"Ming, how’s that graphics rendering you’re working on?"
"Liu Lang, what about the program launch?"
"It’ll be done today."
In a boys’ dormitory at Mist City Arts and Science University, seven or eight male students were gathered in the room, each with a computer, busily working on a small game.
"Brother Gou, do you think our game could win a prize?"
Suddenly, someone asked.
"I can’t guarantee we’ll win for sure, but our game ’Big White’s Great Escape’ will definitely generate some buzz," Pei Gou said with a laugh.
"Well, Brother Gou, our game is indeed gaining popularity, hahaha."
"If the prize money is ten thousand yuan, and there are eight of us, how much would each person get?"
"Liu Lang, aren’t you being a bit shortsighted? All you can see is the ten thousand yuan prize? Didn’t you notice Principal Ding’s support for the winning team? With Principal Ding’s support, we’ll be on the fast track to success."
"Look, those students from the film and television academy, and Lin Zhirou and Jia Wenbo from the art department, and even the students from the mechanical engineering department, haven’t they all been doing better and better after receiving Principal Ding’s support?"
"Makes sense! We could ask Principal Ding to invest in us to make a bigger game in the future."
"Yes, we could create a AAA-level domestic masterpiece!"
"Give it a rest, a AAA-level domestic masterpiece, made by just us few?"
Some people were full of enthusiasm, but some were more skeptical. After all, producing a AAA-level domestic masterpiece was not something a few people could easily achieve.
"Actually, what I really want to do is not just one or two games. I want to create our own game engine," Pei Gou said seriously.
"Brother Gou, creating a game engine? Like the Unreal engine? That’s an incredibly huge project and involves various complex technologies." Zhang Tianming said with a sigh after hearing this.
"It’s the difficulty that makes it challenging," Pei Gou said confidently.
Pei Gou had thought that after he graduated and had achieved something, he would join a good gaming company and then create a top-level game engine for Xia Country, just like the Unreal engine!
"Brother Gou, your ambition is impressive. My aspirations aren’t so high. I’d consider myself lucky just to join a decent game design team," said Xu Hong, shaking his head.
"By the way, where do you all want to work after graduation?"
Suddenly someone brought up this question.
"Go...sigh, working in the gaming division of Penguin would be nice enough."
"Wow, aiming for Penguin’s gaming division? That’s not easy."
"Doesn’t anyone want to join Web Depression?"
"How about Perfect World?"
"Blizzard would be good too."
"Why don’t you just say you want to join Nintendo!"
"Hahaha, I’d rather go to Ubisoft."
"Stop just drinking, eat some peanuts."
"Alright, let’s get back to work. We only have three more days. How are we supposed to compete if we can’t even produce a game?"
Pei Gou urged his team members to get back to work.
Even though they were making a small game using existing code structures, it had to be good enough to compete with the games from other teams.
Remember, there were more than twenty teams participating in this school-hosted game design competition.
With so many competing teams, a stand-out game had to have something special.
For the game concept, Pei Gou had an idea inspired by Big White, a character related to their school.
The game concept was also inspired by the popular movie "Super Combat Team." One of the reasons Pei Gou chose to make a game based on Big White was because a friend of his and a member of their team, Xu Hong, was part of Feiyue Animation Studio and a student of animation design and production at Mist City Arts and Science University.
Xu Hong was essentially the "auxiliary force" of their team.
Such "auxiliary force" was allowed under the competition rules, so Pei Gou thought it would make sense to use some of the original drawings and graphic resources from Feiyue Animation Studio as the base for their game.
Thus, the theme of the game was decided to be "Big White."
Next, Pei Gou and his teammates decided to make the game an adventure runner with a "sci-fi" tone and a shooting element.
And so, "Big White’s Great Escape" was born, with Pei Gou leading his team in the development.
Since the competition schedule was seven days, and the school had asked for small games, there should be no problem completing the task on time for competent student teams.
On the last day of the competition, the day the team submissions were due, only thirteen of the more than twenty student teams successfully submitted a product.
When Ding Yue arrived at his office, Jian Zihao called him to report on the specifics of the campus game design competition.
"Principal Ding, we had twenty-seven student teams sign up for the competition, each team ranging from five to ten members. But as of midnight yesterday, we only received products from thirteen teams."