Chapter 228 - 92: "Pin a Good Dream

Chapter 228: Chapter 92: "Pin a Good Dream

He counted on his fingers, running through different game genres and ruling them out almost as soon as he named them:

"MOBAs won’t work—they need hero updates. FPS games won’t work—they need map updates. Battle Royales won’t work—they need new mechanics. Racing games won’t work—they need new tracks. RPGs won’t work—they need progression updates. Narrative games won’t work—they need story updates. SLGs won’t work—they need seasonal updates..."

Yu Xian didn’t interrupt him, just sat quietly across from him, watching him run his hands through his hair over and over.

Suddenly, Shi Zuozhou’s hands froze.

He snapped his head up, his eyes suddenly flaring with excitement as if he had just been thrown a lifeline.

"Sandbox!"

Shi Zuozhou practically shot up from the sofa, his voice cracking with excitement as he yelled:

"I’ve got it! Sandbox! A sandbox simulation game!"

He paced back and forth in the living room excitedly, his words tumbling out in a rush as he explained the grand blueprint that had just taken shape in his mind to Yu Xian and Yang Yiyi:

"Think about it! Since we can’t add new content and rules later, we just won’t set any specific gameplay! We’ll only provide the world’s fundamental laws of physics, basic substances and materials, and most importantly, we’ll give them an extremely high degree of freedom to interact with the environment!"

Shi Zuozhou grew more and more excited as he spoke, his eyes shining:

"Just like *Minecraft*, just like *Rust*! The developers don’t provide a main quest, but the players create their own gameplay!"

He explained to the two of them:

"We just need to use that blueprint script to build a vast and unknown continent, and set the rules for its natural environment and biological evolution. Then, we hand over the power of creation completely to the players! They can chop down trees, mine ore, build houses, find partners, even establish city-states!"

"And that solves the problem of not being able to do hot-updates?" Yang Yiyi asked.

"Exactly! In this model, not being able to do hot-updates is no longer a fatal flaw! Because the real driving force behind the constant generation and turnover of game content isn’t us, the ’official developers,’ but the players’ own social behavior and creativity! As long as human desire and creativity don’t run dry, the content of this Sandbox World will be infinite!"

As Yu Xian listened to Shi Zuozhou’s idea, the deep furrow in his brow gradually smoothed out.

Using a UGC (User-Generated Content) sandbox model did indeed circumvent the drawback of the developers being unable to implement hot-updates and iterations, solving the problems of long-term player retention and content generation.

Old Shi really was a hardcore gamer; he had immediately pinpointed the core idea to break the deadlock.

"But, this only solves the second problem, the ’inability to update.’ We still haven’t figured out a solution for the first and most fatal problem: the corrupted file reset every day." Shi Zuozhou’s fanaticism faded as quickly as it had appeared.

"At this rate, even if we build a cyber Great Wall in our dream, the moment we wake up the next morning and the server is empty, it’ll all just turn to dust."

Yu Xian nodded. It was true. Without a stable method for a "permanent save," no matter how fun the Sandbox World was, it would just crumble to dust every day.

His mind raced, trying to find a way to keep the dream from collapsing, approaching it from the perspectives of physics, computer science, neuroscience, and even the mechanics of Dream Net games.

But after thinking for a long time, he was dismayed to find that when faced with the core mechanic of "delete save if no one is online," he didn’t have a single clue.

Helpless, Yu Xian could only sigh and throw out a terrible idea that even he found ridiculous:

"Um... I have an idea, though it might sound a little stupid."

Shi Zuozhou and Yang Yiyi looked up at the same time, their gazes fixed on him, as if he were the last hope of the village.

"Since the trigger for the dream reset is ’everyone logs out’..." Yu Xian swallowed and forced himself to say:

"Why don’t we... make a schedule?"

"A schedule?" Shi Zuozhou asked, stunned.

