The first game after the establishment of the studio was of paramount importance.

For a newly formed team, an overly complex large-scale online game would be difficult to control. If even a single aspect of the data or skill balance overturned, the reputation Yangfan Studio had accumulated in its early stages would be wasted.

As for holographic games, these people currently at Yangfan Studio simply couldn’t produce one.

Therefore, Xie Yunfan decided to make an exquisite and fun mobile game, with no age limit, so that men, women, young, and old could all play. After thinking it over repeatedly, he felt the Journey to the West IP was the most suitable for adaptation.

On one hand, a massive number of immortals and demons would appear in Journey to the West, and there was also the plotline of Sun Wukong modifying the Book of Life and Death, which could be linked together with Ghost Realm. At the same time, adding the “Demon” species category would lay the groundwork for future games.

Back then, he had mentioned terms like Ghost Realm, Human Realm, and Heaven Realm in the NPCs’ materials, and Journey to the West could precisely present a massive amount of “Heaven Realm” content.

The Jade Emperor, Taishang Laojun, Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King, Nezha, Erlang Shen (Yang Jian), Queen Mother of the West, Chang’e, the Seven Fairies, and so on… if all these immortals from Journey to the West were made, the entire “Nine Heavens” setting would be quite colossal.

Additionally, Sun Wukong was Xie Yunfan’s childhood male god.

The children of this world watched various sci-fi cartoons every day; their childhoods were filled with stories of aliens battling earthlings, and their collections were all various robot figures.

It was also time to let the children discover a new childhood male god.

He hoped that in the near future, every child in this alternate world would know the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, and every home could have a Great Sage figure collected. If so, Xie Yunfan’s goal would be achieved.

For holographic games, the total number of domestic players combined was only 30 million.

The mobile game player demographic was 200 million!

Making mobile games was actually much easier for building a reputation.

During the recruitment period, Xie Yunfan had constantly been thinking about how to adapt the Journey to the West IP.

A highly successful Journey to the West IP from his previous life was Fantasy Westward Journey (MengHuan XiYou), a chibi-style turn-based game where some pay-to-win big shots would smash hundreds of thousands of RMB just to re-roll their pets’ skills and equipment stats.

But Xie Yunfan didn’t want to plagiarize someone else’s creativity, nor did he want to use “randomized stats” as a method to accumulate wealth. His idea was to forge the Journey to the West IP into a “national mobile game” suitable for all ages.

If you wanted to make a “national mobile game” and thoroughly promote the game across different age groups, using the “spending money to re-roll equipment” approach definitely wouldn’t work. If kids dropped tens of thousands on it, the complaints from parents would be enough to make him suffer.

The pricing couldn’t be too expensive; children also needed to be able to afford it.

Xie Yunfan planned to make this game into a level-based pay-to-play game. The first few levels would be free to attract more players to download it. The subsequent levels would be charged in the form of DLCs.

Journeying to the West to obtain scriptures involved overcoming eighty-one tribulations, making it incredibly suitable for a level-based game. Starting production now and spending half a year, they could break in the team while making the game.

After making up his mind, Xie Yunfan started writing the game proposal. During the period of recruiting employees, he hadn’t been idle. He had consulted a lot of materials and tried his best to recall the plot of Journey to the West in his mind.

He planned to make Journey to the West into a strategy-combat mobile game, using Sun Wukong protecting Tang Seng (the Tang Monk) on their journey to the West for scriptures as the main plotline, incorporating rich level designs and combat gameplay.

Sun Wukong would become the primary protagonist controlled by the player.

Players personally controlling the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, bringing down a strike with his cudgel—that feeling would definitely be extremely satisfying!

That was why he had told Luo Hang: “The protagonist of this game is a monkey.”

What kind of tricks could a monkey pull off? Luo Hang couldn’t help but ask curiously: “A monkey as the protagonist? Is it an animal raising game made for kids, or a forest adventure genre?”

Xie Yunfan said: “A strategy-combat mobile game.”

