Almighty Video Game Designer #Chapter 21 - Read Almighty Video Game Designer Chapter 21 Online - All Page - Novel Next
Chapter 21: Chapter 20 – Memory Playback Potion
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
After a good night's rest, Chen Mo grabbed some breakfast and performed the usual brushing and washing while waiting for his mental peak. When he was at his most awake, he used the Memory Playback Potion and started looking through his forgotten memories.
His memory of the game was murky, as Plants vs Zombies was released a while ago. Chen Mo was diligent when going through his memory, as any of it could contain important details about the game, which could affect the quality of his clone.
The effects of the Potion settled in quickly, and Chen Mo returned to his memories from many years ago.
The first memories were the shapes of the plants: dragon-like peashooter[1, a certain-singer-whose-last-name-is-Gao-looking squash, the potato mine with the joystick on its head, the sunflower with the mysterious smile, the walnut with its eyes open like light bulbs...
After that were the various types of zombies: normal zombie, conehead zombie, pole-vaulting zombie, buckethead zombie, football zombie, dancing zombie...
There were also the different zones, such as the front lawn, night, pool, and so on.
As his memories cleared up, Chen Mo grabbed his drawing tablet and started making some sketches of the plants and zombies, paying particular attention to details and features in order to best recreate them.
Afterwards, Chen Mo started to recall the flow of the game.
When the game was started, the words that Crazy Dave said, from planting the first plants, beating the first zombie, to unlocking levels, unlocking new plants, beating the boss...
Chen Mo was making notes as he remembered, taking notes of everything noteworthy in detail for every level, such as the levels where plants were unlocked, and the levels where special modes were unlocked.
After that was the numbers.
The time between shots of a peashooter, the damage increase that torchwood provided, the movement speed reduction of the wintermelon, the health amounts of the various zombies...
These numbers might seem insignificant, but they could affect the entire structure of the game. As Chen Mo's coding abilities were limited, he could only resort to silly methods like this.
——
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Four hours passed in a blink of an eye.
Chen Mo let out a sign of relief, as the past four hours he had been extremely focused. As he relaxed, he could feel his body catching up.
However, it wasn't time to rest. He used whatever still remained in his memory to fill out numbers he might've missed, as he was afraid to miss out on any detail.
Memories of humans faded over time. The Memory Playback Potion could only guarantee free access to memories for four hours. Once it was over, the memories would slowly fade away.
——
After working two more hours, Chen Mo let out a deep breath, taking a sip of water while slouching in the chair.
The desktop had a design document filled with thousands of lines of the details for the game. There was also a sketches folder filled with everything: sketches of plants, zombies, scenes, even the layout of the UI.
The Memory Playback Potion was used by Chen Mo, right down to the last drop!
"Man, that was exhausting." Chen Mo wiped the sweat off his forehead. He was about to break after staying highly focused for six hours.
But why did he put himself in such a difficult place? Because there was only one Potion! If there were two bottles, he could've done it with ease, one today and one tomorrow. He wouldn't have to worry so much if he had eight whole hours to write down every single detail of the game.
But Chen Mo knew that he had to make money and pay bills!
——
Chen Mo walked around, ate some snacks and a few pieces of chocolate, made a cup of coffee, and took a small break before going back to work.
Next up was to refine the design document, finalize some of the design details, and put it into the design document. The details might seem excessive, but had a great effect on the experience of the game, so Chen Mo didn't overlook any of it.
——
Sorting through the documents took Chen Mo another week.
After a week, the design document of the game was basically finalized. The details were also refined. The rules, layout, and the design of the plants and zombies were all finished.
Chen Mo then entered the rules into the video game engine. It would then automatically generate a video game project, which Chen Mo could then modify.
Generating the project took one to three days time. The more rules there were, the more time it would take.
Chen Mo wanted to use this time to finalize all the calculations in the game.
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Some basic attributes of the plants included damage, health, range, attack frequency, attack area, ready time (activation time after being placed down), cooldown (after placing down the plant), cost, damage to the environment, and more.
Chen Mo wanted to list every attribute for every single plant and zombie, while constantly verifying it.
The numbers he had written down before were hugely helpful. The numbers between different plants and zombies could be cross-verified, making it much easier.
The number-crunching was completed in two days. As Chen Mo had huge lists of numbers in the details for reference, it wouldn't be too different from the original from his previous life.
Next up was to test and adjust!
——
During this time, the Illusion Game Engine had generated the project, which Chen Mo temporarily named PVZ. This was only a placeholder, a new and better name would have to be decided when the game was released.
Chen Mo checked out some of the rules and mechanics after opening up the project. There wasn't much to do other than patching up some errors in the ruleset and some logical errors.
Afterwards, Chen Mo entered the various numbers into the Game Engine, along with the various artwork of the plants and zombies. With that, a simple working demo was produced.
As of now, there wasn't a tutorial or any levels.
Chen Mo initialized a scene and planted some peashooters, with a normal zombie at the other end.
Pop, pop, pop...
Under the relentless attacks of the peashooter, the zombie fell.
The tempo was alright. Chen Mo proceeded to test out a couple other zombies and plants, which had no problem. Other than adjusting a few numbers that didn't feel quite right, everything else was OK.
Afterwards Chen Mo worked on the zones and level design.
Making the level flow was a highly technical part of level design. It needed to stimulate the player, not overwhelm the player.
Chen Mo had taken down a bunch of details on the layout of each level. The approximate numbers of zombies per level and when the plants were unlocked were all recorded, which made it a lot easier.
In five days time Chen Mo fully developed the different zones and the flow of the levels, along with the tutorial. It seemed the adventure mode of Plants vs Zombies had been successfully recreated by Chen Mo.
T/L Note: [1] raws used dragon mother, which could refer to daenerys, which would be a bit weird.
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Chapter 22: Chapter 21: Art and Music
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
After finishing adventure mode, Chen Mo dedicated himself to minigames, puzzle mode, survival mode, and other modes.
Everything else was fairly simple with the experience of adventure mode under his belt. Chen Mo didn't try as hard as he did before, as it was just manual labor, playtesting as he went. Within a week's time, he finished the other modes.
The Zen Garden, almanac, achievements, and shop were even simpler to implement, finishing in three days.
Chen Mo spent another three days playtesting. He completed adventure mode once, checked if there were any bugs in the other modes, and polished up some of the finer details.
So far Chen Mo had been working on it day and night. After spending a month, the core Plants vs Zombies had been successfully recreated.
In his previous life, Plants vs Zombies was made in three years by a team of one designer, one artist, one musician, and one programmer. This majority of their time was likely spent on revising the design document and optimizing the user experience in order to produce a highly refined game like this.
Chen Mo didn't need to code, or make too many adjustments to the numbers. He didn't have to look for inspiration or change designs. All he did was remake the original piece and it still had taken him an entire month. This demonstrated that video game development wasn't as easy as the majority of people thought.
However, it wasn't done yet!
Although the game was basically complete, the placeholder art from the game engine was still being used. The styles of the artwork clashed, and many of them weren't the right size. It looked like garbage, calling it an eyesore would be an understatement.
Moreover, the game did not have any music or sound effects, completely removing the tension from the game. The combat wasn't satisfying, either.
Chen Mo spent his time on improving the art and music to the levels of the original in his previous life.
Luckily Chen Mo had sketched down the plants and zombies and it was all saved on his computer, all that was left was to complete it. However, this was a more painful process, as Chen Mo had to hand draw and animate all of it.
About forty different types of plants and twenty different types of zombies, combined with the fact that every single one of them had their own subtle movements, added up to a substantial amount of work.
Luckily, the artwork of the plants and zombies were fairly simple, especially when many parts of the zombies could be reused, reducing the amount of work.
Although Chen Mo's art skills weren't high, he could manage. The art style was cartoonish, so the lines and colors of the characters were fairly simple.
