What kind of game is this?
After "Swords and Shadows", several games came and went, but none of them surpassed the achievements of Flying Leap Studio.
This demonstrates the strength of the Flying Leap Studio and the strictness of the judging panel.
The previous two sessions didn't seem to be this strict, which seems to indicate a new trend.
Finally, in the late afternoon, we arrived at a familiar studio that Yu Yue had introduced before – Southern Game Design Studio.
Just as Yu Yue predicted, among all the nominees this year, only Flying Over Studio and Southern Studio are considered threatening.
There were basically no dark horses.
That's not entirely true; maybe they're the dark horse all along, hahaha.
Everyone still holds onto hope.
"Did you see that? The long-haired woman in front is the manager from the south, named Nan Linqing, and she graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts."
"Therefore, the games under her management are all highly artistic. Like 'Zen' and 'Tiangong Kaiwu' that I showed you before, they are all small but beautiful projects."
That's what true small-but-beautiful looks are all about.
Yu Yue thought out of the blue that his boss, Mr. Jiang, had clearly said he wanted to do small but beautiful projects, but the investment had reached the level of 2 million.
Everyone looked at Nanlinqing, then at the boss over at Feiyue who wasn't in good shape, and the contrast was quite striking.
If their boss were to come, it would probably be a game-changer.
Although no one had the honor of seeing Jiang Chuan's lineup, they did catch a glimpse of their ID photos from Song Zhiming, and the one who had this honor was the lead programmer.
According to the main program's description, their boss was breathtakingly beautiful, at least 1.8 meters tall, and could be considered an excellent graduation project of Nuwa.
The game experience has begun.
Zhuang Xu temporarily put aside his important task of recording footage and picked up his gaming equipment.
As a racing rhythm game, its unique style, which organically combines fantasy and martial arts elements, is quite special.
Nanjing Forestry University has a very good grasp of art style.
The music design maintains the consistent high standard of Southern Studios, sounding great, and incorporating modern electronic elements in addition to the traditional five notes (gong, shang, jiao, zhi, yu).
This can be considered a step forward and innovation.
Surprisingly, this year's games, which are themed around inheriting excellent traditional culture, have all avoided the popular cultural and creative themes of the previous Mid-Autumn Festival, such as the Three Kingdoms, Dream of the Red Chamber, and Journey to the West.
Besides improving the game's quality and gameplay, the theme is also becoming more innovative.
In addition, Yu Yue discovered a worrying point.
I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. If we look at it from a positive perspective, it means that at least in this season, the judges and the audience won't get tired of text adventure games.
If you look at it from a negative perspective, then it's a bit bad.
This is a huge upset.
This can't be blamed on President Jiang. It seems that President Jiang didn't initially plan to participate in the annual New Outstanding Works competition. He only changed his mind after receiving the official invitation more than a month before the competition started.
While Yu Yue was deep in thought and planning, his colleagues were completely oblivious, still discussing the advantages of the racing rhythm game "Royal Sword".
"Brother Yu, you don't need to be so nervous. Didn't you just joke at the company yesterday that you had already prepared your award acceptance speech?" someone comforted him.
"You're still too young."
The people at Zhixing Games are immersed in the judging competition, completely unaware of how others perceive them.
—The investment banking elites were frequently looking up and whispering, seemingly planning investments worth millions, and appeared to value "Sword Master" highly.
finally!
After waiting for most of the afternoon.
Finally, we arrived at the introduction segment for "The Way of the Corporate Slave," the penultimate shortlisted game—
Oh, there's no PV.
In the introduction section of other games, there is a PV, but Zhixing Games is unique because their project schedule is too tight, and they didn't have time to make this PV.
It was only completed yesterday.
Without wasting any time, everyone went straight into the experience.
Jing Hongxi opened the game; judging from the name, it should be a workplace simulation game.
This is relatively rare in the text adventure genre. A few years ago, a VR game called "Job Simulator" was released, but it didn't have any highlights and was just average.
It's just an emulator; I wonder what this text adventure emulator will be like.
After registering in the game, an identity was automatically generated. Before looking at his identity for this playthrough, Zhang Jiazhi noticed that the game's UI design was quite unique.
To enhance immersion, everything is integrated into the scene, and the animations are very smooth, with only some buttons standing out.
The entire interface is very comfortable, which is complemented by its unique art style.
After Jing Hongxi finished his comments, he continued playing the game.
Dropped out of vocational school...
male?
Jing Hongxi was a little confused. What kind of game is played like this?
This kind of opening is quite rare.
He tried to analyze the game's plot development from the perspective of a professional game developer, and then realized that there was really no need to do such unnecessary things at the beginning.
Dropping out of vocational school is a significant factor in the difficulty of finding a job in today's workplace.
This is definitely not even enough to qualify as a corporate slave.
They are not qualified.
As expected, no matter what choice he made... in the end, Zhang Jiazhi still reached the conclusion that "since youth cannot be retained, it is better to work in a factory with room and board provided."
