Chapter 203: Brainstorming
In the meeting room, Su Jinyu and several other members of the *Don't Starve* project were holding a brainstorming session, thinking about the fun aspects of this game.
"According to the boss's hints, this is a survival game, right? So, all the settings should be built around survival."
"The two most critical factors are the various resources that support survival and the various negative factors that threaten it."
"What specific resources and negative factors should there be? Think about the real world: temperature, climate, monsters, food... all of these can become game content."
"In other words, the core fun of this game lies in the player controlling the protagonist to survive in a completely unfamiliar world. They must explore the entire map, constantly gather resources, and use those resources to fight against the various negative factors that threaten survival."
"Yeah, thinking about it to this extent, the prototype of this game is already there, and the core isn't bad either. It looks pretty fun."
"So next comes some specific design. Players need certain numerical values to intuitively feel their own survival state. For example, the simplest case: health points."
"When attacked by a monster, frozen, burned, or in other states, the player's health points will decrease. When they drop to zero, the character dies, and the game ends."
"What else is there? The game is called *Don't Starve*, so obviously the boss also wants us to add a hunger value attribute. Players must search for food. If they starve, it will slowly reduce their health value, and maybe it could also reduce movement speed or something."
"Looking at it this way, the goal is very clear."
"But there's still a flaw. I feel like besides these two factors, something is missing."
"Right, two factors aren't rich enough. For example, weather like rain, snow, hail, or extreme heat would definitely affect people in reality. But how do we reflect that in the game? Lose health when it rains? Or lose hunger points when it rains? That feels very unreasonable."
"Also, with only two attributes, it makes the character feel less like a living person and more like a dummy that only knows how to eat, drink, and excrete. It would be very hard to feel immersed."
"Yeah, it seems like there should be another kind of attribute..."
As everyone was thinking, Chen Mo walked in.
"Add another attribute: sanity points," Chen Mo said.
Su Jinyu's eyes lit up. "Sanity points? To represent the player's mental state?"
Chen Mo nodded. "Right. Bad weather and some unpleasant events will cause the player's sanity points to decrease. Similarly, sanity can be restored through certain items."
"When sanity drops to zero, the character enters a state of mental collapse. At that point, they start hallucinating, the entire world's color palette changes, and monsters resembling nightmares appear to attack them."
"If the player can defeat the nightmares, they can recover some sanity points. If the player is killed by the nightmares, the game ends."
Su Jinyu thought for a moment. "This design is great! With hunger, health, and sanity, these three attributes can basically represent the character's state very well. Wow, the boss is really impressive."
Chen Mo smiled. "It's nothing really. If you'd thought about it a bit longer, you'd have come up with it too. It's basically an inevitable design."
Su Jinyu said, "Boss, why don't you join us for the brainstorming? I've been thinking, and *Don't Starve* really has a lot of interesting aspects. If we flesh out the settings well, it'll definitely be an awesome game!"
Chen Mo rolled his eyes. "Obviously. If the game weren't interesting, why would I have you make it? Complete this assignment independently. This game is meant to broaden your thinking. Don't always rely on me to hold your hand through everything."
Su Jinyu pouted. "Aw."
Chen Mo changed the subject and said casually, "Imperial Dynasty Interactive over there is planning to make a VR version of a *Diablo*-like game."
Su Jinyu was stunned for a moment, then exclaimed in surprise, "Huh? When? What do we do? Boss, why aren't you worried at all?"
Chen Mo leaned back in his chair. "Why worry? They're making a VR game. Even if I were worried, I couldn't make one right now."
Su Jinyu said urgently, "Then what do we do? Those people at Imperial Dynasty Interactive are really something, always stealing our ideas!"
Chen Mo gestured for her to calm down. "It's fine. Just relax first. Whether a theme like *Diablo* can be successfully adapted into VR is still uncertain. It'll likely take a lot of time to fill in the gaps and lay the groundwork. At the very fastest, it'll take a year to produce."
Su Jinyu said, "Then, boss, let's speed up. Spend half a year making a simple VR game as a test, and then another half year to adapt *Diablo* into a VR game!"
Chen Mo was speechless. "You're overthinking it. Even if we worked like crazy, we couldn't do it that fast. It's fine. I'm telling you this just to give you a heads-up. It's best to speed up the progress on *Don't Starve* a bit more, because I want to use this game to test the players' reactions."
"As for what games come next, I already have corresponding development plans. It might just be a slight adjustment to the order. It would be very unwise to disrupt our deployment just to stubbornly compete with Imperial Dynasty Interactive right now."
"My plan is for *Don't Starve* to go online in two months, which is the end of September. Of course, this is the initial version. After launch, we'll need to add a lot of new content based on player feedback and open up various mods for players to freely use."
"*Reaper of Souls* will be finished in three months, with another two to three weeks reserved for testing, so it'll go online around mid-November. After that, *Diablo* will be put on hold for a while."
"By November, we'll have gathered enough player feedback from *Don't Starve*. Then everyone will free up their hands to prepare a VR game to compete with Imperial Dynasty Interactive's new title."
"Great!" Su Jinyu clapped her hands. "Then I'll speed up on my end too, and try to get the *Don't Starve* demo done as soon as possible so everyone can take a look and offer suggestions."
Chen Mo nodded. "Yeah, but don't rush too much. Two months is plenty of time. Make sure the quality is guaranteed."
...
Regarding the game *Don't Starve*.
Its success needs no further elaboration. Whether in sales or reputation, it is an indie game worthy of being written into the classics.
The reason Chen Mo chose this game for everyone to practice with, besides the fact that it's suitable for divergent thinking, was also to slightly test the players in this world on their acceptance of sandbox games.
So-called sandbox games are a genre evolved from sand table games. They often feature large maps, many elements, high freedom, and strong creativity. Creativity is the core gameplay of this type of game, meaning it allows players to use the items provided in the game to create what they want.
This world also has some games with high freedom, but in Chen Mo's view, they aren't particularly successful sandbox games.