Of course, Chen Mo could've hired someone, but then he'd be required to describe his specifications in detail. Moreover, the results might not be up to par with his expectations. After giving it some thought, Chen Mo decided to bite the bullet and take matters into his own hands.
On average Chen Mo completed one plant and one zombie per day. Combined with resources such as the interface and loading screen, finishing the artwork took almost a month and a half of Chen Mo's time.
——
Next up was sound effects and music!
Chen Mo's Sound Effects Stat was now ten after consuming the skill book. It was impossible for him to make something from scratch, but recreating the original was still in the realm of possibility.
The background music of Plants vs Zombies could be considered one of the classic BGMs. Chen Mo could clearly remember many of the melodies. Although he couldn't replicate them a hundred percent, he got fairly close. However, he didn't quite remember the BGMs that weren't super popular.
The tutorial track, preparation screen, front lawn, night, boss theme, zen garden... these were a few of the classics that Chen Mo could remember. Based on their melodies from his previous life, Chen Mo composed a few simple yet similar sounding BGM tunes.
As for the other less important BGMs, all he could do was to find some free resources for casual games off the game engine to take their place. The ones Chen Mo found were quite thematically similar, so he hadn't made any significant changes.
As for sound effects, Chen Mo had to resort to the free resources of the game engine. As the sound effects library of the game engine was vast, Chen Mo managed to find similar sound effects, though he had to suppress his OCD for the slight differences...
——
Music and sound effects took Chen Mo another two weeks time, and he was fairly happy with it.
After playtesting for a week and adjusting anything that didn't feel right to him, he felt that the game was finally out of its development stage, after taking three months altogether.
Chen Mo packaged his game into a 127 MB installer. Although it was slightly bigger than the original, Chen Mo didn't care, as this size was considered quite small in the parallel world.
Chen Mo had prepared two standalone installers for this game, one for PC and one for mobile. The accounts were also crossplatform, and it had a simple leaderboard.
The last problem was how the players were going to log in.
Chen Mo didn't give it much thought, and chose to use accounts at his own company, ie. a Thunderbolt Game Pass.
Chen Mo did have other choices. He could also make users login via social media, or use Emperor Dynasty Entertainment accounts.
Emperor Dynasty Entertainment was one of the biggest video game platforms and developers, so most players had a Emperor Dynasty Entertainment account. Moreover, Emperor Dynasty Entertainment allowed other games to use their platform for logins. Many game designers couldn't be bothered to design such a thing, and used their player management system.
This option would make it much simpler for the players, attracting more users to his game.
Many players didn't want to bother going through a new registration and all the verifications associated with it, therefore requiring players to register might lose a portion of the potential player base.
However, Chen Mo stuck with his decision of using his Thunderbolt Game Pass, not bothered by the potential loss.
The reason was simple: be it social media accounts or using Emperor Dynasty's user management system, Chen Mo would be under the control of someone else. It didn't matter that the Emperor Dynasty wasn't taking a single cent, in Chen Mo's view it was still his loss.
The data of the players was a valuable resource. As Chen Mo planned to make many other games, he had to take on companies like these eventually. It was better not to start with them now, than to have to sever ties down the road!
After the game was finished, Chen Mo decided to wait on pushing the game into the market.
Chen Mo wasn't sure if the tastes of gamers in this world were the same as his previous one. If there were any differences, he would have to make changes to the game.
He first installed Plants vs Zombies onto the computers and tablets in his experience store to test the responses of the players, in order to decide on his promotional strategy.
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Chapter 23: Chapter 22: Cost of the Experience Store
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
Chen Mo received a call at the break of dawn from Lin Mao.
"Chen Mo, I'm releasing my game tomorrow. I named it Adventures of the Storm Rider. I've sent you a copy of it, go ahead and try it out. Also, how's your game going?"
Chen Mo replied, "Cool, I'll check it out! My game has been going pretty well, it's basically finished. I'll be testing it out in my experience store for feedback for the next two days."
Lin Mao replied, "Huh? Finished? It's only been three months! How did you complete it so quickly?"
Chen Mo replied, "Casual game. It wasn't big, either. I'll send you the installer in two days for you to test out."
Lin Mao replied, "Alright. Let's give each other opinions and improve together!"
——
Chen Mo installed the game had Lin Mao sent over on his phone.
Adventures of the Storm Rider. The installer was 94MB and had a little man raising his sword as the icon.
This game had been developed by Lin Mao for nearly half a year, taking another three months after getting Chen Mo's opinion. That included testing, micro-adjustments, and pre-release preparations.
Comparatively, Chen Mo's Plants vs Zombies was much faster. In the time Lin Mao took to make the adjustments, Chen Mo was able to finish an entire game!
——
Entering the game...
Chen Mo noticed that there were subtle changes made to the background, character, and playstyle compared to the previous version. The changes weren't obvious, so only someone like Chen Mo who paid attention to little details like this would realize.
It seemed that Lin Mao had put a lot of effort into the gaming experience.
On the other hand, Lin Mao had completely revamped the playstyle according to Chen Mo's suggestions.
First was the complete overhaul of the combat system, adding a lot of extra content while keeping the essence of the previous combat system. A noteworthy change was the addition of the new ability, Storm.
The main character was a knight who had the powers of the storm, able to utilize strong winds to slow down enemies and reduce their vision, or using heavy rain to slow down enemy attacks and afflict light status conditions. They could also summon a hurricane to blow away smaller, lighter enemies.
A few smaller storm attacks were permanent, but larger stronger attacks required energy to cast.
On the same note, there were now many more monsters which had different features. Different monsters might resist different storm attacks, while others were more effective.
For example, strong winds wouldn't do much to an armored monster in full plate armor, and hurricanes wouldn't be able to blow it away, either. However, rain could create muddy surfaces, drastically slowing its movement speed, even inflicting statuses such as sickness and rust, slowly reducing its attack.
Chen Mo admired the fact that the changes made to the combat weren't as he had described, but took inspiration from what he had said.
Moreover, the core of the combat system: storm could be directly inferred from the name title. Chen Mo thought this was quite smart.
The name Adventures of the Storm Rider let the audience immediately know what the game was about, but still left enough to the imagination for the audience to be curious about the contents, making the game very attractive.
Another, bigger change to the game was the complete overhaul of the story. First, there were now four different endings, depending on the choices the players made throughout the game.
Ending One: The knight defeats the dragon, saving the princess and becomes the hero, living a happily ever after life with the princess.
Ending Two: The knight fails to save the princess, perishing in anger alongside the dragon.
Ending Three: The knight defeats the dragon, but does not kill it, instead signing a contract with it. From then on, the dragon becomes the guardian of the Imperials.
Ending Four: The knight defeats the dragon, but in the face of the allure of treasures, becomes the new dragon.
The copy Chen Mo had included GM tools, allowing him to make changes to the attributes of the characters. In the end he spent three hours testing it, going over all four endings once.
If it was a normal playthrough, a run would take around six to eight hours, much more if the player wanted to go through all four endings.
Out of the three recommendations provided by Chen Mo, Lin Mao took two, not including the extreme difficulty. Chen Mo thought that it was the right choice, as the three weren't completely compatible.
Chen Mo thought that the game needed some luck to become the next big thing, but being mildly popular wasn't a problem.
——
Chen Mo sent a text to Lin Mao: I went over the game. Not bad! It's bound to be popular.
Lin Mao replied quickly: I'll take your blessings. I'm quite busy for the next two days with the release of the game. I'll come over to your experience store and try out your game once this is settled.
Chen Mo replied: Alright, I'll see you then.
After having lunch, Chen Mo took an hour-long nap. He woke up at 2 PM, ready to open the experience store.
But before he opened it, Chen Mo had some preparations to do.
