After the writing team returned to their office, the team leader, Ye Xiang, assigned a task to everyone: “Each person should come up with 10 names first—princes, concubines, officials—both male and female. After you go back, think carefully about how to enrich the character relationships. We will have a meeting in the office at 9:00 AM tomorrow.”

Coming up with names was the first step in creating the character relationship map.

Since the boss wanted to create an overhead/fictional dynasty, every character here would be fictional, and the writing team needed to give these NPCs unique backgrounds and personalities.

Creating an overhead game is like personally crafting a virtual world. This made the team members both excited and stressed.

At the same time, the programming team began writing the game framework based on Xie Yunfan’s design.

A plot-oriented game consists of a main storyline and countless side branches. Since the player enters the story playing a specific character, the framework isn’t difficult to write.

The difficulty lies in the existence of intelligent NPCs; if not handled well, it is very easy to generate bugs.

The new AI engineers from Qihang were working hard to design, planning to start testing once the writing team’s relationship chart was completed.

The art team needed to paint some palace architecture first, and the staff in charge of scenes also began to get busy.

Progress in the early stages of game R&D is usually slow, but Xie Yunfan was not in a hurry.

Creating intelligently changing plots is a bold attempt, and haste makes waste. He would rather spend a little more time and conduct more internal tests to ensure the game’s quality.

Otherwise, the “intelligence” would turn into “intellectual disability,” and the effect would be counterproductive.

The next morning, the writing team held an internal meeting.

Everyone compiled the names they had come up with according to the team leader’s arrangement.

The supreme ruler of the Great Qi Dynasty is Emperor Qi Renzong; the first to eighth princes all use single-character names, such as the First Prince called Qi Shuo, the Second Prince Qi Zhao, and the Seventh Prince, whom the player can control, is called Qi Rui.

The harem concubines were given simple and elegant names, and there were dozens of officials from the previous dynasty. After everyone had set all the usable names, they began to draw the character relationship chart.

The writing team gathered together for a meeting and discussed it very enthusiastically.

“I think Empress Cheng’s family background should be quite powerful. Should we design her as the daughter of the Prime Minister or the sister of a general?”

“In that case, the Empress’s position would be too secure. I actually think we could have the Empress stay in the palace to recover from poor health; design a powerful background for Consort Xiao, who is one rank lower than her. This way, Consort Xiao will be unwilling to accept it and will go to seize power.”

“Empress Cheng is sickly on the surface, but in order to maintain her position, she has actually been faking illness and secretly plotting to eliminate her enemies. Should we give her a deep, high-IQ, ‘belly-black’ (calculating) personality?”

“Consort Xiao should be designed as a rather arrogant character with a powerful maternal family background. The struggle between her and the Empress is also a major highlight. Players can choose to take a side in the early stage to help one of them, and then eliminate the winner in the later stage to take the position themselves.”

“Besides these two big bosses, people like Consort Xian and Consort Shu can also be made into minor bosses.”

“I think there should be people in the harem who are not interested in the Empress’s position. We can make them have that kind of indifferent and fame-seeking-free personality for players to recruit.”

“What if we add some characters who appear gentle and kind on the surface but are actually ruthless and harmful, using all kinds of sinister means behind people’s backs to create a sense of contrast? Would that be more engaging?”

……

Everyone working together to create the entire world bit by bit—this experience was quite marvelous.

Compared to the previous game where the boss wrote the personalities and outlines directly, this time the writing team had a lot of room to play freely, and everyone felt a stronger sense of participation.

Everyone’s ideas were different, and the collision of thoughts could also produce new sparks.

Such a large world could not be fabricated by Ye Xiang or Xie Yunfan alone; it required everyone to work together to improve it.

At 10:00 AM, Xie Yunfan came to the programming and data teams and exhorted: “For this game, the initial public beta version will only have a single-player mode, allowing players to familiarize themselves with this world, clarify character relationships, and know how to play the game.”

“A month after it hits the market, when everyone is proficient, we will release a two-player online expansion pack; after two to three months, we will do faction confrontation and add controllable characters.”

“We need to update slowly in the second half of the year. Currently, your most important task is to finish the single-player gameplay and lay a good foundation.”

Upon hearing this, the employees breathed a sigh of relief.

