Chapter 2: Wow, a Golden Legend!

Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players 

Chapter 2: Wow, a Golden Legend!

Chen Xu looked at the virtual screen floating before him. The interface was remarkably simple.

There was an Instructions button, a capsule machine filled with gacha capsules, and a reward list displaying three possible prize categories:

• Common Profession Skill Book

• Rare Profession Skill Book

• Special Item

Beneath them was a single number:

473,451

He tapped the Instructions button first. It didn't take long for him to understand how the system worked.

As expected, this was his cheat ability.

It was a straightforward lottery system.

Naturally, drawing rewards required points.

The source of those points was equally simple: whenever people immersed themselves in his works—whether players, viewers, readers, listeners, or anyone else—and experienced emotions such as happiness, excitement, joy, sadness, anger, fear, and so on, he would earn corresponding Emotion Points.

Those Emotion Points could then be converted into lottery points.

As for the more than 470,000 points he currently possessed...

They had all been accumulated by the Chen Xu of his previous life.

Seeing that, Chen Xu couldn't help but regret his career choices.

"If I'd known this would happen, I never would've specialized in level and narrative design. I should've become an event planner instead," He sighed.

Unlike this parallel world, where frustrated players simply cursed the game designer, planners in his previous world were professional scapegoats.

Your favorite character got nerfed?

Damn planner!

Your favorite character died in the story?

Damn planner!

The game servers crashed?

Damn planner!

Didn't matter whether it was actually the planner's fault.

Blaming the planner was never wrong.

"One hundred thousand points per pull? And ten pulls cost one million with no discount? You don't even throw in a free first pull? Even NetEase games aren't this predatory!"

At first, Chen Xu had thought four hundred thousand points was a respectable amount.

Then he saw the price.

So... all those points only bought him four single pulls?

Despite grumbling, his hands didn't hesitate.

He grabbed the machine's lever and pulled it four times in quick succession.

The capsule machine rattled noisily before dispensing four capsules.

The next moment, dazzling golden light burst from all four.

Originally, Chen Xu hadn't expected anything special.

After all, he only had four chances.

And the machine only contained three categories of rewards.

But now...

‘Wow! A golden legend!’

He couldn't help adding the familiar voice-over in his head as anticipation filled his face.

Then...

• Common Profession Skill Book ×2

• Rare Profession Skill Book ×1

• Memory Capsule ×1

Staring at the four rewards floating before him, Chen Xu was speechless.

So the golden glow was just the capsule-opening animation?

System... you've got some nerve.

He silently cursed it before reaching toward one of the Common Profession Skill Books.

The moment he touched it, the book dissolved into countless violet, starlike particles that flowed into his body.

A notification appeared before his eyes.

Narrative Design +1

As the purple light merged with him, Chen Xu felt his mind become astonishingly clear.

Ideas about story pacing and narrative structure that had once seemed vague suddenly clicked into place.

The sensation was difficult to describe.

It was like struggling over a math problem for hours in school, only to finally discover the one formula that made everything immediately obvious.

He then activated the remaining two skill books.

Music +1

Drawing Technique +5

The Music skill came from a Common Profession Skill Book, while Drawing Technique came from the Rare Profession Skill Book.

The increases were clearly different.

Whether that was because different skills had different growth rates or simply because the books themselves had different values, Chen Xu couldn't tell.

After all, he didn't have enough points to conduct any meaningful experiments.

Finally, his gaze landed on the last reward.

[Memory Capsule: Upon use, allows the user to excavate deeply buried memories for one hour.]

Reading the description, Chen Xu's eyes lit up.

Now this is useful.

It was essentially a temporary perfect-memory buff.

In his previous life, Chen Xu had worked in the gaming industry.

He hadn't merely played a large number of games—he had studied them.

Take the critically acclaimed The Last of Us, for example.

An ordinary player might simply think:

"Wow, that's amazing!"

"That scared the hell out of me!"

"No! I died again!"

But someone working in game development approached it very differently.

He would analyze why the story was told in a particular way.

Whether the placement of enemies was logical.

Why the level layout and cover positions had been designed as they were.

How environmental details subtly guided players toward hidden content.

With the Memory Capsule, Chen Xu would be able to reconstruct many of the games from his previous life in his mind with remarkable accuracy.

Chen Xu decided to leave the Memory Capsule in his inventory for the time being.

Before developing his first game, there was still plenty of preparation to do.

For example, he needed to learn how to use the official game engine, research the current gaming market, identify the most popular genres, and determine which platform would be best for releasing his game.

All of that had to be done before development could begin.

"All right, let's take a look."

Closing the system interface, Chen Xu sat down in front of his computer and began typing away, searching for the information he needed.

The first thing he wanted to examine was the game engine used in this parallel world.

Because he had previously worked as a freelance concept artist for game companies, the official game engine was already installed on his computer, and he had long since registered an account.

Game development infrastructure in this world was highly mature.

Through the engine's integrated marketplace, developers could easily hire concept artists, 3D modelers, composers, voice actors, and many other professionals.

"Hmm... it's not difficult to use, and the workflow is pretty straightforward. The only problem is that the free resources are rather limited."

Chen Xu watched the introductory videos at double speed while reading through the official documentation online.

Before long, he had gained a general understanding of how the engine worked.

It wasn't difficult to learn.

The next thing he investigated was the distribution platforms.

The prosperity of the entertainment industry had also brought with it an aggressive crackdown on piracy.

Games developed using the official engine were, from a technical standpoint, effectively impossible to pirate.

Of course, eliminating piracy didn't mean eliminating competition.

The industry was just as fiercely competitive as ever.

As for game distribution platforms, they weren't all that different from those in Chen Xu's previous life.

There were domestic platforms as well as international ones.

The biggest difference was that, unlike his previous world—where a single overseas platform dominated the PC gaming market—international platforms held far less influence here.

Instead, domestic game platforms occupied the mainstream position.

The primary reason was the regulatory environment.

In Chen Xu's previous world, games released domestically often had to be heavily censored. Blood was recolored green or gray, skeletons mysteriously gained flesh, and many mature themes were removed entirely.

In this parallel world, however, real-name verification had become universal, and entertainment products were governed by a comprehensive age-rating system.

As a result, games like The Witcher 3 and Grand Theft Auto—titles that would have had virtually a 0% chance of passing censorship in his previous world—could be legally released here.

They would simply receive an 18R age rating instead.