Losing Money to Be a Tycoon

Repent and be Saved’s story was supposed to take place in an unknown age in ancient China. What used to be a peaceful, harmonious village was suddenly wrecked when more and more people began to lose their souls and become wandering ghouls.

These people slowly lost their memories and sanity. They wandered around subconsciously and attacked the souls of complete humans. On top of this, they were unknowingly drawn towards a faraway place.

In the words of lucky survivors, the road to this faraway place was called the ‘Road to the Underworld’.

According to the elderly in the village, dead people would be captured by the Black and White Impermanence. After that, they would be brought to the netherworld to be judged and punished by Yama, who would then decide if these people could reincarnate and become humans again, soon sending them into the six realms of rebirth and existence or to the Eighteen Levels of Hell.

However, for some reason, the Black and White Impermanence stopped receiving dead people. Thus, regardless of whether they died naturally or were murdered, everyone found themselves on the Road to the Underworld, unable to get to the netherworld.

Instinctively, these wandering ghouls could sense a calling towards the netherworld. Yet, none of them could find the right path to get there. As time went by, they became increasingly tyrannical.

Thus, the mortal world slowly turned into hell.

Players would play the role of the protagonist who was a normal human facing death. The protagonist’s soul was already incomplete. However, mysteriously and inexorably, he felt something in a faraway place faintly calling out to him.

In order to avoid becoming a mindless, wandering ghost; he embarked on a journey to seek out the truth. The protagonist began his journey on the Road to the Underworld and entered the netherworld with his mortal body.

The game’s flow could generally be split into several parts:

The beginning, which was situated in the mortal village; a town which had been completely overtaken by wandering ghouls; a strategically-placed gate to the netherworld; The Road to the Underworld, which was crowded with wandering, malicious spirits; The River of Three Crossings, which was covered in red spider lilies; The end of the Road to the Underworld, where players would arrive at the River of Forgetfulness and the Bridge of Forgetfulness;

The Home-Viewing Pavilion and the Three-Life-Stone, which were situated by the side of the Bridge of Forgetfulness; Yama’s majestic palace; the unbelievably messy six realms of rebirth and existence; and the bottom-most level of hell…

Apart from these, the bosses in the game would take on characters in Chinese mythology. These would include Mengpo on the Bridge of Forgetfulness, the four great magistrates of hell— Lu Zhidao, Magistrate of ‘Examination and Research’; Zhong Kui, Magistrate of ‘Punishment of Evil’; Wei Zheng, Magistrate of ‘Rewarding Goodness’; and Cui Yu, Magistrate of ‘Implicit Law’ (each was to have purple, green, blue, and orange as their theme colors respectively)—and the ten Yama kings in hell.

According to Boss Pei’s request-each time players died, all the monsters would refresh. Thus, one could find statues of Buddha at regular intervals along the journey to guide them.

Worn-down temples, statues of Buddha, Tudi’s[1] temples, and Tudi’s statues would also be distributed throughout the journey.

Buddha would not appear in the game, but there would be dilapidated statues of Buddha to hint at the legendary Degenerate Age.

The Buddha statues would act as save points, where players could restore previous states and refresh the surroundings beasts. Tudi statues, on the other hand, could be used to collect wandering ghouls from the surroundings. These would increase the character’s skills.

There was not much content to the game because they had a limited budget. The entire game would probably last twelve to thirteen hours. Of course, this was only if players were familiar with battle and could make consistent progress.

If they were newbies, it would take them much longer to complete the game; they might end up playing for tens of hours or forever.

The game was not linear. From time to time, players would be required to turn back mid-way in order to advance to the next location.

For example, at the start of the game, players would have to go to the town which was completely overtaken by wandering ghouls. After defeating the grievous spirits gathered there, they would receive an initial boost in powers. Then, they had to collect several special props which would help them defeat wandering ghosts (such as Buddhist beads, amulets, and the like). After that, they had to turn around and head back to the village. From there, they could only enter the Road to the Underworld after killing an old man and following his soul.

If players did not go to that town and killed the old man immediately to follow his soul onto the Road to the Underworld instead, the entire journey would be extremely difficult.

