June 15th, Friday.

Chi Xing Studio.

Qiao Liang carefully organized the experience report and modification suggestions he had written after yesterday’s playtest and sent them to Chi Xing Studio’s lead designer, Cai Jiadong.

The current version of “Animal Island” could only be considered half-finished. While the game’s characters, scenes, and basic gameplay mechanics were mostly complete, its greatest advantage as a VR game had yet to be fully demonstrated.

This was because the characters, scenes, and basic gameplay could be developed following conventional game development processes—all familiar territory for the developers.

However, the innovations designed specifically for VR gameplay, such as grabbing objects from a distance, fishing, and archery, needed to be calibrated gradually with the controllers still under development. The range of hand movements and controller vibration feedback still required fine-tuning.

But even after just testing this demo, Qiao Liang already found it very enjoyable.

After trying “Animal Island VR,” what left the deepest impression on Qiao Liang was its unique artistic style.

It featured a cartoon rendering style based on chibi aesthetics, with highly saturated colors. Using a brushstroke-like approach with large blocks of color, it depicted a predominantly blue-green sky, hand-drawn textured clouds, and exaggerated atmospheric perspective, making players feel as if they were inside a watercolor painting.

When Qiao Liang tested “Animal Island VR,” he used a recently released foreign brand VR headset with 2K resolution.

For a conventional display, 2K would be considered extremely high-definition, where the naked eye could barely detect any pixels, offering exceptional clarity.

But in VR headsets, even with 2K resolution, it remained difficult to eliminate the screen door effect—that feeling of seeing everything through large granular pixels.

However, upon entering “Animal Island VR,” this granular effect was mitigated by the game’s unique art style.

Qiao Liang had learned that Chi Xing Studio was designing and developing a new VR headset with 4K resolution, the highest resolution current technology could support.

What kind of visual experience would “Animal Island VR” deliver at that resolution?

Just thinking about it made him extremely excited!

Besides this, the character designs in “Animal Island VR” also left a strong impression on Qiao Liang.

The anthropomorphized animals with distinct personalities and appearances (all adorable), their wobbly walking animations as if they were slightly drunk, along with many architecturally-impressive buildings and peculiarly-shaped steampunk-style machines… all came together to form a unique and novel world.

Putting on the VR headset truly gave one the sensation of crossing into another world.

Of course, during his experience, Qiao Liang also discovered quite a few issues.

After all, the game was currently just a half-finished product with many bugs and some design flaws.

Qiao Liang recorded all the problems he encountered during gameplay and organized them for Cai Jiadong.

While it appeared he was doing testing work, there was actually a difference.

Generally speaking, game testers would strictly verify the game’s functions according to the design documents, confirming whether these functions fully complied with the designer’s plans, and they usually wouldn’t offer opinions on gameplay design.

Qiao Liang, however, provided his opinions on some of the game’s unreasonable designs from the perspective of an experienced player, clearly occupying a higher position with greater authority.

After sending another batch of modification suggestions, Qiao Liang checked the time—it was already three in the afternoon.

Today was Friday, and Chi Xing Studio had inherited Tenda’s excellent tradition of not working overtime, so after finishing work on time today, the weekend would begin immediately.

Qiao Liang had finished his work for the day and contentedly grabbed some snacks and drinks before secretly opening his fan group chat.

“Did my fans miss me during my absence?”

Qiao Liang scrolled through the chat history and realized he had overthought things.

Not only had his fans not missed him, they hadn’t even noticed he was gone.

The conversations continued as usual, and there was no mention of “Old Qiao” or “Qiao Laoshi” in the chat history!

Qiao Liang felt a bit hurt.

Indeed, these people were all fake fans, just a bunch of heartless update-demanding machines who only cared about the poor content creator when they wanted new video updates!

But on second thought, Qiao Liang realized this situation might be because he frequently lurked in the chat.

He showed his face in the fan group less than five times a year and often disappeared whenever something came up, so it seemed reasonable that fans wouldn’t discuss their dog of a group owner.

“Fine, let’s see what these silly group members have been discussing recently.”

Qiao Liang decided to stop dwelling on this issue and scrolled up to see what the group members had been discussing lately.

“Something’s definitely going on at Endpoint Chinese Web! The authors in the Inspiration Class are all working like they’re on steroids, and several authors are even doing major plot revisions. This is definitely not how these slackers normally behave!”

“This reminds me of Old Qiao—every time he works like he’s on steroids, there’s a new episode of ‘Legendary Works.’ Can someone contact him and send him to the Inspiration Class too?”

