Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 43: Art Resources Are All Blown In by the Wind

Chapter 43: Chapter 43: Art Resources Are All Blown In by the Wind

The most spirited "striver" on the team right now would have to be Zhou Yang.

In the game industry, different professions have different ways of bargaining when job hopping.

For artists and programmers, they have very clear negotiating standards when changing jobs. For example, artists let their works do the talking—either it looks good or it doesn’t; while whether a programmer’s code is good or not might not be obvious to a layman, anyone with technical knowledge can distinguish easily.

But planners are different.

There are no concrete standards to judge a planner’s abilities. So what if a game planning document is well-organized and logically sound? At best, it just makes the developers’ job a bit more comfortable, spare them a couple of questions, but whether these designs will be successful is anyone’s guess.

Therefore, the most important criterion within the industry for assessing a planner’s capability is "experience with successful projects."

Even a game planner with no real ability can easily land a high salary when job hopping, as long as they have experience with successful projects.

It’s irrational, but that’s the reality of the industry.

So Zhou Yang joining Heaven Defying Game can be described as "resolute," and he would still be willing to come even at a significant pay cut. Because as long as he takes part in a few successful game projects here, his salary and benefits could climb several steps when he hops to the next job!

The others were not nearly as enthusiastic as Zhou Yang, especially the two senior programmers, who would not have come here if they had better options.

And why were these capable senior programmers laid off, one might ask?

Of course, it’s because the more skilled you are, the easier it is to be laid off...

In Gu Fan’s past life, a top game company in the industry laid off seven thousand people in one go, with the vast majority of those dismissed being hardworking programmers, while the bloated administrative and HR departments remained almost unchanged.

The "cutting costs and increasing efficiency" mantra of the big companies was definitely not just talk.

In any case, Gu Fan was quite satisfied with this team, even though everyone lacked fighting spirit, which was something he had no particular demand for to begin with.

It’s okay if you’re not familiar with each other, as the team will bond over making the game together.

"This is the game we’re going to develop next."

As he spoke, Gu Fan distributed the design document for Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon that he had printed ahead of time to everyone.

Upon seeing this design document, everyone had different expressions on their faces.

The back-end programmer, Zhao Haiquan, looked the most relaxed because, after flipping through it from beginning to end, he found nothing that related to his own work...

This game was clearly a single-player game, and since there was no online gameplay for the time being, he had no related development tasks.

His job was still only about maintaining the limited online functionalities of Infernal Trajectory, Sisyphus, and Against Heaven Blocks, which could practically be referred to as a vacation.

Of course, according to the work plan, he was also responsible for fine-tuning the AI of the NPCs in the game to make their behavior and speech more in line with the Three Kingdoms settings, which involved feeding a large amount of data for the AI to learn from repeatedly.

But even this task wasn’t too burdensome for Zhao Haiquan; it was something he could handle with ease.

The front-end programmer, Feng Hui, also showed little emotion, as Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon was not large in scope and did not have any particularly complex functionalities to work on. Plus, he was developing it alongside Gu Fan, so the workload was totally manageable.

The art director, Guo Hongyu, wore a slightly grave expression because this game required a considerable amount of art resources. In particular, outsourcing the original drafts and character designs of the 200 or so generals was part of his job.

At the moment, Guo Hongyu was unclear on how to manage these art resources. Given that the previous three games from Heaven Defying had decent art, there should be a fixed outsourcing company, right? Does he need to interface with this company?

He would need to talk to President Gu about this later.

As for the executive planner, Zhou Yang, his expression was the most complex.

Being the only game planner in the company, he was also the only one who cared about the game’s content and gameplay.

The design plan could only be described in one sentence.

He didn’t understand it, but he was greatly impressed!

...

The executive planner, also known as a "spreadsheet planner," is, as the name suggests, primarily responsible for lower-level tasks like filling in data, using editors, and pushing programmers to keep up with the schedule.

