Slackin’ Internet Café, Handong University Branch.

Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong sat in the coffee area, silently drinking coffee, speechless as they looked at each other.

The two of them were completely bewildered.

Their experiences were quite similar.

On Tuesday, they had both been working diligently, responsible for GOG and “BE QUIET” respectively, seriously revising design plans.

Today, they had already been pushed out of the company and were sitting in Slackin’ Internet Café, staring at each other in silence.

When they first heard about the reassignment, both were equally shocked and confused.

Had they done something wrong?

It didn’t seem so—this was a promotion, with both position and salary increased.

But should they be happy about this?

Neither could feel happy.

Because Mr. Pei had only said that he wanted to set up a haunted house in the old industrial area of Jingzhou City, with an initial casual investment of ten million.

But for everything else, they had no clue!

How much land to rent, which factory buildings to renovate, what kind of plan to use, how many employees to hire…

Progress on all these fronts was at zero.

In other words, although Mr. Pei had said he wanted to invest ten million to set up a haunted house, so far, apart from the ten million in funding and Chen Kangtuo and Hao Qiong as the only two people, there was nothing else.

This… was very perplexing.

After learning that the other was the only colleague in this project so far, they decided to meet at Slackin’ Internet Café to discuss their plans going forward.

Both thought the other had more information than themselves, or had received special instructions from Mr. Pei.

However, upon meeting, they discovered that they were equally clueless.

Mr. Pei hadn’t said anything!

So they could only drink coffee in silence.

After a long silence, Chen Kangtuo decided to break the deadlock.

After all, Mr. Pei had shown such trust in him by handing over a ten-million project, he couldn’t let Mr. Pei down.

Chen Kangtuo thought for a moment and said, “Starting tomorrow, I’ll post recruitment information online to hire people with relevant experience, and also contact construction teams. We need to come up with a design plan at the very least.”

Hao Qiong nodded: “Hmm, we have some existing art assets from ‘BE QUIET’ and materials we collected from playing horror games before. We could consider using them in the haunted house design…”

The two of them discussed various details of the project while drinking coffee.

To be honest, through their discussion, they managed to establish a basic framework for the haunted house project.

However, although they had considered various issues from all angles, both felt like something was still missing.

It felt like their discussion wasn’t quite solid.

Chen Kangtuo frowned, struggling to figure it out: “What exactly are we missing?”

After considering for a long time, Hao Qiong suddenly slapped his forehead: “I’ve got it!”

“We’re missing Mr. Pei’s guidance!”

“We can do without everything else, but we absolutely cannot do without Mr. Pei’s guidance!”

“I don’t know if you remember, but the success of most Tenda projects has been within Mr. Pei’s plans.”

“Many times, Mr. Pei only points out a few simple directions. But as long as we keep extrapolating in that direction, we can find the right path!”

“For the haunted house project, Mr. Pei hasn’t yet expressed any guiding opinions.”

“We need to first understand Mr. Pei’s attitude toward this project before we can decide on the specific plan!”

Chen Kangtuo had a sudden realization: “So that’s it!”

He had never been in charge before, and Mr. Pei had always assigned tasks directly to Li Yada, so Chen Kangtuo had never considered these issues.

Fortunately, Hao Qiong had heard Ye Zhizhou and Wang Xiaobin talk about the standardized process of comprehending Mr. Pei’s vision, allowing him to keenly identify this blind spot.

“Anyway, let’s start the preliminary work first, recruit more people, or ask Mr. Pei for more personnel.”

“Then, we’ll find an opportunity to consult Mr. Pei about his views on this project.”

“Understanding Mr. Pei’s intentions will greatly increase the project’s chances of success!”

The previously perplexing project now seemed to have a vague direction after their discussion.

This direction was Mr. Pei’s guidance.

Both firmly believed that as long as they could obtain Mr. Pei’s guidance, all these problems would be easily resolved!

…

…

December 10th, Friday.

Tenda Network Technology Co., Ltd.

“Brother Bao, GOG has a new version. Could you take a look at it?”

Seeing the message from Li Yada, Bao Xu silently sighed.

Ah, it was so difficult.

Having been in development until now, GOG has taken a rough shape. Although the game was still a mess in many ways, at least it could run.

After all, with a well-completed game like “Genesis” available for reference, it wasn’t too difficult for GOG to build a basic framework in a short time.

But in terms of current completion, it was still far behind.

When no one was paying attention, Bao Xu secretly played GOG and found a ton of flaws.

Too many bugs.

Poor balance.

Gameplay lacked originality.

