Chapter 168: 126: How to Endure? (Second Update)_2
In front of him, ordinary people could not withstand a single palm strike from him, and the crowd of skilled martial artists that swarmed toward him were like clay Buddhas entering the water, disintegrating into soft mud at a touch.
What an impressive palm strength!
No, it should be said, what a performance!
Although Tang Mo didn’t know about Ye Qingguo’s life story, the display on the screen alone made it clear to him that this man had to be at least a Martial Arts Alliance Hierarch.
He thought the video would revolve around Ye Qingguo, but as the elder’s voice rang with a “not necessarily”, everything fell silent once more.
Then, a childish voice sounded again, “Is that Yue’e?”
The image changed, and on the dark screen, the woman’s smiling face appeared; even through a layer of veil, one could feel her myriad charms.
The rhythmic drumming began, and she too started showcasing her extraordinary dance moves. Enveloped in a mystical and profound aura, her captivating dance made her seem like a celestial being descending from the heavens.
However, what drew the most attention was the smile beneath her veil.
That smile, pure and innocent, slightly flamboyant, was like a flame full of vitality, brimming with a passion for dance. It made Tang Mo feel that she truly loved dancing.
“Not necessarily,” the old master continued.
The splendid dance vanished, but its aftertaste remained, leaving Tang Mo feeling lost, and at the same time, curious.
If neither of them is First Under Heaven, then who is?
It wasn’t long before the third person appeared.
Above the temple hall, the atmosphere was solemn.
On the throne of the Emperor, there was a five-year-old child, now looking forward in fear.
Beside him, a tall eunuch with a hooked nose was staring emotionlessly at the courtiers below; those under his gaze were like frogs spotted by a snake, trembling and unable to do anything else.
Without any dialogue, without any other action, Tang Mo understood that this person must undoubtedly be the First Under Heaven in terms of power.
With the young emperor on the throne, the late emperor’s favored servant had become the real master of the palace but was also inevitably the enemy of all the civil and military officials in the court.
Faced with the scared courtiers below, who wished nothing more than for him to die quickly, the eunuch laughed.
In that laugh, countless conspiracies and slaughters were laid bare, startling Tang Mo but also stirring great interest in him for this person.
This person’s life must be incredibly fascinating.
Suddenly, a great variety of First Under Heaven was showcased.
The First Under Heaven culinary master, whose simple egg fried rice could make one’s mouth water and forget all other foods.
The First Under Heaven detective, whose nose was like a dog’s and could distinguish different scents to apprehend criminals.
The twenty-minute video showed Tang Mo a myriad of First Under Heaven, but the question posed by the childish voice in the video remained unanswered.
After all, who is the First Under Heaven?
Tang Mo vaguely felt that the question should be “the player is the First Under Heaven”, but until the end, the question was not answered.
He felt like he had become that little child, constantly wanting to know what the First Under Heaven was, but the riddle-like old master adamantly refused to give an answer.
Until the end, the answer to that question never appeared, instead, an official advertisement popped up at the conclusion.
“On January twenty-first, ‘The Supreme One’ early access version goes on sale, let’s see who is the First Under Heaven!”
Watching this expressionlessly, Tang Mo unfollowed with a flick of his hand.
Playing hard to get with me?
I’ll show you that I’m not a man to be trifled with!
Returning to the beginning, Tang Mo watched the video again and then followed the “Fang Cheng Studio official account” once more.
It’s been twenty minutes since I unfollowed, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.
So, don’t play coy tomorrow, just release the video properly.
Also, I want to meet who the First Under Heaven novelist is, remember to arrange that for tomorrow, thank you.
At Tianyi, Qiu Yu was also watching the video.
He repeatedly watched the video many times and then discovered through many details that only a small part of the video was made with software, but the majority of it was an actual showcase of the game graphics.
“Open world, huh…”
The previous few games from Fang Cheng Studio all have elements of an open world, but they also have a clear main storyline in them.
Players can choose not to follow the main storyline, but if they do, they will find more interesting developments, so most players choose to follow the main storyline.
But “The Supreme One” is different.
From this promotional video, Qiu Yu felt that this game would probably not set a clear main storyline.
The goal of the players is to chase after the title of First Under Heaven, but which one to chase is the players’ own choice—Fang Cheng just set the targets there, but how to choose is up to the players themselves.
“Without a main storyline, letting players set their own goals, while chasing these goals they also compete with other players and need to surpass the current First Under Heaven… Without a substantial amount of gameplay support, this game could easily collapse.”
Most open-world games are actually just a pile of side quests, or artificially created barriers through stats, forcing players to grind monsters or gather materials, turning time into power, to eventually reach subsequent content.
This is because the planners’ capabilities are limited while players’ capabilities are unlimited; what the planners design in half a month, players may clear in just a few days, which forces the planners to design various barriers to prolong the consumption rate of the game content.
If it were a common game, then Qiu Yu felt the other party might have used some gimmicks and then wouldn’t take long to fall back into old patterns.
But that’s Fang Cheng!
Qiu Yu seriously suspected that there might be a secret team of over a hundred people supporting Fang Cheng; otherwise, how could they produce so many good games?
As Qiu Yu pondered the reasons and deduced the gameplay, a balding programmer suddenly appeared at the door, cautiously calling out, “Qiu Yu…”
Without lifting his head, Qiu Yu said, “I’ve already sent the document to you.”
“Sorry, I just went out for a smoke and didn’t see it. I’ll go take a look right now.” The person immediately left with an amiable attitude.
It had been almost a month since Qiu Yu was transferred to this small game planning group.
This planning group mainly focuses on WeChat Mini Programs, serving as an experimental division within Tianyi.
There were a dozen planners here, each equipped with a corresponding programmer, and their daily work was to conceive instant-play mini-games.
Since the games were very small, they only needed one core gameplay mechanic.
No need for art; Tianyi’s internal art resource library had a plethora of art assets, and planners just needed to drag these resources over to the programmers.
Because of these conveniences, as long as there was an idea, the planners here could come up with a mini-game in two or three days, and then pass it to the operations department to distribute traffic for testing.
If it was suitable, they would push for promotion, and consider monetization when it gained a certain level; if not, they just let it be, to live or die on its own.
Although the pace was fast, this place was adept at cultivating planners’ insight into gameplay construction and was one of Tianyi’s incubators for nurturing newcomers.
Most planners took about two months to come up with a decent hit, but it only took three days for Qiu Yu to create a viral mini-game.
The game was actually quite boring, with a gameplay that was the common matching game, but he had made a transformation.
That was the difficulty.
The difficulty level of this game was frustrating; the first level already had a difficulty of level 5, and the second level shot up to level 10, which was a level that most matching game experts would balk at.
The third level then was at level 20, a difficulty that one could hardly pass unless blessed with incredible luck and skill.
Although there were only three levels, the difficulty of the third game and its rapid restart speed quickly became a hot topic, turning it into a hit among WeChat mini-games and causing many people to give it a try or two on the subway.
This game earned Qiu Yu a special bonus of fifty thousand, and significantly increased his clout in the mini-game group, even carefree slack-offs like this were not a problem.
And Qiu Yu did not let everyone down, as the three mini-games he followed up with, although all adaptations of existing gameplay, had his own ability to turn trash into treasure, making the games become popular.
However, even someone like Qiu Yu frowned after watching the video.
Because…
He felt that “The Supreme One” was definitely going to be incredibly fun.
So fun that he wanted to run over right now, then slap the desk of the other party and shout, “Hand over the demo!”
Glancing at the calendar, he leaned back in his chair and mumbled to himself, “Ten more days, huh.”
How is he going to endure this time?