Players would face a similar choice in Yama’s palace. They could choose to go deep into Yama’s palace, kill the magistrates and Yama himself, and then turn into a true malicious spirit. They could also choose to enter the messy six realms of rebirth and existence and reincarnate as a human. Then, they could escape far away from this world.

Otherwise, they could choose to go into the bottom-most level of hell and kill the crazed ruler of the place. This way, they would be sacrificing themselves in order to suppress the grievous spirits.

There would be three to five different outcomes. The outcome players got would depend on critical decisions that they made during the game. The clues to guide players in making each of these decisions would be hidden within the game’s plot.

Throughout the game, players would get to talk to a few NPCs. They could also kill bosses or wandering ghouls and obtain their souls in order to access their memories. From there, they would be able to listen to narrations and fragments of memories.

There would also be clues hidden in key props or scenes (such as at the Three-Life Stone). These would hint at players where the more obscure clues could be found.

Scenes like the Three-Life Stone could be counterproductive as well. Depending on players’ choices throughout the game, the hint that appeared on the Three-Life Stone could be different. This, in turn, would affect key events in the plot.

Of course, as players went down different paths, they would also meet with different monsters on their journey. Giving the same scene multiple different uses would be a good use of their money.

These hints would be the main tool Pei Qian would use to dissuade foreign players from trying the game out.

Pei Qian did not ask for these games to be written in poetry; this would make the game far too difficult.

All he had to do was ensure that the hints were written in obscure and complicated ancient Chinese. Anyone who had been through nine years of mandatory education would be able to roughly guess the hint’s meaning.

It was not that Pei Qian did not enjoy poetry. However, even if he made a request like that, Lu Mingliang and the others would not be able to achieve it.

All of these were part of the game’s initial design.

In the initial stages of researching and developing the game, they just needed to decide on the scenes, bosses, and story progression. Once they confirmed that the preparatory work (such as requesting for art resources) could be completed smoothly, they would be more or less done.

The details of the game could be perfected during the actual research and development process. Some designs and content could also be edited along the way.

Ma Yiqun explained the game’s theme in detail to everyone. He also briefed them on their tasks. Compared to thinking about the plot for Repent and be Saved, everyone was relatively uninterested in reviewing manuscripts.

Up until now, the quality of the manuscripts that had been sent to Zhongdian Chinese Network was dismal. If there were more interesting introductions, quicker rhythm, fresh plots, and engaging storylines, everyone would probably feel much more excited about their work.

However, there weren’t.

In other words, no matter how much time they spent reviewing manuscripts, they would not find one that would be extremely popular and help the website rise to fame.

As for guiding authors, it was even more unnecessary. After all, they had little understanding of their current editing job scope. What if they caused more trouble by attempting to guide authors as well?

Working on Repent and be Saved would be a different story altogether.

It was Tengda Games’ newest product! They were investing tens of millions of yuan in it! Boss Pei was working on it himself!

From any angle, this game looked like it would become extremely popular. Even if it would not make as much profit as Ocean Stronghold, it would at least have as good a reputation as Game Designer.

If they took part in the research and development of this game and even had a hand in writing its plot, they would be able to boast to their friends!

After listening to Ma Yiqun’s briefing, Zhu Anxing’s eyes lit up.

“Brother Ma, I want to write! Can we post the content we write onto our website directly? They can be taken as the game’s official novel.

“We can split the tasks. Each person can take charge of one part of the plot, including the game’s chronicles and the background stories of every boss and NPC in the game. These can supplement the game.

“Although they might not be used in the end, it’ll be much better than sitting around aimlessly and building a cart behind closed doors.”

Ma Yiqun pondered for a while and decided that it was true.

In any case, they had nothing to do. Even if they had to write their own novels, many people would not have anything to write about. Since that was so, he could just make everybody write Repent and be Saved’s plot. Once they were down, he could pick the best ones to be part of the game.

Ma Yiqun nodded and said, “That’ll do. While you’re reviewing manuscripts, think about Repent and be Saved’s plot as well, then. We’ll hold a meeting every week from now, especially to talk about the plot design. I’ll update the project team accordingly.”

[1] “Tudi’ is an Earth Deity in Chinese mythology.