Luo Hang didn’t quite understand: “Letting a monkey go combat?”

Xie Yunfan: “That’s right. This monkey of ours has tremendously strong combat power. The R&D process will be kept secret first; wait until I make it, and you’ll know!”

Luo Hang: “Alright, looking forward to your new work.”

He believed that with Yunfan’s brain hole (imagination), this game would definitely bring everyone a surprise.

…

At the same time, inside the various offices of Yangfan Studio.

The newly arrived employees were currently chatting and getting familiar with each other.

Everyone surprisingly discovered that many of the people present were those they had seen during the interviews. In other words, prior to this recruitment, did Yangfan Studio have no employees?

The several people in the programming group looked at each other in dismay.

Someone whispered a guess: “The programming group is just the few of us. Then the programming for Underworld Labyrinth back then… could the boss have written it all by himself? He’s way too awesome!”

The group leader, Xu Jianshan, said calmly: “Indeed, when he made Underworld Labyrinth, he was only a junior in college. When I was in school back in the day… at most I made a match-three game.”

Ordinary people truly couldn’t compare with talented genius players.

Xu Jianshan said: “Actually, the programming for Music Soul wasn’t difficult either, we could all write it. But the most important things in a game are gameplay and creativity; we simply wouldn’t have thought to make a music game like that.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Therefore, they could only be programmers, while Xie Yunfan could be the Chief Designer.

They could write various codes but didn’t have that much creativity and those ideas for designing games. Following Xie Yunfan to work in the future, just writing things according to the boss’s requirements would do.

Next door, the art group had the most people, 8 in total.

Ning Sha quickly assigned the workstations and pulled everyone into the art group’s chat, saying: “Once the new game starts, our art group’s tasks will be very, very heavy. Everyone prepare yourselves mentally.”

“The boss said in principle there’s no overtime, but if our original art cannot pass, it will delay the progress of the entire game. When the time comes, if overtime is needed, I hope everyone won’t be too resistant either. The boss never treats employees harshly; working overtime will definitely have overtime pay.”

Hearing this, everyone felt extremely apprehensive inside.

Ning Sha and Chu Yue had followed the Ghost Realm project team, and the overtime back then had made them almost go bald!

For a period of time, they had practically lived at the company. Fortunately, Luo Hang was very generous with bonuses—mid-term bonuses of over a hundred thousand, and year-end bonuses of another hundred thousand or so. Everyone didn’t have much to complain about regarding the overtime.

However, the situation back then was special. Ghost Realm had encountered Vampire Legend 2, a competing product launching concurrently. Luo Hang wanted to launch ahead of the opponent, racing against time with their rival.

Xie Yunfan was also left with no choice, which was why he urged the various project teams to frantically rush the work.

How was the boss planning this time’s game?

Anyway, might as well give them a preventative shot (heads-up) first! The art group’s task volume was colossal, and even Ning Sha couldn’t estimate it.

…

At 12:00 noon, a message appeared in the Yangfan Studio large group chat.

Liu Muyao: “@All Members, companions, the company has an independent cafeteria on the 3rd floor, lunchtime is 12:00-13:00. Everyone’s employee badges can be used directly as meal cards. Finance has already deposited money into the meal cards—a 1500 yuan dining subsidy every month. Everyone can go downstairs to eat on your own.”

Seeing this, everyone successively packed up their things and headed to the 3rd floor. 1500 in meal money per month; excluding weekends and calculating based on 22 workdays, that was an average of 68 bucks a day—plenty to eat three meals!

Ji Yan was a foodie and particularly picky about food.

The moment he followed the large unit to the cafeteria, he was still thinking, could the company’s cafeteria be one of those daily boxed lunches with three dishes and one soup? There definitely wouldn’t be the chicken legs and pig trotters he loved to eat.

If it was no good, he’d go out to eat; the nearby mall had lots of delicious food.

Ji Yan decided to stroll around the cafeteria first, then plan his future food-foraging routes. As a result, upon arriving at the cafeteria, he was dumbfounded—this was fucking higher class than the school cafeteria!

