Chapter 85: The Plot of a Text Adventure Game
Many designers of card and board games believe that these games are simple and therefore don’t need a newbie tutorial. After all, players who come to play have basically played them in real life and can’t possibly not know the rules.
But this view is actually wrong.
Card and board games from different regions have subtle differences in gameplay. Take Mahjong, for example: eating, ponging, konging, and various hand patterns—the rules differ from region to region. If a player has only played National Standard Mahjong and sees Blood Flow Mahjong and wants to try it, but there’s no tutorial, they’ll be completely confused. Figuring it out on their own could be a real pain.
In fact, there’s a group of players in real life who rarely get the chance to play card games and can’t even play Dou Di Zhu smoothly. Yet they want to improve their skills so that when they occasionally play cards, they won’t drag the team down. These people come to card games hoping for some beginner tips.
For example, in the previous life, Tencent’s card games were very meticulous in this regard. Basically, as long as a newbie knew a little bit of the rules after entering the game, they could play through smoothly. And as they kept playing and completing tasks, they would receive a lot of rewards.
Chen Mo had even made a domestic card mobile game like "I Am MT." This level of numerical stimulation was child’s play and not difficult at all.
The second aspect is the tournament arena.
In fact, the tournament arena is mainly designed for Texas Hold’em. The characteristics of Texas Hold’em make it very suitable for a tournament arena. Some people don’t even play on the lobby tables and only play in the tournament arena.
The so-called tournament arena means each person pays a certain entry fee, the system pools the entry fees together, and everyone starts with the same chips. Players are randomly assigned to different tables, and people are eliminated continuously. Eventually, the first place or top few places are taken, winning the prize pool.
In fact, the tournament arena is quite similar to a survival game. On one hand, it requires players to be steady, because if they lose their footing, the whole game is over. Getting into the money circle is the ultimate goal. On the other hand, it requires players to be good at seizing opportunities, using good hands to expand their chips as much as possible and deplete their opponents’ chips.
On the lobby tables, players often lose a large number of chips due to impulse, and wins and losses are uncontrollable. But in the tournament arena, players lose at most the cost of one ticket, and if they persist to the end, they can even gain more than ten times the return.
So, for many players, they prefer the tournament arena. Although they might lose more in the tournament arena (buying tickets multiple times but never entering the money circle), the sense of frustration players experience is very weak.
In the previous life, games like Dou Di Zhu and Mahjong also had tournament arenas, but the popularity of tournament arenas should still be attributed to Texas Hold’em.
This world doesn’t have Texas Hold’em, so the development of tournament arenas is severely lagging. Chen Mo just happened to perfect all the tournament arena rules, and this will become a major selling point for "Thunder Card Games."
Then there’s the Thunder Game Platform. Currently, Chen Mo has five games: "Flappy Bird," "Plants vs. Zombies," "I Am MT," "Lifeline," and "Thunder Card Games" (Dou Di Zhu, Mahjong, Thunder Poker).
Most of these are mobile games, while "Plants vs. Zombies" and "Thunder Card Games" are available on both mobile and PC.
The PC version of the Thunder Game Platform is the main platform for Chen Mo’s games. On the PC game platform, games will be regularly discounted and promoted, allowing players to share updates with friends from various games, view game records, and so on.
Of course, these features don’t need to be completed all at once; they can be added gradually. The PC Thunder Game Platform is kept at around 10 MB. Of course, if a ton of features are added later, it might increase to 100 MB, but in the early stages, it should be kept small to avoid player dissatisfaction.
The mobile Thunder Game Platform is even smaller, existing merely as something like an app store. Its size should always be kept at around 5 MB, and even if more new features are added later, the size should not exceed 15 MB.
...
Monday, Zheng Hongxi officially started work.
Chen Mo thought for a moment and temporarily let Zheng Hongxi work on the computers in the experience store. Considering that there would be more and more people in the future, Chen Mo wondered if, after earning more money, he should consider getting a larger experience store or studio.
Of course, thinking about this now is a bit premature. Although Chen Mo has money now, there’s no need for such trouble.
Over the past two days, Su Jinyu had basically completed the basic framework of "Lifeline." Since it’s just a text adventure game, the rules are very simple, and the interface is nothing more than a chat window, so it was quick to make.
Chen Mo said to Zheng Hongxi, "This is a text adventure game. This type of game mainly sells the story. You just need to plan out the options based on this background setting and enrich the storyline."
Zheng Hongxi looked at the design draft Chen Mo had given him and was a bit surprised.
"So simple? The entire game is presented entirely in a chat format?" Zheng Hongxi asked.
Chen Mo nodded. "Yeah. So whether players buy it or not depends entirely on the story."
Zheng Hongxi: "...The pressure is a bit high. Is it really okay to take on such an important task on the first day of work?"
Chen Mo said, "What’s so important about this task? Think about it—in the future, you’ll have to write the Azeroth universe yourself, or even official novels."
Zheng Hongxi: "Then... I’ll do my best."
Chen Mo patted him on the shoulder. "Don’t worry. If it’s not written well, I’ll make you rewrite it."
Su Jinyu complained, "That’s not comforting at all, boss!"
After handing "Lifeline" over to Su Jinyu and Zheng Hongxi, Chen Mo went back upstairs to continue developing the card games.
...
Three days later, Zheng Hongxi showed Chen Mo the first draft of the "Lifeline" story plan.
The first draft mainly set a big framework, including how many branches and endings the entire story had, how many options at each step, and what each option would lead to.
This first draft was drawn as a flowchart, with each step’s story being a summary, very brief.
Chen Mo took a rough look. Zheng Hongxi’s first draft planned out over 70 steps of story and 4 major endings.
"Hmm... not bad," Chen Mo said. "But it needs to be rewritten."
Zheng Hongxi: "..."
Chen Mo explained, "First, the story should have a gradient. In your current plan, the timeline is very chaotic. In this game, time inside and outside the game is consistent. If a character in the game has to wait eight hours for the player, that’s a solid eight hours. This time is meant to create a sense of realism for the player."
"And you clearly didn’t notice this when planning the story, not realizing the impact of time on the story’s pacing."
"Second, the tension in the early, middle, and late stages of your story is about the same. In fact, it should be constantly increasing. Especially the escape phase at the end—it shouldn’t be this bland. Maybe you can add some more thrilling elements, like... mutated aliens."
"Also, the content isn’t rich enough. You need to double the number of choice steps to over 120, and increase the endings accordingly. Among these, ninety percent should be failure endings. Players must be very careful, and some key steps must be taken correctly to achieve the happy ending."
Zheng Hongxi listened seriously and finally nodded. "Yeah, I understand. I’ll revise it again."
A genius remembers this site’s address in one second: