At 8:00 AM the next morning, the employees of Yangfan Studio’s production groups gathered punctually downstairs at the office building.

The bus Liu Muyao had booked was waiting in the park’s parking lot. After everyone arrived, the crowd set off for Qingqiong Mountain, located in the northern suburbs of Rong City.

This mountain had a very large number of monkeys, so it was also called “Monkey Mountain” by locals.

No one expected that on their second day working at Yangfan Studio, the HR department would organize a team-building activity, having everyone go climb a mountain and look at monkeys…

A game company’s team-building activity, organizing employees to look at monkeys?

There was no helping it; the boss’s train of thought was uniquely unconventional, wanting to make a monkey the protagonist!

It took a two-hour drive to get from Nanyang Park to the northern suburbs. Liu Muyao acted as a temporary “tour guide,” holding a microphone to introduce some precautions to everyone. After she finished speaking, Xie Yunfan added: “The journey is relatively long, so those who haven’t slept enough can catch up on sleep in the car.”

Some people were indeed sleepy. Hearing the boss say this, they tilted their heads and fell asleep. Xie Yunfan had a regular daily routine recently and didn’t feel sleepy. He took out his phone and casually browsed through games in the industry.

He focused on looking at some animal-genre games from Wings of Dream and Cool Play.

Wings of Dream’s art style was almost all cute and adorable pets, while Cool Play leaned more towards sci-fi and mechanical styles. If Wings of Dream were to make Journey to the West, they would definitely make it into a chibi style. If Cool Play’s original artists were to draw the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, they’d probably draw a bunch of mechanical arms and sci-fi glasses…

For this game, he wanted to differentiate the art style from those of friendly merchants (competitors).

He leaned towards using the “hot-blooded national anime” (domestic anime) art style from his previous life. The scenes could use some ink-wash styles, and when the time came, they would produce complete 3D animated plotlines. A player clearing the entire game would be equivalent to watching a full domestic animated series of Journey to the West.

Even if children didn’t play the game, just watching the plot would allow them to understand the story of Journey to the West.

Of course, making a game with the meticulousness of “making an anime” would require a colossal investment amount.

After all, anime production costs were calculated by the “second.” For an entire anime series, the investment would be at least over a hundred million. He still needed to carefully verify the budget with Finance.

…

Two hours quickly passed, and the bus stopped at the parking lot at the foot of Qingqiong Mountain at 10:00 AM.

The colleagues catching up on sleep had all woken up too.

Liu Muyao picked up the microphone and said: “Colleagues, we have arrived at Qingqiong Mountain. Everyone, gather your personal belongings and let’s get off the bus to enter the park together. Just a reminder to everyone, the monkeys on this mountain are all wild and free-ranging. They are quite naughty, so keep a close eye on your backpacks and phones, don’t let the monkeys snatch them away.”

Those from out of town looked bewildered—What? Backpacks and phones could be snatched?

Are the monkeys that formidable?!

Xie Yunfan stood up and said: “Everyone get off the bus and freely climb the mountain to sightsee. At 1:30 PM, we’ll gather at the restaurant at the top of the mountain to eat, and we will return at 4:00 PM.”

Today was Tuesday, so Monkey Mountain didn’t have too many tourists on a workday.

The group lined up to get off the bus and climbed all the way up under the guidance of the park management.

Some employees with poor stamina started panting after climbing just a few steps. There were also some young people who normally liked exercising, unknowingly running to the very front.

Anyway, it was for free sightseeing, not a mountain climbing competition, so there was no need to feel pressured if walking slowly.

Walking in the middle of the group, Xie Yunfan took out his phone to sightsee and take photos along the way. Aside from having a massive number of wild monkeys, the scenery on this mountain was also quite good.

The weather was nice. Walking on the mountain path and breathing the fresh air, his mood was rarely this relaxed and comfortable. Since coming to this world, he had constantly been busy making games; this was his first time coming out to appreciate the scenery.

Half an hour later, everyone climbed to the halfway point up the mountain.

There was an observation deck here where one could stop to appreciate the landscape of the entire mountain. The surrounding trees were dense, and the monkey troupes here were also the most concentrated.

Standing on the observation deck, Xie Yunfan took out his phone to take photos.

Right at this moment, a girl’s scream suddenly rang out from behind: “Ahhhh, my hair!”

Xie Yunfan turned his head to look; the one screaming was Shi Xiaoyu.

Because her hair tie had come loose just now, she had intended to retie her hair. As a result, a mischievous monkey suddenly jumped over her head and conveniently scooped away her hair scrunchie.

Shi Xiaoyu was so angry she wanted to chase that monkey, but the monkey rapidly leaped and shuttled between the bushes, even turning its head from time to time to wag its tail at her, as if mocking her.

As a human who couldn’t climb trees, how could she catch up to a nimble monkey?

Sporting a messy head of hair, Shi Xiaoyu was burning with anxiety, not knowing what to do. Right at this moment, Ning Sha walked to her side, handed her a rubber band, and said: “Tie up your hair.”

One of her twin ponytails was fine, but the other had been messed up by the monkey, which indeed looked very strange.

Ning Sha held back a smile and looked away.

Shi Xiaoyu didn’t quite dare to speak to the group leader. After all, this older sister looked somewhat aloof and was also very serious during meetings… She hadn’t expected Ning Sha to proactively help her.

Shi Xiaoyu accepted the hair tie gratefully: “Thank you, Sister Sha.”

She had just finished tying her hair when she heard another boy’s roar from up ahead: “Damn it! My bag, you stinky monkey, give it back to me!”

The person whose bag was snatched was the Copywriting Group’s Ye Xiang.

He had a habit of carrying a water bottle when going out, so for this mountain climbing trip, he had also brought a small fanny pack holding his water bottle. Just now, he took the bag off intending to drink some water, only for a monkey with sharp eyes and quick hands to snatch it away.

Walking as if flying, Ye Xiang immediately chased after it.

The other people in the Copywriting Group were also helping chase: “Over here, over here!”

“Boss, your bag was hung on a tree by it!”

“Does anyone know how to climb trees?”

“Get a pole, get it down, quick quick quick!”

Before the Copywriting Group here could snatch back their group leader’s bag, over at the Modeling Group, Qiao Jingmo’s glasses were also gone.

Qiao Jingmo said helplessly: “My glasses!”

A monkey snatched away his glasses and even put them on to play with itself.

Qiao Jingmo had severe myopia. After losing his glasses, he couldn’t see anything clearly and could only walk by holding onto others. The colleagues in the Modeling Group started helping their group leader snatch back his glasses.

The observation deck devolved into a tangled mess.

Everyone was watching the monkeys. But were the monkeys actually watching this group of “foolish humans”?

Xie Yunfan: “…”

The team is hard to lead ah!

Told you guys to keep a close eye on the things in your hands, but as a result, you got bullied by monkeys, right?

…

Ultimately, with everyone working together with a united purpose, they snatched back Ye Xiang’s bag.

Qiao Jingmo’s glasses were bent out of shape by the monkey, so he could only get another pair made. As for Shi Xiaoyu’s hair scrunchie, it had long since been thrown to who knows which corner of the mountain by the monkey.

When eating lunch at noon, everyone’s expressions varied.

Some people felt the monkeys weren’t afraid of humans at all and were quite fun.

Some timid ones were frightened by the monkey troupes into having terrified expressions.

After lunch ended, everyone continued sightseeing while heading down the mountain. Xie Yunfan had everyone record more videos of the monkeys for reference. Especially for the Art, Copywriting, and Modeling Groups, fully understanding the monkeys’ living habits would allow the monkey troupes they made to be more realistic and have a stronger sense of immersion.

On the way down the mountain, Xie Yunfan and Ning Sha walked together. He asked in a low voice: “After listening to the project proposal yesterday, is the pressure on the Art Group a bit heavy? Do you need to recruit some temporary workers to help?”

Ning Sha thought for a moment and said: “For the first chapter, if we want to launch in time for the summer vacation, we still have three months of time, which should be enough.”

In the alternate world, because of the existence of various intelligent auxiliary tools, drawing efficiency was far higher than in Xie Yunfan’s previous life.

The key was still creativity and design. As long as the key characters and NPCs were drawn well, for underlings like the monkey troupes of Mount Huaguo and the shrimp soldiers and crab generals of the Dragon Palace, they could directly use templates to modify them.

