Why Can’t I Make Games C61
by MarineTLChapter 61: What Is Going On With This Game!
On the screen, Su Xiao finished Athena’s novice testing stage.
The test results were decent; he earned an A-grade, and the system prompted that he would receive an additional twenty percent bonus to his Intelligence.
(Note: Intelligence represents the mana bar for casting skills. The higher the Intelligence, the more skills one can cast…)
Initially, Su Xiao was quite satisfied with the stats he received.
However, when he saw that there was an S-grade above A, and a Double-S above S, his smile gradually faded.
The shorter the time taken to arrange the sequence, the higher the rating, and the higher the rating, the more bonus Intelligence one received.
Su Xiao shook his head in disappointment.
“I was still too slow with the sequencing!”
“It’s just twenty-six simple letters. Why did I hesitate just now?”
“G comes after F, why did I even pause!”
“Sigh…”
“…”
Feeling quite frustrated, Su Xiao entered the Novice Village1.
The village was packed with NPCs everywhere…
Su Xiao took one look around and left the Novice Village immediately, ready to go grind some mobs!
But…
Just as he stepped out, before he could even swing his sword, a chicken came running over with a “cluck-cluck” and killed him.
“DIE”
“DIE!”
The screen instantly turned black, and then two massive English words for death appeared before his eyes, accompanied by a voiceover.
“I can’t even beat a chicken?” Su Xiao was stunned.
He looked incredulously at his shimmering, high-quality longsword…
It looked so badass, yet he turned out to be a total weakling?
He fell into a state of self-doubt.
Then, a brief prompt appeared on the screen: Please type “DIE” three times on the keyboard to resurrect…
“D”
“I”
“E”
Every time he typed a letter, the voiceover would provide the pronunciation.
Once he finished typing “DIE” once, the voiceover would read the English word and provide the Chinese translation: “Si Wang2.”
After resurrecting, Su Xiao received a tip from the goddess Athena. She informed him that if he couldn’t defeat the wild monsters outside the city, he had to complete various quests inside the city to obtain equipment.
Su Xiao controlled his character and walked over to the blacksmith shop…
“I have always wanted to use magic to forge a suit of armor. Magic-forged armor not only provides higher defense but also grants even greater strength…”
“However, I’ve never known how the element of iron is represented by letters in the Periodic Table…”
“Is it Fe, Ca, or K? This is truly a difficult problem… Brave warrior, can you answer my question?”
“Only by correctly identifying the sequence in the Periodic Table and preparing the elements can the base of the armor be forged!”
“…”
To get the armor, he had to choose the correct elemental symbol for iron?
Wasn’t this just the Periodic Table?
This was magic?
Su Xiao was momentarily dazed when he saw the options.
After he made the right choice, the system didn’t give him the armor immediately. Instead, the old man selling the armor stroked his chin again.
“I used fire magic to burn iron, and then added chlorine… what kind of result will I get?”
“Because iron is too precious, I only have one chance. Therefore, I need theoretical magical support…”
“If you provide me with the equation, I will give you the armor!”
“2Fe + 3Cl2 === 2FeCl3!”
A chemical equation for an elemental reaction appeared on the screen…
Su Xiao was actually quite good at science, so this didn’t stump him. After inputting the chemical equation, his character finally flashed with a brilliant light, and he received a piece of “Magic-Warding Armor.”
Excitedly clutching his Magic-Warding Armor, Su Xiao rushed out of the Novice Village, only to be instantly killed by the chicken again.
This time, Athena prompted that his Intelligence was insufficient to resist the chicken’s mental attack!
He needed to increase his Intelligence!
After painfully typing the resurrection password “DIE” again, Su Xiao followed Athena’s instructions and ran to another NPC at a bookstore to start the Intelligence quests…
The Intelligence quest giver was a little girl wearing glasses. She asked, “Dear brave big brother, what is the full text of the Tang Dynasty poet Li Chonghuan3‘s ‘Qingming4‘…”
The questions from the glasses-wearing NPC were incredibly frustrating.
One moment she was asking about ancient poetry, the next about classical prose5, then math equations, and even some history questions…
Seeing these questions, Su Xiao felt completely numb!
These questions looked hauntingly familiar, as if they had appeared on his exam papers, but he found it extremely difficult to answer them…
Every time he got an answer wrong, the quest would fail.
Furthermore, unless he answered everything correctly within the time limit in one go, the quest would also fail!
“There’s no way I can’t even kill a chicken6 in a Novice Village, right?”
“This…”
After three or four failures, Su Xiao’s mind was filled with classical Chinese prose, math equations, and history.
His head ached!
Yet, he felt unwilling to give up.
These all seemed like basic questions.
Right at that moment…
“Try again!”
“Pick this one…”
“How can you not know such basic content? Isn’t it in the textbooks?”
“Like this, just like this!”
“How can you get something this simple wrong?”
