So on June 8th, the most unique interview in the history of Earth took place.
The interviewee was Horace, a backend programmer.
The interviewer was Xixi, the spokesperson for Blue Star News.
To attract his idol's attention, Horace even sprayed himself with a special black pepper steak-scented perfume, which immediately made Sisi drool.
Golden Retrievers are naturally very affectionate dogs, so Sisi fell in love with Horace at first sight and clung to his leg, unwilling to let go.
Schrödinger happily announced: Horace will henceforth be the chief backend programmer of Earth!
Then, two impressive factions formed within the Blue Star programming community.
Schrödinger, a front-end development guru, kisses his anime waifu every day.
Horace, a backend guru, touches his idol Xixi every day.
From an outsider's perspective, both of them have been single since birth for over thirty years.
Mingyan watched this scene and fell into deep thought.
—Have programmers in the interstellar era already transcended low-level interests?
Regardless, Blue Star's new game codenamed "Xia" has finally been put into formal development, just like the new game "I Wanna Go Home" featuring the Dragon Slayer Sword.
While the programming team was working diligently to build the basic framework, Mingyan was also refining his own project proposal.
The conference room in the Blue Star Building was brightly lit, with multiple designers participating in a related meeting.
He stated bluntly, "The new game has many system concepts that will overturn many past design rules. I will now break down each module and explain it to you, and then assign different people to be in charge."
Upon hearing this, everyone straightened up.
Mingyan has so much to say about the new game.
Firstly, in terms of the game's background, the word "xia" (侠, chivalrous hero) is a concept that is very unfamiliar to StarCraft players.
Mingyan first wrote this character on the whiteboard.
"This concept originated from an ancient civilization on Earth..."
Just as I got to this point, someone in the audience raised their hand: "Is it the civilization that Russell's prototype came from?"
Mingyan smiled and said, "Yes. It is a civilization with a very long history, even older than the Chaoyang Alliance's current four thousand years. Therefore, its characters also have morphological significance. For example, the character '侠' (xia) has a small person on the left and '夹' (jia) or '长铗' (chang jia) on the right, which means sword."
Everyone nodded in sudden realization, finally understanding the meaning of the project's code name, "Xia".
Ling Xiaoman's mind wandered quite far. She was thinking: That mysterious civilization on Blue Star looks very interesting. Their writing is as lifelike as painting. It must be a country with a highly developed art.
Mingyan continued, "Regarding the background knowledge, we will hire two PhDs from the Blue Star Research Institute as historical consultants to guide the creation of relevant content."
"There are two more key points to focus on next: one is about team-based combat and aggro mechanics, and the other is about character development and personalization."
As he spoke, his secretary had already distributed the materials.
...
While the meeting room of Blue Star Studio was brightly lit, a beta version of the game was also being tested in Dragon Slayer Studio.
The game "I Wanna Go Home" has a unique theme and a relatively small scale, which greatly shortened the development time and allowed it to enter the testing phase so quickly.
The testing process for the Dragon Slayer Sword is quite straightforward: first, there's the alpha version for gameplay verification testing, then the beta version for initial testing, and at most one more closed beta test before it can be released directly.
Blue Star Studio's testing process is more complex, involving additional internal studio testing, player beta testing, and final closed beta testing, among other things.
In this beta test, the main body of the game "I wanna go home" has been largely completed.
The test players were mainly recruited through open recruitment by Dragon Slayer. Players who had played their games in the past signed up voluntarily, and then were randomly selected from among them.
Of course, some well-known streamers were also specially invited, mainly those who are good at operation and reaction.
The staff also carefully recorded the test data and feedback from these streamers.
First, this test lasted for two hours, and the average number of maps cleared by the test players was 7 out of 13, which is in line with the studio's internal expectations—the entire game should take about four hours to play, and skilled players may be able to clear it much faster.
During those two hours, these players died an average of over seven hundred times...
That's right! On average, they die more than five times per minute!
This figure also met the studio's internal expectations.
Designers: "Hehehe."
When the test ended, the players left the testing room, all of them looking dazed.
One of the expert players, when asked a question, said through gritted teeth, "This game... if I didn't know this was the Dragon Slayer Studio, I would almost have thought it was made by the devilish designer from Earth himself!"
The secretary who came to supervise heard this and tried her best to maintain a blank expression: 0v0.
Don't speak, you can't speak, it would be bad if you gave yourself away!
The player also said, "This game was made to see us die miserably in every attempt, and then have a mental breakdown, right? I seriously suspect that while players are having a breakdown, there are designers laughing next door..."
The designers next door: 0v0.
I cannot speak.
What if I burst out laughing as soon as I open my mouth!