When the clock struck 00:00 I looked at the Rank and saw Runestone far ahead of Evan's game.
1st 3.707 Players - [Runestone]
2nd 2.208 Players - [Knife Throwing Training in the Dark]
3rd 1.485 Players - [Training...]
4th...
The difference in the number of Players was absurd, to the point that when the night came I wasn't even worried that he might pass me.
And this large number of Players also caused the amount of Mana and money that the game earned me that day to skyrocket!
In order not to affect the average and mess up the data, I left it until 24 hours after I looked at it this morning to calculate my earnings, which in this case wouldn't be until tomorrow morning.
When the time was up, the Rank froze and the numbers on the screen stopped changing.
Surprisingly Jake sent me a message congratulating me on first place and joked about being available if I needed a helper in the future.
The second person to send me a message was Gina, who also congratulated me and chatted about other matters.
Josh was the third, followed by several other colleagues from our class who were also looking at the rankings.
I answered each one politely and went to sleep.
The next day, when it was finally 24 hours since I had last looked at the game's stats, I quickly opened the menu and looked at the game's growth.
|-----------------------------------------
| Game Status: Runestone
|-----------------------------------------
| Total Players: 3.671 -> 4.966
| Online Players: 1.878 -> 2.315
| Average Players Online (24 hours): 2.308 -> 3.387
| Game Rank: Rank F
| Mana per Hour (Players): 1 unit
| Average Session Time: 6 hours
| Mana Stored in Game Core: 203 units
| Mana Yield (24 hours): 203 units
| Conversion Rate: 80% (New players who become regulars)
|------------------------
| Available Cards: 104 (Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary)
| Cards Used per Match (Average): 17
|-----------------------------------------
| Stored Cash: $660 -> $1,147
Looking at the data the game generated yesterday, I had a huge smile on my face.
The $487 alone was a big reason for me to smile considering that I was planning to develop another game, so the more money I made, the faster I could buy another Game Core and develop my second game.
But what really got me excited was that yesterday was the first day that the game earned more than 200 MP!
This means that as long as the game maintains an average number of Players like yesterday's, I'll have 2 MP more every day to increase my MP total, which means I'll be able to develop more and more engaging features for the game in less and less time, which is great!
Without thinking twice, the first thing I did was set Game Core to convert this stored Mana directly into my Mana Core.
I could only add 1 MP every 12 hours, so my current maximum MP has only increased to 71.6 now, but I was happy.
Looking at the other game data, I was completely satisfied.
The event developed was a complete success.
Even FrostHaven Entertainment's Whisper account received a few hundred followers, finally reaching 4 digits of followers, and receiving a lot of praise from Players and ordinary people.
Of course, there were still people complaining, and they weren't wrong to complain.
Most of the complaints were from people who didn't find out about the event until it was too late, failing to win all the event cards or the board decorations.
For these people, I made a post on Whisper to appease them.
[Hello Players, yesterday's event was a great success!
Thank you so much for everyone's participation, it's earned Runestone first place in the NFA College Games Rankings!
We know that not everyone was able to attend the event on time and we understand how frustrating that can be.
We want to assure you that the cards introduced at the event are not limited and will be available in the next game update.
As for the special board decoration, it was intended as an exclusive item for the event, so you won't be able to get it again.
However, we have learned from this experience and will work to ensure that future events are communicated more clearly and in advance.
Thank you for your support and understanding, FrostHaven Entertainment!]
With this text I believe that some of their frustration will be appeased.
Despite coming first in the Rankings, the teachers were still to finish testing all the games and give marks for each aspect of the games to define the positions of each Game Creator in this test.
Even if a Game Creator ranked low, that Game Creator might receive a grade good enough to graduate from college, while on the other hand, even a popular game might not receive a grade good enough to graduate if a professor felt that game had a major flaw.
Runestone fell into this category, since the only way for the Player who played the game to improve was through False Neurological Feedback, so anything could still go wrong.
