June 26th happened to be a Saturday, a day off for many companies.

During his lunch break, Ye Teng casually scrolled through the gaming section on Weibo. As a result, he saw that the topic #JourneyToTheWestParachute# had been pushed to the top of the hot searches.

Journey to the West? The familiar name made his heart skip a beat, and he hurriedly clicked into it.

Parachuted? What was the situation?

It was only after clicking into the topic that he found out Yangfan Studio had actually directly opened the game for download without any prior promotion.

The download link opened at 12:00 noon, and many players were already playing it!

Ye Teng looked completely bewildered—Wait, no? You don’t hold a press conference for your game launch? You don’t introduce the game’s background and gameplay in advance?

Can’t you follow normal procedures?

Originally, Wings of Dream had planned to strangle this massive threat, Journey to the West, right in its cradle. The boss had long instructed the PR department to keep a close eye on it and had even hired professional marketing firms. The moment Journey to the West made a move, they were to immediately blanket the entire internet with negative public opinion to dissuade casual players.

A massive amount of negative public opinion would also affect Yangfan Studio’s reputation. Once the so-called “conscientious studio” made a trash game, players wouldn’t scold the subsequent games produced by Wings of Dream as harshly.

Business warfare required no morality. There were only so many gamers; killing off the competitor meant gaining profits.

But… no one had expected that this Journey to the West would directly play the “parachute” card!

The negative press releases for the media hadn’t even been prepared yet!

This operation of yours directly left the marketing firms entirely at a loss for what to do.

The vast majority of games had to go through the three stages of “promotion, pre-registration, and launch.” This was the first time they had seen an official Weibo post dropping a download link that let you play immediately!

No, this couldn’t even be called parachuting; this was simply an “air raid,” right?

Not to mention the competitors being thoroughly dumbfounded, the players were also bewildered, thinking their eyes were playing tricks on them.

Everyone scrolled back and forth carefully looking at Yangfan Studio’s Weibo. Indeed, the official website and the download link had been released all in one breath.

Many people curiously clicked into the official website.

Not gonna lie, Yangfan Studio’s official website was made quite beautifully.

The homepage’s background was a boundless, vast ocean. A cute little sailboat floated on the sea’s surface, and surrounding the little boat was a transparent bubble navigation bar.

Journey to the West
Soul of Music
Ghost Realm
Underworld Maze
Merchandise Mall

The navigation bar was extremely clear, arranging the games produced by Yangfan Studio in chronological order. The newly released Journey to the West was at the top in the most prominent position.

Not bad, they actually consolidated all their games together.

Excitedly, players clicked into the official website for the newest game, Journey to the West.

Upon entering, they immediately saw a unique ink-wash style banner background, with the large words “Chapter One: Havoc in Heaven,” along with some NPC background settings and detailed materials.

Having not played the game, they couldn’t quite understand it yet.

There was a [Download Game] button placed right in the middle of the navigation bar, circled with an ink border, extremely conspicuous. Many players using their phones to browse the web immediately clicked the download link.

An installation package of around 2GB began automatically downloading, and the speed was quite fast!

A moment later, the download finished and it automatically installed.

The vast majority of domestic mobile games could be logged into directly using a phone number or a Mobile Games Home account. The games downloaded from Yangfan Studio’s official website also had a “Register Account” button; players could register for an independent Yangfan Studio member account.

Using a custom username registration + mobile verification, it was extremely convenient. This game wasn’t an 18+ title, so the verification passed very quickly.

It was currently Saturday noon. Quite a few players excitedly began playing right after downloading the new game.

Game streamers had just woken up; some were live-streaming Wilderness Crisis ranked matches, while others were AFK grinding online game dungeons. There hadn’t been any fun games recently, and everyone was so bored they were practically growing grass.

On the Blue Fish live-streaming platform, Brother Liu’s stream chat suddenly flooded with a barrage of bullet comments.

[Brother Liu, Yangfan Studio’s new game parachuted!]
[Holy crap, it’s true! A parachute drop, you can play it right now?]
[Little Sailboat disappeared for half a year, and then airdropped a new game~]
[Brother Liu, hurry up and be the guinea pig!]

Brother Liu immediately grew excited: “Real or fake? You guys aren’t tricking me, right?”

[Go look at the studio’s official Weibo!]

Brother Liu hurriedly opened Weibo and sure enough, saw the announcement Yangfan Studio had posted 10 minutes ago. Below this announcement, there were already tens of thousands of comments and reposts, and it had been pushed to the hot searches of the gaming section.

Evidently, Xie Yunfan’s showy operation of a “parachute drop” had shocked countless casual players. Many people had already proactively run off to download and try it out!

As a streamer who had been propelled to popularity by Underworld Maze back in the day, how could Brother Liu lag behind when Yangfan Studio released a new game? Without hesitation, he clicked into the official website, downloaded, and registered.

Brother Liu said excitedly: “Directly parachuting, Little Sailboat is too slick! No need to connect to the internet… this is a single-player game ah? But I have confidence in Yangfan Studio’s single-player games. Let’s try playing it!”

Game launched.

The opening was a breathtaking animated sequence.

“Legend has it that thousands of years ago, the world was divided into four great continents: Dongsheng Shenzhou, Xiniu Hezhou, Nanshan Buzhou, and Beiju Luzhou.
Overseas, there was a small country named Aolai Country, situated near the sea. In the sea, there was a mountain called Mount Huaguo. At the peak of Mount Huaguo, there was an immortal stone that had been nourished and nurtured by the spiritual energy of heaven and earth all year round…” (Note 1)

The animation’s voiceover was deep and rich, having quite the flavor of a background introduction at the start of a movie.

Brother Liu couldn’t help but say: “The worldview and framework of the new game are quite massive ah!”

As soon as he spoke, a hot-blooded sound effect suddenly rang out in his ears.

In the animation, that “immortal stone” abruptly burst open, and a monkey popped out from within. At first, it was a stone monkey, but after being blown by the wind, it actually grew facial features and slightly pointed ears, looking very lively and cute.

That monkey rapidly learned to crawl and stand. It looked around curiously, raised its head to look at the sky, and two beams of golden light from its eyes shot straight into the clouds like sharp arrows.

Following the golden light from its eyes, the camera moved all the way up, reaching beyond the highest heavens.

—The Heaven Realm.

A bird’s-eye view of the Heaven Realm appeared on screen, its magnificence far exceeding players’ imaginations.

The barrage chat began spamming frantically.

[Holy crap, the Heaven Realm has appeared!]
[I knew Little Sailboat was playing a very big game of chess!]
[After the Ghost Realm, has the Heaven Realm finally arrived? These people normally live in the sky?]
[I have to say, I think the Heaven Realm’s architecture looks better than the Ghost Realm’s…]

The architectural style of the Heaven Realm was resplendent and magnificent, grand and spectacular. Clouds and mist wreathed between the buildings, ethereal like a dreamscape. After the 3D modeling of the Nine Heavens was turned into an animation, the effect was indeed astonishing.

The players of the alternate world had grown up accustomed to watching cartoons with “alien” and “robot” themes; this was their first time seeing this style of animation.

What a spectacular Immortal Realm! What distinctive NPCs!

Many players were drawn in by the opening animation and watched the screen earnestly.

“What is that object in the lower realm?” The Jade Emperor on his golden throne asked.

The two NPCs, Clairvoyance and Clairaudience, immediately looked downwards. After observing for a moment, they reported: “Replying to Your Majesty, in the human realm’s Aolai Country, there is a Mount Huaguo. An immortal stone on the mountain has transformed into a monkey.”

The Jade Emperor pondered for a moment, and said indifferently: “A demon monkey born of the essence of heaven and earth is nothing to fear!”

The camera rapidly panned down from the Heaven Realm, passing through layers upon layers of clouds and mist, cutting back to the human realm.

The opening animation ended, and the game officially began.

【Chapter One: Havoc in Heaven】
【Episode One: Mount Huaguo】

The scenery of Mount Huaguo was extremely beautiful. A crystal-clear stream flowed through the mountains, surrounded by lush green trees and a hundred blooming flowers. Many monkeys naughtily bounded all around through the bushes.

Soft background music rang in the ears, mixed with the sound of flowing stream water, the chattering calls of monkey troupes, and the chirping of birds.

