A melody started playing.
The background music was neither joyful nor melancholic. One could only say that it was smooth—as smooth as the protagonist’s narration and flashing of scenes in the camera.
“My father was a philanthropist and the founder of a luxury brand. He used to be a high-spirited man, and he often starred in television and magazines because of his handsome appearance.
“That was until the hostage situation before I was born.
“After that, my parents became very low-profile. I was also very well-protected by them and rarely mentioned by the media. Our daily lives came under wraps.
“Not long after I was born, my mother quit her job to take care of me full-time. No matter how busy my father was, he always made time for me as well.
“My father once spotted a good kindergarten, but it was far away from my house. The journey there or back took 45 minutes. My father could have chosen to hire a chauffeur, but he still chose to send and fetch me twice a week. He endured that for three years, all the way until I made it to elementary school.
“After work, my father would tell me bedtime stories, help me with my homework, take part in family events with me at school, and organize family meals…
“That’s why I don’t really understand when my friends say that their parents don’t have time to spend with them.
“Could anyone be busier than the CEO of a company?”
As the male protagonist narrated this, images began to flash across the screen.
There was a scene of the protagonist being born in a luxurious delivery room.
The space was huge. There were a long couch and other furniture, and it looked just like a hotel suite. The senior nurse, nutritionist, and nurses were walking back and forth. The table was filled with nutritious food, making it look like a feast.
The protagonist’s father looked at his baby, smiling blissfully.
There was also a scene of the protagonist as an infant.
In a villa with a private beach and pier, several workers walked back and forth to take care of the protagonist, who was still a baby. His own mother smiled as she accompanied him.
There was a scene at the kindergarten.
The protagonist’s father drove his luxury car as the view of the prosperous city zoomed past their windows. In the high-end private kindergarten, the protagonist learned all sorts of things, including languages, mathematics, science, art, and so on.
The teacher’s classes were novel and interesting. The kids could witness eggs being incubated and hatching into chicks and caterpillars turning into butterflies.
There, professional teachers taught art to the students. Each month, one particular artist would come into focus, and the kids would learn more about his or her works. Furthermore, they would imitate the motions of painting to copy the works. Whether they turned out ugly or beautiful, their works would still be praised and hung up onto the walls.
Even the toys that they played with during their rest time looked very expensive.
“While I was in kindergarten, my father taught me the concept of time. We started class at 7:30 AM. If I was ten minutes late, the school gate would close. I would be fined, and my results would be penalized.
“My father made sure that I was never late. He always told me that few things in the world could not be bought with money, and time was one of them. That was why I had to cherish every second. This concept of time was etched deep in my heart.
“My father doesn’t allow me to have fast food or to wear a battery-operated watch. I only got a cell phone when I was fifteen, and my time on it was limited. I couldn’t play on the computer for more than forty minutes, but on the weekends, this was increased to an hour.
“I tried asking my mother to plead with my father on my behalf, but to no avail. Still, he would always make time to read with me.”
After the string of starting scenes that explained the protagonist’s childhood, He An found that he could finally control the protagonist and start the game.
This was the protagonist when he was still a child. He An still had an over-the-shoulder view of the game, and the first scene was of the protagonist playing and living in the huge villa with his parents.
Soon, He An realized that this was a standard interactive game.
All the human models inside were very detailed. All the main characters had expressions as they spoke, and their actions were obviously motion-captured. The exquisite drawing made everything look very realistic.
At the same time, the UI in the game had either been hidden in the background or blended in the foreground. The game’s immersiveness was not disrupted by the instructions to gamers.
Moreover, the transitions between the scenes were very well done. The techniques used were often only seen in movies.
The only strange point was that all the characters looked very exaggerated. For example, the faces of the rich man and his parents looked ridiculous. All of them looked like celebrities.
On the other hand, the maids, the butler, and the chauffeur looked stereotypical.
That made He An feel out of place at first, but since all the characters were of the same style, he quickly got used to it.
Few operations were available for interactive, movie-like games. One could mainly walk or select special options upon trigger events. In other words, this was a slightly better version of quick-timer events.
For instance, while in the villa, players could play the young protagonist and experience a lot of content:
In a room specially set aside for art, the protagonist could draw under the instruction of a private teacher.
