August 15, Wednesday.
Yan Qi continued working with the testing team to find bugs and submit them to the development team for fixes.
They had already fixed many bugs, yet somehow the number of newly discovered bugs hadn’t decreased at all!
This situation was incredibly disheartening.
It felt like trying to bail water from a leaking boat—the more water you scooped out, the more came in!
Only someone as optimistic as Yan Qi could endure this.
Logically speaking, after “Empire Blade” had been developed, it had already undergone small-scale player testing. Although there were bugs, they shouldn’t have reached the point of making the game unplayable, right?
But now, bugs were mysteriously emerging in droves, as if all their previous work had been for nothing.
It was like solving a math problem—just when you thought you were about to reach the answer, you discovered you’d mentally added an implied condition, resulting in missing a large section of steps that now needed to be added back in.
Facing such a blow, it was difficult not to become frustrated.
However, Yan Qi believed that finding bugs early was better than finding them late. If they couldn’t fix all the bugs, they would just delay the release. After several months of development, waiting a few more weeks wouldn’t matter.
Even Yan Qi, as the boss, personally tested the game repeatedly, submitting any new bugs to the development team and constantly monitoring progress.
After finding a few more bugs, Yan Qi decided to take a break.
He opened his phone and discovered someone had invited him to a new group chat.
“Hmm? ‘Morning Dew Gaming Platform Developers Exchange Group’?”
“…Is a group really necessary for this? Seems a bit redundant.”
After seeing the group name, Yan Qi thought it was rather odd.
He’d never heard of a gaming platform specifically creating a group to gather all its cooperating game developers together!
Most game companies only focused on their own games and didn’t care much about other game companies’ situations. The gaming platform only needed to communicate with game manufacturers separately, so why create a group to bring everyone together?
However, on second thought, Yan Qi figured joining such a group wouldn’t hurt, and he might even get to know some other companies in the industry.
The person who created the group was clearly using an alternate account. Yan Qi guessed it must be one of the Morning Dew Gaming Platform’s employees.
His guess was correct—Li Yada had created the group using an alternate account, primarily to prevent information leaks.
Yan Qi didn’t think much of it, since using alternate accounts for work was quite common. Many people separated their work and personal accounts, using their work accounts specifically to connect with business partners.
Glancing at the group member list, there were only about a dozen people so far, though more were being invited.
The group owner, with the ID “Morning Dew Platform Staff,” spoke first:
“Hello everyone! Thank you for your trust in the Morning Dew Gaming Platform. This group was created to share platform updates with you promptly, strengthen communication, and also allow everyone to exchange and share daily experiences.”
“Currently, the Morning Dew Gaming Platform program has essentially been completed, and all cloud servers have been arranged. We expect to begin trial operations before this weekend. Games with fixed bugs can message me privately to arrange going online. Those that aren’t finished don’t need to rush, as this is still the trial operation phase.”
“In short, keep up the good work, everyone!”
This was followed by a “working hard” emoji.
Yan Qi was somewhat surprised—Morning Dew Gaming Platform was quite efficient.
Due to the technological situation in this world, both game development and other program development were relatively fast, but creating a gaming platform in such a short time was clearly not an easy task.
It seemed that Morning Dew Gaming Platform had a fairly mature technical team.
Moreover, creating this group for communication made Yan Qi feel quite warm.
After all, other gaming platforms basically didn’t chat casually with developers—they were all strictly business. Some large platforms even had huge egos, often treating small game companies with indifference.
Soon, people started responding in the group.
“What? Trial operations start this weekend? I don’t think we can possibly fix all our bugs in time!”
“Not just can’t fix them—we can even barely reproduce those bugs…”
“+1, we’re in the same situation, looking for bugs until we’re sick of it!”
Upon hearing that trial operations would begin on the weekend, these companies were clearly unable to remain calm.
During the trial period, although there wouldn’t be many players, the platform would have few games, so those that launched would likely receive good featured positions.
Therefore, participating in this trial operation had many benefits.
But the problem was that they simply couldn’t fix all the bugs!
Many companies couldn’t even figure out how to reproduce the bugs that had been triggered, let alone fix them. “Fixing all bugs” sounded simple, but in reality, it seemed endlessly far away.
Of course, Morning Dew Gaming Platform’s condition wasn’t “fix all bugs” but rather “no more than three bugs encountered when Director Tang plays for half an hour.”
Many game companies had been hopeful about this, submitting their games after fixing a dozen or so bugs, only to be harshly taught a lesson by reality.
Now many suspected that the gap between “no more than three bugs encountered when Director Tang plays for half an hour” and “fix all bugs” might be much smaller than everyone imagined—perhaps even non-existent.
Before joining this group, things were fine, but after joining and communicating, everyone realized they were all in the same boat!
All suffering from the torment of bugs.
Yan Qi silently read through the chat records and suddenly realized that his situation might not be unique.
And… it seemed no one had discovered that this building was actually a feng shui treasure spot?
Seeing all his colleagues suffering from bug torment, Yan Qi felt he should do something to help them.
