Chapter 18

The Sandbox Game: Spore Evolution

“With the Insecta’s technology, it can easily be done,” the Insecta Nest mind replied. “But there is no way it can be done in a way similar to Earth’s online games, where the players can level up by killing monsters.”

Xu Zhi nodded.

It was not a real game after all. This was the real world, so naturally, there was no level-up setting for players to become stronger by hitting monsters.

He had no plans to create a level-up system that require players to fight monsters either. He intended to create a kind of open-world game in the sandbox world, something similar to the game Minecraft, where the players were free to explore evolution and construction.

He intended to make it into a kind of farming game with a Buddhist element, something similar to “Mole Manor”, or a kind of cultivational game that people play in their leisure time, something similar to “Spores”.

Xu Zhi would set them off with a cellular division speed that was accelerated at a rate of ten thousand times and allow the players to start from the state of a spore and then evolve into the species of their choice.

They would have control over their cellular division, growth, evolution, old age, death, and then evolve into a new kind of species. Within two to three days, they would complete one cycle of ‘spore evolution’. They were free to explore and see if they could surprise him by evolving into some kind of special living creature.

This was only a little design that he came up with on a whim.

It would not require much effort. His main focus was still on the big sandbox.

The others would be able to entertain themselves in an isolated little sandbox with leisure and recreational activities.

The two sandboxes would not be interconnected, and he could not possibly give the others access to the large sandbox world where the natives resided since they would not be able to level up by fighting monsters. As for letting them cultivate themselves slowly through honest means as the natives did?

Haha!

I have no time to train you!

Xu Zhi intended to call this mysterious, miniature sandbox that would exist as an independent world the “Land of the Origin of Life”, meaning it would be the place where competition among different species originated.

The players would evolve into different species during each game cycle, and Xu Zhi would select the most unique, powerful, and interesting race with the greatest potential and move them into the large sandbox. He would add them in to perfect his new sandbox world that would come into existence after the Great Flood and the fall of the Sumerian civilization.

After all, if the world had only one intelligent race like the bugapes, it would simply be too monolithic.

At this point, Xu Zhi already knew that if one intelligent race was allowed to gain a monopoly over the world, it would lead to an extreme imbalance that could easily destroy the sandbox. He wanted to create a world where there were diverse races that lived and balanced one another out.

“How many days will it take to get this done?” Xu Zhi asked.

“About three days,” the Insecta Nest mind replied. That was surprisingly fast. “We already have VR headsets for gaming purposes. We can use these as a medium and pull them into the sandbox world.”

“VR. Will that work?” Xu Zhi was stunned.

Now, while VR movies were very popular, the few VR games that he had played on the Internet turned out to be so vastly different from his expectations that he even felt cheated. The technology was still far from being good enough.

But anyway, since the Insecta Nest mind said that it would work, Xu Zhi did not ask any further questions. After all, the previous Insecta race had focused its evolution on brain development. And with the progress it made in technology as a highly intelligent civilization, it also had its own Annihilator-class Super Star Destroyer and would have used many types of black technologies.

“Then I’ll start by creating a small sandbox in the yard for the players to use as a platform for the ‘Spore Evolution’ sandbox game.”

His body was in a much better condition, and he was planning to reclaim a second plot of farmland.

“Anyway, it’s not a big area, only about thirty square meters. Let’s put it right in front of my front door.” He swung his hoe and said, “I can even stomp on those I don’t like the look of on my way out.”

The Insecta Nest mind would be getting the network data and all sorts of things ready over the next few days. He would also need to prepare the sandbox site for the game testing in advance.

“Have I really become a farmer, grazing cattle and plowing fields?”

Wielding his hoe, Xu Zhi created a sandbox environment with a layout that was exactly the same as the previous one. Thanks to his previous experience, he was familiar with the work and could manage it with ease.

His body was in good condition. Though he was still terminally ill, at least he had the strength to work.

