Chapter 139: Game System and Side Storylines
After using the Memory Recall Potion, the once-blurred memories gradually became clear.
*Heroes of Martial Arts* is essentially a completed version of *The Legend of Wulin Heroes*. The main storyline remains unchanged, but some details and timeline arrangements have been adjusted.
Chen Mo simply listed all the timelines and key events from both games, merging them into one, discarding the dross and keeping the essence, and reintegrating them into a complete story.
Now that Chen Mo’s narrative ability had reached the maximum value of the first stage, and he was examining the plots of these two games from an objective perspective, he was confident that after his modifications, he could fix some minor flaws in the original works and make the game’s story more polished.
The main timeline was actually quite clear: first entering Luoyang, joining Carefree Valley, Hangzhou City, CD City, and the major event of the Demon Sect invasion. Interspersed throughout were the nurturing events within Carefree Valley and some branching storylines.
For the entire timeline, grasping the main trunk made it relatively easy to restore. Of course, just outlining the general timeline was enough; Zheng Hongxi would fill in the details.
*Heroes of Martial Arts* had many endings, divided into the Eastern Depot line, the Beggar’s Sect line, the Wulin Alliance Leader line (righteous path), the Wulin Overlord line (evil path), and the Heavenly King line. Each line had multiple endings.
The protagonist could become the Wulin Alliance Leader, or walk the evil path, killing all his friends and family to become the Wulin Overlord. He could also become the leader of Carefree Valley, enter the court as a prime minister, or become a wandering hero in a chaotic world. All of this depended on the player’s choices.
Beyond these endings, there were also romance endings. Whichever girl the player successfully pursued would have a dedicated ending.
Yes, in this game, you could pursue girls. You could give gifts, receive gifts, complete specific tasks, and ultimately win the beauty’s heart.
Of course, there was also the insane “Ultimate Lover” ending, which was the harem ending.
With so many endings, just sorting out the storylines for each one was enough to keep Zheng Hongxi busy.
Chen Mo also needed to produce concept drafts for characters and scenes, as well as design drafts for the combat system, life skills, item system, and more.
The number of characters in *The Legend of Wulin Heroes* exceeded a staggering 180, and most of these characters were unique, differing in appearance, martial arts, personality, and other aspects.
Chen Mo would only provide a name and a rough concept sketch. Su Jinyu would complete the line art, while Zheng Hongxi would flesh out the basic character settings, background stories, and other content.
For life skills, these included hunting, fishing, mining, and herb gathering. Each life skill corresponded to a mini-game and included a corresponding item system.
For example, during hunting, shooting a snake had a chance to yield a snake gall, and shooting a bear had a chance to yield bear paws and bear bile. Some of these items could be sold for money, while others could be used to enhance the character’s abilities. For instance, consuming a snake gall would increase the protagonist’s internal energy by 1 point.
These life skills would all affect the protagonist’s combat power. For example, after mining high-quality ores, they could be forged into weapons to improve the protagonist’s combat effectiveness.
As for the combat system, it also required a significant investment of effort.
The original combat in *Heroes of Martial Arts* was a turn-based strategy mode, somewhat similar to *Heroes of Might and Magic*. Each turn, each character could move once and attack once, with different martial arts having different attack ranges, power, and effects.
For example, the Nine Swords of Dugu. The first move had the effect of ignoring the opponent’s defense. When combined with the item “Prideful Divine Sword” and the character talent “Weapon Master,” it could deal massive damage. If further combined with special effects like “Continuous Slash,” it could allow a single character to clear the entire battlefield.
Besides martial arts, many other factors influenced combat, such as “Ambidexterity,” “Combo,” “Continuous Slash,” special buffs/debuffs, items, and so on. The entire combat system was very rich.
In *Heroes of Martial Arts*, martial arts were divided into many types: internal arts, fist and palm, leg techniques, finger and claw, sword techniques, blade techniques, dual weapons, staff techniques, short weapons, zither, hidden weapons, and so on. Their attack distances, ranges, power, and effects all differed. Basically, all the more famous martial arts were included, and their actual effects closely matched their original settings.