Because the ending was played so quickly, the game was immediately declared over.
This left Jing Hongxi, who had been imagining things and thought it was just a normal plot device with a lot more to come, completely bewildered.
It's actually just his habitual way of thinking. For a small-scale text adventure game, instead of a plot-driven kill, are there multiple random storylines running in parallel?
That would require a much larger workload and investment.
He re-registered his identity, this time finally someone who had finished his studies, at least a recent college graduate.
Unlike the hellish start of dropping out of vocational school.
So, according to the typical job-seeking logic of fresh graduates, they wait for campus recruitment or teacher recommendations, and only then do they go for social recruitment.
Zhang Jiazhi was full of confidence as he waited for the campus recruitment, only to discover that his resume was completely empty.
Starting from scratch, rebuild a usable resume.
This made Jing Hongxi, who had already achieved entrepreneurial success, reminisce about when he was looking for a job, desperately trying to find the few strengths he had.
If there are no advantages, write that the person is highly adaptable.
Even with zero experience and no prior knowledge, one can still demonstrate strong learning ability.
Poor performance, casual work attitude, and a lack of attention to detail are all signs of talent.
The company paints a rosy picture for job seekers, and he, in turn, paints a rosy picture for the company – that's the real ticket to the workplace.
That's how Jing Hongxi got his first job. Can we replicate that experience in the game now?
Jing Hongxi got a little hooked while playing.
Another commendable aspect is the unique emotion system within this game.
It's not like those games on the market that have emotional value settings.
Once the protagonist's mood becomes too low, they can't do this or that, and they have to spend money to enjoy something in order to get back to a normal emotional state.
Such a situation will never occur in this game.
The emotion value seems to be just a decoration, a parameter that is dispensable.
Players can fully exploit their characters to gain better opportunities.
As the resume submission count in the upper right corner reached 400, Zhang Jiazhi finally received his first call inviting him for an interview.
In fact, you can get a general idea of what kind of company this is just from this one phone call.
For example, a good company will provide you with useful information, while a bad company will be vague and try to lure you in first.
The environment was certainly not as harsh as it is now when Jing Hongxi was job hunting, but he had heard about these things before, and his own game studio might have even done similar things.
He was hired smoothly and quickly.
But it's not actually a very good company; it's just barely surviving.
Jing Hongxi is a capable person. Whether in reality or in the game, with his years of experience in game design, he quickly found the trick to promotion in the game settings.
If you haven't done any work, try to improve your relationship with your boss.
However... just when all the preparations were complete, the character he had overworked unexpectedly met his second end - death from overwork.
His inheritance consisted of money that couldn't buy back his life, as well as various honors bestowed upon him by the company.
Then came some conversations between bystanders.
—"How long has this employee been with the company?"
"It's been less than three years."
"It's alright, we can probably discuss the recruitment needs with the HR department based on his standards."
If one screw is broken, it's time to prepare to replace it with a new one.
Jing Hongxi was lucky he didn't slam the table. This game is just so poorly made... What's wrong with the game creators? They didn't give any warning at all?
I was just praising the creative idea behind the emotion value system.
He turned around and kicked himself hard.
It doesn't matter if I die early or late, why did I have to die at the very moment I was about to take off?
There's definitely something fishy going on here; this is absolutely intentional!
Jing Hongxi was furious and had nowhere to vent his anger. Just then, a pop-up window appeared in the game. His nephew was about to graduate from university. Did he have any words he wanted to leave for his nephew?
Evil thoughts naturally arise.
Jing Hongxi thought for a moment, then wrote his final message for this playthrough in the pop-up window—about the life of this game character—
You need to do your best to meet your boss's needs, whether it's business or personal matters. Think from your boss's perspective to improve their favorability, which will lay a solid foundation for your future promotion and salary increase.
At the same time, you also need to learn to improve yourself in your spare time. Only when you are more irreplaceable in the workplace will your position be more stable.
Don't dwell on those minor setbacks. Isn't success in your career enough to give you a sense of accomplishment?
Don't worry about your health; youth is your greatest asset.
Jing Hongxi's writing is very cultured, and it is also his "experience-based advice." As for whether the nephew character in the game will follow his advice to play the game, that is not within Jing Hongxi's consideration.
Aren't these all correct opinions?
That concludes our game experience.
In such a short time, two rounds can be completed, which shows that the plot of "The Road to Becoming a Corporate Slave" moves very quickly.
Some beginnings are so predictable that the ending is already predetermined, so the game just keeps moving towards the end and there's basically no time to feel bored or dull.
Other starting situations, like the one Jing Hongxi just experienced, offer a variety of possibilities and are relatively more interesting.
This is what Yu Yue thought of when implementing the game's rhythm. It is equivalent to the writing style of Chinese composition, which is the so-called "appropriate balance of detail and summary".
Because the game experience is short, there are still various different starting modes that haven't been unlocked yet.