Although he couldn’t reduce the bugs, he could speed up the process of finding them!
And it seemed there were quite a few empty spaces in this office building—several more companies could easily fit.
With this in mind, Yan Qi replied in the group: “If you all find it difficult to reproduce bugs, I have a somewhat mystical solution. Just come to the building where Morning Dew Gaming Platform is located to look for bugs. This place seems to be a feng shui treasure spot—the probability of finding bugs is greatly increased!”
As soon as Yan Qi sent his message, he received a flood of question marks.
“?”
“Bro, you’re so funny—looking for bugs depends on location?”
“That’s not mystical, that’s just deceiving yourself…”
“Ah, did a building property manager sneak into our group?”
“Oh no, it seems the pressure of too many bugs has made this child mentally unstable—he’s hallucinating!”
“Man, believe in science. The probability of bugs appearing is the same regardless of location. Game developers can’t possibly not understand such simple probability, right?”
Nobody believed him.
This was within Yan Qi’s expectations—after all, what he said was too strange. If he hadn’t repeatedly tested and confirmed it himself, he wouldn’t have believed it either.
“Why would I lie to you?”
“I’ve already moved my entire testing team over. Look. [Image]”
“You can come try it yourselves. Just bring two testers with your games—there’s nothing to lose.”
Yan Qi didn’t say much more, as this was indeed completely mystical, and it worked sometimes but not others.
Weekends, for instance, seemed ineffective.
He only felt compassion seeing all these companies suffering from bugs and wanted to help them.
If they didn’t believe him, so be it.
After all, if these companies couldn’t fix their bugs and their games couldn’t go online, it didn’t affect him.
“Still sounds like nonsense…”
“I’m quite close by, fine, I’ll make a trip over. If I can’t find any bugs, you’re buying me dinner!”
“Good idea, since we’re all in Jingzhou, it’s not a bad opportunity to meet up and gather. I’ll come take a look too.”
“Can someone send the location?”
Clearly, most people still thought it was ridiculous and didn’t believe it.
But since this group consisted of small companies all working in Jingzhou’s game industry, getting to know more people was beneficial—perhaps they could help each other in the future. So a few company representatives who were nearby decided to bring their games over for another try.
If they couldn’t find bugs, at least they’d have met in person.
…
Yan Qi stopped checking the group and continued looking for bugs.
After about half an hour, the representatives who had spoken in the group arrived one after another.
Among them were game company bosses, game lead designers, and testing team leaders, who came directly to the address Yan Qi had provided.
After greeting each other, Yan Qi led them to the workspace he had rented just last week.
The testing team was still busily working.
“Wow, Boss Yan, you really moved your testing team here?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Boss Yan, isn’t this taking superstition a bit too far? I thought you were just joking earlier, but now it seems your problem is far more serious than making bad jokes…”
Although these people had come, they still completely disbelieved that this place could help test for bugs.
Yan Qi didn’t bother explaining further: “You’ll understand once you run your own games.”
Everyone was skeptical but found places to sit nearby, then took out their phones and started running their own games.
Currently, the vast majority of games on the Morning Dew Gaming Platform were mobile games. Because mobile game production had a relatively low barrier to entry, and this was a booming period for mobile games with numerous players, making mobile games was the best choice for these startup companies.
Those willing to cooperate with Morning Dew Gaming Platform were basically small game companies from Jingzhou, so they were all primarily making mobile games.
The representatives from each company absolutely didn’t believe in this mystical approach.
However, after running their games for a few minutes, their expressions all changed.
From disdain to shock, from shock to surprise, and finally to bewilderment.
Because they discovered that bugs in their games really did appear frequently!
Even bugs that had appeared only once before and could never be reproduced were encountered again!
Although they hadn’t deliberately kept track, the probability seemed significantly increased!
But these feelings of shock and surprise quickly turned to confusion.
Long-held materialistic and scientific beliefs were challenged in this moment…
At first, everyone thought Yan Qi was joking, just telling a not-very-funny joke.
After arriving, they found the situation more serious—Yan Qi wasn’t joking, he really believed this and had even moved his testing team over!
So, people started worrying about Yan Qi’s mental state.
And now, they discovered the situation was far more serious than they could comprehend.
Because what Yan Qi said was actually true!
Many people still found it hard to accept this fact. They closed their game processes, calmed down for a few minutes, then opened their games again to test.
As a result, they still encountered a bunch of bugs, and they were all different from the previous ones!
Everyone couldn’t help but look at each other in dismay, feeling their worldviews had been completely overturned.
“There really is such a thing as a feng shui treasure spot?”
“Bugs that couldn’t be reproduced before clearly have a higher chance of triggering here!”
“I’m calling our company’s testing manager right now to bring two testers here to test!”
“I need to talk to the building management to see if there are any other available workspaces…”
“Wait, let’s not rush. In the spirit of scientific, rigorous, and serious testing, we should first try other floors to find which floor in this building has the best effect. If there’s a floor with better results than this one, wouldn’t it be better to rent that floor instead?”