First was checking if everything worked in the store, and if all the computers had the game installed.
Second was the price charged to use the experience store.
The price of the experience was completely up to the designer. Chen Mo could make it free and allow anyone to try out for free.
However, making it free had a flaw. What happened if the game was hugely popular?
If Chen Mo made a popular online game and many of the players were staying at the experience store for long periods of them, potentially hogging an entire PC, it would be problematic, as many of his fans wouldn't be able to try it out.
Go free for now, then raise the price? That wouldn't do, either.
The price of the experience store shouldn't be changed willy-nilly. Reducing it was fine, but increasing it might anger some long-time fans.
It was only an experience store, so there wasn't any pressure to make money. Chen Mo didn't want to control the number of players in the future by increasing the price, either.
Therefore he needed to charge a fee from day one, and it couldn't be a small amount, either.
Under circumstances where there are many players, he might even need to limit the play time per player.
In this world, the internet cafes in the Imperial Capital ranged from three to ten RMB an hour. Three RMB per hour was the minimum, and wasn't common.
Of course, there were higher class internet cafes for the local tycoons, but Chen Mo had the majority of the players in mind when he was considering it.
In the end, Chen Mo decided to make it five RMB per hour, as the experience store was better than the average internet cafe, and much more spacious than normal.
The price was definitely on the expensive end for now, but Chen Mo wanted to maintain it at this price in the future. As he made more and more games, the price would seem more and more affordable.
The drinks in the experience store were according to the recommended retail prices, not charging any extra. Chen Mo didn't care about small profits like that, either.
The price only applied while they were playing games. If the experience store was full, he would enforce a four-hour limit for each player, requiring them to requeue after four hours.
The experience store would be open from 10 AM to 8 PM, no overnights or hogging a PC if you're not playing.
After preparations were complete, Chen Mo's experience store was officially open for business at 2:30 PM!
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Chapter 24: Chapter 23: The Day Without Customers
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
Chen Mo sat at the bar on the first floor in order to be able to see any potential players passing by.
He also moved his laptop to the bar table. While waiting for customers, he would play Plants vs Zombies and see if there was anything that needed to be changed.
Chen Mo had spent over three months on this, from August all the way into December. It was now entering winter.
As it turned colder, the pedestrians outside had put on long pants and jackets. Today, however, it was quite nice, as there wasn't much wind, so the weather was fine for going outside.
—
After playtesting for an hour and not finding anything, Chen Mo stood up and walked around the second floor.
It was quite frustrating, as nobody had come yet.
Chen Mo opened a can of Coke and went back to the bar table.
It was at this moment that he remembered the free period for Flappybird had finally ended. He could now push it onto the market.
Chen Mo wanted to release Flappybird and Plants vs Zombies at the same time, using the ad space on Flappybird to promote Plants vs Zombies.
In truth, Flappybird was most popular in the first few months it was released. As three months had already passed, many of the players that might be interested in it had already played it. As players wouldn't be always playing it, the hype surrounding it had slowly died down. Flappybird wouldn't be able to make much money anymore if it were released now.
It was hard to say how much money Chen Mo missed out on as the competition officials were in possession of all the stats during the free period, so Chen Mo didn't know how many ads had been shown either.
"Whatever, it was for exposure."
Even though it felt like he missed out on billions, Chen Mo was alright with it. There were plenty more opportunities to make money coming, so he wasn't in a hurry.
It was at this moment that a young woman stood in front of his store and looked around inside.
The woman was dressed quite casually in a light jacket and jeans. She looked like she was around twenty-six, slightly older than Chen Mo. She looked quite pretty and had a ponytail, giving away a clean, genderless[1] vibe.
Chen Mo greeted her, "Hello."
The woman stood at the door and looked at the signs outside, then at the decor within the store and asked, "Are you a videogame designer? Is this a video game experience store?
Chen Mo nodded, "Yes."
The woman patted herself on the chest as a sign of relief. "Oh, thank the heavens. I thought this was a new internet cafe, I was worried for so long."
Chen Mo was "?"
The woman walked into the store explaining, "Oh, I'm the owner of the Fates Internet Cafe around the corner, coming over to check out my competitors."
-Damn, she isn't a player, but a competitor!-
Chen Mo was speechless. As a woman owner of an internet cafe, she wasn't here to experience games. She was just here to see if it was an experience store or internet cafe, and if he would be taking away her business.
The woman laughed awkwardly, "Sorry. Since it's an experience store and not an internet cafe, it's fine now. From now onwards we are now neighbours, let's visit one another once in a while."
Although internet cafes and experience stores performed similar functions, they weren't direct competitors. In experience stores, players can only play games developed by the designer, in particular having early access to them.
Designers usually wouldn't install other games on their devices, and didn't allow players to play other games in their store, either.
Chen Mo nodded, "It's alright, you can come here anytime. I probably won't be having too many customers."
"Cool." This woman quickly made herself at home, sitting on the sofa and helped herself to a can of Coke as if it was her home."
Chen Mo said, "Uhh... the drinks aren't free..."
The woman put the can back where it was, "Sorry, I'm a little too used to this back in my store. Heh heh."
After judging the size of the main space, the woman said, "Your experience store is quite spacious, and only so few machines? Seems like a waste."
Chen Mo said, "Yup, the experience store is meant for players to experience my games and not for profit, so I chose to make it a bit more spacious."
The woman said, "Not bad, I'm quite jealous of you high-end designers. Oh, right. I haven't introduced myself. I'm Zhuo Yao."
Chen Mo said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Chen Mo. I have a game that hasn't been released yet, you wanna try it out?"
Zhuo Yao waved her hand and said, "Nah, I still have stuff to do back at the internet cafe. I just came out because I had a few minutes. I'll play the next time I'm over."
Chen Mo nodded, "Sure, anytime."
As Zhuo Yao stood up and was ready to leave, she thought of something and asked, "How much do you charge an hour?"
Chen Mo said, "Five RMB."
Zhuo Yao was a bit surprised, "Isn't that a bit overpriced? I only charge four RMB in the main area of my internet cafe. This is a new experience store, so you have like what, two or three games?"
Chen Mo said, "Only one for now."
Zhuo Yao said as a reminder, "I think you should move down the price, maybe even make it free. It's an experience store. You don't have to worry about making money. This price is a bit... unfriendly."
Chen Mo smiled, "Alright, I'll consider it."
Zhuo Yao nodded, "Alright, I'll be going then. I'll come over some other time. Keep going at it and make a game that's gonna go viral, that way I'll be able to benefit from your success."
Chen Mo smiled, "Alright!"
——
After sending Zhuo Yao away, Chen Mo's experience store went back to being silent.
Chen Mo didn't feel the rush. Experience stores like these needed to be built over time. Moreover, Chen Mo hadn't done any promotions, it wasn't a surprise that there wasn't anyone.
In terms of location of the experience store, it wasn't good or bad. Although it was a bit off the beaten track, there was a small town nearby and a bit further away was a university, so the amount of people going by was a decent amount.
——
After waiting for another half an hour, the second customer showed themselves.
This guy had greasy hair, tired eyes and seemed like he hadn't had enough sleep. It was obvious that he was an internet addicted teenager.
As he walked in front of the store and saw Thunderbolt Gaming Experience Store, he muttered, "Thunderbolt Gaming, never heard of it."
He then walked into the store and looked around, asking Chen Mo, "Hey, is this an experience store? Not an internet cafe?"
Chen Mo nodded, "Yep, not an internet cafe."
"Oh." This internet addicted teenager was noticeably disappointed, as he was obviously looking for an internet cafe. Although he could play games inside the experience store, it was only the games from that particular company, so his choices would be limited.
Moreover, he had never heard of this company.
After some hesitation, the teenager muttered, "Whatever, the internet cafe was quite full anyways. May as well try this one out to kill some time."
