Ch. 15 - Shen Qinghan: Are You Even Human???
We Agreed to Create Casual Games, What the Hell is this World War Nonsense?This chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
This chapter is broken. Please report this on discord.
Hearing Shen Qinghan's question, Zhao Ming's face took on a peculiar expression.
"Core? This game's core is to torture players. Only from the Polish Federation's perspective can players truly experience what absolute despair feels like. Besides, whether you approach it from the Empire's perspective or the major Federations' perspective, it becomes too easy to trigger censorship issues. So I chose the angle that tortured the players instead.
However, it's not that I won't open Empire and other Federation factions—we just have to wait for the Polish Federation storyline to conclude. Then players can freely choose their allegiances."
Zhao Ming then elaborated for Shen Qinghan's benefit.
The game's opening storyline does indeed place players in the role of the Polish Federation's Prime Minister, with complete control over the entire nation. However, the Empire's army is already advancing, and at this critical juncture, the Polish Federation's very survival rests entirely in the players' hands.
At this crucial moment, players must command and deploy armies while analyzing the strategic situation—this not only allows rapid integration into the game world but also makes players feel like they're on equal footing with the Empire's Führer, the Anglo-French Federation's Prime Minister, and the Soviet Federation's leader.
This overwhelming sense of responsibility, combined with the Prime Minister opening, inevitably leads players with such a script to fantasize about leveraging all their knowledge to command the Polish Federation's armies—envisioning themselves as invincible in battle, unstoppable in attack, ultimately unifying the entire world.
The corner of Zhao Ming's mouth curved upward slightly.
Once the complete game CG is released, players can easily distinguish between the two major factions—the Empire and the other Federations. The Empire is clearly portrayed as the aggressor, while the Anglo-French Federation and Soviet Federation are obviously depicted as defenders fighting to protect their homelands.
Consequently, the notion that the other Federations represent the forces of good will become deeply embedded in players' minds.
But then... when players discover that the Empire's armies are advancing at breakneck speed, and despite deploying troops with layered strategic defense, they simply cannot match the Empire's overwhelming firepower...
Players, cast as the Polish Federation's Prime Minister and seeing the allied Federations positioned behind them, will think of those brave soldiers fighting desperately in the flames to defend their homeland—surely such dedicated warriors can halt the Empire's advance.
And when players expectantly send out urgent requests for military aid...
Well, surprise!
Guess what happens?
Your entire country gets obliterated!
Reality delivers a devastating slap to players' faces, letting Blue Star players experience firsthand what true geo-political betrayal feels like.
Once they can no longer serve as Prime Minister, the game transitions into the second chapter storyline. Following the Polish Federation's complete destruction, the protagonist receives a new identity and can finally choose from available factions.
Choose however you want—whether to become the Empire's cannon fodder or the Anglo-French Federation's cannon fodder...
The dramatic fall from Prime Minister to expendable foot soldier will absolutely generate massive Emotion Points.
Just imagine it—one moment you're engaged in high-level strategic warfare with the Empire's Führer as an equal, and the next moment your nation ceases to exist. You become the lowest-ranking cannon fodder, and with a single command from that same Führer, your player-controlled protagonist gets sent to the front lines where an artillery shell drops.
Boom!
Time to restart.
However, unlike "Normandy Landing" with its one-life-per-battle system, the immersive story mode allows respawning—otherwise, no player could possibly complete the campaign.
Each time a player dies, they assume a completely new identity with an entirely different background story.
Upon completing the game, all the families of every character the player has controlled appear in a final CG sequence, shown one by one. Players will witness each character they played die due to their tactical errors, while the families, receiving these death notifications, experience profound anguish and despair.
This creates an unparalleled emotional impact, forcing players to confront the true human cost of their decisions.
After hearing Zhao Ming's detailed explanation, Shen Qinghan's face filled with bewildered question marks.
She couldn't fathom how Zhao Ming could deliver such coldly calculated words while wearing such a malicious smile.
"Seriously?! Are you even human?!"
Zhao Ming spread his hands with casual indifference.
"The more people curse, the more popular it becomes."
Actually, the anti-war message and player torture were merely side effects. The central objective was mobilizing players' Emotion Points. As long as he accumulated more Emotion Points, players could curse him all they wanted—it wasn't like he'd lose any flesh over it.
Meanwhile, Shen Qinghan felt her scalp tingling just thinking about it.
