Experience

The dinner that Xiang Kun took over at the last minute was naturally not as good as the grand meal that he had carefully prepared, with ingredients ready in advance and recipes meticulously planned.

Fortunately, Tang Baona and Yang Zhen'er bought expensive ingredients, so the basic taste and flavor were there. As long as Xiang Kun could make it roughly the same, it wouldn't taste too bad.

Moreover, everyone who came tonight is currently focused on Xiang Kun's game; even while eating, they're still discussing the game.

Not only those who had played the game before dinner, but also the few who arrived later, after watching for a while and listening to the "story," were also very interested and were eager to join in the game after finishing their meal.

While eating, Zhang Qian asked Xiang Kun some questions about the game.

To be honest, she was somewhat surprised when she received the invitation yesterday and learned that she would be coming to Tang Baona's house today to try out the game Xiang Kun made.

She hadn't expected that the game Xiang Kun had mentioned would be completed so quickly. Even considering that Xiang Kun might have hired a team to help him, the development speed was indeed quite fast—even without any rest during the Spring Festival, it had only been a little over half a month since Xiang Kun said he was going to make a game in Tongshi Town.

Unless Xiang Kun had already done most of it by then, but judging from what he said at the time, it doesn't seem likely.

So before coming here today, Zhang Qian predicted that the game Xiang Kun made in such a short time would most likely be a relatively simple or even rudimentary "mini-game".

However, we are now in the mobile internet era, and many "mini-games" running on mobile platforms can become very popular and generate substantial profits. Zhang Qian has no doubt about Xiang Kun's abilities; even if it's just a "mini-game," the "mini-game" that Xiang Kun makes will definitely have something unique that will catch people's attention.

She had a lot of confidence in Xiang Kun's abilities.

But no matter how she thought about it, she never imagined that Xiang Kun would create a "game" that was purely in the form of sound.

Upon arriving and listening to Yang Zhen'er explain how to play the game, Zhang Qian's first thought was—isn't this just a tabletop RPG game hosted by AI voice? This type of TRPG is more suitable for small groups and face-to-face offline play; it's hard to make it successful online, right?

But after playing for a few hours, Zhang Qian realized that this game was very different from tabletop role-playing games and other role-playing games in terms of experience.

It doesn't require each person to have a detailed character card, nor does it require pre-defining various detailed attributes, nor does it require understanding various specific and complicated rules. Basically, you only need to define the character's name and some basic characteristics at the beginning, and the game will take care of the rest. You can gradually learn about them during the game.

In this game, traditional game features are significantly reduced, requiring players to think and operate minimally. Players are essentially listening to a story they are also involved in, and the sense of immersion grows stronger as time progresses. Coupled with various real-time sound effects and background music, the game evokes a range of emotions in players, from joy to sorrow, from tears to laughter, as the story unfolds.

When playing other games, no matter how great the story or plot is, players rarely escape the feeling of "playing" a game because the "game" aspect is too strong.

But the game Xiang Kun made, with its storytelling voice perfectly matching the content, made listeners unconsciously immerse themselves in the plot and story, and then unconsciously begin to seriously "play" their own roles.

In different stories, different types of characters have different speaking styles. Generally speaking, it is difficult for ordinary people to freely express themselves using a voice that is different from their normal state.

Even Zhang Qian was initially a bit reserved; in that martial arts story, her speech still had a modern urban feel. But as the story progressed and she became more involved, she unconsciously began to use language more suited to martial arts, constantly using terms like "brother," "I've heard so much about you," "please wait," "this humble one," "how dare you," and "die!"...

This kind of truly immersive role-playing, which involves interacting with others and becoming part of the story, brings a sense of exhilaration, as if one is truly living another life, and a strong sense of participation in the events of the story.

More importantly, Zhang Qian discovered that this model does not require prior acquaintance with a group of players, integration into a small community, or face-to-face interaction—in fact, it is better not to see each other, making it easier to immerse oneself and avoid mutual interference.

Such a low barrier to entry makes it extremely suitable for online games, making it easy for single users to join.

After the game ended, Zhang Qian reflected on it briefly and was amazed by the impressive skill level displayed in the game.

Speech recognition and text conversion technology is not uncommon; many large companies possess this technology, and it is quite mature. However, the accuracy of Xiang Kun's game's speech recognition and the accuracy of its judgment of the recognized content were truly astonishing to her.

This voice engine is the most lifelike and fluent one she has ever heard, with just the right amount of emotion and no awkwardness.

The storyline, which constantly changes and evolves based on all the players' choices, is also very smooth, with all the logical chains being well-established and clear. It even foreshadows events based on some of the players' early dialogues, and then "reverses" later on, bringing "surprises" to the players.

This led her to wonder, at one point, whether there were real people behind the scenes responsible for writing the storyline and providing narration...

After dinner, I connected via video call with You Meng, Liu Caifu from Tongshi Town, who had been waiting for a long time, to explain the game situation. Then I started to remotely teach them how to install the game client and introduce the gameplay.

After two hours, with more than a dozen people experiencing a cyberpunk-style story together, everyone reluctantly stopped and started discussing it via video.

Aside from shouting "666!" You Meng and Liu Caifu had virtually no other opinions. They would invest as much as they could afford, since they had already made their decision. It wasn't so much about investing in the product or the company, but rather in Xiang Kun. It wasn't so much about how much money they put in, but rather about a sense of participation.

Zi Cheng was equally excited. As an "industry insider" with the same academic background as Xiang Kun, he was very sensitive to the technology displayed in the game. He even suspected that Xiang Kun might have made the game himself. Could it be that Xiang Kun had actually collaborated with some industry giants, and the game was co-developed? But if that were the case, how would they have had the opportunity to enter the market?

