“So, I believe this is a test from Boss Pei, an essay question.”

“Boss Pei excels at achieving great things with limited resources, creating the best results with minimal investment.”

“‘The Lonely Desert Highway’ was like this, and ‘Ghost General’ was the same!”

“Therefore, we also need to try using the fewest resources to achieve the best effect!”

“I’ve considered several aspects: characters, scenes, and cutscenes—we must save wherever possible. Otherwise, this story mode will end up being meaningless. We need to put our best resources where they matter most!”

Bao Xu was confident.

Huang Sibo nodded repeatedly, quite agreeing with this approach.

Bao Xu continued: “Actually, once we’ve determined that all these resources should be conserved as much as possible, our options become very limited.”

“First, regarding characters. The game will use a first-person perspective, which saves us from creating a main character model—we’ll only need two arms and two legs.”

“We can choose a zombie theme. The game will have two types of enemies: zombies and mercenaries. Both can use generic templates with minor modifications to ensure variety, and that’s sufficient.”

Huang Sibo nodded: “I see. That’s a good approach. However, having only zombies and mercenaries probably won’t allow us to develop much of a storyline. We need supporting characters.”

“I’ve already thought about the supporting character—we only need one, a little girl.”

Bao Xu looked at his paper covered with cryptic drawings: “To save resources, I plan to design this little girl as unable to speak. This way, we won’t need to create dialogue or voice acting for her. The entire game will only need some common battle voice lines.”

Huang Sibo was surprised: “What? The only supporting character can’t speak? Then how will we present the story?”

In Huang Sibo’s understanding, supporting characters’ dialogue was crucial for developing the story and revealing character personalities.

With only one supporting character who couldn’t speak or have any lines, this… would the entire game be a mime show?

Bao Xu considered for a moment: “Well… there’s no choice. This is a compromise. If we let the little girl speak, we’d need to find someone for voice acting and adjust the girl’s model for lip-syncing, which is quite labor-intensive.”

“Besides, I think the little girl not speaking doesn’t affect the storyline. We can express it in many ways.”

“For example, through her behavior, eye expressions, movements, and so on.”

“If we need a mute character, a little girl is the best choice.”

“This little girl’s existence serves two main purposes.”

“First, she provides spiritual comfort and balance. Throughout the game, players will be fighting zombies and mercenaries. This little girl will be like a ray of light in the darkness, adjusting players’ emotions so the game doesn’t completely fall into the monotony of just ‘shooting, shooting, shooting’.”

“Second, she can participate in puzzle-solving gameplay. Many foreign studio single-player games use similar approaches, having players interact with an NPC to solve puzzles. We can create levels like this: the main door is locked, but there’s a narrow ventilation duct nearby that the little girl can crawl through to help the protagonist open the door.”

“This way, whether from an emotional perspective or practical assistance, the little girl becomes very important to the player.”

Huang Sibo nodded: “That sounds good! But I have a question: how do we establish the story background? Is it a post-apocalyptic theme? The world-building needs to coherently incorporate zombies, the little girl, and mercenaries without feeling forced.”

Bao Xu made a mark on his cryptically drawn paper: “This leads to the second point: the setting.”

“One premise is that scenes must be reusable. Assuming we want to create a three-hour story experience, typical foreign blockbuster games would offer three or four completely different, stylistically distinct game environments. That’s too difficult for us.”

“My idea is that the story takes place in a large fortress at sea, where an evil multinational corporation conducts virus experiments. Their goal is to transform mercenaries into tireless, powerful soldiers using this virus.”

“This way, the protagonist’s objective throughout the story mode is to fight his way out of this large fortress, from the bottom level to the top, and ultimately escape. All the scenes players see would just need to have a ‘secret base’ style within the fortress.”

“We can differentiate levels in many ways, such as varying enemies and making subtle adjustments to scenes. While maintaining the same ‘secret base’ style, we can add different textures to create distinct environments.”

“For example, some areas could be contaminated by the virus, with walls and floors showing various virus-induced rust and blood-sticky effects; some scenes could maintain the fortress’s original state but appear ransacked; in other scenes, mercenaries might use heavy firepower to clear zombies, resulting in severe damage…”

“With one type of scene, we can create three or four variations, directly addressing all the game’s environmental needs.”

Huang Sibo rubbed his chin: “That’s a really good idea! But if it’s an evil multinational corporation’s offshore base, why would there be a little girl?”

“That’s easy to explain,” said Bao Xu. “The little girl carries a special antibody, so she was captured by the corporation for experiments. During the experiments, she lost her ability to speak.”

“Brilliant!”

Huang Sibo had a flash of inspiration: “And this setting can be extended. I think we could do this: the little girl’s blood can help the protagonist become immune to the virus. For instance, if the player accidentally gets scratched or bitten by zombies, the little girl will proactively draw blood with a syringe to heal the protagonist.”

“Great idea!” Bao Xu also thought this concept was excellent. “This makes the little girl even more important to the player! Each blood draw can deepen the player’s emotional connection with her. As blood is drawn repeatedly, she’ll become weaker and move more slowly. To prevent her suffering, players must improve their skills and better eliminate enemies—this is another way to enhance player immersion!”

During their brainstorming session, many game elements were quickly established.

The game takes place in a secret fortress at sea. The protagonist is an Eastern special forces soldier who infiltrates the base for investigation, but coincidentally arrives just as the virus outbreak occurs.

The protagonist must continuously seize weapons from enemies, defeat endless waves of zombies and mercenaries, fight from the bottom level of the sea fortress all the way to the top, and escape.

During the escape, the protagonist encounters a little girl who cannot speak. This girl becomes his reason for needing to escape alive.

The entire story mode revolves around the protagonist and this little girl.

While the overall plot isn’t complex, the content is far from monotonous!

Although the game has only one supporting character—the little girl—if executed well, she would leave a deeper impression on players than ten minor supporting roles!

Huang Sibo kept recording everything in a document on his computer.

Looking back at the complete document, Huang Sibo was even somewhat shocked.

Such a perfect solution!

Was this the result of just a few hours of Bao Xu’s brainstorming?

Not only did it perfectly solve the problem of limited resources in the game, but it also achieved a reasonable storyline with consistent logic and complete emotional arcs that would leave a strong impression!

Huang Sibo couldn’t help but give a thumbs up: “Brother Bao, you’re amazing!”

Bao Xu shook his head: “No, I just completed Boss Pei’s essay question. He probably intended this approach from the beginning and was just giving us a small test to see if we could properly understand his vision!”