Next, Xie Yunfan began working with the data team to design the numerical values for the commercial system of Gourmet Street.

As a simulation management game, the commercial system was the foundation of the game. Once the numerical values went wrong, the entire game would collapse.

Market economics was a very profound subject. Even though Xie Yunfan had visited so many cities and catering industries across the country, he didn’t dare claim that he had fully grasped the laws of the market.

He wanted to imitate reality as much as possible for the in-game economic system. Players who knew how to manage a business could expand their operations, while players who didn’t know business would face the risk of their shops going bankrupt. Only such an “operating system” would possess higher playability.

Meng Yu, the head of the data department, asked: “Boss, since we are setting up a fictional urban background, should the currency in the game be linked to the payment system? For example, how much game currency is given for a certain top-up amount?”

Xie Yunfan had also been considering the monetization model for this game all along.

If it were a “monthly card system” where players could fully enjoy all the content in the game just by topping up 30 yuan a month, then whether the shop-opening players succeeded in their entrepreneurship or not, they wouldn’t feel a strong sense of immersion.

However, if players were directly allowed to exchange real currency, there would be a clear suspicion of “forcing microtransactions.”

Xie Yunfan said: “How about this: you guys calculate first. If the ratio of game currency to real currency is 100:1, how much cash would players need to spend if they want to open a medium-sized shop?”

Meng Yu nodded crisp and clear: “Alright. We are currently investigating the vegetable market and the rental/sale prices of restaurant storefronts in Rongcheng these past few days. Within half a month, we will give you a detailed list.”

Xie Yunfan said: “Thanks for the hard work.”

Meng Yu was the director of the data department. Back then, she was the one in charge of the numerical values for the combat system in Turbulent Spring and Autumn. Recently, Turbulent Spring and Autumn didn’t require major updates, so Xie Yunfan transferred Meng Yu over to work on the new project.

Although gourmet games didn’t have combat, the core data of the commercial system had to be done well.

Meng Yu was also very dedicated. She personally led a group of people to survey the market, listing out all the prices of vegetables and seasonings on a inventory list. They also made a detailed summary spreadsheet for restaurant rents, employee wages, and dish pricing across different geographic locations.

Surveys and visits required time. Xie Yunfan also gave them half a month to perfect it.

A moment later, Zhou Shiyue, the current head of the copy team, came and knocked on the door.

Unlike previous plot-oriented games that required writing a lot of stories, gourmet games didn’t have much text content; they only needed to design streets and NPC names.

Zhou Shiyue first led her team to design a large pool of candidate street names, as well as many names for waiters and chefs.

Xie Yunfan said: “Besides the streets and NPCs, think carefully about the server names as well. Prepare for 80 servers first.”

Zhou Shiyue asked: “Should we use delicacies for the names, or would cities be better?”

Xie Yunfan pondered for a moment and said: “Use fictional city names. Just like how different cities in reality have different restaurants, players can choose their birth city at that time and dine nearby. As for whether they can cross servers to eat, I still have to discuss it with Qihang.”

Zhou Shiyue: “Understood.”

This game required a large number of passerby NPCs; Zhou Shiyue was going to be busy again.

After she left, Xie Yunfan made a phone call to Luo Hang.

Luo Hang’s familiar voice quickly came through the receiver: “Yunfan, what’s up?”

Xie Yunfan asked: “Do you have time today? I have some questions I’d like to discuss with you.”

Luo Hang said: “I have a meeting this afternoon, and it might finish around six. How about we have dinner together?”

Xie Yunfan said: “Sure, let’s eat at a nearby restaurant. I’ll reserve a table in advance and wait for you.”

Having nothing much to do in the afternoon, Xie Yunfan arrived at the restaurant early and reserved a window seat.

This table happened to be at the corner of the restaurant, offering a clear view of the most beautiful river view in the Nanyang district through the floor-to-ceiling window.

By dusk, looking out into the distance, the surrounding skyscrapers cast clear reflections on the river water. High in the sky, the clouds rapidly shifted shapes, and the orange-red sunset glow shone onto the river’s surface, layered with vibrant colors as if an oil painting palette had been overturned.

A casual shot of this scene could serve as a desktop background.

Xie Yunfan supported his chin with a hand, looking at the scenery outside the window in deep thought.

Could such a realistic weather system also be made in the game?

Designing a riverside street… the rent for restaurants on this street would naturally be more expensive, but with the beautiful river view, players could enjoy the river view while dining in the restaurant.

A gourmet game shouldn’t just be players logging off right after eating—rushing as if completing a task.

If friends made an appointment to gather for a meal, they could take a stroll along the river after eating. Just like him and Luo Hang, who often went for walks after dinner to digest while on business trips.

Add to that a realistic weather system—cloudy, sunny, rainy—players would have different experiences when dining in the restaurant.

For instance, eating at a riverside restaurant on a rainy day would let them see the raindrops splashing on the water surface; on a clear day, they could see the incomparably blue sky.

Once the details were perfected, players eating in the game wouldn’t just be satisfying their “palate and stomach.”

—It would turn into true mental relaxation and enjoyment.

When Luo Hang walked into the restaurant, he saw Xie Yunfan staring out the window, lost in thought.

When he fell into thought, he would be very quiet, immersed in his own world, undisturbed by anything from the outside world.

The young man by the window had a soft expression. He seemed to have thought of some interesting setting, a trace of a smile hanging on the corner of his lips.

With such a handsome young man sitting motionless by the window like an exquisite statue, he naturally attracted the attention of other guests. Many passersby threw their gazes toward him, yet he remained completely oblivious.

It wasn’t until a moment later, when the familiar sound of leather shoes stepping on the floor reached his ears, that he snapped back to reality. Xie Yunfan turned his head and happened to meet Luo Hang’s eyes, which were filled with laughter.

Luo Hang walked over quickly, took off his coat and hung it over the back of the chair, asking in a low voice: “What were you looking at? Staring out the window in a daze for so long?”

Xie Yunfan smiled: “I just happened to see the sunset glow and thought it was beautiful, wondering if we could implement it in the game.”

Sure enough, he was only this engrossed when thinking about games.

Luo Hang asked: “When did you get here?”

Xie Yunfan replied: “Just half an hour early.”

Luo Hang picked up the menu and skillfully ordered dishes while saying: “What did you want to discuss with me? Things like sunset glows belong to the weather system. We’ve already experimented with weather systems in holographic games before, so it’s not hard to implement.”

Xie Yunfan sorted out his thoughts and said: “It’s like this. Our last game, Turbulent Spring and Autumn, had over 50 million concurrent online players at its peak. The player count for a gourmet game certainly won’t be small either, but our server capacity is limited. It’s impossible to cram everyone together.”

Even in reality, a population exceeding ten million was considered a mega-city.

For a gourmet-themed game, there was a limit to how many players a server could hold, and how many guests a single restaurant could accommodate simultaneously.

Luo Hang said straightforwardly: “That’s easy to solve. Just like Turbulent Spring and Autumn, use dozens of servers to separate the players. When the time comes, restaurants can be built with three-dimensional structures, divided into three or even four or five floors. Just appropriately increase the rent for large restaurants.”

Xie Yunfan smiled and said: “But no matter which server players were on in Turbulent Spring and Autumn, they watched the exact same plot, hero skills, and War Manual system; the gameplay was fixed with no big difference. But for our Gourmet Street, the restaurants are managed by players, which will lead to—the restaurants in every server being completely different.”

Luo Hang was stunned for a second, then came to a sudden realization: “I get it. You mean that the open gourmet world will change depending on the players. For example, a restaurant in Server 1 sells extremely delicious food, but only players in Server 1 can eat it, while players in other servers won’t have the chance to try it?”

This was the tricky part of an open world.

If it were fixed gameplay, your experience in Server 1 and Server 6 would be pretty much the same.

However, in a gourmet game, the management rights of restaurants were handed over to the players.

Then, it was very likely that a famous Sichuan restaurant would appear in Server 1, a Hunan restaurant with a very distinctive design would appear in Server 6, and the top-ranked restaurant in Server 10 might be a Cantonese restaurant.

One server per main district, and different servers couldn’t directly “cross-server.” Turbulent Spring and Autumn only had cross-server random matching for PVP mode, but this kind of matching rule couldn’t be used in a gourmet game.

