Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 152 The New Answer
Let's rewind a little, to before Zhang Guangtai took the stage.

Shanghai, an office building.

Haze Games Studio.

Four or five young people, with heavy dark circles under their eyes, were staring intently at a monitor.

On the monitor screen was the developer backend interface of Startap, a simple UI with several key data columns displaying glaring "0".

"Brother Hui, do you think... this time it will work?"

A programmer wearing glasses asked in a low voice.

The man known as Brother Hui is Zhu Hui, the owner of Heisi Games Studio and the producer of "Runestone Guardians".

He was sitting in the main seat at that moment.

He simply shook his head upon hearing this.

If it were last year when "Runestone Keeper" was first released, he did indeed dream of the game becoming a huge hit, marrying a beautiful and wealthy woman, and reaching the pinnacle of life...
But now, he is much more sober.

"For those doing domestic orders, what does 'success' mean?"

Runestone Keeper is a light roguelike game that their team spent three years painstakingly developing. Since its release on Steam last year, it has sold approximately 20 copies thanks to its good gameplay and positive reviews.

As for the gameplay, most people probably haven't played it before.

However, in Honkai Impact 3rd: Star Railway, some gameplay elements were modified during the Dungeon Raid event.

In addition, "Dungeon & Puzzles" also uses this gameplay as its foundation.

In short, the game uses a grid-based dungeon design, where players need to click on each grid to uncover the fog of war. Each grid may hide monsters, traps, treasure chests, or random events.

Each time a player clicks to move or attack, it consumes 1 energy point. Energy is replenished by flipping over tiles, creating a rhythm of "exploration-combat-resource cycle".

Simply put, this is a mild roguelike game.

The gameplay is quite fun, and it was the second best-selling domestic single-player game in 2015. The top-selling domestic single-player game that year was "Tale of Wuxia," and the third was "Xuan-Yuan Sword: The Gate of Firmament."

It can be said that although the sales volume is not high, the quality is definitely above average.

This result is quite good for a small team of less than ten people.

Even though it ranked second in domestic singles sales, after deducting Steam's commission and various expenses, as well as the development investment of the previous three years, the profit was barely enough to keep the studio alive and give everyone on the team a small bonus.

That's it.

This is the harsh reality for domestic single-player game developers.

Three years of hard work have yielded sales figures that may not even equal the monthly revenue of a mobile game.

Moreover, due to a lack of promotion, even though Runestone Keeper has a good reputation, in Steam's huge game library, it's like a drop of water flowing into a river, creating a small ripple before quickly returning to calm.

So when the people from Startap approached them two months ago, inviting them to port the game to the Startap platform, Zhu Hui agreed almost without hesitation.

The terms offered were indeed very generous: a flat price of three million for the global Android distribution rights—that's a whopping 300 million!
Last year, "Runestone Guardians" only sold a little over 500 million copies, and after deducting revenue sharing, the profit was less than 300 million... Now people are talking about 300 million!

Moreover, even after the other party bought the agency rights, they still left the production team with 20% of the profits.

For Zhu Hui, this was essentially like winning the lottery.

He even suspected at one point that the other party was joking until Starry Games actually transferred the money into their company account.

"It's here! It's refreshed!"

Someone shouted, and everyone's heart jumped into their throats. The developer backend page on the screen flickered, and then several brand-new data modules popped up.

[Real-time Sales], [Real-time Online Views], [User Ratings]

In the "Real-time Sales" section, a number slowly appeared.

"1"

The office was deathly silent; everyone remained still, waiting for the numbers to begin changing.

"3"

"11"

"27"

The numbers jumped faster and faster, going from single digits to tens in the blink of an eye.

"Holy crap, someone actually bought it!"

"Don't rush, this is just the beginning, just the beginning..."

As the first third-party paid single-player game to be released, "Runestone Guardians" was placed in a very prominent position on the homepage of StarTap, even before the promotions for "Final Battlefront" and "FGO".

Moreover, for this sale, Starry Games has divided "Runestone Guardians" into three versions: a basic version priced at 8.9 yuan, which includes two playable characters and all levels.

Next is the standard edition at 19.9 yuan, which adds two more characters to the basic edition. Finally, there's the deluxe edition at 29.9 yuan, which adds three more characters to the previous editions.

Chu Chen knew very well that "Runestone Guardians" would never be sold for 39 on StarTap, as no mobile user would buy it at that price.

At least in the current Chinese market, they won't buy it.

This is why Starry Sky Games bought out the Android operation rights. They wanted to change the pricing system, split the game into three versions, and significantly lower the barrier to entry by splitting the original seven heroes of "Runestone Guardians" into three versions.

This approach did indeed work.

The price of 8.9 yuan, plus the 5 yuan no-minimum-spend coupon available to all StarTap players worldwide, meant that no game offered this coupon before today.