“This is a math problem. Isn’t math your strong suit?”
“…”
“…”
Su Bin’s wife was getting anxious.
This show was being recorded. If her son performed this poorly and it was broadcast, wouldn’t it be embarrassing?
She hurriedly tried to coach her son.
Meanwhile, Su Bin stood to the side. Though he remained silent, his eyes were clearly fixed on the computer screen.
Deep down, he was also anxious…
He desperately wanted to grab the mouse and click for his son!
Normally it wouldn’t matter, but the cameras were rolling right now. Although the footage would certainly be edited as requested before airing, still…
Knowing Zhang Liang’s personality, he would definitely edit in the scenes of his son failing, wouldn’t he?
This was indeed a bit humiliating!
After five failures, Su Xiao finally answered all of the glasses-wearing girl’s questions correctly!
His evaluation wasn’t high, only a C, but the NPC gave him a book anyway. It increased his Intelligence by ten points, and after that boost, he comprehended a new skill: Water Skill Attack!
“Before activating the skill, press Enter and quickly type the English word ‘water’ within five seconds. To release the second stage of the skill, you must type the plural ‘waters’… Once mastery is maxed out, manual input will no longer be required. After equipping the skill, simply press the W key to cast. Current progress to mastery: 99% remaining,” Athena prompted.
“…”
“…”
Su Xiao sat before the computer, excitedly maneuvering his mouse to rush out of the Novice Village. After inputting the skill keys as required, he heard a very spirited English voice prompt. After defeating a chick, his character finally leveled up. A prompt then appeared asking if he wanted to claim the chick as a pet. Pets could attack alongside their masters, but he had to press Enter and type the English word for chicken three times…
This time, the game didn’t provide the letters for the prompt; Su Xiao had to find them himself.
Subconsciously, Su Xiao pulled out an English textbook and began flipping through it to find the word for chick. Once he found it, he typed it in immediately.
The game voiced “chicken” three times, and finally, he saw the chick become his pet companion. Simultaneously, the word “chicken” appeared as the name above the pet’s head.
Su Xiao felt a sudden, small sense of accomplishment.
However, Athena’s next prompt filled him with a touch of frustration: “The faster you type the word, the better the attributes of the captured chick will be…”
Su Xiao checked his chick’s quality. When he saw the C-grade rating, he was deeply disappointed.
He continued controlling his character, unleashing skills as he moved into the pet-catching phase…
……………………………………………………
Outside the frame.
Zhang Liang ate his instant noodles while watching the game.
Su Bin’s wife was also watching.
In truth, she had originally approached this game with a critical attitude.
But as she watched, she suddenly found the game quite interesting.
Every single thing you could see in the game was content pulled straight from junior high school textbooks.
That included the dogs, pigs, cows, and sheep appearing in the system…
These were all words learned in junior high English vocabulary.
Furthermore, every quest in the game had a time limit, and every quest felt like taking an exam.
At first, the game was simple. Obtaining items mostly involved multiple-choice questions. But as the level gradually increased, application-style long-form questions7 began to appear!
Time flew by, and four hours passed before they knew it.
Su Xiao remained glued to the computer. Without realizing it, his desk had become piled with books for Chinese, Mathematics, English, and Science8…
His eyes never left the screen, though he occasionally reached out to flip through a textbook.
He was currently chatting with an NPC companion. If he raised their favorability high enough, he could recruit the NPC to fight alongside him, but the companion’s dialogue was almost entirely in English!
The NPC spoke to him in English, and he had to respond in English. If he made a single mistake, the companion’s favorability would drop!
“Grammar!”
“Your grammar is wrong! Why are you using Chinglish9 again? How is she supposed to like you if you talk like that?”
“You have to say it like this!”
“…”
Seeing her son’s clumsy efforts, Su Bin’s wife couldn’t stop herself from offering hints.
She seemed to have become immersed in the game as well.
Zhang Liang looked closely and realized that the chat content wasn’t actually that difficult; it was mostly derived from junior high textbook material.
Just as Su Xiao was fully invested…
The entire game screen suddenly went dark.
“Notice: It has been four hours. It is time to rest…10“
“Good night!”
Su Xiao stared blankly at the black screen.
He had just started getting the hang of chatting with the in-game girl. Their favorability had risen from 10 to 30, and he was just getting into the zone. He had just seen the girl give him a shy smile, and then the damn game just ended?
Su Bin was also dazed.
Had it been four hours already?
So fast?
He had been watching from the side, and four hours had slipped away unnoticed.
“This thing has a limit?” He stared at the message in a daze.
Then…
He looked blankly at the textbooks on the desk.
Then he looked at Su Xiao, who was currently reading an English book.
Only then did he remember that he had originally intended to play the game with a critical, fault-finding mindset.
This game seemed…
Not that bad?
Then, he saw Athena’s voice reappear on the darkened screen.
