Chapter 10 Sunday, October 9th, make-up workday.

At Fei Huang Studio, Huang Sibo was pacing around anxiously.

Hu Xianbin was also at Fei Huang Studio, equally anxious.

They couldn't figure it out!

President Pei had assigned the new game task yesterday and left. The two of them had been thinking about it since then, racking their brains but still without a clue.

They had some ideas, but they couldn't be sure if they were what President Pei wanted.

It had to be said that the difficulty of President Pei's task was too high this time, higher than ever before. Relying on the strength of one or two people was completely useless.

The reason why Hu Xianbin was also here was because although the two of them were responsible for the game plot and the movie plot respectively, they were actually the same thing and had to be produced together.

If one person was responsible for the game and the other for the movie, without good communication and each doing their own thing, it would definitely not succeed in the end.

Huang Sibo looked at his watch, "It's about time, right?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard many people outside Fei Huang Studio chatting and laughing as they walked towards the office area.

Huang Sibo's eyes lit up. Reinforcements had arrived!

The lineup this time was extremely luxurious.

In addition to the original Huang Sibo, Hu Xianbin, and Zhu Xiaoce, Bao Xu, Lü Mingliang, Li Yada, Lin Wan, and Ma Yiqun had all come!

This lineup could be said to be the most luxurious lineup in Tenda Games.

It included not only the four generations of chief planners of Tenda Games, but also professional talents such as Zhu Xiaoce, Bao Xu, Lin Wan, and Ma Yiqun in the fields of film, games, and novels.

These eight people could be said to represent the highest level of the entire Tenda cultural industry, each of them being a master at interpreting President Pei's spirit.

If individual efforts didn't work, they could only call on others to join in!

Huang Sibo had already arranged the conference room and invited everyone in, then asked someone to pour tea.

"Everyone, please sit down. We have a tight schedule and a heavy task today. We must finalize the general plan for the new game and the new movie in one day! Let's strive to carry forward the Tenda spirit and complete the work without working overtime."

Huang Sibo motioned for everyone to sit around the conference table.

He was the head of Fei Huang Studio and the first chief planner of Tenda Games. He had the highest qualifications among everyone and spanned the game and film industries, so it was most appropriate for him to lead this project.

These people were all familiar with each other, so there was no restraint. They sat around the conference table, drinking tea, with different expressions on their faces.

Lü Mingliang's expression was the most inexplicable of all. He looked at the lineup today and was a little confused, "Brother Huang, this matter doesn't seem to have anything to do with Nifeng Logistics, right? Why are you asking me to come?"

Huang Sibo said, "You were also the chief planner of Tenda Games, of course you have to come!"

"President Pei is going to make a game this time, and there is too little information given. I really can't guess President Pei's true intentions, so I can only ask everyone for help."

"Each of us may only be responsible for part of President Pei's projects, whether it's games or movies, and only understand part of President Pei's spirit. Our knowledge is complementary to each other."

"So, this game must be based on collective wisdom!"

"I have already sorted out President Pei's requirements. Everyone, please take a careful look. We will start brainstorming in ten minutes."

Huang Sibo gave everyone a piece of paper, which clearly stated President Pei's requirements for the game *Fate & Choice*.

Everyone looked at President Pei's requirements seriously, each with a frown on their face.

Difficult to understand!

These people had all solved the puzzles set by President Pei to varying degrees, but there was no denying that this time's puzzle was the most difficult.

Because this time, President Pei not only put forward many seemingly completely unreasonable design requirements, but also these contents were interlinked, and one thing affected the whole situation.

If there were only one or two unreasonable requirements, it would be easy to solve.

But if there were seven or eight or even more seemingly unreasonable requirements, we had to find a solution that met all the requirements.

If any point was not done well, it might be a tiny deviation that led to a huge error!

Ten minutes later, Huang Sibo raised his head, "Okay, time is tight, let's brainstorm for an hour first, give each other some inspiration, and then continue thinking."

"Let me talk about my views first."

"According to the standard analysis steps, the first step must be to find the unreasonable points in these requirements and deeply analyze the underlying design concepts behind them."

"Each unreasonable point may have multiple solutions. We must integrate this information and find the only correct solution."

"First of all, I think this must be a game that wins with its plot. Everyone should not object to this, right? The movie investment is more than the game itself, and it is required to be more than an hour and a half long. This shows that the weight of the plot is completely equal to the game itself, and even surpasses it."

"So, I'm considering whether we can make a breakthrough from the plot."

"In terms of plot, do you have any good ideas?" Huang Sibo looked at Zhu Xiaoce and Ma Yiqun.

Ma Yiqun himself was also from the game industry and had some understanding of games and plots, so he also participated in this discussion.