Too few heroes…

In short, it was a million miles away from “Genesis.”

Bao Xu was caught in a dilemma.

If he didn’t handle it, Li Yada likely couldn’t solve these problems on her own.

If he did handle it, he could almost see the African savannah and the Sahara Desert waving at him.

After careful consideration, Bao Xu sighed and opened the editor again to make secret modifications.

“Well, I can’t just stand by and do nothing.”

“Help one last time?”

“But this can’t go on forever. I can’t be the one solving all these experience issues, can I?”

Bao Xu felt a bit helpless. Although other designers in the design team were constantly playing games to enrich their gaming experience, gaming intelligence wasn’t something that could be cultivated overnight.

As a hardcore gamer, Bao Xu’s sensitivity to games was incomparable to others.

Therefore, some very high-end work, like adjusting game balance, could only be handled by Bao Xu.

Of course, numerical planners could also do this job, but they often needed Bao Xu’s final review.

For some single-player games that didn’t require much balance, it was manageable. But GOG was a multiplayer competitive game, so balance was crucial.

Bao Xu thought about it and felt he couldn’t continue like this.

It was too dangerous!

He needed to find a way to delegate this work soon and let others share the burden.

If he couldn’t find such people in the company, where should he look?

Suddenly, an idea struck him.

Slackin’ Internet Café was Tenda’s own business; could he use it somehow?

If he put the test version of GOG in Slackin’ Internet Café, the café’s customers could serve as game testers, experiencing the game and leaving their opinions and suggestions.

Of course, this would also bring certain issues, such as the possibility of game information leaking early, causing spoilers.

But for a game like GOG, it wasn’t a big problem.

In simple terms, it was about setting up a special game test server at Slackin’ Internet Café to collect player data and use this information to modify the game.

Bao Xu immediately messaged Li Yada.

By getting Slackin’ Internet Café players involved, Bao Xu felt that even if he couldn’t be completely free, he could at least be 80% free!

…

…

Dream Realization Venture Capital.

Ma Yang wasn’t in today; he had classes.

Besides, since Ma Yang had unhesitatingly invested all their money in Fingertip Company last time, Dream Realization Venture Capital had no money left to invest in other projects.

Everyone’s daily work was reduced to just playing games with President Ma.

Although President Ma carried every game, scoring incredible kills, even these “high-level matches” became boring after a while.

Recently, Ma Yang had been feeling bored, so he didn’t come to Dream Realization Venture Capital often.

He Desheng and the other high-ranking players were now gathered together, discussing issues with serious expressions.

“President Ma’s happiness threshold is getting higher and higher.”

“After some time, he might lose interest in our nine-protect-one strategy.”

“What should we do?”

He Desheng, raised a very sharp question.

An important job for these high-ranking players was to play games with President Ma, keeping him in a relaxed and happy mood, maintaining his best working state.

At the beginning, President Ma could kill a dozen high-ranking players in each game, carrying alone, which naturally made him very happy.

But gradually, the threshold for happiness became higher and higher.

Simply killing opponents no longer satisfied President Ma.

Frequent victories also became tasteless.

After all, from Ma Yang’s perspective, the experience of each game was becoming increasingly similar.

Even though the other nine people in the game had pre-arranged scripts, trying to follow them and make each game experience different for President Ma…

But after a while, it still became boring.

Now, everyone had gathered to discuss how to solve this problem.

“I think we can’t blame our lack of imagination, nor can we blame President Ma’s skill level.”

“If we must blame something, we can only blame the game mechanics!”

“The current game mechanics are a bit complex and quite unfriendly to players with poor hand-eye coordination.”

“President Ma is being targeted by the game, making it difficult for him to display 100% of his ability.”

“To accommodate President Ma, we can only lower our skill level to match his, making our performances seem very fake.”

“If this continues, President Ma will eventually see through it; it’s just a matter of time.”

A guy nearby nodded: “Exactly, I agree! I also think President Ma is being targeted by the game.”

“If we just modify the game mechanics a bit, President Ma’s abilities would be better displayed!”

“But what can we do? We’re not designers; we can’t change the game mechanics,” someone said.

Someone raised their hand to suggest: “We indeed can’t change ‘Genesis,’ but… shouldn’t we be able to change IOI?”

He Desheng, thought for a moment: “Hard to say. We only bought shares in Fingertip Company; we can’t interfere with their development and operations.”

“We can make some suggestions as shareholders and domestic agents, but whether they’ll listen or not… It’s uncertain.”

“Let’s give it a try.”