the next day.

Zhong Ming spent a whole day writing out the complete design draft of "Ink and Wash Clouds and Smoke".

Of course, it is not particularly complete. It mainly consists of the basic framework, gameplay, etc., so that Brother Dahui and Zhou Sen can do it first, and some subsequent things must be gradually improved.

Zhou Sen was still worried about not seeing Tang Ying yesterday, and insisted that Zhong Ming did it on purpose.

In the afternoon, Zhong Ming retreated early and he wanted to go to the studio to see the situation.

According to the address sent by Tang Ying, this studio called "Fantasy Time" is located in the northeast of Ming'an City, about a dozen minutes' drive away.

Zhong Ming called a taxi in the air and arrived soon.

“…It’s a little better than our studio.”

Zhong Ming looked at it and found that the studio should be in an office building. Unlike Wei Guang Studio, it is not yet a stage of leaving the private house.

11th floor, 1107.

Zhong Ming took the elevator up and followed the door number to find Fantasy Time Studio.

I looked inside through the glass door and it turned out to be pretty good.

There are about ten people in the room, and it's really not a small number.

However, there is no front desk, and there is no need to hire a front desk in a small studio of this size, which is a waste of money.

Zhong Ming was about to knock on the door, but a young man who sat nearest to the door stood up and opened the door: "Hello, who do you want?"

"Oh, I'll look for Mr. Wu."

Mr. Wu is the owner of this fantasy time studio and the producer of the game. Tang Ying had previously given Zhong Ming contact information.

The young man was about to turn around and call Mr. Wu, but he heard a female voice in the studio saying surprise: "Hey, is it the reinforcements my sister invited? "

Zhong Ming looked in and saw a red-haired girl standing up at a work station inside. She looked only twenty years old and looked a bit similar to Tang Ying. She probably was Tang Ying's cousin.

But after a closer look, the girl was a size smaller than Tang Ying. She was a little shorter and thinner, and some parts were slightly shrinking a little.

Zhong Ming remembers Tang Ying told him that this cousin seemed to be named Tian Yuan.

"Boss! This is what I said before, come and welcome you." Tian Yuan waved at the workstation in the distance.

A man with medium-length hair and curly hair stood up, with a little beard, looking like he was in his early thirties, and came to greet him.

"Zhongming, right? Hey, you don't say anything. I should go downstairs to pick you up." The boss came over and shook his hand with Zhongming, "I'll introduce myself. My name is Wu Minghao, and I'm the producer of this game. Oda, go and pour tea for you."

"Oh." Tian Yuan agreed, went to the water dispenser to get paper cups and tea leaves, and poured tea for Zhong Ming.

Wu Minghao welcomed Zhong Ming to the small conference room next to him, and Tian Yuan brought the tea.

When passing by the work station, Zhong Ming took a look and found that the studio was in good condition.

This state, of course, refers to the working state.

The working status of a project is actually mainly reflected in the expressions and working atmosphere of all employees. In some studios or projects, all employees are dead and dare not communicate too loudly. Or the employees seem to be staring at the screen with serious expressions, but in fact they are fishing and there is no progress in a long time. There are also projects, programs and designs, so they are tired from the dark circles, and they feel tired in the next second and fall on the work station...

These are all unhealthy working conditions.

However, in this studio, Zhong Ming has not seen it yet.

According to Tang Ying, her cousin, Tian Yuan, likes this studio very much, otherwise she would not have been so concerned about the studio's projects. It can be seen that this studio is not the kind of sweatshop that only knows how to squeeze employees.

In the conference room, Zhong Ming took two sips of tea and began to talk to Wu Minghao about this game.

"I didn't expect you to come in person. I have played "Landed Red Road" and "Work Dog Survival Manual" you made. I was so impressed! Especially "Landed Red Road", the plot is simply amazing!" Wu Minghao sighed, "If you are willing to help, then there will definitely be no problem with the plot."

Zhong Ming smiled: "This is so polite. We are all independent games and we all know each other's difficulties. It is appropriate to pull it up."

"Okay, let me briefly introduce the situation of our game first."

Before, Tang Ying just briefly told Zhong Ming about the situation in this studio, and she didn't know much about the game itself.

So, Wu Minghao briefly introduced the game situation.

This is a horizontal action game with the name "Domain of Fantasy".

The basic rules, style, gameplay, etc. of the game are basically a standard independent game, with no obvious shortcomings and no obvious exceptions.

This is actually not easy, because the most indie game producers make the most mistake they make is to misjudgment their own strength.

Independent games are a game type with relatively low requirements in all aspects.

The picture does not need to be compared with the 3A masterpiece, just be enough to watch it.

The gameplay doesn't need to be complicated.

However, it must also meet the standards.

If you can't even meet this relatively low standard, the game will have irreparable shortcomings, which will definitely not work.

On the other hand, if part of the content is designed too complex and exceeds the limit that the team can bear, it may greatly extend the development time, break the capital chain, and drag down yourself.