This place was like an undisturbed utopia. The first-person camera movement had a very strong sense of immersion, as if the player had personally arrived at this “Mount Huaguo.”

After the bird’s-eye view of the scene ended, the screen turned into a player-operable interface. The system menu appeared in the top right corner, while the bottom left and bottom right corners were control areas. The UI design was simple and convenient.

System: Entering beginner tutorial mode
System: Please control the monkey to reach the target destination

Two lines of white prompts flashed across the screen.

Brother Liu was stunned for a moment: “Holy crap, this monkey is the protagonist? Player controllable?”

[Hahaha, parachuted a monkey?]
[This protagonist is very suitable for parachuting, after all, he has no parents and popped out of a rock!]
[I thought the player would have to help the Heaven Realm beat this demon monkey to death…]
[What? The monkey is the player? Shocked.jpg]
[Hahaha, everyone be a monkey together and learn how to climb and jump!]
[Worthy of Yangfan Studio, the style is so wonderfully weird]

After watching the animation, Brother Liu also thought this monkey was a boss and the player had to help the Heaven Realm beat it to death. As a result, it was actually the protagonist the player was supposed to control?

Little Sailboat was truly slick, parachuting a game with a monkey protagonist.

Brother Liu placed both hands on the phone screen and began learning the game’s basic operations.

There was a bubble in the bottom left corner; long-pressing it allowed for walking, and swiping changed the direction—a common mobile game control scheme. Surrounding the bubble were four small buttons: Sprint, Jump, Crouch, and Climb.

The beginner tutorial level gave players some small tasks like “jump over the obstacle ahead” or “climb the tree in front.” The operation area in the bottom left would also flash with prompts. Following the tasks all the way forward, a player could familiarize themselves with the control scheme and reach the destination within 1 minute.

This game’s beginner tutorial was done quite well; even children could pick it up very quickly.

Following the system tasks, Brother Liu arrived at the side of a river. Walking into a white glowing circle triggered the next plot segment.

Another plot animation.

This time, when the animation played, a prompt box appeared.

[You can press the top right corner to play at 2x speed / skip the plot]
[Players can also replay all plots in the “Journey for Scriptures” panel of the system menu]

Those who didn’t want to watch the plot could directly skip it or play it at double speed. Those who liked watching the animations could go to the system menu to re-watch previous plots. It was quite user-friendly.

Brother Liu didn’t skip it; he really wanted to see what exactly this story was about. Moreover, the game’s animation production was extremely exquisite, not losing out to the paid cartoons on video websites; one could tell money had been spent on it.

The second plot segment told of a group of monkeys deciding to find the source of the river water after discovering it. An elderly monkey said, whoever can find the source will be the Monkey King of Mount Huaguo?

The barrage chat spammed a row of hahahaha’s.

[Mount Huaguo Monkey King Supremacy Tournament!]
[Brother Liu, you can do it, we must become the Monkey King]
[Dying of laughter, next are we going to control a monkey to climb a mountain?]
[Is this game a bit childish…]
[It’s only the first level, don’t rush to evaluate, keep watching!]

Brother Liu said: “The level has appeared. The player has to climb the mountain to find the source of the water flow. There’s Simple Difficulty, Normal Difficulty, and Challenge Difficulty to choose from. Fam, what do we choose?”

The barrage chat uniformly said “Challenge Difficulty”.

Brother Liu: “Alright, I’ll listen to you guys. As a technical streamer, of course I’ll play Challenge Difficulty!”

He controlled the monkey and began climbing the mountain.

This mountain was extremely steep. Brother Liu observed his surroundings and began climbing a tree.

—Jumping, climbing, hanging on the tree, beautiful!

His execution was extremely smooth.

Under his control, the monkey rapidly leaped between the branches, incredibly agile.

The barrage chat spammed a row of 666s.

However, after climbing for less than half a minute, the tree in front of him was too far away. He pressed the jump button but failed to jump across, directly falling all the way back to the starting point.

System: Restart / Lower Difficulty

Brother Liu hurriedly pressed Restart, saying: “I was careless just now. A direct jump won’t reach because the distance is too short. Here you should long-press, charge up power, and then jump to get across! Let’s do it again.”

