Chu Tingwu was dodging phone calls.
Although it was just an Easter egg in the ga and not a complete "holographic ga"—more like an upgraded version of VR gaming—many people, equipped with Wu Voice Group's VR devices, were even more confident than Chu Tingwu herself, believing that the era of true holographic gaming was just around the corner.
Being at the eye of the storm, Chu Tingwu and her company naturally garnered a lot of attention. Those who managed to get in touch with her found her phone number or personal accounts, hoping she would "leak sothing" or take the company public, so they could get a piece of the pie.
Compared to these eager businessn, Chu Tingwu preferred reading the comnts from netizens online—
Because they were downright hilarious.
There were also so "industry insiders" who offered more pessimistic analyses: either claiming that holographic gaming wouldn't be available anyti soon, making early investnts in *Flying Bird* pointless; or arguing that holographic gaming would soon arrive, delivering a devastating blow to the entire gaming industry, much like how Chu Tingwu's VR livestreams had disrupted the livestreaming sector. This blow, they said, would wipe out the already struggling independent ga studios.
Sitting on a tree branch, Chu Tingwu gazed at the distant sea. "Am I so kind of supervillain?"
Tourists passed beneath the tree, unaware that soone was perched above them.
Waves crashed against the rocks, and drone seagulls mingled with real ones, making it hard to tell them apart.
As Chu Tingwu finished speaking, the system-controlled drone seagull swooped down and landed in front of her, placing a red-spiraled seashell in her hand.
Chu Tingwu: "..."
=v=
She had just finished a call with Three-Five-Five, listening to the cat mom's complaints. anwhile, the company's PR departnt had been trying to reach her, but the system had intercepted all their calls, summarizing the issues and leaving the final decisions to her.
Should they release a statent? And what kind of statent should it be?
Over the past few days, Chu Tingwu had triggered all the Easter eggs herself without livestreaming them to the audience. This, however, only fueled the audience's enthusiasm. Without an "official guide," they were more motivated to explore on their own, making the experience more challenging.
Without needing the system's reminder, she noticed that the playback rate of her livestream recordings from when she was chasing "Dian Dian" had skyrocketed—
In fact, when she opened Fenghua Network yesterday, a video analyzing her journey—detailing the thods she used, the cities she passed through, and what she did—had over a million views. It even included a tiline and map summary!
"Sigh," she patted her head, "feels like releasing a statent won't do much."
Telling the audience "this isn't a holographic ga" was unnecessary—they already knew. Most people buying the ga now were investing in the possibility of a future holographic ga, and *Flying Bird* was fun in its own right.
Telling her peers "we can't make a holographic ga yet" would only make them laugh, and their actions wouldn't change much.
—This was a ti of collective celebration, and no one really cared what the protagonist of the festival had to say.
"Then let's just... make a 'semi-holographic' ga," she thought.
The current frenzy online, the impulsive behavior of offline players, and the erratic actions of her peers were all due to the lack of concrete information. No one knew exactly what Wu Voice Group's ga could achieve... and it was also because everyone could only experience that small "Easter egg."
So their attention was fixated on it, as if not buying it now would an missing out, and they'd have to wait years for a holographic ga.
After consulting the system, Chu Tingwu finally contacted the company, and they released an official statent.
[Thank you for your support and love for *Flying Bird*. *Flying Bird* is a 3D exploration ga where players can choose to trigger Easter eggs for a VR experience or use keyboard and mouse controls in the Easter egg interface.
Our VR Easter eggs consist of six segnts, with a total runti of 16 minutes and 25 seconds. If players use a VR experience pod, they can enjoy a more realistic ga environnt, including visual, olfactory, and tactile effects, with limited autonomous control within the map.
All choices made by players in the Easter egg mode are generated through data simulation. The current ga does not support true "holographic effects," and our Easter eggs operate in a "semi-holographic" mode.