After he was done creating the sandbox, he used the flamethrower again and swept it across the sandbox to clear out the remnants of plants and animals.

This time, with a strong and healthy body, the thirty-square-meter sandbox only took him around half a day. By the time he was done, his clothes were covered in black mud, so he went straight for a shower.

…

A day later.

Chen Wenshan was a veteran gamer on the Steam platform. An undergraduate in his third year, he was an avid gaming fan and had purchased countless games of all sorts. He had just finished a game session of “Sekiro”, where he successfully discharged the game character, Wolf, and was cursing at the game for being too hardcore. He was now silently browsing through the list of new niche games, where there were many potential games he had not yet played.

What’s this?

A VR game? “Spore Evolution”, private beta version?

Introduction: Sandbox farming game. Start the game with a spore, species evolution, infinite possibilities. The number one choice for casual gamers?

In silence, he absorbed the keywords and then laughed aloud. In his heart, he cursed the Chinese game developer, whom he deemed as a scammer, for uploading such a game to cheat people. Infinite possibilities, become a spore, and undergo evolution?

Do you think you are playing Civilization VII?

Other games had players starting from primitive tribes. This game was even more preposterous. You started your game with a spore and went on to develop a single-celled organism? This kind of openness and freedom was simply too farfetched. You think you’re better than the other European and American game developers?

Besides, it’s not like I’ve never seen VR games before. How good can this game be?

“Haha, VR games used to be a hot new concept but have since lost their popularity and are no longer hot. I’ve played such games before. Put on the VR headset, stack wooden building blocks, milk the cows, roleplay as a pig… The existing technology just doesn’t cut it.” He scoffed at the game, but at the same time was silently downloading it.

It had clearly been uploaded by some unknown small game developer, but even so, it was 73 gigabytes, and the requirements for configuration settings were so demanding that it simply sounded like a horror story.

This huge-sized game was placed in this current gaming circle, that comprised 3A games that took major foreign game publishers three or four years at least to develop. They would have to spend a large amount of money to put together a professional team of several hundred and thousands of people.

He could not help but feel a sense of excitement at the thought of playing the game.

After he was finished downloading the game, Chen Wenshan created an account and registered his name as ‘Racer of Mount Haruna”. Then he put on the VR goggles that he usually used to watch movies and entered the game.

“How exquisite! It’s like the scene of an entrance.” Once Chen Wenshan logged in, his eyes lit up with excitement. His interest was somehow piqued as he felt that this game was different from the usual VR games that were produced very crudely. He looked at it for a while, but there was only one option:

[Do you want to commence Spore Evolution?]

He silently tapped on yes.

Then the world before him went black, and he felt as if he was swimming in a pitch-black ocean. It was as if he had gone blind.

“How is this possible! I can actually feel my limbs! It’s like I’m really swimming in the ocean!” Chen Wenshan’s mind went blank for a moment.

Was this some kind of black technology?

Through the electrical signals from the device, the game’s sensory and perceptive information were transmitted directly into the player’s mind, enabling the player to have realistic virtual body sensations?

This was the legendary virtual reality game. It was a hundred percent real!

Gradually, everything was getting increasingly inconceivable, and he was feeling more and more excited. He knew that he had touched something unimaginably horrifying, and as a veteran gamer, he clearly understood that if this thing were to spread, it would take the entire place by storm.

“It’s so dark.” Chen Wenshan was confused after swimming around for a while in the pitch-black ocean which was so dark that he could not even see his hands.

What the hell am I supposed to be doing in this game?

Why can’t I see anything? Am I blind?

At this time, a system prompt appeared right before his eyes: “Player is still in the state of a Spore, single-celled organism. Please evolve your eyes and visual system.”

Please evolve my eyes?

Chen Wenshan was completely baffled. This d*mned game… This so-called casual sandbox farming game, first choice of casual gamers, was actually more hardcore than “Sekiro”?