Almighty Video Game Designer

It was the sixth day of the Chinese calendar, and Chen Mo was back in the experience store in Beijing.

The Imperial Capital was welcoming huge waves of people as they were coming back from their hometown to resume work.

The hustle and bustle before the new year had come to an end. Many people on the streets seemed discombobulated as their bodies were still in holiday mode.

Chen Mo opened the experience store door and went inside.

Everything was as usual since a week ago when he left. Chen Mo moved the computer chairs to where they belonged before wiping down everything with a cloth, arranging the phones and tablets to where they should be.

There were usually professionals cleaning the experience store, but dust had gathered as the experience store was closed for the past few days.

Chen Mo was taking the cleaning quite seriously. This was his first experience store afterall, it had been with him since the start, and it wasn’t surprising that he developed an attachment.

“Manager? You’re back?”

Chen Mo turned around to find Zou Zhuo at the door with a shocked look on his face.

“Yep, just got back. Happy Chinese New Year. You want a drink?” Chen Mo tossed a can of coke to Zou Zhuo.

Zou Zhuo caught the can, “Thanks manager, you too. Happy Chinese New Year.”

Zou Zhuo was a local, he was going on a walk after having his meal and just happened to walk in on Chen Mo opening the experience store.

Zou Zhuo was quite excited as he wanted to play a few matches of Warcraft against Chen Mo to learn from it, but it never happened as he was usually so busy. Luckily, the experience store was quite empty as it was just after Chinese New Year.

Zou Zhuo turned on a computer, “Manager, you want to play a few rounds and give me some pointers?”

Chen Mo laughed, “Sure, I’ve got nothing to do anyways.”

They started playing a few private matches.

An hour later, Zou Zhuo called GG three times.

The fatty scratched his head in confusion, “Alright, I’m done. The gap is still too big, there’s no game to be had.”

Zou Zhuo’s Undead was destroyed by Chen Mo’s Night Elves, Undead, and Orcs during that hour.

Chen MO said, “It’s alright, you’ve improved quite a bit.”

“The gap is still too big, I’ll have to watch these replays when I get back,” said Zou Zhuo.

“I think your Frost Armor Crypt Fiend is quite alright, but you messed up some on the details. I’d recommend you play some other races so understand your opponents better. You might even catch your opponents trying new things, you’ll learn a lot that way.”

Chen Mo gave Zou Zhuo more tips on combat and some details as Zou Zhuo nodded along as he felt that he had a lot to gain from this.

“What are we going to play next?”

Chen Mo looked at the games on the computers in the experience store.

They were already kind of tired with Warcraft which had the most depth. Other games like Plants vs Zombies, Wulin Legend, and Onmyoji no longer appealed to CHen MO.

“How about we play some RPG maps in Warcraft? There’s a map that has been quite popular recently. I’ve tried it out and it was quite fun,” suggested Zou Zhuo.

Chen Mo nodded, “Sure.”

Zou Zhuo found the map and created a lobby.

Soon after Chen Mo entered the lobby, it was filled with other randoms.

It was an RPG map called Holy Land. The story was based on a novel by the same name. The players could choose to play as Holy Knight, Witch, Rouge, and Archer. They would explore the map before finally defeating the final boss to save the world.

“Manager, since you’re better mechanically, you should pick the witch. I’ll pick the holy knight and heal you,” said Zou Zhuo.

Chen Mo picked the witch and started exploring the map with the other two players.

All in all, the map was excellent. It was one of the most popular maps on the Warcraft as it had a lot of players, and many guides following its popularity.

The level design was alright, the combat was rich, and the balancing was well done. Most importantly, the game was placed in a western fantasy world which allowed it to fit in well with the resources of Warcraft. The complete product could almost pass as a complete game.

There were human villages, elven cities on isolated islands, and the spooky land of the dead. The multitudes of adventures allowed the players to feel incredibly immersed.

Chen Mo couldn’t help but praise it, “This game is great, the author must have good knowledge with western fantasy.”

Zou Zhuo nodded, “Yeah, but most importantly he used the story from Holy Land so it’s not as shocking as the other western fantasy games in China. But unfortunately the author doesn’t have the rights to the work, so we can only treat it as a fan project and they can’t actually profit from it.”

“Has Holy Land not been turned into a game outside of China? Is there no Chinese version?” asked Chen Mo.

“There is, but it’s a small VR game. I think the company had some funding issues when they bought the rights. They were insistent on making a VR game, but they couldn’t make a large world to explore. So the game is doing alright overseas, but not so well in China.

“Moreover, the game is different from this RPG map. I think most MMORPG games aren’t all that satisfying to play, just like Warcraft. Killing monsters of the same level takes a lot of effort, sure it’s balanced and realistic, but it’s not really satisfying.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why this map is so popular. It’s really satisfying to be able to kill so many monsters in one slash.”

Chen Mo nodded.

Many designers in this world were quite stubborn with VR games, thinking that they may as well make large VR games if they were going to make VR games anyways. When designers of this world think of large games, they default to VR games.

But there was a lot of risk with making VR games. It would cost ten times more to develop the same world in a PC game in VR, and with the same money, it would mean a VR world a tenth of the size.

Therefore most video game developers choose to make a PC game before migrating it to VR after it’s proven to be successful.

Chen Mo and Zou Zhuo both played well, and combined with Zou Zhuo’s map knowledge, they finally beat it after an hour.

Chen Mo said to Zou Zhuo, “You go ahead, I’ll do some research for my next game.”

This caught Zou Zhuo’s attention, “Huh? New game? Have you figured out what game you’re going to make?”

Chen Mo nodded, “Yeah, I’m almost there.”