Inside Nebula Games' project room.
Lucas was working on building the game's models.
As for promotion, the trailer had already been released.
But player reactions were mixed. After all, it's hard to judge how a game plays just from a video.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many "trailer scams."
Lots of game trailers look like they're claiming to be the greatest masterpiece of all time, but when you actually play, it's like comparing instant noodle ads to the real thing—the downgrade is brutal.
Even though many players cursed Lucas as a fraud, and some who had been tortured by Dark Souls raged at him as an "old thief," while his self-proclaimed title of "Warrior of Love" became a running joke among his fans,
one thing most people agreed on was that Lucas didn't usually mess around with misleading trailers.
But this time, with Minecraft, a lot of players were honestly confused.
A pixel game—what could it possibly offer?
The online doubts from players and the debates in the industry were all things Lucas noticed.
But he didn't explain anything. Once the early-access tests opened, and once more promotion rolled out, players would understand on their own.
Saying anything now would never be as convincing or impactful as showing it directly in the game.
At his desk, Lucas's screen switched rapidly. Simple repeating blocks were placed automatically by tools and AI, while he worked on setting up more complex builds himself.
With his current skill, building structures in the game was nothing difficult for Lucas.
What's more, he had already recreated many templates from his memory capsule.
Now it was mostly just following those blueprints.
Before long, one building after another appeared in Minecraft.
"This is insane, Lucas!"
"It looks amazing!"
"My god!"
"Lucas is way too strong!"
Hector and Edward, who had just finished their modeling tasks, stood behind Lucas in awe as they watched him build structure after structure inside the game.
Rachel and Anna, who were recreating Lucas's 3D designs in-game, just gave the two men a scornful glance.
Bootlickers.
By now, about one-third of the building complex was done.
According to Lucas's plan, aside from being used for promotion, there would also be a "Nebula Games Museum" built inside the game. The IDs of the staff who worked on it would be included for players to visit.
Later on, more unique content would be added as well.
Players would even be able to add these buildings to their own worlds, though only in single-player mode.
"Alright, I'll give you two something to do. Time for something more complex."
"Go set up some redstone. Lay down a railway across that mountain." Lucas looked helplessly at the two men behind him.
If the houses were done, they could go build railroads.
......
Minecraft's promotion moved forward step by step, while at the same time SkyNova had also started promoting Voyage.
For Minecraft, aside from a few simple creature concept arts, most of the promotion focused on announcing the testing plans.
Originally, Lucas had planned for a small-scale test.
Players who pre-ordered could sign up, and the testers would be chosen by lottery.
But Lucas quickly scrapped this idea.
It felt a bit unfair to the players.
You have to know, even though everyone is a player, some people can pull an SSR or gold drop with just one try.
While others, even after paying for a hundred tries, only get the bare minimum.
So in the end, Lucas made a decision: players could pre-order the game and join a five-day early access test.
At the same time, if pre-order players felt the game wasn't for them, they could get a refund within five days.
This drew in quite a lot of players. After all, it wouldn't take long to find out what Minecraft was really like.
But what seemed strange to people in the game industry was that Wasteland, which had been competing head-to-head with Voyage, had suddenly gone silent.
Others didn't know the reason, but Lucas did.
At that time, Lucas was playing Marcus's Wasteland.
The game started with a simple intro: the world had fallen into nuclear war, surface civilization was destroyed, and radiation gave rise to all kinds of mutated creatures and plants.
The player takes the role of someone from inside a vault.
But everyone else in the vault was already dead. Only the main character remained, and most of the vault's systems no longer worked. Staying inside meant certain death.
So the player had to leave the vault and go to the surface.
The good news was, for some reason, by the time the main character came out, radiation was no longer harmful to humans.
The game's main goal was very simple: rebuild civilization.
As for the gameplay, combat wasn't real-time but closer to a turn-based system, kind of like XCOM. The game also had a dodge stat. At least during Lucas's playthrough, he saw the funny moment of "point-blank but still missing." Sitting next to him, Marcus could only give an awkward laugh.
Fixing this wasn't as easy as it looked. If you add a guaranteed hit at close range, then what exactly counts as close range? Two steps away?
And removing dodge would solve it, but then the whole combat system would be affected.
Aside from that, the main gameplay was scavenging the wasteland, collecting resources, and building your own camp.
Another feature was the team system.
During the game, players could meet NPCs in the wasteland, each with their own personality traits, shown as tags in-game.
These NPCs could serve as doctors, fighters, weapon makers, and so on—basically like a normal building system shown in a different way.
As for the later content, numbers, and gameplay balance, Lucas wasn't sure.
But for now, the quality was very solid.
However, in Lucas's view, the game leaned much more toward strategy than sandbox.
Because players had to make choices about which NPCs to keep, since NPCs also consumed resources.
If supplies weren't enough, you couldn't keep them. NPCs might revolt, starve, freeze, or just leave the camp.
Some NPCs even came with negative traits, like being prone to unrest or betrayal, yet they were also very useful.
To Lucas, this was more of a survival strategy game that really tested players' ability to manage resources.
If it had any link to sandbox gameplay, it was that it could keep players hooked for countless hours.
"How is it, Lucas?" Marcus asked.
"Very interesting," Lucas nodded with approval.
"By the way, Lucas, your new game Minecraft—is it a pixel-style game?" Marcus asked indirectly.
"Yes," Lucas nodded.
"Then what do you think are the differences between Wasteland and Minecraft, since both are sandbox games?" Marcus half-lifted the cover on the table.
"They're not comparable at all," Lucas shook his head slightly.
Marcus looked surprised, so Lucas continued: "Because they're completely different kinds of games. And strictly speaking, Wasteland isn't even what I consider a sandbox game."
"Then what do you think makes a sandbox game?" Marcus asked.
"What is a sandbox game? Hmm… I think Minecraft is currently the best example of what a sandbox game should be. You'll see next week, Marcus." Lucas smiled.
Hearing this, Marcus froze.
The best example of a sandbox game? Too arrogant!
Was he bragging? Just joking around?
But from Lucas's tone, it didn't sound like a joke.
Marcus was left full of questions, but he didn't keep pushing the topic.
After they parted, Marcus kept thinking about Lucas's words.
Minecraft would be the best example of a sandbox game?
Wasteland wasn't a sandbox game?
After replaying those words in his head a few times, Marcus finally made a decision. He pulled out his phone and sent a message to his assistant.
They would announce a delay—to avoid releasing against Minecraft.
At the same time, Lucas couldn't help but have some thoughts.
From Wasteland and a few other games that came out earlier, he had formed a rough judgment.
These games might be excellent in their own way,
but they completely missed the core of sandbox games.
They had good overall quality, but they couldn't really be called sandbox. At best, they just borrowed some sandbox-like features.
(End of The Chapter)
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