"What about you?"

Lu asked with a long face, "Level design is handed over to me, map design is handed over to me, monster traps are handed over to me, all the dirty and tiring work is done by me?"

"Let me ask you, what’s the name of this game?"

"Ancestor Tree?"

"Then do you still not know what I’m responsible for?" Chen Ba retorted.

It’s true that all the dirty and tiring work was thrown to Lu, but Chen Ba wasn’t completely slacking off. Quite the opposite, his work was the key determinant of the game’s success.

Ancestor Tree!

The game is named this way, which shows the importance and key nature of this mechanism.

If the Ancestor Tree system mechanism is done well, then the game is considered successful, if not, no matter how good the level map is designed, the overall game would be considered a failure.

For Chen Ba, this was also a relatively challenging task.

Luckily, he had cheats!

As the saying goes, when in doubt, add some Deep Blue points! Although this system can’t add points to the host to make him a muscular hunk, it can add points to the game!

"Let me see..."

After sending Lu away, Chen Ba leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and looked over the estimated scoring page of the "Ancestor Tree" game.

The estimated planning score was quite high, a full 97 points. But the estimated art score was average, only looking like 75 points...

"AI drawings are still not up to par."

Chen Ba initially thought that with the progress of AI painting, it wouldn’t completely replace human artists, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to solve the game’s artistic issues.

As it turns out,

AI can indeed solve problems, but it’s like "getting enough to eat" and "getting a good meal", not the same concept.

AI belongs to the type that gets you enough to eat.

If you’re not too fussy, 75 points for art isn’t unusable. However, if you want to create a masterpiece, the art score needs to be raised, at least getting it above 85 points.

No choice!

With such a high planning score, if the art lags behind significantly, the disparity would make the game seem top-heavy and unbalanced.

Based on this premise, Chen Ba abandoned further training of AI, and instead contacted a game art expert he had met before at the TGA game conference, with whom he’d exchanged contact details.

This was a Gallic artist.

Although relatively young, he was indeed exceptionally capable. He had even previously served as the chief external sketch artist for several skins and hero illustrations for "League of Legends", and participated in the creation of many AAA game masterpieces.

Of course, this wasn’t the main point.

Finding an art designer isn’t about being the strongest, it’s about being the most suitable! Chen Ba chose to contact this expert because he felt this expert’s art style was really fitting for the game "Ancestor Tree".

"Alright, I’ll take it."

After Chen Ba briefly introduced the "Ancestor Tree" game project via email, this young artist named Maurice promptly arrived in Jiangning.

"Chen, why didn’t you tell me there’s no direct flight to Jiangning?"

"I thought you knew!"

"Knew what? Didn’t you tell me Jiangning has an airport?"

"When did I say that?" Chen Ba was greatly shocked. When did he say Jiangning has an airport?

"I’m sure you said it."

Maurice stressed, "Jiangning Meiyou Airport, you said it yourself."

Chen Ba: "..."

It seems this foreigner, though he can speak some Chinese, still doesn’t quite understand puns and jokes. It’s genuinely a struggle for him.

Putting aside Maurice’s misunderstanding that Jiangning has an airport, thinking he could fly directly to Jiangning, but ending up transferring to Jiang City over a thousand kilometers away, resulting in him being unfamiliar with the place and calling Chen Ba for help in this awkward situation, the overall trip was still rather pleasant.

Maurice is quite an interesting person.

He told Chen Ba while on the road, if the call came two days later, he might not have been able to take on the "Ancestor Tree" job.

"Why?"

"Because my friend is also making a game, he wants to invite me to help him..."

"Tell him to beat it!"

Chen Ba cursed grumpily, "I’m also your friend and was clearly the first to invite you. Doesn’t he understand ’first come, first serve’?"

"That’s why I’m here!"

Sitting in the passenger seat, Maurice excitedly said, "A family that grows trees after death—it’s so cool! What kind of tree do you think would grow from my grave?"

"Probably a thorn apple!"

"What’s a thorn apple?"

While driving, Chen Ba explained, "The fruit is yellow and has some thorns; the juice is delicious and rich in vitamin C."

"I like it!"

What are you liking, you silly foreigner! Clearly, you’ve never had your hand pricked by a thorn apple’s thorn, and mistakenly think this is some sort of compliment!

Chen Ba took Maurice to the workshop downstairs, then led him up the stairs, creating an office space right next to his own office.

"You’ll work here for a while! No worries about accommodation—there are our dormitories upstairs and you can eat downstairs, whether you want Chinese or Western cuisine..."

Once Maurice was settled, Chen Ba immediately posed the question, "I’ll let you know my requirements first, then you just go ahead and draw."

First is the protagonist Tree Treasure!

In the game, although Tree Treasure is seen by players as the same person, in the game world, they actually change with each death.

In that case, there should be slight differences drawn in different periods of Tree Treasure, so not only can you see the change in outfits, but you can also tell by their face that they’re not the same Tree Treasure.

Next is Ancestor Tree!

As the core element of the game, most Ancestor Trees take the shape of fruit trees. Maurice needs to find prototype fruit trees and then use them as references.

What’s most important is that Ancestor Trees don’t bear fruit. Hanging on them is either various weapons, props, or abilities...

Integrating these quirky icons naturally and harmoniously into these fruit trees would truly test Maurice’s creativity.

To put it bluntly,

It’s easy to hang these things up; using Photoshop, you can simply paste a similar meme picture.

But it can’t be used in the game and it looks very disjointed, with a strong sense of being photoshopped.

Maurice’s task is not only to draw beautiful Ancestor Trees but also to seamlessly incorporate the item icons onto them.

This is the hardest part.

To imagine,

Consider if a pile of... Steel Elixirs, Coughing Blood Battleaxe, Siren Slayer sprouted out of the persimmon tree at your doorstep...

That’s basically it!

Just thinking about such a full-blown incongruous scene, visual design must eliminate such discordance; otherwise, salaries will be deducted.

"Don’t worry, I don’t think there’s a problem."

Maurice was full of confidence, although the job is challenging, what huge waves hasn’t he seen?

Props on trees—can this stump him? What a joke!

If you really want to stump him, it would likely be a tree growing children...

"If a tree grows children, I wouldn’t even call you, I can solve that myself!" Chen Ba dramatically rolled his eyes.

Having watched "Journey to the West" TV series many times, if nothing else, painting a Ginseng Fruit Tree shouldn’t be a big issue.

"Huh? Trees actually grow children?"

Maurice was greatly surprised, he was just saying it casually, not expecting such a magical tree actually exists?

Out of curiosity, he used the computer to watch a few episodes about the Ginseng Fruit Tree in "Journey to the West," getting more excited as he watched.

Not only did he watch a few episodes repeatedly, but he even wanted to watch the entire "Journey to the West" TV series from the beginning.

"You’re here to work, not to binge-watch..."

"This is work!"

Facing Chen Ba’s skepticism, Maurice said earnestly, "I’m trying to find inspiration in mythology, the trees here are beautiful, I really like them."

Watching "Journey to the West" for inspiration?

Chen Ba listened, feeling overwhelmed, but said nothing. After all, who knows what the silly foreigner’s thoughts are?

Although this method sounds unreliable, what if he’s truly looking for inspiration?