Of course, Chen Mo also made some modifications to address the flaws in *The Legend of Wulin Heroes*.
First, regarding art quality. From the remastered *Heroes of Martial Arts* to *Heroes of Martial Arts: Prequel*, the overall art quality had been steadily improving. However, overall, the game’s art style wasn’t particularly competitive.
This time, Chen Mo personally oversaw the character concept art and model production, making the models, animations, and scenes more polished. The combat special effects were also made more spectacular, at least matching the quality of some domestic single-player games in the parallel world.
Second, regarding the difficulty of getting started. Chen Mo built two difficulty systems into the game. [Normal Difficulty] was the original difficulty, with no hints whatsoever, relying entirely on the player’s own exploration. [Easy Difficulty] provided simple hints when certain special events could be triggered. During the large map puzzle-solving sections, if the player was stuck in one place for too long, an NPC would give corresponding hints. Additionally, the time for learning skills in the valley would be increased accordingly, allowing ordinary players to clear the endings without needing a guide.
Furthermore, for the combat system, Chen Mo provided two options. One was the original turn-based combat. The other was a fake real-time combat similar to *Dot Arena*, where players could freely select a character to control during the melee, releasing skills and moving around.
Additionally, Chen Mo enhanced the [Appraisal] function. Players could use this function to view a martial art’s power, rating, and recommended combinations, essentially serving as an official guide. If the player’s appraisal skill was insufficient, they could take the martial arts manual to their teacher, Wu Xiazi, for appraisal, making it easier for players in this world to distinguish the strength of different martial arts.
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The entire combat system was also handled by Qian Kun. Considering that he was unfamiliar with some martial arts like the Nine Swords of Dugu and Ambidexterity, Chen Mo briefly provided a general positioning for these martial arts.
Furthermore, the placement of enemies and level design for each scene were primarily Qian Kun’s responsibility. Chen Mo only provided a general plan.
Other systems, such as titles, hero recruitment, character affinity, and pursuing girls, were all assigned to Su Jinyu.
After creating *Warcraft*, Su Jinyu, Zheng Hongxi, and Qian Kun had all become more proficient. They also had a thorough understanding of Chen Mo’s design intentions, so there were no communication issues. They quickly entered the stable development phase.
It could be said that *Warcraft* was a critical hurdle. After completing it, the abilities of these three assistants had greatly improved, so the speed of game development also increased significantly.
At the experience store, Su Jinyu was refining the protagonist’s line art.
In *The Legend of Wulin Heroes*, the protagonist was named Dongfang Weiming. In *Heroes of Martial Arts*, players were allowed to name the protagonist themselves and customize their avatar, which also improved the sense of freedom.
Wen Lingwei was also helping to color the line art.
“Jin Yu, why does this protagonist have so many avatars? They only differ in expression; the appearance is basically the same,” Wen Lingwei asked.
Su Jinyu nodded. “Yeah, only the expressions are different. These are for the player to choose from.”
Wen Lingwei was a bit puzzled. “What’s the point of that?”
Su Jinyu thought for a moment and said, “Probably so players can choose an avatar based on their preferences, and it also matches the character’s personality. Because in this game, the protagonist’s personality isn’t fixed. The player can train him to be a good person or a bad person.”
“Oh,” Wen Lingwei nodded. “That sounds pretty rich, a bit like a text-based game.”
Su Jinyu said, “Yes, it references some gameplay from text-based games, but the differences are quite significant, and the content is much richer than typical text-based games.”
Wen Lingwei said with some concern, “This time it looks like a game I can play. But is it really okay for the store manager to cram all these messy gameplay elements together? I feel like it might end up being a mishmash of a game.”
Su Jinyu said, “It’s hard to say. Who knows until the game is made? But I think we should trust the store manager. He definitely knows what he’s doing.”