Chen Mo was now back in the experience store.
“Manager, welcome back,” greeted Su Jinyu.
Chen Mo nodded, “Yeah, I just went to the internet cafe to do some research and gather some inspiration.”
Su Jinyu was happily surprised, “Wow, you’re planning another game already? Manager, you’re birthing games like a sow to piglets.”
“… Couldn’t you have picked a better metaphor?” replied Chen Mo.
Chen Mo grabbed a can of drink, “Goldfish, how has the mobile game market been lately, have you been keeping an eye on it?”
Su Jinyu replied, “Oh, Lifeline has been doing quite well.”
Chen Mo was speechless, “I didn’t ask you that! Stop watching your own game, I’m asking about the other games on the market.”
“Uhh, other games? There’s more and more games that are copying I Am MT… Moreover, more and more tabletop games are copying Thunderbolt Tabletop as well..” replied Su Jinyu.
The usually quiet Zheng Hongxi added as well, “Basically half of the mobile game industry are copying you.”
“Oh, that’s great,” replied Chen Mo.
Su Jinyu was speechless, “Huh? How is it great when so many people are copying you?”
“What do you know, if they copy us, that means they’ve lost their ability to create new things. That also means that whatever they make will never be better than mine,” replied Chen Mo.
Su Jinyu said, “Wow, manager, I think you’re too… optimistic. Demon Slayers are edging ever so close to the revenue I Am MT is making.”
“It’s only getting close, it hasn’t exceeded right? What’s the big deal? By the way, how much do you guys know about RTS games?” asked Chen Mo.
Su Jinyu replied, “Uhh… not much. I’m just an intern.”
Zheng Hongxi said, “I’m just a writer.”
Chen Mo was speechless, “Wow, you guys are setting the bar too low. You guys will be your own video game designer one day alright? I’ll give both of you three days to understand the RTS market and hand it a research report afterwards.”
Su Jinyu was shocked, “Huh? But I’ve never been able to play those kinds of games…”
Chen Mo replied, “I’m not asking you to become a pro player, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t play. I’m just asking you to understand the market. Regardless, I want to see a research report in three days. You guys better submit different reports, I’d hate to see two similar ones.”
Chen Mo retreated upstairs after assigning them work.
Su Jinyu facepalmed, my goodness, what’s a research report, I’ve never written one!
—
Back on the second floor, Chen Mo started brainstorming his next game.
Chen Mo could make a PC game next, but he felt that he needed a bit more help.
Zheng Hongxi was able to save Chen Mo a lot of trouble in terms of writing, and Su Jinyu could handle some features or concept arts, but he was still lacking in the numbers and level design department.
Chen Mo had been searching for this person for a long time, but never managed to find one.
“Numbers, level design. Right, I’ll check the forums.”
Chen Mo checked out the forums for I Am MT in search of someone who was good at analyzing the numbers/ balancing for I Am MT.
The numbers were quite complicated for card games like these. If someone was able to analyse the numbers of I Am MT with some integrity to it, they basically had all the foundations for the role.
Chen Mo looked through a few hot threads.
Garbage game, refund me my money!
Analysis of the Draw Ten mechanism
Tips for grinding purples
Perfect strategy to control the battlefield!
How much should you spend? V12 player tells you how to get the bang for your buck.
—
After looking through the posts, Chen Mo couldn’t help but press CTRL+W.
These were horrible!
Pseudo science posts like ‘Analysis of the Draw Ten mechanism’ and ‘Tips for grinding purples’ made Chen Mo feel like he was farther away from the science and maths he was looking for.
Chen Mo didn’t give up, and continued his search in Thunderbolt Poker’s forum.
There was also a lot of statistics knowledge required for Texas hold ’em analysis. If someone could more or less calculate the probability of winning for every type of hand, they probably had some mathematical blood in them.
Chen Mo looked through a few stickied posts.
Offline Thunderbolt Poker Club: XXXXXX
Offline Thunderbolt Poker Club: XXXXXX
Offline Thunderbolt Poker Club: XXXXXX
—
Chen Mo silently pressed the report button before pressing CTRL+W once again.
What is the meaning of this!
Chen Mo was losing hope. Did none of the players use more scientific methods to perform some analysis on the game?
Yep, it seemed like these players were more suited to games that would make them stronger by paying money.
Chen Mo opened the forum for Plants vs Zombies, but this time he was pleasantly surprised by the most highly voted post, an introduction to a mod!
Introducing the mod I made, improved the stats for plants and zombies, with 8 new plants and 5 new zombies.
The title was incredibly long, but the thread was incredibly popular too. It was only posted two weeks ago and it managed to reach over one hundred pages in replies.
Chen Mo was also curious. He opened up Plants vs Zombies to discover that the most popular mod was the mod he just saw.
Chen Mo tried it out, and discovered that the main changes were adding the new plants and zombies, but they also made adjustments to the stats of the plants and zombies to adjust the difficulty of the game.
This mod wasn’t the most genious, but was the most complete and most balanced, which was why there were so many fans.
“Yep, this guy isn’t bad. Let’s see if I can get him on board.”
Chen Mo got their phone number through the Thunderbolt Game Pass once again.
“Hello?” it was the voice of another man.
Huh? Why would you say another?
Chen Mo said, “Hello, I’m the creator of Plants vs Zombies, Chen Mo.”
“Oh, hi,” replied the man.
“Uhh, aren’t you suspicious of my identity at all? Aren’t you afraid that I could be pretending to be him?”
The man on the phone laughed, “Who would steal your identity and have tons of angry fans after them.”
Chen Mo was speechless.
“I’m just kidding. I’m Qian Kun, spelt with a Q.”[1]
Chen Mo replied, “Oh that one, alright.”
“Ahem… I’m actually quite a big fan,” said Qian Kun.
This made Chen Mo quite happy, ‘Huh? Really?”
Qian Kun replied, “Yeah, before you made I Am MT.”
This left Chen Mo speechless once again.
“But I became a bigger fan after you made I Am MT. I think being able to use numerical simulations to make such a profitable game is incredibly amazing!” said Qian Kun.
Chen Mo was speechless, why does this kid say things in such a roundabout way?
“You wanna learn?” asked Chen Mo.
“Of course I do!” replied Qian Kun.
“Come over to Imperial Capital then,” said Chen Mo.
TL note: [1] His same has the same pronunciation as another word, and he was just clarifying which one it was.