Back when making the Ghost Market, over a hundred NPCs were also completed within a month.

Since Ning Sha said the Art Group could handle it, Xie Yunfan felt relieved and asked: “Have you had any thoughts on who will draw the protagonist, Sun Wukong?”

What Ning Sha excelled at was delicate and realistic character original art. Although Sun Wukong was the game’s protagonist, he was also a monkey. After going back last night, Ning Sha thought about it carefully and truly had no inspiration.

She glanced at the back of the girl walking ahead and said: “I want to hand this task over to Shi Xiaoyu, she is very formidable at drawing animals. Boss, do you remember that red-eyed giant monkey boss she drew during the interview?”

Xie Yunfan smiled: “Of course I remember.”

Actually, this was also the key to him making an exception to hire Shi Xiaoyu.

There were many monkeys in Journey to the West. Shi Xiaoyu excelled at drawing animals and had a rich imagination. Plus, the chibi styles she drew were very cute. Hiring her would be a huge help regardless of whether it was game R&D or merchandise production.

Ning Sha said: “According to the character settings you sent me, Sun Wukong has a pointed mouth and monkey cheeks, looks like a macaque, has yellow hair on his face, wears a golden hoop on his head, and has fiery golden eyes… Shi Xiaoyu has flexible thinking. I feel that the red-eyed giant monkey boss she drew back then had some similarities with Sun Wukong, so I want to let her give it a try.”

Xie Yunfan agreed: “I also think Shi Xiaoyu can draw Sun Wukong. However, she just graduated half a year ago and has very little experience drawing original art, so you have to guide her.”

Ning Sha nodded and said: “No problem, I will personally oversee it.”

Xie Yunfan was very gratified—he had indeed not misjudged her.

Even after becoming the Art Director, Ning Sha wouldn’t act high and mighty just because she was the group leader. She was broad-minded, willing to give newcomers opportunities, and would patiently guide the group members.

With her leading the Art Group in the future, the pressure on Xie Yunfan’s side would be much lighter.

…

The Copywriting Group’s Ye Xiang also got quite a lot of inspiration.

Not gonna lie, the boss having everyone do an “on-site investigation” was actually quite useful.

Especially for text workers, sometimes going out for a walk truly would generate some inspiration. Relying solely on the brain to imagine the monkeys’ behaviors and movements, one definitely wouldn’t be able to figure it out clearly.

Today, his backpack was snatched by a monkey, and he went through hardships to snatch it back, even getting the skin on his leg scraped by tree branches.

Fortunately, the harvest was quite large. At least now it was very clear in his mind how to write the Mount Huaguo chapter. Inspirations for the monkeys’ movements and dialogues bubbled forth in his mind like a geyser.

Writing the plot according to the outline the boss gave, he felt he should be able to write it well.

At the same time, Qiao Jingmo, wearing his crooked glasses, was carefully pondering Sun Wukong’s 3D modeling—Sun Wukong was a “monkey who had become a human spirit” (attained human-like intelligence). He had the habits of a monkey, yet was also like a human and could speak human language.

The original art the Art Group would hand over to him was, of course, a static image. Wanting to make a dynamic model, exactly what it would look like was entirely up to him to decide; he couldn’t mess it up.

When Sun Wukong moved, he would have the lively naughtiness of a monkey, but walking couldn’t be crawling like a monkey; it had to be standing and walking like a human. Jumping up and down, extremely alert and agile.

Combining the traits of humans and monkeys was precisely the Great Sage Equal to Heaven that the boss needed, right?

The Level Design Group’s Zhang Su was a man of few words, and he had taken several gigabytes of photos of Monkey Mountain. According to the boss’s intention, for the first level’s Mount Huaguo Monkey King Supremacy Tournament, the player had to control a monkey to climb the mountain and find the Water Curtain Cave.

At first, he had been quite bewildered. But after personally climbing a mountain today and seeing the monkeys freely climbing and jumping between the mountains, he finally thought of how to design this level!

Utilizing a large number of tree branches as leverage points to continuously climb up, making it into a “climbing challenge level.” The player would have a certain degree of operational difficulty, and upon finding the Water Curtain Cave, they would feel an even greater sense of accomplishment.

A day’s “visiting Monkey Mountain” team-building itinerary left everyone exhausted.

But many people also gained some harvests.

During this outdoor mountain climbing, everyone helped each other out, which also allowed the newly onboarded companions to become more familiar with one another. It could be considered an “effective activity.”

---

The next morning, after Xie Yunfan arrived at the company, he immediately went to the Finance Office.

He sought out Ling Xiao to carefully calculate the investment for this game.

Hearing him say he wanted to make an anime, Ling Xiao was also quite surprised inside. The vast majority of games only had some 3D animations during the opening or important scene transitions; the rest of the plot was just handled with 2D portrait dialogues and that was it.

Xie Yunfan wanted to make all the plots into 3D animations?

Ling Xiao said helplessly: “Are you making a game or an animated cartoon? There’s no need to smash too much money into plot animations, right? In that case, the investment will multiply several times over.”

Xie Yunfan explained: “I want to forge a combination of a game and an anime. The process of players playing the game will be very challenging, which can attract players to continue playing. Every time a level is cleared, the subsequent plot is also extremely wonderful and great to watch, with a quality no less than that of professional animated cartoons.”

He paused, and said: “As long as the investment is in place, this approach isn’t difficult to realize. Besides, we aren’t completing all the animations in one go either. The animated plots will follow the game’s progress. The funds recovered from the first wave of DLCs can be invested into the subsequent anime production.”

But doing it this way carried quite a large risk. What if the game’s reception was poor and the fund recovery was too slow? It could easily lead to a broken capital chain.

Xie Yunfan said: “I’ll pick a few anime production companies with pretty good effects, and you can verify the budgets with them. Don’t keep too tight a grip on the funds side, because there are still continuous revenues over at Ghost Realm. This year’s revenues from the overseas markets will be settled once more in June.”

Ling Xiao nodded straightforwardly: “Okay, since you’ve decided to make an anime, my side will quickly chat with the anime production companies to produce a budget report. Animations are all calculated by the second, so when the time comes, we’ll still have to look at the Copywriting Group’s plot arrangements to see if anything needs to be cut.”

Xie Yunfan said: “No need to worry about the funding issue. Since we’re going to do it, we’ll make it the best!”

Right now he had 300 million in hand. Setting aside the studio’s operational costs and the employees’ salaries, he still had over 200 million left to invest into the new game’s R&D.

In June, Luo Hang would also settle the second batch of overseas revenue for Ghost Realm with him. Barring any accidents, there would be 100 million. Therefore, even if this Journey to the West lost money, it wouldn’t cause the studio to go bankrupt.

Moreover, it was impossible for this game to lose money.

For the plot animations, he would produce them according to cartoon standards. Taken out separately, they could be watched as a complete Journey to the West animated series.

Just the children who would download the game just to watch the cartoons formed an inestimably colossal market!

What’s more, this game used an operational model where the first chapter was free, with subsequent paid DLCs.

It was equivalent to doing an “anime serialization” through the medium of a game.

Releasing a chapter of DLC every month—when the time came, the whole nation would be chasing the drama together!

Sun Wukong got suppressed under the Five Elements Mountain? What happens next? Please purchase the second chapter.

This was a chain reaction. As long as players were hooked, feeling that the game was fun and the anime was great to watch, if his DLC pricing was reasonable, there would be a massive number of players willing to pay.

After all, going to the movie theater to watch a 2-hour animated movie would also cost tens of bucks.

Over here, not only could you watch the anime, you could also play the game—double the happiness!

…

After finishing the investment planning, Xie Yunfan began to inspect the various groups.

At yesterday’s all-staff meeting, he had only narrated the game’s rough plot and distributed a document to each group. Today, he needed to chat with everyone in detail about how exactly to make the game.

He came to the Art Group first. The Art Group had just finished a meeting, and Ning Sha had handed the heavyweight task of “Sun Wukong’s original art” to Shi Xiaoyu, who had just come to the company.

Taking the lead role for the first time after graduating, directly drawing the game’s protagonist… who understands ah! The pressure was too huge!

Shi Xiaoyu’s face was pale, looking extremely nervous and at a loss.

