A deathly silence.
Whether in a chat room or in outer space.
There was no lavish performance, and no stunning CG animation like in Diablo.
Some only have a vast, boundless Starfield.
The stars were outlined with vector lines, lacking vibrant colors and exaggerated effects.
But even Simon's beat-up Dell can render it with ease.
In the empty universe, he could not feel the sense of "conquering the universe".
Only a clear awareness of one's own insignificance, and an indescribable loneliness.
But Simon didn't care; on the contrary, he was extremely excited.
This is it!
This is the space I've always wanted!
This is what space should look like! Not a huge group of people in armor fighting wildly in the crowded sky.
On a cosmic scale, even the largest things are not considered large.
Even the most bustling place is nothing more than a speck of dust in a corner of the universe... and an even smaller speck of dust above!
"This planet... is it my home planet?"
Simon looked at the star focused on the center and suddenly had an idea.
Is it possible to find our own Earth in this world?
It's a pity that his power is still very weak, otherwise he would love to start exploring the universe right now.
Shaking his head, Simon decided to figure out the game's mechanics first.
Stars! is a very standard nerd game.
It is definitely not a game suitable for the general Volkswagen.
Even if Lin Lixin made many adjustments and optimizations to it, making it more like the future EVE or Stellaris in every aspect, it would still be the same.
Even these two games aren't exactly Volkswagen titles. Their incredibly high information density makes them inherently unsuitable for Volkswagen.
Even in today's era where players generally have a lot of patience, this remains true.
The only advantage that Stars! has in attracting users is that it's backed by the Nexus homepage and is completely free.
This time, it didn't even dare to use the Gamenova name, but only signed the names of Lin Lixin and Carmack.
However, in some ways, the influence of the name Lin Lixin seems to be even more exaggerated than that of Gamenova.
Simon operated the system to access his home planet.
The sheer volume of parameters, even a casual glance at them, made his scalp tingle.
Population, factories, mines, resources, defense...
He needs to take the initiative in deciding how the home planet allocates resources and what it should do.
To be honest, Simon was already getting a little tired after only a short while.
Perhaps this is the common characteristic of 4X games, or rather, most slow-paced strategy games.
They are unlikely to provide players with the same strong and continuous positive feedback as Diablo in the short term. To truly enjoy them, one must be a patient and persistent player.
Even today, various media outlets have already hyped up the game " Civilization " to the skies, even making it a must-buy title for NX users.
But there are still many people who can't keep up with the game.
Because it is indeed very difficult to learn.
Not everyone can get through that long period of hardship at the beginning.
However, Simon happens to be one of them.
After briefly familiarizing himself with the meaning of each attribute, Simon casually pulled out a notebook and began recording the data and assigning it.
Playing games while taking notes was a unique pleasure of the 80s and 90s.
After all, with today's computers, once you've run one program, don't expect to have any extra memory left to run Notepad or a calculator.
Using paper, pen, and a separate calculator is often the best choice for players.
and...
It's also quite romantic. Although it's certainly inefficient, occasionally taking out your meticulously written guidebooks and data tables to reminisce has a unique flavor that's quite characteristic of this era.
Especially when friends get stuck, I can casually pull out my walkthrough as if I'm a divine intervention.
This trick always works and is guaranteed to elicit a chorus of exclamations.
"That's about enough. Next, we need to explore."
Once he felt everything was deployed, Simon turned off the home planet's control panel and fixed his gaze on the spaceship.
It is composed entirely of vector lines.
There are no textures or lighting, but the sense of depth is still very good.
Placed in the pitch-black expanse of space, this design actually appears quite avant-garde and sophisticated.
It can be considered a clever little idea from the early Qing Dynasty.
This is a reconnaissance ship.
Simon needs to actively choose the route and target star system for it.
However, even this process isn't so easy. Stars! won't let you send your spaceship there with a single click.
Fuel, speed, and range must all be taken into consideration.
If we don't design it properly, the spaceship might just die halfway through its journey.
Even with plenty of fuel, he still had to calculate how far the ship could fly in the next round.
What else is there to say?
Simon started a new page in his notebook, picked up his calculator, and began typing.
To be honest, even those first two moves alone would be enough to make most people unable to withstand them.
If someone who didn't know better saw this, they would probably think he was at work, operating some kind of industrial management software.
While it's called a conquest, it doesn't start with a massive, fast-paced battle like Command & Conquer.
