Chapter 14: Hopefully Not to Repeat the Same Mistakes!

"This game looks so impressive! It's quite artistic!"

Su Tong had already finished reading the game's design documents but still couldn't get enough, even wanting to go through them again.

In her eyes, the game had innovatively combined the mythological story of Sisyphus with the Purgatory setting from The Divine Comedy and filled in many details to create the game, truly embodying the concept of gaming as the "ninth art."

Before this, Su Tong had interviewed at several gaming companies and learned about the games they produced.

But most of these games were simple, crude, and lacked technical content, mostly mobile games. Even the few PC games they had were mainly focused on numerical values for winning, and seldom did you see such an emphasis on artistry like this.

Therefore, Su Tong felt increasingly fortunate, thinking how lucky she was to have come to such a unique company.

Gu Fan fell silent for a moment, "So what do you think about the game's fundamental gameplay?"

"Fundamental gameplay?" Su Tong was a bit puzzled, looking over the design documents again, "The fundamental gameplay, I think... seems pretty good?"

Gu Fan nodded without adding anything.

Hmm, fits the character profile...

Clearly, as a newbie who had barely played any games, Su Tong was basically clueless about game fundamental gameplay design, difficulty design, and the emotional experiences games could offer players.

The game's packaging alone was indeed not bad, seeing as Lilith had used local resources—natural advantages for a demon.

Moreover, the art resources for the game were still incredibly explosive.

To Gu Fan, the style was Western Fantasy, but for the art team dwelling in Hell, this was probably the simplest form of realism—materials were everywhere, just paint what you see.

In summary, four words—professional expertise!

Previously, Gu Fan had suggested to Lilith that it wasn't necessary to put so much effort into art resources, a suggestion Lilith had obviously not taken.

So why was Lilith so confident that Sisyphus could make more players quit and create more negative emotions than "Infernal Trajectory"?

Clearly, she planned to focus on the fundamental gameplay!

"Infernal Trajectory"'s success was due to the Bullet Bending bug, and ultimately, this bug existed because the underlying mechanics of FPS games are relatively complex.

But the mechanics of Sisyphus were very straightforward.

Consisting only of basic movements like moving and jumping.

Not only that, but Lilith had deliberately reduced Sisyphus' movement ability.

Obviously, "Infernal Trajectory" taught her that it was better to weaken oneself than to enhance the enemy!

And this weakening was perfectly reasonable—Sisyphus, although a figure from mythology, was very strong, but pushing such a huge boulder, it's normal for him to move slowly and not jump high.

In this situation, controlling Sisyphus was a torment with every step the player took.

And thus, the game had absolutely no joy to speak of.

At any time, a weak self can bring players a greater sense of defeat than a strong enemy.

If this game wanted to become a normal, fun, popular game, it was missing something very crucial.

What was it?

Gu Fan sank into deep thought.

...

...

In the following month, Gu Fan went about the development work for Sisyphus in an orderly manner.

Comparatively speaking, the development difficulty of Sisyphus was somewhat higher than that of "Infernal Trajectory" because, as a relatively simple FPS game, "Infernal Trajectory" could use more ready-made templates.

However, the action of Sisyphus "rolling the stone" had no existing template to apply directly; all its detailed rules and mechanics had to be coded by Gu Fan himself.

Luckily, the gameplay of Sisyphus was very simple; the game's content consisted merely of "pushing a rock up a hill," so it was still possible to complete the development within a month.

As for Su Tong, she was quite busy with her daily work.

This talented newcomer had almost memorized the design document of Sisyphus within a single day, and then, as per Gu Fan's request, she began playing "Infernal Trajectory."

As to how well she played... it can only be described with four words: "It's the participation that counts."

Gu Fan decided to conduct a simple test on Su Tong to determine whether hiring her as the lead of the Tester team was the right choice. He deliberately didn't tell her about the Bullet Bending issue in the game.

He just assigned her the task to clear the single-player mode of "Infernal Trajectory" without searching for any guides online.

And then Gu Fan saw Su Tong tirelessly dying for over two hours in front of the very first small monster.

This clearly indicates two things.

First, Su Tong's gaming skills are indeed very poor. When she plays games, she can't even handle the keyboard and mouse proficiently, let alone her shooting skills in FPS games, which are so erratic it feels like she's using a controller.

Second, Su Tong's bug discovery ability is not strong either. If she were testing, it's estimated that the "Bullet Bending" bug would not be found even after another week of testing.

Gu Fan was very pleased with this.

Meeting these two criteria meant they had found the right tester!

...

...

Suddenly, a month and two weeks had passed in the blink of an eye.

Gu Fan took one month to develop the game "Sisyphus" and then spent another two weeks with Su Tong to conduct a comprehensive test of the game.

Testing was mainly done through the "AI-debug" tool, and superficial bugs were quickly located and fixed.

In addition, Gu Fan and Su Tong, as testers, also conducted "manual assistance testing."

In plain language, this meant playing through the entire game process as players, hoping to encounter those deeper bugs by chance.

And boy, they did find quite a number of bugs.

This time, Gu Fan meticulously recorded his own bug fixes in the backend, highlighting his and the testing team's hard work for Transcendent Heaven Gaming Company.

In conclusion, the game was now polished enough and completely met Lilith's initial expectations.

Everything was ready, so it was time for the direct launch!

As of now, Transcendent Heaven Gaming Company's account already had a substantial amount of funds.

"Infernal Trajectory" had been on sale for a month and three weeks, bringing in about 7 million in net revenue for Transcendent Heaven Gaming Company.

Out of this income, 70% was to be used as development and promotion funds for new games, which amounted to about 5 million.

In the process of creating "Sisyphus," Gu Fan had purchased some expensive game templates and feature plugins and outsourced some simple functions for development, all of which, along with miscellaneous expenses, cost around 2 million.

Considering that Lilith provided the art resources, this expenditure for an indie game was rather significant.

5% was Gu Fan's personal bonus, which was 350,000. Naturally, he transferred this amount to his personal account at the first opportunity.

Another 25%, which was 1.75 million, was for other operational expenses such as salaries, renting spaces, and purchasing office computers.

Gu Fan spent this money very frugally, adopting a minimalist approach. So far, he had only spent a little over 30,000, with 1.7 million remaining.

In short, about 4.7 million still lay in the company account.

170,000 of this was versatile operating capital, which Gu Fan did not plan to touch for the time being; the remaining 3 million was allocated for game promotion.

Lilith was directly in charge of promoting the game, and Gu Fan had no idea how she planned to spend the 3 million.

However, Gu Fan hoped Lilith would spend it all. After all, there was no use keeping it, as it could only be used for game development and promotion, and Lilith would supplement more if needed. There was no point to not spending it.

...

6 PM.

After having dinner outside, Gu Fan returned to his rented apartment and saw Lilith sitting on the Lazy Boy in the living room, munching on chips while test-playing "Sisyphus" on her computer.

She seemed to be in a good mood.

"The game turned out well," Lilith said.

Gu Fan nodded, "Of course, I'm a developer with integrity. No matter how absurd the feature requirements from the product manager and designer are, I'll do my utmost to fulfill them."

Lilith gave him a skeptical look.

"Hey, why are you looking at me like that? I feel more wronged than Dou E," Gu Fan said while grabbing a can of Coke from the fridge, then sat down on his newly purchased single-seater sofa.

Lilith was somewhat speechless: "With the big issues that 'Infernal Trajectory' had, you have the nerve to say that?"

Gu Fan justified proudly, "Why shouldn't I? Just admit that I fulfilled all the functional requirements."

Lilith was momentarily speechless; indeed, all the functional requirements were met, and due to the bugs, even some additional features ended up being "fulfilled." It seemed there was no fault in that logic...

After pondering for a moment, she could only concede, "Alright, let's just hope 'Sisyphus' doesn't have the same issues!

"Perfect timing, before the game officially passes the review and goes on sale, I'll organize the marketing plan. Make sure you follow through with it!"