Staff in Position, Production Begins

The recruitment process was proceeding steadily.

It was now early May, and there were still plenty of people looking for jobs online. Leveraging the widespread fame of "Dark Forest," Meng Shu received a flood of resumes and inquiries in just three days. This forced him to temporarily set aside the final chapter he was developing and start sifting through these resumes. Some even took the initiative to call him to schedule interview times.

However, after filtering through them, he picked out a few suitable candidates and sent them notifications. Among this batch, there were still some who had falsified their resumes and overhyped themselves. For example, a 28-year-old man claimed to have nearly six years of work experience, and his portfolio looked quite impressive, but when it came to hands-on practice, he fell short—he couldn't even draw the simplest diagrams and got perspective relationships wrong. Whether it was due to performance pressure or not, he wasn't hired.

Another example was a 23-year-old girl who started working in 2021 and claimed to have three years of experience by 2022? Upon asking, it turned out she had included her unrelated customer service internship from college. Others demanded exorbitant salaries, starting at 25K a month, seemingly very capable, but when asked why they left their previous job, it was because they argued with their supervisor. Some complained that clients didn't know anything and made unreasonable demands, then quit out of frustration. In short, the reasons were all over the place.

Although the art positions he was hiring for focused on technical skill, that didn't mean he would hire people who quit easily or were hard to get along with. So he filtered out another large batch of applicants. But fortunately, after about a week, Meng Shu still managed to find the right people.

3D Modeler, Qiu Yuan, male, 28 years old. With six years of work experience, the first two years were spent at an e-commerce company, so part of his portfolio included various products. The latter four years were dedicated to game character modeling, covering styles like ancient, sci-fi, and mechanical. His models were nearly identical to the original concept art—his skills were formidable!

Scene Designer, Xia Nianzhen, female, 24 years old. With two years of work experience, she joined a mobile game company right after graduation and honed her skills there without ever switching jobs. She was very proficient with various software, and her work spanned multiple styles. However, limited by mobile game constraints, the quality wasn't high, but it was clear she had a certain level of talent—the platform was just holding her back.

Animator, Xu Hong, male, 29 years old. With six years of work experience, he was highly skilled at correcting limb movements and facial expressions from motion capture equipment. He had worked at a well-known domestic game company and even participated in action direction. A few years ago, he designed the movements for the first boss, the Colossus Guardian, in the famous RPG "Magic Knight," giving players a great combat experience.

Finally, there was the accountant, Sister Mei, 39 years old, with rich experience—nothing much to say there. Since the company was small and time was tight, these four were all he needed for now; the rest could wait.

Once this was done, Meng Shu immediately took down the recruitment ads. Now, with three weeks left until the one-month mark, he had to start developing the VR game right away! So he gathered the three new employees for a brief meeting, explained some of the VR game's processes, and assigned each their tasks.

At that moment, Meng Shu was sitting at the head of the small conference room, using his laptop to present the concept design PPT for "21 Points."

"First of all, our game scene is small—roughly the size of a small dark room. You can use our conference room as a reference. We don't need any extra clutter; just make it match the concept scene in the PPT. Can you understand that, Nianzhen?" Meng Shu looked up at Xia Nianzhen.

This girl, the same age as him, was intently taking notes. Her long black hair and round-framed glasses gave her a particularly quiet and elegant air. She paused for a moment upon hearing the question, then quickly nodded in response. "I understand. The PPT is very clear, President Meng. I can do it—I'll try my best to recreate it!"

Meng Shu nodded, flipped to the next page, and continued explaining. "Qiu Yuan, your workload will be heavier. This is a VR game, so there are quite a few items and props. Apart from the player-controlled protagonist only needing a pair of hands, everything else that should be there will be present. So you'll have a tough time ahead."

Qiu Yuan listened and nodded seriously. At 28, he was long past his fresh-out-of-college days. Overtime was routine in his industry, so he had no complaints. Moreover, the moment he saw the PPT, he knew exactly what he needed to do. He couldn't help but admire his boss, who was four years younger—just one person had created over a hundred pages of concept design. It included character design, scene design, story design, gameplay design, style design, prop design, and multi-angle item displays. No wonder he was the one who made "Dark Forest"! He was practically a one-man team!

"Don't worry, President Meng. It's a lot, but nothing too difficult. With the concept design laid out in front of me, I'll get it done." "Good, I'll leave it to you."

Meng Shu flipped a few more pages and arrived at character movements. "Our company has already purchased the best motion capture equipment on the market and set aside a room as a shooting space. But since the company is small and we only have a few employees, I hope you can help out when we need to shoot movements. Xu Hong will guide everyone on this." Then, he looked at Xu Hong. "Xu Hong, as I said, this game only needs three characters' movements, and they're all small actions—no big swings. We don't even need face models."

Xu Hong looked at the projection screen and nodded. "I understand, President Meng. But this character named Lucas in the PPT has his face exposed. Should we add a mask later to cover it?" Meng Shu glanced at the PPT and smiled.

In the original game, that psychotic murderer Lucas had a face full of malice.

The game also showed players his punchable face through the television.

But the original game's face model was a foreigner, and the system didn't provide that asset.

If I followed the original, I'd need to find a face model actor and then swap in Lucas's face.

But limited by the time frame, Meng Shu thought for a long time and decided to scrap the face model, having Lucas appear in a mask instead.

After all, the players in this world don't know about "Resident Evil 7," nor its plot, and they certainly don't know how punchable this Lucas is.

Rather than shoving him in front of them without introduction and forcing them to accept the setting, it's simpler and better to just put a mask on him and call him a murderer.

"Right, just put a mask on him. But the mask needs to be designed; I'll draw up a design draft and give it to Qiu Yuan later."

The two nodded, understanding in their minds.

Meng Shu flipped through the PPT and found that he'd covered just about everything, so he wrapped up with a final summary.

"The company's just been founded, and everything's still immature. I hope everyone can understand."

"But I'm not going to feed you motivational crap or paint you a fantasy. Your salary, benefits, and commissions are exactly as stated in the contract—not a cent less. But if you want to earn more on that basis, no problem. In a word, the capable rise—earn it with your own skills."

"So, since you're here, settle in. You do the work, I pay the reward. Let's all be happy and make this VR project a success."

"Some of you might doubt whether VR games can even be made, or whether they can be done well. After all, even the big foreign studios can't pull it off—how can our little startup?"

"Here, I can tell you: we can! As long as everyone does their part, works together, and takes the job seriously, the results will definitely come!"

"When the VR game comes out, that sense of achievement from being recognized by players won't be mine alone—it'll be everyone's!"

"So, work hard, stay united, and complete this project together. Let the market witness what our small team can do!"

"Alright?!"

The three looked at each other, a bit at a loss, but facing their young boss's confident smile, as if everything was under control, their expressions immediately turned serious.

Then they nodded together, speaking in unison.

"Alright!"