That’s why Zhou Yang was quite clear about his role at Heaven Defying Game.

Before coming here, Zhou Yang had studied the three games Heaven Defying was currently developing: Infernal Trajectory, Sisyphus, and Against Heaven Blocks.

At the time, he felt that these games had taken an unconventional approach to the extreme!

But no matter how unorthodox his path, he was still able to roughly understand the design philosophy of these games through postmortem analysis.

For instance, "Infernal Trajectory"’s main selling point was incorporating "Bullet Bending" into a conventional FPS game, Sisyphus created a sensation by tormenting streamers for viral promotion, and "Against Heaven Blocks" breathed new life into a classic old game by introducing a fresh operation like "T-Spin."

These approaches, in hindsight, were indeed cause for admiration.

If Zhou Yang had to come up with these ideas himself, he definitely couldn’t have done it.

That’s why Zhou Yang had unhesitatingly taken a pay cut to join Heaven Defying Games, hoping to learn top-notch game design ideas here and pave the way for his future career.

However, even having studied the previous games and prepared himself mentally, "Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon" still completely exceeded his comprehension and left him very puzzled.

Can this game... really succeed?

At least the previous games had some traces of successful ones, but this game was completely wild and unrecognizable.

What was crucial was that Zhou Yang couldn’t see any potential for this game to take off!

Take the previous three games, each had its own features, like "Infernal Trajectory"’s "Bullet Bending," Sisyphus’s "Rolling Stone Acceleration" and "Dragon Flap Wings," or "Against Heaven Blocks"’s "T-Spin."

But what about "Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon"?

"Wolong Strategy"?

But this mechanic seemed all too common and nowhere near the level of completely altering the gameplay like "Bullet Bending" or "Dragon Flap Wings."

At that moment, Zhou Yang felt as if he had ants crawling all over him, a feeling that couldn’t be adequately described as heart-wrenching.

He was so eager to ask!

But Zhou Yang stole glances at Gu Fan and, in the end, decided to keep silent for now, as the current situation was delicate, and being new to the company, he wanted to avoid asking too many questions that might irritate his colleagues.

It would perhaps be better to wait until President Gu had some free time to tactfully ask!

...

And so, the development work for "Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon" was quickly and smoothly assigned, with no one raising objections.

After all, the design was too clear, and the division of labor was too explicit; there wasn’t much need for dispute.

The development time for this game was ultimately set for one month.

From a development difficulty standpoint, this game was a bit more challenging than Sisyphus.

Because the majority of the features in "Destiny of the Sleeping Dragon" were Lilith’s original designs, there were no existing templates to apply.

However, fortunately, the company already had three experienced programmers and a jack-of-all-trades planner like Zhou Yang, which made the development speed much faster compared to before.

Soon, everyone began to get busy with their respective tasks.

All office computers were newly purchased notebooks, uniformly chosen to facilitate future relocation.

The configuration was not particularly high-end, just sufficient to complete day-to-day tasks; one couldn’t expect much more.

Though small, the company had everything it needed; in addition to the backend website required for testing, internal communication tools and SVN (version control system) were also quickly set up.

Just as Gu Fan was about to start working, the art team leader Guo Hongyu approached him.

"President Gu, I have a question.

"Our company should have a long-term cooperation with an outsourced art company, right? So for this game’s art resources, should I be in charge of coordinating with that company?

"And for the corresponding art documentation, should I produce it, or should the planners do that?"

Based on his work experience, Guo Hongyu asked several critical questions in succession.

To his surprise, Gu Fan’s response was quite unexpected, "Oh, our art resources are like the wind that blows them in or grows from the ground by themselves; you don’t have to worry about it at all.

"By the time game development begins, these necessary art resources will definitely be provided.

"Your main job will be to adjust the format of the art resources when they arrive and organize them into the editor for easy access.

"If you have nothing to do before that, you can also draw a few original pieces for your own amusement."