As for ship-girl games, Kamiyā Yuu had always harbored a thought he never voiced aloud. It was precisely because of this thought that he hadn't immediately gotten into the hugely famous ACG title 'Kantai Collection'.
Long ago, he had already learned about the game through fan comics of 'Kantai Collection'. But when he wanted to dive into the fandom, he discovered a setting so absurdly worthy of ridicule that he gave up exploring further.
What the hell was this combination of ship equipment and girls supposed to be?
How exactly were shells loaded and fired under such a setting?
How did ship girls wearing ship rigging actually fight?
Were ship girls' bodies the same as normal humans, or were they dozens of meters tall?
Just imagining the scene of manually loading ammunition was enough for Kamiyā Yuu to feel the image was too horrifyingly beautiful to witness directly.
Only after later accepting the philosophy of "if you take it seriously, you lose" did he stop caring about the setting.
As long as the game was fun and the illustrations were enjoyable to admire, who cared about the rest?
Now that he finally had the opportunity, Kamiyā Yuu felt it was necessary to revise this ridiculous setting.
That raised the question:
Was there a way to preserve the ship-rigging concept while also making this anti-logical setting feel reasonable?
Yes!
Kamiyā Yuu planned to use a setting similar to the Mental Models from 'Arpeggio of Blue Steel', separating the steel warships used in combat from the ship-girl forms.
The actual fighting would be done by the real steel warships, while the ship girls would exist as Mental Models capable of controlling those warships.
This way, the ship-girl character designs could be preserved while also making the combat setting logical.
When the warship itself suffered damage, the ship girl acting as the Mental Model would display corresponding damage states as well. Under this setup, even the classic heavily damaged clothing-destruction trope wouldn't feel too out of place.
This modification also made settings like ship repairs, equipment replacement, and ship construction much more reasonable.
The impact on character design was enormous, too.
Besides the ship-girl designs themselves, Kamiyā Yuu would also need to depict the actual warships as backgrounds.
Just imagine a cute ship girl standing atop a massive 460mm naval cannon over twenty meters long. When she attacked, shells dozens of centimeters thick would roar out from the gun barrels, and the terrifying recoil alone would send waves rippling across the ocean.
What a magnificent scene.
The setting revision was also partially made in preparation for a future anime adaptation.
Both involved the combination of giant cannons and cute girls, yet while the 'Kantai Collection' anime endlessly fed viewers garbage, another series became a miraculous sales legend for original anime after 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'—
'Girls und Panzer'.
The combination of steel artillery and cute girls—
That was the true romance of men!
"There's definitely room to optimize and improve the gameplay too."
Kamiyā Yuu internally grumbled a little.
The original game belonged to the casual game genre. Once players had been around long enough, veteran players basically entered a "grass growing in the harbor" idle state aside from collecting new encyclopedia entries and participating in events.
Even as a player himself, Kamiyā Yuu could easily spot numerous areas that could be improved. Yet somehow, the official developers stubbornly allowed this boring late-game gameplay loop to continue indefinitely.
Back in his previous world, he had encountered the same problem while playing 'Warship Girls R'.
Once veteran players had essentially "graduated," there was barely anything left to do. Then, whenever a new map or event appeared, they would grind for a day or two before returning to another long period of stagnation.
At one point, he had even become too lazy to log back in for new events.
Construction-and-raising games relied on a steady, flowing progression.
If you couldn't create a river without an end in sight, then create a gameplay system where the water endlessly circulates.
At its core, game systems revolved around the flow and consumption of resources in exchange for rewards.
If one wanted to extend a game's lifespan, then controlling that exchange point was essential.
Construction events and new maps existed precisely because game developers wanted to control that cycle.
Extending a game's lifespan was simple:
Create several bottomless pits that devour game resources.
No matter how many resources players poured in, they would never be able to obtain everything.
This would encourage them to continuously invest resources, forming an endless cycle.
The process could then be adjusted through rewards to satisfy players psychologically.
Invest resources > obtain rewards > desire more > invest resources > obtain rewards > still unsatisfied...
Rare equipment, skins, ship girls, and even small miscellaneous items could all be used as rewards.
Neither 'Kantai Collection' nor 'Warship Girls R' had done a sufficiently good job in this regard, even though both had systems like equipment upgrades, remodeling, affection systems, and costume systems.
Ironically, a game that wasn't even in the construction-and-raising genre had mastered this gameplay philosophy perfectly—
'Dungeon & Fighter'.
Also commonly known as the endlessly addictive "Poisoned Milk Powder."
For example, one could simply reskin the Abyss Mode from 'Dungeon & Fighter' and apply it to a ship-girl game:
"Failed large-scale constructions or dismantling rare ships may produce a byproduct—Unawakened Primordial Power. By using a certain amount of this resource, players can attract Abyssal Deep Sea Warships and enter Abyss Mode within normal maps. Enemy numbers and strength will increase dramatically, but defeating them grants rare rewards."
At the same time, this unique resource could be used for additional mechanics.
For instance, newly constructed ships might initially lack Mental Models. Only by consuming a sufficient amount of this resource could players grant a ship its Mental Model.
Conveniently, this could also prevent certain emotionally fragile players from overthinking weird implications.
Where did ship girls come from?
What happened after the ship girls were dismantled?
Back in his previous world, Kamiyā Yuu had seen fan comics where rows of identical destroyer ship girls sat trembling on conveyor belts. At the end of the belt stood an automated canning machine. Terrified ship girls were fed inside and emerged as canned food before becoming meals for some gluttonous aircraft carrier.
The more one thought about it, the more horrifying it became.
By distinguishing between warships with Mental Models and those without, additional gameplay differences could also be introduced.
Warships without Mental Models could not be directly controlled and lacked sinking protection.
Warships with Mental Models would gain enhanced overall capabilities, become controllable, and receive sinking protection. As long as they didn't advance while heavily damaged, they wouldn't sink, and so on.
Just like that, one of the resource-draining bottomless pits had been completed. √
"As for the background world, I might as well set it in another world entirely. Admirals would be humans summoned into that alternate world."
"Then maybe add a Deep Sea Admiral mode and create a plunder battlefield. Players who voluntarily participate could fight each other online. The winner could choose any one ship from the loser's fleet, or the loser could pay resources equivalent to the ship's value."
Kamiyā Yuu maliciously imagined the possibilities as his imagination spiraled wildly.
"At that point, would players start screaming, 'Stop! This isn't a duel at all!'?"
"The idea's worth trying, but there's no way something like that could be implemented during the game's early development. Besides, I'm not interested in messing around with all that right now."
Suddenly snapping out of his own imaginative brainstorming, Kamiyā Yuu hurriedly refocused his attention on the ship-girl concept sketches before him.
"Ah, no good, no good. Right now, I should focus on drawing the ship-girl character designs first. It'd be more appropriate to think about gameplay improvements inside the consciousness space later."