Almighty Video Game Designer

Chapter 208: Collecting Junk

In the experience store, Su Jinyu excitedly watched Jia Peng launch Don’t Starve.

“Just try it! I’m not lying, it’s really fun!” said Su Jinyu.

Jia Peng wiped sweat off his forehead, “Ahem, calm down. This has to be your work since you’re promoting it so hard. Am I right?”

“Yeah, but the manager did provide some guidance,” answered Su Jinyu.

Jia Peng couldn’t believe it, “If I remember correctly, your last game was Lifeline? And the story was written by Zheng Hongxi too.”

“So? Does that mean you don’t believe me?”

“Ahem, it’s nothing. I’ll try it out.”

Filled with doubt, Jia Peng launched the game.

Just like Plants vs Zombies, Don’t Starve was available on both PC and mobile and had crossplay support. As there were differences in the controls between PC and mobile, the lobbies were split into PC and mobile. However, players could still join any game they wanted.

The game started off with a cinematic.

In a weird, joyous, and dark BGM, a bird came to the window of a small house. The camera cuts through the window, revealing Wilson’s failed experiment, sitting in a chair very annoyed.

At this moment, his radio started talking.

“Say pal, looks like you’re having some trouble!

“I have secret knowledge I can share with you.

“If you are ready for it.”

Wilson was happy, surprised and nodded without hesitation.

“Ok then!”

A scary shadow appeared on the screen, followed by countless knowledge flowing into his mind.

Wilson tried his experiment again.

Rats, nails, gears, welding, blood rituals...

In the end, he produced an ominous looking portal.

“Excellent! Now throw the switch!”

Wilson was a bit hesitant.

“Do it!”

Wilson pulled the lever. A dark shadow appeared from the ground, grabbing onto Wilson before pulling him into the ground.

And that was the end of the cinematic before entering the game.

The UI was really clean and simple, just as advertised, with a dark humourous theme.

There were four main options to pick from, Start Game, Mods, Settings, and Quit.

Jia Peng thought the game would be quite difficult because it was a survival game. He decided to explore Mods and Settings to check for an option to decrease difficulty.

There were a few mods that Su Jinyu developed in Mods, such as building tutorials, show food attributes, and keep the status bar on.

These were basically the official mods that didn’t throw off the balancing of the game while giving the players some guidance so they didn’t feel lost in the game.

Jia Peng selected a few mods out of the bunch then moved on to check on the settings. Jia Peng was confused upon seeing the huge amount of settings, deciding to just start the game under the watchful eye of Su Jinyu.

Generating world...

Rendering Wilson’s beard...

Dealing with game theory...

Inserting horrible monsters...

The game was quite dark just as advertised, unlike the horrifying style of Diablo, this was more humorous.

The terrain, trees and rivers all looked like simple sketches, which presented itself as a unique style.

Wilson layed on the ground with the weird long faced wizard Maxwell standing over him.

“Say pal, you don’t look so good.”

“You better find something to eat before night comes!”

Maxwell then disappeared without a trace.

Wilson stood up before the game officially started with the camera zooming out.

Using his mouse, Jia Peng commanded Wilson to hop and skip all over the map.

The sound effects were quite rich in this game, making the world feel less scary with the sounds of footsteps, birds, gathering, and the occasional breeze.

Of course, this might be because it was day.

There were various resources on the maps too, saplings, trees, flowers, bushes and carrots.

Jia Peng walked around and relaxed a bit after realising there wasn’t anything that could harm him nearby.

There were four attributes on the top right, days (time), hunger, sanity, and health. Other than sanity, the others were quite self explanatory.

The higher the better, probably, thought Jia Peng.

Wilson continued to waddle around the map as Jia Peng didn’t know where to go as he picked up anything he could on the way such as saplings, bushings, rocks, or nuts.

Jia Peng still had plenty of space in his inventory after all.

After running for quite some time, he decided to open up the map as he was lost. He realised that he had been walking in a straight line this whole time, and the map was way bigger than he thought.

“This map is huge!”

Jia Peng felt overwhelmed as it felt like there was so much to explore.

Harvesting grass tufts, picking up sticks, picking up rocks, picking up pine cones...

After gathering for a few minutes, Jia Peng could tell that he was doing something wrong, and decided to check the tab on the left.

There were only six different options so far, Tools, Light, Survival, Science, Fight, and Dress. There were probably more to come judging from the empty space.

There were many things to pick from. He decided to craft an axe as he had the resources for it.

After a few swings of the axe, a tree fell, dropping wood on the ground.

After picking up the logs, Jia Peng looked deeper into what other things he could craft.

It seemed like everything had their uses, but he didn’t know where to find those resources. He’d never seen the likes of spider silker, rope, or gold.

“Maybe I should make a pickaxe and start mining. Spider silk... maybe there are spider mobs somewhere?”

Jia Peng continued running around in search of the materials.

“Hmm? There’s a boulder!”

Jia Peng crafted a pickaxe and started hacking away at the boulder. Soon, rocks, flint, and gold dropped to the ground.

“Hmm? It even dropped gold!”

Jia Peng moved onto the next boulder and started hacking away.

Jia Peng was happily hacking away at the boulders, despite his initial impression.

The fact that he could collect rare resources for survival along with the satisfying, rhythmic clanking of the pickaxe against the bounders made the gameplay really satisfying.

Filled with glee, Jia Peng commanded Wilson to pick up everything that dropped onto the ground. At this moment, he noticed a pig house and a pig walking on its two hind legs.