We Agreed to Create Casual Games, What the Hell is this World War Nonsense?
Ch. 6 - Shen Qinghan: Is This Game Difficult?

After exiting the game and removing the virtual helmet, Zhao Ming began researching the gameplay mechanics. If players kept dying like this, they'd definitely give up before long. He needed to give them a little hope.

Zhao Ming began operating his computer, continuously inputting commands to the photon supercomputing cluster. He planned to make "World War II: Rise of Empire" into an immersive story experience where players could assume roles and participate in the game. However, with insufficient funding, he could now only create the opening CG and basic storyline.

The famous battles in the game would be large-scale online competitive instances, just like the "Normandy Landing" instance he was currently using to attract players. First, he'd give a brief background introduction to World War II, then directly drop players into the large-scale competitive "Normandy Landing" instance.

After clicking into the queue, and once five hundred people were gathered, the match would automatically start. Players would be randomly assigned to a landing craft at the very front of the allied forces attacking Omaha Beach, letting them experience heavy machine gun strafing and truly feel what it was like to be cannon fodder when a war began.

However, to prevent players from losing confidence, every time they died, there would be a reminder showing how many times they'd died in total. After dying one hundred times in total, or successfully killing ten imperial defenders on the beach, they could be promoted to commander.

Once promoted to landing craft commander, players could direct the landing craft's advance direction during the opening charge, as well as the timing of lowering the ramp. On the surface, this gave players the chance to command combat. In reality, Zhao Ming had significantly increased the firepower of the imperial defensive forces on Omaha Beach, adding ten more machine gun positions alone...

Forget commanding one landing craft—even commanding ten wouldn't be enough to break through. However, there was still a way to succeed.

Each match started with five hundred people. As long as three hundred players could survive twenty minutes of machine gun strafing, after twenty minutes, reinforcement aircrafts would destroy nearly half the heavy firepower machine gun positions and bunkers on the beach. Then, if these three hundred people could go head-to-head with the imperial defenders and ultimately win, that would count as a successful landing. It was just unknown how long it would take players to reach this level.

Based on Zhao Ming's understanding of human psychology, all players dying as cannon fodder would definitely curse and complain, thinking that if they were commanders, they absolutely wouldn't die so miserably. And discovering that accumulated deaths could lead to their promotion as commander, to save face, they'd have to keep playing until they became commanders.

Fantasizing about how spectacular their command of combat would be, completely unaware that Zhao Ming never planned to be human—just adding those fire points made it impossible to attack head-on. Anyway, players wouldn't know. The game would just torture them properly.

After continuously tweaking and modifying, a whole night passed quickly.

Early morning the next day, Zhao Ming was awakened in his office by hunger. Smelling the inexplicable aroma of breakfast, Zhao Ming yawned and opened his eyes, sitting up from the sofa.

"Senior, when did you arrive?"

Sitting on the single-seat sofa nearby was Shen Qinghan, with breakfast placed on the coffee table in front of Zhao Ming. Zhao Ming couldn’t keep up appearances of politeness and picked up chopsticks to start eating.

Shen Qinghan said, "I arrived just a moment ago. Did you work all night last night?"

Looking at Zhao Ming's normal demeanor, Shen Qinghan was somewhat impressed. His psychological resilience was quite strong. She hadn't expected that the gentle, scholarly-looking Zhao Ming could actually beat someone to the point of broken bones.

After those two reporters recounted the events to her yesterday, she found it hard to believe. But the mole's injuries couldn't be faked. To still have the mood to make games after beating someone up—that was really something.

Zhao Ming nodded, drinking porridge while saying, "Yeah. All night, finally got it mostly done. I'll polish the details later. It can be completed before the competition starts."

Shen Qinghan's eyes showed some doubt and surprise. "A game made in one night... This... is it actually playable?"

It wasn't that Shen Qinghan was skeptical, but it was just too fast. One afternoon plus one night—even counting generously, that was only twelve hours. And it was already finished?

Zhao Ming nodded and said, "Of course. If you don’t mind, you can try it out. My virtual helmet is on the desk. You can experience it."

Shen Qinghan turned to look, and indeed there was a virtual helmet on the desk. Without thinking much, she got up, walked over to get the virtual helmet, returned to the sofa and put it on.

Shen Qinghan's vision brightened, then a virtual desktop appeared. Looking at the gun-shaped icon named "World War II: Rise of Empire," Shen Qinghan thought about it. The screen flashed.

The scene changed, and she was already on a landing craft.

The rumbling sound filled her ears. Shen Qinghan looked up. An aircraft that looked very old was flying in the sky, rushing toward the direction that the landing craft was heading. She was now on the deck, wearing military uniform and holding weapons that had been obsolete in reality for a long time.

Shen Qinghan picked up the firearm and operated it, nodding. "The details are pretty good." These old firearms hadn't been used by anyone for many years. This could attract some nostalgic players. After all, having gotten used to rich fare (mecha and starships), occasionally eating simple food was quite nice.

Shen Qinghan turned her head to look around. Surrounding her were all NPCs, but they were doing various things—some smoking, some praying, some kissing crosses and muttering. There were also some who couldn't control themselves and were vomiting on the landing craft.

This made Shen Qinghan frown deeply. She wasn't seasick herself and could maintain balance on the swaying landing craft, but the scene was somewhat disgusting. "Why make these things so realistic?" Out of sight, out of mind—Shen Qinghan turned her head away.

Then a mission appeared before her eyes.

【Main Mission: Capture Omaha Beach.】

【Mission Reward: Promotion to commander (You may become the officer commanding the landing craft at the start of each game)】

Seeing this, Shen Qinghan understood. "Capture a beach?" Seeing too many people crowded at the front, Shen Qinghan didn't push through the NPCs, but instead went to the edge of the landing craft and stuck her head out to look toward the beach.

What met her eyes was a beach covered with steel anti-tank obstacles and many bunkers. Their aircraft were continuously bombing the beach, providing fire suppression for the landing craft. Shen Qinghan turned to look around—there were at least a hundred landing crafts surrounding them, all rushing toward the beach simultaneously.

Shen Qinghan, feeling more confident,  looked toward the beach, her gaze constantly moving to find the best landing spot. She was confident in her marksmanship. As long as she could lead these NPCs to occupy the beach, that would count as victory.

With so many steel anti-tank obstacles, they could serve as cover. This game didn't look difficult at all—just very retro.