The protagonist could learn instruments like the piano or the violin.
The protagonist could go to his private racecourse and ride horses.
The protagonist could do archery or play with the dog in their private field.
The protagonist could attend play dates at other rich people’s houses. At the dinners, he could play in bouncy castles with other kids of his age, make ice cream with his ice cream machine, ride on wooden horses, and play with train models…
He could take a private jet to Africa’s wildlife zoo with the other kids to celebrate a birthday. He also received high-end presents that piled up into a mountain…
In every scene, the gamer was allowed to control the protagonist and interact with various backgrounds. He could ride horses, play the piano, play with trains, and the like.
Apart from those mini-games, there were other details in the scenes as well. For example, there were chatter between other characters, books and newspapers, wrapped gifts, and the like.
Different transition methods were used to switch from one scene to another as well, and they were similar to those used in movies. For example, once the protagonist finished taking a certain group photo, that photograph would appear at the top of the protagonist’s bed, thus introducing a new scene.
In the spaces between scenes where the gaps were extra big, there would also be narrations by the adult protagonist recalling his childhood.
Once the scenes of his childhood were over, he entered his teenage years. The protagonist entered high school and then university, but it was not like the movies. There were no lax education or alcohol parties. Instead, his daily life was planned to the minute.
Not only did he have to do well in the SATs, but he also could not relax for a single test in his four years of high school. He took part in Olympic competitions, debates, community service…
People would rush to do anything that could help them get into Ivy League schools and then compete in it.
The protagonist heard news of a classmate committing suicide and learned of the phrase ‘Stanford Duck Syndrome’. Everyone acted relaxed and perfect on the surface, but underneath the surface, they were kicking for their lives, without regard for anything else in the world.
When one saw calm ducks around them everywhere they looked, they were bound to think that they were the only imperfect ones.
There were also the ‘four’s—four hours of sleep, four huge cups of coffee, and a Grade Point Average of 4.0.
At different stages of the game, He An had a huge number of choices.
As a child, the protagonist’s life was also strictly planned to the minute, but he was allowed to entertain himself with all sorts of activities during his rest time. He could choose between various hobbies, such as art or music, and choose different ways of spending his holidays as well.
All those choices affected his experience as a teen.
For example, if the protagonist learned horse-riding as a child, his father would send him to a private racecourse worth tens of millions of US dollars when he was older. There, he would take part in horse-riding competitions and win generous prizes. In turn, that would affect the game’s future developments.
The game was based on the concept of wealth. Some choices would only be available if the protagonist had a certain amount of wealth. However, to the rich protagonist, the limitation was practically non-existent. No matter how much he spent, his funds would be topped up almost immediately.
…
One by one, the scenes flashed across.
While being immersed in the game, He An could not help but feel sorrowful about the resources wasted in the background and materials.
Most scenes only appeared once and never again. Take the scene with the wildlife zoo in Africa for example. The protagonist went there to look at various endangered animals once while he was a youth. He acquired a lot of knowledge and received many gifts. However, after that, the scene did not appear again.
A few huge scenes would be reused. Those included the protagonist’s villa and the racecourse. As the plot developed, He An would likely unlock more actions that he would be able to take in the villa and racecourse. Every now and then, he would experience new content in those places.
Even then, it was probably quite expensive to achieve the cinematic effect.
He An could distinctly tell that Boss Pei had made a trade-off to pursue this extravagant approach. The scenes were hardly reused, but they were all exquisitely done. Thus, the length of the entire game was compressed.
Generally speaking, domestic AAA games would be completed in about eight to ten hours. Of course, games with more branches or open worlds would extend for longer than that.
On the other hand, the rich version of Struggle was only three hours long, and the poor version was not far off.
It was akin to a movie made up of many scattered and fragmented pieces. The protagonist’s life was being put together with all of those symbolic scenes.
Of course, if one wanted to run through every single choice once, the game would double in length.
One was allowed to toggle through the timeline in the game, return to a previous scene, and replay it. Most games of this genre contained such a function.
After graduating from college, the protagonist could choose to date and marry different girls, start working at his father’s office, become an artist, musician, or horse-rider based on his own hobbies, start his own business, and so on.
His father booked an island in Italy for his wedding and spent five million US dollars to fill two Boeing planes with guests. Five-star hotel rooms were booked for all guests, and fifty cars were rented to transport them around.
