To ascend, I had no choice but to create games

As soon as he entered the game, the tutorial NPC appeared.

The NPC was a somewhat tricky girl with a ponytail, dressed in a professional suit. Her hair was an unrealistic pink that you wouldn’t see in the real world, looking both formal and cute.

On the screen, the secretary girl, holding a notebook, cheerfully said to Liuzi outside the screen, “We meet again, dear Director Liuzi. Let’s strive together again to become a famous director.”

Flipping through her notebook, the assistant continued, “Even though you’ve already gone through a complete life and achieved good results, I still have to ask you, do you want to see the tutorial?”

Liuzi had played before and restarted more than a dozen times, he knew the game’s various settings and systems like the back of his hand, he could even list the employees’ traits with his eyes closed.

The game system of “I Am The Director” wasn’t complicated with the depth mainly being various combinations and capital operation, so there really wasn’t a need to watch it again.

However, this time he looked at the dialog box on the screen and eventually chose “Yes.”

The assistant smiled appropriately and then said, “Alright, then let’s start with recruiting employees. Our goal is to match various scripts, sensibly select and assign employees to shoot programs. The ratings of the shows will affect your advertising fees and financial support from your superiors. Please use your money wisely as it is your lifeline.”

The word “money” in the assistant’s dialogue was highlighted in green, as if the other party was emphasizing this point specifically.

After staring at the green text for a while, Liuzi chose to continue.

“Right now the production team has no employees, but since we have no reputation, we can’t hold a large-scale recruitment. So, let’s start with campus recruitment at universities. Through campus recruitment, you can recruit up to five-star employees, but the probability of recruiting five-star employees is very low, so don’t get your hopes up too much.”

“Moreover, the higher the employee’s star level, the higher their initial attributes, and the higher the bonuses after leveling up. Accordingly, they will demand higher monthly salaries. Please note, on the 1st of each month is payday, and salaries will automatically be deducted from your account, so please ensure you have sufficient funds.”

In the tutorial, players will certainly see five-star employees, but that is not a suitable recruitment target.

Their capability is strong, but they have the “greedy” trait, their salary demand is twice that of an average five-star, but if given a high salary they will work even harder.

Liuzi had already known these things by heart, but this time, seeing the words spoken by the assistant and the green text on “payday,” Liuzi felt as though she was subtly hinting at something.

Following standard procedure, he went through campus recruitment, the five-star employee appeared, just as he remembered, and the assistant appeared right on time.

“Wow, a five-star employee actually appeared, it seems your luck is quite good. However, the salary of a five-star employee is five times that of a one-star, and with the greedy trait, that makes it ten times. So, let’s not recruit this employee and start with that smart-looking two-star employee instead,” the assistant advised.

Liuzi didn’t choose an employee but opened an Excel spreadsheet and started calculating profits.

As a hardcore player, creating a spreadsheet based on the game’s numerical system was common practice, after all, this was a management simulation game where early advantages could snowball, and an early dollar could be worth ten thousand or more later on.

Although it might seem a bit penny-pinching, everyone has their own way of playing, and Liuzi liked this painstaking gameplay.

After entering the employees’ attributes into the spreadsheet, Liuzi saw that bringing the five-star employee on board would increase the overall quality of the show by about 50%, but the resulting revenue would not offset the loss incurred from the employee’s salary.

At this point, following the assistant’s advice to forgo the five-star employee or to put them into the waiting pool was the optimal solution.

This step should have been mandatory, but since Liuzi had already gone through the tutorial once, he was able to skip it now.

Liuzi looked at the employee on the screen and the waiting assistant, pondering.

Payday at the end of the month…

Five-star employees…

At that moment, the two concepts peculiarly merged together, creating a bizarre chemical reaction in his mind, as if he heard the explosion of fireworks.

Moving the mouse, he decisively chose “Turn off tutorial.”

After being turned off, he saw the assistant wave her hand and say kindly, “You don’t need me for now? It seems you’ve already made your decision. Alright then, I won’t disturb you. If you have any needs, you can summon me again in settings. Goodbye, Director.”

Having turned off the tutorial, Liuzi first saved his game and then recruited all the employees.

Recruitment didn’t cost any money; all that was needed was to pay the salaries at the start of the next month, and the game had a rigid way of calculating salaries, meaning even employees hired at the end of the month required full salary on the 1st.

Before, Liuzi had felt Fang Cheng Studio was running a company like it was charity, but now it seemed there must be a deeper meaning to it.