Having familiarized himself with the process the second time, climbing the mountain went much smoother than before. When encountering trees further away, Brother Liu relied on charging up and jumping, covering over ten meters in one breath without any real danger—landing steadily.

Brother Liu breathed a sigh of relief and said smugly: “This game is pretty simple ah, you can play it as long as you have hands! Let’s continue, we can climb up that tree ahead.”

He had just climbed up… Crack! the branch unexpectedly snapped!

The monkey fell back to the starting point once again.

System: Restart
System: I’m too much of a noob, better lower the difficulty.

Brother Liu: “Holy crap, these trees can even break? I’m not that heavy, am I!”

The viewers in the barrage chat were dying of laughter.

[Fell down again]
[Streamer, can you actually climb up or not?]
[Your monkey skills are lacking ah, and you still want to be the Monkey King!]
[The system said you’re a noob. Let’s not be stubborn, choose Simple Difficulty?]

Brother Liu: “It’s impossible for me to not even be able to climb a mountain!”

He took a deep breath and began climbing the mountain again.

3 minutes later, he fell down the mountain because a foothold rock was too slippery.

5 minutes later, he fell halfway up a tree because his climbing stamina ran out.

10 minutes later, because he jumped too fiercely and overshot it, he fell straight down the mountain.

Fell back to the starting point.

Fell back to the starting point again.

And back to the starting point again, again, and again!

Barrage chat: “Hahahaha, so tragic!”

Brother Liu almost threw his phone: “Holy crap, is it this perverted on just the first level? A mistake makes you fall straight back to the start to do it all over again, not even giving you a chance to regret it?”

Brother Liu: “The dog planner is not acting human again!”

Brother Liu: “Forget it, looking at how handsome Little Sailboat is, I’ll scold him a few times less.”

The viewers in the barrage chat watching the spectacle were dying of laughter.

They had just thought this was a simple little game meant for children. They never expected the level design to be quite difficult! You couldn’t climb the mountain blindly; you had to focus on technique.

Helpless, Brother Liu grabbed a pen and paper: “Let me jot this down. For this mountain, some footholds are too slippery and can’t be stood on; some trees are too thin and will snap; some trees are too tall and can’t be climbed in one go, you have to split it into two climbs… Let’s use our brains and take it slowly…”

Inside the stream, countless viewers watched the streamer climb the mountain with great relish.

Who would understand? A simple mountain climbing mini-game actually had so many bizarre and weird settings?

The scenery was also done very realistically—smooth rocks covered in moss, slender trunks unable to bear weight, and various steps, branches, etc., used for footholds.

It felt like playing a high-difficulty rock climbing game, with various unexpected situations needing timely responses.

Wasn’t this much more interesting than those mindless AFK dungeon-sweeping games?

Heard this game can be downloaded for free? Hurry up and download it to try it out!

---

Next door, streamer Xingyue’s live stream was much happier.

Xingyue was a relatively “unskilled” comedy streamer. When playing Underworld Maze previously, he was so infuriated by Meng Po’s progress resets that he smashed a phone… To this day, he still hadn’t fully cleared the Nightmare Mode of the Underworld.

Therefore, when playing Yangfan Studio’s games, he would be exceptionally careful and cautious.

The planner of this studio was too much of a dog!

He might have dug a lot of pits for players waiting for you to jump in.

Seeing the difficulty selection, Xingyue smiled and said: “Challenge Mode… No, no, no, I don’t want to challenge. I’m just an ordinary little streamer, I’ll choose Normal Mode.”

He truly didn’t want to be tortured.

Normal Mode was roughly what he imagined. There was slight difficulty: when jumping, one needed to calculate distance; sometimes one needed to charge up power to jump; for higher places, pressing twice allowed for a double jump.

Climbing trees also required calculating stamina. For tall, large trees that couldn’t be scaled in one breath, one could find branches as footholds and climb up in two stages.

Controlling the monkey to jump and climb was actually quite interesting!

Xingyue only failed twice before smoothly clearing the level. Not gonna lie, clearing it felt quite rewarding.

He recommended earnestly: “Fam in the stream, I suggest everyone choose Normal Mode. I feel Normal Mode is pretty exhilarating; you don’t suffer torture, and it has a certain degree of playability. Of course, for friends whose hands are even more handicapped than mine, go for Simple Mode, you can probably clear it mindlessly.”

