Translated by Coldtaco
Edited by Aelryinth
Chen Mo was mainly considering downloaded games and mobile games, ignoring browser games.
Browser games did have their time in the spotlight and seemed like the next best thing. But browser games were special circumstances and were popular in specific groups. Moreover, the timeframe of their success was usually quite short ,and browser games were difficult to replicate.
In Chen Mo's previous life, browser games only lasted for three to five years and were left behind soon after, with mobile games taking their place. On the other hand, mobile games also went from crude to highly refined within a few years, and their speed was continually increasing.
Browser games did have a high monetization value, and anything would be garbage without players.
-What are the gamers like in this world?-
There were many full-fledged VR games, and the quality of those virtual reality games were much higher than AAA titles in Chen Mo's previous world. Serving up browser games to these people?
-Are we gonna pull a Click Now and receive a legendary sword?
-That'll probably fail miserably…-
In Chen Mo's view, mobile games evolved from browser games, putting pressure on browser games in all aspects.
In terms of ease of use, you still needed to take care when playing browser games at work. You could play mobile games anytime; just leave the phone face down on the table when the manager came by.
In terms of graphics, browser games were limited by the ways they were produced, requiring constant resource downloads. More often than not, the graphics wouldn't be fully downloaded, affecting the gaming experience.
In terms of playstyle, the playstyle of classic browser games was improved upon by mobile games. Furthermore, mobile games developed new playstyles during their development.
Therefore, browser games had been completely replaced by mobile games. If Chen Mo developed a browser game, it was probably due to brain damage.
Chen Mo gave it some thought, his first actual game must be a classic casual game from his previous life: Plants vs Zombies!
It wasn't the most profitable choice, but a stable and sustainable one!
What did Chen Mo need the most now?
Money? He needed it, but it wasn't what he needed the most!
What he needed now was fame!
There were three main reasons Chen Mo picked Plants vs Zombies.
First, the resources required for this game weren't high. The installer might be around 100 MB. The other resources could be kept within 300 MB. Video game installers were compressed, which were not representative of their actual resource usage.
Moreover, the code for this game was quite accessible, and the level designs were also quite clear. It could be handled easily with Chen Mo's current coding and level design abilities.
The more difficult parts would be music and art. But Chen Mo was basically copying, so it wasn't a big problem.
Therefore, this was a game that Chen Mo could easily handle!
Second, Chen Mo needed fame and acknowledgement. Making pay-to-win games did rake in a lot of money, but it was very difficult to make them popular, and there was a high chance of receiving negative comments.
Chen Mo wanted to make his first game accessible to everyone, showing more players the logo of Thunderbolt Gaming and its designer, Chen Mo!
Having everyone recognize him was a long-term goal, but it had to be planned from the first game.
Third, Plants vs Zombies might seem simple, but it was an all-around game. In particular was the strategy side of the game, making it a long-lasting game that allowed its player to play for a long time.
If a game required three months in development, Chen Mo wanted the game to be playable for a month. According to this metric, Plants vs Zombies steamrolled a bunch of casual games.
Moreover, the game could be released on PC game mobile at the same time; adding cross-platform wasn't a problem!
In the end, Chen Mo made the decision: the first game released by Thunderbolt Entertainment would be Plants vs Zombies!
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Chen Mo stood up and walked around the experience store, taking a ten-minute break before starting the development process.
Chen Mo wasn't in a hurry to use the Memory Playback Potion, as the potion only lasted for four hours. He should use his current memory of the game, build the main framework of the game, then use the Potion for the details that he couldn't remember.
He had to first write the design documents, followed by entering the basics of the game into the video game engine.
Chen Mo excelled at writing design documents in his previous life, essentially up to twice as fast as normal designers. A system design draw including concepts, original art, logic checks, until completed within five to seven days.
This included time for thinking over and changing things!
Of course, depending on the fundamentals of the game, the design document would differ. Even an average mobile game would normally require twenty to thirty design documents of varying sizes, which would include different areas.
The demands for time and resource allocation would be even greater than that, and a large majority of them would not make it into the final game.
The main time sink in writing a design document would be brainstorming, choosing between different design directions. However, Plants vs Zombies was quite well-rounded. Chen Mo didn't want to make any modifications, making the writing process go by pretty quickly.
Interface, combat system, level design, plants, zombies, mechanics... in no time at all, the design document was filled with the basic ideas of each of the items.
Afterwards, Chen Mo started looking around in the game engine for free resources and downloaded them using his allocated quota.
As for the art, in order to best preserve the integrity of the original game, Chen Mo decided to hand-draw to his standards.
The free resources were only used as placeholders to make sure the development went smoothly. The placeholders would be replaced only when the game was almost finished.
Resources for the lawns, plants, and zombies were plentiful, but a small portion of them were barely passable, as they were presented in weird themes. As they were only used as placeholders, he'll just have to deal with it.
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Chen Mo spent three days writing the fundamentals into the design document and finding material for the graphics.
During that time, the company passed its review. Thunderbolt Entertainment was now proper. Chen Mo now had the title "Founder of Thunderbolt Entertainment" on his Weibo and the game engine.
Of course, the title didn't mean anything, as the company hadn't achieved anything yet.
According to Chen Mo's plans, Thunderbolt Entertainment might have a few subsidiaries, such as Thunderbolt Gaming, Thunderbolt Literature, Thunderbolt Animations, Thunderbolt Movies, and so forth...
However, that was just some strategic planning if the opportunity came, otherwise Chen Mo wasn't going to worry about it. Chen Mo planned to go deep into video gaming territory. Although literature and animations would be beneficial to video games, it wasn't his main plan of attack.
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After the company name and logo had been confirmed, Chen Mo rang up the competition staffers to ask them about the signage for the experience store.
Very efficiently, the sign arrived in two days, along with professionals who came along to install them.
The sign had Thunderbolt Gaming Experience Store in wordart, along with the Thunderbolt Entertainment logo. Chen Mo was quite happy with how it came out.
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After finishing with the distractions, Chen Mo went back into his office space to clean up the framework of the design document and the placeholding artwork.
With another day behind him, the main framework of the design document was now finished, and sixty to seventy percent of the artwork had also been found.