Almighty Video Game Designer

On Lin Xue's screen.

Beggar

"After failing to defeat the Cult of the Sky Dragon and taking heavy damage, you awake from a months long slumber.

"As you awake, you feel like you're living in a completely different timeline. The Dragon King defeated the masters of the plains, becoming the leader of the guild.

"You've lost all of your ability to fight, rendering you completely useless. Anyone who opposed the evil were either killed or imprisoned, it was everybody for themselves.

"You managed to escape the Dragon King, but your life fell into disarray. You were in poverty with nowhere to go, begging as you wandered, till the end of your life.

There was an image of a skinny beggar curled up at the corner of the wall, with eyes full of discontent.

"What! How? What is this game!"

Lin Xue was so angry she was about to explode.

She had played the games for three days, but whenever she lost a key battle, she was met with the end of the game.

The main character becomes a beggar.

Other games would usually tell the players to try harder, or 'everyone has to deal with victory and defeat', and would prompt the user to start again from the last save. But this game turned the game over screen into an ending, making the player feel more immersed.

Lin Xue was on the verge of breaking down. The main character was ordered to gather the Shalins, Warriors and beggars to band together before the cultists invaded. But Lin Xue died before she could even gather all of them. She didn't have a chance to see the subsequent scenes of the martial arts meeting, election, and fighting against the cults!

Lin Xue felt really bad as her three days of hard work resulted in such a pathetic ending. It was incredibly embarrassing for someone like Lin Xue who self-proclaimed as an experienced standalone game player!

At this moment, someone behind Lin Xue said, "Tsk tsk, the beggar ending huh?"

Lin Xue turned around to find Chen Mo behind her.

Who knows how long he had been there for, he even had a smug grin on his face.

Lin Xue stood up, "Ah! Aren't you Chen Mo! I've waited for you for a few days. Why haven't you shown up?"

Chen Mo was shocked, 'What do you mean? Although I've been heading about quite a bit the past few days, I've spent most of my time in the experience store. Maybe you've never noticed me because of how focused you were on the game?"

Lin Xue was shocked, 'Uhh… maybe."

Lin Xue then suddenly asked, "Tell me the strategy! This game is so difficult I'm about to rip my hair out!"

"What strategy? It's it more fun when you figure it out yourself? Keep going at it, I have high expectations of you." replied Chen Mo before leaving.

Leaving behind the angry Lin Xue.

The chat started moving again.

"My goodness, we finally caught Chen Mo!"

"He's so punchable! As punchable as always! Xue, punch me for me!"

"Keep going at it? That's it?"

"I think he intentionally made the game hard! Screw that guy!"

"Don't be mad, Xue. Keep going at it, you can do it!"

"That's just how he always is huh. He's so irritating."

Lin Xue took one last angry look at Chen Mo's silhouette before restarting the game.

—

The companies were working hard to finish their game as the end date edges ever so close.

It didn't take long before leaks started appearing.

Wuxia and Xianxia themes never garnered much interest, but because it was a pretty big deal this time, players were treating this as drama.

The game most looked forward must've been Zen Entertainment's Tale of the Sword. The players were really excited after seeing some leaked test footage and gameplay.

Tale of the Sword was a standalone Xianxia game. The setting of the game was related to Legend of the Sword, this way they could gain some advantage off their own IP.

There wasn't much to say in terms of art, the scenes were beautiful, the models were really high quality, essentially the best of the best in terms of quality.

Tale of the Sword featured a rich turned based combat. It included many different treasures, items, and monsters.

The game could've been made into an RTS game, but Yao Yu decided to settle on turn based combat.

RTS games were mainstream among online games because of how fast paced it was. Turn based games required places to spend time thinking about every decision, drastically slowing down the pace of the game, and the majority of players wouldn't be patient enough to wait.

But turned based combat has it advantage in standalone games. Players weren't rushed and could spend as much time as they needed to consider all the possible moves. And at the same time, it was much easier for the designer to control enemy locations, difficulty of levels, combat system, and the pace of the game.

In Chen Mo's previous world, RTS games could've been done in the early days of Sword Heroes Fate. The problem was that a large portion of the player base were girls or people who were terrible at games. The joy of gaming for this audience was exploration, collecting, and solving problems, the satisfaction of combat wasn't important to them. Therefore later standalone games like The Legend of Sword and Fairy decided on turned based combat after considering the risk and return.

This was also to satisfy the judges.

Chen Mo could've made an RTS game too, but because of how unique of a game Wulin Legend was, changing it to an RTS game would require a major overhaul of the game. Moreover, the skills and damage effects would also need to be overhauled. There wasn't a need to do that, especially when the judges might not even like it.

He could consider using a large scale real time combat when he would release a Wuxia RPG game in the future.

That's why Chen Mo and Yao Yu both chose to use turned based combat.

The main attraction for Tale of the Sword was its story as the game was developed by one of the main developers and writers to Legend of the sword.

Although these games were made to please the judges, the thoughts of the players were also part of the consideration.

Therefore, Zen Entertainment went all out with advertising. The ads for Tale of the Sword were all over video game media, adspaces of various websites, Weibo, and even all major forums.

Questions like "How should I rate Zen Entertainment's new game, Tale of the Sword" were also at the top of some Q&A sites, with a few answers that have been prepared beforehand receiving almost eight thousand upvotes.

There was also a lot of discussion among players.

"What's wrong with Zen Entertainment? Why do I see ads for Tale of the Sword even when I'm on the train/"

"They really are spending a lot to get first place!"

"Yao Yu is overlooking the whole process, the story must be decent!"

"I'm even getting ads in my friend group, I'm impressed."

"Isn't Chen Mo making one too? What's his new game? How come I haven't heard of it?"

"Yeah, didn't someone say that Chen Mo was also making a Chinese themed standalone game? How come I haven't seen any ads?"

"It's not like you don't know how little Chen Mo likes to spend on advertising."

"How is he going to compete with Zen Entertainment! Even if it was good, nobody is going to notice!"

"Geez, maybe Chen Mo is confident in his game. But I feel like he's going to fail this time!"

The players were hypothesising that Zen Entertainment have the first place in the bag after spending so much money. Zen Entertainment had the most experience in Xianxia theme afterall, and knowing the tastes of the judges, it would be very difficult for anyone else to contend.

But before the dust had even settled on this matter, another Weibo started huge waves.

Chen Mo posted, "Have a listen to the theme song for my new game, Wulin Legend titled A Life of Fighting is but a Dream. Of course I wouldn't tell you Zhou Yifeng sang it."

There was a link following the Weibo to listen to it.

The players were shocked, what is he playing at? Zhou Yifeng?

That's a huge star, the best of the best in singing!

The gameplay for Chen Mo's Wulin Legend had already been leaked. Many of Lin Xue's viewers have seen the game since Lin Xue had been streaming it for so long.

But how much influence did Lin Xue have? Most of the players have only heard that it was a Wuxia game, having no idea what kind of game Wulin Legend was.

Many thought that Chen Mo would treat this like other video game companies, making a game that would please the Game Committee members and not putting too much effort into it, which was why they haven't paid attention.

But when this Weibo was released, they realised how much money Chen Mo had invested into this!

The players who thought Chen Mo wouldn't spend much money on advertising ate their words immediately, if this wasn't spending big bucks, what was?

Asking Zhou Yifeng to perform was much more expensive than doing ads!

That's a lot of effort!