He thought for a while and said, "The plot does account for a large weight, but the plot must also serve the gameplay."

"If it's just the theme of 'resisting the Zerg and defending the homeland', then it's too broad. The probability of us guessing President Pei's true thoughts is basically zero."

"We still have to find a breakthrough from the gameplay."

"From the game *Struggle*, we can see that although President Pei puts a lot of effort into the plot, he is not pursuing a simple plot. He is more pursuing the unity of plot and gameplay, that is, the practice of 'breaking the fourth wall', so that the plot is not only an extension of the gameplay, but also integrates at a higher level."

Huang Sibo thought for a while, "Well, that's right."

Li Yada spoke, "From the perspective of players, I think President Pei's two requirements are very interesting: the game is very unbalanced, and some units will not obey orders. This should be used as a starting point for the gameplay."

"Brother Bao, you are also a senior player of RTS games, what do you think?"

Bao Xu stroked his chin, thoughtfully, "These two points are obviously fatal flaws for conventional RTS games. Imbalance and too many uncertain factors completely eliminate the game's competitiveness."

"What does eliminating competitiveness bring…"

Lin Wan, "Bring better entertainment? …That doesn't seem right either, because for most RTS game players, the competitiveness of RTS games is equal to entertainment."

Bao Xu thought seriously and said, "I think it should be authenticity."

"The Human race and the Zerg race are inherently unbalanced. In most film and television works, the Zerg race has an overwhelming advantage when facing humans."

"The Zerg race reproduces very quickly and completely obeys orders. If you don't pay attention, it will make a comeback, which is obviously a nightmare for humans."

"Combining this with the point that 'the soldiers have their own ideas', President Pei obviously wants us to make the Human race weaker and the Zerg race stronger, so as to highlight a kind of authenticity!"

"When players use humans to fight against the Zerg, they will feel unfair, which is more authentic than that kind of absolutely balanced RTS game."

"For this kind of authenticity, President Pei would rather give up the competitiveness and balance of RTS games. This should be a very crucial point."

Lin Wan suddenly understood, "I understand! That is to say, the game mechanism makes the gap between the Human race and the Zerg race more obvious. This should be related to the plot!"

Huang Sibo nodded, "Well, this is a very crucial point. So, President Pei specifically requires that this game must be easy to operate. Is this related to it?"

Bao Xu frowned slightly, "It seems… to be unrelated. Whether the game is simple or difficult, the two races can be made unbalanced."

Everyone fell into a brief silence.

Because "seemingly unrelated" often does not mean "really unrelated", but "related but not seen".

Lü Mingliang thought for a while and said, "I think this should be related to the 'focus' that President Pei is considering."

"When I was making *Game Producer*, I had this feeling."

"For the content that President Pei wants to express, he is willing to spend huge sums of money and use the most exaggerated way to express it. Just like *Game Producer*, which could obviously be made into a text adventure game, President Pei made every choice into a 3D scene; *Struggle* was also made into an interactive movie game at great cost."

"If these two games were made into text adventures, the investment could be reduced tenfold or even more, but President Pei still spared no expense, just to make the key content he wanted to express prominent enough."

"And for some less important content, President Pei can delete it if he can, and simplify it if he can, to minimize these factors from interfering with players."

"Since *Fate & Choice* has already decided not to be competitive, but to reflect authenticity and highlight the plot, then, is operation still important? It's not important anymore."

"Operation is for competitiveness."

"The significance of simplifying operations and weakening in-battle strategies is that players can have more time to think and prepare pre-war strategies."

"This should be the focus that President Pei wants to express."

Huang Sibo quickly wrote it down, "That makes sense!"

"A balanced RTS game needs to compete for operation, what else is there to compete for in an unbalanced RTS game? After players don't need too much operation, the freed up time can be used to do more pre-war strategies."

"But…"

"In the traditional RTS game 'collect-build-fight' mode, combat accounts for at least 60% of the game's fun. If the operational experience of combat is reduced, it may be a huge weakening of the game experience."

Bao Xu thought for a while and said, "So the collection and construction systems should be made more complex, so that players spend most of their time and energy on these two links."

"Especially pre-war strategies, players must think carefully when making each choice."

Li Yada strongly agreed, "Yes, it's like elimination games. The initial elimination games were all about speed and timing, and later elimination games became unlimited in time, limited in steps, and required continuous elimination to score points."

"The latter requires more thinking, is more fun, and is more in line with the current game habits of players."

"Obviously, President Pei doesn't want to simply replicate the success of *StarCraft*, but is exploring a new RTS game mode!"

"It's still real-time, it's still a strategy game, but even players who are not good at operation can experience the fun of the game."