Chapter 100: The Scam of the Ten-Pull
Qian Kun was a senior math major at a key university in the imperial capital, in the same grade as Su Jinyu, and hadn’t graduated yet. If you went by academic performance, this guy was basically the biggest nerd in the entire experience store—winning national scholarships every year and already securing a graduate school recommendation.
However, this guy actually thought grad school was boring and was planning to go straight to work.
Qian Kun came to the experience store, hit it off with Chen Mo, and the two quickly signed a contract.
Qian Kun also joined Thunderbolt Entertainment as an intern, with a monthly salary set at 8,000 per month. Honestly, for Chen Mo, giving the three of them a bit more pay wouldn’t have been a big deal, but there was no rush. Let them accumulate some experience first, and once they officially graduate and join full-time, they could all get raises together.
Speaking of which, the game Qian Kun valued most when joining Thunderbolt Entertainment was actually "I Am MT." In his view, this game had a very fantastical quality—it was a game that could make players willingly fork over money just by playing with the numbers.
"Hmm, it seems that in the future, when developing money-grabbing games, I’ll have someone to take the blame," Chen Mo thought to himself.
...
The research was mostly done, the team was assembled, and it was time to prepare the next new game.
For the new game, Chen Mo already had a clear idea in mind, but his current abilities might not be fully up to the task, so...
Yeah, that’s right, time to spend money.
Chen Mo was still pretty well-off now. "I Am MT" brought in over ten million in net income every month, which was his main source of revenue. Games like "Plants vs. Zombies" and "Lifeline" were still selling steadily, but with "Thunderbolt Card Games" constantly burning cash, they were at best breaking even.
Chen Mo roughly estimated that his current designer skills averaged around 80 points, art at 40, music at 20, and storyboarding at 13.
Chen Mo planned to first max out the first stage of his designer skills, then do his best to improve the three areas of art, music, and storyboarding, since these directly affected game quality.
If Chen Mo wanted to compete with PC-side premium RTS games like "Legion Conquest," his game quality had to be high—even higher than the original from his past life.
Wash hands, wash face, bathe, and fast.
Chen Mo deposited 5 million, totaling 50 million points.
He first did seven ten-pulls to get the Lucky Capsule.
After getting the Lucky Capsule, Chen Mo didn’t overthink it. He immediately used it and then went on a wild spree, spending all the remaining points.
He had to admit, the act of pulling was addictive...
After pulling, Chen Mo began to check his results.
Since he had more money now, Chen Mo wasn’t as anxious as before. He looked at the pull results with a calm mind.
Yeah, very calm.
[Designer Skill Books]: 250 books.
[Special Skill Books]: 150 books.
[Special Items]: 100 items.
Yeah, a perfect 5:3:2 ratio.
He continued to check the item details.
[Designer Skill Books]: Total 250 books, including 74 numerical skill books, 61 level design skill books, 49 system skill books, and 66 story skill books.
[Special Skill Books]: Total 150 books.
Concept Art: 27 books.
3D Art: 49 books.
Art Animation: 30 books.
Music and Sound Effects: 21 books.
Storyboarding Techniques: 23 books.
[Special Items]: Total 100 items.
Memory Replay Potion: 58, Reflex Booster Injection: 19, Hand Speed Enhancement Potion: 22, Lucky Capsule: 1 (already used).
"Huh?"
Seeing the item list, Chen Mo was triple-stunned.
The designer skill books had clearly all hit their cap, especially the story skill books. I’ve already maxed out the first stage, so why did it give me 66 more? Each one of these costs ten thousand, damn it!
Couldn’t it have converted them into special skill books? My art and music abilities urgently need improvement, hey!
And what the hell are these Reflex Booster Injections and Hand Speed Enhancement Potions?
What use does a designer have for this crap!
Alright, anyway, let’s just consume them first.
Chen Mo calmed his mind and started with the story skill books.
The screen prompted: "Other abilities are still in the first stage. Only after all skills unlock the second stage can you draw second-tier skill books to continue improving second-stage abilities. This item is a first-tier skill book and is now invalid, automatically converted to 30,000 points."
"Pfft!!"
Chen Mo almost spat out a mouthful of old blood. Damn it, this is a scam that kills without mercy!
When pulling, it cost 100,000 points, but after conversion, it’s only 30,000 points. This loss rate is just too damn touching!
Chen Mo barely restrained the urge to throw his wristband on the ground and consumed all the designer skill books.
System, numerical, level design, and story—these four basic designer abilities had finally all reached the first-stage cap, but the extra 190 books were converted into 5.7 million points.
The second stage didn’t unlock, which meant the prompt’s "all skills" referred to all abilities including art, music, storyboarding, and so on...
He also consumed all the special skill books. After eating them, Chen Mo checked his various attribute values.
System, numerical, level design, and story went without saying—all at 100 points, unlocking the second stage.
But the second-stage values couldn’t be improved yet. He’d need all skills to reach the second stage before he could draw second-tier skill books to boost them.
[Concept Art: 80]
[3D Art: 84]
[Art Animation: 40]
[Music and Sound Effects: 41]
[Storyboarding Techniques: 36]
Chen Mo looked it over and figured it was okay. No need to pull again for now. These values were about enough to complete a real-time strategy game.
Because of the perspective, RTS games didn’t have very high demands for animation, much less than first-person adventure games. Concept art and 3D art were basically sufficient.
Music and storyboarding were a bit lacking, but spending more money to make the cutscenes higher quality could compensate a little.
In the Illusion World Editor, Chen Mo’s evaluation was like this.
[Chen Mo: Game Designer (C-rank)]
[Creativity: 49]
[System: 57]
[Numerical: 65]
[Level Design: 53]
[Story: 45]
[Concept Art: 39]
[3D Art: 1]
[Monthly Resource Quota Used:]
Since reaching C-rank designer last time, Chen Mo had already made three games, including "I Am MT," "Thunderbolt Card Games," and "Lifeline." But even now, he was still a C-rank designer, not even promoted to B-rank...
The scores for creativity, level design, and 3D art hadn’t improved at all.
System, numerical, and concept art had improved a bit thanks to "I Am MT" and "Thunderbolt Card Games." As for story, it had improved a bit because of "Lifeline."
Although the improvements weren’t much, the monthly resource quota used had quietly increased to 5 GB.
It felt like the officials were pretty tsundere. They clearly didn’t approve of "I Am MT," thinking that while the game made money, its actual design philosophy had nothing worthwhile.
But considering that Chen Mo was now a regular on the mobile game bestseller charts, they’d open up a bit more resource quota for him to mess around with on his own.
Genius remembers this site’s address in one second: