Meanwhile, in Viridian City, inside the simple rental room.
A series of notifications suddenly popped up in front of James Green's eyes:
[Ding! Congratulations Host, you have obtained points from the emotions of "Shock, Confusion, Excitement, Satisfaction" from the special character "Iono," totaling 320 points!]
[Ding! Congratulations Host, you have obtained points from various emotions of the livestream viewers and players who purchased the game, totaling 430 points!]
[You have obtained a total of 750 Emotional Points this time. Current remaining point balance: 923 points.]
James was sitting in front of his computer polishing some game details when he was startled by these sudden notifications.
Immediately after, he realized what was happening.
——Cynthia just finished streaming my game, and now Iono is playing it too right after?
If he remembered correctly, this Iono was a huge streamer. The Levincia Gym had flourished under her livestreams to become the large-scale, popular Gym it was today!
The 750 Emotional Points brought his total points close to 1000 in one breath!
Moreover, James noticed that this point count seemed to be growing slowly and continuously, which meant Iono's stream was still ongoing...
He thought for a moment, tabbed out of the game window, opened the search interface, typed in "Iono," and quickly jumped to her livestream room.
Then he saw the scene of Iono being carried away by Lileep and forced back to the Pokémon Center.
In the window at the bottom right corner, Iono's face was flushed red. Clearly, this wasn't the first time she had lost like this.
The bullet comments were also refreshing frantically.
[11th time! Go streamer, you can definitely do it.]
[So close! Just a little bit more! If it hadn't used Recover, we would have won.]
[Correction to the guy above: it's not that we would have won, but we would have finally seen what the Gym Leader's second Pokémon is.]
[Haha, I feel like there are even more cursed Pokémon waiting for the streamer later on...]
[Streamer is already 15k in debt. Damn.]
Seeing this, James understood her current situation. She must be stuck at the Rustboro Gym.
Regarding this point, James was actually not surprised.
Because when he played Ultra Emerald for the first time back in the day, even without choosing Lunatic Mode, he was stuck here for quite a while.
It couldn't be helped; Gym Leader Roxanne's Pokémon were simply too perverted. Just that Lileep alone—with maxed defenses, knowing Recover, Mega Drain, and Confuse Ray—was nearly invincible in the early game.
After all, even in its first evolutionary stage, the base stats for both its defenses were close to 100...
At a level where "noobs were pecking at each other," it was simply a city wall.
Who said there were no Pokémon called City Walls? Wasn't this one right here?
Not to mention Roxanne also had Archen, whose Attack stat was super high and Cranidos, who could advance with Fire Punch and retreat with Thunder Punch, possessing super wide type coverage.
As well as Nosepass, who always held Leftovers, possessed super high durability, and also knew high-power moves like "Power Gem" and "Dazzling Gleam."
Even the last Pokémon, Rockruff, who had little presence, possessed high-level moves like Hyper Voice and Earth Power...
It could be said that none of Roxanne's Pokémon were pushovers.
It was purely a coexistence of raw stats and mechanics!
Under such circumstances, if the player didn't come up with some clever tricks, they basically couldn't win.
Back then, without looking up a walkthrough, James also tried many times before barely clearing it.
In this Emerald game he made, due to the restriction that players couldn't capture more than 15 Pokémon in total, James made dynamic adjustments to the difficulty, reducing Roxanne's Pokémon to only three.
Namely Archen, Lileep, and Cranidos.
Although it seemed like the difficulty was halved, under the bonus of Lunatic Mode, he added intelligent AI for Roxanne and even helped Lileep carry an extra Leftovers item. In reality, the difficulty was actually slightly higher than the original work, but this was the effect James wanted.
The current positioning of this game was a high-difficulty challenge. If it weren't set to be this hard, it wouldn't be interesting.
As for whether people would be deterred because it was too difficult, James wasn't particularly worried.
Because high-difficulty games were exactly the type missing in the current market. There would always be a large group of players willing to climb the peak and challenge the difficulties!
As for those players who leaned towards casual play or just wanted to experience the game, he could just add a Standard Mode or "Wellness Mode" to the game later.
Speaking of which, if the focus of Lunatic Mode was game difficulty, then the focus of Wellness Mode and Standard Mode would undoubtedly be the plot and gameplay experience.
The original plot of Ultra Emerald was actually quite interesting. Although the later stages were a bit boring, it added a lot of novel plot content on top of the original base.
Correspondingly, James, having made games before, knew that the development cost for game plots was actually quite large, requiring a lot of time and manpower.
Not only did the scriptwriter need to prepare the plot script in advance, but the artists also needed to create corresponding visuals and animations for the script content, which required repeated revisions.
Even the music had to match the core emotions of the plot.
A seemingly ordinary and simple main storyline actually required the cooperation of multiple parties and several weeks to achieve.
For James, who possessed the System, this wasn't a problem.
However, even so, he hoped to produce the highest quality plot to show the world the charm of games!
And to achieve such high quality, technical support was a must.
He looked up at the System panel, at the few modules he had selected and bookmarked earlier today.
[Emotional Rendering Module (Intermediate)]
[Description: Through screen linking, reads the player's heart rate data to automatically generate color tones corresponding to emotions (screen turns reddish when anxious, turns cool blue when sad, increases brightness when excited), and automatically increases the fit of the soundtrack, slightly modulating the key based on emotional state.]
[Points required for purchase: 2200 points.]
[Pressure Materialization Module (Intermediate)]
[Description: Completely recreates the pressure brought by powerful Pokémon and heavyweight characters, transmitting it to the player's heart through electronic frequencies, causing them to feel an immersive sensation.]
[Points required for purchase: 2000 points.]
[Soul Music Module (Intermediate)]
[Description: Adds music to the game suitable for scene plot development that can strike directly at the human soul, inevitably evoking emotional fluctuations within the player.]
[Points required: 1500 points.]
[Advanced CG Module (Intermediate)]
[Description: Automatically generates ultra-high quality Blu-ray game CGs based on the ideas in your mind. Once activated, all Emotional Points brought by game CGs, animations, and film-like content are doubled.]
[Points required: 1400 points.]
Undoubtedly, to create a good plot that mobilized player emotions, these modules were almost essential.
But none of these four modules were cheap. Added together, they cost nearly ten thousand points!
At this price, James couldn't afford them even if he sold himself right now...
So for now... it was better to prioritize perfecting "Lunatic Difficulty."
Earn enough Emotional Points first, then talk about creating deep-level game plots.
Speaking of which, although with James's current Emotional Point value, he couldn't afford any of these Intermediate modules, buying a few Low-level ones wasn't a problem.
James's gaze fell on the Low-level module area, and a series of information prompts began to float constantly before his eyes.
[Weather Compilation Module (Low Level)]
[Description: Adds weather effects to the game, dynamically transforming weather at any time, and automatically activating corresponding mechanics.
For example, in Rainy Weather, the power of all Water-type Pokémon moves increases, Fire-type moves weaken, certain moves become sure-hit, and the spawn probability of special Pokémon like Masquerain and Piplup increases.]
[Points required for purchase: 250 points.]
[Move Particle Effect Module (Low Level)]
[Description: Adds extra particle effects to the skill effects used by all Pokémon in the game, enhancing visual performance capabilities.]
[Points required for purchase: 150 points.]
[Text Deciphering Module (Low)]
[Description: Can convert real-world ancient scripts into in-game ruin inscriptions, increasing historical authenticity. Simultaneously, after activating this module, the Host can understand and use the language of any civilization.]
[Points required for purchase: 200 points.]
It had to be said that in this Module Store, many Low-level modules could be described as "good quality and cheap price."
While their functions were powerful, they basically all had decent capabilities.
But James didn't rush to buy these modules. Instead, he first focused his gaze on a module he had bookmarked before.
[Production Efficiency Enhancement Module (Low Level)]
[Description: After obtaining this module, the production efficiency of all types of games will be increased to a certain extent.]