So, after a few words with Wu Minghao, Zhong Ming roughly understood that the studio is in good condition, and Wu Minghao is also a producer with ideas and abilities.

But the problem now is that there is a missing piece of the plot!

Speaking of this, Wu Minghao was also helpless.

"That's right. Our previous world architect was originally one of the partners. In our original plan, the plot was originally a major selling point of "Fantasy Domain"."

"When players travel through various areas and challenge different bosses, each area has a branch plot, and there will be some small puzzle parts, which are the motivation to urge players to move forward continuously. In other words, a little bit of puzzle solving elements is added, you should be able to understand what I mean, right?"

Zhong Ming nodded: "Understand."

Wu Minghao continued: "It was originally a very large project, but as a result, our world architect resigned midway."

"Speaking of this, I blamed me for this. The progress was very fast before. We had some quarrels in the gameplay design. I did not adopt some of his designs. Moreover, there was a sum of money that was intended to be paid for phased rewards, but it did not arrive as scheduled, which led to my promise not being fulfilled..."

Wu Minghao didn't hide anything, and roughly explained the reason for the previous resignation of the world architect.

Logically speaking, the world architect of this project has assumed such an important responsibility in the project and is one of the partners of this studio. It is unreasonable to leave halfway through.

Therefore, Wu Minghao also had to explain clearly to Zhong Ming, eliminate Zhong Ming's doubts, so that he would not feel that there was any pitfalls in it.

Simply put, the nature of this world architect is similar to a couple breaking up. It is all about the fact that some small conflicts have accumulated to the extreme and exploded in a concentrated manner.

Originally, when I started a business, I had all been paid by a salary cut.

The previous monthly salary of this world architect reached about 20,000 yuan. After jumping out to open a studio, several partners voluntarily reduced their salary to 6,000 yuan.

In Wu Minghao's words, this money is just to ensure basic life, and the big one is the bonus and shares after the game is made.

However, some friction arises in the subsequent work.

Small studios are no more than large companies and have sufficient resources.

In a large company, if you want something, just report it directly. If the leader approves it, you can do it openly. If the leader doesn’t approve it, then just secretly scold the leader and change the plan.

Overall, the resources of large companies are concentrated on the leaders. Although it is not easy to obtain, as long as the leaders can be fooled, many things will be much easier.

Just like when Zhong Ming was doing "The Sea of ​​Learning" and he could fool millions of publicity funds, it would be unimaginable if he was in a small studio.

After the world architect came to the studio, he was still following the previous idea to do functions and provide requirements. Many solutions, which, in Wu Minghao's opinion, were seriously exceeding the budget.

After all, if you don’t have the power to be a boss, you don’t know how expensive it is. Wu Minghao is in charge of money and wants to spend it in half a dollar. However, this world architect can’t see that the long term. He just feels that Wu Minghao compromises everywhere and makes do whatever he wants, and is very frustrated.

Moreover, a large company seems to be in contact with the world architects and wants to poach him.

The fuse of the outbreak of contradictions is Wu Minghao's promise.

So far, after deducting the plot, the completion rate of "Fantasy Domain" is about 70%. Wu Minghao used to contact channel dealers in advance with the unfinished version of "Fantasy Domain" to pave the way for future games to go online.

A channel dealer liked it and was interested in signing an exclusive agency agreement. Once this agreement was signed, a sum of funds would be directly recorded.

Wu Minghao naturally shared the news with the project owner as soon as possible and promised that after the money was received, he would take out part of it to pay the bonus.

After all, everyone has been starting a business for so long and has been paying low wages. Wu Minghao really wants to compensate everyone in material terms.

Unexpectedly, this channel dealer changed his mind and refused to sign the unique agreement.

In this way, Wu Minghao was very passive. He had promised to pay bonuses before, but the premise was that he had to sign a single agreement and he could only pay if he had money! Now the studio funds are already short of money, so it is impossible to force the money to be issued, right?

With all the factors superimposed, the world architect ran away.

It is said that the big company offered him a monthly salary of more than 30,000 yuan in order to poach him.

Of course, high salaries are one aspect. The world's architects' job change is not entirely for money. More so, the conflicts in the entrepreneurial stage continue to accumulate, which makes him lose confidence in this project.

Many gameplays have been cut down, castrated, and the funds are short of money. They have to sting everything they do. Moreover, the unique agreement has not been signed, and the prospects for the game to be launched are also very unoptimistic...

These are the reasons why architects in this world go.

Zhong Ming nodded to express his understanding.

Many people only see bright prospects before starting a business, but do not see the risks behind it.

Obviously, these people who followed Wu Minghao to start a business, especially a few backbone, were capable, and at least they could do as much as they could in large companies.

However, it is not necessarily suitable for yourself to work alone. At least this plot designer has a serious shortage of estimates of risks.

Wu Minghao sighed and said, "This is the situation, and there is nothing to hide. I, as a producer, should be responsible for this kind of thing. In short, there is a mess left now and it is difficult to clean up. If you are willing to help, I will definitely be grateful."

Zhong Ming thought for a while: "I can help, there are two conditions."
To be continued...