Almighty Video Game Designer

Chapter 59: Chapter 58: An Abnormal Design Document!

Translated by Coldtaco

Edited by Aelryinth

What was interesting was that the less a player wanted to spend on a game, the more they cared about the free resources the game gave!

-You can't make any progress? Don't worry, I'll give you some diamonds. Just log in today, and I'll give you a hundred diamonds. After you beat N number of levels, I'll give you another five hundred, and when you get to level thirty, I'll give…-

These players would attempt to convert the resources into actual currency.

You wanna give up? That means you're losing money every day!

At that point, a large portion of players would continue playing just because of the potential money lost.

Many people would think that the players would only do that if they were poor. If they were wealthy, they wouldn't be enticed by small amounts of money like that.

That was completely wrong!

The willingness of a player to spend money only had to do with their personality, and a large amount of players cared about their earnings in games.

Chen Mo had seen wealthy people like that first hand in his previous life. They could've spent hundreds of thousands in the game, but they still cared about the few hundred daily bonus diamonds.

When these players were only playing the game because of the free resources the game provided, they had subconsciously accepted that it was pay to win, and the relationship between the in-game equipment, diamonds, and real currency.

After that, this batch of players who didn't want to spend any money might turn into spending players when a promotional period came.

From the first top-up, to monthly membership, to lifetime membership, to the first large top-up, they would start to spend more and more money.

It wasn't a problem if they didn't convert immediately, and even if certain players insisted on never spending money, at least they could play alongside paying players, which would also be good for the game.

The company also welcomed those players who don't spend a single cent. If you can't support financially, morally works too!

Of course, the third type of joy was built on the previous two. The player must recognize the game and its contents before they were willing to become a slave to Ivan Pavlov's methods and spend money on virtual cards and winning virtual battles.

—

Planning the foundation of the game took Chen Mo two days. Afterwards, he started working on the document for the rules. Including the refinements, the whole process took a week.

This was similar to the amount of time Plants vs Zombies took. Although Chinese mobile card games might seem simple, they had a lot of minute details, which took a lot of time.

Of course, he had also been working on the original artwork for the cards at the same time. There were a large number of cards, but Chen Mo didn't need to finish them all at once. He would just work alongside the art company, so it wouldn't take up too much of his time.

Other than that, Chen Mo had also spent some time checking on the progress for the art and animation production. Guo Feng would be sending the first episode of the series to Chen Mo by the coming weekend.

—

After finishing all the design documents, Chen Mo asked Su Jinyu to enter everything into the video game engine to produce the starting product for I Am MT.

Su Jinyu and Wen Lingwei had finished four drawings each. Chen Mo could tell that their artistic skills were quite good, as the details were comparable to the originals.

Of course, some details weren't exactly the same with the ones from his previous life, but that didn't matter, as minute details like that didn't play a big part.

Su Jinyu downloaded the design document sent over by Chen Mo.

Chen Mo said, "All the design documents are there, all that's left are the numbers and level design, as well as the attributes of cards and the overall construction. Enter the rules into the game engine for now; we can add the rest at a later time."

Su Jinyu was shocked, "All the design documents? You finished it in a week?!"

Of course she was surprised, it took her two weeks to finish the two features Chen Mo assigned her for the update for Plants vs Zombies, but he managed to write out the design document for a game in a week!

This work efficiency was superhuman!

Chen Mo continued blandly, "Take a look at the design document and ask me if there's anything you don't understand. I'll be working on the numbers and level design."

—

After giving her another few pointers, Chen Mo retreated back to his office.

Su Jinyu was very curious as she opened Chen Mo's design document. What type of game would he be using for such an important wager?

Chen Mo had previously ordered some cards to be drawn and had contacted an animation company. What was he planning? What did an animation company have to do with game production?

So far, Su Jinyu had no clue what Chen Mo was planning to do.

Wen Lingwei, Jia Peng, and the others gathered around to take a look.

Wen Lingwei leaned onto the bar table and said, "I'm actually quite curious as to what the manager has planned for his next game."

Jia Peng said, "Ahem, senior, do you really understand what the design document is saying?"

Wen Lingwei gave him a cold glance, "So what if I don't understand? Goldfish, explain it to me."

Su Jinyu was speechless…

—

They went through one design document after another.

UI.

Basic combat.

Daily quests….

Su Jinyu's uncertainty didn't decrease at all during this process. In reality, it actually went up.

After closing the last design document, Su Jinyu was completely confused.

"That's it? That's all? Isn't that a bit too simple? The contents of this game don't even come close to Plants vs Zombies!" Su Jinyu exclaimed.

Wen Lingwei scowled, "What's wrong? Can you explain what the game looks like?"

Jia Peng wiped his sweat off his forehead, "Although I don't really understand what's going on, but… I feel that the design document doesn't have much in it. Isn't the content on the lower side?"

Su Jinyu opened the design document for combat and looked through the combat rules again.

On the vertical mobile screen, the player and the enemy will take up six tiles each (might be slightly different on boss rounds), attacking in order…

Su Jinyu read over the combat rules again.

"Yeah, that's it! Isn't this too simple? This doesn't compare to Plants vs Zombies!"

Su Jinyu couldn't believe her eyes, and found it hard to believe that Chen Mo would give her such a lacking design document.

Plants vs Zombies was a real-time game, but the new game somehow devolved back into turn-based!

Furthermore, combat could be summarized as a bunch of cards fighting. Other than moving around the cards, the player didn't need to perform any other actions!

Such a simple game…

Su Jinyu couldn't imagine what the combat would look like, but felt like she needed to unsee it. A bunch of cards brawling? Could the idea be any dumber?

Moreover, what is this VIP system?

V12 required five million runes?

The exchange rate was one RMB for ten runes, that meant that V12 required fifty thousand RMB?!

Five zero zero zero zero RMB!

Su Jinyu didn't understand what the meaning of that was; who would spend fifty thousand RMB in a game?

How many nice meals could you afford with that amount of money?!

How many articles of clothing?!

How many movies?!

How many gadgets?!

How could there be anyone who would be willing to spend fifty thousand RMB on a game like this?!

Moreover, look at the VIP privileges!

Increase the limit of daily purchases, improve leadership, increase the number of times you can play in various game modes! There was even a VIP gift package!

And what was this top-up bonus, why would there be cards in the top-up bonus? Topping-up twenty thousand runes for an exclusive Elder Sister card!

Two thousand RMB, that was just robbery!

Su Jinyu only had one thought in her mind looking through the design documents: WTF?

"Manager, although you're betting on income, but… this ploy to make money is too obvious!

"No… I must ask him and find out what's going on!"

Su Jinyu went upstairs.

Jia Peng looked at Wen Lingwei, and she looked back at him.

"What do we do, senior?" asked Jia Peng.

Wen Lingwei replied, "Who knows? Let's just pretend nothing happened and go back to our own lives. Don't meddle with something if you don't know it's full extent, let Goldfish do the arguing with the manager."

Jia Peng was speechless.

How can you be so content with this?!