Chinese-style Galgame?
Hearing Qingque's words, Haru's heart stirred.
In the world before his transmigration, the Galgame industry had long since declined. Even in its birthplace of the Far East, only some companies making moe trash and eroge remained, with most others having switched to making mobile games.
As for Shenzhou, it went without saying - due to regulations, the gaming industry was already a dozen years behind the world.
By the time Shenzhou companies wanted to make Galgames, this category had already cooled down considerably, so domestic Galgames never developed even up to when Haru transmigrated.
However, in this world...
The gaming industry developed more slowly, gameplay types weren't diverse enough, the Galgame industry hadn't yet declined, and Shenzhou didn't restrict gaming industry development either. The domestic Galgame audience market really wasn't much worse than the Far East.
"Interesting. Among small-scale game types, Galgame is indeed a good choice..."
Bronya nodded lightly, a hint of approval flashing in her light gray eyes.
As a well-rounded gaming expert, Bronya had naturally played Galgames and even applied knowledge from them to conquer the captain.
So she also knew that many small game companies with insufficient technical skills would choose to make Galgames when starting out. After all, the focus was on story and art, with voice acting if conditions were slightly better - easily making otaku pay up.
Thinking of this, Bronya became puzzled instead.
"Qingque, since you originally wanted to make Galgames, why did you abandon it?"
"Well, because the boss thought making cute flying shooters on mobile platforms would be more profitable."
Qingque scratched her head and said: "Also, the Galgame storyline everyone wanted to make might not pass censorship..."
Hmm? Wouldn't pass censorship?!
Haru keenly caught the key point, his expression flashing with suspicion.
As someone who was secretly a doujinshi artist, his first thought went to eroge, and Galgames had a large portion that were eroge anyway.
Plus Qingque had mentioned wanting to make an unconventional Galgame...
Hiss, they wouldn't want to make something with extreme content, like "Saya no Uta" or "Nekopara," would they? Or something even more outrageous, like an alternate world version of "Lolita Island"?!
Bronya didn't think as perversely as Haru, but couldn't help asking:
"When you say it wouldn't pass censorship, which aspect specifically?"
"Well, naturally because the plot would be quite dark and cruel. We planned to use the great famine of late Ming as the background, depicting that cannibalistic era."
Qingque sighed with some regret.
"I thought this gimmick was pretty good, but since it relates to history and involves the moral issue of cannibalism, even if we just glossed over these parts, it might not pass censorship."
"That's true. Using that period of late Ming history as subject matter is indeed quite sensitive. That cruel hell on earth isn't even dared to be discussed much in history textbooks."
Haru shook his head slightly, giving Bronya, who wasn't very familiar with Shenzhou history, a brief explanation.
In the late Ming Dynasty, the world entered a Little Ice Age, extreme weather began occurring frequently, floods and droughts appeared one after another, leaving countless people homeless.
The last straw that broke the camel's back was the terrible locust plague that swept across the entire north after the great drought, causing farmers to truly harvest nothing and only be able to rely on the court's disaster relief grain.
But the late Ming court, well, those who understand, understand...
Even though the late Ming emperors were personally clean and frugal, officials everywhere were corrupt and immoral. Not only did they not distribute disaster relief grain, they actually increased taxes, forcing people to gnaw tree bark and eat grass roots.
Finally, even the tree bark and grass roots were gone. Desperate people had to start eating human flesh to survive.
First they took meat from corpses, then they exchanged children to eat, which evolved into actively killing others for food. Some even killed and sold human flesh alive in markets, where a pound of human flesh was only worth six copper coins.
Even after successive uprisings by leaders like Li Zicheng, the common people's lives didn't improve much, because after the Ming Dynasty fell, it was the Qing army's turn to enter the pass.
"Great famine, people eating each other. Just six simple characters in the history books, but behind them was the complete collapse of social order, the complete absence of morality and humanity, with hundreds of millions of people dying from natural disasters, famine, and war."
Haru's tone was somewhat heavy.
He had witnessed the Herrscher of Finality destroying entire human civilization, billions of people dying in an instant.
But under such overwhelming power, humans at least died quickly, unlike the people of late Ming who struggled in hell, dying in inhuman ways after experiencing complete despair.
If the Herrscher of a Thousand had appeared in late Ming, probably even without Finality appearing, human civilization would have been directly destroyed.
Haru sighed inwardly, then turned his gaze to Qingque.
"If I were to make a Galgame, I would probably use this dark period of history to contrast with current beauty, then write a story with hope amidst despair. Although it's a bit clichéd, it's not without romance."
"An expert indeed! That's exactly what I was thinking. I even drafted an outline and wrote tens of thousands of words for the opening, but unfortunately the boss decided to make other games not long after, wasting all that effort."
Qingque recalled the heartbreak of revising the outline plot version after version, only to be told not to write anymore, her tone full of melancholy.
"It might not necessarily be wasted effort..."
Bronya pondered for a moment, then suddenly spoke: "Do you still have the drafts you wrote? Can you show them to me?"
"Yes, if you want to see them, I can send them over right now."
Qingque nodded, spent a few minutes searching, then sent the outline and opening she had written to Bronya and Haru.
Both opened the files with some curiosity and quickly browsed through them.
Although Qingque loved slacking off, her abilities as a screenwriter weren't bad. The story outline was concise and clear, and Haru quickly understood the plot.
In this story, players would play as a bandit who takes a job from human traffickers to transport four girls from Huazhou City to Luoyang City, uncovering the truth along the way, witnessing various tragedies of late Ming, and finally making choices.
"Liang or Lang? Sui or Mansui... Just from the subtle differences in names, you can see Qingque put a lot of thought into this."
After reading the story outline and opening, Haru gave Qingque a thumbs up for the deep meanings contained within.
Bronya also showed approval, drawing conclusions based on years of Galgame experience.
"Although there's still a gap compared to those highly-rated Galgame masterpieces, among small-scale games, this story can already be considered a rare gem."
"Bronya thinks it's such a pity to let this story become a scrapped project!"
Read 30 advance chapters on: patre on.com/Bored_Mortal