“Warrior! You were very impressive today. Today, you mastered the use of the Water skill, captured a pet, and…”
Su Bin watched the screen.
Though he didn’t know English, after the chick appeared, he could actually pronounce the English word for it. He could even spell it with his eyes closed!
He could even say two simple English sentences now, and he’d learned a few basic chemical equations…
Heavens!
His eyes widened.
“This game! There’s something special about it!”
“…”
Immediately after!
A notification appeared on the screen stating that the official website had updated the national rankings.
Su Xiao instinctively clicked on the official site. Once it opened, he found his overall strength ranked at 10,000+.
“No way… someone already recruited a Science companion? How is that possible? Who’s that insane?”
Someone had even captured a Special-tier chick pet, maxed out their Water skill, and even trained their Rock Throw skill to the maximum level?
In just four hours!
How did they do it?
Were they cheating?
Su Xiao’s eyes went wide as he saw the player commendation column on the official site.
Is this some kind of god-tier player?
He suddenly felt an indescribable sense of crisis!
A short while later…
His mother’s phone rang.
After she answered, her expression changed drastically!
“What? The person ranked first is your Jiajia?”
“Your Jiajia has such good grades already, why is she playing this kind of game? Isn’t that just bullying everyone else?”
“Wait, what? The officials called? They said they’re sending your daughter a trophy? Are you serious? Everyone in the top ten gets one? Is that for real?”
“…”
Su Bin’s wife suddenly felt a massive surge of alarm!
…………………………
“Hello? Is this Jiajia’s parent?”
“We want to thank you for supporting our game. To recognize your academic prowess, we would like to commission a one of a kind trophy just for you. We hope your daughter continues to work hard in her studies and achieves even greater glory!”
“Please keep up the good work tomorrow!”
“…”
Zhang Yang cleared his throat and spoke into the phone with a beaming smile.
After he finished speaking…
He heard a knock at the door.
Then, immediately!
“Senior, Senior! It’s gone crazy! Our game has gone absolutely viral!”
Outside the office.
Song Qingqing came charging in, clutching several documents and shaking with excitement…
(End of Chapter)
Translator’s Notes
- Novice Village: A standard trope in Chinese RPGs and ‘system’ novels (新手村, xīnshǒucūn). It refers to the starting zone where players learn basic mechanics. The humor here stems from the subversion of the trope, as the protagonist is repeatedly killed by a ‘chicken,’ typically the weakest possible mob in such games. ↩
- Si Wang: The Pinyin romanization of the Chinese word 死亡 (sǐwáng), which literally means ‘death’ or ‘to die.’ The game uses this to teach the player English vocabulary by linking the English word ‘DIE’ to its Chinese equivalent. ↩
- Li Chonghuan: The famous Tang Dynasty poem ‘Qingming’ is historically attributed to the poet Du Mu. The game’s attribution to ‘Li Chonghuan’ is likely a trick question or a fictional error, which explains why the NPC’s quiz is described as ‘incredibly frustrating’ (kēngdiē) in the source text. ↩
- Qingming: A famous poem by the Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu (often attributed to him, though the text mentions a fictional or misremembered name ‘Li Chonghuan’ to highlight the protagonist’s struggle). The poem describes the drizzling rain during the Qingming Festival, a traditional day for mourning the dead, and is a staple of Chinese primary education. ↩
- classical prose: Refers to Classical Chinese (Wényánwén), the formal written language used in China for centuries until the early 20th century. Because its grammar and vocabulary differ significantly from modern Mandarin, it is a notoriously difficult subject for students and a staple of Chinese school examinations. ↩
- kill a chicken: Slaying chickens is a quintessential trope in Chinese gaming culture, originating from early MMOs like The Legend of Mir 2 where chickens were the weakest starting monsters. Failing to kill one implies the player is exceptionally weak or the game’s difficulty is unexpectedly high. ↩
- application-style long-form questions: Refers to yingyongti (word problems) and dati (complex, high-point questions). In the Chinese education system, these are the most challenging sections of an exam, requiring students to apply multiple concepts to solve a single problem, unlike simple multiple-choice questions. ↩
- Science: In many Chinese junior high school curricula, ‘Science’ (kexue) is a comprehensive subject that integrates physics, chemistry, biology, and geography into one unified course and textbook, rather than teaching them as separate disciplines. ↩
- Chinglish: A portmanteau of Chinese and English, referring to English that is influenced by Chinese grammar, syntax, or idioms (中式英语). In an educational context, it often describes common errors made by students who translate literally from their native Chinese rather than using standard English structures. ↩
- It is time to rest…: This refers to the “anti-addiction system” (防沉迷系统) mandated by Chinese regulations for online games. These systems are designed to limit the playtime of minors by implementing mandatory breaks, locking accounts, or reducing in-game rewards after a set number of hours to prevent excessive gaming. ↩
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