Otherworldly Architect

The current development progress of "Soul of Mortal" is not high, but the BOSS with the highest degree of completion is obviously "Sisyphus".

This monster is called "Blocking Mentor" in Blue Star, which is also the original intention of Ming Yan's design.

This is a boss that must be blocked and dodged well to pass!

In the teaching level, mobs can teach players how to use combos; while BOSS teaches players how to survive...

If the block or dodge is not used well, he will be taught by "Sisyphus", so he is called "Block Master".

In fact, there is still a highly completed NPC called "Adam".

He was placed in the official level, so test players haven't foreseen it yet.

After the teaching level, players will come to one of the temple ruins in the game world and use it as their stronghold.

Later levels will start from this stronghold and explore the outside area step by step.

Adam is an important NPC in the stronghold. In the setting, he was originally a Templar guarding the temple, but after the light of the temple disappeared, he has been fighting against the invasion of darkness...

Adam is a character created entirely based on Lingling Qi.

His script was the first to be written.

Everyone at Blue Star Studios has seen the script, and they portray Adam as a hero who stubbornly fights against darkness (disease) and is not afraid of sacrifice.

The story of the soul of mortal nature will go through many twists and turns, going through the first game of the game that knows nothing, and then to the second game of knowing the truth, and until the third game, the player is likely to play a better ending.

This is the wish of the designers.

They hope that Adam can finally overcome the darkness, no matter how many difficulties and obstacles he has to go through along the way, but the hard work will definitely pay off...

Heroes will get what they want.

...

After the verification test of "Soul of Mortal" ended this time, the game development quickly went on a high-speed track.

Blue Star's strength in developing games is already recognized as one of the best in the Sixth Star Province, mainly thanks to an experienced and dynamic production team...

Of course, the leadership of the wise and powerful boss is also indispensable.

At this time, Ming Yan temporarily put aside the development affairs of Blue Star Studio.

Because he received an invitation letter from Central Star Province.

——It is an invitation from the League A Association!

——They nominated "Blue Star Doom" for this year's "Game of the Year Award", one of the twelve candidates!

As the producer of the nominated work, Ming Yan naturally received an invitation.

Every year, the League A will select the best games of the year.

In addition to the most important "Best Game of the Year", there are also various small items such as pictures, soundtracks, and plots.

"Blue Star Doom" was also nominated for the "Best Game Story" award, which is a rare double-nominated VR work.

In previous years, 80% of these awards belonged to otherworldly games, and only a small number ended up being awarded to particularly good VR games.

This is also a matter of course, because the expressive ability of otherworld games is inherently stronger than VR games.

This is the hardware level gap.

In addition to the official annual game selection of the League One, there is also a League One Gamers Association.

League A itself is the first-level association of the league, while its affiliated game player association is one level lower, but it is still the most well-known and authoritative professional association in the industry.

Just like the Actors Guild and the Workers' Association, it is only a public welfare organization on the surface, but its actual influence is far more than that.

Now, this League of League Gamers Association has also sent an invitation to Ming Yan.

They nominated Bluestar Studio as the "Most Popular Award for Players" and included Mingyan himself in the list of "Outstanding Young Architects".

This "excellent young architect" is more than just being excellent.

Today's Chaoyang Alliance has an average life expectancy of more than 200 years, and the range of "youth" spans from 20 to 50 years old.

Among the Chaoyang Alliance's 300 billion population, there are more than 100 million game-related practitioners, and every year tens of millions of people crowd out to compete for this honor.

In other words, the official word "excellent" actually has the subtext: one-in-a-million genius.

To enter this list, talent may not be enough, because the game itself depends on luck.

The tuyere, the tuyere has the greatest influence on the game - no matter how good the idea is, it needs the traffic support of the market itself.

Therefore, it has appeared before, and the new designer became an instant hit. stage.

In the age of the Internet, people who rise as fast as meteors are not necessarily geniuses, and they may fall just overnight.

Therefore, the list of "excellent young architects" is actually an architect who has been famous for at least three years and has at least two excellent works with a score of 8.5 or above.

Coupled with the needs of age and popularity, there are actually very few people who meet the requirements, only single digits every year, and even a few years have passed.

And once on the list, it is an officially certified "genius", a completely irrefutable fact.

With Mingyan's qualifications in the game industry, he has been qualified for a long time, but unfortunately he has not yet reached the age of practicing——

Saying it out, it will make a lot of people drop their jaws.

