away all together. Time flowed differently in each of the two worlds, so it couldn't be synchronized!

Due to insufficient funds, Yang Qiu had to buy a set of bone china crafts from Earth's supermarket and rode out of the Taranthan wastelands to sell them to some local nobility.

As October 2019 on Earth approached, Yang Qiu, after shuffling back and forth between the two planes, had finally settled the "opening" work and scheduled the game's launch for the National Day Holiday.

He had also purchased a fake identity which he used to make his online purchases as well as rent a house in the suburbs to store the server.

On the morning of October 1.

Yang Qiu used the PC he had bought to log onto the social media account that he used before his first transmigration to leave a message for his older sister.

It took him a great deal of effort to recall his password about half a month ago, and he had immediately contacted his sister through the account. He had no choice but to hurry since missing person notices of himself were already being posted on the streets.

And then, he was violently scolded by his sister and mother in turns.

After tearing his brains out to calm down those two, Yang Qiu had also sent a magic VR headset to his family home. His sister didn't like games, nor did she even play mobile games, but Yang Qiu wanted to show her the results of his work over the one month he had "run away from home."

After leaving a message for his older sister, Yang Qiu went to the official website and checked the message board.

Because he didn't have any sort of magical system assistant.. Yang Qiu couldn't apply for an official game license. Therefore, he couldn't do any public promotions, nor could he publicly post a link for the sale of the helmets. The issue of profiting was many times more severe, and his official website would be 404'ed in a matter of minutes if that were the case.

Thus, Yang Qiu decided to be honest and not do anything superfluous. He bought a domain name and made an official website. On the homepage, he wrote in large fonts: "OtherWorld"—First domestic non-profit and independently developed VR exploration game.

Yang Qiu wasn't sure if labeling it as an indie game would bypass the 404 monster, but as long as he could trick gamers to go online as soon as possible, everything else didn't matter.

On this extremely crude official website, Yang Qiu posted a few fictitious game background introductions as well as some real-life recordings of the Taranthan Wastelands, the "Undead Spawn Point," and his carefully crafted "Undead NPC" battle video. He also created alternate accounts in various hardcore game forums, discussion boards, and Baidu Post Bar roughly 10 days ago and had been sneakily promoting the game this way since.

The result, though, was rather obvious. Hardcore gamers were very skeptical of "indie VR games." Yang Qiu's alternate account posts in various forums weren't welcomed and were met with ridicule, or simply ignored by gamers.

However, it had to be said that there were still many bored people in this world. Although Yang Qiu's alternate account posts were ridiculed badly, there were still many "idle players" who followed the post and found their way to the official website.

And then, the official website that paled in comparison to a middle school student's QQ space drove away many of these bored players.

In the end.. Only nine people with extreme patience endured the embarrassing homepage and were drawn in by the extremely realistic and movie trailer-like promotional video, half-heartedly applied for the closed beta test at the bottom of the website, eventually paying 188 yuan for the helmet’s material cost and shipping fee.

In other words.. including the helmet sent to his older sister, Yang Qiu had only sent out 10 login helmets in total..

On the official site's homepage was a list of the closed beta with only nine lonely applicants. These players who paid for the helmets sympathized with the developers. Over the past few days, these nine would occasionally log in to the official website and leave a few awkward but friendly messages on the message board, such as:

"I'm so hungry. If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have become an independent game developer."

"Did the developers use all the funds they scammed to make the promotional video? They might as well save some money for instant noodles."

"I'm embarrassed to even ask for a refund now. Oh well, I'll just use this helmet as a safety helmet."

"Is the developer still there? Did the investors kill you?"

"Developing indie games is just a dead end. Why not join me in cross-dressing live streams?"

..and so on.

Yang Qiu, though, was rather unperturbed by these reactions.

It was indeed rather vexing that only nine players bought in, but when switching perspectives and interpreting it as nine Earthlings voluntarily willing to become Yang Qiu's anchor points, the sentiment immediately became completely different.

After admiring a few more sarcastic comments added to the message board today, Yang Qiu calmly posted the server opening announcement on the official website and sent out an email reminder to the nine players regarding the server opening before calmly sitting down and awaiting the anchor points to show up.

The announcement of the server opening was posted at 9 a.m.

At 9:20, in the server room with only one server, Yang Qiu, who was idling, suddenly jerked his eyes open.

Of the three hundred mass-produced runes that made up the Mind Imprint matrix Yang Qiu had created, one lit up.

Then, a second, and a third..