Pei Qian verbally criticized text adventure games as outdated, but he clearly understood that “outdated” had another meaning: stable!

Text adventure games were a rather ancient but extremely reliable game type, truly standing the test of time.

Pei Qian had memories from his previous life. He knew that “Chinese Parents,” as an indie game, had adopted a production method similar to text adventure games and still achieved great success!

And Pei Qian couldn’t allow that to happen.

So, he wanted to completely abandon the text adventure game model!

Pei Qian cleared his throat and continued:

“My idea is to create a three-dimensional flowchart.”

“Yes, a complex structure chart like a spider web.”

“The boxes on the flowchart are individual rooms, and the lines on the flowchart are corridors.”

“Players walking through the corridors represent the process of choosing flowchart branches, and different rooms represent the results of these choices!”

“In each room, there are doors leading to corridors, representing different choices for the player.”

“Do you understand what I mean?”

Everyone nodded, then simultaneously shook their heads.

They understood, but also didn’t understand!

With Pei Qian’s description, most people could imagine the form of this game.

Flowcharts drawn with software like Visio were very common in games and many industries.

They were mainly used to represent certain logical relationships and program flows.

For example, a program triggered from initial conditions, going through a series of judgments, and finally outputting a result.

In appearance, a flowchart consisted of countless text-filled squares and diamonds, with many arrows connecting these squares.

If all the squares were replaced with three-dimensional rooms of various sizes, and all the arrows were replaced with corridors, the entire flowchart would become a huge maze.

The protagonist would walk in this huge maze, with each door representing a certain choice, ultimately reaching a dead-end room, which would be one of the game’s endings.

What everyone didn’t understand was: what kind of game type was this exactly?

They had never seen it before!

Not just domestically, but internationally, they had never heard of such a game!

Would it work?

Using so many high-quality 3D models, creating such large scenes, just to make a game where you keep walking and walking?

It felt like… something was off!

But nobody would question Pei Qian.

Don’t understand?

That’s exactly right!

How could ordinary people guess Mr. Pei’s train of thought?

Only experts like Huang Sibo and Bao Xu could barely guess Mr. Pei’s design intent; others were far behind in their abilities!

Lü Mingliang knew this well, so he took notes frantically.

Fortunately, Mr. Pei had explained very clearly this time, and there was no need to guess.

Just strictly following what Mr. Pei said would be right!

Lin Wan raised her hand and said, “Mr. Pei, I think this is quite an innovative design! However, if players just keep walking around in there, wouldn’t it be a bit boring?”

Boring?

Boring would be great!

That’s exactly the effect I want!

But Lin Wan’s question made Pei Qian think of another hidden concern.

Doing it like this… would it still not be radical enough?

If it was simply boring, it might not have an absolute deterrent effect on players…

What if they enjoyed the feeling of making choices, endured the boredom, and became addicted instead?

Pei Qian lowered his gaze, deep in thought.

“Got it.”

Pei Qian suddenly thought of a good idea: “Let’s add a narrator to the game!”

“A narrator?” Lin Wan blinked, somewhat confused.

Adding a narrator to games wasn’t uncommon. But that was mainly in opening CGI sequences.

If a narrator were added during the gameplay, it would greatly affect the immersion.

Pei Qian chuckled.

Why add a narrator?

Precisely to affect the players’ immersion, to make them unable to continue playing!

Not only that, he also wanted to include personal comments in the narration, ruthlessly mocking players, making them angry, making them curse out loud!

Make them feel personally insulted, so they would give the game bad reviews, not recommend it, and then the game’s reputation would collapse. Wouldn’t it be close to dying then?

Imagine, every time a player made a choice, the system’s narrator would sarcastically mock them…

A game that insults players!

Delightful!

Any player with a bit of dignity would probably throw their mouse in anger, right?

Pei Qian coughed lightly twice and explained: “The narrator is a way for us to interact with players.”

“Players constantly running around in there would indeed be boring, because they’re like outsiders, observers, and can easily lose interest.”

“We communicate with them through the narrator. For example, if they choose the wrong option, it triggers Narrator A; if they choose the correct option, it triggers Narrator B.”

“This way, players get feedback every time they make a choice, and they won’t feel lonely or bored!”

Lin Wan had a sudden realization and nodded vigorously.

As expected of Mr. Pei, to even think of such a good idea!

What defines a genius designer?

This was it!

Lin Wan couldn’t help but recall her experience at Tianhua Studio.

At Tianhua Studio, they would also often hold such discussion meetings, using brainstorming to determine how some details of the game should be made.

But the atmosphere was completely different!

Because Zhou Muyan would always ask, “Are there other games with similar approaches?”

If the answer was yes, Zhou Muyan would analyze whether the approach in that game was successful, and only if it was successful would he adopt it.

If the answer was no, or if games had done it but failed, then the idea would be cut without hesitation.

This wasn’t an isolated case; most domestic game companies did it this way!

For safety, most designers didn’t dare to take risks, but instead tended to draw experience from previous cases.

That’s why many games became uniformly similar, as if cut from the same mold.

Pei Qian’s approach made Lin Wan instinctively admire him.

He didn’t care at all whether there were successful precedents, and was brave enough to be the first to try something new!

This level of vision was several tiers above Tianhua Studio and Zhou Muyan!

Lin Wan became more convinced that Pei Qian was a genius designer, no doubt about it!

As for Lü Mingliang, he could only frantically take notes.

He just found it impressive but didn’t understand why Pei Qian wanted to do this.

But he was well aware of his capabilities and would not raise any objections. He just needed to do everything according to what Mr. Pei said!

Having successfully convinced everyone, Pei Qian felt relaxed.

This feeling was great!

The project was completely under his control!

“Three days to produce a design document, one week to complete the entire process, two weeks to produce all art resources. No problem, right?” Pei Qian looked at Lü Mingliang.

Lü Mingliang immediately nodded: “Rest assured, Mr. Pei, I guarantee the task will be completed!”

After saying this, he added with some uncertainty: “Mr. Pei, if we can’t finish, can we apply for overtime?”

Overtime was a privilege that only outstanding employees could enjoy, and he wasn’t sure if he counted as an outstanding employee in Mr. Pei’s eyes.

Pei Qian thought for a moment and nodded: “Yes, but not later than 9 PM. Although you’re all still young, you must take care of your health.”

“Yes!” Lü Mingliang was deeply moved.

Where else could you find such humane care except at Tenda?

If he didn’t work his heart out for Mr. Pei, could he even be considered human?