He walked into the store and fished out his ID and mobile phone, "How much do you charge for an hour?"
Chen Mo replied, "Five bucks!"
The teenager was stunned, "Huh? Five bucks? Ugh... whatever." The teenager decided to leave.
"..." Chen Mo was speechless. This guy didn't even give it any thought! Five bucks an hour wasn't much, right? Turning around and leaving immediately, though?
-Five bucks! What can you even do with five bucks nowadays? Maybe two popsicles?
-It's not even enough to top-up in game, that's like six bucks!...-
With no other choice, all Chen Mo could do was to continue waiting.
T/L Note: [1] Genderless as in not tomboy or ladylike, usually used in a good connotation
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Chapter 25: Chapter 24: The First Player
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
The next day, 10 AM...
Chen Mo was awake and had already had breakfast. He was waiting inside the experience store.
Yesterday, for the entire afternoon through 8 PM when the doors closed, there wasn't a single gamer. All the visitors were here for the internet cafe. After realizing it was an experience store that cost five bucks an hour, not a one of them stayed.
Of course, one of the reasons nobody wanted to join was because the store was empty.
Chen Mo wondered if his life was supposed to be so difficult.
-My game is about to shock the entire gaming industry. Even though I allow you guys to spend five bucks to play it before it's released, you're still not satisfied?-
Chen Mo wasn't going to give in, so he opened the store on time on the second day.
He even prepared a cup, waiting for his first customer to serve them a cup of coffee. However, the thought of not having enough players come in for an entire week had slowly crept into his mind.
If he didn't gather enough thoughts from players and couldn't gather enough feedback, all he could do was to test it on the market and change as he went.
Relatively speaking, Chen Mo preferred talking to the players face to face.
As Chen Mo was deep in thought, a tall woman walked into the store.
Long black hair, about a hundred and seventy-two centimeters, and still wearing heels. Luckily Chen Mo was still in his seat, otherwise he'd feel some pressure from her towering over him.
The woman did look alright, but she had a strong aura surrounding her, keeping everything within five meters at bay. Even a fly that wandered into the exclusion zone would be killed.
Basically, if you gave her a katana, she would be entirely capable of cosplaying Saeko from High School of the Dead.
The woman checked out the store before setting her eyes on Chen Mo.
Chen Mo felt shivers go down his spine and greeted her with, "Hello!"
The woman asked, "Is this an experience store? Just opened?"
Chen Mo nodded, "Yep, since yesterday."
The woman looked at the empty seats and said, "Completely empty, has nobody been in here?"
Chen Mo didn't have anything to say.
-Doesn't she understand to not kick people when they're down? You can tell just by looking that the store is empty. You think by asking the store will be magically filled with people?-
-And I so want to say 'No, there's bunches, you just can't see them'.-
Noticing that Chen Mo didn't answer, the brunette asked another question, "Is it because the price is too high? Too few games?"
Chen Mo answered, "Five bucks an hour."
The woman nodded, "Of course, you charge more than the internet cafe, no wonder it's empty."
Chen Mo said nothing.
Changing the topic, the woman said, "However, the environment is quite nice here, unlike the internet cafes with terrible atmospheres. Alright, I wanted to chill out for a bit anyways, I'll play for an hour."
After finishing her sentence, the woman swiped her ID on the bar table, then paid using her phone, and sat down at a computer.
Internet cafes in this world were basically self-service. All you had to do was swipe your ID, and payments were completed by scanning a QR code using your phone.
Chen Mo finally came back to his senses after the woman sat down at a machine.
-What? That's how I get my first customer? Wasn't that a bit sudden?-
Trying to contain his happiness, he prepared a cup of coffee using the cup from before and placed it on the desk she was using.
"What's this?" the woman asked.
Chen Mo replied, "As you are the first customer, a complimentary coffee!"
The woman scowled and teased him, "Tut tut, opened since yesterday, but only received your first customer today. Sir, you sure are miserable. Sigh..."
Chen Mo, "... I'll be taking this away."
The woman said in a happy tone, "Just leave it. Why are you so narrow-minded, despite the good looks?"
Chen Mo laughed sarcastically as he returned to the bar and looked at the notification of the woman's identity.
Wen Lingwei, 21 years old.
-At this age, probably a uni student at the nearby university, probably second or third year.-
-She has such a nice gentle name, why is she so mean? Probably because people around her have gotten accustomed to her antics because of her good looks.-
As Chen Mo's impression of her wasn't too good after she was so mean, he decided to not pay her any attention and went back to work.
However, at least he had his first player, so he was still quite happy.
——
Wen Lingwei turned on the computer which only had one game on it. The icon was quite interesting, a filthy hand coming out of the ground holding a flower.
"Plants vs Zombies?"
Wen Lingwei felt the game had vibes of Guan Gong vs Qin Qiong[1] which didn't feel quite right. However, this game made her curious; how did plants fight against zombies?
She double clicked the icon, starting the game.
The logo of Thunderbolt Games flashed across the screen.
Soon, a loading screen was up on her monitor. There was a path in the middle of the screen. To the left were many zombies breaking through the fence, and on the right were plants waiting for the evil forces.
The entire image was quite cartoony. Although the zombies were very ugly, they weren't disgusting. In contrast, the plants were quite pleasant and had human-like features, a mysterious focal point.
"Hey, feels alright!" Wen Lingwei was surprised. She thought that a newly opened experience store with a nobody designer couldn't make anything worthwhile, but she had been captured as soon as she entered the game.
The art and UI were filled with elements related to zombies, and the style of the UI had a strong resemblance to tombstones. However, the tombstones didn't seem out of place, but matched the trees and houses in the background quite well.
A popup appeared, asking Wen Lingwei to register a Thunderbolt Gaming game pass.
Wen Lingwei scowled at the extra effort, but continued with the registration, skipping her mobile phone and ID number.
After registration, Wen Lingwei clicked on the uppermost Begin Adventure button, entering adventure mode.
A hand poked out of the ground in front of the tombstone all of a sudden, and coupled with a low creepy laugh, gave Wen Lingwei a shock.
"... that was evil," she muttered before entering the game.
The whole screen was occupied by a large piece of land that resembled the backyard of a house. A strip of grass was rolled out right in the middle of it, taking up around a fifth of the space.
The tutorial was very simple. An arrow appeared on the screen, hinting for her to click on the tile on the top bar. The tile had a green plant on it, nicknamed Peashooter.
Wen Lingwei clicked on the Peashooter and planted it on the lawn according to the hints.
At this point, a small sun drifted down from the top of the screen. Following the hints, she clicked on it, receiving twenty-five suns.
As Wen Lingwei planted the second Peashooter, the zombies appeared. With a growl, the zombie limped slowly towards the Peashooters.
T/L Note[1] Guan Gong and Qin Qiong were generals born two hundred years apart, used to describe someone in command who blindly makes decisions.
Also, 'bucks' is the slang term for bills of paper money in the Orient. So, five bucks in China is 5 RMB/yuan, but would mean 5 ringgit in Malaysia.
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Chapter 26: Chapter 25: Unable to Stop Themselves from Killing Zombies
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
The zombies moved very slowly, and the cartoony zombies weren't scary either, but Wen Lingwei felt quite tense. As the zombies slowly waddled towards the Peashooters, she couldn't help but feel a little nervous for them.
The Peashooters started shooting out peas. The popping of the peas on the body of the zombie filled her ears.
Soon after, the hand of the zombie fell off, and soon after that, the head fell off. The headless zombie fell to the ground, dead.
Wen Lingwei now managed to relax a bit, thinking, "Is that all? That was easy. Just a casual game after all, not all that difficult.
"However, this combination is quite interesting. How did you connect plants with zombies? And it manages to be oddly satisfying."