Most of the people on the list have been in the industry for many years, accumulating their own experience and qualifications, and working hard to make two good enough boutique games.

When they were nominated, many of them were in their 40s, and they took the honor by risk.

This can already be called "genius".

But Ming Yan is completely reversed!

"Minecraft" 9.5 points, "League of Legends" 9.5 points, "Blue Star Doom" 10 points out.

In three years, he has launched three works, all of which have a brilliant record, which is enough for him to be included in the history of the game.

But his working age is not enough!

Everyone else is getting old and waiting for their own better works;

However, he had already accumulated enough works, and the people from the League A Game Association were waiting for him to reach his age, and then quickly sent a notice...

It really makes people cry.

This time, two invitations were sent, along with some process instructions.

This year's award ceremony of the League A is located on an artificial planet in a second-level star field in the Central Star Province, and it can go directly to the nearest cosmic port through the superluminal passage.

The to and fro travel expenses are reimbursed by A League afterwards.

Of course, if you don't want to go in person, you can also apply for a super-light communication channel and participate in the entire ceremony online, and the cost will be reimbursed as well.

The six star provinces of the Chaoyang Alliance are quite large, and each has different customs and inter-provincial laws.

Like the sixth star province where Mingyan is located, it is a more traditional and mixed area.

People here are not used to living on virtual networks, which is very different from other places.

It is said that in the second-star province, the province with the most severe virtualization, people have basically stopped walking offline, and some people even complete the whole process of getting married online.

The Sixth Star Province is very different. People like to work, study and communicate offline, and occasionally go online to play games.

After the invitation from the League A this time, the entire production team of "Blue Star Doomsday" is definitely going to leave.

Ming Yan pointed out that he would have to bring more than 60 people.

Most of these employees have never traveled faster than the speed of light, let alone directly cross-province and traveled to the central star tens of millions of light-years away.

After Mingyan announced the news at the morning meeting, he let them decide whether to go with the group or not.

Of course, several key figures cannot be absent.

On this day, the Blue Star Studio was very lively, and everyone was discussing the annual awards ceremony of the League One Association.

This is the annual event of the gaming industry!

The "Best Game Award" of the League One is the most watched award every year, and it is not one of them.

Regardless of the industry, the player group, or even the melon eaters, it is regarded as the top prize in the game industry.

The viewership rate of the live broadcast is above 10% every year, and it will definitely be rebroadcasted on the whole network afterwards, with the audience number of more than 15 billion people.

There is no doubt that every employee invited wants to go.

——It’s a lot to want to go! Being invited to a ceremony is itself a symbol of status and honor.

Finally, I made a clear statement, adding myself to a total of 62 people.

They all have to apply for a passport for interstellar travel first, and then book a ferry ticket to the Central Star Province in advance...

When it comes to the ticket, it is beyond the scope of Ming Yan's knowledge.

When he was still worrying about whether he could hand it over to the secretary, it just so happened that Xia Cheng called again.

Xia Cheng, as always, was straight to the point and said, "Congratulations, Blue Star Doomsday double nomination!"

Ming Yan was not polite to him, and asked, "I'm just worrying about the ferry tickets to the ceremony. Do you have any recommended flights?"

Xia Cheng smiled and said, "There is a class recently. I'll send you the code in a while. Check if the time is right."

What Xia Cheng recommended was a luxury spaceship, the one that departed from a dedicated space port, with only VIP access for boarding.

When Ming Yan saw half of it, he was still looking for how much a ticket would cost.

——Although the father of the League A will be reimbursed for the whole process, it can’t be too much, right?

Just then, there was a knock on the office door.

"Please come in." Ming Yan said casually.

The door was gently opened, and there were several employees huddled together outside.

Varian was pushed to the front by them - recently working overtime in the small dark room to play games, so his face was covered with a beard, and two small eyes were embedded in the beard.

Varian: "Boss, we want to discuss something with you..."

"???" Ming Yan said, "Consultation is negotiated, you put Xixi down first."

That's right, Varian also held a golden retriever in his arms.

Xixi was confused, her feet were not touching the ground, and her little head turned left and right to look at the crowd.

Varian said embarrassingly: "Boss, you see that our entire production team is going to the Central Star Province. Wouldn't it be better to bring our press spokesman too?"

Xixi pricked up her ears, as if feeling that everyone was talking about herself, and wagged her tail happily.

This is Blue Star's little angel, one of the spiritual pillars of how many people work overtime...

Ming Yan was lost in thought.

After a while, in a certain club.