Sure, I wasn't that worried about it because False Neurological Feedback itself is such a complex technology that even teachers don't know how to apply it to their games, which I believe would compensate for the game's failure.
But even if the teachers didn't give me an A and my grade wasn't the highest among the students, it wouldn't affect me, since that grade wasn't public.
What really mattered for my career was the rank my game ended in and whether I passed or not, the passing grade was irrelevant.
So I didn't let worrying about this matter tire me out and I entered Game Core with my conscience.
Even though it was Sunday, I didn't intend to take the day off to rest.
From now on my path as an Independent Game Creator was going to be increasingly difficult and any result I got would be 100% based on the effort I put into my games, so I didn't want to waste it and started spending my Mana on the game.
What I developed right away were the 5 daily cards that I made for the game, just as I did throughout the last week, which added up to the 15 cards I made yesterday, making a total of 40 cards ready!
'There are only 60 cards left for me to finish this second part of the first collection...'
With my card production speed of 5 cards a day it would still take me 12 days to finish this, but with the increase of 2 MP a day I would be able to finish it in less time.
As well as developing the cards, I'd also have to develop the two new heroes coming in this collection, as well as an idea I had to keep players more involved in the game.
At yesterday's event I realized the power that a Battle Pass has in retaining and engaging Players.
Normally, Players who play the game well have a lot of fun climbing the ranks, but those Players with average or low skills were more frustrated while playing Rankeds than they were having fun, which meant that this type of queue wasn't a big draw for them.
To deal with this problem, I thought I'd develop a Battle Pass for the next update.
A goal for Players to dedicate themselves to playing the game beyond ranking up and avoid going to other games to train.
As well as collecting coins to buy more card packs, I would also add a Battle Pass for players to collect points and exchange them for rewards.
These rewards would be card packs, decorations for their boards, or skins for the backs of their cards.
As the Battle Pass was not Skill-based, even the worst Players could feel the satisfaction of progressing while receiving glamorous rewards to boast about to other Players.
'And since I make money based on the playing time of these Players, I won't have to be like those greedy companies from my other world who charged a lot for Battle Passes and delivered bad content just to make as much money as possible. I thought excitedly.
'Maybe I don't have to limit myself to just skins for the card backs...' I started to remember the original Runestone from my other world.
'In the original game there were also skins for the heroes, which changed both the appearance of the heroes and the effects of the heroes' skills... I could make a nice skin for a single hero in this pass and make it clear that this would be the last reward, the hardest to get. With the challenge of getting it and knowing that it would never return to the game, even Players who didn't play that class would strive to get it!'
The more I thought about it, the more excited I got.
The Players' collecting always amazed me in the other world, so I could use that to my advantage in this world.
I could make the Battle Pass with a specific theme and make all the decorations follow that theme, just like I did with the mini battle pass from yesterday's event.
The ideal would be to use the hero I chose as the basis for this theme, and to ensure success it would be even better to choose the hero most played by the Players.
Opening up the game data, I was surprised to realize that 63% of the players were playing the Mage!
'Why is that? ' I wondered curiously.
Unfortunately, there was no way for me to find out the Players' intention in choosing this in the game, but I could just ask!
Creating a quick poll for the Online Players to answer cost me 1 MP, but within a few minutes I had the answer.
Basically, even some Players with physical classes in the real world occasionally used the Mage Hero to increase their maximum amount of Mana, as it was easier to increase this in Runestone than by practicing in a boring way in the real world!
Muscles could also be developed, but while there were dedicated machines and gyms for developing these, Mana was much more ethereal and difficult to develop.
Understanding this, I decided to make the game's first hero skin for Lyna Proudstone!
Now all I had to do was develop the concept for this new line of skins for Lyna and the back of the card.
I needed to think of ideas for what theme to use for this line of skins...
But while I was thinking about that, I came back to the real world and started writing down my plans for the game.
According to my calculations, in two weeks I'd be able to finish everything I was planning and finally launch this new update, which got me excited!
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