GTROAE Chapter 93: Everyone in Place

Chapter 93: Everyone in Place

After double-checking with the system that talking in his sleep or sleepwalking wouldn’t trigger [Simple Fusion], William was finally able to sleep in peace.

After all, if he accidentally fused something strange together, it would be very hard to explain.

Today was the last day of February, and also the first day of working in the new office.

Since yesterday, everyone in the studio who had moved into the new apartments had been posting photos of their places in the group chat. They even went out together for dinner at a nearby restaurant. It seemed everyone was very happy with the new environment.

In the morning, William and Cynthia went to New Fortune Tower first. Because they didn’t have time over the weekend, the moving company had been booked for today to move all the equipment to the new office.

They also asked Angela and Zach to ride along with the moving truck, partly to help supervise, and partly so they could save some travel costs.

After sending off the moving company, William and Cynthia waited for Tiffany and Aunt Lisa. Since the space would otherwise be empty, they decided to use it as the office for the music company.

Although the place wasn’t big, it was enough to build a professional recording studio—just that larger instruments like a piano couldn’t be moved in.

Also, Tiffany wouldn’t actually be working here. Her main base was still RiverTone Music. Aunt Lisa became the manager of this place, likely because the plan to let her take over RiverTone Music hadn’t worked out.

With Aunt Lisa in charge, William could relax completely. It was just a pity that Zach had gone to the new office. Otherwise, if the couple could work in the same place, they’d both feel much more at ease.

But then again, maybe not. After all, workplace romances usually don’t end too well.

That could be left for another time.

The music company was named Earth Music, continuing the naming style of Earth Games. When asked why he chose “Earth,” William made up a lie, saying that in some languages “Earth” carried the meaning of a pure land.

Once they had settled the matter of the old studio, all further operations were handed over to Tiffany and Aunt Lisa. Earth Games would only handle funding, finances, and publishing—nothing else.

Earth Music only needed to make sure Earth Games’ requests were completed right away under any circumstances. As for profits or losses, they didn’t need to worry.

The first project for Earth Music was composing music for Travel Frog. William left the game’s setting documents and some postcard photos at the studio, without giving specific requests, leaving Aunt Lisa free to create.

By the time they reached the new office, it was almost ten o’clock. Since no receptionist had been hired yet, William and Cynthia entered the place easily.

Last night, Cynthia had posted a chart of the company’s hierarchy in the group chat. There were seven levels in total. New hires started at Level 1. Those with higher education or achievements could be assigned a higher starting level, but no higher than Level 3.

Level 4 was for team leaders, Level 5 for department heads, Level 6 for management, and Level 7 was the chairman.

Among the sixteen new hires this time, thirteen were Level 1 and three were Level 2. Those who had worked at New Fortune Tower before were placed at Level 4, except for Marcus.

The quick promotions were meant to help with mentoring the new hires. Otherwise, if William had to personally train more than ten people, it would probably take until next year.

For now, Leon was in charge of the art group, Angela led the animation group with Zach as vice leader, Chris was the head of programming, Tina was leading the character design subgroup within design, and Claire was temporarily in charge of level design within design.

Marcus was the same as before, occasionally helping out as a level designer.

Except for Chris, all the other groups were somewhat connected to art. Even though Leon was officially head of the art team, the main art director position was still open, with the strongest candidates being the current team leaders.

None of them were new to the workplace, so they all understood the situation. Judging from their personalities, there likely wouldn’t be open or hidden fights. Whoever could best adapt to their role would get the spot in the end.

William thought Leon had a better chance. Even though he was just doing concept art, concept art included character and environment design, and in many ways defined the game’s style.

Cynthia thought Claire was more likely, for a simple reason—William had already positioned her as a producer, and now she was handling level design. If she needed a stepping stone, the art director role was the best fit.

Their little bet didn’t mean the choice was already locked between Leon and Claire. In the end, the role would go to whoever proved capable, without favoritism.

Since Cynthia had handled all the interviews, the new employees warmly greeted her when they saw her. William just quietly followed her, using the chance to check on the work assignments.

First was Leon’s group, which had four people. Leon asked each of them to pick one character from a pool of twenty and design it, with the requirement to submit within three days.

If everything went smoothly, designing twenty characters would be easy. But obviously, after the first draft, there would be a second, third, fourth… and many more rounds of revisions.

In short, they would keep revising until Leon was satisfied. Then, with William’s approval, the character would be considered complete.

The studio’s only scriptwriter was also under Leon’s group, mainly in charge of writing character dialogue and backstories.

Next was Tina’s group, which had only two people. They were still working on the virtual human Olivia. Tina’s task for them was to do their best to optimize Olivia’s model.

Angela and Zach’s animation group had two people as well. Their work progress was the fastest. They were already fully working on animations for Journey, since the job was basically the same as before, unless it was about cutscenes.

Claire’s two newcomers had been reassigned from Leon’s group. Their current job was to learn—learn how to use the engine to build game levels. Once they got the hang of it, the update speed of Happy Match Mania would rise to a whole new level.

Finally, there was Chris’s group. Chris didn’t reveal anything about The Sims. His group’s tasks were to learn how to use the engine, and also to study William’s code in order to learn game development.

After checking everything, William held the studio’s first meeting. The purpose was just simple introductions, so everyone could get to know each other and also recognize the new hires.

At noon, they all ate at the cafeteria downstairs. To be fair, the food was decent, not sloppy, and the prices were okay too—definitely cheaper than in the city.

In the afternoon, they reviewed the animation optimization for Craftsman Wood that Angela and Zach had finished over the weekend. Once William confirmed the game was ready for release, he sat down at the sunniest spot in the new office and began sketching postcards for Travel Frog.

Unlike at home, where anyone could watch freely, here employees below Level 4 needed approval from their team leader and then their manager before they could even request to see the boss. Only then would William decide whether to meet them.

Complicated, but orderly.

Without rules, nothing works.