Celebration

At a hotpot restaurant in Magic City Vientiane City.

Chen Xu was having hotpot with Ruan Ningxue and Yang Xin.

Beef, tripe, omasum, beef rolls...

What kind of hotpot was it without beef?

"You're incredible, Master! The Indie Game Circle has completely blown up, and players are showering it with praise too!" Yang Xin, who had already gotten acquainted with them, said excitedly as she looked at the news on her phone.

"Xin Jie, don't call me Master. I'm nowhere near that level yet. Just call me by my name." Chen Xu waved a hand.

It sounded exaggerated, but Chen Xu knew perfectly well that the commotion had only really exploded within the relatively small circle of Gentleman Game developers.

As for the entire gaming industry?

At most, it had made a tiny splash in the Indie Game Circle—a splash that barely caused any ripples.

Chen Xu had a very clear understanding of that.

"I feel like I shouldn't have said fifty thousand sales back then." Ruan Ningxue spoke up from beside him, though she had a smile on her face.

Hearing that, Chen Xu set down his chopsticks and smiled at Ruan Ningxue. "Well, there's nothing we can do about that. You were the one who set that number, Senior."

"Honestly, I'd been thinking of inviting you to join my company, Chen Xu. Looks like I was overthinking it!" Yang Xin said gloomily.

"Give it a rest. Stop trying to ruin my junior's future. Your three games sold worse than the last!" Ruan Ningxue mercilessly stabbed her friend in the back.

"My three games may have failed, but there were reasons for that, okay? I was only responsible for the text and story structure. I hired people to handle everything else, and the players all recognized that the story text was good!" Yang Xin protested.

"By the way, Chen Xu, could you help me figure out what exactly went wrong with the three games our company developed?" Yang Xin asked him earnestly.

"The positioning, and the bloated systems." Chen Xu searched for them on his phone. After briefly watching a few videos online, he had already understood the problem.

"Hm...?" Yang Xin was a little bewildered.

"Simply put, Xin Jie, your games try to add a little bit of everything. But you're making low-budget indie games, not AAA games. Even in AAA games, many systems are there to add depth, not to serve as the main course," Chen Xu explained.

As Yang Xin listened, an expression of sudden realization appeared on her face. She understood a little, but not entirely.

Though she was still somewhat confused, she was too embarrassed to keep asking at the dinner table, so she changed the subject.

"By the way, what are you planning to do next, Chen Xu?"

"Next, I'm planning to start a small game company of my own." It was not exactly a secret, and Chen Xu answered with a smile.

"Start your own company?" Yang Xin was a little surprised.

"Yeah." Chen Xu nodded. It had already been part of his plans.

Yang Xin sat there and thought for a while before making a decision. "Then what do you think of me, Chen Xu? Could I join you and develop games together when the time comes?"

She was still deeply passionate about making games.

But three failed projects in a row had left her somewhat discouraged.

Now, though, she had figured it out.

Was it a problem that she could not become a game designer or make successful games?

No, it was not!

She simply had not found the method to success yet. Finding someone powerful to cling to was also the secret to success!

Before coming here, she had looked deeply into Magic Mirror.

Then she had reached a conclusion: the game's success was absolutely not a fluke.

And after hearing Chen Xu's assessment of her three games just now, she might have understood only a little and not everything.

But there was one thing she could be certain of: this junior of her best friend's, who was supposedly making games for the first time, definitely had the potential to become a master!

Some game designers might develop a high-quality game because of a flash of inspiration, only to fade into obscurity afterward.

But there were also game designers who had an exceptionally clear understanding of the games they wanted to create.

Chen Xu was clearly the latter kind of person.

Three consecutive failures had also given Yang Xin a clear understanding of herself.

Listening to Yang Xin, Chen Xu fell into thought as well.

He had taken a brief look at the three games Yang Xin mentioned.

Just as she had said, the stories really were their strong point.

Most of the negative reviews came from the gameplay design, while most of the positive reviews came from the story.

And it was not just one game—all three were like that.

Clearly, that was the work of a skilled narrative designer.

If he was going to make games himself in the future, he definitely could not rely entirely on his own efforts. He could handle the main plotlines and the overall narrative framework of certain games.

But what about arranging the complete story?

Even with the system, relying on himself alone was unrealistic.

After all, in a game on the level of Red Dead Redemption 2 in his previous life, the main story script alone ran to more than two thousand pages. Including all the text in the game, the A4-sized script pages would stack up to a full 2.4 meters high.

For a game like "Magic Mirror," he could handle everything himself, but when it came to developing larger games with far more text in the future, it was obvious he wouldn't be able to cover every aspect on his own.

"Of course. If you're serious, Xin Jie, then once I've sorted out the company side of things, we can talk about it," Chen Xu said to Yang Xin.

"No problem. Then I'll wait for your news, Chen Xu!" Yang Xin said.

"Alright, alright. If you two don't start eating, I'm going to finish all the beef," Ruan Ningxue said from beside them.

"Say, Ningxue, why don't you join us too? With our abilities, we could definitely accomplish something big!" Yang Xin said with a cheerful smile as she looked at Ruan Ningxue.

Ruan Ningxue picked up the Want Want milk on the table and took a sip, then glanced at Yang Xin without replying.

"Still, I wonder just how popular 'Magic Mirror' can get. Over a million copies in a month?" Yang Xin guessed.

"Maybe half that would be possible. Anything higher is basically impossible," Chen Xu said with a smile.

He had a fairly clear understanding of it. After all, it was an 18R game, and the restrictions were too severe.

The group ate and drank at the restaurant until around nine. Chen Xu dropped the two women off at their respective apartment complexes before taking a taxi home.