To ascend, I had no choice but to create games - Chapter 34:
Chapter 34: Chapter 34 Gambler_l
Translator: 549690339
The day after the game was completed, Fang Cheng returned to his own studio with the game.
He watered his Spirit Grass and compressed and stored the Spiritual Energy he brought back into the spiritual soil.
In this way, the Spirit Grass would slowly release Spiritual Energy, allowing his own employees to breathe in the fresh Spiritual Energy.
After all, what’s good for the employees is truly good, and it is the duty of a good boss to maintain the health of his employees as best as possible.
At 9:30 in the morning, Xu singling walked into the company lethargically but perked up immediately upon seeing Fang Cheng.
She quickly walked over, then straightened her face, frowned, and asked, “Boss, where have you been these past three days?
“Working overtime, developing the game.”
“Boss, originally you were the one who said no to working overtime. What does it mean for you to break your own rule? Don’t do that again.”
“Certainly not next time.”
After calming Xu Qingling and Xiao Douzi, who arrived later, Fang Cheng took out two USB flash drives and handed them to the two.
“This is the new game I’ve developed. Play it and then tell me what you think.”
Making a game isn’t hard, but stuffing things into it is a nuisance.
A bunch of miscellaneous things have to be packaged into the installer, and one must pay attention to naming the files, which can be a very tedious task.
Sadly, it’s not the kind of job you can just hand off to someone else; Fang Cheng had to do it himself.
Upon seeing the game Fang Cheng had provided, Xiao Douzi’s nostrils flared, his breathing hastened, and the capillaries in his eyes began to swell, entering a highly excited state.
He quickly went to wash his hands, then came back, took the flash drive reverently in his hands, plugged it into the computer, and was momentarily taken aback by the size of the game.
800MB!
That’s substantial!
Had the boss abandoned his previous method of game development, or was the mechanism of this game not suited to the former compression method?
These questions were quickly discarded by Xiao Douzi as he immediately launched the game and started to immerse himself in it.
The name of the game was very simple and very much in line with Fang Cheng’s taste: “Quiet Cultivation.”
Upon loading the game, Xiao Douzi sat up straight, his shoulders tightened, he focused intensely, remaining motionless as he stared at the screen in front of him and began to play wholeheartedly.
Just like before, Xiao Douzi didn’t say a word throughout the process; only shadows flickered on his 400-degree lenses from the game’s visuals.
Xu Qingling was also playing this game.
However, unlike Xiao Douzi, she kept asking various questions while playing and would continue after getting answers.
In Xu Qingling’s eyes, the game had nice scenery, and the meditating effect after finding a Spirit Point was quite good, although she’d get killed by Gang Wind in less than an hour. But as a sightseeing simulator, it was not bad.
Moreover, every time she restarted, the scenery loaded was different: sometimes sea islands, sometimes dangerous volcanoes, and sometimes dense forests full of various animals.
After experiencing several locations, Xu Qingling, though unclear about the game’s playability, still felt it made for a pretty good sightseeing app.
The test version lacked the feature where a single surviving player would win, so Xu Qingling was invariably killed by the increasingly strong Gang Wind, but she didn’t feel too down about dying.
After finishing the game, she thoughtfully recalled her experience before saying to Fang Cheng, who was awaiting her feedback, “I’m not sure if the game is fun, but I think the feeling after meditating is quite good.” “Really?” Fang Cheng was a bit happy, “Whyisthat?”
“I really liked the scenery inside. After meditating, I would occasionally gain the ability to soar, which allowed me to see farther and better scenes. The Gang Wind is a bit annoying, but also kind of novel. Boss, were you aiming to create a sightseeing game this time?”
Although Xu Qingling’s view differed from what he intended to create, it was still somewhat related to meditation.
Fang Cheng didn’t expect his ideas to align with the players’ instantly, but as long as there was a bit of progress each time, that was very good.
Therefore, he gave Xu Qingling an encouraging smile, which instantly made her head spin.
