Gaming culture

From his perspective, traditional Chinese culture is something which, when he learns more about, he becomes more interested in, and feels an urgent desire to know more. He sees painting, music, calligraphy, architecture and lifestyle as all being connected and related to each other.

As co-founder of Tag Design, a startup design studio, in 2013 he came up with an idea for a project which would not be hampered by worries about cost and revenue.

Being interested in architecture, but finding it difficult to understand design drawings, Sun decided to create an app to showcase structural designs in a more visually intuitive way, and it started with common examples of mortise-and-tenon structures.

He shared his idea with his colleagues, explaining the workings of the wood joint, its classification and function, and how to read design drawings. Together, they also explored, with the help of professional carpenters, modeling the wooden structures by using three-dimensional techniques on mobile devices.

It took the team more than half a year to complete the app and, in June 2014, the iOS version for Apple devices was published. It was soon a recommended product in the Apple App Store and later won an award from the tech company.

The team got further encouragement when Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the studio in October 2015.From then to just before the outbreak of COVID-19, the studio released several more apps featuring other folk art crafts, such as folding fans, new year paintings and jade antiques.

Sun says mobile application technologies have enabled more people to learn about traditional cultural elements in a short time and in a convenient manner.

Stunning visual effects have also helped Ink, Mountains and Mystery, a phone game jointly developed by tech company NetEase and the Palace Museum in Beijing, garner a positive response from users, especially helping them appreciate the beauty of the traditional Chinese blue-and-green landscape genre of painting.

Blue-and-green landscape painting is a kind of ink-wash painting style in which the artist applies strong, vibrant palettes. This kind of painting style flourished during the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties. However, the most renowned example of the style is A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains by Song Dynasty (960-1279) painter Wang Ximeng.

Chen Mingyong, a game developer at NetEase, says the team planned to create an "authentic ancient Chinese-style game" that was different from the homogenous mobile games on the market at the end of 2016. Based on the results of a market survey, the team decided to borrow elements from ancient painting style.

They decided that the not-for-profit game would be driven by its visual appeal. At that time, the team had not even settled on clear rules for the game.

Born into a farming family, Chen didn't have the chance to learn traditional painting when he was young, but his career surprisingly brought him into this profound field.