The boss was quite sensible, taking it one step at a time: single-player first, then online, and finally faction confrontation. On one hand, the game’s popularity could be maintained for longer, and on the other hand, players could figure out various playstyles after becoming proficient.

If everything were released at once, the programmers would be overwhelmed, and if a bug appeared, it would affect the game’s reputation.

After coming out of the programming team, Xie Yunfan took the stairs down to the writing team’s office and asked with a smile: “How is it? Do you have any leads on your character relationship chart?”

Ye Xiang took a sketch and said: “Boss, we plan to draw the harem part first. After we finish the character designs for all the concubines, we will then find relatives for them in the court.”

Xie Yunfan encouraged: “No rush, take your time. The more detailed the relationships are, the better. You can also make some hidden designs. For example, a certain concubine had a lover before entering the palace who is now an official in the court and has been secretly helping her; or a certain concubine killed someone when she was young, and the victim’s family wants to seek revenge on her, etc.”

“The same goes for the court. Some officials are corrupt, some have done all kinds of evil, and there are those who are lecherous, greedy for money, or have children who have caused trouble. Letting important officials have some ‘weaknesses’ gives players the possibility to clear the level.”

Ye Xiang’s eyes lit up: “Understood! Players investigate and learn these hidden stories, and then they can use these ‘weaknesses’ to recruit them or topple them, right?”

Xie Yunfan nodded with satisfaction: “Yes.”

Intelligent NPCs must also follow basic character settings and logic; you can’t let the AI improvise completely on its own. The existence of these “hidden landmines” is the key for players to clear the game.

Ye Xiang continued to ask: “Boss, the harem concubine rank table you gave us is very complex. Can we select some of them to make character designs? If we do them all, I feel there are too many and it’s too messy.”

Xie Yunfan: “Of course. You are free to decide how many concubines, Zhaoyi, and Changzai you need. You don’t need too many NPCs with distinct personalities—keep it between 10 and 20, otherwise, players will get confused.”

Ye Xiang said happily: “Okay!”

Zhou Shiyue suddenly asked: “Boss, I am responsible for the princes’ character designs and side quests. I have a question: in the court line, players must play as a prince to seize power. Can’t they play as a princess?”

She was a classmate of Xie Yunfan’s and had done her final project with him. She knew Xie Yunfan’s personality was very easygoing and he was willing to listen to everyone’s opinions. So, she boldly brought up her idea.

Xie Yunfan looked at her and asked: “You want to let princesses join in the power struggle too?”

Zhou Shiyue said: “Yes, I think there should be many female players interested in the court line. If you make them play as princes, girls playing male characters won’t have a very strong sense of immersion. Since the harem line ends with a female emperor ending, can’t we add a princess character to the court line for players to choose?”

This classmate of his was quite active in her thinking!

Indeed, princesses could also participate in court power struggles. Even in real history, Princess Taiping had ambitions to become emperor and held power over the government, even though she failed in the political struggle.

If princess political struggles were added to the game, female players could also have some fun in court.

Ye Xiang followed up: “If you put it that way, can we add male concubines in the harem too?”

Seeing everyone looking at him collectively, Ye Xiang’s face flushed, and he hurriedly explained: “I don’t like being someone’s wife! But I’m speaking up for those male players with special hobbies!”

Xie Yunfan: “…”

Your imaginations are really wild.

Male favorites and male concubines did exist in history. Some emperors had special quirks and liked to keep male favorites; male empresses even appeared in history.

If girls can be empresses, why can’t boys? If boys can inherit their father’s throne, why can’t girls?

Since it’s an open-background overhead game, we must respect the players’ preferences.

Designed this way, the degree of freedom is indeed much higher.

Xie Yunfan decisively made the call: “The court line will tentatively have three controllable roles. The first is the First Prince; the player plays the Crown Prince, focusing on defensive warfare, needing to hold onto his position as the heir.”

Defensive warfare is also a novel playstyle. The player plays the prince, and others will create all kinds of opportunities for you to make mistakes, letting the emperor depose you. A group of people is eyeing the crown prince position, and every step is like walking on thin ice!

Xie Yunfan said: “The second controllable role is the Seventh Prince. His mother’s status is low, he is not favored by his father, and he is often bullied by his imperial brothers. He needs to fight monsters and level up all the way to finally reach the peak of power. The difficulty is higher.”

