Chapter 42: Happy yet Uneasy
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Everyone left the meeting room one after another.
Huang Sibo held Bao Xu back.
“Brother Bao, I’ll have to trouble you to hurry with the concept then. We’ll need at least 5 days to come up with the design draft. It’ll be best if you have a rough idea by tomorrow so that we can communicate as early as possible.”
Huang Sibo was extremely polite.
That was because he did not know Bao Xu’s background and his opinion of the latter was merely based on a few things.
First, he seemed old with a receding hairline.
Second, he was an elite gamer and he had special overtime privileges as well as Boss Pei’s trust.
Third, he was always silent as though he was in deep thoughts.
Through those observations, Huang Sibo gathered that Huang Sibo must be a senior.
Bao Xu nodded his head. “Alright, Brother Huang.”
Bao Xu did not know of Huang Sibo’s background as well. However, as a year one undergraduate, he garnered that Huang Sibo must be a senior since the latter had been in the field since graduation.
Both parties thought that the other was using ‘brother’ as a form of pleasantry and neither thought too much into it.
Who would have thought that the other was actually truly sincere?
Huang Sibo returned to his work desk, feeling both happy and uneasy.
He was happy because he had discovered this place where the boss and colleagues were so friendly and polite. Compared to the strict, oppressive environment of his previous company, this was entirely different.
He was uneasy because he was afraid he might be a burden due to his lack of capabilities.
Immediately, he looked through all the different design drafts he had collected previously to make a last minute attempt at revision.
That way, he would be able to do up the design draft once Bao Xu has a concept.
As for Bao Xu, he had already swiftly entered the conceptualization phase.
All his memories of various FPS games gushed into his mind, providing inspiration.
Making the game easy for newbies? That wasn’t difficult and could be managed with some simple adjustments.
For example, he could adjust the character hitboxes – particularly at the head area – so that new gamers would have a higher headshot rate.
Or perhaps, he could hasten the zoom and firing speed of sniper rifles. That way, newbies would be able to master sniping in the fastest possible time.
Even though Bao Xu wasn’t so well versed in FPS games that he could be considered a professional gamer, he was definitely an expert amongst the laymen.
Based on his own hand sensitivity, he could provide the necessary adjustments with ease.
As for the paywall weapons, there wasn’t any big issue about it as well – all they had to do was to set the price higher.
The only difficulty for Bao Xu lies in Pei Qian’s first demand for the story mode!
He fell into deep thoughts.
To be frank, that was something that he could not understand at all.
That was because most of the trending domestic FPS games did not have any story mode at all. Counter Strike did not have it as well – all they had to do was to fight one another.
Although it was true that some ma.s.sive overseas standalone FPS games had a story mode, they were large companies compared to Tengda!
With a 30 men team, trying to produce a story mode in the same way as ma.s.sive overseas FPS games could be considered to be overestimating their own strength.
Even though Bao Xu had just entered the games industry, he was quite clear about these things.
He had no choice but to think about it the other way round.
For a company with only 30 employees, it was clear that they would not be able to create a story mode in the same way as ma.s.sive overseas FPS games.
‘If a layman such as himself knew about it, would their brilliant Boss Pei not?’
‘He must know about it as well!’
‘Since he knows, why would he set such a strict requirement then?’
‘This is a test and a hint as well!’
‘Boss Pei’s testing our capabilities and hinting to us at the same time that we must not do it in the same way as those ma.s.sive overseas FPS games!’
‘If so, how should we proceed…?’
Bao Xu fell into deep thoughts.
…
5pm in the afternoon.
Pei Qian was slipping away joyfully.
The feeling of being able to knock off at such a timing was awesome!
Of course, as the boss, Pei Qian could not skip work entirely.
But if he could, he would not have enjoyed the type of delight he felt waiting for work to end as well as the exhilaration when it finally did.
It was just as a rich second-generation heir landlord who owned over 30 apartments but yet insisted on collecting rent daily had once said, “Men must not be lazy, or they’ll turn useless.”
That was Pei Qian’s exact thoughts as well. Even though the system had given him a special privilege of having a carefree life as long as he were to lose some money casually, he must not cause himself to turn useless due to over immersion in his happiness.
The feeling of having to study only when he felt like it and knocking off right on the dot was the driving motivation to keep him fighting on and not turn useless.
The previous week, Pei Qian had to chase everyone to knock off at 5pm, especially those who were used to overtime such as Huang Sibo.
That was called correcting the wrong habits of employees!
But of course, Bao Xu was an exception. By permitting him to play games in the company, Pei Qian could spend more on the electricity bill as well.
After an entire week of effort, Pei Qian felt that most of the employees have already gotten rid of their bad habits.
After all, who would want to do overtime for no reason?
All of them had cultivated the same habit as Pei Qian of knocking off on the dot and that pleased him.
…
Huang Sibo was initially packing his desk, but he sat down right away when he saw Pei Qian leave.
He decided that he had to take the risk!
He was going to ignore Boss Pei’s warning of deducting his salary and stay back for overtime!
This overtime was completely voluntary.
That was because Huang Sibo felt extremely uneasy – he felt that he wasn’t capable enough of taking on the role of being a chief planner. That was why he wanted to stay back to revise more and prepare himself thoroughly so that he wouldn’t be a burden!
As for the other employees, most of them had knocked off on the dot.
After all, they had nothing much to do as of now – everyone was waiting expectantly for Bao Xu’s concept draft.
Huang Sibo contemplated how he should explain himself should Boss Pei return to the office suddenly.
However, it did not take long for him to realize that his worries were unfounded. Boss Pei was not someone with so much free time that he would come back to check if anyone was doing overtime.
Before long, Huang Sibo and Bao Xu were the only ones left in the ma.s.sive office s.p.a.ce.
Bao Xu took out a huge pack of chips from the snacks area and got himself a cup of coffee from the pantry, navigating the place with experience.
All of those were provided by the company without limits.
At the start, Bao Xu was so pleasantly surprised with that fact that he drank coffee and soft drinks as a replacement for water. However, after he did so for some time, he realized that it was nothing much and he went back to a normal intake level.
Even though he was slightly surprised when he saw that Huang Sibo had not left as well, he did not say anything much, merely returning to his desk to draw on a blank piece of paper.
…
8pm at night.
Bao Xu got up and walked to Huang Sibo, holding a piece of paper that looked as though it was a talisman that was filled with all sorts of scribbles and symbols.
“Brother Huang, I’m almost done,” Bao Xu said.
Huang Sibo nodded furiously. “Please elaborate, Brother Bao.”
Bao Xu pulled a chair over and started explaining his general thoughts to Huang Sibo.
“Of Boss Pei’s three demands, two of them are easy. The difficulty lies in the story mode.”
“I think that we’ll definitely not be able to match up to the story mode of those ma.s.sive overseas FPS games, be it in terms of characters, actions or settings. There’s no way we can compete with them.”
Huang Sibo nodded. “Right, that’s what I thought too.”