Soon thereafter, Wen Lingwei cleared the first level and unlocked a new tile: Sunflower, and moved onto the next level.
As long as the players actually tried, the first few levels weren't difficult at all. Following the guide, Wen Lingwei progressed through the game, constantly unlocking new plants.
Sunflower, Cherry Bomb, Wallnut; the plants unlocked themselves one after another.
The combat abilities matched their features quite well, easily making deep impressions.
The plants, zombies, and even the weird neighbor Crazy Dave worked wonderfully with one another, making the game seem very complete, with nothing out of place.
Wen Lingwei felt that although it was a casual game, a lot of effort has been put into it, and slowly immersed herself in the game because of how interesting it was.
She couldn't stop herself as she progressed through adventure mode.
After some time had passed, a pop up showed up in the bottom right corner, hinting that she had five minutes left on the hour.
Wen Lingwei was shocked. So soon? She felt that she had only beaten a few levels. How did the time go by so quickly?
She didn't give it too much thought as she was having fun, she couldn't leave it go at this.
Wen Lingwei scanned the QR code and paid another ten bucks for another two hours of playtime.
Surely two hours was enough to beat a casual game?
——
Noon...
Wen Lingwei took a sip of coffee and was ready to continue battling.
At this point of the game, she started facing some difficulties. Many plants crucial to beating the level were restricted, putting her out of her comfort zone.
Moreover, more and more zombies had appeared, such as the Pole Vaulting Zombie, Dancing Zombie, Newspaper Zombie, Screen Door Zombie, and so on. All of them required different plants to beat.
When Wen Lingwei faced the Zombies for the first time she had to start over because she wasn't familiar with the abilities of the Zombies.
However, these little obstacles didn't stop her. Instead it made this little game a lot more interesting and stimulating. Games like this that required critical thinking made her quite excited.
Unbeknownst to her, it was now noon.
Wen Lingwei subconsciously looked at her phone and was shocked to find out that it was now twelve-something.
Taking a look around, Chen Mo was still at the bar, completely absorbed by his laptop screen deep in thought.
Wen Lingwei raised her hand and said, "Excuse me."
Chen Mo put his head up, "What's up? Is there a problem with the game?"
Wen Lingwei said, "No, I was just wondering if you provided lunch?"
Chen Mo shook his head, "No, but there's a restaurant and a fast food outlet across the street. You could probably order some food delivery."
Wen Lingwei blinked her large eyes, "What are you having for lunch? How about you go buy something and buy me something too?"
The corner of Chen Mo's mouth twitched. What is the meaning of this? Ordering me around? Do I need to put up a sign saying to not order the owner around?
"This experience store doesn't provide a meal delivery service. Moreover, you can't eat inside the store. If you want to eat you have to go to the meeting room," said Chen Mo.
Wen Lingwei asked, "Where do you usually eat?"
Chen Mo said, "I usually eat on the second floor."
Wen Lingwei said, "Then I'll eat on the second floor, too."
Chen Mo was speechless. "The second floor is my personal space, no outsiders allowed."
Wen Lingwei pursed her lips and said, "Stingy!"
Chen Mo, "..."
Wen Lingwei said, "Alright then, could you get me something from the fast food outlet? I'll eat in the meeting room. I'll pay you after."
Chen Mo said, "Can't you order it yourself?"
Wen Lingwei said, "Sheesh, can't you see I'm busy? Hurry up, I'm starving!"
Finishing her sentence, Wen Lingwei returned her eyes onto the screen, continuing her battle.
-Nice, someone raised a internet addicted daughter...-
Chen Mo didn't think Wen Lingwei would be addicted to it so quickly, even disregarding eating. As he was hungry anyways, he ordered two meals from the fast food restaurant.
Chen Mo got up from the bar and moved around to get his blood flowing again, and checked on which level Wen Lingwei had gotten to.
The screen was dark, it seemed like she had reached the night level on the second stage. The stronger Football Zombie now appeared as one of her potential opponents. It was obvious that Wen Lingwei had failed this level once and had made suitable preparations. As the Football Zombie appeared, she put down a bunch of plants in that lane, attempting to beat it with more firepower.
In the end, the Football Zombie was defeated, but the other lanes didn't have enough firepower and were overrun by zombies, resulting in a game over.
"Ah! Damn it!" Wen Lingwei took a sip of coffee and restarted the level.
Chen Mo couldn't help but laugh, as this was quite normal. As there were only so many suns to collect in each level, if you spent too many resources going face to face with the football zombie, the defences of the other lanes wouldn't be good enough.
In reality the best way to beat the Football Zombie was the Doom Shroom, though Chen Mo didn't plan to hint that to Wen Lingwei, as spoilers affected the gaming experience. It wasn't because her mean words were still on Chen Mo's mind.
Seeing Wen Lingwei completely immersed allowed Chen Mo to relax a bit. It seemed that classics in this world still remained classics, and good games would always age well, so he wasn't too out of his element as a videogame designer.
Based on the current contents in the game, an experienced player would take about five hours to go through it once; going through it twice would total about eight hours.
If you included the other minigames and if you were extremely talented and borderline crazy, you could probably beat it in two days in one sitting.
Of course, you could play the endless mode for the rest of your life.
However, new players wouldn't be able to cruise through all the levels easily, like the more experienced players, as there was an experimental and learning phase.
Moreover, casual games didn't require big health sacrifices, like playing throughout the night. Playing two hours a day, including time for experimenting ,would result in about a month of playing.
Even if you beat all the levels, there was still endless mode to compete with your friends. It was basically an endless rabbit hole.
Therefore, Wen Lingwei thinking that she could beat the game in two hours could be described by Chen Mo in one word: naive!
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Chapter 27: Chapter 26: What Game is that Entertaining?
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
The food arrived half an hour later.
"The food's here. I'll be eating then," Chen Mo called out.
Wen Lingwei waved him away with a shooing motion. "Go ahead, I'll beat this level soon."
Chen Mo brought the food into the meeting room and checked out the newly published games on the market on his phone as he ate.
The official market was different from the other, smaller channels. The smaller channels allowed promotional spaces that were available for purchase. In contrast, the official market didn't accept any payments that could affect the ordering of the games. The ordering of the games relied on proper statistics such as release date and sales, making it very difficult to inflate the numbers to artificially improve your position.
Chen Mo wanted to see if Emperor Dynasty Entertainment and Zen Entertainment had released any games recently. As these companies were massive and had huge user bases, whenever they released a game, they would be at the top of the leaderboards, because they captured the attention of many gamers.
Although Chen Mo was confident in the quality of Plants vs Zombies, he wasn't going to go head to head with the two companies for now.
Luckily, the games on the newly published list were from smaller companies. Chen Mo downloaded a few of them and tried them out. He concluded that the best of them were similar to Adventures of the Storm Rider and were likely not competition for Plants vs Zombies.
—
As Chen Mo continued eating, Wen Lingwei slammed the door to the meeting room open and finished the burger in a few bites. It was like strong winds meeting clouds, gone in a flash.
Afterwards she hastily finished her fries before finally shaking her Coke at Chen Mo, "Surely I can drink at my seat?"
Chen Mo, "...That's fine."
Wen Lingwei left the meeting room with the Coke in her hand, five minutes after she came in.
Chen Mo was only halfway through his burger.
"Are you really that into it? I'm starting to wonder if I hired you for publicity[1]..."
——
After Chen Mo finished his meal, he cleaned out the meeting room table, then took the trash out.
There was still only him and Wen Lingwei in the experience store. Chen Mo sat at the bar trying to figure out the release date of the game. Wen Lingwei was immersed in her own battle, the room had only the sound of clicking.
——
Three hours later...
Chen Mo stood up and walked around the store. What surprised him was that Wen Lingwei was still totally focused on the game. Moreover she was almost through the third stage, meaning she was more than halfway through the first playthrough.