“The third controllable role is the Princess, which has the highest difficulty. Because this overhead dynasty has no precedent for a woman to be emperor, it is very difficult for a princess to break the conventions and become emperor alone. The princess line can include the support of her mother’s and maternal grandfather’s forces.”

Ye Xiang asked: “What about the harem line?”

Xie Yunfan said: “Also make three controllable roles. One is a showgirl who just entered the harem, slowly climbing to the top of the harem from the bottom; the second is a concubine who was favored by the emperor for a while but was sent to the cold palace for making a mistake. She needs to clear her name and make a comeback to the palace; the third is the male concubine you mentioned. You can come up with the specific personality and family background.”

Hearing the boss’s decision, the writing team nodded excitedly.

Three characters for the court line and three for the harem line—adding up to six characters for players to choose from—the gameplay would be endless.

And the “no gender limit” point is really friendly.

If a girl wants to play political struggles, she can control the princess; if some boys want to broaden their horizons in the harem, they can also control a male concubine and walk the “male empress” path.

If they don’t like these two roles, players can also try gender swapping in the game—girls playing male characters, boys playing female characters—which is also quite interesting.

One can imagine that after this game goes into open beta, there will definitely be a large batch of “funny” players.

They might even discover some streamers or content creators who are average at action games but super god-tier at brain games.

The more Ye Xiang thought about it, the more motivated he felt.

Isn’t this way more fun than just being a screenwriter?

He immediately took out a piece of paper, gathered his colleagues in the writing team, and said: “Come, come, come! Let’s start with the Empress and discuss the harem character designs one by one! Let’s get the character settings and relationship chart out, and then divide the labor to do the backgrounds and branch plots.”

Seeing the writing team’s enthusiasm, Xie Yunfan was very gratified.

He went to the art team next door.

Ning Sha had also just finished a meeting. Since the character settings hadn’t been finalized yet, the character concept art was temporarily suspended. She arranged for everyone to draw plants, animals, props, and buildings first.

Xie Yunfan glanced at the palace architecture drawn by Chu Yue and thought for a moment: “The architectural style should be more magnificent and grand. The carvings on the beams should be more refined, and the courtyard walls of the palace should be doubled in height.”

Chu Yue was shocked: “Double the height? Then the outside world will be completely invisible.”

Xie Yunfan smiled slightly: “That’s exactly the effect I want. Women who have entered the palace, unless there are special circumstances, may never see the outside world for their entire lives. This is a survival game; the environment inside the palace can be done more oppressively, and the cold palace should be done in a desolate and terrifying style.”

Chu Yue got the boss’s point: “Understood. The magnificent palace is actually a huge prison!”

Xie Yunfan said: “That’s right. The scene of this game is mainly the court, and players spend a lot of time indoors. You can first make some designs for screens, ornaments, tables, etc., to be placed in different palaces later. You also need to draw an imperial garden with small bridges, running water, pavilions, and all kinds of green plants and flowers. It is a place for the emperor and concubines to admire flowers.”

Ning Sha took notes while listening. She asked: “Boss, does the overall architectural style of the different concubines’ residences need to be consistent?”

Xie Yunfan said: “Hmm, the exterior of the entire palace’s architecture is close, but the interior decoration should be made distinct. For example, if a concubine particularly likes plum blossoms, plum blossom trees can be planted in her palace. These will be refined according to the writing team’s character settings.”

Ning Sha nodded: “Okay.”

Xie Yunfan said: “We also need to design some costumes—for court officials, harem concubines, the emperor’s dragon robe, etc. I will tell you the specific styles in detail.”

This game is another huge project, and the players and NPCs are all humans.

Humans all have two eyes and a nose, and there is not much room for imagination, unlike painting monsters which can be created freely.

To draw a distinction between over a hundred people, many details in body shape and facial features must be repeatedly deliberated.

Fortunately, the boss is not urging progress, so everyone can only be patient and take it slow.

A week later, the writing team’s character relationship chart was finally completed and submitted to Xie Yunfan for review.

In the harem, the two major forces of Empress Cheng and Consort Xiao are fighting openly and covertly. Below them are Consort Shu, Consort Xian, Consort Hui, and the demoted Consort De (controllable by the player).

In addition to those formally titled concubines, there are minor bosses like Concubine Qing and Beauty Zhou, who are currently favored by the emperor, that players need to deal with.

