Chapter 23

"Boom..."

Accompanied by the thunderclap after the lightning, large raindrops fell sparsely, splashing up dust on the dirt-covered ground.

At a glance, the city of high-rise buildings was shrouded in a misty veil of rain, and a cool breeze blew, making people finally breathe a sigh of relief as the high temperatures dissipated.

Of course, for Zhang Ye, who was in the office, this meant that he would have to face the heavy rain when he got off work later.

Fortunately, there was still more than an hour before the end of the workday. He hoped that this sudden downpour wouldn't last too long. Zhang Ye continued to focus on his work, glanced at the database, and saw that another Android mobile game had been uploaded. He initially glanced at the information indifferently but was surprised to find that a 50MB game was actually developed by an individual.

"Xeon, who is this person?"

Perplexed, Zhang Ye looked at the nickname of the app's author and clicked on the developer's information. To upload an app in China, one must first register as a developer and fill in the relevant contact information. Therefore, Zhang Ye easily saw the app's contact person.

"Hmm, Liu Shu, registered for just over a day, truly an individual developer..."

Zhang Ye immediately lost hope in the quality of this game app. Generally, mobile games developed by individuals in China have installation packages no larger than 10MB, mostly small games. Even if they are fun, they are known for their brevity and efficiency. Games with installation packages larger than 20MB usually have a longer development cycle and require more funding, which is typically beyond the means of individuals, so such games are often developed by companies.

This individually developed game, which exceeded 50MB, was likely a hastily made product.

Naturally, in China, whether developed by individuals or companies, most mobile games, except for a few high-quality ones, are garbage. Not only are they not fun, but they are also filled with spam ads and traps, causing users to delete them after a brief play.

The review process for domestic Android apps is not as strict and cumbersome as that of the Apple App Store. Zhang Ye's job only required him to verify the app's name and other information, then install and test the content. As long as it did not involve prohibited content, it could pass smoothly.

After taking a sip of tea, Zhang Ye first looked at the app name—Endless Stars. Hmm, no major issues. He then checked the installation package name, VersionCode, and VersionName, and found no problems. He then directly ran and installed the game on the Android emulator on his computer.

The installation went smoothly, and the game only required about seven or eight permissions, which was quite rare for such a well-behaved app, surprising Zhang Ye a bit.

But Zhang Ye couldn't relax after that. He opened his eyes wide, feeling quite surprised.

He had expected to see a low-quality, trashy game, but after clicking to enter, the game first showed a CG sequence.

The screen first dimmed, becoming pitch black, and then a cosmic starry sky gradually appeared on the screen. Countless stars and star systems slowly rotated, the detail and grandeur of the scene making Zhang Ye, who was staring at the screen, put down his teacup and look more closely.

Just as Zhang Ye was amazed by the intricate and beautiful CG, a bright meteor suddenly streaked across the dark screen, shooting out from the depths of the universe.

In an instant, the scene changed rapidly. In less than a second, a stunningly beautiful blue planet filled the entire screen.

"Damn."

Zhang Ye, startled, muttered a curse, loosened his tie, and pulled his chair back a bit.

Although he was startled by the sudden scene change, the beauty and layers of the CG still captured most of his attention, and his eyes never left the screen.

The appearance of the blue planet on the screen did not end there. The meteor that had appeared earlier gradually revealed its true form, which turned out to be a massive sci-fi spaceship.

This spaceship, flying from the depths of the universe, entered the orbit of the blue planet and drifted along its trajectory. Then, the screen slowly turned black...

Was the CG sequence finally over?

At this point, Zhang Ye finally caught his breath, feeling shocked. Was that CG sequence really part of this game? Could he have installed the wrong game?

The level of detail in that CG sequence not only far exceeded that of domestic mobile games but also rivaled the CG of major international game studios.

But... what the hell? Which major international game has an installation package smaller than 500MB? Most are over a gigabyte in size, while this game was only 50MB, nearly twenty times smaller!

Zhang Ye's doubts made him forget that just a few minutes ago, he had been mocking the game for its large installation size.

Regardless, setting aside the CG sequence, the game's content was the most important. Zhang Ye stared at the screen, eager to see the game's menu after the CG sequence.

However, to his surprise, after the CG sequence, there was no game menu. Instead, the scene changed, and the game started directly.

On the screen, it seemed to be the control room of a spaceship, and the game's perspective was from a 60-degree angle above the character, not a first-person view but a third-person view.

Thanks to this, Zhang Ye could immediately see the character he was controlling, a human... though it might sound obvious, the protagonist was wearing a suit of Iron Man-like alloy exoskeleton armor, controlling the spaceship.

These were all quite ordinary and not particularly noteworthy, but the level of detail in the entire game's graphics made Zhang Ye speechless.

In theory, making a detailed CG sequence is one thing, but whether the real-time game graphics are equally detailed is another. Many games have excellent CG, but once you start playing, the graphics are often rough and crude, or at least several levels lower. There are too many such games.

However, this game, "Endless Stars," not only had very detailed CG but also maintained a high level of detail in the real-time game graphics. At least from Zhang Ye's perspective, the interior of the spaceship's control room was as detailed as, for example, the graphics in the large-scale mobile game "Modern Combat 4."

Could anyone in China achieve this?

No, to be more precise, was this game really developed by a Chinese person?

Zhang Ye couldn't be sure, even though the developer's ID was Chinese, it still seemed unbelievable.

"Warning, warning, the main engine of the spaceship has a problem. Please immediately activate the backup engine..."

While Zhang Ye was lost in thought, red warning text appeared on the screen, accompanied by tense music, and the first mission content was revealed.

"Repair the main engine and diagnose the fault within ten minutes."

After the mission was issued, the map also marked the destination, and Zhang Ye could control the character in the game.

He wasn't in a hurry about the ten-minute limit but instead controlled the character to move around the control room, finding that the controls were smooth and responsive. Even the camera angle adjusted automatically when encountering obstacles, making the game's perspective and control surprisingly better than many large-scale productions.

This was quite impressive.

After familiarizing himself with the controls, Zhang Ye followed the map's red line out of the control room. As he walked through the corridors of the spaceship, which were about 100 meters long, he increasingly felt that this game was not simple.

First, in most space games, when encountering a blocked door, it either opens automatically or requires a key to open. However, in this game, when Zhang Ye accidentally clicked on the red light to the right of the door, a laser keyboard appeared, indicating that a password was needed to enter.

This keyboard, which Zhang Ye recognized as a standard keyboard layout, was a sign of the game's attention to detail.

This was not all. When he controlled the character to look out of the spaceship's window and saw the blue planet, he noticed that the planet's texture was slowly rotating, not a static background image.

The game's attention to detail was truly remarkable.

At this point, Zhang Ye still subconsciously thought this was a game similar to "Galaxy on Fire," perhaps with some influence from "Dead Space," but the game's scope was limited to the interior of the spaceship. (Thank you to the readers who supported and rewarded the story, including Jinsi Yumu, Courage Girl Era, Pioneer 01, ╰Sui Yue Zhen Wei, Chris Red, Fox Fragrance, Morning Saint Light, 书友183977, and many others whose names did not appear in the recommendations.)