Idle game leads to another world.

Chapter 1: Idle Game
It was getting dark and the city went into sleep mode.

Li Chengxi checked the doors and windows of his store, then took a box of instant noodles and two sausages from the shelf and went upstairs.

After turning on the computer and looking at the wide variety of games in the game library, Li Chengxi felt a little uninterested and didn't want to touch anything.

At this time, a new email notification popped up on the QQ in the lower right corner. I clicked it and saw that it said 'Congratulations on obtaining the early test qualification' with a download link attached.

The email did not include the name of the game or any pictures.

Li Chengxi doesn't have any particular focus when it comes to playing games. He will try all types and often fills out applications to play games that are not yet available on the shelves. He can't remember when he applied for it for the moment.

I'm free anyway, so I might as well click and take a look.

However, this email looked a bit like a virus. To be on the safe side, Li Chengxi turned around, took out an old laptop from the drawer, plugged it in and started it up.

This thing was called an ultrabook back then, it can be used as a laptop or a tablet. When I was in school and there was no internet, I relied on it to play stand-alone games to pass the time.

But after all, it happened ten years ago. There is no personal information in it, and I don’t have to feel bad even if there is a virus or computer problem.

I sent the download link and clicked download. The speed was quite fast. Even with the maximum broadband speed, it was downloaded in a short while.

Li Chengxi was a little disappointed when he saw that the installation package was only 700 megabytes. He thought it might be some unknown domestic stand-alone independent game.

The good news is that my ultrabook, which is ten years old, should be able to play games of several hundred megabytes.

Unzip, install, and run.

A dark picture first squeezed onto the screen, and then three large characters 'AAI' popped up.

Li Chengxi still had no impression, so he clicked the mouse to enter the main menu.

Although I was mentally prepared, I couldn't help but complain when I saw the main menu:

“This is too crude!”

The game name 'AAI' is still on the top of the black interface, and it says (Anyone Anything any Idea) in English below.

It feels like another game that plans to create a framework and wait for the game content to grow out of the creative workshop.

Below the game name, there are three clickable buttons labeled "Fantasy", "Martial Arts" and "Science Fiction". Below the buttons, there is a row of red letters that read "Please select the type of script you want to generate".

To be honest, this UI design is not as good as that of a flash game. It looks like it was made with a drawing tool.

Less than three seconds after opening the game, Li Chengxi's expectations for this game had already dropped to the lowest point. He thought that since he had already installed it, he might as well see how bad it was.

I casually clicked the martial arts button in the middle, and a prompt popped up saying 'You need 50,000 gold coins in stock to unlock'.

Li Chengxi understood that this routine was still a pigeon game, where he had to repeat the same game process over and over again to earn points and unlock new content.

He then clicked on Magic, and this time he successfully entered, with a message on the screen saying 'World Generating'.

During this time, Li Chengxi tore open the lid of the instant noodles and filled the electric kettle with water. When he came back, the loading was complete.

The picture that appeared on the computer screen made his eyes light up.

This game uses an exquisite high-definition pixel style, and the characters are all Q-version with two heads and bodies. Compared with blindly stacking 3D, this pleasing style is the favorite of independent game production teams.

The screen shows a group of little people on horseback entering a city protected by high walls. Because it is presented at a 45-degree oblique view and many details are made, it does not look simple despite the pixel style.

After this cutscene was over, Li Chengxi moved the cursor to the pixel-style city. As he moved to different positions, some prompts such as "Palace District", "Residential District", "Commercial District" and "City Wall District" popped up.

Maybe because it is an early version, there is no guidance for novices at all. However, for now, only the palace area can be clicked, so Li Chengxi clicked in.

The scene changed, and it looked like a pixelated church with a row of pixelated figures kneeling on the ground worshiping.

At this time, a character portrait popped up.

She has short red hair and a beautiful face with two sword-like eyebrows, a breastplate on her upper body and a red long sword on her waist, which looks like a paper knight. Li Chengxi understands that some game production teams like to use paper figures to attract players, but he doesn't understand why a pixel-style game has realistic character portraits, which doesn't match at all.

On second thought, it might be that the production team is too poor to hire an artist, so the character portraits are probably generated by AI. Anyway, they look pretty good, so it doesn't matter if it's a bit inconsistent.

The name tag on the portrait reads: 'Viola Avarus', which should be her name.

Then a dialog box popped up, saying 'With this body as a sacrifice, we pray to the Demon God to grant us strength' and so on. It felt like the plot of the game was being narrated in the voice of a female knight.

Li Chengxi was too lazy to read this, but the game did not have fast forward or skip functions, so he could only press the space bar out of boredom and roughly read the female knight's words.

To put it simply, there was a country called the Demon Kingdom of Avarus that was attacked by the surrounding Demon Kingdoms. Viola's father and brother died in the battle. As a princess, she took the legendary treasure that could contact the Demon God and fled to the most remote territory with her guards and remaining soldiers at the last moment before the capital was breached, planning to make a comeback.

The player is the 'Demon God' mentioned by Viola. No wonder the game doesn't allow you to enter the player name, it has already been set.

Li Chengxi has played several games in which players act as gods, and the settings are not uncommon.

After the story, a bar with the word "Faith Value" appeared on the left side of the screen, and the number was 500. Resource windows such as wood, gold coins, and stone appeared above, and the date was on the right.

Up to now, it feels like this might be an SLG game similar to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but Li Chengxi clicked around and couldn't find any part that could be operated.

On the contrary, when I clicked around randomly, I saw pixelated figures carrying wood to repair damaged buildings in the city, and under the city wall, there was a group of two-headed soldier figures holding spears and training.

"After all this time, this is just an idle game?"

The graphics are quite beautiful, but it’s boring if you just leave it idle.

Li Chengxi was about to close the game and pour hot water on his instant noodles when a red warning dialog box popped up on the screen, saying "Bandits are approaching."

Then he saw the little people busy in training quickly running up the city wall, and the game camera also moved outside the city wall.

Li Chengxi released the mouse:

"Since the style of the painting suits my taste, I'll play with it for a while longer."

A large group of NPCs crowded together appeared outside the city wall, carrying swords and spears, wearing tattered clothes. They could indeed be recognized as bandits at a glance.

The soldier figures on the city wall began to shoot arrows downwards, while the bandit figures typed out messages like "Charge" and "Kill", quickly moving towards the city wall. After a while, they were blocked under the wall and began to put up ladders and other things on the wall.

Apart from anything else, the high-definition pixel-style graphics of this game are really good, and it would be better if there were more areas for operation.

Just as he thought of this, Li Chengxi saw a hand-shaped icon appear on the ladder that the bandits had built on the city wall, with the word 'tap' written on it.

"Could this game be a port of a mobile game that couldn't get a version number?"

I picked up the mouse and clicked it. Each ladder required several clicks before it would break or fall over, and it seemed like it would never end.

The rough and continuous clicking also caused the mouse, which was the same generation as the computer, to go on strike. This is not a big problem, as one of the main selling points of the Ultrabook is that the screen can be operated by touch.

So Li Chengxi threw away the mouse and pointed his index finger at the screen.

"What the hell?"

The moment his fingers touched the screen, there seemed to be a suction force coming from the screen, and Li Chengxi's fingers went straight into the screen.

For a moment, Li Chengxi thought he had seen it wrong. He shook his finger, and the finger on the screen shook as well.

Surprised, Li Chengxi retracted his hand and pulled his fingers away from the screen.

At this moment, I felt a slight stinging pain in my index finger, and many tiny cracks appeared on my skin, as if they were caused by being too dry, and there was a little bleeding.

"what's the situation?"

(End of this chapter)