You couldn’t just have restaurants swapping between different servers, right? Every single storefront was numbered; moving around at will would cause absolute chaos.

Xie Yunfan said: “If players want to go to another server to eat delicious food, what should they do? Create alt accounts?”

If there were dozens of servers, you couldn’t expect players to create dozens of alt accounts just to taste delicacies across all districts, right? Unless they could flexibly cross servers.

Luo Hang thought for a moment and suddenly said: “We can release a ‘Character Server Transfer’ feature.”

Xie Yunfan said with interest: “Specifically?”

Luo Hang explained: “A gourmet game’s player data only consists of currency and cosmetics without massive amounts of combat heroes, equipment, and so on. Transferring a player’s data from Server A to Server B is very easy to handle; we can just use cloud servers as a relay.”

Xie Yunfan’s eyes lit up: “Just like how we go to restaurants in other cities to eat in reality?”

Luo Hang nodded and followed up: “If we want players to feel more immersed, we can even rename the ‘Server Transfer System’ to the ‘Tourism System,’ allowing players to visit ‘another city’ to sample gourmet food. Data relays incur costs on our end, so we can just have players pay this ‘travel fee’ themselves.”

What a brilliant idea! This way, players in Server 1 could head over to neighboring Server 6 to taste how the restaurants over there tasted. They only needed to spend a bit of “travel fee” to achieve cross-server tourism.

Every server name was a virtual city. It was just like players truly tasting delicious food across different real-world cities.

The players’ experience wouldn’t be restricted to their own server anymore; they could sample all the delicacies across the entire game. Some famous restaurants could even attract tourist players traveling across servers to “check in.”

The more Xie Yunfan thought about it, the more excited he became. Making games required a collision of ideas; it was impossible for him to think of every single content perfectly on his own.

Luo Hang could provide him with a lot of suggestions and help—as long as Qihang solved the server cross-district character transfer issue, his subsequent gameplay design could become even bolder.

A week later, the data department handed a list to Xie Yunfan.

This list included the market prices of most common vegetables, fruits, seasonings, and auxiliary ingredients, as well as the prices of various common snacks and dishes, alongside shop-opening budgets.

According to Meng Yu’s calculations, opening a medium-sized restaurant in Rongcheng would require an initial investment of at least 500,000 yuan or more, combining early interior decoration, rent, employee recruitment, and other costs.

If it were a small-scale business—only opening a baozi shop, rice noodle shop, or similar without hiring too many employees—it could be done for around 100,000 to 200,000 yuan.

Calculating at a 100:1 ratio between game currency and real currency, that meant a medium-sized restaurant would cost 500 cash yuan, and a small shop would cost 100 to 200 cash yuan.

Xie Yunfan thought for a moment and said: “This price feels a bit high.”

Meng Yu said in surprise: “Boss, are you saying that having players top up 100 to 500 yuan to open a shop is too high? But Boss, in the once-popular mobile game Simulated Restaurant, many menus required spending money just to unlock.”

Xie Yunfan said: “That’s why their servers shut down.”

Meng Yu: “…”

True enough! If forcing microtransactions was too severe, opening a shop in the game wouldn’t be fun; it would become a burden.

Xie Yunfan said: “Our game has a massive player base, with millions of shop-opening players. Let’s give them some benefits. For example, a Rookie Shopkeeper Gift Pack containing lease contracts, customizable interior decorations, and so on.”

He looked up at the data director: “You guys design the specific contents of the gift pack. Shops can pay rent on a monthly basis to relieve the players’ pressure. As for other non-shopkeeping ‘diner’ players, give them some launch top-up discounts to convert into game currency, letting everyone happily buy food in the game.”

Meng Yu nodded: “Understood.”

If players had to buy everything, the monetization points would indeed be too numerous.

Directly releasing a “Shopkeeper Gift Pack” with conscientious pricing would allow players who wanted to open a shop to get everything done in one go, owning a shop of their own in a holographic game.

Business going well? Renew the lease next month.

If they lost money and ran at a deficit, they could return the shop to the system after the one-month lease expired to cut their losses in time, treating it as a novel experience.

