Free Web NovelChapter 155: Chapter 153: Ackley Board Game Store
When Ben followed his father to Zog’s Northern Factory, the two couldn’t have been more different in their thinking.
Ben was a veteran Yo-Yo enthusiast, a fan of *Mechanical Warrior*, a talented *Yu-Gi-Oh!* card pack scalper, and a "cloud gamer"—someone who loved all kinds of games but, due to his strict upbringing, could only watch walkthroughs instead of playing them.
For Ben, this was nothing short of a pilgrimage to a Holy Land.
’What a beautiful factory! Whoa, is that Zog’s stuff everywhere? Better look at the snowy mountains in the distance, folks.’
Ben was curious about everything in the Factory. ’Are all those wonderfully imaginative toys born on interconnected production lines like these?’
He even saw his favorite model of Yo-Yo, the Ice Soul, on one of the conveyor belts.
On that one conveyor belt alone, he could see what looked like hundreds of Ice Souls.
’Amazing. They can probably produce several Yo-Yos a minute.’
’So this is why his family’s Ackley’s Toy Store was crushed by the competition. It’s not just a difference in design—it’s like a fully armored Knight fighting a farmer with a pitchfork.’
He used to love reading novels about Knights, dreaming of becoming one himself and winning glory on the battlefield. In those stories, war never seemed that dangerous.
Even if you lost, you were just captured and held for ransom.
Only later did he understand that Knights were Knights, and he would probably just be one of the nameless, conscripted commoner kids who died without ever being mentioned in the story.
Especially as firearms grew more advanced, the wars reported in the news became far more brutal. Even the survival rate for low-level Professionals had plummeted.
Ben didn’t want Ackley’s Toy Store to end up like that—eliminated without even leaving its name behind.
Although he often clashed with his father, he was still very attached to the shop. It was one of the few wonderful parts of his childhood memories.
’I hope my *Ferin Chronicles* can save the family shop.’
’Then again,’ he thought, ’if they can produce so many Yo-Yos every day, why does each one still cost Several Copper Coins?’
’It must be because the materials for the Yo-Yos are really expensive. Yeah, that has to be it.’
Ben thought to himself.
Hakan, in contrast, was far more nervous.
He clearly remembered the in-your-face taunting he’d dished out at Zog’s Toy Store.
Of course, in the end, he was the one who ended up looking like a clown.
The good news was that he was still alive. But what if this meeting jogged Zog’s memory?
He’d heard the boss of the Zog Group held a mean grudge.
He grew even more frightened when he saw several people working on the toy production line with shackles on their ankles.
’I’m not going to end up like that, am I?’
He had no idea what those people had done to anger Zog, but what he found even more baffling was how bizarre they looked.
Despite doing strenuous labor, they all wore strange smiles.
Hakan then watched, wide-eyed, as one of them deliberately botched his task, only to receive an electric shock from his shackles.
As the man collapsed to the ground, convulsing, the smile on his face grew even wider.
’This is just twisted.’
’Mind Control. This has to be Mind Control.’
Cold sweat dripped down Hakan’s back. He could only hope that his son’s coattails were long enough for him to ride, and that Ben’s talent would make him appear more valuable.
"Please wait here," a polite-looking Zor said, leading them into a reception room.
"Do a good job. When I get my referral bonus, I’ll give you guys ten percent."
Before closing the door, War Axe flashed them a toothy grin and a thumbs-up from the hallway.
"No problem at all," Ben said, full of confidence.
Though War Axe looked fierce and could be ruthless, he was a surprisingly cute Beastman once you got to know him.
In the quiet reception room, the father and son opened up the new version of *Ferin Chronicles* they had spent the last few days creating.
Thanks to Hakan’s masterful artistry and years of honing his crafting skills, the board game’s quality had been drastically improved.
At the very least, the character art on the cards actually looked like people now.
They had also created some equipment and Skill cards, health trackers, and identity cards.
For now, it only included three roles: the Lord, whose identity was public, and the Vassals and Rebels, whose identities were hidden.
In a five-player game, the roles were distributed as one Lord, one Vassal, and three Rebels. To balance this, the Lord was given extra health and Skills.
This was the new gameplay mechanic Ben and Hakan had decided on after some discussion.