-That's pretty fast.-
It was evident that Wen Lingwei was pretty fast, given that she was a new player and managed to figure the game out. At this point, finishing the game was only a matter of time.
At this point, Wen Lingwei's phone rang.
Wen Lingwei reluctantly picked up the phone after it rang a few more times.
"Hello?" Wen Lingwei picked up the phone with an unfocused tone, as her attention was still entirely on the screen, staring at the few Ducky Tube Zombies that required her attention.
The speaker on the phone was a guy, "Senior, where are you? We have been waiting here for five minutes."
Wen Lingwei was shocked, "Waiting for five minutes? What for?"
The man on the phone said, "The regular meeting for the Publicity Department, today at 4 PM. It was you who decided the time."
Wen Lingwei slapped her forehead after giving it some thought, "Oh, right! Was it this afternoon? Is it 4 PM already?"
"..."
Wen Lingwei asked, "Are you guys all in the meeting room?"
The guy on the phone said, "Yep, everyone's here, just waiting for you to start the meeting."
Wen Lingwei looked at the screen sadly. Although she could save the game, she really didn't want to leave at this moment.
Wen Lingwei replied after a pause, "How about you guys come to me for the meeting? There's a sofa and a meeting room, and drinks too. After we finish with the meeting, we could grab some food too. How's that sound?"
The guy on the phone replied, "Huh? Alright then, since you're the head of department. Where are you?"
Wen Lingwei said, "I'm in the small town near school. You guys know Fates Internet Cafe? No, not there, but at the new experience store across the street. Right, just come directly here."
After describing the location of the experience store in detail, she hung up and continued with her game.
After ten or so minutes, a group of people arrived in front of the experience store.
There were four men and six women, totaling ten people. It seemed like they were all university students from the nearby university.
The leader of the group was a skinny, tanned man. After looking around at the doors of the experience store he said, "Yep, should be this one."
A few cutely dressed girls that weren't even 160cm tall walked into the store and proclaimed in dainty voices, "Senior, we're here!"
Wen Lingwei looked at them and said, "Oh, you're here! Jia Peng, Chang Xiuya, you guys enter the meeting room first, I'll be right there."
The skinny, tanned Jia Peng commented as he walked up behind her, "Senior, please don't tell me that the reason you didn't show up was because you were too busy playing video games..."
Wen Lingwei scowled and replied, "What? Do you have something to say?!"
Jia Peng hurriedly shook his head, "No, not at all!"
The others, including the cute girl Chang Xiuya, were trying hard to hold back their laughter, and obediently entered the meeting room.
Chen Mo didn't care, as the experience store was open to the public. Even if the others weren't here for the game, they were free to come in and sit.
Wen Lingwei paused the game and entered the meeting room, sitting down in the middle.
"Alright, let's start," Wen Lingwei said, looking at Jia Peng and Chang Xiuya.
Although the atmosphere was a bit odd, the participants slowly grew accustomed to it under the presence of Wen Lingwei.
Jia Peng opened his notebook and stated, "For today's regular meeting, I have three things i wanted to talk about. First was the poster for next week..."
Jia Peng and Chang Xiuya were the deupties of the department, so many of the jobs were handled by them. As for Wen Lingwei, although she was the head, she only had to make the decisions. All she normally had to do during the regular meeting was to sit around and listen.
Jia Peng and Chang Xiuya said a few things which were quickly assigned to different people, leaving a few decisions that needed to be made for Wen Lingwei. The meeting finished after half an hour.
Wen Lingwei stood up and said, "Alright, is that all? If that's all I'll be going."
Wen Lingwei left the meeting room and went back to her seat to continue playing.
Jia Peng and the bunch came out of the meeting room and stood behind Wen Lingwei curiously.
"Senior, what is this game? Why are you so into it?" Jia Peng asked curiously.
Wen Lingwei was the head of the department, so in the eyes of her juniors, she had a halo on her head. The younger ones among them were especially infatuated, basically viewing her as their end goal.
However, their beloved senior was now completely into the game. How great could this game be?
T/L Note: The raws used a word that described hiring a bunch of people to create hype around a certain topic. Say you opened a store; you'd invite a bunch of people there to make your store seem really popular, attracting the attention of passersby.
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Chapter 28: Chapter 27: Let's play together
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
"Plants vs Zombies." Wen Lingwei replied without even turning around, completely focused on the screen.
"Plants vs... Zombies? Jia Peng thought that the name was direct. Plants on the left, zombies on the right, hence Plants vs Zombies.
Chang Xiuya looked at the plants on the screen and said, "Huh? This mushroom looks so cute, and so does the walnut. Seems pretty cool!"
"Be careful, there's a zombie munching away at your walnut!" a woman reminded her.
Wen Lingwei wasn't panicking at all, as she had already gathered plenty of experience. She easily had small problems like this under control. After saving up enough suns, she let go of a Cherry Bomb in the middle of the hordes of zombies. Following a "Boom!", the zombies in the area turned into ashes.
Cheng Xiuya let out a wow, "You're good at this!"
Wen Lingwei wasn't affected by the flattering, "Basic moves. Relax, contain yourself."
However, even if it didn't show on her face, she was quite happy.
Although the game might seem simple, the middle to later stages of the game did have some difficulties, and more often than not would cause her to panic slightly.
However as Wen Lingwei gathered more and more experience under her belt, normal emergencies weren't a problem at all.
Chang Xiuya said, "Senior, this game looks pretty fun. I wanna play too!"
Wen Lingwei said, "Sure you can, just turn on a computer, it's preinstalled on it."
Chang Xiuya looked at the people behind her and said, "I wanna play, do you guys want to join?"
Jia Peng saidm "I want to try it out, the game seems quite interesting."
The others also joined in, "Let's play together, seeing we're here already."
The ten of them went to the counter, swiped their IDs and sat down at computers. Chen Mo had a total of eighteen computers on the first floor, and out of nowhere, eleven of them were now occupied. The first floor was now quite lively.
Jia Peng, Chang Xiuya, and the others entered the game and started registering for their accounts.
"Huh? It looks like you can add friends in this game. I thought this was a single player game?"
"Yeah, what's the point of adding friends?"
"Maybe it's because there's a multiplayer aspect coming, but it only has a simple leaderboard for now. Come, let's add each other as friends and see who beats the game faster."
"Wow, Senior Wen is already up to level three! Worthy of being the vice-deputy!"
Plants vs Zombies had always been a game suited for all ages and genders. Although it had a cartoony artstyle, it managed to appeal to all ages.
The reason everyone here was playing the game was because Plants vs Zombies was actually a fun game, and was something new and different. Another reason was that Wen Lingwei was playing it, leading the others to follow suit.
When a majority of people in a small group did something, individuals would also join in in order to not feel left out.
This was also the effect of herd mentality. Even if some within the group didn't have a good first impression of Plants vs Zombies, they'd still try it out.
Soon, the others were also addicted to the game.
Jia Peng had the most gaming talent and progressed the quickest, not getting stuck on the earlier levels at all as he steamrolled through them. Chang Xiuya, on the other hand, was a bit more clumsy, but she was playing quite seriously. Whenever she got stuck on something she'd get Jia Peng's advice, and was quite happy playing the game.
The others were in a similar position, completely enchanted by the new playstyle of Plants vs Zombies. One level after another, none of them wanted to stop.
At this point, Chen Mo made up his mind.
Although the sample size of ten wasn't big, there were both men and women with different personalities. Every one of them were quite into the game. It was evident that there was a huge potential within the younger generation.
That was the best news Chen Mo could receive.
For games, the best group of consumers to fight for were young adults, as they were the main consumers of games. This group had the most spare time, were the most active, and were pretty easy going with their money. If a game was popular among young adults, without a doubt it would spread to people of different ages.
In contrast, if it doesn't capture the attention of the young adults and was only popular in a specific age group, it was very unlikely that a game would succeed.
Moreover, this group was still quite focused after playing for an hour or two without raising any questions or opinions, meaning that Chen Mo's level design and numbers were just right, basically replicating the original Plants vs Zombies.
The level design and numbers were points that had always worried Chen Mo, but he could finally relax after seeing this. The difficulty was on point, and the balancing on plants and zombies were well done, too.
——
5:30 PM...
After beating another level, Jia Peng looked at his watch, only to realize that it was already 5:30. He looked around to find out that nobody intended to leave, including Wen Lingwei, who was still fighting hard.
"Senior. It's now five-thirty, what are we having for dinner?" asked Jia Peng.
The others raised her heads and looked at Wen Lingwei.
Wen Lingwei blinked dumbfoundedly and said, "How about... food delivery?"
Jia Peng didn't know to laugh or to cry, saying, "Senior, you said to meet up for dinner?"
Wen Lingwei was staring at a screen with a struggling expression, as this level was slightly harder. She had tried the level three times now, and still hadn't managed to beat it. She was also getting tired from playing the whole day, and wanted to take a break.
Moreover, after gathering the whole publicity department, surely they couldn't just get some food delivered. No matter what, they should still go to a restaurant.
"Alright, those who haven't finished have ten more minutes. Don't start another level once you're done. Let's go out for dinner in a bit," said Wen Lingwei.
"Ok!" everyone agreed.
The majority of the people here were still slightly worried. It would've been bad if Wen Lingwei decided on ordering food. Gathering the entire publicity department just to eat takeout at a video game experience store? If anyone outside of the group knew, they would be made fun of until they graduated.
One after the other, the students who beat their last level quit the game and started chatting about their experiences from the game.
"I think the Torchwood is quite good, the damage increase is quite noticeable. A Torchwood with a few Peashooters behind, that's tons of damage!"
"However the Torchwood only boosts Peashooters, which aren't a good choice at the later stages of the game. That strategy is too simple."
"I found the night level so difficult, especially the tombstones. They're so annoying, not to mention that they take up space too."
"That's how you make it interesting! If there wasn't some difficulty, there wouldn't be a challenge."
"Right? This game is quite scary; once you start, you can't stop."
The students that were on the leaderboards became the focus of the group, sharing their experiences as they chatted while looking through the leaderboards.
Chen Mo reminded them nicely, "If you haven't had enough of the game, there's an installer for your phone on the computers, you can continue playing it on your phone."
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Chapter 29: Chapter 28: The Statistics for Adventures of the Storm Rider
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
"Huh?" Jia Peng was shocked. "This game is on two platforms?"
Another fellow asked, "You can play it on your phone too? What about the save file? Does it carry over?"
Chen Mo replied, "The saves do carry over, yes. You can play on your phone using the save file from your computer."
"What? How come you didn't mention this earlier?" Jia Peng hurriedly took out his phone and connected it to the computer and installed Plants vs Zombies onto his phone.
As the resources package wasn't big, the installation finished in a few moments. Jia Peng launched the app on his phone and logged in using his Thunderbolt Gaming game pass. Indeed, his progress on the computer was transferred over to his phone!
"It really is cross-platformed!" said Jia Peng.
Chang Xiuya took a look at his phone, "Huh, it really is. It feels like the textures look better than on a PC."
Jia Peng said, "No, it's the same. It's just that the phone screen is smaller, so it looks more detailed. However, the controls do manage to suit both mobile and PC, even the UI is the same. I thought that the buttons on the PC version were a bit big, it turns out it was to make them suitable for mobile, too."
The others took out their phones and installed Plants vs Zombies, one after another.
Chen Mo hadn't released the game onto the market yet, so these people were performing the roles of lab rats. He planned to release it when it felt that his game was ready after gathering some information.
"Alright, since we are done playing, let's leave," Wen Lingwei said with a hint of sourness. She wasn't prepared to leave the game behind, but she led the others out of the store.
"Sir, we'll be leaving now," Wen Lingwei said, waving at Chen Mo.
Chen Mo nodded in response, "If you have any problems with the game, do let me know. I will take your opinions into consideration.
—
Wen Lingwei and the others had now left the experience store.
"Are you guys coming tomorrow?"
"We have it on our phones now. Isn't it the same?"
"But I feel that the atmosphere is better playing in the experience store on the computer."
The bunch left while discussing things.
——
Chen Mo ordered dinner then launched his backend management system to check out the statistics of the players.
During the designing phase, Chen Mo had included some data points that the game would log in order to harvest some player-related statistics.
For example, which levels were players stuck at for the longest, and had the most failures? How long did it take each player to go through each level? The usage rate of each plant? What kind of zombies would breach the defenses of the players? Which zombies dealt the most damage to plants?
The players wouldn't bat an eye at statistics like this, but they were quite important to Chen Mo.
The emotions of the players would often be delayed, or they'd feel that something wasn't quite right, but didn't know where that feeling came from.
But from the point of view of the designer, being able to find the source of frustration for players and adjusting things accordingly was essential. With everything that the players felt as a table, it was easier to adjust the game to its highest potential.
When dealing with some out-of-place statistics, Chen Mo would make slight changes to the attributes of plants or zombies, or make changes to the level, slightly reducing its difficulty. Similarly, after a few easy levels, he'd introduce a more difficult level to introduce some setbacks.
After making the changes, Chen Mo could push the changes onto the new installer. Changes like this would be a common occurance until Chen Mo felt that things were perfect.
——
Three days later...
Lin Mao took a taxi to Chen Mo's experience store. When he was about to open the door, he noticed that there were about ten players inside, completely drawn in by the game.
Among them was a small group of two or three who seemed to have come together, chatting as they played.
"Bring a bomb! It's better if you bring one. It's good for emergency situations like the final wave, clearing a bunch of zombies with a bomb."
"Don't worry about it, if you misplaced something just get rid of it using the shovel. But avoid using it because it's kind of wasteful, as the sun isn't refunded."
Lin Mao was quite curious. When Chen Mo said his game was done and was ready to be installed in the experience store for people to try out, he didn't think it was true. That was too fast!
Lin Mao thought that Chen Mo's first game would take at least half a year, as the first game of a video game designer couldn't be an overly simple minigame, and it would have to be a game with an extended playtime.
In the end, Chen Mo somehow managed to make it within three months?
—
Lin Mao went into the store and saw Chen Mo at the bar, walking over to greet him.
"Yo, you're here!" Chen Mo greeted Lin Mao when he saw him.
Lin Mao sat down beside Chen Mo at the bar. "There's quite a few players here. Seems like your game is quite successful?"
Chen Mo nodded, "Yeah, not bad. I've made a few adjustments according to the statistics I've gathered. I plan to release it during this weekend. How's your game going?"
Lin Mao replied, "It's already on the market, you should be able to see it now."
"Really? Then I'll support you by downloading it." Chen Mo turned on his phone and looked up Adventures of the Storm Rider on the app store.
Lin Mao had set the price at twenty RMB, which was normal, not cheap nor expensive. It was a one time purchase, meaning after the purchase it would receive updates and DLCs for free.
Chen Mo downloaded the game and gave it a five star rating.
"How do the statistics look?" Chen Mo asked.
Lin Mao replied, "Not bad! The overall reviews are pretty good, but the downloads aren't super high, as the price is on the higher end."
Chen Mo nodded. Indeed, there weren't many who would spend twenty RMB for a small mobile game like this. However, the game's quality was quite high, hence it was worth the price.
"After the ratings get into a good state, maybe do some promotions and sell it at half price," said Chen Mo.
Lin Mao nodded, "Yeah, I was thinking about that. The sales will probably increase by quite a bit if I sell it at half price."
Chen Mo looked at the statistics of Adventures of the Storm Rider on its store page.
It was sixth in the newly released games list, but it wasn't part of the top paid games or popular games list. It was slightly obscure among the promoted new games.
The ranking and recommendations of the games on the store were basically done automatically, updating every three hours. There were also some additional calculations to filter out suspicious games that might have had their numbers artificially inflated for manual inspection.
The mobile game app store had three main categories: paid games, free games, and best sellers.
Other than that, there were smaller categories such as new games (games that have been out for under a month), classic games (games that were released more than a year ago), and categories sorted by genre (action, adventure, strategy, etc.).
Furthermore, there were a few more important promoted spots which were chosen by the system based on the data it has collected. The promoted spaces were updated daily, and it was possible for games to stay in the promoted spaces for multiple days in row.
Adventures of the Storm Rider was sixth among the new games, and received a promotional space, which was quite a good start. After the players raised its rating, Lin Mao would start a sale for half price.
So far Adventures of the Storm Rider hadn't been out for even twenty-four hours yet, and it had around four hundred downloads with thirty-odd five star reviews. With a start like that, it was possible for it to be moderately popular during its 'new game' period.
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Chapter 30: Chapter 29: Potential to go Viral!
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
The official appstore was different from other game distribution channels. Four hundred downloads in twenty-four hours may seem like nothing, but that number was actually pretty good.
Other promotional spaces for other game distribution channels, such as the Emperor Dynasty Entertainment platform or the proprietary stores of phone manufacturers, could be bought using money. As long as you were friendly with them, the platform wouldn't care too much about artificially inflating your numbers, either.
Therefore, as long as you were willing to spend money, it wasn't surprising to have thousands or even tens of thousands of downloads on the first day on other game distribution channels.
However, the official store prohibited inflating statistics, therefore new games could only be found in obscure corners, just like The Adventures of the Storm Rider. There wouldn't be many who would download new games, even if they were on the top new games or among the promoted new games.
However, the official store automatically adjusted the promotional spaces. Games like TheAdventures of the Storm Rider would probably be on the promoted list of new games or in its respective genre, which would greatly boost the downloads.
If The Adventures of the Storm Rider was able to maintain its downloads and ratings for the next promotional round, it would be pushed even higher on the promoted list. If that continued, it would be able to go from a few hundred downloads to possibly hundreds of thousands within a week.
Of course, games that fell into that positive feedback loop were few and far between; most games would fall off the promoted list halfway because of the statistics they had reached.
The official app store also took a smaller, twenty percent cut from the revenue that the game generated.
As for taxes, it was more troublesome than in his previous life, as it was quite a bit different, but not too difficult by any means. After income taxes, trading taxes and the like, it all added up to about thirty percent.
Of course, the main form of taxing was based on net profit, as video game designers had a lower starting cost compared to traditional businesses. So when the profit increased, the taxing increased too.
So if there were a hundred thousand downloads, assuming no sales, Lin Mao's gross income would be two million RMB, and after the platform's cut and taxes, he'd be left with a million, one hundred and twenty thousand.
Even though only half of it was left, it was still a huge profit.
Of course, sales were also affected by the price. For a game like Lin Mao's, selling at twenty RMB, a hundred thousand downloads was a bit difficult to achieve.
However, even if the game was cheaper, down to ten RMB, there weren't many games that managed to break a hundred thousand on the official app store.
Those games would always be on the top of various rankings, and have promotional spaces multiple times.
Many smaller designers only got thousands of downloads regularly, after working for half a year to a year just to earn about a hundred thousand RMB and having to worry about other expenses, barely keeping their stomachs full.
Chen Mo said, "The promotional spaces will be refreshed in one or two hours, right? Let's see how far up this game moves, then."
Lin Mao nodded, "Yeah, I'm looking at games during the same period, and mine looks like it has a better chance than the others. I can't be certain, as we don't know how the promoted spaces are calculated."
It was easy to tell that Lin Mao was slightly nervous. Promotions had a huge impact on the future of the game. In Chen Mo's opinion, his game didn't lack work, sincerity, or creativity, all that was left was the acceptance of the players.
Chen Mo patted his shoulders, "Relax, the quality of the games out there on display, what's there to be afraid of?"
Lin Mao said, "Yup, we can only hope. Is your game ready? Maybe I can give you some opinions from a different perspective."
Chen Mo nodded, "Yeah. You can try it out by going to a computer or using your own phone."
Shocked, Lin Mao said, "Dual platform? Aren't you ambitious! I'll just use my phone then, I'm more used to playing on mobile."
After installing the game on his phone, Lin Mao tapped on the icon and launched Plants vs Zombies.
After playing for ten minutes, Lin Mao was completely absorbed by the game.
"This game... is quite complete!"
As Lin Mao was a video game designer, he had a different perspective than the other players. He was shocked that the graphics, music, UI, and playstyle worked together very well; he couldn't find anything to nitpick!
The tutorial was clear and was easy to pick up. The difficulty of the levels made sense, and the combat system was rich...
If someone told Lin Mao that this was a high-quality game that was on the popular games list, he wouldn't doubt it!
"This... you made this in three months?" Lin Mao looked at Chen Mo, his mind blown.
Chen Mo nodded, "Yeah, I've actually been thinking about this idea for a long time. What's wrong?"
Lin Mao replied while nodding repeatedly, "Pretty good, I think this game is capable of going viral! In terms of quality, the game beats many other top games. When do you plan to release it?"
Chen Mo said, "Tomorrow maybe. I have been collecting the feedback of the players for the past two days. Overall, it's not bad. I've changed a few things that didn't seem right. After it's released and I gather even more statistics, I'll make more changes."
Lin Mao said, "I think it's good. This game that you made is much better than mine. I can't believe it, it seems that you really have opened up. How did you get so good all of a sudden?"
Chen Mo laughed, "What is this? Back to the topic, the success of the game doesn't just depend on the quality, but there's an element of luck, too. Let's hope that both of our games make big sales."
Lin Mao said, "Yeah, hope we get big sales. Then we can be buddies on the top new games leaderboards."
In the past three days, nearly a hundred people had played Plants vs Zombies. Some of them were random players that had walked past the experience store, but most of them were brought over by Wen Lingwei and Jia Peng's group.
When these people left, they introduced the game to their roommates. Chen Mo's experience store received another bunch of players that way.
So far Chen Mo's experience store had managed to gather ten or so players, and was much livelier than normal.
—
Chen Mo and Lin Mao chatted for a little while longer.
"Huh? The recommended lists have updated!" Lin Mao exclaimed in surprise.
Chen Mo went over and said, "Let's check it out; where's the new promoted space?"
Lin Mao excitedly raced through the app store, "Recommended in its genre! New recommended games! It was recommended on both!"
"Not bad!" Chen Mo laughed. "You're on a roll here!"
These two recommendations were pretty good one for a new game. Recommended in its genre meant bringing in more players who liked games like that, and being recommended on the new games list would attract players who liked trying out new games.
Two recommendations at the same time meant the system was rating Adventures of the Storm Rider highly, meaning that it should bring in a large amount of sales in a small amount of time.
If the game maintained its high rating, the game would undoubtedly receive better recommendations, possibly even being recommended on the front page.
Lin Mao patted his chest in relief. "Now I can relax, the second recommendation was so important!"
Chen Mo reminded, "Don't celebrate too early, you should continue monitoring the reviews. You might even be defamed by your competitors."
Lin Mao nodded, "Yeah, I know. The gap between the second recommendation and the game properly going viral is still massive."
After chatting for another few hours and looking at the new games at the time and checking out their numbers, the two of them went out for supper after the store closed, after which Lin Mao left.
After all, he had to pay great attention to the statistics and the feedback of players, as it was a key moment. Chen Mo, on the other hand, had to worry about his release, so the two of them didn't have much time to spare.
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