The immersive story's respawn system with identity switching seemed reasonable enough, but Zhao Ming's final masterstroke... this was essentially psychological torture.
Because players could respawn freely, they'd treat death carelessly. But when news of each character's death reached their virtual families, scenes of loved ones breaking down would continuously flash before players' eyes.
The true weight of mortality would relentlessly impact and torment the players' psyche. War's absolute cruelty would become viscerally tangible in that moment.
After experiencing that, who could possibly still romanticize warfare?
If this didn't win awards, there would be no justice in the world.
Shen Qinghan's eyes filled with genuine admiration. This game was undeniably brilliant, but the level of psychological torment... was absolutely ruthless.
She'd definitely need to keep her involvement under wraps later. When netizens inevitably started cursing Zhao Ming, they might drag her down too—after all, she was the primary investor in this project. If the game company's boss was this diabolical, how could netizens possibly view her as anything but an accomplice?
Shen Qinghan turned to Zhao Ming with curiosity.
"When will you release the complete game CG? On competition day?"
The [Anti-War Competition] jointly hosted by the Six Major Federations faced timezone coordination challenges—while starting simultaneously globally, each region experienced different local times. For instance, the Great Xia Federation's competition began at 3 PM local time.
Zhao Ming stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"Let's release it on competition day at noon—I want to see Emperor Penguin's opening moves first. Right during lunch break, when most people are browsing news and social media. A game CG release with just three hours' lead time means that even if Emperor Penguin Group manages to analyze our content, they can't possibly create anything meaningful in response."
Even with his system's database and the continuous Emotion Points accumulated during this period, it had still taken him a full week to complete the game. Three hours? Even if they worked themselves to death, they couldn't replicate anything.
Moreover, it's merely a game CG—they'd have no insight into the actual gameplay mechanics. But from the players' perspective, this CG would clearly delineate the factional conflicts: Empire versus Federation. It was the perfect preparation for the upcoming game experience.
Shen Qinghan had no objections and immediately agreed. She then appropriated Zhao Ming's virtual helmet, planning to take it home for an all-night gaming marathon to complete the campaign.
Zhao Ming watched helplessly as his equipment disappeared, then opened his phone to order the latest model virtual haptic pod.
After all, when you have money, you should spend it.
---
Three days later.
Emperor Penguin Group, Games Department.
Time was rapidly approaching noon. Competition entries had been launching steadily since this morning—some paid, others free—but the Great Xia Federation's attention remained laser-focused on the showdown between Emperor Penguin Group and Polar Star Games Company.
According to rough calculations by observant netizens, both companies had already burned through over 100 million Federation coins in just ten days—purely on trending topics, buying promotional spots, and suppressing rival content.
Such an intense pre-competition battle was virtually unprecedented in the Great Xia Federation.
Other game developers couldn't even complain—after all, just the promotional budgets of these two giants could fund ten or even a hundred of their projects. What could they possibly do?
When titans clash, smaller players inevitably suffer.
Consequently, as the competition officially began, countless netizens and developers watched intently to see what new strategies Emperor Penguin Group's "Wasteland Future: 2100" might unveil, and what exactly Polar Star Games Company's mysterious "World War II: Rise of Empire" would turn out to be.
However, despite noon arriving—which was peak traffic time—Polar Star Games Company remained ominously silent.
Xu Huan was sweating profusely. Over three days, they'd successfully created new storylines based on Polar Star Games Company's brief CG teaser, but without seeing their complete reveal, he remained deeply uneasy.
At 12:03 PM, with Polar Star Games Company still showing no activity and having apparently missed the crucial noon window, Xu Huan gritted his teeth decisively.
"We can't wait any longer. Release the DLC and push the updated installation package."
His team breathed collective sighs of relief and immediately began executing the launch. Within seconds, the updated DLC for "Wasteland Future: 2100" was pushed to every player who had the game installed.
Just one minute later, two trending topics consecutively surged into the top three rankings.
【"World War II: Rise of Empire" Game CG Officially Released!】
【"Wasteland Future: 2100" Brand New DLC Update!】
Seeing Polar Star Games Company's CG announcement claiming the top spot while firmly suppressing the DLC update for "Wasteland Future: 2100" beneath it, Xu Huan's head began throbbing violently.
"Damn it! Will this nightmare never end?!"
A simple game CG trailer shot straight to number one? How much money had they thrown at this?!