Gaming culture

The team extracted some traditional Chinese cultural elements such as bridges, streams and bamboo groves, while inserting red walls, peach blossoms and wooden pavilions-photos of which are very popular among young internet users.

They also paid a great deal of attention to telling the stories behind an ancient convention. For example, there used to be big nails on city gates, the variety and number of which was an indicator of social status.

In celebration of Spring Festival, people in ancient times would touch the nails and wish for peace and safety, while young women would do so hoping for pregnancy. As a result, the lower nails would develop a patina.

The team incorporated these kinds of cultural traditions, along with an explanation, into the game's tasks.

"Art is one manifestation of culture. What's more interesting for us is the invisible cultural meanings that can cross the gap of time," Chen says.

According to Chen, the market for ancient Chinese-style games showed very little potential in previous years and few programmers knew how to incorporate ancient culture into games.

Chen explains that it's probably because major game developers have to take the international market into account as the domestic game market has become more crowded and competitive.

To better design the game, Chen and his colleagues regularly learned and shared knowledge about detailed aspects of traditional culture, like traditional clothing and snacks.

Chen was also keen to note that the team also ensured delicate and ornately carved corbels appear on the wooden pillars of ancient buildings in the game that are located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

These carvings used to be found in old buildings and were seen as a form of decoration, though in some cases they carried auspicious meanings.

However, the beauty of these carvings has faded away as modern skyscrapers gradually occupy the cities, but they can be preserved in games instead.

During the process, the team, which is composed mainly of young, inexperienced programmers and developers, has gained an interest, and some level of expertise, in traditional Chinese culture as a result.

Chen describes the group as "traditional culture inheritors with market thinking", a quality he thinks is essential for creating innovation and bringing culture to a wider audience.

Chen says they are exploring ways to better convey the temperament of Chinese painting, instead of simply making the images look more vivid.

Sun and Chen are both lecturers for the ongoing "Today at Apple "sessions, being held at Apple's retail outlet in Sanlitun in Beijing through June 6. The sessions consist of 12 lectures about the melding of Beijing's local culture and the new technologies applied in the company's products.

"Today at Apple" programs are free, hands-on sessions hosted by Apple retail outlets since 2017 to help educate users about how to tap the potential of its products.

"The idea is about how we reach back into the creative cultural history in Beijing, because there's so much of it across all the different artistic disciplines and we want to connect it to our technology," says Richard Hames, senior market director for Apple retail in Asia-Pacific, adding that as the company moves further forward technologically, people are able to reach further backward in terms of traditional crafts.