After sending off the girl dazzled by his smile, he turned to Xiao Douzi, who also finished the game and was now deep in thought, and asked, “Xiao Douzi, what do you think?”
“I also liked the meditation.”
“Really? Why!”
“Randomness and anticipation, each time the enhancements you get are different, this makes the game full of variables. And I suggest that Spirit Points should also have levels, with higher-level Spirit Points yielding higher quality Cultivation Techniques. That would make high-level Spirit Points more attractive to players.”
“That’s a good idea, then what?”
“Gang Wind is a good feature… Boss, the game doesn’t end with just Gang
Wind, does it?”
Looking at Xiao Douzi, Fang Cheng felt quite pleased, “That’s right, the real condition is that the player who lasts until the end wins.”
“I see, I get it now.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, Xiao Douzi said to Fang Cheng, “I understand how this game works now, meditation and competition, right?
Fang Cheng thought for a moment, the part where it was a test of patience could indeed be considered competition.
Although the competition was somewhat different from what he originally wanted to convey, it was still within an acceptable range.
So, he straightforwardly nodded and said, “You could understand it that way.” “Then my abilities aren’t up to par. I can adjust the numbers in the game, but this game relies heavily on gameplay, and it needs someone specifically in charge of that. So, I suggest that Boss recruit another person, who should be an experienced game designer who has lingered in the game industry for many years and is familiar with all departments.
“You mean… a lead designer?”
“As expected of the boss, you’re right!”
Fang Cheng tilted his head and thought for a moment, feeling that Xiao Douzi was right.
He could shape a planet to his liking, but he still lacked in many areas.
Realism does not always equate to game enjoyment; sometimes, to make a game fun, you even need to strip away some of that realism for exaggerated, humorous, or exhilarating effects.
Therefore, he needed an experienced lead designer to help him adjust the game so that he could express his ideas more accurately.
Letting Xiao Douzi start adjusting the numbers, Fang Cheng glanced at Xu Qingling, who had just snapped out of her charm and began to draft the recruitment advertisement according to Fang Cheng’s requirements.
The studio’s previous game “Princess Dungeon” was still generating steady profits, with sales momentum of 200,000 copies showing no decline, which gave the studio the financial means to survive.
Relying on this capital, they could hire more employees and thus produce better games.
However, a qualified lead designer was hard to find, and Fang Cheng wanted an excellent one which made it even harder.
But by calculating, Fang Cheng knew that the ideal lead designer would appear before long, and all he needed to do was to wait patiently.
While Fang Cheng was leisurely waiting for a lead designer, the opposing Kongkong Studio had already started an unprecedented overtime flurry. KongKong clearly couldn’t let go of “King’s Dungeon”, this obsession partly came from sunk costs, and partly from the resentment of being defeated by a youngster.
In his eyes, Fang Cheng wasn’t shooting blindly but had taken aim at his game and fired a cold shot, using despicable means to steal his players, leading him to an unprecedented major failure.
Since it was a sneak attack, then surely, his opponents couldn’t beat his team of experienced and seasoned employees.
just let them work overtime for half a month, and they could definitely create a more outstanding PvP system.
The planners, artists, and programmers started to work without breaks, spending twenty-four hours a day in Tianyi, not leaving until the PvP was done!
The performance bonuses were temporarily suspended, to be issued once the PvP was completed!
There had to be morning and evening meetings every day, where everyone had to publicly declare what they had done that day, how the work progress was advancing, and the one with the poorest performance had to do push-ups in front of the group.
The member contributing the least would occasionally be called into the office for a scolding, and always left with clenched fists, the corners of their eyes red with emotion.
More than one team member, due to overwhelming stress, hid in the bathroom and wept, but by now, KongKong had become a gambler, caring for nothing else.
With bloodshot eyes, he went all-in and then charged at Fang Cheng Studio. The PvP system had become his last straw, his final hope.
Beyond that, he wanted nothing else.
Nothing else at all!