Li Yada’s words made Yan Qi feel somewhat ashamed.

Although it was like a bucket of cold water poured over his head, quite discouraging, it objectively also helped clear his mind considerably.

It was indeed the case.

For this game, even he himself didn’t have a strong urge to create it, he only felt that passing was good enough. How could he then conquer players and make them unable to put it down?

But on second thought, Yan Qi felt that Li Yada was somewhat talking from a position of privilege.

Could one innovate just by saying so?

If innovation were as common as cabbage sold on the street, why would so many garbage games come out every year?

Did she really think those who made garbage games all had bad intentions?

Of course, some developers or investors might indeed not understand, or might genuinely be focused solely on making money, but many people were simply not capable enough—what could they do if they couldn’t make good games?

If I had Mr. Pei’s brain, I would also make different types of games each time, and players would still be clamoring to buy them. How great would that be.

Who doesn’t want to make their own unique game? Who doesn’t want to establish their own style? Who wants to borrow from others?

The key issue is capability.

After all, bearing the livelihood of dozens of people in the entire studio, the cost of failure was too great, truly unbearable.

Yan Qi felt that although Li Yada was also in the gaming industry, she was ultimately on the platform side.

Platforms and development were two completely different worlds.

According to the current relationship, platforms were like the client, able to pick and choose from a pile of games, selecting what satisfied them. If they encountered something unsatisfactory, they could ask game developers to change it.

Developers were like the contractor, which was more unfortunate. Except for a few companies with particularly strong research and development capabilities who had some leverage, most small companies were not allowed to have their own opinions, after all, only by changing according to the platform’s requirements would they receive recommendation and promotional resources.

Morning Dew Gaming Platform was indeed a platform that made money standing up, qualified to be tough. Li Yada, as a staff member of the gaming platform, had an understandable personality.

But the key was to consider Yan Qi’s objective situation.

Otherwise, wouldn’t that be making the mistake of “Why not eat meat porridge”?

Yan Qi coughed lightly twice: “Sister Li, I also want to make groundbreaking innovations, but shouldn’t we consider objective conditions?”

“‘Empire’s Blade’ is just an ordinary mobile game. My plan to transition to action single-player games is already taking a big risk. If I don’t stabilize a bit more, blindly pursuing innovation and trying to be unconventional, I’m afraid I’ll overreach and hurt myself.”

“How can someone with no previous experience forcibly make an action game without a transition?”

Li Yada pushed her glasses: “Before making ‘Turn Back to Shore,’ the team also had absolutely no experience with action games.”

“The previous game was ‘Game Developer,’ which wasn’t related at all.”

Yan Qi was momentarily speechless: “This…”

“Sister Li, aren’t you giving me too much credit by comparing me to Mr. Pei?”

“If I had Mr. Pei’s mind, I would dare to take risks too, but I don’t.”

After a moment of silence, Li Yada said: “Have you considered that you might have the cause and effect wrong?”

“You think Mr. Pei had the ideas first, and then the courage to change.”

“But perhaps Mr. Pei had the courage first, and then the ideas to change?”

“Is it ability that determines mindset, or mindset that determines ability? Do you think a person first has the right mindset, or mature abilities?”

Li Yada’s words were clearly heartfelt advice summarized from her time working at Tenda and learning game design from Mr. Pei for so long.

Was Mr. Pei a game design genius?

Of course he was.

But to say Mr. Pei’s success was entirely due to his ability would obviously be biased.

In fact, what was most amazing about Mr. Pei wasn’t his game design ability, but his determination and courage.

Take “Turn Back to Shore” for example, Mr. Pei didn’t actually interfere much with the game’s design details. He only repeatedly emphasized increasing the game’s difficulty, then increasing it more.

The reason was simple: perfecting game design details was work that any lead designer, or even ordinary feature designers in the development team could do; but raising the game’s difficulty and persisting with this design philosophy despite the risk of deterring a large number of players, was something only Mr. Pei could do.

Only Mr. Pei had this determination and broad perspective, and only Mr. Pei could bear this responsibility.

Not just “Turn Back to Shore,” most of Tenda’s games were playing with fire, repeatedly risking failure.

But without this determination, these games would never have been born, not even reaching the design stage.

Moreover, in daily work, Mr. Pei’s cultivation of subordinates also emphasized encouragement over instruction.

Mr. Pei rarely taught subordinates hands-on how to do, how to design, how to think about problems, but encouraged them to think independently, to solve problems in their own way.

At most, he would give some hints, letting subordinates figure things out themselves.

For those subordinates lacking confidence, Mr. Pei would repeatedly tell them, “Don’t worry, you’re absolutely fine.”

All the lead designers at Tenda Games had grown under this kind of encouragement.

So, these were actually Li Yada’s heartfelt words. She felt that she was able to achieve such growth mainly because, under Mr. Pei’s leadership, she gained this courage to change.

First, not being constrained by those conventional frameworks seeking stability, and only then qualifying to discuss design and innovation.

Li Yada’s words indeed stunned Yan Qi.

After pondering them, he felt there was some truth to them!

On the surface, ability and mindset were equally important, neither could be missing.

But a person without a good mindset couldn’t possibly have ability, because ability was cultivated and trained, not generated out of thin air.

If a person had a poor mindset, they couldn’t even achieve the most basic cultivation of ability, so how could they talk about success?

Determining to change might not guarantee success, but looking both ways hesitantly would inevitably lead to failure.

Yan Qi was silent for a long time, then suddenly realized something: “Hey, Sister Li, from what you’re saying, how do you seem to be particularly familiar with the situation at Tenda?”

Although she hadn’t revealed specific details about Tenda’s internal affairs, her confident tone made it seem like she was very clear about the inside story.

Li Yada was startled: “…I also have friends working at Tenda who have told me about some internal matters, especially stories from when ‘Turn Back to Shore’ was being developed.”

“Oh! Is that so! Could you tell me about it? I want to hear too!” Yan Qi immediately perked up.

He had previously worked in Magic City before resigning to found his studio in Jing State.

According to his knowledge, Li Yada had always worked in Jing State, and the gaming circle in Jing State wasn’t that large, so it wasn’t surprising that she knew people working at Tenda.

Stories from the development of “Turn Back to Shore” were too fascinating.

Having brought up the topic herself, Li Yada couldn’t back out now, so she nodded: “Alright, I’ll briefly share one.”

“It’s said that when they were developing ‘Turn Back to Shore,’ they created a demo, and the designer at the time took it to show Mr. Pei.”

“Before Mr. Pei even started playing, he directly told her to increase the monsters’ attack power by three times.”

“Only then did Mr. Pei start playing.”

“Originally, the game was positioned as high difficulty, with initial village monsters taking about twenty percent of the player’s health with one hit. Everyone thought this was already high, but unexpectedly, Mr. Pei changed it directly to sixty percent.”

Yan Qi immediately became interested: “So that’s how it was! ‘Turn Back to Shore’s’ high difficulty came from this? It was Mr. Pei who changed it on the spot after seeing the demo?”

“That makes sense. I remember the initial monsters taking about eighty percent of health with one slash?”

“Then what happened? Did Mr. Pei run circles around the monsters with a series of moves, and then feel the difficulty was still too low, so he increased the damage again?”

Yan Qi had watched many videos of experts completing “Turn Back to Shore” without taking damage. As an experienced player himself, although achieving a damage-free playthrough was difficult, bullying the starter village monsters was still very easy.

After all, the starter village monsters moved slowly, had stiff moves, and while their damage was high, even slightly experienced players wouldn’t get touched.

As a designer, Mr. Pei might not play very easily, but he should at least have veteran-level skills, right?

Li Yada shook her head: “Hmm… the result was similar to what you thought, but the process was different.”

“Mr. Pei started playing and was quickly killed by the small monsters twice, and then he multiplied the monsters’ damage by a factor of 1.3.”

Yan Qi was stunned: “What?”

Mr. Pei getting brutally killed by small monsters?

And even then, Mr. Pei still firmly wanted to increase the monsters’ difficulty?

Put that way, indeed, Mr. Pei’s determination and courage were admirable.

Yan Qi asked himself, if he made a game and was killed twice in a row by starter village monsters, he would definitely lower the difficulty.

Not only not lowering the difficulty but even increasing the monsters’ damage, this was something ordinary people really couldn’t do.

Mr. Pei was truly a genius.

The story Li Yada told indeed corroborated her previous statement from another angle.

Although it sounded a bit bizarre, Yan Qi felt Li Yada was quite reliable and probably wouldn’t lie to him.

“Alright, I agree with what you’re saying. Courage is indeed more important than ability; courage is the first step to making changes.”

“But the problem is that courage alone isn’t enough. Even if I want to innovate, I don’t have a suitable direction.”

After a moment of silence, Li Yada said: “Well…”

“There are actually some patterns and tricks to it.”

The patterns and tricks she mentioned were actually some game design principles she had learned from Mr. Pei.

Following a game master like Mr. Pei and participating in many successful projects naturally led to insights and gains.

At first, Li Yada was hesitant about revealing these principles to Yan Qi, wondering if it would be appropriate.

But on second thought, Mr. Pei had never been a closed-off person.

In the old society, there was a saying, “Teach an apprentice, starve the master.” Many craftsmen kept secrets, and some martial arts families also had hereditary skills that were never passed outside the family, but that was outdated thinking.

In the gaming field, Mr. Pei had always maintained an attitude of “helping others when successful.”

For instance, the Final Path Project, the Morning Dew Gaming Platform, and dispatching Min Jingchao to work with Tianhua Studio on game development…

Mr. Pei had always been striving to influence the domestic gaming industry, changing the entire environment with his own strength.

Reliable developers like Yan Qi should receive some help.

If it were Mr. Pei, he would definitely not withhold guidance.

Now, by passing on knowledge on Mr. Pei’s behalf, she was essentially acting as a second-generation disciple, all to practice the Tenda spirit, to make the gaming environment better.

Moreover, Mr. Pei’s design principles were quite profound, like internal martial arts techniques.

Whether Yan Qi could comprehend them, and how much he could comprehend, would depend on him.