The employees of both Yangfan Group and Qihang Group threw themselves into intense work.

After detailed analysis, the data department finally created a monetization system with extremely conscientious pricing.

After players topped up game currency or bought gift packs, they would no longer feel heartbroken over spending money while “opening shops” or “eating lavish meals” in the game.

Many rewards were also designed inside the game.

For instance, the first phase of the “Shopkeeper Incentive Program”: completing 10 orders with multipliers daily would grant cash rewards to help rookie shopkeepers survive the difficult initial entrepreneurial phase.

There was also the “Gourmet Connoisseur” reward system: the more varieties of food one ate, the higher the rewards, encouraging players to experience the rich food culture in the game to their heart’s content.

At the same time, the copy team wracked their brains to write a massive number of NPCs.

Chefs in the talent market ranged from advanced to junior with varying skills, so the funds needed to recruit them naturally differed. Waiters with different levels of experience were also paid different monthly salaries.

Players could freely choose these NPCs.

For the crucial chef position, if players wanted to apply to be chefs themselves, they could submit their resumes to the talent market, which would be marked with the tag “Player Application” at the back.

For shop-opening players: would you choose an NPC as your head chef? Or were you willing to cooperate with other players who wanted to be chefs? Or simply open a shop and be the chef yourself?

These personalized choices dramatically enhanced the game’s playability.

When the time came, a phenomenon of “a thousand players, a thousand shops” and “every shop being unique” would emerge.

The art team had a huge number of NPCs to draw this time, as well as extensive scene paintings.

For decoration templates, the boss sent them a lot of reference pictures. Several interior designers who had just been recruited by the HR department were also helping design restaurants in various styles.

Flooring, light fixtures, tables, chairs, front desks… countless pieces of original art were handed over to the modeling team to be made into models in the holographic game for players to pick and choose themselves.

Players could re-color these decoration assets, offering a remarkably high degree of freedom.

Apart from that, some clothing was also created.

All the players in the game couldn’t possibly wear the exact same clothes to eat, right? That would turn into a horror game!

Since designing clothing separately was overly troublesome and they hadn’t recruited dedicated clothing design talent yet, Xie Yunfan came up with a method—he directly partnered with two clothing factories, spending money to buy the “in-game replica” copyright for their real-life clothing.

Thus, a massive collection of modeled shirts, short sleeves, dresses, and sportswear appeared in the game.

Although this wasn’t a dedicated dress-up game, it at least provided a huge selection of outfits so players could put on clothes they liked to eat in the holographic game, putting them in a better mood.

As for background music, Xie Yunfan hired a music studio to write a few theme songs as daily background music. There were also plenty of open-copyright songs that could be imported into the system as restaurant background music.

Most restaurants in reality played music—some shops liked light and lively pop songs, some shopkeepers liked love songs, and others preferred instrumental music.

Every restaurant possessed a “Gramophone” system where shopkeepers could select music according to their preferences.

…

Time flew by quickly. The progress of Qihang’s experimental kitchen was delightful; with the cooperation of several chefs, the ingredient data they entered grew more and more abundant, and the cuisine types were gradually perfected.

Over at Yangfan’s game development side, every department was rushing against time to complete their work.

A month later, the shop designs for the first street, “Xiushui Road,” were officially finalized.

This gourmet street adopted a “snack shop” style. Both sides of the street featured two-story buildings, and in the middle were cheaper snack stalls for rent. There were hundreds of shops, large and small, all currently vacant.

Once the servers opened, a massive wave of players would move in.

Looking at the modeled, empty street, Xie Yunfan frowned: “If we leave the restaurants entirely to the players, there’s a serious problem—what will everyone eat on launch day?”

Players opening shops required time.

Players who enjoyed researching decoration styles might spend several days just designing the shop layout, let alone purchasing ingredients and recruiting staff.

Would those “diners” who didn’t want to open shops come to Gourmet Street on launch day only to find the entire street empty?

They had almost overlooked this issue.

Other management games didn’t have the “diner” identity; diners in single-player games were all NPCs that ordered according to system design.

Since this game was an open gourmet game, what should be done?

