Backtracking to the Age of Literature and Art

Chapter 851 Sandbox
Xueleshan's office is still a three-story building, but there are not many things in the office building for Yu Dong and the others to visit.

However, Pete took Yu Dong and the others, and introduced them enthusiastically every time they walked to a room.

"This used to be our gym, and the utilization rate is quite high. In the afternoon, colleagues often come here, and there is a tea room next to it. Even if they don't work out, they will come to drink tea and chat. There were hundreds of people in our company before. very bustling……"

"This was originally a game room. In order to keep everyone creatively inspired, Ken specially set up this game room for us. Here, you can play almost all the games on the market, and even some games that are not on the market... ..."

"This is the cabbage room. If anyone is under too much work pressure, he can go here, imagine himself as a cabbage, and don't think about anything. Originally, there were many closed sleeping cabins here, which are actually similar to lunch breaks. You can relax when you are tired." Run here to rest..."

"In addition to the pool table, this room originally had a ping-pong table, but the ping-pong table was removed later, and only this pool table remained."

……

Peake basically talked about what was there before and how it was before, but when you open the room, most of the offices are empty.

After Xueleshan laid off employees, many things in the company were also cleared out.

This was a bit beyond Yu Dong's expectation. In fact, compared to people and intellectual property rights, things like the company were not worth a lot of money at all.

For a group as big as Vivendi, there is no need to spend your mind on those worthless things.I didn't expect that Vivendi could really do such a great job, and moved all the things away.Or, this is why Vivendi can become bigger and stronger.

"How many people are there in total in the company?" Yu Dong asked.

Pete thought for a while, "Then I haven't really counted them carefully. There should be about twenty or thirty people. It was originally less, but after Ken and the others came back, they recruited a few more people."

Although the game company does not have such a high requirement for the number of personnel, it is a bit exaggerated that such a well-known game company has only so few people left. After all, their company still has some old games in their hands, so they can't ignore those old games, right? , will definitely need some manpower to maintain.

There are more than 20 people in total. Except for the personnel department and the finance department, there are not many people left for other departments. It is indeed quite miserable.

Yu Dong looked at Pete, and always felt that this kid said this on purpose, just to cry in front of him.

After shopping around, Pete took Dong and the others to the general manager's office.

The two didn't stay in the general manager's office for a while, and the Williams and his wife came back from the meeting.

"Sorry, sorry, I've been in a meeting just now." As soon as he came in, Ken Williams apologized again and again, and then complained to Pete: "Peter should tell me that you are here as soon as possible."

"I told him not to tell you."

Yu Dong shook hands with Ken Williams and greeted his wife Roberta, and the four sat down.

Ken Williams is tall, taller than Yu Dong, not to mention his body shape, two circles bigger than Yu Dong, his wife Roberta is quite small, and there is a gap between the two when they walk together huge.

Not only is there a big difference in stature between the two, but there is also a big difference in appearance.

The first impression of Ken Williams is that he is very serious and a cold-faced guy, while Roberta has a very warm smile on his face since he came in, and he is very friendly.

After explaining to Ken Williams why he came so early, Yu Dong talked about "Plants vs. Zombies", "Shenji Mikami should tell you about the new game that Deep Space Games is developing?"

The reason why I say this is because Yu Dong knows that Ken Williams is more concerned.

Ken Williams nodded, "I said it, but I didn't say much. Shinji Mikami just told me that this is a tower defense game, and didn't say anything else. But from the name of this game, it should be related to "Resident Evil" "It's related."

"Somewhat, but not much."

Roberta next to him wondered, "When Ken and I first heard the name of this game, we thought it was a derivative game of "Resident Evil" made by Deep Space Games. We were wondering why there was no Resident Evil in the name. "

In Roberta's opinion, if the game name can bring Resident Evil, then this game will have an advantage over other games at the beginning.

After several years of development, Resident Evil has become a big IP. The sales of the series of novels have exceeded [-] million, and games are also frequent visitors to the best-selling list.

As for movies, although it is a step slower, every movie can get a very good box office.

Since last year, there have been rumors in the industry that Universal is going to cooperate with Deep Space Corporation to build a Resident Evil theme park in their Universal City, but this news has been circulating, but no one has come out to confirm it.

Hearing Yu Dong say that "Plants vs. Zombies" has nothing to do with "Resident Evil", although Roberta was surprised, she was not disappointed.

From the perspective of a company operator, it is of course beneficial to have a relationship between "Plants vs. Zombies" and "Resident Evil".

But Roberta is also a game designer herself, and has made great contributions to adventure games.

Her first game "Mystery House" provided a lot of reference value for early adventure games, and later many adventure games referenced this game.

The game she is most familiar with is naturally the "King's Secret Envoy" series, which is also the game that Xueleshan made his fortune.

As an excellent and aspiring game designer, Roberta actually hopes that "Plants vs. Zombies" is a different and interesting game.

Williams and his wife have no interest in literature. Roberta’s understanding of Dong comes from several games he participated in designing, such as "Escape", "Lianliankan", and "Matching Music". Simple, yet eye-catching game.

Of course Roberta also wanted to see if Yu Dong could design an equally eye-catching game.

Although Shinji Mikami did not disclose the gameplay of this game, he told the couple that Yu Dong was deeply involved in this game, and even the props in it were designed by Yu Dong.

