Chapter 138: Wuxia Game Concept Draft
After creating a new document, Chen Mo wrote down the title of the new document.
"Martial Arts Heroes" Design Concept Draft.
In Chen Mo's previous life, there were many classic wuxia games. "Martial Arts Heroes" might not have been the most polished, but it was the most innovative, standing in stark contrast to those wuxia games that were merely Western fantasy RPGs in disguise.
Of course, "Martial Arts Heroes" wasn't exceptionally famous, but its predecessor, "Jin Yong's Heroes," was widely renowned.
In "Jin Yong's Heroes," the protagonist travels to a world composed of 14 Jin Yong novels. In this world, the protagonist must constantly interact with characters from Jin Yong's novels, collect items, learn martial arts, recruit heroes, and ultimately complete 14 main quests to gather 14 heavenly books before returning to the real world.
This game caused a sensation at the time because players could freely practice martial arts from Jin Yong's novels, recruit heroes like Duan Yu and Yang Guo to fight alongside them, and experience storylines related to the original works.
Additionally, "Jin Yong's Heroes" introduced a morality system. When players made different choices, their morality value would change accordingly.
At the end, when the protagonist gathered all 14 heavenly books and was about to leave, if the protagonist's morality was high, the top ten evil sect masters of the martial world would attack them. If the protagonist's morality was low, the top ten righteous sect masters would attack them.
In the final battle, the protagonist had to defeat these ten masters alone to clear the game, giving players a tremendous sense of satisfaction.
In the parallel world, there were no Jin Yong novels, and the gameplay of "Jin Yong's Heroes" wasn't as rich as that of "Martial Arts Heroes." Its artistic level also struggled to meet the aesthetic standards of players in this era.
After careful consideration, creating "Martial Arts Heroes" better suited Chen Mo's current needs.
In "Martial Arts Heroes," the content from Jin Yong's novels was minimal. Although it was a sequel to "Jin Yong's Heroes," its martial arts sects, characters, and techniques were largely self-contained, making it easy for players in this world to understand without barriers.
In terms of artistic level, although "Martial Arts Heroes" was an old game, it was remastered in 2015 (renamed "Heroes of Wind and Cloud" after the remaster). The character art and models were redone, and Chen Mo's own artistic skills were now very high. After beautification, this artistic level could fully meet the demands of players in this era.
Chen Mo felt that the name "Martial Arts Heroes" better suited the game's content, so he didn't use the name "Heroes of Wind and Cloud."
Of course, the most important thing was that the gameplay and storyline of "Martial Arts Heroes" perfectly matched Chen Mo's needs, especially the gameplay, which was self-contained and unique among all wuxia games.
The remastering of this game also had a story behind it.
"Martial Arts Heroes" was first released in 2001. Although it was a highly acclaimed game, it didn't become a classic on par with "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" or "Xuan-Yuan Sword."
Aside from the relatively niche nature of the wuxia genre, its high difficulty curve, unbalanced combat system, and incomplete story branches were also drawbacks.
Of course, these issues were mainly due to budget constraints.
Ultimately, under the rampant piracy environment, Heluo Studio disbanded. The studio formed by its original members, Eastern Calculus, failed to produce any more classic works and quickly faded into obscurity like a spark.
In 2006, someone posted a thread on the "Martial Arts Heroes" forum: "Is Eastern Calculus still around?"
Players replied: "Haven't seen them release new games in a long time. They probably disbanded. If so, that's a real shame."
In 2009, this old thread was revived by a reply. The replier was Xu Changlong, the lead creator of Heluo Studio and producer of "Martial Arts Heroes."
"Eastern Calculus stopped operations three years ago, but everyone is still in the gaming industry, and the core members are all at a certain game company. As long as we're still here, there's a chance to create better works."
For Xu Changlong, this was surprising.
Over the years, like many game developers, he had abandoned single-player games in the tide of the times, turning to online games and doing things he didn't enjoy, even doubting his future.
Until he stumbled upon the "Martial Arts Heroes" forum and found so many people still posting and discussing the game.
He never imagined that a game from 2001 would still have so many players and nostalgic fans in 2009.
It was because of this that, with the support of many netizens, Xu Changlong conceived the idea of remastering "Martial Arts Heroes" and eventually released "Heroes of Wind and Cloud" in 2015, achieving a cumulative sales of 400,000 units by January 2016.
...
Just like when he created "Warcraft," Chen Mo first wrote the concept draft, outlining the game's general content, then assigned the work to Su Jinyu and the other two.
This time, Chen Mo didn't need to enhance his abilities further, as this game wasn't particularly difficult to make. Having already created a work like "Warcraft," Chen Mo had no technical issues whatsoever in making "Martial Arts Heroes."
All he needed was to sort out the complex settings and story branches from the original work and replicate the classic content to the greatest extent.
Soon, the concept draft for "Martial Arts Heroes" was finished.
In fact, the game's overall content was divided into two types: large map exploration and sect-based training.
The protagonist's career was split into three parts: first entering the martial world (large map exploration), learning from a master (sect-based training), and entering the martial world to save it from catastrophe (large map exploration).
The reason "Martial Arts Heroes" was so highly praised was that it inserted a training mode into the conventional large map exploration mode. Players found that the training mode perfectly complemented the wuxia content, making it very popular.
Of course, replicating the specific details required the help of memory recall potion. But as before, Chen Mo only provided some key foundational settings, while the specific storylines, values, and art were handled by the three assistants.
After finishing the concept draft, Chen Mo called Su Jinyu, Zheng Hongxi, and Qian Kun for a meeting.
"I originally wanted to rest a bit more, but plans change. This is the concept draft for the next game. Take a look first," Chen Mo said, distributing the "Martial Arts Heroes" concept draft to the three.
Qian Kun was a bit disappointed: "Hmm, not another cash-grab game..."
Zheng Hongxi was quite interested: "Oh? From the settings, the story content looks very rich, and this time it's a wuxia theme, very Chinese style."
Su Jinyu was a bit puzzled: "Boss, didn't everyone say wuxia themes are hard to pull off? This game seems to have a lot of innovations. Isn't it a bit risky?"
Chen Mo said, "Don't worry about that. First, get familiar with the game's content. In a couple of days, I'll provide concept art for the characters and scenes. Goldfish, you'll be responsible for all the art resources this time."
"Hongxi, your main focus is the storyline. This time, the story is wuxia-themed, with a lot of traditional cultural knowledge, including music, chess, calligraphy, and painting. Prepare plenty of materials on this. It needs to be moderately difficult—not too shallow, not too profound."
"Qian Kun, you're mainly responsible for the combat system and value planning. This time, the balance requirements aren't as strict as in 'Warcraft.' A few martial arts techniques need to be particularly strong, with high acquisition difficulty. I'll discuss this with you in detail later."
"Alright, that's about it. Take the concept draft home, study it well, think about the game's final form, and each of you prepare accordingly."
After Chen Mo finished his instructions, the three went off to prepare.
As for Chen Mo himself, he began using the memory recall potion to recall key plot points and classic settings from the game.
Genius remembers this site's address in one second: