The game SpiCa had arranged sounded complicated, but its ultimate goal was actually very simple.
Creating a world was like observing microorganisms in a petri dish. All you had to do was let the civilization inside grow and thrive. There was no need to interfere much, either; you just had to give them the conditions necessary to survive. It did not even trigger the mass extinctions that had occurred several times in Earth's history...
But Little Mi Xue was far from satisfied.
She kept trying to create a more comfortable living environment, only to weaken the civilization's ability to adapt to extreme conditions. Whenever this happened, the game would punish her: parts of the civilization declined due to insufficient resources; drastic environmental changes wiped them out because of their poor adaptability; population explosions sparked internal wars, and so on.
These were challenges SpiCa had set up. If the little girl could never play along the path we wanted her to follow, she would never be able to win.
Whenever this happened, she would pause the game and throw herself into my arms to escape reality...
Oh, no, wait. To escape a video game.
"Mommy, I don't wanna pway anymowe!"
That would not do. My task was to guide her through the game.
"Mi Xue, you need to learn to find a balance. There's nothing wrong with wanting to give your civilization a comfortable environment, but you also need to consider whether there are enough resources. More importantly, you need to teach your civilization to withstand risks."
"Mommy, what should I do?"
I hugged her, settled her on my lap, and took the computer mouse from her little hand.
"Then watch Mommy show you how it's done."
My playstyle came down to one thing: idling.
As long as the environment was