“Absolutely not! This Inspiration Class was a major slacker breeding ground just a week or two ago. If Old Qiao goes there, he’d be in his element…”

“I think it’s just that Old Qiao hasn’t updated videos for too long, and Tenda hasn’t released any major new games recently, so you’re all getting bored. Is it really such a big deal that a few authors are revising their work?”

“Of course it is! You should know that Tenda is unlike other companies. Every time they do something, it’s earth-shattering, and every seemingly insignificant anomaly might indicate they’re up to something…”

“Where’s Old Qiao? He definitely knows some inside information!”

Looking at the group members’ discussion, Qiao Liang couldn’t help but shake his head.

These people were really too idle—a few authors on Endpoint Chinese Web revising their work made them suspect Tenda was making a big move.

Was there any need for such conspiracy theories?

But thinking carefully, this kind of thinking was understandable. Because Tenda was different from other companies—no matter what industry or field, they were always so unconventional.

Whatever they did, they always grabbed attention.

It was precisely because Tenda did so many noteworthy things, each time making big news, that a group of netizens habitually paid attention to the subtle clues from various Tenda departments, like a bunch of hardworking paparazzi analyzing celebrities’ every move in great detail.

At this moment, as someone who knew some of Tenda’s inside information, Qiao Liang felt a sense of superiority.

I’ve already playtested “Animal Island VR”! While most players don’t even know Tenda is collaborating with Chi Xing Studio to develop a VR game.

This feeling gave Qiao Liang a secret thrill.

Unfortunately, he had to keep it confidential and couldn’t reveal the specific details of this project.

Qiao Liang continued to lurk silently, watching the group members seriously analyze “The Event of Endpoint Chinese Web Inspiration Class Authors’ Slacker Syndrome Subsiding.”

“Does anyone know anyone inside Tenda who can find out more about this?”

“Doesn’t Old Qiao know Mr. Pei? Let Old Qiao ask him.”

“The dead group owner has been gone for so long, how can you find him? He’s probably either obsessed with gaming or out partying.”

“Don’t count on this slacker. If he continues being such a slacker, he’ll be abandoned by Tenda.”

“Exactly. I remember before, Old Qiao was invited as a special tester to try out ‘Turn Back to Shore.’ Recently they haven’t contacted him, obviously because he’s too lazy and lost his internal testing qualification.”

“Sigh, my son is so disappointing. As his father, I’m very hurt!”

Seeing the discussion in the group becoming increasingly outlandish, Qiao Liang couldn’t continue lurking calmly.

Look, look at this—is this how people talk?

What do they mean I’ve been abandoned by Tenda?

I, Qiao Laoshi, am Mr. Pei’s good friend—how could I be abandoned?

My relationship with Mr. Pei cannot tolerate such slander and defamation!

You can talk nonsense about anything else, but you absolutely cannot wildly speculate about my relationship with Mr. Pei!

Qiao Liang immediately replied: “Don’t talk nonsense! What do you mean I’ve been abandoned by Tenda? I’m currently playtesting Tenda’s new game!”

“It’s just unfortunate that there are confidentiality rules, so I can’t disclose anything to you, hehe.”

Qiao Liang sent several very smug emojis.

The group instantly exploded.

“Holy crap? Which fishing master actually managed to lure Old Qiao out?”

“I knew Old Qiao couldn’t resist this kind of reverse psychology!”

“Tenda’s new game? Already at the playable stage? That doesn’t seem right—’Mission and Choice’ was officially released not long ago, could they really be this fast?”

“What game is it? Quick, tell us, Old Qiao, or we’ll curse you!”

Qiao Liang immediately replied: “Haha, then I still have 20 centimeters left!”

“I caught fish, but what you lost doesn’t need spelling out, right?”

“Anyway, I’m going back to play the new game. You people who can’t play it can just be jealous!”

“Goodbye!”

After sending “Goodbye,” Qiao Liang quickly changed his status to “Invisible” and closed the chat window.

Looking at the time, it was about right to leave.

Qiao Liang wasn’t a formal employee, so he didn’t need to follow the eight-hour workday schedule—being late or leaving early didn’t matter at all.

He got up and packed his things, ready to go home and enjoy the weekend.

…

Although Qiao Liang had left, his fan group was still engaged in heated discussion.

He had several groups, and this core fan group where he often appeared was a super group that could accommodate five thousand people.

Not all of them were fans who watched his videos; many were Tenda fans as well.

Since Qiao Liang often had access to some first-hand internal information about Tenda, and several games had become popular after his commentary, many Tenda fans had also joined the group, hoping to follow Tenda’s latest developments.

These people usually remained in lurking mode, but as soon as they caught any hint of news, they immediately surfaced like sharks smelling blood in the water, their dorsal fins breaking the surface one after another!