Chapter 874: Chemical Engine
"Environmental interaction mechanics?"
The graduates present were all a bit surprised. They had initially thought Chen Mo would propose a major issue, at least something concerning an entire game genre, but in the end, he only asked them to design a small system.
Strictly speaking, this "environmental interaction mechanics" was merely an important component under the combat system, or if separated from the combat system, it could also be considered a key part of game mechanics. In terms of the game content it occupied, it wasn't much, and designing it alone wasn't difficult—three hours to draft an initial version was entirely feasible.
But everyone also understood that while this topic seemed simple, as Chen Mo said, doing it well was actually very hard.
This was a very broad topic, ranging from the simplest example of "terrain kills" to more complex weather systems or the entire structure of the combat environment, all falling under the category of "environmental interaction mechanics."
Moreover, "environment" was something created autonomously by the designer, allowing for the addition of various rich elements. The more complex the environment, the richer the environmental interaction mechanics became.
So, this was a topic with no upper limit. As long as the imagination was vast enough, this system could be made infinitely large.
But making it too large wasn't good either. One had to comprehensively consider the input and output of the entire "environmental interaction mechanics," the cost-effectiveness of production, and its compatibility with the game's own gameplay. It was very likely that during the brainstorming phase, there would be a hundred ideas, but ultimately, limited by the game itself, only five could actually be used.
Everyone began racking their brains to come up with ideas.
...
Coming out of the meeting room, Qian Kun was waiting at the door.
"I noticed these graduates were still relatively calm," Qian Kun said.
Chen Mo smiled. "Yeah, after all, they're top talents carefully selected from across the country. Getting stumped by such a simple problem would be a bit much, wouldn't it?"
Qian Kun was speechless. "This problem is simple? Isn't this the 'Chemical Engine' you just designed for our new project not long ago? Using the world's most advanced, top-tier system design to set a problem for these fresh graduates—I really don't see how that's simple."
Chen Mo said, "It's not like I'm asking them to build the entire 'Chemical Engine.' Just making something decent is enough."
Qian Kun grumbled, "Even meeting your 'decent' standard is tough!"
...
Regarding the topic of the new project, Chen Mo hadn't revealed it to anyone yet.
But two weeks ago, Chen Mo had already assigned a special task: developing the "Chemical Engine."
When everyone first heard this term, they were all baffled. What the heck? They'd heard of a physics engine, but a chemical engine? What kind of weird thing was that?
The meaning of a physics engine was to give objects in the game realistic physical properties, like gravity, hardness, sharpness, and so on. When rotating or colliding, the physics engine would use these physical properties of the objects to automatically calculate the resulting effects.
In other words, the physics engine was essentially recreating a Newton, constructing a complete set of physical rules in a virtual world.
So, what was a "Chemical Engine"?
Chen Mo smiled and explained, "A Chemical Engine is a physics engine that can undergo chemical reactions. This is just a metaphor; it's essentially a higher-order manifestation of a physics engine."
...
The so-called "Chemical Engine" meant that in the game environment, objects didn't just have physical relationships like collision, friction, and impact with each other, but also chemical reactions.
Take a simple example: grass can burn. After burning, hot air rises, creating airflow, which can ignite nearby flammable materials. If it's fruit or meat, it will be cooked. If it burns longer, it will char or even burn away completely...
In the real world, these are all chemical reactions, and they're things everyone takes for granted.
But in a game, there are no real-world chemical rules. So, to present this effect in a game, a new design was needed—that was the "Chemical Engine."
The Chemical Engine was essentially a very complex set of rules. Through these rules, a highly realistic chemical system was constructed within the game. By assigning different chemical properties to objects, such as flammability or conductivity, and then placing them into this Chemical Engine, they would change according to the environment.
It sounded simple, but in reality, designing it involved an enormous amount of content.
According to Chen Mo's design, the entire Chemical Engine included a large number of complex systems, covering every aspect of the world's rules.
"Climbing System," "Cooking System," "Combat System," "Stealth System," "Equipment System," "Fire System," "Freezing System," "Lightning System," "Wind System," "Weather System," "Temperature System," "Bomb System," "Time Stop System," "Magnetism System," "Ice System"...
Each system had a corresponding set of rules.
For example, the Climbing System allowed players to climb any wall surface, but it was limited by stamina. When players ran out of stamina, they could find rest points on the terrain to recover. The Climbing System would interact with the Weather System; on rainy days, walls would become slippery, causing players to slip while climbing, severely affecting efficiency.
Another example was the Lightning System. There were many lightning-elemental items, like lightning strikes or electrical mechanisms in ruins. Metal had conductive properties, so if a player carried a metal weapon while running in a thunderstorm, they could get struck by lightning. Or, in a ruin, when needing to connect an electrical path to activate a mechanism, players could use their own metal weapons as a conductor, rather than having to search for metal objects in the ruins.
Another example was the Temperature System. Different regions and weather conditions would result in different ambient temperatures. Players had a certain tolerance range; exceeding it meant overheating, and falling below meant freezing, both causing continuous health loss. Players could use various methods to resist cold, such as lighting a campfire, holding a torch, or wearing cold-weather gear.
Moreover, these systems would interact with each other chemically, and that was the most complex part.
In other words, within this Chemical Engine, every action a player took could potentially trigger a series of chain reactions. If players could predict the outcome of these chain reactions, they could artificially create a "butterfly effect"—flapping their wings gently in one corner to bring catastrophic disaster to a group of monsters nearby.
As the development of the entire "Chemical Engine" progressed, everyone became increasingly amazed by the system's intricacy. These complex systems weren't forcibly stitched together; instead, they formed a unified whole, where a single change affected everything.
Many people were very curious: with such an impressive system, this new "Chemical Engine," what kind of game was it meant to create?