Ye Xiang lives up to his reputation as a screenwriter—his imagination is huge, and he has made many hidden backgrounds.

For example, Consort Shu appears gentle and indifferent on the surface, but she is actually a ruthless, crazy person who has secretly framed and harmed many people. Consort De’s demotion to the cold palace was her doing.

Players controlling the Consort De line need to root out this mastermind boss.

As for Consort Xian, she appears virtuous and talented on the surface, but she actually had a lover before entering the palace who is now the youngest imperial physician in the Imperial Hospital. The two are still lingering in affection and often date secretly.

Xie Yunfan: “…”

Once this gossip is exposed by the player, it’s practically a soap opera bomb—Consort Xian will definitely be finished.

Trying to find these kinds of “landmines” is also a test of the player’s operation. Once a matter of cuckolding the emperor is not handled well, the player themselves will become a “witness who must be silenced.” It’s too difficult.

In addition, there are settings such as court cliques, harem sisters covering for each other, certain concubines having done bad deeds or killed, and certain officials being corrupt.

This character relationship chart is quite rich and brilliant.

It could be taken directly as a script to shoot an 80-episode palace + court soap opera!

Xie Yunfan praised: “As expected of someone who has been a screenwriter.”

Ye Xiang smiled and scratched his head: “Being a screenwriter is very troublesome. Many plots don’t pass the censorship, and I also have to add scenes on the spot for stars the investors want to promote, finally changing the script beyond recognition…”

Compared to that, he feels making games is quite satisfying.

The censorship is not that strict, and the love and hate of NPCs—it doesn’t matter how melodramatic it is.

Xie Yunfan circled a few points that needed to be modified: “The showgirl role controllable by the player—designing her as the ‘number one beauty in the capital’ feels a bit much. Adjust her appearance slightly; above average is enough.”

“The connection between the court and the harem is not tight enough. Sometimes, in order to consolidate his power, the emperor needs to marry some ministers’ daughters or sisters into the harem. Add some cousin or niece relationships.”

“And the princes’ settings…”

Xie Yunfan reviewed them one by one, and Ye Xiang took a pen and wrote them all down.

After returning, the writing team revised the relationship chart for another three days. Xie Yunfan was very satisfied with the final settings submitted and readily passed them.

After the writing team’s settings were out, the art team immediately started working, drawing the character concept art.

Other teams have also been busy, and the game’s progress is moving forward slowly.

Soon it was April. On this day, Xie Yunfan received a call from Luo Hang, saying that the AI engineers had made several intelligent AIs according to the writing team’s settings, asking him to take a look.

Xie Yunfan took the elevator downstairs to the neighboring Qihang.

Building A and Building B are very close, and he arrived in ten minutes. After arriving at Luo Hang’s office, the team leader of the AI group took the initiative to say: “President Xie, please take a look at the first version of the AI we made to see what needs to be changed.”

The character modeling hasn’t come out yet, so the AI they made is a white robot in shape.

The engineer said this is the emperor’s intelligent AI model.

Xie Yunfan tried to talk to him: “Your servant pays respects to Your Majesty, Long live, long live, long live.”

Emperor AI smiled and said: “Paying respects to you too.”

Xie Yunfan: “???”

He immediately entered text: “Your servant withdraws.”

The AI paused for two seconds and then said: “Okay, goodbye.”

Xie Yunfan was between laughing and crying.

Is this an intelligent NPC? This is probably an “intellectual disability” NPC!

Not only was the response very modern, but the character setting also completely collapsed.

However, this is also normal. People from a different world don’t know ancient-style dialogue, and he can’t ask players of this different world to speak in poetry while playing a palace struggle game.

Training AI requires giving them massive amounts of data to learn slowly.

Xie Yunfan shook his head helplessly: “This AI definitely won’t work… Forget it, I’ll let the writing team write a large number of dialogues to import into the database and let the AI learn for a while.”

“Many words can be directly replaced—the emperor refers to himself as ‘Zhen’ (We), concubines above a certain rank can refer to themselves as ‘Ben Gong’ (This Palace), and when in front of the emperor, refer to themselves as ‘Chenqie’ (Your Concubine). I will make a vocabulary replacement table.”

“Also, our overhead dynasty is an ancient country from thousands of years ago. Absolutely no popular internet slang, such as ‘666,’ ‘WTF,’ ‘Idiot,’ ‘Muah,’ etc….”

