We often say that game developers love to "paint big pies" (make big promises).
William used to have a love-hate relationship with that habit, but now that he was a developer himself, he realized it was often unavoidable.
In short—there were too many good ideas. You wanted to make everything, and you didn't want to put anything aside.
He created a new folder: "Journey."
His impression of Journey was that it was a deeply artistic work—a journey that cleanses the soul. Its online mode was the perfect finishing touch, letting players be "not alone on a lonely road."
The hardest part of making the game was the art. Every scene in the game was carefully designed and decorated. All William could do was slowly recreate it by following full playthrough videos and screenshots online. After all the scenes were done, he still had to make them fit on a phone screen, so they would look just as beautiful on mobile as on PC.
Luckily, this was an old game. By its original standards, meeting those requirements wasn't too hard. Modern phone processors were no weaker than desktop CPUs from a few years ago, and since phone screens were small, the hardware demand would be even lower.
Scene creation wasn't just about copying what you saw in the game—it was more complex, like dismantling a car into separate parts. You had to make each piece individually: walls, columns, plants, cloth strips…
All of these needed to be modeled separately and then placed into scenes when needed. Once made, they could be reused, making it a one-and-done job.
He spent the whole afternoon modeling. Since it was just stones, plants, and similar objects, the patterns took some effort, but compared to sculpting characters, it was easy.
Of course, in that short time, he could only finish small objects. The grand buildings would take much more work—even with direct references, it wasn't as simple as copy-paste.
Night.
Cynthia went out to shop for New Year's goods. She was getting ready to head home for the holiday. Not just her—Aunt Oliver was also preparing to welcome her children back from abroad. With only one or two chances like this in a year, she definitely wouldn't miss it.
Soon, it would really be just William left.
The urge to make *Journey of the Wind* grew stronger in his heart, but he knew very well that two or three days weren't nearly enough. Just rendering all the scenes would take at least a month, not to mention the cutscenes.
Although he couldn't make a full game, that didn't stop him from making a demo.
As long as the demo could let players get a general feel for the game from story point A to point B—or even wrap it in a layer of mystery—it would already be a success.
William didn't want to ruin a good game, so he wasn't going to make a half-finished product or take part of the game and announce, "Here, this is the game you wanted."
Usually, a demo takes a segment from the actual game. It couldn't just be a display piece. Like how food sold in stores needs a "for reference only" label, the demo had to be real—something players would actually experience in the full game later on.
William didn't overthink it. He simply chose the first few minutes of the game: from when the main character enters and reaches the first save point on the slope, to crossing the desert graveyard and entering the first building.
Minus the logos, it was only about three minutes long, but this time he planned to put both the Earth Games logo and the Unity engine animation into the game. It might not be the first officially released game, but it was the first time Earth Games would reveal its logo since the studio was founded.
The desert scene could be replaced with assets from Unity's library, but the lighting effects had to be adjusted by William himself. During the process, he could clearly feel his design skills weren't enough, and since there weren't any good tutorial videos online, he felt a bit stuck.
"Use the design enhancement card on me."
[Design enhancement card used successfully. Design attribute +3]
The system didn't waste words—quick and straightforward.
The three extra points in design didn't bring a huge change, but they gave William new perspectives and ideas.
The reason Journey felt so pleasant to look at was mainly because of its lighting effects. In the engine, lighting was just a value, but tuning it to the desired look depended heavily on the designer's eye for aesthetics.
It took him more than an hour to get the lighting to a level he was happy with. Of course, the engine's own lighting system made a difference—after all, it wasn't developed on the same engine, so there were bound to be differences.
Finishing the first stage of work didn't make William want to sleep. The design enhancement card still had more than ten hours left, and he wanted to finish the demo completely within that time.
It was New Year's Eve. Cynthia had a morning flight, so she called a taxi to the airport at a time when even Aunt Oliver didn't have time to make breakfast.
After making William's lunch, Aunt Oliver went home to prepare the big dinner for that night, and she wouldn't be coming back for the next few days. Still, she thoughtfully left a fridge full of food for William and even handwrote a recipe so that he could cook something different every day until she returned.
Despite Aunt Oliver's attentive care, William seemed a bit indifferent. At lunch, he ate the bento just to fill his stomach without tasting it, and at night he only had some fruit—he had no mood for cooking at all.
The process of making animations and waiting for renders was long and dull. During that time, William kept working on Happy Match Mania and refined the worldbuilding for Honor of Kings.
Because the worlds were different, he needed to add new characters and change some existing ones. All this had to be written down so the rest of the studio would know what to make—it couldn't just be explained verbally.
After working for nearly thirty hours straight, William finally finished the Journey of the Wind demo just before the New Year's Eve midnight bell rang.
"Wow, what a surprise. Happy New Year's Eve."
"Happy New Year's Eve."
William didn't chat much with Merry and went straight to his request.
"Limit to one hundred people, half an hour?"
"Yes."
"Random selection?"
"Yeah."
"Got it."
"Sorry for making you work on New Year's Eve."
"Haha, it's fine. The customer is always right."
"Bye."
"Bye-bye."
The wait felt long, but Merry was fast. Barely five or six minutes after their call, she had already written the announcement and posted it on Weibo and other major media platforms.
At first, William kept watching the players' reactions—it was, as expected, very enthusiastic. But before long, his body reached its limit. He stopped checking, and fell asleep.
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