"Ahem, yeah, that." Yu Xian cleared his throat, feeling a little sheepish under their stares as he explained:

"There are three of us, plus Wen Xiao, so that’s four units of labor. We can create shifts around our class schedules, each person sleeping a few hours, in three or four shifts. Whoever doesn’t have class during the day can take melatonin to force themselves to sleep, while those who have class go to class. Then at night, we swap to another group."

He gave a dry laugh.

"That way, as long as we have seamless handovers and ensure that at least one person on this Dream Net frequency is asleep 24/7 to act as the host, the Sandbox World won’t be reset, right?"

As his words fell, the air suddenly went silent.

Shi Zuozhou and Yang Yiyi froze, staring at each other blankly, both completely dumbfounded.

After a good few seconds, Shi Zuozhou sucked in a sharp breath. He pointed at Yu Xian, not knowing whether to laugh or cry as he cursed:

"Old Yu, what kind of half-baked idea is this? A goddamn sleep schedule! Even villagers taking turns to watch the water pump aren’t this intense! You want to set up a three-shift assembly line?"

"I actually think... it’s not impossible. I have a lot of free time, so I can be a substitute for you guys whenever needed," Yang Yiyi said, frowning.

"However, the margin for error in this plan is almost zero. If there’s a single mistake in the handover, or if someone is suddenly woken up by something in the real world, causing even a one-second-long total logout, all the save data everyone has accumulated will be instantly wiped. All our hard work will be for nothing."

Yu Xian sighed helplessly. He also knew how unreliable this method was.

Entrusting the life and death of a vast virtual world to the sleep schedule of a few college students... if word got out, people would laugh themselves to death.

"’It seems this ’total logout equals data wipe’ problem is an unsolvable deadlock for now," Yu Xian said, rubbing his temples with a headache.

"We can only think of a solution slowly over time. For now, we might need to make some compromises and adjustments to the game world’s design. Old Shi, what do you think?"

"Fine. Until we think of a solution for stable saving, let’s focus on small-scale, session-based, or online games that don’t require long-term progress accumulation," Shi Zuozhou agreed with a nod.

"With these short, simple, and fast single-session games, it doesn’t matter if they get reset at the end. In fact, it even guarantees a clean environment for every new game."

"Mm, that’s the safest approach," Yu Xian acknowledged.

"My head’s been filled with nothing but massive multiplayer role-playing games these past two days," Shi Zuozhou said, scratching his head in frustration.

"All that excitement for nothing. Now I have to go back to the drawing board and research a new design."

Just then, Yang Yiyi, who had been listening to their discussion the whole time, suddenly brought up a blind spot:

"Wait a minute... If we switch to this kind of small-scale, room-based game like you’re suggesting, doesn’t that mean that since the players connected in each session will be different, the game’s visuals and experience will also be completely different for everyone?"

"Different? Why?" Shi Zuozhou asked, momentarily confused.

"Because the ’memory pool’ of each ’group’ of brains connected to the dream is different," Yang Yiyi explained.

"If that’s the case, can we, as the designers, still maintain control over the game’s quality and the consistency of the experience?"

Shi Zuozhou was still a bit lost.

"Each group of brains? What do you mean? Aren’t all the game assets hardcoded by us in that... what was it... ’blueprint script’?"

"The blueprint script is hardcoded, but the ’assets’ for the dream are pulled in real-time from the subconscious memory pools of all connected players on the same frequency," Yang Yiyi said, looking at Shi Zuozhou.

"For example, if the script contains a descriptive word for a certain object, and ’Host’ A’s brain has no related memory, the dream will search the brain of ’Guest’ B."

"Then what happens if no one has any memory of that thing?" Shi Zuozhou asked blankly.

"If it searches through the memories of everyone in the Dream Net room and still can’t find a match, only then will it ’stitch together’ a vague approximation based on everyone’s common understanding of the word," Yu Xian answered, his mind flashing back to the catalog Wen Xiao had sent yesterday.

After hearing this, Shi Zuozhou’s mouth hung open and his eyes were wide. He took a full half-minute to process it all before forcing out a single sentence:

"What is this... ’Dream Jigsaw’?"