[Emotional Points required for purchase: 450 points.]
The description of this module was concise, but it was exactly what James needed right now.
He knew clearly that with the existence of the System, he would mostly be fighting alone and working solo when making games in the future. It wasn't convenient to recruit others to make games together.
Otherwise, some functions of the System would be hard to hide.
Even if he really recruited people, the core work would still be with him.
So in the future, no matter what type of game he made, he would be the main force.
If he didn't improve production efficiency, he would probably faint from exhaustion on the spot when making bigger games later.
Under such circumstances, efficiency was obviously a very important matter. Even with the production efficiency bonus of the "Pixel Game Module" right now, James wasn't too satisfied with the current production speed.
Normally speaking, the progress of his game production had to exceed the player's gameplay progress to attract more people to play.
He knew that in the early stages of the game, many players would probably get stuck at the first Gym, or even in front of the Rival or Team Rocket.
But as the game progressed and players' skill levels and game understanding gradually improved, their speed of advancing the game would become faster and faster. That would really test James's production speed.
So the best method was to prepare the subsequent game content in advance, then make real-time changes based on players' performance and feedback.
And with this Efficiency Enhancement Module, James had more confidence in achieving this.
With this thought, he chose to purchase it directly.
The "Efficiency Module" immediately appeared in the owned area, and the points were deducted accordingly.
As for the remaining 500+ points, James browsed the Low-level module area for a while and finally made a decision. He purchased the "Weather Compilation Module," "Move Particle Effect Module," and "NPC Personality Image Module."
He had carefully read the effects of the first two just now, so there was no need to say more.
As for the effect of this "NPC Personality Image Module," it added unique personalities to the characters in the game, making their reactions more like real people. It was equivalent to further strengthening the artificial intelligence embedded in the game.
The three modules together cost James a total of 550 points. The balance on the panel dropped directly to single digits.
However, James wasn't anxious about this.
As more and more people played this game, he believed the harvest of Emotional Points would also increase continuously.
Next, he just needed to make the game well!
As the saying goes—Good wine needs no bush!
Of course, after the game was perfected, it would be necessary to think of ways to do some promotion.
After all, the more people who rage-quit—no, the more people who play—the more points he gets.
With this thought, he glanced at the Litwick still sleeping on the side, opened the folder, and began to continue producing the game content.
–
Meanwhile,
Sinnoh Region, Canalave City.
This was a famous port city near the ocean, with thousands of cruise ships docking and departing here every day.
Such a large number of cruise ships naturally brought a lot of popularity to Canalave City. However, within the noisy and bustling port, there was a quiet little alley.
Click, click, click.
The sound of high heels broke the silence in the alley, then stopped suddenly.
A tall, blonde woman wearing sunglasses stopped in her tracks.
Even though she deliberately restrained it, her every gesture exuded mature charm and elegance.
At this moment, the woman looked around, her gaze landing on the ground to the side, and spoke softly:
"...Looks like you arrived earlier than me again this time. Sorry for making you wait."
As soon as her voice fell, a black shadow suddenly emerged from a patch of shadow on the ground.
——It turned out to be a young man with messy black hair, wearing a crisp black suit.
The man revealed a smile:
"Not at all, Sis Cynthia. I'm used to arriving early for everything I do; it's not like you don't know that."
"By the way..."
His smile suddenly retracted, and he scratched the back of his head:
"Regarding that person you wanted to find... I ran into a bit of a situation on my end."
Cynthia appeared somewhat surprised.
"Eh? What situation?"
The man clicked his tongue and smiled bitterly:
"Tsk, simply put, I found out that this game was indeed developed by one person."
Hearing this, Cynthia was instantly surprised.
Such an amazing game was actually developed by an individual, not a studio?
She listened as the young man continued:
"However, in the League's official database, I actually can't find any information on this creator."
He waved his hand and pointed to a door nearby.
"——Let's go inside to talk about the specific situation. I've already ordered the food. If it gets cold, it won't taste good."
(End of Chapter)
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