Almighty Video Game Designer

Anipop was an incredible game. In Chen Mo’s previous life, it’s playerbase encompassed children under the age of then and adults over fifty. It had over ten million daily active players in five months time, and with future development, it even broke fifty million. It was truly a game that was nationwide, for ages.

Why was the game so addicting?

Unlike traditional matching games, the difficulty of Anipop didn’t come from a time limit, but a move limit. This allowed players to plan out their next move instead of rushing.

This turned matching games into a true casual puzzle game instead of a game on reaction time, hand speed, and how fast the players notice the matches.

At the same time, Anipop added many more ways to clear tiles, such as line clears, explosions, random clears… and when combined together will have different effects. It was also sometimes possible for the player to achieve full clears, giving players immense satisfaction, making it much more interesting than other matching games.

Anipop also did a really good job balancing the game. There was a base amount per match, special clears and chain clears will award bonus points, and different scores will correspond to different amounts of stars, enhancing the balancing of the game.

Anipop’s level design was also incredibly high quality, there were more than twelve hundred different levels under five main categories, unlocking as the player progressed through the game.

This included portals, ice, golden pods, snow, gifts, yarns, vines, ropes, poison, silver, nests, clods, gems, balloons, UFOs, rockets, octopus, quicksand…

The appearance of many different mechanics allow the players to feel fresh every time they enter a few levels.

Moreover, the difficulties were very well managed too, it was unlike that players would be stuck on one level for multiple days. The players would progress every single day, but wouldn’t do that unchallenged.

They also spent a lot of time polish the art and music.

They tried many different art styles, even the tiny animal models went through thirty six different versions, with the final version matching the ideals of the majority of players, allowing it to appeal to as many players as possible.

Anipop also did a good job with the sound effects, especially the popping when ice is destroyed. Some players even said it was satisfying enough to hear the sound of breaking ice, even if they were stuck on the level for two weeks.

Moreover, when the players achieve a large clear, the different sounds effects are stacked together, accompanied by ‘excellent’, and ‘unbelievable’, which gives the players immense satisfaction.

Last but not least, the social system for the game. Anipop’s social system was also really well done, you could check the progress of your friends, check a friend’s score per level, they could even send and request power ups, ask for new level unlocks. This increases the interactivity between players, allowing it to spread within friend groups.

It didn’t take long for the players of Anipop to catch the buy.

“Oof, I’m out of powers.”

“Alright alright, add me and I’ll send you some.”

“The later levels are so interesting, how many of these mechanics did Chen Mo include?”

“I can’t stop!”

“The sound effects are so satisfying, especially the breaking of ice. I could listen to that for a whole day1”

“Aren’t you sitting there doing nothing? You should play too.”

“I’m waiting to try out the maxed out account!”

“What’s the point, is Moon Lord’s Prophecy as fun as this?”

“Geez, it’s my turn already? I’m not done with this level. You know what? You can go ahead.”

“I’m not done either!”

As there were so few gaming pods, most of them were sitting around doing nothing. And during that time, they’d slowly sink into the embrace of Anipop. When it was their turn, they didn’t want to leave the level they were on!”

Emperor Dynasty Entertainment was dumbfounded, what did Chen Mo do to these players?

How come they were willing to play mobile games over VR games?

Wasn’t it just a match three game? How did he add anything interesting to it?

The people on Chen Mo’s side were also confused, what was going on?

They thought that Anipo was quite fun too. However, they didn’t expect it to be so popular. Everyone queueing up were all playing it, and were enjoying it a lot!

“Manager, you’re amazing! So what if it’s a VR game, we can counter their VR game with a mobile game!” praised Chang Xiuya.

Qian Kun could barely breathe from laughing so hard, “Look at their expression over at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment. They’re dying! They thought they could use their VR game announcement as the final straw, but their attention was taken away by a mobile game! I can’t breathe!”

Chen Mo walked towards Emperor Dynasty Entertainment’s booth.

He saw many Anipop players on the way there. Chen Mo walked straight onto Emperor Dynasty Entertainment’s booth, asking, “Look at these guys with their faces buried in mobile games. So much so that your VR gaming pods are all empty. Would you like me to go into one and test the game out?”

The staff were speechless, how could someone be so bold?

It’s not like you don’t know your relationship with Emperor Dynasty Entertainment, you’re just looking for a fight now!

But of course the staff couldn’t force Chen Mo out of their booth, they could only fake a smile, “Hahaha, great joke. But look, there are still so many people in the queue!”

At this moment, a cosplayer came forward, “It’s fine, they are the founder of Thunderbolt Entertainment after all. Just let them try it out and provide some feedback!”

The girl was dressed incredibly lewd, with a great body and great face and looked to be one of the dancers on stage.

They had a nametag on the chest, Saury.

The staff felt a bit helpless, “Alright, I’ll arrange that for you.”

Chen Mo waved his hand, “There’s no need, I was just joking.”

Chen Mo never planned to try out the VR game. He was just here to poke fun at the staff at Emperor Dynasty Entertainment.

Saury checked out Chen Mo and said, “To be honest Mr Chen Mo, you’re younger than I thought.”

“Thanks, you were quite good at dancing. Do you want to join us?”

How could he do that? He’s poaching publicly!

Saury laughed, “I’m getting paid quite a lot, I’m not sure if you could afford me, Mr Chen Mo.”

“Really?” replied Chen Mo, “Well, nice meeting you.”

Saury let out a stifled laugh, “That’s all you got? You aren’t even going to ask how much I’m being paid? Seems like you didn’t really mean the invitation after all. Let’s exchange details, if I do plan to change companies, I’ll let you now.”

Chen Mo replied after a few short moments, “Alright.”

And just like that, the two of them exchanged their contacts right in front of the staff.

What’s going on? You guys are just going to pretend that I’m not here?”

“Alright, see you next time,” said Chen Mo before turning to his booth.