It's a very standard 4x playstyle, where early development and logistics are far more important.
Forget about fighting a war, I haven't even seen a single living person yet.
Having completed these tasks, Simon had finished what he could do in this turn. After double-checking that nothing had been missed, he clicked "End Turn."
At the same time, the game save was automatically saved and packaged into an email, which was automatically sent out through his personal email address.
The target is the homeowner's email address.
Then what?
And that was it.
That's how PBEM games work.
Sometimes you might have to wait an unknown amount of time before the next round arrives.
To truly advance to the next round, all eight people in the room must complete their actions and voluntarily end their rounds.
Once the homeowner has collected all the save files, including their own, the game will proceed to the settlement phase.
It generates a final result based on each player's actions in this round, and then redistributes this new result to the other players in the room via email.
Only in this way can a round be truly completed.
It sounds complicated, but that's the norm for PBEM games, or rather, in this era when the internet isn't as developed. After submitting his save file, Simon idly stayed in the room for a while longer.
After thinking about it, he decided to rejoin the chat room.
The guy called [ Donut ] is still around.
[ Simonemail ]:[bro]
[ Donut ]:[?]
[ Simonemail ]: [What configuration are you using? Can you send me your coordinates? We can play together.]
[ Donut left the chat room #game]
[Currently online: 1/8]
See? That's why Simon doesn't want to play games with strangers.
That's really disappointing.
Simon sighed helplessly and closed the game. Just as he was about to shut down his computer and play some games, he suddenly remembered something and quickly reopened his novamail email account.
"Let me check... there's a forwarding option in the settings... Ah, found it."
He entered the company's email address into the automatic forwarding function before logging off and shutting down his computer.
If I don't set up this forwarding, I might miss emails while I'm at the office during the day.
It has to be said that this is truly a brilliant design.
The following day at noon, Simon indeed received a message.
However, instead of notification that the round had ended, there were two unfamiliar emails.
One was sent around 3 a. m., and the second was sent around 6 a. m.
Moreover, they even came from two different users.
[king]
[Hi, how are you?] [I noticed you've joined our game, welcome!]
By the way, what race are you playing?
[If it's convenient, you can send me your coordinates. I'll come visit you sometime.]
[Any resources you'd like? I can bring some along, and we can trade.]
[get your free email at novamail]
Simon felt a warm feeling wash over him after reading the email.
There are still good people in this world!
That awful guy from yesterday was probably just an isolated incident; surprisingly, everyone was actually quite friendly.
Unfortunately, I'm at the office right now and can't reply to them immediately.
Simon had no choice but to make a note of it and deal with it when he got back.
"Oh right, there's one more email, I almost forgot." [alice]
[Hello! I'm the host of this game, nice to have you join us.]
[As a friendly reminder, if someone asks you for coordinates or other information, it's best to ignore them.]
[Especially King! I don't even need to guess to know he's definitely playing War Maniac.]
[If you have already inadvertently leaked information, I suggest you relocate immediately or prepare for resistance.]
Hey, anyway, welcome, Simon!
[get your free email at novamail]
Simon stared blankly at the contents of the email, suddenly feeling a chill run down his spine.
That guy named King... was he a wolf in sheep's clothing all along?
If Alce wasn't lying to him, then he almost fell for it just now.
I'm playing a build that relies heavily on farming; if a warlike race comes knocking on my door... my base will become someone else's backyard.
Even if they don't die, they'll probably have to work like slaves for the other team for the rest of the game.
"I thought I'd finally met a good person..."
Simon scoffed and filed the two emails separately.
He suddenly remembered his experience in the chat room last night, and his eyes flickered.
" Mr. Donut... does he think I'm King's helper?"
It seems I've misunderstood the other person.
He wasn't really so cold-hearted as to not even say hello.
On the contrary, when I first spoke to them, they responded quite enthusiastically.
It seems that the question I asked touched a nerve with the other person, which led to the misunderstanding.
"... interesting."
Thinking about this, Simon suddenly laughed. This game... seems far more interesting than it appears on the surface.
The real battlefield isn't in the game, but in the chat rooms and in the mailboxes.
Simon suddenly had an idea.
evening.
He returned home after a day's work.
The game automatically retrieved a save file.
It looks like they received the result via email.
However, Simon did not rush to take action. Instead, he opened his email and drafted a few emails.