The cafeteria windows were clean and bright, with plates of already-portioned meat dishes laid out inside. Pickled mustard green fish, braised pork belly, spicy chicken wings, soy-sauce beef, braised chicken legs… there were no less than a dozen meat dishes.

The vegetable dishes were even more dazzling to the eyes, and the pricing was super conscientious. Getting three dishes and a soup wouldn’t exceed 20 yuan for a meal, and the nutritional pairing was quite balanced.

At a corner window, there were also rice noodles and wheat noodles, made fresh to order and steaming hot.

Looking at the superb collection of various meat dishes, Ji Yan forcibly held back his drool and quickly went to line up at the window.

Yunfan, this company cafeteria of yours is way too conscientious, right?

Are you really not worried the company will lose money?

The colleagues who had resigned from other companies to come here were also sighing with deep emotion inside.

The company cafeteria’s meals were sumptuous, and there was a 1500 meal subsidy every month. In other words, working at Yangfan Studio, not only was your salary far higher than peers, you also ate better than your peers.

An angel boss!

A moment later, Xie Yunfan came to the cafeteria to eat. Many people proactively greeted him: “Hello Boss!”

Xie Yunfan asked casually: “Are the meals to your taste?”

An excited voice transmitted from a certain corner: “Too delicious!”

A burst of laughter rang out around them.

Xie Yunfan smiled: “I hired a formidable head chef, as long as you guys can get used to the food, it’s fine.”

The head chef he hired was precisely the “Auntie” who had taken care of the two brothers for many years. Auntie’s cooking skills were very good, and the salary Xie Yunfan offered this time was also extremely high, bringing her directly to the studio to oversee the three daily meals.

Xie Yunfan got two meat dishes and one vegetable. After finishing his meal, he returned to his office for a short nap.

At 2:30 PM, he took the elevator to the 18th floor.

The game production groups’ work locations were all on the 18th floor, convenient for meetings and discussions. Logistics, finance, marketing, and other departments unrelated to game R&D were arranged on the 19th floor, not disturbing each other.

When Xie Yunfan walked into the conference room, many people were already seated. For the first meeting, everyone was very proactive. Sweeping his gaze across the entire venue, Xie Yunfan said: “Group leaders, take a headcount, is everyone present?”

The voices of the group leaders successively rang out in the conference room: “All present.”

Xie Yunfan opened the prepared PPT and said: “The main purpose of convening everyone for a meeting today is to arrange the tasks for the next phase. Yangfan Studio’s next game is called Journey to the West. This is a strategy-combat mobile game. My goal is to forge it into a ‘national game’ suitable for all ages.”

Everyone: “…”

A national game? The boss’s ambitions are way too big!

However, he had already produced three explosive hits, so everyone still had a lot of confidence in him.

Hearing this, everyone quickly sat up straight and pricked up their ears to listen to Xie Yunfan’s explanation.

“First, let me introduce the main storyline to everyone. The first protagonist of our game is a monkey who hatched from inside a rock.”

Everyone felt it was very novel.

A game with a monkey as the protagonist, seeing that for the first time!

And it’s a monkey that popped out of a rock?

Such a setting should be very popular with children, right?

---

“This monkey is named Sun Wukong. His innate talent is extremely high, and his combat power is tremendously strong. Because he popped out of a rock nourished by the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, he has no parents, hasn’t experienced the ways of the world, doesn’t understand the rules of the human world, acts exactly as he pleases, and doesn’t abide by the rules. He is also called by others: the mischievous monkey.”

“The place where he was born is called Mount Huaguo (Flower and Fruit Mountain), where a massive number of monkeys live.”

“The monkey troupe had no leader. One day they saw a river, and an old senior of the troupe said, whoever could find the source of the river, they would acknowledge him as their leader.”

“Our protagonist was endowed with extraordinary talents, born more formidable than the other monkeys. Leaping and flying everywhere, he quickly found the source, the Water Curtain Cave, and became the king of the monkey troupe—the Handsome Monkey King.”

