Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 138 Sneak Attack
“That guy…” Huang Jintao seemed to remember something.

"Guan Lei, are you still in contact?"

"There is contact."

"Oh? What did you talk about?" Pang Zhen asked, intrigued.

"What else can we talk about?"

Qi Zhihong chuckled self-deprecatingly.

“Our project promotion for ‘Night Spirit’ hasn’t taken off, so my boss asked me to go and gather some information under the guise of learning from others. So I shamelessly gave him a call.”

"The results of it?"

"What other outcome could there be?"

Qi Zhihong paused, his expression somewhat complicated.

“He’s now the head of Starry Sky A3 Studio, leading the team in the early stages of the ‘Infinite Holy Grail’ project. You all saw the project launch event, it’s a big project. He talked to me on the phone for less than ten minutes before saying he had to go to a meeting and hung up in a hurry.”

"Just before hanging up, I asked him how Xingchen was doing, and guess what he said?"

"How to say?"

He said that in other places, the boss gives money and asks for KPIs, but at StarCraft, the boss gives respect and asks for game quality.

"Before hanging up, he said that after more than ten years in the industry, he had finally met someone who understood him."

After Qi Zhihong's words, all three fell silent, with only soothing music playing in the coffee shop.

Are giants like Tencent, NetEase, and Wanmei short of money?
Actually, there is no shortage.
However, in the game development field, they are more accustomed to using KPIs, DAU, and revenue to measure a person's value, rather than the ideas in their mind.

a long time.

"I wonder what the future holds for this Star Game..."

"Who knows."

Huang Jintao picked up his cup of coffee, which had long since gone cold, and drank it all in one gulp.

The three of them fell silent for a moment, their gazes turning back to the window.

~~~
The next day
The day before CNJOY

In the morning, at miHoYo headquarters
While the producers from traditional game companies were "chatting".

miHoYo's headquarters are also discussing the final details for tomorrow's CNJOY event.

However, they were not discussing how to participate in the exhibition.

After all, miHoYo didn't even apply to participate in the CNJOY game expo. The reason they made this decision was that miHoYo believed that offline expos in China didn't provide enough exposure and display for ACG (Anime, Comics, and Games) games.

In David's words...

"Putting our Kiana alongside 'One-Hit Kill 999' is an insult to our work."

Of course, the most important reason why Mihayou doesn't participate in exhibitions is that the cost of participating in CNJOY is too high.

The venue rental alone costs millions. Add to that the setup and personnel, and the cost of a medium-sized exhibition is at least 300 million. For companies like Tencent and NetEase, the cost of an exhibition is four to five million.

This price is not a small sum for the current value of Miha pomelos.

Therefore, in her previous life, miHoYo did not participate in CNJOY until after Genshin Impact was released in 2020.

but.

In this timeline, Dawei's decision not to participate in the exhibition was influenced not only by the cost but also by the online press conference held by Starry Night Games.

Instead of spending money to participate in exhibitions, it's better to invest the resources in this.

This low-cost, high-efficiency marketing approach is exactly what mihayou needs.

Therefore, after more than ten days of intensive preparation, miHoYo also plans to hold a miHoYo product showcase during the CNJOY exhibition.

There are two core logics behind this decision. First, it was less than half a month since the Starry Night Games press conference, and players had some impression of the Direct presentation format.

Secondly, compared to other domestic game developers, miHoYo's reputation wasn't bad at the time, and player anticipation for Honkai Impact 3rd was also very high. Considering that Starry Sky Games had already exhausted all the promises they could, leveraging the hype surrounding CNJOY, coupled with the big surprises prepared by the Honkai Impact 3rd project team, it seemed like a perfect fit.

Even if this promotional campaign can't replicate the success of Starry Night Games, it should still manage to attract some traffic.

Besides.

After the last meeting, Honkai Impact 3rd also made some changes, such as extending the opening CG, which was originally only a dozen seconds long, to 3 minutes.

In addition, the tutorial for new players in Honkai Impact 3 has been optimized.

In the current version.

After Kiana descended from the sky, she was no longer clearing out minions, but instead faced a large enemy directly upon landing, and her emotions fluctuated, starting with Kiana's exclamation.

"Hey hey hey!! I've never heard of fighting something this big!!"

After being chased and hit twice, Kiana went berserk.

"Aaaaaah!! Don't underestimate me!! I'm a Valkyrie too!!!"

This 3 to 5 minute experience has been fully optimized.

From the moment Kiana jumps off the spaceship to the start of the battle, the entire sequence uses a combination of animated cutscenes and in-game QTEs.

Simply put, it's "God of War LIKE".

This is a performance path that Dawei found suitable for Honkai Impact 3rd after searching for a long time under the pressure of the intense performance in "Final Frontline".

After all, when it comes to the best performance in action games...

The God of War is definitely a top-tier existence.

Therefore, many of the camera angles in this Kiana battle have a strong sense of déjà vu. However, this is indeed the first time that the "God of War" element has been incorporated into a two-dimensional game.

Besides, Kiana's perky butt is much more pleasing to the eye than Kratos.

Even though this 5-minute battle still has some details to refine, such as the feel of the controls, it already looks quite satisfactory from the actual gameplay demonstration.

It belongs to the type that's more comfortable to look at than to play.

It was precisely because of this change in the opening that Dawei got the idea to do a Nintendo Direct and use this opening presentation to attract a wave of traffic.

Based on his trust in the product quality, Dawei demonstrated a great deal of confidence during the meeting.

"Our approach is very clear."

"If Starry Sky Games can do online live streams, so can we at miHoYo. They're just making empty promises, we'll just show you actual gameplay! We'll throw out our five-minute opening segment and ride the wave of CNJOY's popularity, we won't have to worry about getting viewers."

"Furthermore, CNJOY, Tencent, and Starry Sky have all done their pre-event promotions, so there shouldn't be any new major announcements. We'll see when our live broadcast starts the day after tomorrow."

"This time, let all players in the industry see what a true 2D action game is!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a chorus of agreement and applause erupted in the conference room. Normally, after the boss had given a pep talk, everyone would have left.

In fact, this is indeed the case.

However, just as everyone was tidying up the documents on their desks and preparing to return to their workstations, a voice suddenly came from a corner.

"Hmm?? Starry Sky Games! It seems they've come up with something new."

The voice wasn't loud, but the appearance of the words "Starry Sky Games" still made everyone in the conference room pause for a moment.

David asked a question instinctively.

"What's new?"

"It seems... they've updated a gaming platform? And there are a few games available?"

"what??"

"Pop-ups have started appearing on the Starry Sky official website and Bilibili homepage!!"

"what??"

(End of this chapter)