After a few playtests with their friends, it received unanimous praise. In their opinion, aside from the lack of giant monster Illusions, the game was even more fun than *Yu-Gi-Oh!*.
They were gradually discovering that *Yu-Gi-Oh!* had become a bit "cutthroat."
In just one short month, *Yu-Gi-Oh!* deck building had veered sharply toward a win-at-all-costs meta.
With the existence of online forums, it was easy for players to just copy a deck someone else had perfected. The meta quickly devolved into everyone trying to prevent their opponent from even playing the game.
On top of that, since it was a one-on-one game, losing felt incredibly frustrating.
It got to the point where many people had become pure collectors instead of players.
But *Ferin Chronicles* was different. It had the single greatest feature of any multiplayer game: you could blame someone else when you lost.
As long as you firmly believed your defeat was due to your teammates’ incompetence, it was a much better experience.
"So, you’re the ones who designed *Ferin Chronicles*?"
Zog said as he pushed the door open and walked in.
Ben took a good look at the legendary Zog, only to discover with a shock that the rumor was true—the boss of the Zog Group really had been the person in the mascot costume at the toy store.
He’d just assumed they were two different Dragons who happened to look alike.
’What a boss with unique hobbies,’ he thought.
"My son was the main designer," Hakan replied. He wasn’t the kind of old man who would take all the credit—and profit—from his kid.
Zog looked at Ben. The boy looked to be about thirteen or fourteen. ’So annoying,’ Zog thought. ’How can someone so young design something like this?’
’When I was fourteen, I was still buried under piles of practice exams.’
"Let’s start with the conclusion," Zog said. "*Ferin Chronicles* is good enough to be released as an official board game."
"Really?!" Ben jumped up in excitement.
"But I have some suggestions for revisions," Zog continued. "Right now, you only have two factions, correct?"
"Yes," Ben replied, "but to balance things, we gave the Lord extra..."
"That’s exactly it. My suggestion for balancing the numbers is to add a third faction."
"A third one?" Ben was confused. ’Five doesn’t divide evenly by three, right? Wouldn’t three factions be even harder to balance?’
"That’s right, a third one. We’ll call it the Traitor," Zog explained. "The Traitor’s victory condition is to kill the Lord, but they must do so only after all the Vassals and Rebels have been eliminated."
"Wouldn’t that be... incredibly hard to play?" Ben’s immediate reaction was that the Traitor role would be extremely difficult.
"But it’s more interesting, isn’t it? Higher risk, greater reward. It also helps balance the other two factions and introduces more uncertainty." freёwebnovel.com
Zog had always believed that while balance was important, sacrificing fun for the sake of perfect balance wasn’t worth it.
’It’s no fun when players discover a novel strategy, only for the developers to immediately patch it out of existence.’
"I’ll also provide some design ideas for character Skills, as well as the scope for power creep."
"Power creep?" This was another term Ben didn’t understand.
"It means that future characters will have stronger and more complex Skills. How else are you going to get people to buy new characters? Trust me, the players will complain about it the whole time they’re buying them."
"New characters will be released one by one. And when everyone’s strong, no one will be. You just have to maintain a dynamic balance in the meta. But that’s a problem for a few years down the line."
It was a strange phenomenon. Although players "affectionately" referred to *Three Kingdoms Kill* as "that garbage card game," cursed out the developers daily, and flooded it with negative reviews, their advice to any newcomer was always, "Don’t play it."
And yet, its revenue was excellent. It would even spike from time to time, and the game had an extremely long lifespan. Perhaps it was a special kind of mutual devotion.
’I can milk this for at least twenty or thirty years,’ Zog calculated.
"But for now, your job is to polish the current version of *Ferin Chronicles*. If all goes well, we’ll launch it in three months."
By then, the first wave of hype for *Yu-Gi-Oh!* should have died down. Even though they’re completely different types of card games, avoiding a scheduling conflict will maximize profits.
"Any questions?"
"None," Ben and Hakan replied, shaking their heads in a daze.
"Good. What was it you said over a year ago? ’If you ever find yourself out of a job, you’re welcome to come work at my shop.’"
Zog, of course, remembered who Hakan was.
"In that case, welcome. Ackley’s Toy Store will now become the Zog Group’s dedicated board game design studio. I have many more ideas that can be turned into board games in the future."
