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.