God's Imitator

Ye Lin looked at Lu Qi, ”This was your first time in a game. How was it?

”You participate too little in community discussions. You should be more active.”

”What? Me?” Lu Qi was caught off guard by the sudden attention and looked briefly flustered. But the game had clearly given her something to say, and she found her footing quickly.

”My impression, well, I think this game was the type that’s fairly new-player-friendly?

”At least, that’s how it felt to me.

”When I first entered, I was completely lost, because there were so many rules.

”I hadn’t even sorted out the basic rules when I found there were additional rules on the notice boards at the steam train and in the Inspection Room as well.

”But during the preparation time, I also started to realise that the rules in this game were actually more forgiving than previous games.

”The thinking time was longer, and because of the way roles were divided, each player only needed to understand their own portion of the rules. On top of that, there were veteran players to explain things.

”After Shen Bowen assigned us our roles, I was able to get a reasonable grasp of my own part fairly quickly.”The strategy also wasn’t particularly deep. Take the steam train, for instance. The basic mechanics aren’t complicated, but you can layer more sophisticated ideas on top, so new players aren’t completely shut out of thinking, but it’s also not so simple that there’s nothing to engage with strategically.

”By the time this game ended, I felt like I could at least keep up with what everyone else was doing, at least somewhat.

”There were a lot of similar design touches. For instance, there were only three rounds in total, and the strategic focus of each round was quite clear: Round One was about feeling out the rules and gathering information on the other side, Round Two was about establishing cooperation, Round Three was about the prisoner’s dilemma and whether to defect.

”When I listened to everyone debrief the Pain Game, all those rounds made my head spin. But the three-round structure here was much cleaner.

”And another thing I noticed later was that although there were many rules, they were quite clearly organised, and a lot of them came with obvious hints built in.

”The Minor Violations listed separately, for instance, could basically all be read as guidance and suggestions.

”That’s different from the earlier games, which seemed to deliberately bury the rules.

”Overall, if I had to make a comparison: the earlier games felt more like pure puzzle-solving, a bit like a tabletop game full of jargon and unspoken conventions that only veterans would understand, the kind where new players are at a complete disadvantage.

”But this one felt more like a detailed manual. A lot of rules at first glance, but thoroughly explained, which makes it more accessible to newcomers.

”That’s roughly how I felt, anyway. I’m not sure if I’ve put it correctly. It probably came out a bit scattered, but that’s my general impression.”

Lu Bingjun gave an approving nod, ”That’s well put.

”This game is indeed designed with new players in mind, and it comes with something of a new-player bonus built in.

”After all, this was the first distribution-type game of the Second Stage, and they tend to be more forgiving. The distribution-type games in the First Stage were similar in that way.

”Everyone is welcome to do their own detailed debrief privately. It may be useful for future games.”

This felt like something of a closing statement from Lu Bingjun, as though he was preparing to wrap up the debrief.

But Ye Lin seemed to have thought of something and picked up the thread.

”There’s one more impression I had personally.

”’Prison Factory’ is not just a new-player-friendly game. It’s also a game that’s friendly to players who think slowly, and to players who are sensitive to the fine details of written rules.

”Or perhaps more accurately, the latter two may have been the Imitator’s original intention, and being new-player-friendly was simply a byproduct.”

Huang Shengjie was curious, ”Hmm? Ye Lin, are you saying the Imitator designed the game to be more forgiving toward players who are slower thinkers, which is why they built in such long thinking periods?

”And that this pace also happened to suit new players, so they benefited as well?”

Ye Lin nodded, ”Yes.”

Huang Shengjie frowned slightly, ”But how do you tell the difference between the two?

”Both new players and slower-thinking players need more time to think. But it feels more intuitive to say it was designed with new players in mind.

”After all, this was the first major distribution-type game of the Second Stage, the kind that most players participate in.

”Whereas slower-thinking players aren’t exactly a group that particularly needs special accommodation, are they?”

Ye Lin’s tone wasn’t entirely certain, but she pointed at the large screen, ”This rule is what gave me that impression.”

[Each round, the system will designate one category of material as Contraband. Please confirm this round’s Contraband before formulating your transport plan.]

Ye Lin paused briefly and continued, ”The key is in the second half of that sentence, which is very easy to overlook.

”I’d guess a fair number of communities made a mistake on exactly this point.

”There are three types of raw materials and three rounds in the game. And more experienced players might naturally think of stockpiling materials in advance.

”The rules state that materials already inside the prison will not become Contraband again due to a change in round. Which means materials that haven’t yet entered the prison can become Contraband again.

”Round One was Miscellaneous Goods. Round Two was Food. So in Round Three, many players would instinctively assume it must be Medications, and stockpile accordingly.

”But Round Three turned out to be Miscellaneous Goods again.

”Which made any pre-stockpiled Medications materials almost useless: leaving them as-is wastes the purchase cost, but delivering them yields very little profit and takes up time that could have been used for Contraband.

”In other words, this design effectively divides players into three distinct tiers.

”The first tier is new players who never thought of stockpiling at all.

”The second tier is experienced players who thought of stockpiling but weren’t sensitive enough to the rule’s wording.

”The third tier is players who identified both points simultaneously.

”From the perspective of most Imitators, there’s no real need for three-tier differentiation. Distinguishing between the first and second tiers is usually enough. You can accommodate new players and veterans separately in much simpler ways.

”A three-tier structure like this actually dilutes the game’s strategic depth somewhat, because the first-tier and third-tier players end up making the same choice.

”A more fitting explanation, I think, is that the Imitator specifically wanted to use this mechanism to identify players who are especially sensitive to the fine detail of written rules.

”We all know that among intelligent people, intelligence can express itself in very different ways.

”Some people have quick instincts: in extreme situations, they react fast. They can produce a near-optimal answer in a very short time, but even given more time, they may never arrive at the truly optimal one.

”Other people lack this kind of quick-fire thinking. The moment something urgent arises, they tend to seize up, and may perform worse than ordinary people under pressure. But given ample time to think slowly and carefully, they can arrive at the genuinely optimal answer.

”I feel like this game has deliberately left more room for the latter type to show what they’re capable of.”