He found the Water Curtain Cave, triggering the next plot segment.

In the animation, a group of monkeys excitedly used bamboo poles as aids and arrived at the Water Curtain Cave one after another. Because the monkey controlled by the player had found the water source first, the other monkeys knelt on the ground one by one, bowing to him as the Monkey King.

He also got a title: Handsome Monkey King.

Xingyue: “Good heavens, we’ve become the Monkey King, not bad, not bad.”

The barrage chat was also very happy.

[Great King Monkey, ruling over so many monkeys!]
[This game is wonderfully weird, and kinda cute?]
[Will the player have to control this monkey all the time later on…]
[It’s actually quite innovative!]

The plot animation continued. A little monkey accidentally died, and the Monkey King learned about the topic of “life and death” for the first time. The monkey tribe elders said: “In this world, only Immortals can escape the cycle of reincarnation and share the lifespan of heaven and earth!”

The Monkey King made up his mind that he, too, would become an Immortal.

Episode Two: Seeking the Dao and Learning the Arts

In the transition animation, the monkey rode a bamboo raft, crossing a thousand mountains and ten thousand waters to seek immortals and inquire about the Dao. The animation featured many beautiful scenic transitions; every frame was at a level where it could be screenshotted for a desktop wallpaper.

Xingyue sighed in admiration: “The game’s animation is exquisitely made, just like watching an animated movie. I suggest everyone not skip it; how could you bear to skip such exquisite animation!”

More than ten years later, the monkey arrived at the boundaries of Xiniu Hezhou. The scenery here was vastly different from Mount Huaguo. He met a woodcutter wearing a bamboo hat in the mountains and asked the other party if he had ever seen an immortal.

The woodcutter said: “There is a mountain ahead called Mount Lingtai Fangcun. On the mountain is the Cave of Slanting Moon and Three Stars. Inside the cave lives an immortal named Patriarch Bodhi.”

System: Quest updated. Find Patriarch Bodhi at the Cave of Slanting Moon and Three Stars.
System: The mountain is filled with dense fog, please proceed with caution.

Xingyue regained control of the character.

He immediately controlled the monkey, bouncing and hopping into the mountain.

There was indeed a massive amount of white fog in the mountains affecting visibility, and there were extremely many branching paths. After encountering several dead ends, Xingyue decisively retreated and said: “This mountain is a maze. When encountering a maze made by Little Sailboat, please honestly take out pen and paper and draw a map!”

He drew a map while walking.

Half an hour later, he finally found the correct path and arrived at the entrance of the “Cave of Slanting Moon and Three Stars.”

Along this journey, various operations were very frequent. The player wasn’t just boringly walking a maze; they also needed to crouch, jump, and climb to dodge a massive number of obstacles. It was like a “jungle exploration,” quite interesting.

Clouds and mist wreathed within the cave, and a white-haired elder sat on a stone platform.

Plot animation triggered.

The elder asked him what he came for. The monkey said he came to seek immortals and inquire about the Dao, having walked for over ten years to get here. Moved by his sincerity, the elder accepted him as a disciple and gave him a name: Sun Wukong.

Xingyue said happily: “We have a name! Sun Wukong.”

Xingyue: “This NPC is our master, will he teach us skills?”

As soon as he spoke, a system prompt popped up on the screen.

System: Learned Skill [Somersault Cloud]
Description: Sun Wukong’s signature movement skill. Can ride the clouds and mount the mist. One somersault can cross one hundred and eight thousand miles.

System: Learned Skill [72 Transformations]
Description: A skill Patriarch Bodhi taught Sun Wukong. Can perform 72 types of transformations. Flowers, grass, trees, birds, insects, fish, wild beasts, and spirits—can transform into them vividly and lifelike.

System: Entering Skill Practice Mode.

Initially, players could only perform actions like jumping and climbing in the bottom left corner. After seeking the master and learning the arts, skill buttons appeared in the bottom right corner.

Somersault Cloud, 72 Transformations.

Xingyue tried out the Somersault Cloud. With a swoosh, Sun Wukong soared into the air, stepping on a pure white cloud under his feet, actually able to directly fly over the mountain forest—

“Wow damn, our Wukong can fly! Is it this handsome?!”