Xie Yunfan encouraged her: “Xiaoyu, you are actually very talented. Since the group leader handed this task to you, it proves you are worthy of everyone’s trust. Exert your imagination and boldly draw. That red-eyed giant monkey boss you drew during the interview was pretty good.”

Shi Xiaoyu was overwhelmed by the unexpected favor: “Th-thank you Boss. I-I’ll give it a try.”

Xie Yunfan said: “There’s plenty of time, draw a draft first. For Sun Wukong’s drafts, I’ve already spoken with Ning Sha; you just directly bring them to me to look at, and I will finalize the design. If there are inappropriate parts we’ll revise them, we’ll slowly polish it.”

She hadn’t expected the boss to speak so gently. Shi Xiaoyu’s suspended heart relaxed by half, and she nodded saying: “Okay, I’ll draw a draft version for the boss to see first!”

During the internal meeting of the Art Group, Ning Sha had already assigned the vast majority of the original art tasks.

For the animal category, like Sun Wukong and the Bull Demon King, Shi Xiaoyu would be the lead artist. For the human category, like Bodhisattva Guanyin and the Jade Emperor, Ning Sha would personally draw them. Regarding the scenes, Ji Minglang would draw the landscapes and Heavenly Court scenes, while Chu Yue would draw the Underworld and Dragon Palace scenes. The others were also assigned tasks like small mobs, props, and assisting.

Arranged in perfect order.

It had to be said, after staying in Qihang’s Ghost Realm project group for half a year, Ning Sha had grown rapidly. The current Ning Sha was already a capable combat general by Xie Yunfan’s side!

Xie Yunfan thoroughly relaxed his mind.

Next door in the Copywriting Group, Ye Xiang was also someone who had been a scriptwriter and followed quite a few production crews. However, he had no experience with assigned game copywriting tasks and was still exploring.

He was the main writer for the detailed outline of Sun Wukong’s main storyline, as well as the dialogues for various bosses and small mobs. Zhou Shiyue’s writing was better than his, with a more delicate literary style, so she was responsible for writing the detailed plot dialogues.

The others also had assigned tasks, and everyone was busy typing away.

The Modeling Group, Programming Group, and Data Group had temporarily halted work to organize materials. After all, the original art and level designs hadn’t come out yet, so they had no way to complete their subsequent work.

Xie Yunfan finally came to the Level Design Group.

Zhang Su was currently looking at his computer, making level models. He was currently working particularly earnestly.

During the interviews, he had thought his previous company’s leader, Director Qin, would be hired, and he would have to be the other party’s underling again. Actually, he really hated that guy with a mouth full of bureaucratic tone, having endured him for many years.

Who would have thought the former group leader would be eliminated… and he became the group leader instead?

With no one constantly putting on leadership airs to order him around, being at the new company was truly refreshing and clear-headed ah!

Therefore, he needed to perform well even more, so as not to let down the boss’s trust.

After Xie Yunfan came in, Zhang Su immediately stopped working and said: “Boss, we are making the models for the climbing level. For this Mount Huaguo, do you see it being a bit gentler, or a bit steeper to increase the difficulty?”

Xie Yunfan said: “Make the mountain steeper, design two difficulties.”

Zhang Su nodded, listening earnestly.

Xie Yunfan said: “Simple difficulty is mainly to provide convenience for ‘hand-handicapped’ (unskilled) players and children players, letting them clear the level a bit more easily to watch the animated plot.”

“You can set up more platforms to stand on, letting players jump up step by step. It doesn’t matter if their mechanics are a bit noob, they can always slowly jump their way up.”

“Challenge difficulty is for game experts to challenge, the harder the better.”

“No standing platforms, directly use slender branches as footholds. If they are slightly careless and step on empty air, let them fall back to the foot of the mountain, start from the beginning, and climb again.”

“We are a strategy-combat mobile game, so the designs of the challenge levels must be rich and interesting. It’s not something you can play just by having hands; rather, it requires using your brain to clear the level.”

Listening to Xie Yunfan’s relaxed and teasing tone, Zhang Su couldn’t help but laugh.

Play just by having hands?

The streamers who had said this sentence back when playing Underworld Maze were all tortured to the point of hovering between life and death.