The two factors combined, along with last night's media storm, have drawn the attention of almost all gamers across the internet to the newly launched StarTap platform.

Now, this terrifying surge of traffic is seeking an outlet.

"109"

"358"

"774"

When the sales figures jumped to three digits and raced toward four digits, a gasp finally erupted in the oppressive office.

"Holy crap!" "Is this...is this a bug? Even if the basic version is cheap, it's only been a few minutes and it's already sold almost a thousand copies?"

"My God... our game only sold a little over 800 copies on Steam on the first day!"

Zhu Hui's breathing also became rapid.

Numerical values ​​can excite players not only when developing games, but also in real life.

When half an hour had passed and the number of "real-time sales" had steadily stopped at "100,000", the entire office fell into an eerie silence.

In the office, only the hum of a few computer fans and the faint sound of traffic outside the window remained.

No one spoke, no one moved; it was as if time had frozen at that moment.

Zhu Hui's gaze was fixed on that number; he could even feel the capillaries in his eyeballs swell slightly from excessive blood flow.

"……that,"

"Could it be a bug in the Star Tap backend? Or... did Star Tap inflate sales figures?"

Yes! That makes sense!

"It's definitely a bug! This data is too fake!"

Several other people echoed this sentiment, not because they were questioning Startap's marketing capabilities.

Because everything happening before their eyes was too surreal, exceeding all the experience and knowledge they had accumulated over the past few years, their brains instinctively refused to accept this reality.

After all, a domestically produced single-player game can sell for 100,000 RMB in half an hour.
Forget about selling it, even a pirated website that gets 100,000 downloads in half an hour is considered amazing.
However, as they were talking, the number started jumping forward again.

100101.

Followed by.

100212.

The numbers continue to grow steadily and firmly upwards.

"...Gudong."

Someone swallowed hard, the sound ringing out clearly in the quiet office.

"I...I'll check on my phone."

A young man in charge of art frantically pulled out his phone, opened Star Tap, and his fingers were so nervous that they were almost unresponsive. He entered the wrong password several times before finally unlocking the app.

Open the page for "Runestone Guardians".

Below the game title, a series of data is clearly displayed by the platform.

[10.1 copies sold]

[Rating: 9.8]

[Comments: 2455]

"It's true. There are so many comments..."

In an instant, everyone seemed to have been put on hold, pulling out their phones.

Click to open the comment section.

Holy crap! This game only costs 8.9 yuan?!

I thought it was just a casual game, but it turned out to be quite fun and definitely worth it!

I've seen this game on Steam and always wanted to buy it, but I didn't expect the mobile version to be so cheap. StarCraft Games is awesome!

[For those who have played the PC version, I highly recommend buying the deluxe edition; it's absolutely worth the price!]

When they saw the sales figures with their own eyes, and the dense, almost instantaneously refreshed comments below, they had no choice but to believe it, no matter how hard they thought it was.

Moreover, compared to those cold sales figures, these genuine recognitions from players make them feel more satisfied and proud, and are more likely to stir people's emotions.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

"It's true! It's all true!!"

"My God!!"

The programmer who reacted first jumped up from his chair. The movement was so violent that the chair tipped over with a loud crash.

But he didn't care at all, he just kept shouting "Awesome!" with his mouth open.

"100,000 in half an hour!! 100,000 in half an hour!!!"

"Brother Huihui, are you crying?"

"Huh?? No, no, it's just that my eyes are a little sore from looking at things for too long..."

On the surface, Zhu Hui didn't seem that excited; he simply wiped his eyes.
He found it hard to describe his current feelings.

He recalled when the team was first formed, and everyone was eating instant noodles while sketching and dreaming about the future.

He recalled how the funding chain broke down midway through game development, forcing him to shamelessly borrow money from relatives and friends. He remembered the night before the game was launched on Steam, when the entire team stayed up all night, and how they worked overtime to fix bugs after the launch.

What constitutes success in developing domestically produced single-player games?
He had asked himself and his team the same questions.

Perhaps, if it can keep the studio alive and allow the brothers to support their families, then let's call it "success".

But now.
Star Tap gave him a completely new answer.

　Whew, the Starry Sky Tap part is finally almost finished. Now it's time to wrap things up and move on to the next part of the story.

　　Although some parts were actually cut in the middle, such as the previous content about playing the game "Let's Make Pancakes Together", and the mobile phone review blogger's review of the mobile phone's high-precision gyroscope and vibration feedback using "Stepping on Fire Rings".
　　I was afraid it would drag out the pace too much, so I ultimately deleted it. I'll see if I have a chance to write a short piece about it later.

　　In short, after writing this paragraph, Startap has taken its first step.

　　Now let's get back to the game development process.

　　Finally, thank you to all the readers who have subscribed! See you tomorrow!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)