You said you would make games by yourself, but how did you become the richest man by doing nothing?

In the early spring afternoon, sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the wooden floor in the office area of ​​Peach Blossom Spring Studio, the air filled with the mixed aroma of coffee and take-out milk tea.

However, at this moment, the office did not have the passionate and striving atmosphere of the past, but was instead filled with a strange “Buddhist” aura.

The whiteboard in the planning department was densely covered with various game mechanism ideas, but the handwriting stopped three days ago, with no further modifications.

The code submission records of the programming team have dropped from two hundred updates a day to five updates a day, and three of them were to fix "code errors caused by a certain programmer's cat accidentally stepping on the keyboard."

On the work progress chart of the art team, the status of all character modeling was uniformly marked with an eye-catching "To be optimized."

Everyone knew the reason—

Their BOSS, Lu Yu, had activated the "powerful lying flat mode."

“The theme of the game is ‘enjoying life,’ so we, as developers, should of course practice this concept ourselves.”

Lu Yu said as a matter of course, while moving himself from the office chair to the beanbag chair in the leisure area, conveniently making himself a cup of hot tea and opening a travel magazine.

“The pace of development should not be too hasty, take it slow, take it easy, and don’t let work affect everyone’s quality of life.”

“Everyone should go out more often to experience the fun of life. Only by truly experiencing a good life can we design a game that resonates with players.”

In the conference room, everyone fell into a brief silence.

Then, someone took the lead in applauding.

Immediately afterwards, everyone nodded in agreement.

“As expected of President Lu!”

“Calm in the face of danger, always implementing the game concept, this is a true industry leader!”

“We have always emphasized ‘immersion,’ but only President Lu truly achieves ‘being there’ to experience life!”

“President Lu’s realm is indeed one level higher than ours, we must learn from him!”

Just like that—

The entire Peach Blossom Spring Studio entered a strange “slow-paced” development mode.

Although the pace of development slowed down, the innovation of game mechanisms did not stop. Instead, under the guidance of the core concept of "enjoying life," it became even more outrageous.

Planning Department:

“Instead of letting players fight monsters and level up, why not let them grow vegetables, fish, and bask in the sun in the game?”

“We can add a ‘Meditation System’ to allow players to improve their character’s mental attributes by emptying their minds.”

“Add a ‘Daze Simulation’ feature. If the player does not operate the character for a long time, the NPC will automatically offer him a cup of tea and start chatting with him about philosophy.”

Art Department:

“All scene colors should be soft, so that players can feel the atmosphere of ‘peaceful years’ as soon as they enter the game.”

“The character action design should be as lazy as possible, without too much tension. You can even let the character suddenly sit down and rest during battle.”

Programming Department:

“We can make the game’s time flow automatically adapt to the player’s schedule. During the night, the world in the game will also enter ‘rest mode,’ and all NPCs will go home to sleep.”

“If players do not log in for a long time, the character in the game will go on vacation by themselves. When the players come back, they will share their ‘travel diaries.’”

Everyone was immersed in the pursuit of “ultimate relaxation.” Although the development progress was slow, the game’s creativity became more and more abundant, and even triggered a **“anti-involution game design trend”** in the industry.

However—

Just when everyone was immersed in the “slow life philosophy,” a real problem emerged.

Because of “lying flat development,” everyone’s work rhythm slowed down, resulting in seriously insufficient testing and optimization time for the game.

As a result, a lot of unexpected BUGs appeared in the game.

When a player’s character meditates, they will suddenly fly into the sky and never come down again.

A certain NPC’s “philosophical dialogue system” was set to be too intelligent, causing the NPC to give a two-hour-long “existentialist lecture” once the player talked to him, and it could not be skipped.

The fishing system in the game had a BUG, causing all the fish to turn into sharks. Players would be dragged into the water by the sharks as soon as they fished, and the game would end directly.