The boss was going to set a simple difficulty and a challenge difficulty in Journey to the West. It could be imagined that when the time came, the experts who chose the challenge difficulty would be driven crazy by a group of monkeys just from climbing Mount Huaguo to find the Water Curtain Cave!

Of course, the unskilled players could just easily clear the level and watch the cartoons.

This way could also satisfy both sides. Those who wanted to watch the plot could watch the plot, and those who wanted to ponder the game could directly choose the high-difficulty challenge mode and use their brains to clear the levels.

Xie Yunfan said: “All the subsequent levels will be designed like this. For simple difficulty, directly let Sun Wukong sweep all the way through, letting players feel exhilarated from start to finish and experience the Great Sage’s might.”

“For challenge difficulty, they need to clear the level under pressure.”

“For example, the Bull Demon King level. On simple difficulty, one can casually fight and pass. On challenge difficulty, the boss’s attack and defense power doubles, and its skills are stronger. Sun Wukong needs to rapidly reposition to dodge its skills. After beating it down to a certain amount of health, he must seize the opportunity to jump onto the Bull Demon King’s body and strike its vital points to defeat the opponent.”

“For the Dragon Palace level, directly make it into a maze and set up 100 patrol guards. The guards are formed into 4~5 person linked squads. The ranged small mobs attack with water balls, while the melee small mobs have high critical strike damage. Players need to kill a large number of guards and find the correct path to be able to see the Dragon King of the East Sea and trigger the plot.”

“For the Flat Peach Banquet level, Sun Wukong needs to pick and eat peaches in the Flat Peach Orchard. Set it as an environmental negative buff that makes players continuously lose health; only by eating peaches can they recover health. This level mainly tests movement skill operations. Players must dodge the Seven Fairies while stealthily eating peaches. If discovered early by the Seven Fairies, the challenge fails.”

“…”

Listening to Xie Yunfan’s design concepts, Zhang Su couldn’t help but sigh with deep emotion inside—making the levels like this, game experts would also feel it’s very interesting, right?!

Mount Huaguo, a personal climbing challenge level, testing detailed operations; falling halfway down meant having to climb up all over again. Bull Demon King, a one-on-one boss duel level, requiring rapid repositioning to dodge skills and seizing opportunities to release skills; experts could also experience the exhilaration of dueling a boss.

Dragon Palace level, swarms of linked small mobs, plus melee and ranged monsters with various attack patterns, an extreme pressure-resistance dungeon; players needed to use their brains to decide which batch of small mobs to kill first. Coupled with this dungeon being made into a maze, walking the maze while fighting small mobs raised the difficulty by another tier.

The Flat Peach level was relaxed and fun, letting players hide from NPCs to pick and eat peaches everywhere. If they couldn’t eat them, they’d lose health until they died. When the time came, how to choose the optimal path to “eat peaches” would definitely become the focus of strategy guides!

A “strategy mobile game” requiring brainpower, with the several levels each having their own unique features.

For that game Zhang Su’s previous company had invested hundreds of millions to make, the dungeon levels were almost all “copy-pasted.” Between level 10, level 30, and level 50 dungeons, aside from slightly changing the appearances of the bosses and small mobs, the gameplay had no major differences.

Grinding dungeons and hoarding materials every day, boring and dull. Players could even directly AFK “one-click sweep” and then go do other things.

However, the richness of the level designs in Journey to the West would absolutely exceed players’ imaginations!

Just the 7 levels of the first chapter alone were 7 different kinds of gameplay.

Although the game hadn’t been officially made yet, after listening to Xie Yunfan’s designs, Zhang Su felt a long-lost hot-blooded passion in his heart—such a fun game would definitely become popular!

Its level gameplay was even richer than Underworld Maze.

Its worldview framework was even more colossal than Ghost Realm.

Its plot was even more wonderful than Soul of Music.

The previous three games had all become popular; he truly couldn’t think of a reason why Journey to the West wouldn’t become popular.

As long as this game was made well and smoothly launched… Zhang Su had a premonition that not only would it become popular across the length and breadth of the country, it would also become a premium explosive hit among mobile games.

In the gaming world, a grand spectacle of the entire nation controlling Sun Wukong to clear levels step by step might even appear!