Chapter 19: The Cost of Perfect Balance

Fantasy Life is an action, adventure, survival, crafting, RPG, and defense game.

The core fun lies in gathering resources and building bases.

Players build their own base and fiercely fight to protect it.

And before they know it, they become emotionally attached to the base.

In other words, the creator of Fantasy Life is a ruthless mastermind who manipulates players by using their beloved bases.

“You’re the developer, right?”

“Actually, Fantasy Life was created by one of my other personalities.”

“You have multiple personalities?”

“Sometimes, three.”

Chatting with Bunnyrun, I completed the base.

In real estate, location is everything. A single block difference can drive up prices several times.

So, I built our base in the best location possible.

Right near a mine, where minerals are abundant. While this made it harder to access water, these types of games let you gather hundreds of resources in an instant as you progress.

Choosing a location with the future in mind was the way to go.

As soon as we completed the base—built with a mix of stone and wood—the sky turned crimson.

The wave had begun, and Bunnyrun sprang into action.

I grabbed my weapon and headed outside the base.

The first wave was a pack of four-eyed wild dogs—beasts corrupted by demonic energy.

As with any defense game, the first wave is designed to be manageable.

Breaking an incomplete base would leave players with no sense of accomplishment.

“We stopped them, Sis!”

“Good job.”

After taking down the pack of wild dogs, Bunnyrun jumped up and down, mashing the spacebar.

She was clearly having a blast.

Seeing her this excited already, I couldn’t imagine how much more she’d enjoy the later stages.

I asked Bunnyrun to gather resources while I focused on strengthening the base.

After checking the available base upgrades, I muttered softly to myself.

“Why does this game have so many tech trees? If each magic branch has its own distinct style, there are way too many combinations to experiment with. And after all this, you’re not telling me it’s going to be unbalanced, forcing players to rely on just one optimal tech path, are you?”

Why are you asking us, you crazy woman?

You made this game, didn’t you? Or are you losing your mind?

“I told you already—it’s a game developed by one of my other personalities.”

Oh, so that’s the lore now?

When we played Excel Busters, wasn’t amnesia part of the story? Haha.

“I have amnesia too.”

I started thinking carefully: which tech tree would be the most effective to invest in?

There’s no such thing as a perfectly balanced game.

Even DOTA 2, at one point hailed for its near-perfect balance by a brilliant director, had overpowered and underpowered characters.

No matter how well I balanced Fantasy Life, there would inevitably be top-tier and bottom-tier tech paths.

The real challenge lies in minimizing that gap—making the imbalance tolerable. But completely eliminating overpowered strategies? Impossible.

“Should I just ignore the dark magic branch?”

In truth, figuring out the best tech path in a game like this is straightforward: you just have to try everything.

But since I was playing with Bunnyrun, I couldn’t spend all that time experimenting.

That’s where intuition mattered.

I had to rely on my “gamer instincts” to predict which tech tree would give us the upper hand.

Games evolve by influencing one another—that’s how genres grow.

Assuming Fantasy Life had drawn inspiration from other games, it made sense to skip the dark magic branch.

Dark magic typically demands heavy sacrifices—life force, offerings, or a piece of the future—granting immense power in return.

This isn’t a bad thing since it guarantees tangible rewards.

But the problem with such a path is that the risks are just as certain.

In games, the abilities labeled as “Tier 0” provide immense returns with minimal risk—that’s what makes them broken. Since dark magic comes with inherent risks from the start, it’s hard for it to achieve Tier 0 status.

Sure, there are times when developers surprise players by making dark magic incredibly powerful, but I decided to skip it for now. I could always explore it later.

The remaining options were summoning magic, holy magic, and elemental magic.

Given the game’s lore, holy magic seemed appropriate. However, for versatility, elemental magic was likely the better choice…

“Hey, unnie!”

I turned my gaze toward Bunnyrun, who had suddenly called out. She had already gathered resources and was searching for the most suitable magic, following my lead.

“Look at this summoned spirit—it’s adorable! Did you design it?”

“A true super-developer creates everything on their own. Of course, I made it.”

“There are so many cute designs among the spirits. I love cute things.”

“I know. That’s why your avatar is cute, even though you don’t act like it.”

“I told you I don’t smoke.”

“That never came up.”

While summoning magic looked easy and convenient, its ceiling wasn’t particularly high, so I wasn’t entirely sold on it…

“This water spirit is so beautiful!”

“Let’s go with summoning magic, then.”

As a game developer, my goal is to make the players happy. If Bunnyrun wanted summoning magic, then summoning magic it would be.

After all, I brought this game so we could enjoy it together. There was no reason to insist on my preferences now.

I etched a magic circle into the core mana stone of our base, activating the protection of the summoned spirits over it.

“Try summoning something.”

“I’ll start with the water spirit.”

With a quick command, a small spirit resembling a young girl materialized with a pop.

Intrigued, Bunnyrun reached out toward the spirit, who giggled and swirled playfully through the air.

