Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 274: 272: The Race Track of Love and Murder

Lincoln too.

Just hopping around on the spot didn’t seem like a big deal.

But when you start to run, especially when a bunch of people around you start to run as well, things change drastically.

Just one person tripping can quickly become an obstacle, knocking down or tripping up several people around them!

In such a setting, full of traps and various moving obstacles, tripping over is a common occurrence.

Even the leading player was knocked back by a candy hammer, like in bowling, sending a bunch of people behind him flying.

Everyone fell into a chaotic heap.

Little Chun, who had started off with a “must-win” attitude, didn’t get far before tumbling with the crowd. She struggled to get up from the pile of people, and barely ran five meters before rolling into another group.

Her competitive spirit entirely evaporated, she laid on the ground laughing speechlessly.

Some employees wore ridiculously odd plushie overcoats. For example, one lady wore a giant purple eggplant overcoat.

But because of the irregular shape of the eggplant, she couldn’t get up for a long time after falling and waved her arms and legs about desperately.

In the end, a passing colleague couldn’t bear to watch any longer and kindly

extended a nana to help her up.

The situation was much better for Lincoln. Both he and Mavis were experienced, so naturally, the overcoats they chose didn’t pose these problems.

Princess Camille had chosen a dinosaur overcoat like Mavis’ but in a different color. Aside from the tail being a bit troublesome, it didn’t hinder her movements too much.

However, when they stepped onto a gigantic lollipop-shaped spinning disc, all three were spun around until they were dizzy and unstable. In the end, they all fell into a heap.

And with the disc still spinning, the three were flung towards the edge, about to fall off.

Lincoln struggled to stand up and tried to crawl back to the center using his legs, but Mavis grabbed his leg without hesitation, preventing him from moving.

Princess Camille had initially been a bit reluctant, but following Mavis’ example, she quickly threw her reservations to the wind and grabbed Lincoln’s other leg…

While Lincoln stood there dumbfounded, the three of them fell off the track together, plunging into the pool below.

The next moment, the three of them reappeared on the checkpoint of the track —a small circular platform.

—Of course, they were completely dry, not a drop of water was on them.

Seizing the opportunity while the other two were still recovering from the shock, Lincoln swiftly reached out, grabbed a dinosaur tail in each hand, and, without any hesitation, dragged the two little dinosaurs to the edge of the platform and threw them off!

He then stood at the edge of the platform, hands on hips, and broke out into wild laughter.

The next moment, he was pushed off the platform by Mavis and Princess Camille Victoria who had reappeared on the platform and joined forces.

On his way down, Lincoln saw the two high-fiving each other with glee…

Similar scenarios of friendly rivalry and tripping one another up were happening all over the competition venue.

The more familiar employees were with each other, the more uninhibited they were in making each other’s lives difficult.

Eventually, even the new employees who weren’t too familiar with each other loosened up.

The entire track was in utter chaos…

After an hour of boisterous fun, everyone temporarily stopped and began to share their thoughts.

Lincoln compiled and analyzed the feedback. Mavis sneakily compiled and analyzed the feedback as well, and then they made adjustments to the parts that received the most comments.

The main feedback was about the thickness of the plushie overcoats— Half a palm thickness was simply too much!

If only the main part of the body was this thick, it wouldn’t be such a problem. But when the arms and legs are also this thick, it becomes very uncomfortable.

They were basically incapable of doing anything, even moving their arms to keep balance was a struggle.

The only thing they could do seemed to be dragging down others when they fell, adopting a ‘if I go down, you’re coming with me’ attitude…

And as for the short thick legs, running was impossible, let alone jumping.

Take a jump stride? Don’t even think about it!

You could only bounce!

Pretend you’re on the moon!

These experiences clearly needed to be modified: the thickness of the plushie overcoat for the torso can be left as is, but the thickness for the limbs definitely needs to be reduced.