Yu Dong did not intend to reveal the details of "Plants vs. Zombies" to them, but picked up some things that did not involve the core of the game and said, "This game is indeed a tower defense game, and it also has some card elements. Shinji is very confident about this game. Mikami Shinji told me that the game will be ready in three or four months. You need to assist them in the online work. You were not here just now, and Pete told me that the company is still working. There is a shortage of manpower, and I hope you can recruit some people as soon as possible. The space is managed now, but it will not take long for you to take over by yourself, and you will need a lot of people.”

Ken Williams nodded, "Don't worry, I'm already doing this. The number of people in the company will gradually increase, but everything has to be done slowly."

Yu Dong waved his hand, "Don't take your time, how much money is needed, you will make a list and report it to Jimmy, and he will solve it for you."

Ken Williams was surprised, "Really?"

"Of course it's true...but you should also pay attention to controlling the amount, and it's best to report a schedule so that Jimmy can see your plan."

"Okay, no problem." Ken Williams looked very happy.

What Xueleshan lacks most now is not games, not platforms, but money.

After Deep Space acquired Xueleshan, it solved the debt problem of Xueleshan, but it did not inject a lot of funds into Xueleshan.

After taking over Sierra Mountain again, Ken Williams discovered that the money in the company's account does not allow them to restore their former glory in a short period of time, and they can only do it step by step.

Ken Williams has achieved financial freedom a long time ago. This wave belongs to retirement and re-employment. He is not eager for success in business management, so he didn't mention the money to Jimmy. After all, a space has been saved for them. A lot of money.

Now that Yu Dong offered to increase investment for them, Ken Williams was quite pleasantly surprised.

Yu Dong looked at Roberta again, "I read the comments on the Deep Space Tribe. Some netizens heard that you have returned to Xuele Mountain, and they all expressed great expectations. They are all players of "The King's Secret Envoy". I hope you can create more What an excellent adventure game, how about it? After returning to Xueleshan, do you have any thoughts on this? Although Xueleshan’s main business is game publishing and space platform operation, game production is not completely absent. If you have any ideas, it is entirely possible to set up a separate studio."

Roberta smiled and shook her head, "Adventure games have reached a bottleneck, and it doesn't make sense to release a sequel to the "King's Secret Envoy" series. Of course, I still hope that Sierra can retain the game production business, even if it does not develop adventure games. , can also develop other games. Since we want to operate the space, we must develop games ourselves. Although there are deep space games and other studios under the deep space that can be relied on, we still need to retain the ability to develop games.”

"No problem. If you have any ideas, you can mention them at any time. Jimmy and I will support you."

"Actually, I had an idea before, which is a bit like an adventure game, but it's completely different from "The King's Secret Envoy"," Roberta said.

Yu Dong became interested: "What idea?"

Roberta looked at her husband, "Actually, he was willing to propose it. After watching "The Martian", he had an idea. Maybe we can adapt "The Martian" into a survival game."

Yu Dong mused, "Is the gameplay a character trapped on Mars, who needs to use priority materials and work to survive, or even leave Mars?"

"We really thought so at the beginning, after all, it fits well with the content of the novel. But after a period of consideration, we think that such a gameplay will become very monotonous. If the difficulty of the game is made very good, then improve If the threshold of players is lowered, many players will lose interest. If the setting is very low, players can still play in the beginning, but after playing it twice, it will become boring.”

"So, what are your thoughts after thinking about it?"

This time it was Ken Williams' turn to speak, "Our idea is that we can break the limitations and not follow the plot of the novel, not even follow the background of Mars. We can set up such a story background, the earth can no longer bear the earth. Humans continue to open up new lands, so they turned their attention to Mars. After detection, there is water and various ores in the underground of Mars. Only by obtaining these things, humans can settle on Mars.”

"In order to achieve this goal, the earth sent people to Mars in batches. The task of these people is to obtain water and ore on Mars to build a base. We can set up various ores, and these ores can synthesize what they want. Make all kinds of tools and equipment."

"That's right." Roberta continued her husband's words, "We can set up a material synthesis system that allows players to search for various materials on Mars to synthesize tools and equipment to create a perfect The camp is for the human beings who landed later to survive in it. Of course, if you think this is a bit imprecise, we can actually put the background on other planets, a virtual planet. Otherwise, someone may accuse us of doing it in the game Not rigorous enough."

After listening to the thoughts of Williams and his wife, Yu Dong raised his eyebrows and said, "This is a sandbox game you are talking about?"

The couple looked at each other, and Ken Williams nodded with a smile, "Yes, it's a sandbox game."

Sandbox games are nothing new, the concept was developed from the early open world.

Some people think that the game "Elite" released in the 80s is the earliest sandbox game with real meaning.The main content of this game is that the player drives a novice spaceship, completes commissioned tasks and fights enemies all over the universe.The characteristic of this game is that the universe inside is automatically and randomly generated, and it embodies a kind of freedom of space movement and choice. The game world is no longer a closed maze, but an open universe.

Later, the concept of sandbox was introduced into various games, such as "The Legend of Zelda". In this game, Nintendo consciously forced the player to think about what to do next, increasing the degree of freedom of the game .

Another example is "Super Mario 64", which has a very high degree of freedom to interact with the environment.

There are also management games such as "Sim City" and "Railway Tycoon", which also have a taste of sandbox games.

However, the term sandbox game was actually only formally established after the release of "The Sims" at the beginning of this year. Major game manufacturers have begun to focus on the essence of game freedom and enhance players' pursuit of leisure and openness.

(End of this chapter)