A certain “self-relaxation detection system” had a problem, causing the character to automatically enter “forced lunch break mode” and fall to the ground to sleep if the player moved too frequently in the game.

Even more outrageous, someone discovered that the game’s “automatic travel system” would randomly select a destination, and might even send the player’s character to the “undeveloped area” of the game map, causing the character to be trapped in the “void zone” that the programmer forgot to fill.

For a time, BUGs occurred frequently, and the player forums went crazy with laughter.

“Does this game want me to enjoy life, or does it want me to experience the helplessness of a corporate slave in reality?”

“I chatted with an NPC about philosophy, and I became sleepless after chatting.”

“What’s with the shark-fishing setting?!”

“My character went on vacation by himself, and then never came back…”

So, the Peach Blossom Spring development team finally realized—

They still have to be a little more serious and fix the BUGs.

However, when everyone handed the BUG reports to Lu Yu with helpless faces, he just glanced at them, then slowly put down the documents, and picked up his teacup.

“It seems that everyone’s development concept has been thoroughly implemented into the game.”

He took a sip of tea, his eyes calm and deep, as if everything was under his control.

“However, BUGs are not necessarily a bad thing.”

He put down the teacup and raised the corners of his mouth slightly: “Some BUGs may be pleasant surprises, and may even become a feature of the game.”

Everyone in the conference room looked at Lu Yu’s calm expression, and a deep sense of admiration rose in their hearts again.

“As expected of President Lu… Even if there are so many problems with the game, he still remains calm, as if everything is under control!”

“Is this the pattern of a top manager?!”

“We must not let President Lu down, we must fix the BUGs as soon as possible and make the game to the extreme!”

So, under Lu Yu’s “powerful lying flat” mode, the entire team worked even harder to fix the problems and make the game more perfect.

Planning Director Liu Mengyuan rubbed her temples, with a tired and helpless expression on her face.

“So… our current situation is that various outrageous BUGs in the game have become rampant, and the player forums are about to explode?”

Her voice was low, with a hint of forcibly suppressed anger.

The art director, Yang Cheng, nodded slowly and sighed, "Yes, the forum is already flooded with BUG-related posts."

Marketing Director Zhang Qiqi opened her phone and casually swiped, the screen filled with players' complaints—

"This game's 'life experience' is a bit too real, right? The NPC chatted with me about philosophy for three hours, and my character directly fell into a 'life meaning collapse state,' and then froze."

"I was just about to go fishing, but instead of catching a carp or a golden salmon, I caught a 'BUG shark,' and then the system directly determined that I was dragged into the sea by the shark, and the character drowned on the spot."

"My character went on vacation by himself, and then never came back... Does he not want to work anymore?"

"What's even more outrageous is that my character entered 'automatic nap mode,' and then the system prompts 'Entering deep meditation, estimated wake-up time: three days later'????"

Silence filled the conference room.

Everyone felt a kind of **"disaster is about to strike"** atmosphere.

But at this moment, a lazy voice sounded.

"It's okay, the AI will fix it."

Everyone turned their heads in unison, looking at Chu Xiong, the technical director sitting on the other side of the conference table.

Chu Xiong pushed his glasses, his expression frighteningly calm, even with a hint of **"everything is under control"** smile on the corner of his mouth.

Liu Mengyuan frowned: "What do you mean?"

Chu Xiong slowly opened his notebook, typed a few keys, and a complex stream of data immediately appeared on the screen.

He said calmly: "Everyone here may not know that our 'Peach Garden Creation Engine' actually has a set of 'AI adaptive repair system' implanted."

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"In simple terms, it means... the AI will analyze the game's BUGs by itself, and then autonomously repair them."

There was an uproar in the conference room.

"Really?!"

"AI can fix BUGs? This is the ultimate dream of the game development world!"

"Wait, is this thing really reliable? Won't it crash the entire game while fixing it?"

