After slacking off for over an hour, several recruitment sites had already received hundreds of resumes—far more than William expected.
The reason they were all called players was because their resumes had one thing in common—they had played Earth Games' titles.
They probably mentioned it in their resumes to win some goodwill.
"Keep it up."
With his eyes sore from reading, William patted Cynthia on the shoulder, signaling her to keep filtering for reliable talent.
The requirements for modelers and special effects artists were clear: at least two years of relevant work experience, some knowledge of specific software (the more skilled, the better), under 30 years old, cheerful and good at sharing ideas, creative, and with at least some understanding of history, culture, or other cultural spheres—these would all be plus points.
As for testers, all the requirements were already listed in the job description—just meeting them would be enough.
"Life Restart Simulator" had only been out for less than ten minutes, so it was unlikely anyone had cleared it yet.
When "Life Restart Simulator" launched, William also unlocked a new growth path.
[Growth Path Unlocked — Developer]
[Develop and release a total of 5 games] Reputation +5
Thanks to a recruitment post on Weibo, "Life Restart Simulator" had the biggest launch downloads ever.
Downloads: 12,290,120
Online active users: 32,120,821 / Total active users: 33,102,390
[Milestone]
Stage 1: Downloads exceed 100,000 / Active users exceed 1,000,000
Reward: ["The Sims Developer Manual" (Part 1)], Reputation +1
Stage 2: Downloads exceed 1,000,000 / Active users exceed 5,000,000
Reward: ["The Sims Developer Manual" (Part 2)], Reputation +1
Stage 3: Downloads exceed 5,000,000 / Active users exceed 10,000,000
Reward: ["The Sims Developer Manual" (Part 3)], Reputation +1
Stage 4: Downloads exceed 10,000,000
Reward: ["The Sims Developer Manual" (Part 4 / Upper)]
No wonder William had been seeing a flood of system prompts—it was because two milestone conditions had been met at once.
Unlike other skill unlocks, "The Sims Developer Manual" was like a textbook-level development log. It recorded in detail how "The Sims" was made, even including its dedicated game engine.
However, the character and building models, along with some of the code, were clearly dated and didn't match the aesthetics of today's players.
There were two options now. The first was to update the old game engine—but William didn't know enough about engines. "Introduction to Game Engine Technology" could help him use one, not develop one, so updating it on his own was out of the question.
The second option was to switch to another engine. But that might mean losing some functions from the original, making it impossible to perfectly recreate the game according to the manual, and it would increase the workload.
For now, the second option was the only realistic choice. Still, William had to change engines because cocos2dx didn't support 3D game development—also the main reason it couldn't be used to make something like "Honor of Kings."
"Add a new job position," William said thoughtfully.
Looking up from the resumes, Cynthia asked, "What's wrong?"
"Call it Game Engine Engineer. Requirements: math major or computer science major—math preferred."
At first, William hadn't planned on training his own game engine engineers, since engines could be downloaded with reputation points—there was no real need to make his own. But "The Sims Developer Manual" changed his mind. Having an engine to use and actually understanding an engine were two very different things.
While Cynthia set up the new job listing, William made another post on Weibo:
"The cocos2dx game engine for game development will be made free for all users."
A simple sentence, but one that would shake the market.
From William's perspective, cocos2dx was a simple, not particularly powerful engine. But for developers on Blue Star, it was absolutely a big deal.
This move would make William the John Carmack of Blue Star—a leader in the industry.
Publishing the engine in the software tools category would take some review time. William had originally planned to add a revenue-sharing mechanism—like a royalty fee, taking 10% of all earnings from games developed with cocos2dx—but quickly abandoned the idea.
First, cocos2dx's technical capabilities weren't strong. Other companies could tinker around and build a similar engine. If they didn't charge, or charged less, they could easily take over the market. This was about the company's reputation—better to leave no room for competitors from the start.
Second, the goal of releasing the engine was to boost the gaming industry. Something free would remove a lot of hesitation. At worst, he'd just be giving it away with no real loss. But the moment there was a "paid" label, no matter the price, it would scare some people off. Overall, it wasn't worth it.
Weibo was already buzzing about the engine. Many were asking experts for explanations, but no one could give a clear answer.
William didn't plan to explain either—once they tried cocos2dx, they'd figure out its purpose on their own.
"You really are a topic maker."
Just a moment ago, Cynthia had been looking at resumes, but at some point, she had taken out her phone and started scrolling through Weibo.
"Do you really think it's okay to slack off in front of your boss?" William pretended to sound serious.
Still reading the comments, Cynthia didn't even look up. "This is part of my job."
"Your job is to read Weibo?"
"My job is to see if my boss has posted anything that could hurt our company's image."
"Tch, you make it sound like you're some kind of crisis manager."
Cynthia ignored him. "I've picked out seven resumes. You can try talking to them."
She stood up and gave her seat to William, her eyes never leaving the phone screen.
William sat down and looked through the resumes she had chosen.
Leon, male, 29, bachelor's degree, four years of experience in film and TV visual effects.
Below was a list of films he had worked on, though William hadn't heard of any of them—mainly because he rarely watched movies. But if he could list them, they were probably good work.
Claire, female, 27, master's degree, focused on research into visual performance in film and TV and technical analysis.
Daniel, male, 25, bachelor's degree, two years of experience in film and TV visual effects.
Like Leon, he listed films he had worked on.
Marcus, male, 24, fresh graduate, no work experience, gamer handle "Little Colt," applying for a tester position.
Chris, male, 28, PhD in mathematics, involved in several national key projects, details not available.
Tina, female, 25, associate degree, two years of experience in virtual human modeling for film and TV visual effects.
Brian, male, 30, six years of experience in film and TV visual effects, currently team leader of the effects group at a large company.
Start with Brian.
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