Almighty Video Game Designer

“It’s fine, it’s just a one or two months right, that doesn’t guarantee first place.” said Chen Mo after some thought.

Lin Mao nodded, “That’s true, the Game Committee members do have specific tastes. But you’d probably have a hard time getting first place if your game wasn’t super innovative.”

Chen Mo did some more thinking.

“I’m thinking of making a Xianxia mobile game, what about you?”

Chen Mo said after a thought, “I’m thinking Wuxia.”

Lin Mao was shocked, “Wuxia? Wuxia is pretty difficult!”

Chen Mo nodded, “I know, that’s why I picked it.”

“That’s true, if you make it well, there’s a high chance of it getting first place. But it is extremely difficult to make the theme special. Zen Entertainment have been playing with it for a long time and never got any results.”

“I know, that’s why I’m still thinking about it,” said Chen Mo.

Lin Mao nodded, “Alright! You can do it! I believe in you! You made an RTS game like Warcraft when it is commonly accepted to be difficult! If you plan it out and do this theme justice, you have a good chance of getting first place.”

Chen Mo nodded, “Good luck, let’s get some good results!”

—

After his meal, Chen Mo returned to the experience store and started thinking hard about the game.

There weren’t many types of games that were Chinese themed. The popular ones were Wuxia and Xianxia.

In the parallel world, the first response of video game designers and players when they think about Chinese games would be Xianxia games. The currently popular VR game Legend of the Sword was a type of Xianxia game.

The reason Xianxia games were popular was because they could use the combat system of an RPG game, making its playstyle easy to pick up and familiar to players.

Just as Western Fantasy RPG games have warriors, casters, archers, melee or ranged, flying with Gryphons… These could all be reskinned with a Xianxia theme.

In Xianxia games, players could fly on their swords, attack others with spells, they could explore areas like caves or mountains, all very fitting with Western RPG games.

The combat of Wuxia games could easily be reskinned using the combat system from Western RPG games, and the players wouldn’t feel that it was out of place.

Therefore most popular Wuxia games were basically reskinned Western RPG games. And because they had games to base it off of, there weren’t any risks involved as it was something players were used to.

So why couldn’t they do the same with Wuxia?

The biggest problem was the combat system.

Xianxia are placed in worlds where magic is common, as opposed to Wuxia where magic is rare.

You could fly on your sword, kill demons, and summon thousands of swords in Wuxia worlds, making it rich and fitting of this spellcasting based combat system.

In Wuxia combat systems you take damage and other effects when I cast spells, which can be reflected in skills and debuffs.

Wuxia was completely different. Traditionally it would be throwing punches and countering them. The Wuxia skills are usually pretty basic. For example, it would be a stretch to treat Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms as eighteen different skills, but it might be too simple if it was just one move. It was also difficult to convey its meaning and uniqueness if it only dealt damage.

Moreover, Wuxia worlds lacked monsters, making it more difficult to tell a story as there wouldn’t be huge bosses, with humanoids in its place.

Converting Xianxia to Wuxia would require taking out a lot of content, moreover, it was also difficult to convey the cultural aspect of Wuxia through a game.

Which was why designers would father do Xianxia over Wuxia.

There were quite a few Wuxia games in his previous life, but the problem was that these Wuxia games were just a reskin and bore the same core as Xianxia and Western RPG games.

The large portion of the games that were based on successful novels by Jin Yong and Gu Long depended on the IP, the games themselves made no new innovations.

For example, making Six Meridian Swords[1] a ranged attack, and making Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms and melee attacks, energy drain would be a mana drain, and quick steps would increase evasion…

These still had strong ties to the combat system of Western RPG games. Setting aside the sentimental value to the original works, these mechanics were a bit of the stretch, and players would probably not buy it.

Although there wasn’t Jin Yong and Gu Long in this world, there were similar Wuxia novels, with the concept of energy, move sets, and different types of Wugong. The Wugong in this world were pretty similar to the previous world too, stuff like Yijin Jing, Tai Chi, and Baguazhang were also popular in this world.

It was impossible for Chen Mo to secure one of these IPs or to remake one of Jin Yong’s novels were impossible as he only had three months to do it.

The Wuxia IPs in this world were quite expensive and doesn’t come close to how popular Jin Yong’s novels were. Even when setting aside the price, buying it wouldn’t have a huge effect anyways, otherwise Zen and Emperor Dynasty would’ve bought it.

Zen Entertainment insisted on making high quality games with a Chinese theme. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to explore Wuxia’s potentials, but the outcomes of those games were mediocre at best, which was why they went back to Xianxia themes.

Forcing a Wuxia themed game without making innovations to the core of the game was obviously a no go.

The judges weren’t dense either and would easily be able to tell terrible works like these. What’s the point of making a Wuxia game with barely any Wuxia content?

Chen Mo wanted to make a Wuxia game to show off Wuxia content, one that makes innovations on the play style, and not one that just has Wuxia in the title.

Chen Mo had made quite a few games since he entered the industry, including two incredibly successful games such as Plants vs Zombies, and Warcraft, scummy games like I Am MT, and a visual novel like Lifeline.

But they were mostly classic overseas games, there wasn’t one that was actually a full fledged Chinese themed game.

You couldn’t blame Chen Mo for favouring the west. This was what happened in his previous world, good games from China were few and far between, and most of them were scummy games.

But that wasn’t what Chen Mo wanted. He hopes that Chinese games could be shared all across the world, and Chinese players would appreciate the traditional cultural aspects Chinese games.

Therefore, Chen Mo wanted to use this opportunity to make a standalone Wuxia game to allow players to fully experience China.