“Later, a little monkey died. Sun Wukong had no concept of life and death, not understanding what ‘death’ meant. An old monkey in the tribe told him that humans and animals all have their own lifespans, unless they cultivate the Dao and become immortals. In this world, only immortals will never die.”

“Thus, he made up his mind to become an immortal, went to acknowledge a master to learn arts, and acknowledged a master named Patriarch Subhuti.”

“He learned many skills from his master, but he was a monkey after all; his nature was naughty, and he never followed the master’s sect rules. Jumping up and down every day, being naughty and causing trouble, unable to calm his heart to cultivate, Patriarch Subhuti expelled him from the sect in a fit of rage.”

“Sun Wukong returned to Mount Huaguo, and the Bull Demon King who lived there came knocking on his door to fight over territory. He found the cudgel in his hand wasn’t quite handy, so he ran to the Dragon Palace, snatched someone else’s Sea-Calming Divine Needle (Ruyi Jingu Bang) to be his own weapon, and also got a lot of precious equipment from the Dragon Palace.”

“In his happiness, he drank too much wine and died. The Ghost Realm sent an envoy to hook his soul away, saying his allotted lifespan had ended. Refusing to accept this, he caused an uproar in the Palace of the King of Hell, beating the underworld officials until they begged for mercy, and even fetched the Book of Life and Death to cross out his own name.”

Everyone: “…………”

This monkey sounds a bit awesome!

Even linking with the Ghost Realm and altering the Book of Life and Death?

Anyone who had played Ghost Realm knew that the Book of Life and Death recorded a person’s lifespan in the world of the living; when the lifespan ended, they had to die, become a ghost, and reincarnate. Everyone had their own lifespan. Sun Wukong directly killed his way into the underworld, altered the Book of Life and Death, and forcefully added lifespan to himself—that was allowed?

Acting on his own impulses, going his own way, fearing neither heaven nor earth. Moreover, this Monkey Brother was quite headstrong; as the story went to this point, he had already offended many, many people…

Xie Yunfan continued: “He offended the Dragon Palace and the Underworld. These people collectively reported him to the Heavenly Court. The Jade Emperor of the Heavenly Court had no other way and had to send heavenly soldiers and generals to arrest him.”

“However, his combat power was too strong. The several waves of grand generals dispatched were not his match.”

“Unable to defeat him, the Heavenly Court had no choice but to adopt a policy of conciliation, inviting him to the heavens to be an official.”

“At first, they bestowed upon him a tiny, negligible title to fool him, called Bi Ma Wen (Protector of the Horses), which meant raising horses for the Jade Emperor. Sun Wukong was very naive and thought this was a high-ranking official, even complacently playing around in the Heavenly Court for a period of time… Later, he learned he had been fooled, and returned to Mount Huaguo in a fit of pique.”

“He said he wanted his lifespan to equal heaven and earth, self-proclaiming himself the ‘Great Sage Equal to Heaven’ (Qi Tian Da Sheng)!”

“The Great Sage’s combat power was too strong; leaving him at Mount Huaguo was a disaster. The Heavenly Court came to seek him out again, promising to let him be the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. But the people of the Heavenly Court were very proud and looked down on this monkey in their hearts. They built a fake manor and stuck up a ‘Great Sage Equal to Heaven’ plaque to continue fooling him.”

“Bored with nothing to do, he caused a ruckus every day. The Jade Emperor had no choice and found some things for him to do, having him watch over the Flat Peach Orchard (Pan Tao Yuan). As a result… seeing the peaches, the monkey naturally couldn’t resist wanting to eat them.”

“The immortal peaches of the Flat Peach Orchard were extremely precious and were guarded by people sent by the Queen Mother of the West. Sun Wukong couldn’t care less how precious your peaches were; in one breath, he ate all the big peaches.”

Hearing this, quite a few colleagues below the stage were stifling their laughter.

Sure enough, it was a “mischievous monkey,” causing trouble everywhere!