Chu Xiong unhurriedly typed a few keys, and a line of test logs immediately popped up on the screen—

[AI repair progress: 35%]

[Analyzing... BUG shark detected, correcting species data...]

[Analyzing... 'Automatic nap mode' logic anomaly detected, optimizing...]

[Analyzing... 'NPC philosophical lecture time too long' detected, adjusting dialogue logic...]

Everyone stared blankly at the data stream on the screen. After a few seconds, Chu Xiong gently closed his notebook and smiled.

"Don't worry, the AI has already started working."

Everyone was silent for a second, and then—

"As expected of Chief Chu!!"

"Unafraid in the face of danger, he directly pulled out the black technology!"

"If this AI system can really run stably, then we will never have to be tortured by fixing BUGs again!"

However, just as everyone was starting to rejoice, a clear and cold voice echoed.

"I suggest... don't fix them."

The conference room fell silent again.

Everyone turned their heads to look at the woman sitting in the corner who had not spoken—Melissa, the AI expert of Peach Garden, and also the core architect of the game's world view.

She had long silver-white hair, delicate features, and indifferent eyes, like a character from a science fiction movie.

Liu Mengyuan frowned: "What do you mean?"

Melissa glanced at Chu Xiong indifferently, then raised her finger and tapped the table: "Have you ever thought that these BUGs, perhaps in essence... are not BUGs?"

In the conference room, people looked at each other.

Melissa's voice was still calm: "From another perspective, these so-called 'BUGs' actually revolve around a core theme—'uncontrolled life experience'."

"For example, the 'BUG shark', its existence makes the game's fishing system unpredictable, increasing randomness."

"For example, the 'automatic nap mode', it allows the character to truly 'possess their own will', instead of simply being controlled by the player."

"Another example is the 'NPC philosophical lecture', its essence is to make players truly think about life, instead of blindly following the game's guidance to act."

Her eyes swept across everyone present, her tone calm and firm: "If we turn these 'BUGs' into the game's features, and even build new gameplay around them, then 'Don't Play This Game' will complete a thorough genre reversal."

Everyone was stunned.

Then, Liu Mengyuan slammed the table suddenly, her eyes lit up.

"That's right! Why should we fix them?"

"The core concept of this game is 'relaxation' and 'uncertainty'! The existence of these BUGs actually makes it closer to this concept!"

"We can directly turn them into the game's characteristics!"

Five minutes later, the official Peach Garden Township released an announcement—

[Explanation on recent player feedback on "Don't Play This Game"]

Dear players, we have noticed that everyone has recently encountered some 'unique' experiences in the game's closed beta, such as 'BUG sharks', 'automatic nap mode', 'NPC philosophical frenzy', etc.

Here, we solemnly declare—these are not BUGs, but the game's 'hidden mechanics'!

Our core design concept is 'simulating a real-life experience', and real life is full of unexpected random events.

Therefore, we have decided to retain these 'features' and will develop more brand-new gameplay around them in future versions!

Please enjoy this 'unpredictable world'!

As soon as the announcement came out, the entire player community exploded.

"??? So this is not a BUG, it was officially designed on purpose?!"

"I knew it, this game is indeed different from ordinary games!"

"So... my experience of being dragged into the sea by a shark is actually a 'random event'? This is too real, right?"

"As expected of Peach Garden Township, even BUGs can be turned into game features..."

That night, Lu Yu looked at the various discussions of the players on the forum, gently put down the teacup in his hand, and the corners of his mouth raised slightly in an arc.

"These guys are quite good at taking advantage of the situation."

He stretched lazily and sighed lazily—

"BUGs are features, this industry has finally realized it."

......

After the game's closed beta ended, the day of its imminent launch finally arrived.

On this day, Bilibili UP master Wang Lao Ju opened the live broadcast room on time.

"Hello everyone, today we are going to play a game that I have been looking forward to for a long time, produced by Peach Garden Township!" (End of this chapter)