Xia Cheng received another active communication application from Ming Yan.

Master Xia, who was drinking afternoon tea, smiled happily, made a gesture, and answered the phone.

There were a few wealthy children beside him, so he took the initiative to avoid his sight when he saw this.

Only Xia Cheng's voice was gentle and authentic: "Xi Xi? Is that your big golden retriever? ... Get on the spaceship, no problem, no problem, super-light channel is also possible. Hmm, no problem..."

The communication was brief, but Xia Cheng's mood suddenly became very good.

"Okay! Let's eat at your place tonight!"

After the communication was hung up, a companion asked Xia Cheng curiously: "Dogs and people are now allowed to get on the spaceship together? Which airline allows it?"

Xia Cheng said blankly, "I don't know."

"Then you said 'no problem' just now?"

"Oh," Xia Cheng smiled, "a private spaceship, you can bring anything."

"..."

On the other hand, Ming Yan was very happy.

——Obviously, the Fossil contestant Mingyan did not have such a wide range of knowledge in this area.

After getting an affirmative answer, he nodded to the waiting employees.

"Oye!"

The crowd cheered and walked away, not forgetting to hug Xixi, who was bewildered, again.

“Celebrate with a hot pot buffet tonight!!”

The cafeteria in the Blue Star Building has been gradually completed. Recently, there is a self-service hot pot restaurant on the second floor. More than 60 people can be combined into three oversized tables to eat together.

And after eating this celebratory dinner, Ming Yan rushed to the Tulong Baodao studio without stopping.

Compared to Blue Star's treatment, this Dragon Slayer Sword can be said to be "raised by a trumpet".

The number of employees is not large, and Ming Yan, who is the boss and chief designer, does not go there often, and the daily affairs are managed by the deputy chief engineer.

Ming Yan had to go to the Central Star Province this time, and conservatively estimated that he would be away for a week.

After all, it is an inter-star trip, and the news will definitely not be delivered quickly by then, so it is clear that you must prepare the schedule here in advance to avoid any mistakes when you are not there.

The project currently being done by Tulong Baodao Studio is the follow-up to the idle game "Fingertip Man".

At that time, after Yu Bing cooperated with Mingyan, they first conducted some "cultivation" inside the Dragon Saber, and had in-depth discussions with senior designers.

In the end, they basically overturned and redone the original game framework, and started a new game called "Idle Hero".

——The name he came up with is indeed the style of the Dragon Slayer Sword.

Their names do not pay attention to any mysterious connotation, profound truth, and beautiful style.

Just one essential point: highlight the key points!

This idle game is mainly a mode of drawing cards.

Players can draw various "heroes" from the card pool, and after matching them into a lineup, they can let this heroic team set off for battle...

The core element of the placement game is of course placement.

As long as you hang up there, it's fine to turn off the phone. No matter how long you wait to go back, the heroes are still there to fight monsters and level up, and accumulate resources for players...

Small-scale games like this are most suitable for working parties and light gamers who have little time to pass the fragmented time.

In their spare time, they only need to take a minute or two to look at their mobile phones and just click on the screen.

It's not like hiring a group of heroes, in fact, it's more like raising a group of small slaves, digging for themselves all the time.

After a busy day of work or study, when I came home and turned on my mobile phone, I saw that the slaves worked hard to save a box of raw materials for themselves.

This is the joy of harvest!

The player then distributes the raw materials and strengthens the old slaves... oh no, heroes;

Or save a little more and use it to draw new heroes, which can make the speed of capital accumulation a little faster.

Day by day, the slave team itself is getting stronger, and the resources harvested every day are also increasing, and there will be a kind of happiness that is like watching the bank deposits make profits.

Therefore, in the design of this type of placement game, elements such as pictures and plots are secondary.

The most important thing is the numbers!

In what range, can players feel the joy of the harvest without breaking the balance too much?

How long does it take to hang up, and how much gain can be obtained, making players happy to go online for about fifteen minutes a day?

What is the proportion of the card pool for drawing cards, how much resources do you need to upgrade a hero, and how strong does the team's total combat effectiveness need to be to hang up at a certain level?

Every numerical curve is critical and needs to be carefully tuned.

In this regard, the interstellar age has an obvious benefit:

Numerical analysis tools are particularly advanced!

This is also the first time that Tulong Baodao Studio has used the artificial intelligence core to measure and iterate these values.

It is the AI ​​"Redstone No. 7" donated by Ling Lingqi for game design.

