茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Xiang Kun’s decision to make a game was not something he whimsically decided upon a week ago in Tongshi Town.

He had considered it much earlier.

In the beginning, his research and exploration of his own mutation were relatively conservative and lacked any long-term plans, as he had very little information to go on. He was essentially taking things one step at a time. He did not require a large amount of funds. Survival and self-protection were his first priorities.

However, when he encountered several mutants, especially when he learned that “Divine Technology” was paying attention to mutant creatures and that there may be vampires controlling things behind the scenes, he sensed a stronger urgency. He started to think of many more ideas – ideas that required a large amount of capital to support.

Xiang Kun had several schemes on how to make money.

With his current abilities, no matter what he decided to do and given enough time, he would achieve a certain level of success and earn a bit of money.

However, he also needed to consider factors such as time expenditure, effort required, whether it would expose his special abilities, and whether it could generate a continuous income.

After careful consideration, the best way to monetize his abilities was through Alice.

Of course, he didn’t mean to release Alice directly – even though doing so would certainly cause a media sensation and bring in a lot of money. The excessive attention he would garner was something he wanted to avoid as much as possible. Moreover, he always believed that Alice has much more potential and room for development than what is currently showing. These “possibilities” might be his biggest trump card when facing crisis in the future, or one of the keys to unlock the cause of the mutation.

If he wanted to monetize using “Alice”, there were many other methods.

After Xiang Kun’s deliberation, tasking Alice, under his directives, to integrate existing functions and create a game was deemed the most efficient way to do so.

Since Alice’s inception, she had already developed many features under Xiang Kun’s guidance. These features could be detached from Alice and independently implemented to a certain extent.

To promote or sell these “features”, showcasing them individually to the public or investors would be too slow and inefficient.

Besides, these features, when detached and viewed individually, are not significantly different from the related contemporary application features already available. They weren’t capable of instantly lighting up people’s eyes to outshine any competition.

So, in Xiang Kun’s view, this game needed to demonstrate two key points: one was that the game itself needed to be fun so it could attract and retain users, create word-of-mouth, and generate profit. The other was to be able to showcase the features he wanted to reveal, allowing the public and investors to notice and experience these stronger features, and comprehend their strong points.

Ultimately, Xiang Kun’s idea was to create a voice-driven game.

Alice had already made a basic game framework and, according to Xiang Kun’s requirements, “learned” stories from dozens of classic martial arts novels on the internet for free composition.

Originally, Xiang Kun planned to make the game more comprehensive, to add more features that could show off the game’s core mechanics. Then, he’d ask Tang Baona, Yang Zhen Er, Old Xia, Zhang Qian, Chang Bin, Zi Cheng, and Yang Zhuo to join in for beta-testing, and further discuss about investment, detailed research and development, and promotional strategies.

But after he learnt about Tang Baona’s job change today, Xiang Kun changed his mind and immediately suggested a test play this evening.

He wanted to give Tang Baona more options.

After fiddling with four mobiles on Xia’s computer for a while, Kun returned them to their owners and led everyone back to the living room.

“So, how do we play this?” Yang Zhen Er, having opened the app immediately, found the interface rudimentary. The few keys looked more like a music player. There were no textual labels or character images, leaving one clueless about how to proceed.

“Hang on, let me explain the game first.”

Taking out his mobile phone, Kun stood in the centre of the living room and described the rules to Yang Zhen Er, Tang Baona, and old Xia who were sitting on the sofa:

“The medium of this game is solely voice. Based on your chosen style and the setup of your own characters, it will compose a story, then use a voice engine to tell this story.

“Throughout the course of the story, you will be involved. When it comes to your respective characters, you can shape the direction of the story through your own choices. You can directly interact and dialogue with characters in the story or with other players. These dialogues will also determine the development of the story.”

The three on the couch were all wide-eyed, listening curiously to his introduction. Upon hearing this, Tang Baona couldn’t help but raise her hand and ask, “Is it like a ‘radio drama’?”

“Yes, the format is somewhat like that, but you are all participants,” Xiang Kun replied.

Yang Zhen’er asked, “You mean… the game gives us a script, and then we ‘perform’ according to the script?”

Xiang Kun replied, “No, there is no fixed script. The backstory and pre-established events of the story will be narrated to you, but the following development is up for you to decide.”

Yang Zhen’er immediately said, “I get it, just like that domestic game, ‘Invisible Guardian’. At a certain stage, you can choose from several actions, and different choices will trigger different storylines.”