The legs were simply reduced to half a palm’s size. After all, legs have the most significant impact on the game’s sense of motion during track competitions, so it’s better to make things easier for the players…

The female employee in the purple eggplant overcoat, who was directly eliminated in the first round, expressed her excitement: The different designs of the overcoats severely affect the fairness of the competition! Especially this eggplant!

The lower half is so bulky, you can’t get up when you fall!

That’s outrageous! I can’t fully utilize my abilities at all!

However, Lincoln was somewhat hesitant about the idea of modifying: Mainly because the workload is too large.

Because there are really a lot of designs: animals, plants, fruits, vegetables, tools, cartoons… there are countless bizarre overcoats.

If you have to test the impact of all overcoat designs on mobility, how big the impact is, and how it should be modified…

That could go on until the weekend and still not be finished.

In the end, Lincoln had no choice but to decide to proceed directly—

Just leave them alone for now. After the official release, when there is a huge amount of player competition data, the weight of specific overcoat designs will be reduced proportionately according to the winning rate of various designs in big data, to adjust the balance.

All the overcoat designs, despite significant shape differences, are all designed to have the same weight in terms of parameters, for fairness.

When the data is compiled, the overcoats with a low winning rate due to their design, can have their weight reduced to offset the disadvantage, which is perfectly reasonable!

The key point is, it’s simpler and easier…

Lincoln loves simplicity and peace of mind!

With a boss like Lincoln setting the example, Mavis gradually got used to and even began to like the idea of slacking off.

The two game developers hit it off immediately!

Of course, there’s a lot more to modify than just these two points in the design. With regards to the track, there are even more places that need adjustments.

After the proportions of the cartoon track are expanded, running it with real people naturally leads to many incongruities.

Although Lincoln and Mavis tried their best to adjust everything, considering the more than twenty track maps, one-by-one debugging is no small task. Moreover, without multi-person on-site playtesting, there are still many issues.

Now that many people have run through it, numerous problems in the details have been uncovered by everyone, and they’re quickly being corrected and adjusted.

Lincoln performed adjustments at an incredible speed. As soon as an employee pointed something out, he would immediately tweak it.

The other game developer – Mavis, became a hands-off manager, mingling with the crowd for amusement.

From time to time, she’d even echo the comments of other employees around her, praising him, “The boss is so efficient! So incredible!”

In his busy intervals, Lincoln saw Mavis playing around and couldn’t help but glare at her.

After the first round of modifications was completed, everyone switched roles again, transforming back into players, and the second round of the game began anew.

Another hour passed, and there were fewer modifications suggested this time, but many people had developed fresh ideas for the track.

Lincoln immediately encouraged everyone to speak up. If they had good ideas, they could entirely design a whole new track around them!

So, those with ideas gathered together, naturally forming new groups, and startea to discuss ana aeslgn new tracKS.

Lincoln also watched their designs from the side, drawing inspiration.

After a good while, he finally took a break and stretched lazily.

Only then did he notice that Princess Camille Victoria had been standing by his side for a while.

“What’s up, Student Zhu?” Lincoln asked.

The princess rolled her eyes cutely. She always felt Lincoln was calling her “Student Pig,” but she had no proof.

“Lincoln, I heard from Mr. Fred that you were looking for a very famous singer to hold a virtual concert, but you’re not having much luck, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Lincoln nodded, “It really hasn’t been going well. I can’t get past the agents, and I can’t meet the king & queen themselves. Why do you ask?”

“I can help!” The princess said happily, “Alex was my teacher!”

“Alex?” Lincoln was a little confused. No can do, he hadn’t paid any attention to the stars of this world.

He only listened to the original singers when he found music he liked in the backgrounds of videos he watched, but he never paid attention to who they were.

Therefore, he was utterly unfamiliar with the name.

However, when Student Zhu mentioned this name, several employees who were still discussing track designs turned their heads around abruptly and stared at her with shimmering eyes.

The sheer force made Lincoln couldn’t help but worry about their necks.

So, Lincoln immediately grasped the weight of the name, Alex.

He promptly pulled Camille Victoria away to discuss this further on the side..