[Choice of Robots]

Choice of Robots.

In his previous life, this game was considered a high-quality, text-based, multiple-choice game.

Someone also called this type of game an interactive fiction/novel.

This game was developed and published by Choice of Games LLC in 2014.

It was also one of the representative games of this company.

And the story of this game was written by Kevin Gold.

Despite the games with graphics and sound effects being the most popular at that moment, this game could still stand out among many games in the market without relying on any of them.

According to their company's reason, instead of letting players make complicated choices while playing the game. They chose to make their gameplay simpler with multiple-choice interactions, so they could focus on making the players' choices more meaningful.

Because of this, many people who didn't prefer games with complicated gameplay found themselves falling in love with this kind of game.

Many people also praised their games for being inclusive because players could freely choose their gender and sexuality in the game.

Regardless of the developer of this game in his previous life, Chen Yize chose to develop this game first for three reasons.

The first and most important reason for Chen Yize was that this game was easy to develop.

This game was entirely text-based. It relied only on text to narrate how the story developed without graphics or sound effects.

The player just needed to make their own choices whenever the game allowed, and the game would remember which choices the player had made.

The game would tell the story of the game page by page, and the page would change after the players had chosen their own choices or they sometimes had chosen to continue (when there was no choice).

Each page contained the text it wanted to show the players and the choices for the players to choose next.

The game also added two things that usually appeared in many games of his previous life. One was the stats, and the other was the achievements.

The stats (or statistics) allowed players to track some of the internal game data, helped them make decisions during the game and made it easier for players to unlock some achievements in some games.

And the achievements encouraged players to spend more time in-game while they tried to unlock them and rewarded them when they succeeded.

The stats also played a significant role in this game. It could increase or decrease depending on the choices each player had made.

Sometimes, the players needed to accumulate enough stats to make some specific choices.

For example, if the players wanted to choose the choice to buy something, they were required to have enough wealth.

It also affected some parts of the story depending on whether one of the current stats accumulated before was high or low. Like when the players' robot threw knives, it required the robot's grace stats to be high enough to succeed. Or else it would fail.

The game needed to modify the text from the words, the sentences, or the paragraphs on the following pages. This modification depended on the choices each player had previously chosen and the current stats of each player.

For example, the game needed to fill in the protagonist's name that each player had chosen into the following places in the game that required this name to appear.

Another example was that if the player chooses to make their robots out of different materials, the next page's first paragraph will also appear different based on which material the player chose.

And the order of appearance of each page could still be different based on the choices each player had previously chosen and the current stats of each player, like the modification of the text.

Like sometimes, when the player chooses to meet with some characters in the game, it will arrange the pages to show that they did meet later.

On the other hand, if the player chooses not to meet, the game will also arrange the pages to show that they didn't meet.

Not every page the developer had prepared would be seen by the players with only a single playthrough. They could only see a fraction of them.

Overall, the game programming of this game was relatively easy.

It only required the game to {record} some of the players' previous choices and {check} some of the players' current stats from time to time as the [conditions] that determined the [results] on the following pages of the game. (And checked if the player had unlocked some achievements)

At least, it didn't require any calculations, graphics, or sound effects when developing this game.

The second reason was that this game contained many things that could resonate with many people living in this world.

For example, many elements appeared in this game, such as wars, robots, and AIs.

The Chinese-American war in the story resembled the war in this world that had just ended more than 20 years ago.

And the advanced robots and AIs in the story were things that could attract many people in this world, where technological development was very rapid.

Because of these elements in the game, it was easier for the players to substitute themselves into the protagonist's role.

There were also many ethical and philosophical themes that this game also brought up, such as the ethics of artificial life, the philosophies about life and death, etc.

He believed that this game would make many players in this world contemplate more about them.

It might even spark a heated discussion among people, which was very helpful to the increase in the game's popularity.

Even though he could develop a game with other themes, it was best if it could be more well-received.

And the last reason was that this game was easy for anyone to get started.

That's right. It was because this game didn't need to rely on any technical skills to play it.

Maybe, someone would say that this kind of game without technical skills wasn't fun.

But for this world, video games had never appeared, at least in the public eyes.

For these people who had never played any video games before, their first contact with video games with many technical skills would result in they didn't know how to play.

And yet, even if they could adapt to it later, not everyone would have this kind of patience.

