Chapter 1 Ye Zhizhou Examines the Notes

Ye Zhizhou looked at the notes in his notebook.

It felt… like all the directions they'd agreed upon had been completely reversed.

It seemed that apart from the "reverse" aspect, there was nothing else new…

"Could this be President Pei's exclusive secret to always making successful games?"

"Summarizing all the characteristics of conventional games on the market, and then deliberately going against them to create an unprecedented sense of novelty for players?"

"Uh…"

Ye Zhizhou felt that this idea was a bit outrageous, feeling that it was not only insulting President Pei but also insulting himself.

If it were that easy to succeed, why would he rack his brains every day thinking about what kind of games to make?

But after carefully looking at these points, Ye Zhizhou discovered new problems.

Some key points, when reversed, led to very absurd results.

For example, President Pei required them to make an online horror game.

How the hell were they supposed to do that!

Two people, or even more, playing a horror game together? How could it still be scary?

There seemed to be no similar cases on the market at all?

But then again, maybe it was precisely because there were no similar cases on the market that the game would seem novel enough? And generate enough buzz?

Ye Zhizhou unconsciously fell into a vortex of brain-storming, with many thoughts constantly swirling in his mind, making him a little dizzy.

Wang Xiaobin was also obviously dizzy.

He felt that according to President Pei's instructions, this game was impossible to make.

Because he had never seen a similar game, how could he make it?

"President Pei, can you give us a few more hints?"

Pei Qian chuckled inwardly.

Give you more hints?

There was no way he was going to give them hints; they could figure it out themselves. He would be more than happy if they lost money on the game.

Just as Pei Qian was about to refuse, Lin Wan spoke up.

"It's already enough. President Pei has already set the general direction for us; the profound meaning of the game is in these few hints."

"Combine these hints with your recent gaming experiences and carefully ponder them. You need to have the ability to think independently and not always be like a baby bird, waiting for President Pei to feed you."

Pei Qian: "…"

Well done, Director Lin!

You spoke my mind.

Wang Xiaobin lowered his head, feeling a little ashamed.

That's right, President Pei had already finalized the general direction; could it be that they couldn't even handle these minor details? That would be too unworthy of their identities as designers!

"Then we'll go think about new ideas." Wang Xiaobin and Ye Zhizhou returned to their respective workstations and began to work busily.

Pei Qian, on the other hand, kept Lin Wan behind, wanting to briefly discuss the matter of Otto Technologies.

Pei Qian had already briefly mentioned to Lin Wan his arrangements for Chang You's position, but that was over the phone, and the conversation was relatively brief.

Now, Pei Qian planned to spend a few minutes to discuss it in more depth.

After all, Lin Wan was the nominal director of Otto Technologies, with a higher rank than Chang You.

If Lin Wan completely let go of Otto Technologies, even if the phone was a flop, Lin Wan wouldn't feel too much frustration, let alone leave Tengda and go back to inherit the family business.

Pei Qian's ultimate goal was to make Lin Wan also make "important contributions" to the development of Otto Technologies, so that when the product flopped, Lin Wan would also deeply feel that she wasn't cut out for it, and coupled with the failure of Shang Yang Games, Lin Wan would naturally feel disheartened.

"Regarding this Chang You, I know that there are many negative speculations about him in society, especially in the industry, but…"

Pei Qian was a little worried that if Lin Wan and Chang You didn't get along, and when the phone flopped, Lin Wan would push all the blame onto Chang You, then he still wouldn't be able to achieve the goal of getting her to go back and inherit the family business.

Lin Wan shook her head slightly: "President Pei, you don't have to worry."

"Since he's someone you value, I believe he must have some outstanding qualities."

"Now is the era of the Internet, an era of information explosion, and also an era of unprecedented information scarcity."

"On the Internet, rumors can spread around the world overnight; however, the voice of clarification is also on the Internet, but no one cares."

"Similarly, on the Internet, 'black material' about a person can spread like wildfire overnight, and many people think they understand a person after seeing some things online."

"But the real him is obscured by the information on the Internet."

"Although I don't agree with many of my father's views, he has always emphasized that the Internet is not omnipotent, and too much information can actually make people blind. I agree with this point."

"I believe that President Pei has his own considerations in choosing Director Chang as the person in charge of Otto Technologies."

"Since President Pei trusts him, then I will definitely trust him as well."

Pei Qian was speechless for a moment.

He hadn't even said anything yet, and Lin Wan had already said all the nice things.

"Well… that's certainly the best."

"However, as a director, you are also indispensable in Otto Technologies; don't think of yourself as an outsider."

Pei Qian was implying to Lin Wan that she should get more involved in the phone business and appropriately increase her sense of participation.