This artificial intelligence can horizontally compare all the values ​​of similar games on the market, characterize them and substitute them into the new game "Idle Hero", and then start to calculate based on it.

For each calculation, a numerical expectation graph will be obtained. According to this graph, he will modify the initial data and then iterate again.

With each round of these iterations, calculations, and corrections, the game data gets a step closer, becoming more accurate and more appropriate.

In this way, a design work with a high threshold is quantified, and it becomes a process that can be optimized step by step as long as the workload is stacked.

——What’s even better is that it’s still the workload of artificial intelligence, and human employees don’t have to work overtime!

Redstone Seven did three iterations on the first night, and continued to work at an efficiency of 9-11 iterations per day thereafter.

On the day when Ming Yan came to check the progress, the value of "Idle Hero" had already passed the acceptance of the deputy chief designer, and the internal testing of the studio had already begun.

The lightweight game was originally expected to be released at the end of the year.

But unfortunately, it was stated that he was going to the Central Star Province to participate in the award ceremony of the League A, so the release date had to be postponed.

It is tentatively scheduled for mid-January next year, in time for a wave of popularity before the Chinese New Year.

In contrast, Blue Star Studio's "Soul of Mortals" is scheduled for the summer of June next year.

Bluestar's official website has not announced the news of the finalization of "Soul of Mortal", but during the interview, the designer vaguely revealed the current development progress.

But at the end of this year, even the much-anticipated new game "Soul of Mortal" failed to occupy the top position on the bulletin board.

Because everyone's eyes are on "Blue Star Doomsday"!

[Warmly celebrate that "Blue Star Doomsday" was nominated for the "Best Game" award of the A League this year! 】

Of the twelve nominated games, Blue Star Doom is the only one from the Sixth Star Province.

The moment the nomination list was released, countless news media were already brewing.

For a week in a row, the major self-media websites in the Sixth Star Province have related popular toppings, and soon even the melon eaters outside the circle learned the news.

At the entrance of the Blue Star Building, there are countless long guns and short guns squatting 24 hours a day.

Even a daily photo of "Chief Master Ming worked overtime until 1 a.m. to leave the company" could be published as news. ,

As a result, the gate of the Blue Star Building had to be closed to the outside world, and all employees even started wearing masks to work.

On the forum, there is a phenomenon that the whole world is celebrating together. Those who don't know it think that this year's New Year's Day will come so much earlier.

【The leader is awesome! ! Blue Star is awesome! ! 】

[I'm just as nervous now as my wife is having a baby. The final winner will be announced on the 10th. Can Bluestar win the best game of the year? 】

[Don't hold out too much hope, most of them are accompanied by running. This year's second-star province's simulated League A 16 is also a masterpiece, and it's a whole series of people to do it now, the qualifications are unmatched]

[I cried three times in 36 hours of customs clearance, I am really convinced only if "Blue Star Doomsday" won this year's Best of the Year]

[If Bluestar can win the award, any one will do. I will buy 100 copies for each game, and I will post it as proof! 】

[When Goddess Russell first appeared, I knew it would definitely be the best story game of the year]

December 10 is the official announcement of the winners list, and it is also the day when the League A will hold the awards ceremony and dinner.

On the afternoon of the 3rd, everyone from the Blue Star Studio had already boarded the ship—yes, from the VIP deluxe passage.

Seeing the spaceship parked in the port is simply a glimpse of the mountains.

Even the flight of the big company next door carrying 3,000 passengers is smaller in comparison.

The crowd also trembled.

Master Xia's personal spaceship is actually a super-sized 757 model, which can be used directly as a passenger spaceship to run flights.

It has been transformed into a super luxurious set of leisure and entertainment equipment.

Restaurant, reception room, dance hall, swimming pool, entertainment hall, study room, home theater, indoor hot spring and sauna... everything is available.

However, Xia Cheng felt that the spaceship was unremarkable, and he had previously offered to send the clear words and deeds directly from him.

Ming Yan was actually cowardly and said, "Will it be too much trouble for you?"

Xia Cheng said: "No, no, you know that I will go home every year at the end of the year, and this time is also on the way."

This is just like driving a colleague after get off work, it's light.

Indeed, the Xia family was not from the Sixth Star Province, and did not have the habit of celebrating the Chinese New Year. Xia Cheng went home around mid-December every year.

——Every time he made a statement, he thought that he was like everyone else, bought a ticket to go home, and at most bought a luxurious first-class cabin.

——Unexpectedly, he moved out of his private spaceship!

Really "Poverty limits my imagination".