Xie Yunfan thought for a bit and said: “How about this: we open the Shopkeeper System one week in advance, allowing players who want to open a shop to log in via mobile early, decorate their shops, and prepare to welcome diners.”

Normally, if a “gourmet street” wanted to open for business, shopkeepers would definitely scout storefronts, recruit staff, and design decorations in advance—it would be impossible to complete in less than a few months.

Speeding up the process in the game and launching it a week early was fairly reasonable.

This solved the embarrassment of players who just wanted to eat logging into the game on official launch day, only to stare at an empty commercial street in dismay.

Xie Yunfan looked at the programming team and said: “Make a separate ‘Gourmet Street Shopkeeper App’ that interconnects with the holographic client, so players can check their shop’s condition anytime via mobile.”

…

Time passed swiftly, and the content design of Gourmet Street grew more and more complete.

Compared to a game like Turbulent Spring and Autumn that had massive amounts of storyline and stages, a gourmet game didn’t have as much gameplay content. As long as the core commercial system was well-designed and the art modeling was done right, the rest was an open world handed over to players to play freely.

Three months later, Qihang’s taste system input reached 80% progress, and Yangfan’s game prototype was completed. Both parties collaborated to launch the first internal closed beta test.

For this closed beta, employees from both companies were scrambling to sign up.

Being a foodie in the game? Who wouldn’t want to try such a wonderful gig!

On May 5th, the first closed beta officially launched.

To everyone’s surprise, the two bosses personally participated in the test this time.

CEO Luo acted as a “diner.”

As for Producer Xie, he actually opened a restaurant in the game?

Xie Yunfan picked a storefront on the riverside street and opened a “Little Sailboat Restaurant.” The decoration style was very unique; the restaurant was shaped like a sailboat setting sail, and the floor closely resembled a ship’s deck.

Guests dining here felt as if they were eating on a ship.

However, the restaurant currently hung a “Temporarily Closed” sign.

Xie Yunfan not only acted as a shopkeeper, but he also indulged in being a chef—he personally went to the kitchen to cook dishes, testing how complete the player cooking system was.

Luo Hang came to Yunfan’s restaurant in private and became the first “Specially Invited VIP Guest.”

Xie Yunfan cooked two dishes this time: Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs and Yuxiang Shredded Pork. He controlled the amounts of salt, sugar, light soy sauce, and other seasonings according to real-world cooking methods. After the dishes came out of the wok, he served them up, sat down face-to-face with Luo Hang, and said: “Taste them. Compare the texture with what I made on New Year’s Eve.”

Luo Hang picked up his chopsticks, picked up a piece of rib, put it in his mouth, and chewed carefully.

Right after, he sampled the Yuxiang Shredded Pork.

A moment later, Luo Hang said: “The similarity of the Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs is over ninety percent; it’s still so delicious. But…” He frowned slightly, looking at Xie Yunfan: “Why is the Yuxiang Shredded Pork a bit salty?”

Xie Yunfan smiled gently: “I did it on purpose; I added an extra half-spoon of salt. It seems your taste system is calibrated amazingly well—it can even taste these subtle differences.”

Luo Hang was helpless: “Using me as a guinea pig?”

Xie Yunfan said seriously: “No, you’re called a Tasting Expert.”

Luo Hang asked: “Then can I taste crayfish? I’m allergic to it in real life.”

Xie Yunfan said: “I’ll cook a pot for you.”

Ingredients in the beta system could be purchased infinitely. Soon enough, he cooked a pot of spicy crayfish and brought it out for Luo Hang.

Luo Hang put on gloves, tasted one, and praised: “Delicious!”

Before they knew it, a large platter of crayfish quickly hit the bottom.

Xie Yunfan asked: “How does it feel?”

Luo Hang said with emotion: “No wonder so many people love eating crayfish. I suppose you fulfilled a dream for me? Back when I was in university, I ate this and ended up straight in the hospital.”

Xie Yunfan instructed: “You can eat as much as you want in the game, but in reality, don’t ever touch it again.”

Luo Hang said with a smile: “I know, I have a sense of propriety.”

Xie Yunfan also smiled: “With the taste system made so realistic, our game is already halfway to success. Next, we just need to keep perfecting the gameplay, and then we can prepare for launch.”