It was also one of the reasons why many games in his previous life needed to make a tutorial for the players.

And these were why Chen Yize decided to develop this game.

When Chen Yize was about to start developing the game, he first pulled out the item <Players' memories> from the system.

Umm, it looked no different from those gummy bears he saw everywhere.

"System, how can I use this item?"

Chen Yize had already thought of a way, but he chose to ask the system anyway, in case he was wrong.

[The host just needs to eat this item while thinking which game the host wants to use it for.]

Okay, it was a bit more complicated than what he had thought. So, this question should be worth it.

Without thinking more, Chen Yize directly put the <gummy bear> into his mouth.

And when he swallowed it, tons of memories came into his brain without any more warning or delay.

This item was indeed very efficient, maybe too efficient. Memories from every player who had played Choice of Robots in his previous life came into Chen Yize's brain. It made him feel very dizzy and nauseous.

Luckily, he hadn't eaten anything else. Or else, he would surely vomit it out because he felt like vomiting now.

After resting for a while, Chen Yize finally had enough strength to complain to the system.

"System! Come out!"

"..."

After Chen Yize had already complained for more than ten minutes and finally calmed down, the system suddenly jumped out.

[Ding! The system detected that the host used the system's item for the first time, wanting to develop his first game. This system decides to give the first task for the host to stay motivated.]

[Does the host want to accept it?]

"..."

So, did he complain to the system for so long just to receive the task?

"Okay, I accept it."

[Ding! The host has decided to accept the task from the system.]

[Task requirements: In half a month, the host must release his first game and get a total download of 10,000 within half a month of its release.]

[Rewards: <Players' memories> (x1). (For the host to stay motivated)]

[Punishments: The system will confiscate all the host's salary for this month.]

"..."

The requirements seemed pretty normal. After all, he had already predicted that he would be able to finish this game in half a month.

But what kind of reward and punishment was this?

After he had already complained about these terrible <gummy bears>, the system still wanted to give him another one?

And the system also stated that it was for him to stay motivated.

Haha!

If he still eats this thing again in the future, he will be a dog!

No way! He will never eat it! He will never develop another game in this life!

One game is enough!

As for the punishment, it was even worse.

The system even wanted to confiscate all of his salary for this month.

His monthly salary was 15,000 yuan, which was already high for an ordinary programmer like him. And he didn't want to lose all of them.

No, he must complete the task!

He didn't want to get punished in this way!

But first...

"System! Come out!"

"..."

-----

Soon, Chen Yize finished developing the tool for making this game on the first day.

This program allowed anyone to develop their own text-based, multiple-choice game similar to Choice of Robots without difficulty.

The developers just needed to create many game pages by themselves.

From the typing of the text and the choices for the players to choose on each page,

The conditions about which choices the players had chosen and checked some of the current stats of them,

To the results about which page the players would see next, which choices they weren't allowed to choose, what kind of text would it show, would it increase/decrease some stats, or did they unlock some achievements.

With the <Translation lv1> ability, Chen Yize found that he could easily translate this game text from the English language to the Chinese language without any error in his mind.

Chen Yize also needed to change some contents of the game's story.

This game's original story sometimes referenced many things in his previous life.

For example, the video games in his previous life sometimes appeared in this story. Chen Yize deleted them all, including some achievements related to them.

Something that didn't exist in this world: most of them, Chen Yize chose to keep for players to imagine by themselves, while some of them he chose to find something similar to replace them.

This game also contained ten different chapters that Chen Yize needed to make, excluding the prologue.

On the second day, Chen Yize finished making the prologue and chapter 1.

On the third day, Chen Yize finished making chapter 2.

On the fourth day, it was Saturday. The company was closed, so Chen Yize went to an internet cafe to finish making chapter 3.

...

On the eleventh day, Chen Yize finished making chapter 7.

For this game, the players needed to play through the prologue and the seven chapters to finish a single playthrough that they didn't die in the middle.

After the end of chapter 5, the players could choose four different chapters based on the robot's stats called chapters 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D.

And they could also restart the game at any time, but they could only restart it from the beginning.

Finally, Chen Yize finished developing this game. He decided it was time to test it so he could fix some bugs in time before it was released.

By the way, he could also send the game file for Li Xinyi to test it together.

With that thought in mind, Chen Yize sent the game file to Li Xinyi and asked her to test it with him.