“Hearing that there was delicious food at the Flat Peach Banquet, the quick-witted Sun Wukong used a stratagem to trick away everyone who came to attend the banquet. He ran to the Flat Peach Banquet himself, had a massive feast, and even packed up a pile of delicious food to take back to the monkeys of Mount Huaguo.”

“Hearing that Taishang Laojun’s alchemy furnace had immortal elixirs, he dropped by along the way and wolfed down quite a few immortal elixirs.”

“Now things were great; the entire Heavenly Court was stirred into a tangled mess by him.”

“Furious, the Jade Emperor dispatched people to deal with him again. Sun Wukong directly fought his way into the Heavenly Court, and shockingly, no one in the entire Heaven Realm was his match.”

“This is the first chapter of our game—Havoc in Heaven.”

The more the people below the stage listened, the more perplexed they felt. Was this monkey simply lawless? No one was his match, he was even more formidable than the male lead of a wish-fulfillment novel.

At first, when everyone heard Xie Yunfan say the protagonist was a monkey, they thought he was going to make a little animal raising game. As it turned out, this monkey was no ordinary monkey, this combat power… was way too awesome!

Making it into a hot-blooded combat game, just thinking about it was thrilling.

Xie Yunfan said: “What I just described is only the rough plot of the early stages. This game of ours is a level-based strategy-combat mobile game. The first chapter tells Sun Wukong’s personal experiences.”

“Sun Wukong is the character mainly controlled by the player. Players can control him to climb Mount Huaguo, stroll through the Water Curtain Cave, go to the Underworld to alter the Book of Life and Death, and go to the Heaven Realm to battle all the various immortals.”

“The preliminary plan for the first chapter is divided into seven levels.”

“The Level Design Group is responsible for the designs. Level 1 – Mount Huaguo, designed as a challenge level, letting players control Sun Wukong to climb the mountain in search of the Water Curtain Cave, triggering the Handsome Monkey King plot upon finding it.”

“Level 2 – Acknowledging a Master and Learning Arts. Acknowledging Patriarch Subhuti as a master; the master names him Sun Wukong, and he acquires the skills Somersault Cloud and Seventy-Two Transformations, which are also the core skills for the later stages.”

“Level 3 – Battling the Bull Demon King. A single-player boss challenge level, Sun Wukong and the Bull Demon King in a one-on-one duel.”

“Level 4 – Dragon Palace Treasure Hunt. Made into a Dragon Palace dungeon: fighting small mobs, finding treasure chests, ultimately defeating the four Dragon Palace bosses to acquire his destined weapon, the Ruyi Jingu Bang (Golden Cudgel), and equipment like the Cloud-Stepping Boots, Purple Gold Crown, and Golden Armor.”

“Level 5 – Book of Life and Death. Sun Wukong bravely storms the Underworld, fights the Ten Kings of Hell, and alters the Book of Life and Death.”

“Level 6 – Great Sage Equal to Heaven. The Heavenly Court dispatches troops to capture him, and they are beaten back by him several times. Made into a pressure level where players must continuously drive away the heavenly soldiers and generals coming to capture him.”

“Level 7 – Flat Peach Banquet. Sun Wukong wreaks havoc in the Heavenly Court. A one-versus-many difficulty combat level where players must control Sun Wukong in a decisive battle against a massive number of NPCs.”

“Ultimately, forced by circumstances, the Jade Emperor invites Buddha Tathagata to emerge. Buddha Tathagata makes a bet with Sun Wukong, betting he cannot fly out of his palm. Sun Wukong loses the bet and is suppressed beneath the Five Elements Mountain.”

“The first chapter ends here.”

Xie Yunfan opened the level list in the PPT.

7 levels, with detailed information on bosses and small mobs, as well as background settings and detailed requirements. Seeing this, the people of the Level Design Group looked at each other in dismay.

Climbing mountains and descending into seas, soaring into the heavens and plunging into the earth…

Monkey Brother ah, you had a thrilling time playing around, but our Level Design Group is going to go bald!

