Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 189 Opening

Since Wang Lei, who had provided the funds, had said so, Li Mingzhe readily agreed.

He quickly acquired six collector's edition sets from a scalper less than 2 kilometers away through a face-to-face transaction.
Because it was a face-to-face transaction, during the purchase process, he also learned a very absurd thing from the scalper.

"A 200 increase is pretty good, bro. I'm just too lazy to sell them separately, otherwise I would have made more money."

"If Starry Sky hadn't insisted on releasing the products in batches and allowing players to claim the skins using their order numbers, the price of this gift box would have been even higher."

"Do you know how much money I made per piece of clothing when I sold clothes during the Qixi Festival before?"

"How many?"

"400!"

"Holy crap, I remember that outfit only cost 300..."

"Exactly! You should thank Xingchen. If they hadn't been so shameless this time, you wouldn't have only made this little money."

This sounds incredibly absurd coming from a scalper, but it's actually true.

To combat scalpers, Starry Games has made many efforts, including unlimited pre-orders, phased releases in China, and a lottery system similar to that used in Japan.

The former ensures that ordinary users who genuinely want something can buy what they want.

The latter, on the other hand, curbed scalping.

After all, whether you release the goods in batches or by lottery, if you really drive the price up to the sky, players won't buy them anymore. They can just try to snatch them themselves, and who knows, they might actually succeed.

However, these efforts only curb scalpers. When players themselves can't resist becoming scalpers, eliminating them is impossible.
Li Mingzhe breathed a sigh of relief when he put the things in the car.

Looking at the cardboard box with the Starry Sky Games logo printed on it, a sense of absurdity welled up in my heart again.

He stared at the box for a long time, his mind filled with the sales figure of over 300,000 and the enthusiastic comments in the discussion forum.

"I'll have to try this game out and see what kind of magic it possesses that makes it so incredibly powerful."

Even after he got back to his office and ordered takeout, he was still thinking about it.

By the time he realized what was happening, he had already opened Star Tap on his computer.

~~~
About half an hour later, Li Mingzhe, like countless other players, began frantically clicking to launch the game.
Out of habit, he didn't use his phone to play, but instead used his computer.

Due to optimization, the so-called "FGO PC version" is actually just an official emulator with a high-definition resource pack for tablets.

Fortunately, FGO isn't a large game, so even with an emulator, there's no need to worry about configuration or optimization issues.

Li Mingzhe's office computer is also usable.

As it approached 1 p.m., the server notification finally disappeared. I clicked, logged in, and entered the game—all in one smooth motion.

Then the familiar stars flew into the sky.

After the logo of Starry Sky Games appeared, then the logo of Bilibili appeared, and finally the logo of FGO appeared.

The version of "FGO" that Li Mingzhe played was the same as the one that DEW sold to Xingchen Games four months ago, even though it still had the same name.

But the game has been completely transformed.

Overall, Starry Sky Games has made two major optimizations to FGO: one is the optimization of the game engine, which is actually not complicated.

Since FGO also uses the Unity engine, this optimization was a piece of cake for Shiokawa. In his previous life, Shiokawa optimized the underlying framework of FGO in just one month, bringing it to a usable state.

In this timeline, Yanchuan received more assistance with optimization.

In particular, after the 2D-HD engine team acquired by Chu Chen, namely Akira Ishii, returned to Japan, the overall optimization speed was further improved.

Although Akira Ishii's team has a different research focus than FGO, it's easy to imagine that they are a group of experts capable of using the Unity engine for secondary modifications and development, many of whom are former core members of Vanillaware.
In addition, the person who spearheaded the production of the FGO remake was Shiokawa.

As a die-hard fan of Fate/Grand Order, his passion for FGO was at its peak at this time, and with the Starry Night game's profit-sharing mechanism, it's no exaggeration to say...

Although the FGO remake appears to have only been in development for 4 months, in reality, the workload was at least 5 months, or even 6 months.

Because the overtime hours at the Japanese studio were insane, Chu Chen even offered some words of advice, like "it's the foundation of revolution."

As a result, Shiokawa retorted with a sentence.

"I can't let FATE fans down. I'll rest after the remake is released." He then showed Chu Chen the thousands of fan comments encouraging him on his Twitter account.

Although I find it hard to understand the Japanese spirit of "I can't let them down, if I don't do well, I'll die".

However, Shiokawa's overtime work with a large number of employees did indeed bring better quality to the FGO remake.
Not only was the underlying framework of the FGO remake optimized, but Shiokawa also added support for many 2D-HD lighting, weather, and other systems.

Furthermore, they also worked with Ishii Akira to optimize the game's combat action system.

The support of these underlying frameworks makes it much easier to optimize the subsequent combat system and art resources.

Of course, these things are all backend components.

What players can truly experience is the game itself.

What's that saying again? All optimizations aren't for self-gratification or for writing reports, but for making the game more fun.

So, has the game become more fun?
Let's refocus our attention on Li Mingzhe.

~~~
After Li Mingzhe entered the game.

The show starts with a 7-minute animation.

Unlike many traditional spin-off games, the opening animation of FGO doesn't immediately bombard you with character illustrations, singing, and various battle clips.
Chu Chen, after all, came from the future. In his view, the opening animation was like the golden three chapters of a novel, designed to grab the player's attention right from the start.

Especially for something like FTAE, which has a certain learning curve, the opening animation is of paramount importance.

Therefore, the opening animation of the remastered version begins with a cold alarm.

"It's all over!! Humanity's future is gone!"

The moment the lines were spoken, a metal sphere covered in blue patterns began to rotate on the screen, with light and shadow flowing across its surface, creating a realistic effect.

"How could this be! How could it disappear!?"

"Only the complete extinction of human civilization could mean the end of humanity, but that... doesn't make sense! We haven't detected anything that could destroy humanity."

In the background, there are the sounds of various instruments operating rapidly and the hurried footsteps of people.

"Don't panic, what was the exact time it disappeared?"

"2017! There are only two months left!"

"How can it be!"

The entire opening animation borrowed some content from "FGO: Prologue," which was originally scheduled to air in December 2016, and lasted for about 7 minutes.

The story, told in three acts, clearly explains three things.

The first act, which is the beginning of the animation, is about an organization called Chaldea that has been observing the future of humanity, which has disappeared without warning, meaning that humanity will be extinct in 2017!
Meanwhile, researchers observed unobservable areas in Fuyuki City, Japan in 2004. Researchers believe that something must have gone wrong at this point in time, which led to the extinction of humankind.

They need to send people back to 2004 to find out what exactly happened in this unobservable realm.

The second act begins immediately.

Forty-seven Masters entered Chaldea's "teleportation" facility, preparing to be transported to Fuyuki City in 2004 to investigate the cause. The player takes on the role of the "Chief," the number one ranked Master among all Masters.

However, due to an injury sustained during training, he was not selected to participate in the plan and could only watch from the sidelines.

There's also a scene where a cute researcher named Mash comforts the player.

"It's alright, if nothing unexpected happens, next time..."

However, as we all know, when a character says "nothing unexpected will happen," something unexpected is usually about to happen.

After an explosion, when the player wakes up again, they are in the third act.

A fire broke out in the central hall, and the teleportation countdown began. As we know from the previous plot, if we miss this teleportation time, we cannot be sure which teleportation will be available next.

So the injured player rushed in before the central gate closed.

As the only rational and clear-headed Master, he arrived in Fuyuki City together with Mash, who was severely injured and trapped under the rubble.

(End of this chapter)