Luo Hang, listening from the side, wanted to laugh. Yunfan seems very familiar with these internet slang terms? It seems he also surfs the internet often.

Xie Yunfan looked at the engineer: “Set up a censorship wall to block all popular internet slang. Try to use literary language from the dictionary as much as possible, use more idioms, and keep the AI’s speech concise.”

Even if it’s impossible to be completely archaic in a different world, try to lean toward the ancient background as much as possible.

What is this “Hello, goodbye” nonsense?

Several engineers were confused.

Not allowed to learn from the internet? They hadn’t made intelligent NPCs for an overhead world before, and there were no samples to refer to. It seems they could only wait for the writing team to write some lines and create a database first.

After returning to the office, Xie Yunfan called the writing team, asked them to stop the plot side branches, and write some vocabulary replacement tables and dialogue banks first to let the AI learn quickly.

He also wrote some poems from his memory to let the AI cultivate a sense of language.

Another week passed, and the art team completed the scene settings for the entire palace. Xie Yunfan took them, modified some details, and let the modeling team perform holographic rendering.

Character concept art was also being carried out intensely.

By the end of April, the art and modeling teams had completed the main characters. Xie Yunfan asked Luo Hang to import the character data into the game and match it with different AIs.

In this test, the intelligent AI was much smarter than at the beginning.

The emperor would sternly say: “You are dismissed.”

Consort Xiao would say meanly: “You bitch, how dare you stir up trouble in front of this palace!”

Consort Shu would cover her chest and say tea-like (fake/manipulative) things: “Your Majesty, this is not the sister’s fault, it is all this concubine’s fault.”

Xie Yunfan: “…”

Not bad! The AIs are learning quite fast.

Of course, the writing team deserves huge credit.

After the intelligent AI absorbed a large number of idioms and dialogue lines, it could automatically generate expressions that fit the context.

The learning ability of intelligent AI is far beyond that of humans.

I believe that in the near future, they will turn into “lifelike” NPCs in the game “Palace Storms,” bringing players an ultimate immersive experience.

Two months had passed in the blink of an eye since the project was initiated.

Under the joint supervision of Xie Yunfan and Luo Hang, all departments proceeded in an orderly manner.

On June 1st, the bald programming team finally imported all the intelligent NPCs into the game, loaded the player data, and conducted a program test.

Unexpectedly, a major problem occurred during the test—all the AIs could not proactively participate in events.

When players came to find them, they would answer, like a spinning top that turns once when flicked. If the player didn’t look for them, they would just stay there quietly, not knowing what to do.

Moreover, all AIs were independent of each other, having no contact. It was as if they were a bunch of pre-programmed intelligent robots, lacking flexibility and proactivity.

How to make the AIs proactive?

After a careful discussion between Xie Yunfan and Luo Hang, they decided to add a “Favorability Value System” and “Random Events” to control the AIs.

Players have different initial favorability values with every NPC, and as events progress, the favorability of different NPCs will increase/decrease.

The AI can judge whether it should help the player, hinder the player, or remain neutral based on favorability.

At the same time, the AIs have favorability with each other.

For example, the Empress and Consort Xiao “hate” each other. If the player speaks for the Empress, Consort Xiao will implicate the player in her hatred and lower her favorability, but the Empress will increase her favorability toward the player.

When favorability increases to a certain level, the NPC will proactively help you. Conversely, NPCs from opposing factions will naturally find ways to harm you.

This huge system based on “favorability” can connect the AIs, allowing them to react in some “unexpected events,” making the AI know what it should do so it isn’t too rigid.

And “Random Events” are random tasks issued by the system. For example, if a concubine is sick, the system will secretly release the news in the form of maids and eunuchs informing all the palaces, and players and NPCs can choose to visit or not.

In places where players can’t see, NPCs with good relationships can even gather and chat.

Try as much as possible to create a real world where “everyone is taking action.”

……

At the end of June, the favorability system involving over a hundred NPCs was finally completed, and various random events were also imported into the database.

The programming and data teams looked at the massive project and sighed—this spiderweb-like character relationship and favorability system is practically a realistic little country!

They were really capable; they had actually created an overhead dynasty composed of AI.

What kind of impact would the player’s entry bring?

Everyone was very expectant.

Amidst everyone’s anticipation, the first internal test of “Palace Storms” was finally officially launched.