Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

"Of course, this is not to say that your project team is not good. I have seen it, and your art is good, and the demo is decent. It's just that you need to think more about the direction."

Lin Li wanted to say something even harsher, but seeing the person on stage looking like they were about to collapse, he hesitated, considering that it was a project for the Spark Competition.

Towards the end, he raised his head slightly.

To make the scene less ugly.

He revealed a symbolic 10 and then waited for others to ask questions.

"President Lin has a really strong presence."

While the host was summarizing, Ding Lei, who was sitting next to him, said with a smile.

He said that.

Representatives from Sony, Ubisoft, and Capcom also expressed their agreement.

However, Chen Rui, who was sitting on the other side, agreed and then asked a question.

"Why do you think this project is no good? They only used the ship girl combat system; there are quite a few other innovations..."

Lin Li glanced at Chen Rui and thought to himself, no wonder Bilibili is the graveyard of anime and mobile games.

As the eldest son, your judgment is terrible.

"Because it's 2018, the reason you feel this project can succeed is because you're looking at a game two years from now through today's perspective."

After saying that, Lin Li stopped talking, regardless of whether Chen Rui understood or not.

Whether Chen Rui understood or not, Ding Lei was unsure.

But after listening to Lin Li's words, he fell into deep thought.

Many projects that were cut short within NetEase seem to confirm what Lin Li just said.

Time passed quickly in this moment of contemplation, and the next contestant took the stage.

"Hello everyone, I'm Eggplant."

"The game I brought is called The Scroll of Taiwu."

“My project started three years ago, the team was formed in 17, and now we have a relatively complete DEMO.”

After the eggplant was served.

Although his speech was somewhat disjointed, it was clear that he was quite nervous.

But Lin Li had a smile on his face the whole time.

This smile, genuine and heartfelt, is somewhat like the pure smile of a homeroom teacher watching their top student give a speech on stage.

Starting with the Spark Carnival and then the Summer Spark, Lin Li's series of initiatives have finally triggered a chain reaction in the domestic game industry.

Many games that had achieved good results in their previous lives have undergone some changes under the influence of Spark.

In the previous life, it was under the tacit approval of the country's overseas expansion strategy.

Thanks to Steam, many hit single-player games have actually been produced in China.

But these teams.

They often share a common problem.

That is, even when the studio has little money, it can still create a game that is truly impressive.

But after creating a hit product.

Immediately, due to inadequate management or other reasons, various problems began to emerge.

For example, The Scroll of Taiwu is a typical example.

The previous version of The Scroll of Taiwu can be described as a complete dark horse, a game with almost no promotion.

Relying on word-of-mouth, recommendations from game content creators, and word-of-mouth recommendations from players, it achieved 300,000 views in the first week, 500,000 views in twelve days, and over 800,000 views in the first month.

It quickly became the best-selling Chinese game on Steam at the time.

To some extent, it even accelerated the wave of domestically produced single-player games being launched on Steam.

The meme of "crickets painting a scroll" has spread widely.

Just as the Witcher can't do without Gwent, Taiwu can't do without cricket fighting. In the game, players need to go through hardships, be quick-witted and sharp-handed, and have keen hearing to catch a good cricket.

The game's framework, gameplay, and even the grid art of the large map are all very well-designed.

Unfortunately, it's just such a game.

But he became a tragic figure, a failure to live up to his early promise.

The film reached its peak upon its debut, and the success and failure of The Scroll of Taiwu can be said to be a result of perfectionism, which led to both its rise and its fall.

Success! It is precisely because of Eggplant's persistence that we were able to present such a game, which, after three years of polishing, evokes a strong sense of exploration from its very framework.

The loss was precisely because the eggplant was too much of a perfectionist, which foreshadowed many future problems.

When funds are insufficient, the pressure to survive will force him to make choices.

But when the eggplant had enough funds, it became confused.

He wanted to achieve perfection and release his ideal Taiwu Scroll, so he did not hesitate to refactor the code.

But he overlooked a core issue in game development.

The evaluation mechanism for a game is never whether its program is perfect or its system is complete, but whether the game can withstand the scrutiny of the soul.

"Is this game fun?"

Chapter 486 Oh no, could this be forcing growth?

The core issue with The Scroll of Taiwu is not actually about refactoring the code.

When The Scroll of Taiwu announced its complete overhaul, it was met with widespread praise.

The real problem lies in the lack of communication that led to a crisis of trust within the production team.

From announcing the code refactoring for the official version to the official release.

For two whole years, the development team and the players had almost no communication. During this time, some vague information, such as "When autumn comes on the eighth day of the ninth month, my flowers will bloom and all other flowers will wither," led the players to misjudge the date.

These pacing issues have caused players' confidence in the production to steadily decline.

In addition, Eggplant lacked experience in managing large teams, underestimated the difficulty of management, and wasted a lot of time on integration.

A typical example is the incident of the lead programmer of Luozhou running away.

