A team of five independent game makers in Chongqing spent nearly two years developing a science fiction sandbox game. Within an hour of its release on Jan 21, it became the top seller on Steam, the world's largest online gaming platform.
The game — Dyson Sphere Program — has been well received, with 95 percent positive reviews on Steam. It sold more than 350,000 units from Jan 25 to 31.
"I made fun of my friends for getting addicted to Dyson Sphere Program, but then I bought it and now I'm so engrossed playing it that I won't even drink my coffee," said one netizen, @Lontar_On_Here, on Twitter.
DSP is a sci-fi strategy and management factory simulation game that requires players to command a robot, starting from scratch, to cut down trees, collect and extract specific raw materials on various planets, build a cross-galaxy industrial empire and achieve the ultimate goal — the construction of a Dyson Sphere, a gigantic solar power station big enough to wrap up a whole star and absorb all its energy.
The popular game was developed by five indie game makers — a producer, a designer, an artist, a 3D modeler and a programmer (average age, 26) from Youthcat Studio in a 30-square-meter studio in Chongqing. They all admit to being sci-fi addicts.
The two lead developers, Zhou Xun and Li Jun, both born in Chongqing in 1990, graduated from local universities. They founded Youthcat Studio and started working on DSP in April 2019.
"As a symbol in a Type Ⅱ civilization, the Dyson Sphere has a fascinating story to tell. It must be cool as we make a game of the building process," Li said.
Besides the technical difficulties, the pair has burned the midnight oil on many nights to study related theories, reading papers on mathematics, physics, chemistry and astronomy from home and abroad to gain theoretical support.
It took the team one week to finalize the size and thickness of the Dyson Sphere's crust and energy-absorbing efficiency through repeated data checks, calculations and modeling.
"Making a game like this is not easy. We need to cater to those hardcore sci-fi players who know every subject and have high demands. That's why we've been studying — even quantum mechanics," Li said.
The team has been patching a lot, too, fixing bugs and addressing concerns raised by players, to ensure there are no big bugs that impede game play.
The concept of the Dyson Sphere was originally proposed by British science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon in his novel Star Maker in 1937. It was popularized by British-American theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson in a paper talking in 1960 about the concept of a giant spherical solar power station. The spherical structure was often mentioned by engineers and sci-fi writers and later became known as the Dyson Sphere.
With practical scientific significance, the concept might solve the energy crisis on Earth, as well as support humans in interstellar exploration and extraterrestrial emigration. DSP takes players to that distant future — as does another great Chinese work of science fiction, The Three-Body Problem — and triggered a surge of interest among Chinese animation fans and sci-fi aficionados.
"The process of building a Dyson Sphere is quite similar to human civilization. It's going to be hard work, but we'll win through in the end," Li said. "Human beings have been very curious about the universe, hoping to unveil its mysteries one day. And our courage to explore is expressed in science fiction. After all, science fiction is a kind of romance for all mankind."
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