The assembling of the game using the game engine was done entirely by her, therefore she knew the contents of the game better than anyone. It was just that she could understand why the game would be fun and found it boring from her imagination.
However, upon considering the fact that it was a game made by her and being able to see MT, Shaman and the other characters, she decided to give it a try.
Jia Peng already had the game installed on his phone.
The icon for the game was an adorable image of MT and was one that was easily identifiable.
The game started after a simple opening scene.
The opening was from the animated series. As all the resources belonged to him, he could use it interchangeably.
The game required a log in using the Thunderbolt game pass.
Upon starting the game, the player was entered into a battle. On the player’s side was MT, Shaman, Hunter, Rogue, Beauty and Thief. On the enemy’s side was Lady, Brick, Tyran, The President, Hunter and Elder Sister.
The players normally only had access to five cards a battle, but in order to make the first battle more intense, Chen Mo elected to use six cards instead.
These cards were all at their highest levels with detailed borders. The art on the cards were very good looking, and they also had some simple animations and effects.
“Hmm, feels quite nice,” Jia Peng was surprised. Although he had seen the graphics for the game well before. But seeing it in game with its borders, animations and special effects made the card feel completely different.
This scene was a recreation of a scene from I Am MT’s second season, the battle on Hillsbrad Foothills, which happened to coincide with the episode release.
After some simple dialogue, the two sides started fighting. The various cards attacked one after another, each with different types of attacks. There were normal attacks, Chain Lightning, ranged attacks, assassinations… The animations of every single card and even the art for the damage numbers have been adjusted by Chen Mo time and time again to recreate the quality of the original game.
“The attacks feel so satisfying!”
Jia Peng was shocked as he thought card combat would be awful to watch, so he wasn’t expecting it to be so satisfying.
For example, for Thief’s normal attack animation, the card would move on top of its target, and the card would shake as if it was showing off its weapon, followed by a slash effect.
And when Thief uses its abilities, it would disappear from its original location, then appearing behind its target so stimulate a backstab.
No matter the floating numbers of expanding text during attacks, they were adjusted to perfection. Combined with the animations when the cards are attacked and screen shake, it created a very satisfying strong hit.
Many attacks such as Chain Lightning or Moon Glaives had very flashy animations. Although it was just a pile of cards battling one another, it didn’t give away a childish vibe.
“Making something out of a pile of cards fighting, quite amazing to be honest.”
Jia Peng was also quite surprised that he felt that although the game wasn’t a huge production, a lot of attention was given to the details, all just from the first battle.
The game continued on.
After the short tutorial, Chen Mo received his very own starting cards, blue MT and Shaman. Other than that, he could pick one out of Rouge, Hunter, Druid, and priest as their third character.
“Yep, according to the story, Priest probably heals. I’ll pick her then.”
Jia Peng picked Priest.
After going through some more tutorials, the player entered dungeon challenges. The story driven tutorials were clear and concise, conveying information using the least amount of words, so as to not make the player feel like they’re being nagged.
Combat, receiving equipment and experience, training cards, drawing cards, collecting online bonuses.
This was the best feature of Chinese mobile games, the whole flow of the game, especially the gameplay for the first day, have been planned extensively. Every single activity and every single would drag the player deeper and deeper into the game.
On one hand, the player wouldn’t need to expend too much effort into understanding and learning the game, allowing the player to have a good grasp on the mechanics of the game even if they weren’t paying full attention to it. This gaurrenteed that there wouldn’t be players who quit because they didn’t understand the game.
On the other hand, the player would demonstrate different mechanics of the game from the start, allowing the player to feel that the game was content rich.
Jia Peng was feeling exactly that. In reality the combat of card games would completely lose their charm after a few battles, and would trigger the player to quit the game.
However, whenever the player gets that feeling, the game would suggest a new playstyle to the player, or give them another reward to bait them into playing on.
“Hmm? Purple Lady?” Weng Lingwei said out of nowhere.
Jia Peng and the others were shocked, “Huh? How did you get a purple card? How come none of us have gotten one?”
Wen Lingwei said, “Ten draws, it’s in the store.”
Jia Peng entered the store. There was a tutorial on ten draws, but it only guided the player through single draws. Moreover, Jia Peng didn’t have enough runes.
“This requires twenty-five hundred runes, how did you get so many of them?” asked Jia Peng.
Wen Lingwei said, “Are you dumb? Isn’t the game just handing out runes? Level chests, online bonuses, missions, you’d know once you collect all the rewards.”
Jia Peng took a look. Indeed, he had his focus on battling and didn’t pay any attention to what rewards he could receive.
Collect! Collect! Collect!
Many of the missions and achievement systems were already completed. Finishing levels would also yield chests. There were also log in bonuses, and online bonuses.
Jia PEng went through all the collecting and discovered that they contained many goodies. There were gold, experience cards, runes, normal cards… so many of them he could barely keep up.
After collecting most of these rewards, Jia Peng realised that he had around twenty-six hundred runes, enough for one ten draws.
“That’s so much money! That works out to about two hundred RMB! Didn’t someone say the game would be very expensive? Why is it handing out money? Could it be that because we are testers and these are tester perks?” Jia Peng asked shockingly.
The others asked, “Yeah, manager, why are we receiving so many rewards, is it just a tester’s perks?”
Chen Mo shook his head, “The normal players would also receive the same amount.”
Everyone was shocked, “Does this happen everyday?”
Chen Mo nodded, “Everyday. But you’d get more on the first day.”
Su Jinyu was puzzled, “Manager, isn’t this game supposed to make money from this game? The highest VIP tier costs fifty thousand RMB, but if you continue giving out resources like this, who would pay up?”
Chang Xiuya agreed, “Yeah, the money comes in faster than I spend it. It doesn’t take much time to save up enough for ten spins.”
Chen Mo laughed, “Don’t worry about the players spending money, just think about if you’re willing to continue playing the game.”
Jia Peng said after some thinking, “I’ll decide if I’ll continue playing after I draw ten…”