Only After I Was Reborn Did I Realize That I Had Childhood Sweethearts

Chapter 227: The Road to Game Development

With Mei Yue needing to spend time learning about the relevant aspects of starting a company, and Xia Yuan having just released her debut album, everyone could now fully dedicate themselves to the development of Cloudy Journey.

Many people might not know what the general process of creating a game looks like. So, let our professional planner, student Mei Fang introduce the newcomers to the process:

First, colleagues from the marketing or operations department conduct market research to understand the current most popular game genres. They write evaluation reports and present these genres to the boss and the higher-ups, including gameplay introductions, user profiles, market competitiveness, payment situations, etc.

Ultimately, by using professional data like DAU (Daily Active Users), MAU (Monthly Active Users), and ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), they aim to convince the boss and the higher-ups that choosing the above genres for the new project will surely lead the company to great success and result in enviable year-end bonuses.

Afterward, the boss and the higher-ups will actually play the corresponding games based on the research results, estimate development costs, assess their development team’s capability to handle such a game and provide the project team with a certain budget. This puts pressure on the project leader.

The project leader of the development team is usually the lead planner. After the lead planner confirms the game genre desired by the boss, the planning team repeatedly plays various games of the same genre and prepares new game materials to create a project proposal. After several rounds of adjustments, the game production begins.

The lead planner sets up the basic gameplay system framework, the lead programmer starts coding the underlying architecture, and the lead artist establishes the art style and guidelines.

During this process, the planners serve as the middle platform, continuously delivering requirement documents to the programmers and artists based on the content requirements set by the lead planner, gradually refining and optimizing the game’s content.

This process involves numerous adjustments, trial and error, and occasional complete overhauls. Sometimes, the boss might review the current version and provide feedback. If the boss is not satisfied, the team goes back to iteratively optimize until the product passes review, marking the completion of the first phase of the game’s development cycle.

In reality, game development might look like this: the boss plays the top 10 or top 20 game from the bestseller list, likes it, and calls the project leader to say, “Let’s make a game like this, but better.”

The project leader works on it for a while, and the boss occasionally adds input: “This game is also good. Add this game’s gameplay, that game’s graphics, and yes, I want this game’s theme.”

This behavior is common among bosses who genuinely want to create games. However, bosses who are solely focused on making money from games have even simpler ideas. They call the project leader and…

“Hey, this game is really popular right now. Let’s make a reskinned version. I think it’s quite simple and should be doable within three months.”

Most of the painful torments Mei Fang experienced in his previous life when making games came from project leaders not having firm determination for the project, constantly changing gameplay, and his boss who would have everything redone with a single comment. These actions severely demoralized the team.

However, without market validation, no one can guarantee if a certain approach is wrong, or if their game is definitely going to fail. So, arguments over such issues are common.

Fortunately, Ximilu Studio didn’t have these problems because everyone was united around Mei Fang.

The planners were Mei Fang and Zhang Ming, and all of Zhang Ming’s free time was under Mei Fang’s guidance. Although he was only doing some execution work on data tables for now, he was doing it quite diligently. Occasionally, he would also discuss some gameplay ideas with Mei Fang and would always try to understand the intentions behind Mei Fang’s designs.

In his previous life, Mei Fang often mentored new planners when he was the lead planner. This was a work skill he could never forget.

Meanwhile, the lead artist Guo Yun was completely obedient to Mei Fang’s demands, striving to understand and fulfill his ideas. Occasionally, her own creative input would even surprise Mei Fang in a good way, showing her ability to think independently while staying aligned with the project goals.

As for the programming aspect, the main people in charge were Lin Youxi and Mei Fang himself, but there wasn’t much to say about this area.

A professional planner with programming knowledge, who never proposed unrealistic demands and maintained consistency—after more than ten years of working together, what else needed to be said about their level of mutual understanding?

Under Mei Fang’s leadership, Lin Youxi quickly produced a simple playable demo package, which was released early the next morning for everyone on the team to try out.

The character model was already designed, primarily to test the functionality of the basic framework and the integration of some art resources.

Although the gameplay was similar, the overall effect differed significantly from Mei Fang’s recollection of GRIS, especially in terms of the character’s control feel and movement.

Lin Youxi also provided feedback, “The character’s movement feels a bit clunky… The skirt’s movement during turning isn’t natural. Adding more animation frames might improve it, though it will increase the memory usage.”

Mei Fang drew from his experience as a reborn developer, “The Dragonbones animation effect can only go so far… Recently, there’s a new 2D animation software called Spine that seems to work well for 2D character animations.”^[1]

“I’ll look into it right away.”

“Just familiarize yourself with it for now. Ximilu Studio needs to recruit more people. I’ll ask Sister Yue Yue to help hire some Spine animators and special effects artists. Having technical artists who understand programming is crucial for enhancing our products.”

“Speaking of which, the art assets are still a bit lacking, but at least the quality is good,” Lin Youxi remarked.

She then thought of something, “Didn’t you ask Guo Yun to find some artists to help her? Any updates on that?”

“It’s hard to expect high school students to be interested in this… Besides, Guo Yun doesn’t seem very good at communicating with people,” Mei Fang replied.

“I see…”

Mei Fang had noticed during their occasional chats that apart from attending classes, Guo Yun spent all her free time on game development and working out, making her lack of social interactions understandable.

“Ahh… I slept so well,” Xia Yuan yawned as she walked out of the bedroom. Seeing Lin Youxi and Mei Fang typing away at their computers, she curiously asked, “Why are you working so early… Have you had breakfast?”

“We ate already. Your portion is on the table. It might be a bit cold, so you can heat it up in the microwave.”

“Hmm… Okay.”

Xia Yuan heated her breakfast in the microwave, then ran over with a bun in hand to watch Mei Fang move a character left and right on the screen, leaning excitedly on his back.

“Oh, can we play it now? I want to play too.”

“It’s just a demo version, still early…”

Mei Fang had experienced various forms of pressure from Xia Yuan, but this kind of direct pressure was rare and made him quite uneasy.

“Um, Yuan Yuan… Can you change out of your sleepwear before playing? I don’t want you to catch a cold.”

“Uh… it’s fine, it’s not that cold today. Hehe… I feel like summer is coming.”

“Do I need to spell it out for you?”

Mei Fang sighed, covering his forehead, “Buns, buns… watch your buns.”

“Buns?”

Xia Yuan first looked at the bun in her hand, examining its external structure, before realizing the meaning behind Mei Fang’s words. Immediately, her face also turned a bit red.

But instead of running away, she teased Mei Fang, poking his back, “Ah Fang, you get so talkative with just a little touch. You’re too sensitive, haha…”

“…”

…

Xia Yuan hadn’t even played for a few minutes when Lin Youxi suddenly spoke up from the side:

“Yuan Yuan, don’t just slack off. Do we have any finished game music yet? The demo has no progress on your end.”

“Oh, right… I’m working on it. I should have two tracks ready today.”

Xia Yuan leaned on Mei Fang’s shoulder, speaking close to his ear, “Fufu… Today, I’ll show you what I can do.”

Translator's Notes: