43 Gaming Experience in Paradise

Alyx daily routine involved doing experiments in Paradise based on the beginner books he had and trying to find the solution to the problems he encountered. Sometimes he succeeded and at others, he failed or the outcomes were different than what he predicted. He slowly started to do experiments on animals other than the loonies and he stopped his attempt to create an animal of the earth as he was running out of CP.

He asked Neo for advice many times but he did not any reply. He could only think about those problems on his own and try to come up with a solution. Neo did not want to spoon feed Alyx and make him his replica. He wanted him to think for himself and come up with his own style which could even surprise him. Alyx did not know about these thoughts of Neo and continued with his work.

At first, he was curious and enjoyed doing the experiments but he slowly began to feel it as a chore. It is due to his nature as he never worked very hard on his own without any goal while on earth. He always did things as needed and did not over exert himself. He was only able to persevere as he wanted to return home as quickly as possible. But no matter how much one is motivated it is very difficult to maintain it and he slowly started making mistakes in experiments. Even with Ax help, he was failing at a higher rate than at the beginning.

"I can't continue in this way and need to come up with a different approach." Even Alyx felt that the methods in the books were not suited for him as they were made with Aons in mind and required the individual to have very high processing speed and make decisions at a high speed to prevent the failure.

Even though he gave all the difficult tasks to Ax and he just concentrated on the decision making part it was still tough on him. To relax his mind Alyx went to MBG, he could have gone to any other Aon station but since he was already familiar with the place he decided to go there.

This time he directly went to a game store so that he can experience it in more detail than the last time. As he soon as he entered he was greeted by a plump alien which appeared be an obese human with spikes for hair. If Ax did not inform him of the alien characteristics he would have assumed the owner to be obese but all the members of that race have such appearance.

"What are your recommendations?" Alyx asked the shop owner as he did not know anything about the games being offered. Each shop has their own specialty which they have developed on their own and some popular titles which are played throughout the universe.

These are 100% simulated virtual games, as lifelike as reality, they use the tools provided on Paradise for some fee to create and run them. There are many kinds of games developed by different civilizations and as long as there is a demand anything one can think of, the game companies will definitely be able to make them.

"Sir we have all the popular titles and our specialty is combat games we have created them under the guidance of a grandmaster and you can learn and practice your fighting techniques in it." The shop owner was very happy to find the first timer as he can trick him into becoming a regular full-time customer.

The shop owner immediately started to offer Alyx all kinds of refreshments and trying to make him buy a long time membership by explaining him about all the benefits he can get.

Alyx just ignored him and went through the list of games, looking through their descriptions. The boss was very patient and waiting for Alyx to come to a decision. The price quoted by the shop owner was not much to an Aon like him but he wanted to save it for experiments as he was already running low.

Alyx said to the shop owner that he would think about it and decided to try all games. The shop owner was a bit disappointed but was still happy as it was not a small amount to play all games in the list. He thought that Alyx was from a rich background and decided to try again later to make his take a membership.

The shop owner led Alyx to his own room and arranged the best one he had. To enter the game it is very easy as they are already in a virtual world but for players privacy, a room is provided. A player can enter the game by just opening a portal to the game world. Each game station has their own unique way and here they just have to throw the game token and the gate will appear.

After reaching the VIP room Alyx first wanted to try an open world game and immediately opened a portal to a popular open world title. Alyx was very excited to see how it would feel and Ax would also be accompanying him as personal AIs are allowed in all these games. These games are made keeping personal AIs in mind to improve the user experience.