This way, when the phone flopped, Lin Wan would naturally have the idea of "taking the blame" and want to go back and inherit the family business even more.

Lin Wan nodded: "President Pei, don't worry, I will supervise them without excessively interfering with Otto Technologies' established development policies, ensuring that the general direction of their development is in line with the spirit of Tengda and fulfilling my due responsibilities."

Pei Qian was very satisfied with this, feeling that his employees were all mysteriously cooperative, and everything was under his control.

…

After watching President Pei leave, Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin returned to their workstations and began to scratch their heads.

Too difficult!

President Pei had given them so many constraints; how could they make this game?

Just the "online game" aspect alone was difficult enough, let alone the explicit requirement not to have a plot, ghosts, or a strong weapon system.

They were completely at a loss.

Before, the two of them had indeed received tasks from President Pei, but the tasks were often very simple.

For example, President Pei asked them to cut off all the recharge points in *Hot-Blooded Battle Song*, leaving only the most basic one. Ye Zhizhou thought for a long time and came up with a "Chosen System."

This was because the game itself already had a very complete framework, and Ye Zhizhou was only making small modifications to this framework.

It was the same when they later made the mobile version of *Hot-Blooded Battle Song*. The basic structure remained unchanged; it was still the familiar set of things, so it was easy to do.

But this time was different.

Horror games and single-player games were all areas that they had never ventured into, and President Pei's direction was very vague, so they were naturally a bit at a loss.

Left with no choice, the two of them looked to Lin Wan.

In terms of inferring President Pei's intentions, everyone at Shang Yang Games was a nobody.

"Director Lin, please help us think about it too. What kind of game does President Pei want us to make?"

Lin Wan casually pulled a chair from the side and sat down, pondered for a moment, and said, "Actually, I'm just a beginner in terms of inferring President Pei's intentions, and I'm still far behind some seniors."

"However, I have indeed learned something from Bao Xu."

"I can share it with you."

Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin hurriedly took out their notebooks and listened attentively.

Here it comes, the main point!

What was the core competitiveness of working at Tengda?

It was the ability to infer President Pei's intentions!

As the helmsman of the entire Tengda Group, President Pei had always been visionary and far-sighted, while his grasp of the market and player psychology was also exquisitely perfect.

When President Pei assigned tasks to everyone to make a game, he often had a thorough understanding of the final form of the game, the market feedback, and so on.

Therefore, whether this project could be done well depended on how deeply everyone understood President Pei's intentions.

And now, Director Lin was sharing with everyone the way to infer President Pei's intentions, which was undoubtedly sharing a treasure!

Lin Wan recalled the days when she worked in the Tengda Games Department, thinking of Bao Xu's many interpretations of President Pei, and she had long wanted to summarize all this content. Now, there was this opportunity.

"First of all, it's important to determine that President Pei's direction is absolutely correct, and we must complete it at all costs."

"You may think this is very vague, but it is the basis of all reasoning."

"You can treat the points given by President Pei as self-evident absolute axioms and use them as the basis for deduction."

Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin felt a little dizzy, as if they had returned to their student days taking philosophy classes.

But this was also normal. If such an important idea was too simple and easy to understand, then there would be a problem.

The two listened carefully.

Lin Wan continued, "When making *Sea Fortress*, Bao Xu started from the few axioms given by President Pei, constantly negating the content that was incompatible with the axioms, and constantly adding the content that matched the axioms, and finally perfected the prototype of the entire game."

"Now, we can do the same."

"First, the first point, and also the most important point, is that this horror game will be an online game."

"The multiplayer online game elements are nothing more than cooperation and competition."

"Competition is divided into 'competition with the game' and 'competition with people'. Competition with the game is when multiple players solve puzzles together, while competition with people is a repeatable gameplay like a battle mode."

"Since President Pei emphasized that there should be no plot, the path of two or more people cooperating to solve puzzles is blocked."

"Therefore, the design direction naturally only leaves the option of multiple people cooperating, competitive repeatable gameplay."

"That is, a mode similar to many board games, with the time controlled between ten minutes and two hours, with multiple players participating, each with different goals, and a game mode in which there is cooperation and competition between them."

Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin nodded together.

After such an analysis, it felt much clearer!

Especially clarifying the goal to a mode similar to board games, it gave the two of them a rough prototype of the game in their minds.

Lin Wan looked at them: "You guys try the rest."

Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin looked at each other. This felt a bit like a teacher teaching students how to solve problems, solving half of it and leaving the rest for the students to complete themselves.

Ye Zhizhou considered for a moment and said, "There shouldn't be ghosts, at most there should be madmen. This is also a very important clue."

"It's hard to find examples in games, can we turn our attention to movies?"