At ten o'clock the next morning, I was in an office building in Capital City.
I had just signed the lease contract with the agent and then the owner. Now I was chatting with Yang Xin and Ruan Ningxue while we were sitting on the sofa.
"Chen Xu, your office building rents a lot of money every month, right?" Yang Xin asked casually, glancing enviously at the layout of the surrounding environment.
"Yeah, I signed a contract for three months temporarily. The rent is manageable for now, but the machines for game development and other office equipment are where the real expenditure lies," I replied, still remembering the amount I had paid for the lease.
The rent is 5 yuan per square meter per day a total of 150 yuan per square meter for a month, and I rented two common rooms with a total of 160 square meters.
That alone adds up to 24,000 yuan a month for rent, plus a property fee of 40 yuan per meter which equates to nearly 6400 yuan per month just the maintenance change.
Of course, if I went to a smaller city, the rent might only be one-tenth of that. But that's not the only reality—there's a huge talent gap and infrastructure issue between small cities and big ones.
"It's simple. My company just closed down. I have all kinds of development prototypes ready. You can have a look and see if they're useful to you," Yang Xin offered.
"But then again, I want to ask again are we the two developers in the company?" Yang Xin asked, turning towards me with a confused face.
Right now, the company only has four employees, including me.
Yang Xin and I will work on game development, while the other two are for different operations. They used to be employees at Yang Xin's previous game firm.
One was in charge of finance and administration tasks while the other handled company operations.
After testing their working abilities, and checking their resumes, I decided to bring them on board.
"Yeah, it's just the two of us on the development side for now. We're still missing an artist!" I sighed and glanced at Ruan Ningxue, who was sitting next to us, enjoying her ice cream. (yes I want her to join us in our development team as an artist)
In my plan, aside from myself, we need someone who has considerable skill in art, and Ruan Ningxue is exactly the person I'm looking for.
Even with a team of only three people, I'm not too worried. We are not building some AAA masterpieces.
The game development industry in this world is different from my previous life, and for now, a core development team of three people is more than enough for what I have in mind.
This world has made rapid advances in common game development platform which has a lot of inbuilt and freelance resources that free up a lot of manpower thus required by the development teams and this directs teams to be more agile in the development process.
I'll be handling the numerical values, level design, and core concepts myself though.
Most of the remaining content, like art modeling output, story and dialogue can be handed over to outsourcing teams and Xin. Since these aren't technical jobs, they just take up a lot of time.
Although outsourcing in these areas costs more, I'm more willing to invest money than time. All that's left is whether I can persuade Ruan Ningxue to join the team.
During the development of Magic Mirror, after seeing Ruan Ningxue's artistic skills, I had my eye on her.
"Yes, Ningxue, join us... By the way, what's the name of our company, Mr. Chen?" Yang Xin suddenly thought of something and asked an important question.
"Neon Games," I said, slightly helpless. (The original is Nebula Games)
"I don't think there's much difference between comics and games. Both are about showing the stories in our hearts to readers and players," I said, looking seriously at Ruan Ningxue.
"In the future, Neon Games will surely have a comic business. For some games, we'll have corresponding comics. We will surely need your expertise for them."
Then I raise an important question "How long do you think~ that you can continue through Fan fiction?
You will eventually need to change your career trajectory at some point and This is a perfect opportunity to do it" I persuaded.
The Game extensions are comics and comic adaptations extension are games these are pretty common expansions in this world. And in this world, unlike in the past life, manga games are a dominant genre, even if game design concepts are a little behind.
Hearing my words, Ruan Ningxue seemed moved, and finally, after a moment of thought, she nodded and said, "Then I'll be joining, Mr. Chen!"
"It's just a title—call me whatever you feel comfortable in," I said with a smile, seeing that she had agreed to join.
"Xiaoxue, why did you agree so easily? I've drawn up this idea to you before!" Yang Xin exclaimed, slightly frustrated recognizing that her oratory and big-picture skills were lacking.
Although she was happy that Ruan Ningxue had joined, she couldn't help but feel a little bewildered, considering how many times she had tried to convince her before without success. Now, somehow, Chen Xu managed to convince her on the first try!
She even questioned her thoughts, whether they were just doing some formality or if there was something else going on in the dark.
"Sister Xin, you were just offering me a dream. Even if the game succeeded, I didn't think much of it," Ruan Ningxue said.
"But with Chen Xu's Magic Mirror as a guarantee and the company's direction is so clear, it's different. The better the game does, the smaller and more focused the company stays."
Chen Xu interrupts the girls(Catfight)~
"Alright, to celebrate Senior Sister and Xue joining, let me walk you through the next steps," I said, looking at them.
Hearing my words, both Yang Xin and Ruan Ningxue showed serious and expectant expressions, even though they had just joined and the company didn't even have any office equipment yet. After all, none of us are here for messing around—we're all aiming to make something great.
"Next, I want us to develop a new game, a metagame-type," I said.
Yang Xin and Xue showed puzzled expressions.
"Metagame? Metagame?" they muttered.
"Metagame? Aren't we going to continue developing 18R games?" Ruan Ningxue asked, a little surprised. (Is there some secret behind, why she wants to develop an 18R game?)
"Of course not. 18R games were exclusively for my first game," I shook my head denying any possibility of developing another 18R game.
I had no intention of building another such game for now. I don't want to be labeled as Pervert Chen in this parallel world.
"But what kind of game is a metagame?" Yang Xin asked, clearly confused. She had already developed three games and had earned the title of game designer, but she had never heard of this so-called metagame. (How poor is her knowledge?)
Ruan Ningxue, standing next to her, was equally puzzled.
"Simply put, the so-called metagame refers to content in a game that escapes the game itself, allowing direct interaction between the game and the player," I explained.
"Have you read Don Quixote? In the book, the author steps into the story now and then, pointing out the plot." I continued explaining some details while also pointing out another example.
"Break the fourth wall?" Yang Xin was still confused, but I could see that Ruan Ningxue understood.
"Exactly," I smiled and nodded.
Regarding the metagame, I had paid attention to it in this parallel world. Some types of metagames already existed, but they hadn't yet been systematized.
There were even examples of such in novels and comics, but they hadn't transcended to become their own special category yet.
"Our next project is a metagame. The name of the game is Undertale. I'll explain more about it when we start the actual development."
"Of course, in addition to Undertale, we'll also develop a DLC character pack for Magic Mirror to keep the momentum going while also cashing out on the game while it's still popular."