Zhang Qian still asked the most questions. She was also the one who cared the most about this matter, and according to the share agreed upon in Tongshi Town, she would be the largest investor.

"Xiang Kun, have you thought about how this game will be monetized? Will you sell game time cards/monthly cards, or will you sell in-game items?" Zhang Qian asked.

Xiang Kun smiled and said, "This question will be answered by our Operations Director, Tang Baona."

Tang Baoting, Gao Yao, Yang Zhen'er, and others immediately clapped and cheered, "Please, Director Tang, speak!"

Tang Baona glared at Xiang Kun, then nervously adjusted her glasses and said, "I'm not a director, and I don't understand operations. But I've discussed this with Zhen'er, Lao Xia, and Xiang Kun these past few days. Our idea is to make it completely free initially, and then charge based on the number of games played—a fixed fee per game. Each game represents one story segment. This fee can be very low, mainly to give players a psychological cue that they've paid, encouraging them to play each game more seriously. The main revenue stream will be personalized customizations, such as voice enhancements, more narration styles, background sounds, sound effects, and BGM choices, as well as post-game audio processing, packaging it into a complete voice story for players to enjoy. These can all be charged for."

Yang Zhen'er glanced at her laptop and said, "Hey, all done, the game we were just playing is finished. Come on, listen to it." With that, she played the game they had just played through the Bluetooth speaker.

Because it was recorded through Yang Zhen'er's client, the beginning is from Yang Zhen'er's perspective. Everyone felt quite embarrassed hearing their own voices speaking in the manner of playing other characters through the speakers.

But as they listened, they realized that it was different from when they played the game. The background noise during recording had been completely removed, and the sounds were perfectly integrated with the background sounds in the game. The volume had also been adjusted and modified, making it seem as if the voices of the narrator and other people were recorded in the same recording studio, creating a very harmonious sound.

Furthermore, many blank segments that required player selection and preprocessing during gameplay were removed, making the entire audio story flow much smoother, truly like listening to a radio drama or audiobook.

Yang Zhen'er said, "After the game is launched, we can hold some player-created works competitions, select the better ones with good stories, reward them, and even spend money to buy the copyrights to make them into movies and TV series, further promoting our game and increasing players' motivation to seriously 'role-play' and immerse themselves in the game."

Zhang Qian nodded. This was indeed a way to further enhance player engagement. This feature was really great. As a player herself, she would love to save that audio clip and listen to it from time to time.

"What if there are those who are particularly disruptive? For example, those who don't take the role seriously, don't get into character, and just want to talk nonsense to cause trouble? After all, it's not a game played face-to-face or with people you know. If it's a random match, it's easy to encounter some bad players." Yang Zhuo raised his hand and asked his question.

Xiao Min, standing next to her, nodded repeatedly like a chicken pecking at rice. The two of them had been playing Honor of Kings together last night and had been utterly trolled by their teammates. If they weren't so poor, their phones would probably have been broken several times over.

"Old Yang, you answer this," Xiang Kun said, looking at Yang Zhen'er.

"Call me Director Yang!" Yang Zhen'er waved her fist at him, then said to Yang Zhuo, "There will be a real-time reporting mechanism, and the system will automatically judge whether someone is causing trouble and constantly disrupting the story. They will be forcibly replaced by the system. There will also be more control options for players to choose from. For example, if you get tired of playing and don't want to play anymore, you can directly let the system take over, or have the narrator arrange for that character to die or leave the storyline in some other way. If you need to leave temporarily, or just want to 'listen in,' you can also temporarily suspend your character and not mention them. Chef Xiang, after playing for a long enough time, the system can even imitate the player's voice and participate in the storyline itself when the player doesn't want to play anymore."

"I think this can be used for social networking! You can form a first impression and get to know other netizens through the voices in the story. This is a different experience from ordinary text communication!" Chang Bin said excitedly.

"Isn't that just the old YY?" Wang Han said.

"It's different. YY or other voice communication software only make people who are introverted or lack confidence in their voices listeners, not participants. They still won't dare to speak. But in this game, everyone is naturally drawn in. The voice communication has a theme and a platform, and each time there are different stories and ways to play. Even introverted people can express themselves through this kind of 'role-playing'," Chang Bin said thoughtfully.

Because Xiang Kun had already shared his specific thoughts on the game with Tang Baona and Yang Zhen'er during this period, some of which were even based on their experiences or were proposed by them, now it was mostly the two of them who answered Zhang Qian, Zi Cheng, and others' questions. While everyone was having a lively discussion, Xiang Kun gradually withdrew from the conversation, only stepping in to explain a few words when it came to some technical issues.

He took out his phone and sent a WeChat to Lao Xia, because he had just discovered through the Coin sensor on Lao Xia's body that she was still at the airport in the city, while according to the scheduled flight time, she should have already arrived in Citong City.

Xiang Kun was a little worried. Could it be that Lao Xia had fallen asleep in the waiting room? After all, he had drunk blood yesterday and woken up at noon today. Lao Xia had stayed up all night to keep watch and hadn't slept at all. It was perfectly normal for him to fall asleep in the waiting room.

Just as I was hesitating whether to sense the pair of chopsticks I gave to Lao Xia and remind him in my dream, I received a reply on WeChat:

"Late."

Xiang Kun breathed a sigh of relief; it turned out the flight was just delayed.

Xiang Kun: "I thought you fell asleep and missed your flight. You should have gotten some sleep tonight and left tomorrow."

A few seconds later, Lao Xia replied: a panda emoji with laser beams shooting from its eyes.

This is to tell Xiang Kun that she is in good spirits.