The players in the barrage chat were also somewhat shocked.

They thought this was just a mini-game about mountain climbing and maze walking. But the moment Sun Wukong learned his skills, his level of awesomeness instantly went up a tier.

Watching the streamer ride the clouds and fly in the game, wasn’t this way too satisfying?

Xingyue: “The Somersault Cloud has a time limit. It can only fly for half a minute at a time, with a 1-minute cooldown. I’ll take everyone to look at the scenery on the mountain first, and then try the second skill.”

When they first climbed the mountain, they encountered many obstacles along the way.

Now that he could fly, he directly controlled Sun Wukong to fly from the peak to the foot of the mountain, and then fly back to the peak. A round trip effortlessly took only half a minute.

Watching the lush, verdant trees rapidly blur past beneath his feet, Xingyue also couldn’t help but get excited—he hadn’t expected the flying mechanics in a mobile game to be made this silky smooth.

The feeling of riding the clouds and mounting the mist, one word: exhilarating!

Xingyue said: “Our monkey can fly, this game is kinda fun ah!”

He flew back to the mountaintop and continued by using the skill “72 Transformations”. After clicking the skill, many transformation options appeared: transforming into a pine tree, into flowers and grass, into birds, insects, and fish…

Xingyue clicked on the pine tree, and as a result, Sun Wukong transformed into a large pine tree right on the spot.

The players in the barrage chat all got excited.

[Holy crap, awesome!]
[This skill is too fun, right? Are there really 72 types of transformations?]
[Try transforming into a rabbit]

Following the stream viewers’ suggestion, Xingyue transformed into a rabbit.

The Sun Wukong on screen indeed turned into a snow-white little rabbit, and its walking animation was like a rabbit’s, bouncing and hopping around, too cute.

Xingyue: “Let me try transforming into a bird!”

After transforming into a small bird, he could also fly and emit chirping calls.

“Transform into a tiger!”

Transforming into a fierce beast, running around was extremely agile.

“Transform into an old lady!”

Sun Wukong transformed into a hunched-over old lady.

“Try transforming into a fish!”

After transforming into a fish, he could also swim freely in the nearby stream.

The players in the barrage chat were going crazy.

[Holy crap! Even this works?]
[This 72 Transformations skill, not gonna lie, I could play with this for a whole day!]
[Transforming back and forth is way too fun]
[I really haven’t seen a mobile game designed like this]
[Yangfan Studio is the GOAT!]

The 72 Transformations skill wasn’t just a simple stationary model swap. The key was that after transforming, the player could still control Sun Wukong to continue moving!

He could transform into different animals, and when the player controlled him to walk, he would have the characteristics of that different animal; for example, transforming into a fish meant swimming in water; transforming into a wolf meant running through the jungle like a wolf…

Transforming into flowers, grass, and trees, you could also control these plants to slowly move—after all, it was essentially still Sun Wukong, just his image had changed.

Controlling a little flower to slowly inch along was too much fun.

The planning group was truly awesome, making every form so realistic!

Although currently only over thirty common forms could be unlocked, and there were many greyed-out forms temporarily unavailable to use, it was estimated they would slowly unlock following the subsequent plots.

Xingyue played with the “72 Transformations” at the mountaintop alone for half an hour.

As he played, he even felt somewhat moved.

Having played too many of those boring games where you AFK grind dungeons and smash money to re-roll equipment stats, this Journey to the West was currently only two levels in, yet already had so much rich gameplay.

Climbing and jumping, riding clouds and mounting the mist, 72 Transformations!

And this was actually a free game… Wasn’t this simply too conscientious?

Just the 72 Transformations skill alone could let friends who were still young at heart play happily for an entire day! If children encountered a game like this, they’d probably go crazy with excitement.

Xingyue took a deep breath and immediately posted to his Moments: “Friends, everyone come play Journey to the West, highly recommended, super fun, come scold me if it’s not fun!”

__

Author’s Note:
Note: The game plot animation content is quoted from the original Journey to the West novel, with appropriate textual modifications.
– The setting here is an alternate world, players have never played this kind of game before.
And personally, I feel that if Little Sailboat’s game was placed in the real world, it would become popular too! Even I want to play with the 72 Transformations~