God's Imitator

Lu Bingjun nodded: "Hmm, that makes sense.

"Most imitators tend to mix in some special intents when designing a game, and analyzing these intents can indeed help us determine the stance of the imitator, and even identify their identity.

"However, some designs might just be coincidental, or unintended, and more cases are needed to verify that.

"Anyway, it’s a good thing that the second phase of the Walkway finally presents a seemingly benevolent imitator."

Ye Lin added, "I think we can try to sketch a profile of this imitator.

"Because the personal style this person shows is more distinct than ’One Word Breaks the Prison.’

"I feel... they might be a player with an artistic background.

"Because the game’s scenery this time, including the architecture and steam train details, needs to be designed and submitted by the imitator themselves, which can’t be done without the relevant background knowledge.

"Rules can be written in text, but achieving such a perfect and unified level of detail purely through textual description would be very difficult.

"Additionally, he seems to be relatively friendly, encouraging collaboration, and caring for the weak."

Huang Shengjie nodded hurriedly: "Yes, I had this feeling when I first entered the game that this imitator seems a bit like an artist.

"Or at least has considerable skills in hand drawing."

Lu Qi was somewhat puzzled: "But we don’t currently know the specific generation mechanism of these scenes within the game, do we? How can you be sure these scenes are definitely drawn instead of simply described with text?"

Ye Lin explained: "It’s simple, because this situation rarely occurs in other games.

"We can have two hypotheses now:

"Hypothesis 1: The imitator doesn’t need to draw the specific shapes, only submit detailed textual descriptions to Walkway, and Walkway can automatically generate these unique scenes with refined and unified style.

"Hypothesis 2: No matter how detailed the textual descriptions submitted by the imitator are, they can only generate relatively generic template scenes, but not specific, refined, and stylistically unified scenes.

"Which hypothesis aligns with what we’ve observed? Obviously the latter.

"Because if hypothesis 1 were true, surely many imitators would use this method to create unique scenes, whether to pass reviews more easily or to disguise their personal style, they would all do it.

"Then most game scene layouts should reach the level of ’Prison Factory.’

"But in reality, games that achieve this level of scenic layout are extremely rare.

"This indicates that many key scenes in this game are drawn by the imitator themselves, even if it’s not providing high-precision original paintings, it should at least provide outlines, lines, and shapes.

"Because text is inherently abstract, and specific lines and shapes are indispensable steps."

Huang Shengjie nodded repeatedly: "Yes, that’s probably the case!

"So this imitator should possess two abilities or traits:

"First is having these skills; their profession should be directly related to hand drawing or image creation, which can’t be achieved without professional training.

"Second is having certain aesthetic and cultural attainment, which ensures that all artistic details in the game are relatively coherent and unified.

"Hmm... such a person likely doesn’t exist in our Community."

He glanced at He Qinyun and Shen Bowen, whose professions, product manager and mechanical engineer respectively, are barely related players in the Community.

He Qinyun quickly explained: "Although I am a product manager, there’s a significant variance within my profession.

"People with the same profession as me come from various industries. It’s possible that some product managers have an art background or special career background and possess hand drawing skills, but I do not."

Shen Bowen also shook his head: "Our field indeed requires some basic drawing skills, for instance, sometimes it’s not convenient to bring a computer to the workshop, needing to record some shapes and dimensions by hand sketches, then generating formal designs based on the sketches.

"I did learn mechanical drawing back in school.

"However, in my work, I mostly use drawing tools and modeling tools to complete designs, and most of the time in mechanical design, aesthetic considerations aren’t necessary, just focusing on its performance requirements and parameters.

"I’ve long returned my inadequate hand drawing skills to my teachers, and besides, I am the typical science-minded woman, my aesthetic sense is a mess."

Lu Bingjun nodded: "Yes, such an imitator does indeed have a relatively clear professional background. If everyone encounters players from other Communities in the game later, you can pay special attention.

"However, there’s no need to fret over it for now.

"Let’s engage like before and check the supply situation after this game."

The group got up and went to the automatic vending machine.

Lu Bingjun was the first to conduct the inquiry.

It was confirmed in the last inquiry that when players check their supply refill information on the automatic vending machine in the lobby, other players cannot see it.

This means the information on the automatic vending machine is displayed only to specific players.

This also means it’s impossible to force a player to inquire to determine if they have replenished their supplies.

Lu Bingjun quickly completed the inquiry: "Each medicine is still 10 bottles, unchanged."

Other players also completed their inquiries.

Lin Sizhi also has 10 bottles of each medicine, Ye Lin has 0 bottles because neither participated in this game.

And all other players who participated in ’Prison Factory’ have a supply refill quantity of 3 bottles for each medicine, totaling 6 bottles.

Zhang Yan’s refill quantity is 0 bottles.

This information is self-reported by players and cannot be verified by other players, but if no conflicting information appears, it can generally be considered reliable.

Qin Cheng pondered: "It’s the first situation we guessed.

"Initially 20 bottles, becoming 40 bottles, then 60 bottles... increasing by 20 bottles each time.

"The supply refill quantity for this game became 60 bottles, with a total of 10 players participating, meaning each player has an average of 3 bottles of two types of medicines.

"Currently, it’s unclear whether this growth has a limit.

"Overall, this is a relatively optimistic situation we estimated—not doubling or geometric sequence growth.

"Also, new players in the Community aren’t allocated refill quotas."

Lu Bingjun nodded: "So now I and Lawyer Lin control 40 bottles, while you 10 hold 60 bottles. If we want to buy them all, according to half the standard selling price, it requires 45,000 minutes of visa time.

"Overall, this game brought substantial earnings for our Community, so this number is still within an acceptable range.

"Spending 45,000 minutes of Community funds to purchase and control these medicines might seem somewhat wasteful, but it’s not entirely unacceptable.

"However, if next time it becomes 80 bottles, continuing to buy will be a bit challenging."

He paused slightly, then continued: "Continuing to control these medicines should be the consensus among the vast majority of players in our Community.

"Even if we can’t control all of them, we should comprehensively consider the cost and make our best effort to complete partial control.

"So, now we need to re-discuss the plan."