The members of Zhixing Games nervously looked towards the audience.
The audience scores are presented first, because we are concerned that some viewers may be misled by the judges' comments. To ensure that the first impression is the most accurate, the audience scores are presented first.
A high score of 4.8.
That's almost the highest score of the entire day.
Moreover, they are mostly arranged on the fourth and fifth tracks, with very few Samsungs, almost none.
Upon seeing this score, there was a slight commotion on the judges' panel. The three judges exchanged glances for a while, each having their own plans.
The host then came out and continued the flow of the program.
The first judge, Zhao Qing, gave the game a high score of 92.
She is always quite strict with her scoring, and this score caused a slight uproar in the audience.
"This game has many advantages, and its quality is definitely solid. I won't go into those details. I mainly want to talk about what makes this game special."
"Before I begin my comments, I have a question for the audience."
“When I was watching you play the game, everyone seemed quite engaged. Unlike some games where you just tried them out and then just sat there spacing out.”
"I also saw many people whispering and exchanging information. Finally, looking at the audience's ratings, my question is—"
"This game is aimed at people aged 18 and up. For college students, it can help them learn about many things in the workplace in advance."
"For someone like me—and I won't be modest today—I've already achieved great success in my career. I can use a game like this to reminisce about the things I experienced back then."
"But many of you are probably working people, so why do you like playing this game?"
What makes this game appealing to other working people?
Making a working person play a job simulator? How bored must that player be?
A young audience member reached out his hand.
"Teacher Zhao, you can tell from the way you haven't experienced the harsh realities of the modern workplace in a long time, but I also find it hard to explain why I'm playing this game."
"I think it's because I'm a bit of a fun-loving person, since I'm a natural-born corporate slave, so there's a bit of self-deprecation in it?"
"Moreover, unlike in reality, everything in the game is quantifiable, and every choice you make can get very immediate feedback."
"It gave me a sense of control over my life."
"Also, everyone starts with a different character, so playing with friends feels like playing a game together... even though it's just a text-based adventure game."
Zhao Qing nodded, indicating her understanding.
This shows that the game's story is very well done; otherwise, it would be impossible to retain players.
The more complex underlying reasons may require further investigation.
However, there wasn't enough time, so Zhao Qing had to pick out some of the reasons she had given such a high score that she could bring up in this setting.
"It's clear that everyone really likes this game. I don't need to say much about the game design; the designers have cleverly captured the pain points of contemporary young people."
"What I mainly want to talk about is the uniqueness of each choice in advancing the plot of a text adventure game."
"There's something strange about life: when you decide to do something, there's no dialog box to confirm with you, 'Are you sure you want to do this?'"
"Just like the narrator in this game, the narrator in this game is set up in a very special way. He does not exist in the options, but appears after other choices have been made, at seemingly insignificant moments, asking if you regret it."
"Perhaps the narration doesn't just exist in the game, but in your heart."
"To be honest, we only scratched the surface of this game during our limited playtime. There are probably many more subtle design elements that require repeated playtime to fully appreciate..."
The second place score was 96 points, the first score above 95 points today.
His tone was enthusiastic, and his fondness for "The Way of the Corporate Slave" was obvious and undisguised.
"As you all have seen today, the theme of this year's selection of the best new game is artistry. Many game designers have chosen traditional culture as their angle for this so-called artistry."
"A wide variety of niche traditional cultural elements are presented in the ninth art."
"What I want to point out about this game is that it didn't take any shortcuts. Instead, it created works of art that are more relevant to the current state of mind and the psychological needs of young people and players."
"Of course, my evaluation of the artwork here is not meant to be a compliment, but I did feel the presence of art while playing the game."
"As we all know, art originates from life, but transcends it."
“And ‘The Way of the Corporate Slave’ is undoubtedly an art of living.”
Jing Hongxi seemed to have had enough fun and was reluctant to leave the demo machine. He didn't finish his review, but he stopped himself from continuing.
He had many reasons.
Even though neither of these two gaming experiences ended well, he is, after all, a professional, and he won't let his poor gaming performance affect his work.
The current situation is a battle between Southern Games and Zhixing Games, with Southern Games currently holding a firm first place.
If Zhixing Games surpasses the last teacher's score, it will definitely become this year's dark horse. Putting aside whether it wins the New Work of the Year award, being number one is enough to brag about for many years.
All eyes were now on the last judge, Zhang Jiazhi, especially the members of Zhixing Games. Even if they had been relaxed before, they should have been on edge by now.
Let's leave aside the outstanding new works of the year for now.
The final rankings will be decided in this match.
"My opinion on 'The Way of the Corporate Slave' differs slightly from that of the two teachers."
The judges and audience did not experience the complete version of "The Way of the Corporate Slave" during the competition; there is more to come.
The real highlight of this game doesn't actually lie in what has been revealed so far.
This chapter is 5.2k words, which is equivalent to two updates, rounded up.
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