The Easter eggs are not a standalone ga. Please consu responsibly and do not purchase the ga solely for the Easter eggs. We are working hard to develop and will soon release a true semi-holographic ga.
—Wu Voice Ga Studio]
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When Xi Ming ca across this announcent, he practically shot up from his bed.
But after sitting on the edge of the bed for a while, his hair a ss, he lay back down... Excited? Yes, he couldn't quite put his finger on why, but no matter when Wu Voice Group's "semi-holographic" ga would be released or what it would look like, it didn't seem to concern him.
He wasn't making indie gas anymore.
Back in college, he and his roommate had hit it off, and a few young graduates had started an indie ga studio right after graduation. But, as expected, things didn't go as planned, and the studio eventually fell apart.
"Old Lu," he ssaged his forr roommate, "have you seen Wu Voice's statent?"
His roommate had gone back to take over the family business and was probably busy. It took over an hour for him to reply:
"If Wu Voice Group can make a 16-minute Easter egg, then creating a semi-holographic ga, sothing like an interactive cinematic experience, shouldn't be too hard."
Indie gas co in many forms. Many studios start with simple text-based RPGs, where strong writing combined with basic visuals and simple chanics make up the ga.
Sotis, players don't even need to control the character's movents—just keep clicking through dialogue and make choices at key points—
So, in these gas, players are like moviegoers. Their choices determine the branching paths, each leading to a different ending, all pre-written.
Old Lu seed to have studied Wu Voice Group's gas since their VR livestreaming days and quickly broke it down for his old friend:
"Gas like this are essentially pre-recorded VR livestreams, with choices spliced in between."
But such gas aren't lazy. As long as they tell a good story, paired with Wu Voice Group's signature visuals, players would be satisfied.
Xi Ming rubbed his chin: "No, I think... if it's Wu Voice, they wouldn't take such a simple route!"
He had an inexplicable confidence in the company, as it had already achieved so many impossibilities.
This stirred a passion in him, and he believed his current excitent wouldn't be in vain—
He opened the announcent post again and noticed that many others shared his sentint. The comnts were calm, filled with anticipation.
Xi Ming: "Old Lu... I want to quit my job!"
His friend didn't reply, but he continued anyway: "My current job can support , but it's just so... predictable. Call lodramatic, but I can't imagine doing the sa thing for decades, then retiring with a pension. That's terrifying. This job gives so sense of accomplishnt, but the pay isn't great. If I'm going to be broke either way, why not make gas?"
His friend seed to chuckle: "Going back to indie gas now? Are you trying to swim against the current?"
Xi Ming: "Of course not, I want to apply to Wu Voice Group's planning departnt!"
Then he wouldn't be swimming against the current—Wu Voice Group *was* the current.
Quitting his job would be his way of burning the boats.
The thought excited him so much that he almost blurted out an invitation for his old friend Lu Tinglan to join him. But then he rembered—Lu Tinglan had taken over the family business. He couldn't just quit like Xi Ming could.
He shook his head, bid farewell to his silent old friend, hung up the phone, and after finishing editing his resignation letter, he began searching for his resu.
"Wu Voice Group..." Xi Ming browsed through the job postings on the website, recalling the information he had gathered about the company's mbers. "It seems they aren't hiring for planning roles."
As expected, his resu sank like a stone. The next day, HR replied that there were no hiring plans, but Xi Ming had already prepared himself ntally and didn't lose heart.
He sent over the proposal he had worked on overnight, and even shalessly reached out to friends and relatives, asking them to pass his proposal up the chain. Still, he felt the chances of success were slim... Hiss...
After so thought, Xi Ming opened the private ssage interface of Chu Tingwu's account. On the New Plum app, strangers could only send one ssage, while on Fenghua Network, the backend ssages could be folded, but if the strear checked the backend, they could still see the content.
As long as there was interest in the first ssage, they might scroll through all the folded ones... including the proposal!