The Copywriting Group’s Ye Xiang became more and more excited as he listened. Having written so many scripts, it was his first time seeing a character setting as fun as “Sun Wukong.” He truly had enormous guts, fearing nothing in heaven or earth; whoever bullied him, he’d just beat them back!

In human society, whatever one did required following rules. Listening to parents when young, listening to teachers at school, listening to leaders at work… Sun Wukong, on the other hand, wouldn’t listen to anyone’s words.

Even his lifespan had to be decided by himself!

He even wanted to share the same lifespan as heaven and earth, self-proclaiming himself the “Great Sage Equal to Heaven.”

Children would definitely particularly like such a protagonist who “transcended worldly conventions.” Adults could also see from him the courage and boldness to dare break the norms.

As a scriptwriter, Ye Xiang liked Sun Wukong way too much.

Looking at the character setting materials in the list, the Art Group couldn’t help but start lamenting inwardly—sure enough, Sister Ning Sha saying the Art Group’s tasks were heavy wasn’t scaring them—this was way too heavy!

Sun Wukong, as the key character, naturally had to be drawn well.

The Dragon Palace: the four Dragon Kings of the East Sea, West Sea, South Sea, and North Sea? And what Prime Minister Turtle.

The Heavenly Court was even more exaggerated: Jade Emperor, Queen Mother of the West, Clairvoyance (Qianliyan), Clairaudience (Shunfeng’er), the Seven Fairies, and what Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King, Third Prince Nezha, Taibai Jinxing, Taishang Laojun…

My heavens!

Just these NPCs alone made up a basketful.

Not to mention the small mobs. The monkeys of Mount Huaguo, they’d have to draw at least a few dozen big and small ones, right?

The shrimp soldiers and crab generals of the Dragon Palace, the heavenly soldiers and generals of the Heavenly Court, the various ghosts and monsters of the Underworld, the Bull Demon King’s little brothers… Just for the first chapter Xie Yunfan mentioned, this volume of original art was simply not on the same magnitude compared to the previous Underworld Labyrinth and Music Soul!

The framework for this game was way too large; no wonder Xie Yunfan had the confidence to make it a national mobile game.

The Programming Group was also going bald right now.

After the level designs were done, they had to write the code. Just for Level 1, searching for the Water Curtain Cave on Mount Huaguo, this kind of dynamic event wasn’t easy to write. The player controls the monkey to climb the mountain, how exactly does it climb? What if it falls halfway? Then there were the later one-on-one duel levels and one-versus-many combat levels; many details needed handling.

The Data Group was the same. The ultimate moves of various bosses, how much health dropped when Sun Wukong struck down with his cudgel—these all had to be carefully calculated. Even if Sun Wukong’s combat power was off the charts, he couldn’t just knock a group of people to death with one cudgel strike, right? That would be too simple and crude, and players wouldn’t feel a sense of accomplishment.

It had to have a certain degree of operational difficulty, while concurrently letting the players play thrillingly…

This scale wouldn’t be easy to grasp!

Seeing that the complexions of the people below the stage were all very conflicted, Xie Yunfan smiled slightly and said: “Everyone doesn’t need to worry. For this game, we aren’t rushing for time; pursuing premium quality, we can take it slowly. My plan is for the first chapter to launch in the summer vacation, with a DLC coming out every half month thereafter, finishing the releases by the end of the year.”

“Time-wise, it’s relatively ample; we’ll take it step by step. The HR Department over there has already made arrangements. At 8:00 AM tomorrow, everyone gather downstairs at the company to visit Qingqiong Mountain.”

“We will personally go to the monkey mountain, take a look at the monkeys’ living habits, and look for some inspiration.”

Everyone: “…”

Boss, you’re truly 6! (Awesome/Amazing!)

Making a game, taking the planning team to the monkey mountain to observe monkeys is actually a thing?

However, the protagonist of this game was a monkey, so it would definitely carry the personality traits and behavioral characteristics of monkeys. Going on-site to look at the monkeys might truly be able to help them find inspiration, who knows!