October 12, Friday.
Early this morning, Xiao Sun had already sent Eric to the high-speed rail station as arranged by Pei Qian.
Pei Qian wasn’t certain whether he could actually poach Eric. The matter might proceed smoothly, but there could also be variables.
Although the atmosphere during their dinner had been pleasant, Eric might have just been being polite.
After all, he had worked at Dyarke Group for so long that his various interpersonal relationships and business networks were valuable. Jumping ship to Tenda meant a relatively uncertain future—anyone would be cautious about such a decision.
Regardless, Pei Qian had made his attitude clear. As for whether Eric would return, that was up to fate.
Although Pei Qian had long wanted to reorganize the personnel at GOG and replace Min Jingchao, there was no rush. Waiting a month or half a year wouldn’t be a problem.
So, he would wait patiently.
After breakfast, Pei Qian decided to visit Tenda’s gaming department.
He was concerned about Yu Fei’s situation.
He worried both that Yu Fei might suddenly come up with some brilliant ideas that would make the game a huge hit, and that his progress might be too slow, preventing the game from being completed.
Although Pei Qian probably couldn’t offer much help, he still wanted to check on things to set his mind at ease.
Arriving at Tenda’s gaming department, he could see everyone’s state from a distance.
Min Jingchao was still working methodically as before.
Bao Xu was happily playing games. Clearly, he had remembered Pei Qian’s instructions and wasn’t micromanaging every detail, but was only responsible for the review process, leaving most of the design work to Yu Fei.
Looking at Yu Fei, he was staring at his computer screen with a serious expression, his hands rapidly typing on the keyboard as he wrote a design concept document.
Sometimes he would pause, frown in deep thought, then delete large sections of content before rewriting them.
“Hmm? Looks good, things are developing according to my expected script.”
Pei Qian was quite satisfied.
Bao Xu indeed wasn’t interfering too much, and Yu Fei was actively designing. During the design process, he seemed to have made some poor design choices that he deleted himself.
At this moment, some employees had noticed Pei Qian and hurriedly greeted him: “Mr. Pei!”
Yu Fei, who had been completely absorbed in his work, also heard this and turned to see Mr. Pei approaching. He quickly stood up.
“Sit down, continue with your work. I’m just here to briefly check on your progress,” Pei Qian said with a smile as he sat down nearby.
Yu Fei felt warmth in his heart.
Clearly, Mr. Pei was concerned that he might not fully grasp the design intent, so he had come to check on the progress to ensure the project could be completed without any issues.
“How’s the new game concept coming along? Give me a brief overview,” Pei Qian said with a smile.
Yu Fei hurriedly pulled up the front page of the design document and explained: “Brother Bao gave me a simple explanation of some professional knowledge about fighting games, which helped me deeply understand my previous mistakes.”
“Fighting games must retain their essential elements to meet your requirements, Mr. Pei. So, the ‘red lines’ that can’t be crossed have been largely established.”
“For the other parts, I currently have some fragmented, incomplete ideas that I’m working hard to connect together.”
“However, the overall progress is quite optimistic. I think by tomorrow at the latest, I should be able to create a general framework. Then we can hand it over to the other designers to write specific design documents for each module within this framework. After another week of refining the design plan, we should be able to start development.”
“In terms of the project timeline, there shouldn’t be any major issues.”
Pei Qian nodded again with satisfaction.
Good, still completely in line with expectations!
Pei Qian was most worried about two things: first, that Yu Fei would let his imagination run wild and accidentally make the game successful; second, that progress would be too slow, leaving the game unfinished and affecting financial settlement.
Now Yu Fei’s progress was relatively fast, so the development cycle shouldn’t be a concern.
And Yu Fei’s strict preservation of the fighting game’s essential elements meant that about half of the first requirement had been met.
Then, Yu Fei began to explain these “red line elements that can’t be touched,” mainly preserving the basic gameplay of fighting games.
Simply put, these were the traditional fighting game mechanics: high and low attacks, defense, special moves, and other settings were all retained, and he was striving to make them authentic.
Pei Qian nodded frequently as he listened.
Yes, yes, yes, this is exactly what I want!
He had been worried that Yu Fei might actually turn “Ghost General 2” into a third-person action game, which could end up being profitable like “Eternal Damnation.”
Now it seemed he had worried unnecessarily. As long as Yu Fei faithfully built the game on fighting game foundations, it would definitely remain a niche game without much sales potential.
After all, the high skill threshold and unique enjoyment of fighting games naturally discouraged many ordinary players.
“Very good. What about the other parts?” Pei Qian felt this section had no issues and could be moved past.
Hearing Mr. Pei’s approval, Yu Fei’s confidence grew significantly.
Indeed, Brother Bao’s analysis was spot on!
Since Mr. Pei was nodding, it meant he was on the right track.
Yu Fei continued: “The remaining content is mainly designed according to your previous requirements, Mr. Pei.”
“First, regarding perspective, you mentioned earlier that minions must come from all directions. So I adopted Brother Bao’s suggestion and used some fighting game techniques, making double-tapping the up and down arrow keys perform dodges into and out of the screen, giving players an additional dimension.”
“After adjusting the perspective, players can naturally hit other minions.”
“Furthermore, I’m considering changing all character attacks to fan-shaped AOE attacks, adding attack ranges to skills that were originally on a flat plane.”
“During a dash dodge, the hero will simultaneously release fan-shaped attack skills while moving into or out of the screen, allowing them to hit minions from the side.”
Pei Qian felt a bit confused listening to Yu Fei’s explanation.
He seemed to have heard about such dodge mechanics in some fighting games.
Dodging essentially meant quickly moving left or right to avoid an opponent’s attack while changing the angle of the line connecting the two characters.
In traditional fighting games, the screen shows a cross-section created by cutting vertically through the line connecting two characters.
When the character on the left moves into the screen, it causes this cross-section to rotate clockwise. Although the relative positions of the two characters on the screen don’t change, their positions in the scene do.
In other words, characters actually move along fan-shaped trajectories.
This approach seemingly solved the 3D movement problem, allowing players to hit minions from all directions.
So, would this modification have any drawbacks? Would it lead to profitability?
Pei Qian thought about it and decided the risks were probably minimal.
Other games had implemented side dodges, but this hadn’t become a mainstream feature in fighting games, which was enough to indicate it wasn’t that crucial.
Yu Fei continued: “Then there are the two ideas I proposed in the previous meeting: one is to add PVE gameplay, considering adding numerous minions to battles, expanding the battle scenes, and enhancing Boss attributes; the other is to introduce simplified operation mechanisms.”
“This is actually easy to understand—arranging numerous levels for players to clear while controlling generals. During these levels, they’ll encounter various enemy generals with enhanced attributes, continuously increasing the difficulty through attribute boosts.”
“It’s somewhat similar to level design in typical action games.”
Pei Qian nodded; these two points were indeed proposed by Yu Fei.
He strongly approved of these two points because such designs were inherently incompatible with fighting games.
Although many fighting games had PVE gameplay, it often served as a narrative guide and didn’t constitute a significant part of the fighting game experience.
Moreover, the PVE in these fighting games typically involved computer AI controlling characters to fight against players—there were no minions, Boss attributes and sizes generally didn’t change, and there was no level progression.
Ultimately, this was because fighting game players simply didn’t care about these elements.
That’s why Pei Qian insisted “Ghost General 2” must include these features—to expend effort and budget on these unimportant areas, thereby ensuring the truly important aspects wouldn’t be executed perfectly.
Pei Qian nodded, gesturing for Yu Fei to continue.