“No, it’s still not the same,” Xiang Kun smiled, “In the interactive narrative game you mentioned, many plotlines are already arranged, and you proceed according to your choices. The roads you take are already well laid out for you, and you simply choose the crossroads. But my game is different. It allows you to decide how the road will be built. Before you make specific choices, even I, as the developer, don’t know how the story will develop.”

Hearing this, Xia Libing frowned, “You mean, when the game progresses to a certain point, it will rearrange the storyline according to our choices?”

“That’s the general idea,” Xiang Kun nodded, “You’ll understand once you play it. At the moment, there is only one type of story available, an alternative martial arts world, so you can only choose character setups suitable for this context. Hmm, I should note, the game’s built-in voice-over only has Nana and my voice for now, so you can only choose between these two voices…”

As asked by Xiang Kun, Tang Baona and Yang Zhen’er both took out their earphones from their bags and put them in, then one stayed in the living room, and the other went to the dining room to prevent any interferences in sound. Xia Libing also found her earphones and handed Xiang Kun a headset suitable for computer use.

However, Xiang Kun said that it was enough for the three of them to use earphones while he didn’t need to. He would not participate in the first round of the game but would assist them from the side.

“You will experience a story that occurs in a martial arts world. Next, please set up the character you’ll be playing in the story. Please speak into the microphone or other sound recording device the name you have chosen for your character, spell it out, and end with ‘confirmed’. For example: ‘Li Hong, Li as in the word for ‘travel’, Hong as in the color red, confirmed’.”

Hearing her own voice through the earphone, Tang Baona felt it was a bit strange yet amusing. She had occasionally used the reading engine previously created by Xiang Kun with her voice, and it was indeed quite fun.

According to the previous explanation by Xiang Kun, she selected another audio source on the simple game interface. This time it was Xiang Kun’s voice, “Please state your character’s name, and end with ‘confirmed’.”

After deliberating for about ten seconds, Tang Baona said, “Tang Ying, Tang as in Tang Dynasty, Ying as in hero, confirmed.”

Next, following the voice prompts, Tang Baona set multiple character conditions. When she finally finished and received the prompt “A total of three players will participate, two have completed their information input, one is still inputting, please wait for a moment,” she realized almost half an hour had passed. However, Tang Baona didn’t feel like the time was wasted at all. She was instead very excited and anticipative about the game. She was curious about what the experience of this voice game would be like.

The tone of the prompt was so lifelike, just like the real Xiang Kun talking to her. Of course, she was familiar with Xiang Kun’s speaking tone and rhythm because they interact quite often. Despite slight differences, the smoothness was impressively real, giving her even higher expectations for this game.

After another five minutes or so, all three “players” had completed their input. A message came through her earphone: “Generating the first-stage script, please wait.”

This time, the wait was much shorter than she had expected. In less than thirty seconds, the prompt sounded: “Heroine Tang Ying, your adventure will begin in ten seconds, please be ready.”

After ten seconds, the sound of a gust of wind sounded in her earphones, followed by a slower and noticeably heavy and worn-out background voice.

“You struggle to move forward in the desert dragging a badly wounded body, your mouth dry and parched, your body weak. Stumbling, your vision starts to blur and you are on the verge of collapsing any moment. You are barely holding on with your willpower.

“Last night, your assassination attempt on the leader of the Blood Hand Group, Xia Libing, failed in an inn. You were injured by her and her subordinates, managed to escape thanks to a hidden weapon, the Sky Crasher. You released all the horses in the inn when escaping, temporarily stopping them from chasing you. But you know, the big villain Xia Libing will not let you go and must be hot on your heels. Since the Blood Hand Group are great trackers, it is tough to shake them off before the next sandstorm comes and covers your tracks.

“Your horse died from exhaustion. You escaped in such a rush that you didn’t bring any water. Coupled with worsening injuries, you are indeed on the verge of a crisis…”

Tang Baona widened her eyes, listening to the “story” narrated by the background voice. When she heard “the leader of the Blood Hand Group Xia Libing,” she couldn’t help but chuckle. Who would have thought that Old Xia was a “villain”? And they used her real name for the character?

But then she was curious. The voice narrating the story seemed to be telling a tale only to her. So what were Xia Libing and Yang Zhen’er hearing? Weren’t these words? Could it be that this story is carried out from different perspectives at the same time?