Don't Try to Teach Players How to Play

Standing off to one side, [I'm Not Jiahao] quietly straightened the center-parted bangs he took such pride in, his voice trembling slightly.

"That monster's blade... was too fast."

"My underlying logic couldn't even work out how it attacked."

"Oh, give it a rest, Jiahao. Your underlying logic probably couldn't even handle that monster's basic attack."

[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] rolled his eyes, then suddenly opened his system panel as if something had occurred to him.

He had been blissfully ignorant until he looked. Then his blood pressure shot through the roof.

"Guys... check how many lives you've got left."

"We used up all our free revives in that last wipe."

Everyone sucked in a sharp breath at his words.

"Fuck! We're really out of lives?"

Ma Lou slapped his thigh in panic. "I didn't even touch a single trash mob, and now I've got zero Ash Coins and zero lives! If I die again, am I seriously going to have to delete my character and start over?"

Bossy Guy bitterly pulled the two pebbles out of his pocket. "I helped smash two trash mobs to death and got two coins, but a revive costs ten. I'm nowhere close."

For a moment, the atmosphere inside the church grew unbearably heavy.

Meanwhile, up on the altar, Lin En had witnessed the players' entire "speedrun party wipe."

Though he looked utterly unflappable, inwardly he was panicking like a startled horse.

Was it really that dangerous out there?

Looking at the five newly revived players and their gloomy faces, Lin En felt a sinking dread.

They had been outside for less than ten minutes before the monsters sent them packing, slicing through them like vegetables.

Worse still, they had burned through their only safety net: their free revives.

These players could barely scrape together ten coins for a single revive between them. Now that they had neither lives nor money, would they be too scared to leave the safe zone?

If these workers decided to idle in the church, or simply quit because the game was too hard, wouldn't his fledgling faith-point supply chain collapse on the spot?

Maybe... I should give each of them another server-crash compensation pack, with one extra revive?

Lin En frantically weighed his options.

But reason told him no.

Changing the mechanics on a whim was a cardinal sin of game management!

It would ruin the players' immersion!

Especially for a newly launched game like theirs. The players had only just started getting immersed, and here he was, handing out cheats in the starter village.

How would he ever get them to trust the game's rules after that?

Besides, Lin En knew exactly what these members of the Fourth Calamity were like. Give them a free revive today, and tomorrow they would be dancing right in an elite monster's face.

Then they would come crying and begging for another handout. Once he opened those floodgates, there would be no closing them.

I'll watch a little longer. If there's really no other option, I'll cut them some slack, Lin En decided, steadying himself.

Yet Lin En had still vastly underestimated the mental fortitude and resilience of those creatures known as the "Fourth Calamity."

Just then, [Ji Luo], standing below, also regained his composure.

"Guys, listen up."

He clapped his hands to get everyone's attention. "That abandoned village is off-limits for now. That elite monster is clearly a regional miniboss. Its mechanics are way overtuned. We can't take it on at our current stage."

"But don't forget, killing monsters isn't the only quest we've picked up!"

"That's right!" [Passing Pure-Love Warrior]'s eyes lit up.

"That daily quest, [The Deity's Sanctuary], wants us to build a house for the NPC!"

[Ji Luo] laid out his reasoning clearly. "The reward is a full ten Ash Coins! Exactly enough to buy ourselves another life!"

As Ma Lou listened, his dull eyes suddenly gleamed like a hungry wolf's. "You mean... we stop going out and start building stuff in the safe zone, boss?"

"Exactly!"

[Ji Luo] snapped his fingers. "It's dangerous outside, but there shouldn't be any big monsters near the safe zone, right? We'll chop trees and build the house along the edge of the church grounds! Get those ten Ash Coins in welfare first!"

"Once we've got those ten coins to cover a revive, we can go wild out there again without worrying."

"Construction keeps us afloat; hunting makes us rich!"

Hearing this, Ma Lou immediately declared with renewed vigor, "Well said! As long as we don't lose heart, there are always more solutions than problems! We can't mess with the boss, but surely we can bully some trees that can't move?"

"Roll up your sleeves and get to work! For our safety net!" Bossy Guy nodded emphatically, looking like an old farmer ready to head out into the fields.

Even [I'm Not Jiahao], who had been posing the whole time, muttered, "I suppose this does fit the initial stage of primitive capital accumulation."

Watching them rekindle their fighting spirit in just a few exchanges, Lin En finally breathed a sigh of relief inside the statue.

Good thing he hadn't given them another revive just now. Apparently, the players had their own ideas about how to play!

So the most important thing for a good game designer was not to try to teach players how to play!

Letting them discover all the different ways to play on their own was how a healthy game ecosystem worked.

"Come on, guys! Let's get to work!"

[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] took the lead, marching out of the dilapidated church once more with the other four toward the edge of the sinister Black Forest behind it.

Though they called it the edge of the Black Forest, it was actually still several miles from the terrifying forest's core.

The five stood before a few crooked, oddly shaped trees with dark bark and fell into a brief silence.

"This game... didn't give us starter axes or anything. How are we supposed to punch these trees?"

Ma Lou circled a tree and picked at its hard bark.

In traditional online games, you could simply walk up to a tree and click "Gather" to automatically obtain wood.

But in the fully virtual world of Awakening of the Ancient Gods, there weren't all those strange little buttons telling you what to do.

[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] stared at the tree for two seconds, and suddenly his inner anime protagonist awakened.

"So what if we don't have axes? Ever played Minecraft?"

"You get wood by punching trees!"

With that, he roared, planted himself in a solid horse stance, raised his hefty fist, and slammed it into the thick trunk!

Thud!

A dull impact rang out, and everything went quiet for a second.

"Owww, fuck! They're broken! My fingers are broken!"

[Passing Pure-Love Warrior] clutched his reddened right hand and hopped frantically in place like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

A tiny red number even floated above his head: [-1].

"You idiot!"

[Ji Luo] covered his face. "This is full-immersion VR. You think you're playing a block game? Ever heard of equal and opposite reactions?"

"That fucking hurts! Did this shitty game crank up the pain feedback?" [Passing Pure-Love Warrior] shook his hand, looking ready to cry.

"If we can't do it bare-handed, let's use tools."

Bossy Guy certainly lived up to his practical nature.

He quietly stepped back a few paces and fetched a huge, sharply edged blue-gray brick from the edge of the ruins.

"Anything in this game can be a tool if you're strong enough to use it. Follow my lead!"

Bossy Guy took a deep breath, hoisted the brick weighing over a dozen pounds, and smashed it hard against the base of the trunk!

Crack!

The hard bark chipped away, sending wood splinters flying.

"It works!"

Ma Lou's eyes lit up. "Guys, grab something and smash the damn thing!"