A few tons of fresh flowers were also flown in from the Netherlands. Finally, the wedding took place on the rocks in the sea, with a team of world-renowned chefs and a wedding dress that cost six hundred thousand US dollars…
Players could control the protagonist at the wedding and make him chat with guests, who gave him their heartfelt blessings. That way, players were allowed to experience the entire wedding themselves.
Of course, it was impossible to create the entire island in the game. Instead, players were just given a bird’s eye view of it, just like in the movies. The main focus had still been placed on the small plot of land where the wedding was taking place.
Still, the meticulous details were jaw-dropping.
After getting married and having children, the protagonist’s career went smoothly. No matter which company he applied to, he was immediately hired and rose up the ranks quickly.
His parents eventually retired to enjoy their older years.
The protagonist had met several poor friends at school and realized that their lifestyles were very different from him. His poor friends lacked ambition, loved to idle around, and didn’t treasure their time.
Therefore, after achieving success in his career, the protagonist tried to help others as much as he could.
“As I said, my father thinks that society is governed by the laws of the jungle. We are the high and mighty, but because of that, many people watched us and waited for us to fall and fail miserably.
“He said that poor people are lazy, selfish, and unreasonable… and that I was not to believe I could ever become friends with them.
“He said to stay as far away from them as I can, lest I get myself into trouble.
“I still don’t agree with that view.
“I know that my father only holds that view because of the hostage situation that happened before I was born. However, I think that the lunatic didn’t represent all the poor people. I won’t let myself discriminate against all the poor people just because I nearly died in the hands of one of them.
“I have a couple of poor friends. To me, they are no different from me. Perhaps they lack a bit of ambition and fighting spirit because of their poverty, but I wasn’t born with those qualities either.
“So I gave speeches at universities and even wrote a book, ‘Struggle and Get Rich’, in hopes that my lifestyle and views on wealth would be a positive influence on them.
“I want to tell you all that money will not drop from the sky. You can only change your fates if you work hard. Our lives will only have the possibility of becoming better if we are not content with the current situation.
“Let me tell you: I have been working hard to learn something new every single day. I never slack off, and I never dare to waste my time.
“Let me tell you: I never wear luxury clothes, I wouldn’t buy luxurious cars, and I wouldn’t hold meaningless parties, even if it were to support my father’s luxury brand. Every second that I have would be spent meaningfully.
“Without a doubt, my world view has been ridiculed by many people online. A lot of people think that I have no right to talk about ‘struggle’ because I was born into a rich family. They think that I don’t understand what ‘struggle’ means to the poor.
“Yet, many other people have thanked me. The discipline that I have nurtured for decades has moved them. They say that I was given a good environment to grow in because my father worked and struggled. They, too, hope to be able to work and struggle to give their children something.
“I’m overjoyed. That shows that everything I do is meaningful.”
The final scene was of the protagonist signing books in a slum’s book store.
People were lining up to meet him one by one. They handed their books over to him, got his signature, and then thanked him profusely.
Many people wanted the protagonist’s signature. He An had to slide the mouse each time he signed a book, and he continued to do so mechanically. Everyone’s smile and thanks were different, which made him feel like this was a meaningful thing to do.
A man in shabby clothes who looked homeless walked up to him empty-handed.
The protagonist looked down, ready to sign a book, but soon realized that none had been handed over. He was slightly astonished.
As he looked up, he realized that the tramp’s face was ferocious and depressed. It was almost as if he felt a deep-seated hatred for him.
He An started. The face of this homeless man looked very different from that of the criminal who held the protagonist’s mother hostage at the beginning. However, the expression on his face felt very familiar.
The homeless man’s figure seemed to block the light. Numbly and without any emotion, he took a sharp knife out of his large pocket and began to viciously stab the protagonist’s chest!
Screams resounded, and the scene became chaotic. However, those voices quickly floated away from the protagonist. The ceiling soon began to spin as the image went blurred.
Bam! A bloody book fell off the table and landed squarely on the protagonist’s face. The words ‘Struggle and Get Rich’ on the cover looked inexplicably ironic.
Just before the image went black, the protagonist heard a soft but clear statement coming from the homeless man.
“Liar.”
