The "Project Department 7" office was located in the basement of the Guangyi Interactive Entertainment building. It was a space that had likely once been a storage room for server racks, judging by the lingering smell of ozone and the tangled mess of cables protruding from a hole in the wall.
Zhong Ming stood at the entrance, holding a keycard that had seen better days. He swiped it. The lock beeped—a harsh, discordant sound—and the door slid open with a groan.
Inside, the lighting was flickering fluorescent strips. The room contained four desks, three of which were occupied by young people who looked like they had just been told their pet died. They looked up as Zhong Ming entered, their eyes filled with a mixture of apathy and resignation.
This was his team. The "reject squad."
"Are you the new lead?" a young man with messy hair and thick glasses asked. He was slumped in his chair, a half-empty can of synthetic caffeine on his desk. This was Li Wei, the programmer assigned to the project.
"That's right," Zhong Ming said, walking to the head of the table. He placed his tablet down. "I'm Zhong Ming. I'll be directing 'Survivor's Dawn'."
A girl in the corner, dressed in an oversized hoodie, scoffed quietly. She was sketching something on her screen but didn't look up. This was Su Qing, one of the artists. "Survivor's Dawn? I heard about that pitch. An auto-attacking roguelike? It sounds like a screensaver."
The third member, a nervous-looking boy named Chen Hao, shrank into his collar. "U-umm, I can do the UI..."
Zhong Ming didn't get angry at the hostility. He understood it. In this company, being assigned to a new director's experimental project with a one-month deadline was a death sentence. If the project failed, they would be the first ones fired. They weren't motivated because they expected to fail.
"I know what you're thinking," Zhong Ming said, leaning against the desk. "You think this is a suicide mission. You think I'm some idealistic graduate who got lucky with a cool art piece, and that in one month, we'll all be out on the street."
Li Wei spun a pen between his fingers. "Aren't we? The company wants high-fidelity simulations. You're asking us to make pixel art. It's... backwards."
"Backwards is exactly what we need," Zhong Ming stated firmly. He connected his tablet to the main projector in the room. The GDD for *Survivor's Dawn* expanded to fill the wall.
"The current market is saturated," Zhong Ming began, switching into his 'Producer' mode. It was a persona he had honed in his previous life—confident, authoritative, and visionary. "Everyone is chasing photorealism. But the hardware penetration in the outer districts is low. High-fidelity games crash on standard handhelds. We are targeting the 'casual' gap. And to do that, we need to be efficient."
He looked at Li Wei. "Li Wei, correct? You're a programmer."
"Yeah."
"Have you ever studied 'Juice'?"
Li Wei blinked. "Juice? Like... fruit juice?"
"Game Juice," Zhong Ming corrected. "The tactile feedback that makes an action satisfying without being complex. In *Survivor's Dawn*, we don't have complex combos. So the hit feedback, the screen shake, the particle effects when an enemy explodes—that is the core of the experience. I need you to optimize the engine for hundreds of moving entities without frame drops. Can you do that?"
Li Wei frowned, actually thinking for a moment. "Hundreds? On a mobile chip? That's a challenge. But if we lower the texture resolution..."
"Precisely," Zhong Ming nodded. "We sacrifice resolution for fluidity."
He turned to Su Qing, the skeptical artist. "Su Qing. You think pixel art is lazy?"
She crossed her arms. "It's what kids do in art class."
"In the era before the Omnic Wars, pixel art was a celebrated medium," Zhong Ming said. He pulled up a reference image from his mental archive—a sprite from *Hyper Light Drifter*, vibrant and atmospheric. He quickly sketched a rough equivalent on the screen—a small knight character, glowing with energy. "It's not about low resolution. It's about style. Clarity. We need the player to see every enemy in a swarm. If we use 3D models, the screen becomes a cluttered mess. Pixel art gives us readability. I need you to animate the 'idle' stance for the protagonist. I want to see the character breathing, ready to fight. Can you handle that?"
Su Qing looked at the rough sketch Zhong Ming had made. Her eyes lingered on the stance—the subtle tension in the shoulders, the way the cloak draped. It was better than anything her previous supervisors had drawn.
"I... I can try," she muttered, losing some of her edge.
"Good. Chen Hao, the UI. I need it minimal. No clutter. Health bar, experience bar, weapon icons. That's it. The screen belongs to the gameplay."
Zhong Ming looked at the clock on the wall. It was 10:00 AM.
"We have thirty days," he said. "I know the deadline is tight. But I'm not asking you to work crunch hours. I'm asking you to work *smart*. I will provide the design logic, the core balancing, and the asset direction. You just need to execute. If this game succeeds, I will ensure you all get credit. If it fails, I take the fall."