Mesmerized by the spirit’s dynamic behavior, Bunnyrun’s eyes widened in surprise.

“It can do that?”

“AI just needs lots of varied outputs in response to interactions. That kind of grind work is my specialty.”

“That must’ve taken forever.”

“Not really. It only takes me about 10 seconds now—I’ve gotten used to it.”

Bunnyrun continued poking at the water spirit, her expression softening.

“It feels alive.”

“The developer probably wanted it to feel that way. That’s how you make players care.”

“Are you going to stick with that whole ‘multiple personalities’ bit?”

I inspected the water spirit’s abilities: purification, healing, and water production.

Although the water spirit lacked combat abilities, having an endless supply of water for survival was a welcome benefit. As expected, resources like water and food would eventually be obtainable with just a click. Positioning near the mine was indeed the right choice.

However, this left us with insufficient firepower, and I needed something to compensate for it.

After a brief thought, I summoned a fire spirit. In most games, fire spirits handle offense. Even in Eternal World, the world’s top game, Thierry’s area-of-effect abilities relied on fire elements. So, this seemed like a logical assumption.

A fire spirit resembling a small lizard flicked its tongue and perched on my shoulder.

Just then, the sky turned crimson—it was time for the second wave. This was the perfect chance to test the fire spirit’s strength.

I stepped out of the base and saw monsters approaching from the distance.

As soon as the fire spirit saw the enemies enter its range, it unleashed a powerful burst of fire. The fire spirit performed remarkably well, taking down nearly half the monsters on its own, leaving me wondering if it might be a bit too strong.

“Let’s set up spirit towers too.”

“What materials do we need?”

“Magical engineering components and iron.”

A spirit tower enhances a spirit’s power, allowing it to intercept enemies with amplified force. With these towers, we could easily fend off ordinary waves for the time being.

“Let’s summon higher-tier spirits too. To summon mid-tier ones, we’ll need spirit stones, which are deep inside the mine.”

Since we already had an automated defense system in place, we could leave the base temporarily. To be efficient, Bunnyrun and I dove into the mine, furiously gathering resources.

“Unnie, look at this!”

Bunnyrun proudly showed off the water spirit, which had now evolved into a mid-tier form, looking slightly more mature.

Thanks to the bond system we had in place, the spirit leveled up whenever Bunnyrun gained experience.

“Get ready. The boss is coming soon—stay sharp.”

Using the spirit stones we had collected, I reinforced the base and summoned high-tier spirits. We also built additional towers and expanded the walls, ensuring even if the front lines broke, the barriers would hold off the enemy.

The sky darkened ominously.

Thud. The ground shook as the boss appeared—a baron-class demon. I gripped my sword tightly, swallowing nervously.

Roar! The baron let out a terrifying cry, sending the monsters into a frenzy. In its hand was a massive sword engulfed in flames.

With a mighty stomp, the baron charged toward our base, causing tremors with each step.

And then, the spirits unleashed their full power.

What followed was a massacre, one too brutal to watch.

The cannon fodder monsters shredded like paper, which was expected—those kinds of enemies should fall easily for the game to be fun.

But the boss?

The boss didn’t even last 20 seconds before it melted away.

This wasn’t right.

A boss shouldn’t go down this easily.

It seemed like this game was going too smoothly.

At first, I thought spirit stones were supposed to appear so frequently while mining. But judging from the spirits’ overwhelming performance, it was clear that this wasn’t the intended drop rate.

Realistically, we should have only found a fraction of the stones we did to maintain proper balance.

What now?

Tower defense games also suffer if there’s no sense of challenge. Sure, once everything is automated later on, it’s normal for the sense of crisis to fade, but if that happens right from the start, it means the game was poorly designed.

A hotfix is necessary.

Since I couldn’t rework the game right now, I had to find another way to adjust things.

I enabled admin mode.

Currently, the game’s difficulty was set to “Normal.” If I bumped it up to “Hard,” it should provide a balance that was both challenging and enjoyable.

After setting the difficulty to Hard, I disabled admin mode.

This should make the game more fun for Bunnyrun.

Riding on a dragon soaring through the sky, I wielded a holy sword and unleashed a skill. A burst of starlight pierced the dragon’s heart, sending it crashing down.

After dismounting from the lifeless dragon, I awkwardly made my way back to the base.

Inside the wrecked base, Bunnyrun stood silently, staring down.

Curious, I shifted my view to see what Bunnyrun was looking at.

The high-tier water spirit lay motionless at her feet.

“I didn’t expect Hard mode to be this hard.”

“……”

Hearing a sniffle, I quietly re-enabled admin mode.

With a sigh, I rolled back the stage and lowered the difficulty back to Normal.

As I worked, a thought crossed my mind.

I’d said before that the developers of Fantasy Life were heartless enough to use someone’s beloved spirit to manipulate them.

They really made these spirits feel alive… just so players would feel even worse when they died.

This is messed up.

Seriously, what kind of person would design something like this?