In 2022, after the official release of "The Scroll of Taiwu".

A dramatic and messy argument broke out in the "The Scroll of Taiwu" MOD development group.

Since the official version of "The Scroll of Taiwu" suffered a reputation crisis as soon as it was released, the authors in the official MOD group naturally analyzed why "The Scroll of Taiwu" had so many bugs.

At this point, "Houfeng," the former lead programmer who had left the company in January, started speaking in the group.

He believes the current problem with the game is not the backend he used to be in charge of, but rather a problem with the frontend development.

This viewpoint naturally provoked dissatisfaction from current programmers, who immediately engaged in a heated exchange.

While the two were arguing, Eggplant, the game's producer and boss, did not mediate in the group chat.

The reason is that Eggplant had already blocked Houfeng in the QQ group, so he didn't know what had happened...

Yes.

You heard right, a boss blocked the lead programmer who used to work for his company.

Although the incident was reviewed, it was said that Houfeng had already had a very unpleasant falling out with Qiezi when he left the company.

So Eggplant blocked the other person at that time.

However, even from this single incident, we can still glean some problems from the Luozhou Studio.

Firstly, it involves front-end and back-end development.

Although very few indie single-player games use front-end and back-end development, it's not impossible.

The reason why The Scroll of Taiwu was criticized is because it actually created a separate front-end and a separate back-end, meaning that launching The Scroll of Taiwu would launch another program at the same time.

It's like using the framework of an online game to create a single-player game, similar to The Scroll of Taiwu.

He has the whole package: private server and client. The problem is, they haven't said anything about planning to do online multiplayer.

There's a reason for everything that seems unreasonable. Ultimately, the most likely explanation is that the lead programmer hired by Eggplant doesn't know how to develop single-player games, so they can only follow the development model of online games.

Furthermore, the numerous bugs in the subsequent official version clearly demonstrate that this lead programmer's skill level may not be as good as the method that Eggplant taught himself, which is more suitable for "The Scroll of Taiwu".

While there were certainly issues with the wind, Eggplant, as a self-taught programmer and the project manager, only discovered the problem when the game was about to launch.

There are undoubtedly problems with personnel management.

Secondly, the incident occurred in January, eight months before the official release. Logically, finding an industry leader to completely overturn and reset the project shouldn't be a problem.

But at this point, the eggplant was probably scared.

Fearing another potential problem, they appointed a newcomer as lead programmer.

It's fine to use a new person, but this new lead programmer, for some reason, has been indifferent to code issues for three whole months.

Either he didn't understand the code at all and remained silent, or he didn't have the ability to modify it or the courage to start over.

In short, the statement from Luozhou in April showed no signs of delays or difficulties.

So much so that when it was released in September, a bunch of bugs popped out of the shit mountain intact.

For a full eight months, the new lead programmer did not take any feasible action on the previous programmer's code.

It's not hard to see from these small details.

The Luozhou Studio, which started with only three to five people and was led by Eggplant, is capable of developing games, but its management skills are really terrible.

The internal management was chaotic, and there were too many things to develop, so the final official version was a disaster.

Two years of iterative development.

There isn't even a basic tutorial for beginners!

Furthermore, the official version's UI is cluttered and disorganized. The quality of all items is displayed only by tiny text and an extremely small colored square in the upper left corner. When you open your inventory, all you feel is dizziness.

In addition, the official version also removed the automatic distance tracking system that was highly praised in the demo version.

If the game were changed so that players had to control their characters to move left and right, while also having to release skills, prepare for changes, heal, and so on, it would be fine for one game, but after a dozen or so games, no one could stand it.

Players can barely cope with the problems mentioned above.

After all, these are issues related to the direction of development, and they can all be changed.

However, the massive number of bugs that arose from management issues became the final straw that broke the camel's back.

A game with refactored code, a full version of the game, is actually less stable than the demo version.

On the first day of its release, many players couldn't even log into the game.

This series of events, coupled with the various issues that arose during the development of the official version, caused the game, which had an absolutely brilliant run, to be completely ignored after its official release.

It's really a pity.

However, on this timeline, the development of eggplant went much more smoothly.

On the one hand, at the beginning of 17, when things were at their most difficult, we joined the Spark Program.

With the money, Eggplant was able to recruit a small team.

Secondly, Spark provided a great deal of technical support.

Like many games that have entered the Spark Program, Eggplant also switched its game engine to the Spark Engine.

On the one hand, the Spark Engine is more suitable for Chinese developers.

On the other hand, and most importantly, the headquarters of Spark Engine is in China.

When engine developers in China need underlying support, they can seek help from engine developers.

This is also why the Spark Engine is gradually becoming more active in the domestic game industry.

If you want to implement a feature but find that the engine doesn't have it, you just need to submit an application to the Spark Engine department, and you'll receive a call within 24 hours. A few days later, after updating the version, you'll find that the feature is available.

This feeling is something that many foreign game development engines find difficult to replicate.