He paused, letting the words sink in.
"But I don't intend to fail. So, let's get to work."
...
The first few hours were a struggle of adaptation.
Li Wei was used to coding complex physics engines for flight simulators; asking him to code a simple 2D movement script felt like asking a race car driver to ride a tricycle. He overcomplicated things, writing hundreds of lines of code for what should have been a simple collision check.
"Stop," Zhong Ming said, walking over to his desk. He pointed at the screen. "You're over-engineering it. This isn't a simulation. It's an arcade game. Use a simple bounding box check. Look."
Zhong Ming pulled up a coding interface. Though his body was weak, his mind was sharp. He typed a few lines of code—a simple, elegant logic loop for movement and collision that he remembered from the early days of game development.
Li Wei watched, his eyes widening. "That... actually works. And it's 90% less resource-intensive."
"Optimization is our weapon," Zhong Ming said, tapping the desk. "Keep it simple."
Meanwhile, Su Qing was struggling with the "style." Her pixel art was technically correct but lacked life. It looked like a grid of colored squares.
Zhong Ming stood behind her. "You're treating pixels as squares. Treat them as brush strokes. Look at the light source."
He reached over, selecting a lighter shade of blue. He added two pixels to the edge of the character's sword.
"See? Just two pixels, but now it looks like it has an edge. That's the detail we need."
Su Qing bit her lip, nodding. She erased her work and started again, this time with more focus.
By late afternoon, a playable "Grey Box" prototype was running on the screen. It was just a white square moving around, shooting smaller white squares at red squares. No art, no sound.
"Test it," Zhong Ming ordered.
Li Wei took the controls. He moved the white square.
*Ding.* A red square vanished. A number floated up: "+10 XP".
Li Wei stared at the screen. He moved the square again, faster. *Ding. Ding. Ding.*
"Keep moving," Zhong Ming instructed. "Don't stop."
The red squares started to multiply. Li Wei had to weave through them. Suddenly, a chime sounded.
*Level Up!*
A menu appeared: "Fire Rate +10%" or "Damage +20%".
Li Wei hesitated, then chose Fire Rate.
The white squares began spraying out like a hose. The red squares popped in rapid succession.
Li Wei's hand tensed on the keyboard. His previously bored expression sharpened. He leaned in.
"This... this is actually kind of fun," he admitted, a surprised smile touching his face.
"That is the power of the feedback loop," Zhong Ming said, feeling a sense of satisfaction. "It's not about the graphics. It's about the brain chemistry. The 'Just One More Turn' feeling."
He looked at the team. They were engaged now. They had stopped looking at the clock and started looking at the screen.
"Alright," Zhong Ming said, checking his own stamina. He felt a wave of dizziness, but he suppressed it. "We have the core loop. Su Qing, refine the protagonist sprite. Li Wei, add the 'swarm' logic—make the enemies chase the player. Chen Hao, design the level-up UI."
"Where are you going?" Su Qing asked, surprised by her own question.
"To secure our budget," Zhong Ming replied, grabbing his jacket. "And to get us some real food. I'm tired of seeing you drink that synthetic caffeine trash."
He walked out of the basement office, feeling a bit lightheaded. He hadn't eaten since the morning.
As he walked towards the elevator, his bracelet vibrated.
**[System Notification]**
**[Project Initiated: Survivor's Dawn]**
**[Team Morale: Low -> Neutral]**
**[Reward: 10 Culture Points]**
**[Total Balance: 110 Points]**
"Morale increased just from the grey box test?" Zhong Ming thought. "The System really values the 'process'."
He needed to buy food, but his bank account was nearly empty. He needed a way to convert his "Culture Points" into something usable, or he needed to find another source of income quickly. He couldn't lead a team if he collapsed from hunger.
He stepped out of the building into the twilight. The neon lights of the city were flickering on.
He needed to see Lin Wan. Not for a meeting, but to argue for an advance on the budget. He needed to leverage his position.
Suddenly, a notification from the "Universal Search Tool" popped up in his vision. He still had 15 minutes of usage time left from his previous activation.
**[Query Suggestion: Quick Asset Flipping / Monetization Strategies for Prototypes.]**
Zhong Ming paused. An idea formed.
"No," he muttered. "I don't need to flip assets. I need to show value. But maybe... I can find a way to speed up the art process."
He thought of the 21st-century tools. AI generation. But AI was banned here. However, "Procedural Generation" was just math. And math was safe.
He turned back towards the building. He had a new task for Li Wei before the night was over. If they could procedurally generate the levels, they could save weeks of work.
He re-entered the building, his fatigue forgotten. The fire of creation was burning hotter than his hunger.
"Let's show this world what a 'World Architect' can really do."