In this tens of thousands of words-long proposal, there was not only an analysis of the prospects of semi-holographic gas, thoughts on the connection between ga modes and VR livestreaming, predictions and suggestions for new gas, and ideas about the gaming industry... At the end, he racked his brains and even included the scripts from the two indie gas he had made back in the day.
And then, he waited.
The response from Wu Voice Group remained silent, and Xi Ming gathered more information about the planning departnt, only to despairingly realize that the departnt was filled with experts. The proposals he had worked on, they could do too, and with more experience—it wasn't that he was a hidden gem, but rather that Wu Voice Group truly didn't need to hire planners, as they were already a treasure trove of talent.
Should he ask his friends for help again? But they had already done so much for him.
As for the tens of thousands of words he had split into multiple private ssages, he suspected that Chu Tingwu's account manager had already blocked him, as he probably ca off as a harassing lunatic.
...He shouldn't have made such rash decisions after staying up for thirty hours without sleep.
Just as Xi Ming was thinking this, Fenghua Network notified him of a private ssage from a followed account.
Chu Tingwu's "system," her famous business partner, had contacted him through Chu Tingwu's account, inviting him to an online interview.
Moreover, the other party had generously provided the interview question:
[You predicted that the new semi-holographic ga would involve cat-raising and managent. What's your reasoning?]
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System: "Quite a few people guessed the ga genre, since everyone knows you're a cat person, but how did he guess so accurately?"
Even though the system knew everything, it couldn't pry open a stranger's brain to see where their inspiration ca from.
Chu Tingwu: "Doesn't he have a job application? If his reasoning is solid, let's bring him in and see. Ga design relies heavily on inspiration anyway."
As for Xi Ming's university relationships and the gas he had made in the past... the system didn't think it was important and didn't ntion it, nor did Chu Tingwu ask.
The opportunity he got was solely based on his individual ability.
Besides, Chu Tingwu was very busy.
She was currently in Sang City catching kittens, conducting interviews while having the system perform close-range motion capture.
She would soon be heading out on an expedition with a research team, so she could only contribute to the ga during this period.
The new ga, which might be released in the future, was indeed a "raising and managent" single-player ga, with simple gaplay: "Collect trash, build a house, and raise a kitten."
Semi-holographic technology had many limitations, the biggest being the map. Due to current computational constraints, the ga map couldn't be too large or complex, so making sothing intricate within a small map... a simple building ga would be ideal.
Players would take on the role of a one-year-old stray cat, living in a corner of a neighborhood garbage dump. It picks up a kitten, and the two rely on each other for survival, with winter fast approaching.
The cat needs to find food and building materials in the trash, feeding the kitten while creating a comfortable living environnt for itself. The protagonist cat is timid and unapproachable (due to map limitations), disliking leaving the garbage corner, while the kitten's personality can be nurtured. Players can also send the kitten out to find food or other items, or simply let it roam around.
It's like sending out a traveling kitten that can check in and bring back companions.
But the "house" for the cats would differ from human houses, so Chu Tingwu decided to interview so local cats while catching them, asking what kind of houses they would like if they could build one themselves.
A passing gray tabby: "Aren't you a cat too? Just build what you like! I'm busy, ow ow ow!"
A captured orange kitten: "One with lots of sunshine, plenty of food, and toys, ow."
A black-and-white cat: "It should have soone to play with—"
Finally, a Ragdoll brought out by its owner:
"ow?"
"Why build a house when human houses are already mine, ow?"
It sympathetically added: "If you don't have a house, you can co live with . I'll share half with you, ow."
Chu Tingwu wasn't sure if the last "ow" was its quirk or if it was calling her, while the cat's owner, holding the leash, smiled and said, "Isn't she cute? You can pet her. Xiaomi is very well-behaved and doesn't bite."
Indeed, very well-behaved.
Just now, in front of you, she offered to share half her house with . Not only well-behaved but also incredibly generous.
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