Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 113 Transformation
Let's rewind ten minutes.

Just as Chen Mo was trying out the demo, and Tencent Games started playing a gameplay demo of League of Legends Auto Chess, Xingchen Games' live stream switched to a scene that was quite familiar to players of "Final Frontline".

It feels familiar because this scene is the same one used by Hoshino Japan for their "Don't Do Challenges" campaign.

However, there are no cute voice actresses in the picture now, only a young man wearing a plaid shirt and glasses.

"Hello everyone, welcome to today's Starry Games Direct."

"I am Shiokawa from Starry Night Games. Today, I am honored to introduce the plans for the FGO remake and its current progress."

Shiokawa smiled and gave a standard Japanese bow.

Most domestic players don't really pay much attention to the FGO remake, but it's very popular among Fate fans and Japanese players.

The news of the FGO remake is like something addictive to them.

From the day Starry Night Games acquired FGO.

Discussions about the FGO remake on Japanese Twitter have never stopped, even though Chu Chen created a separate Japanese version of "Identifying Popular Comments from Starry Night."

There was no way to stop the rampant spread of "insider" accounts on Japanese Twitter.

This rampage stems from two factors: firstly, players' strong desire for more information, and secondly, the gradual implementation of minor optimizations by StarCraft Japan after taking over FGO.

For example, the servers have been upgraded, and the game is finally running smoothly again, which brought tears to the eyes of many veteran players.

In addition, the monetization mechanism was modified at the end of June, with the addition of a limited character pool and a pity system after 70 pulls.

Whether viewed from today's perspective or from the perspective of future generations, the 70-pull pity system is quite "generous". However, in reality, 70 pulls are not cheap if you pay for them.

Without considering discounts, a single order on the Japanese server costs approximately 518 RMB, which allows for four 10-pulls, meaning 70 pulls would cost 903 RMB.

Upgrading to level 5 requires 4515 yuan for a complete character.
Furthermore, with the takeover by Starry Sky Games, future production capacity will increase, and the gifts and benefits will ensure that hoarders can obtain their favorite characters.

It also provides a considerable amount of "space" for "whale" (high-spending) players.

Even so, in Chu Chen's view, the price of 903 for a single character is still insufficient for the large-scale strategy he wants to implement.

Chu Chen has always believed that the revenue generated by a larger player base is definitely greater than that from marketing strategies that exploit core players.

Most long-running games on the market are able to continue operating because they have attracted a large enough player base.

In its previous life, FGO's later operations faltered, and it could only maintain revenue by exploiting its core fans. This was because it could no longer maintain its scale, meaning it could neither attract new players nor retain old ones.

Therefore, in early July, although the unit price of gacha in "FGO" remained unchanged, the game added a mechanism for signing in to receive discount coupons, with a total of seven tiers of discount coupons ranging from 10% off to a maximum of 70% off.

Log in to the game to draw discount coupons. This tactic has appeared in many games in the past, such as War Thunder and Warframe. In addition to stimulating daily active users, it can also stimulate consumption.

Sometimes, players don't actually want to spend money.

But... since I'm so lucky, I even got a 70% off discount!! Wouldn't it be a waste of my luck not to spend some money?

Once players have this thought, the manufacturer's little trick has succeeded.

On the other hand, while this model is "forced to spend money," it does objectively reduce the pressure on players to spend money, especially with the addition of the 70-pull pity system in FGO.

Each of these changes makes FGO players increasingly eager for information about the remake.

Unfortunately, at that time, Starry Sky Japan had just integrated its team and hadn't done many things yet, so it couldn't make promises it couldn't keep. This was a real hardship for Japanese FGO players.

This period, from June to early July.

Almost every day, in every Twitter announcement or message related to Starry Sky Games, there will be an image of a "sea turtle" from Journey to the West with the caption "Have you asked yet?"

It's ridiculous, really. This "Did you ask?" meme was originally posted on Bilibili by a Chinese FATE player.

Since StarCraft acquired Fate/Grand Order (FGO), Chinese Fate fans have been constantly asking, "Is it still being handled by Bilibili?", "Has it been remastered today?", and "Can we play the new FGO in China?"

These messages are often accompanied by an emoji that says "Have you asked yet?"

Starry Games will also make some responses, such as confirming that domestic players will be able to play "FGO", and that they are in discussions with Bilibili.

Then, this meme, eager to know more information, was taken by "Japanese insider" groups from the Chinese internet. When they took screenshots of these "official replies" and brought them back to Japan, it also drifted to Japan.

When it arrived in Japan, someone upgraded the meme, turning the turtle into a silly Saber, and then the meme became a huge hit in Japan.

After it became popular, the news spread back to China.

This is a very unique form of cultural export.
all in all.

From the day Astral Games confirmed the remake, Japanese players have been eagerly anticipating it, and now, they have finally received news of the FGO remake.

This excitement is no less than that of a child who made a promise with their parents at the beginning of the year to buy a toy for their birthday, and finally received the gift they wanted on their birthday.

On Nico Nico Douga, when Shiokawa bowed, the comments section exploded like a waterfall, causing the servers to crash.
With the appearance of Shiokawa, the number of viewers on YouTube's Japanese live stream skyrocketed.

Even on Bilibili, many Japanese comments have appeared.

It's no exaggeration to say that if Yanchuan doesn't have any new information today, he might be smashed into a salt cake by the players tomorrow.

Fortunately, Shiokawa did not disappoint these players. After a few brief chats, he directly released the remastered footage.

Without uttering a single pointless sentence, he began to explain the remake plan for "FGO".

"First, we gave the combat framework a complete art upgrade."

The FGO remake mainly has three parts that have been remade.

The first change is to the combat framework. This part hasn't changed much; the only improvements are in the UI design, the detail of the chibi characters, and the background.

If it were a developer log, it would likely be something like, "Art assets have been optimized."

However, when the new battle screen appeared on the screen, it still brought a sense of shock, especially when the old battle screen and the new battle interface were placed side by side.

The original battle UI of FGO has many obvious problems. For example, it is not suitable for full screen, and the UI occupies too much space, resulting in unclear battlefield animations and a messy, confusing visual.

These problems are actually very easy for Chu Chen to solve. After all, although he has never designed a similar game, he has played Return to 1999.

The original UI was used to "block" the screen because of its low background and character quality. However, while Starry Sky Games may not have much else, it has honed its art quality to a high degree.

Furthermore, the original FGO was also developed using the Unity game engine, and Chu Chen possesses more than just his experience after his rebirth in creating 2D games using the Unity game engine.

And the experience from before rebirth.

Therefore, after a series of optimizations, even though the combat system itself remained unchanged, the UI and presentation of Return to 1999 in 2023 were reminiscent of 2016.

This change is already shocking enough.

The chat in the live stream paused strangely for a second or two.

Immediately afterwards, it was like water that had been boiled, instantly boiling over!

"What the hell?!"

"Is that really FGO on the right?!"

(End of this chapter)