Game Making: Start By Healing the Player

‘Mirror’ can be considered a fairly unique mini-game.

It combines RPG and Gal game elements with character interactions and multiple endings.

Making the experience rather immersive.

As for the match-3 combat gameplay, it is simply a variation of connect-the-dots, which is a popular and familiar concept even in this world, so Chen Xu wasn’t worried about it being implemented.

Besides, the selling point of ‘Mirror’ is definitely not the match-3 portion.

The rest is the story and CG illustrations.

But Chen Xu didn’t worry about this, because if his memories were to be trusted, Ruan Ningxue was the real deal. Besides, he wasn’t too shabby himself. He could help out here.

Chen Xu quickly started work on another segment of the design document.

Match-3 gameplay…

Different upgrade routes…

After completing it, Chen Xu began to work on the storylines.

In the first story, the female character was a Dark Elf thief who went to steal a lord’s vault to help the poor, but didn’t realise that the lord’s hidden identity was a devil, and then fell into his hands

The follow-up, then, is a choice of two directions for the player, the pleasure or pain routes.

The second story is about a female shogun who travelled from ancient times to modern times and encountered a geek in the modern world. At the same time, losing the authority and responsibility she was used to carrying.

As the story unfolds, there are two different endings, the pleasure route naturally grants a happy ending, and the other one is a bit dark but touching nonetheless.

In the modern world, the protagonist does something and both end up traveling back to ancient times, after a period of time together, the war is about to be lost, and the player is able to return to the modern world and bring her with him, but choses to face death by her side.  

Afterwards, there are storylines about the reincarnation of zombies and dragon knights.

Chen Xu plans to produce these four stories as the first phase of development, because he simply doesn’t have enough money.

After all, the implementation of the match-3 gameplay, the hiring of voice actors, and BGM copyrights will also require a tidy sum.

As for where the money came from, it wasn’t a big problem.

The 10,000 yuan in his account obviously cannot be relied on for much, but at least it can be used to apply for loans, instalments and credit cards.

  ………………

The next morning, inside Chen Xu’s flat.

Ruan Ningxue, who brought her own CNC board and laptop, sat next to Chen Xu and stared at the pieces of paper spread out on the table, with an odd look on her face. They contained the hand written plots and subplots of ‘Mirror’.

“I wasn’t expecting this kind of game from you, Chen Xu.”

“But how interesting this is, surely, being a cartoonist and game designer isn’t your true calling, why don’t we just drop this and start making a doujin together?”

“With our combined talents, I think we can definitely put it together, then we continue as doujin artists, accumulate fans and eventually move towards becoming famous cartoonists, many famous teachers have followed this path of development.”

Ruan Ningxue looked at the materials that Chen Xu had prepared overnight and began to introduce her strategic detour plan again.

It’s a waste!

How can such talent go into a game?

She knows her own biggest flaw was story telling.

That’s why she decided to support herself with fanart, while also trying to slowly hone her skills.

But now, take a look at these few short stories written by Chen Xu, they were simply fantastic.

Pleasure, pain, reincarnation and all other sorts of interesting story elements.

Listening to Ruan Ningxue’s exclamation, the corners of Chen Xu’s mouth twitched.

“Thank you for the compliments, but my heart is set.” Chen Xu said politely.

“Well, following up with this, you can start by making the illustrations according to the storylines, but not in comic style, they’re used to set the scenes so I need them highly detailed and coloured.”

“Of course, not everything in the plot needs to be shown through the illustrations; in fact, much of it will be told through dialogue, so keep that in mind.”

“Got it, detailed artwork, focus on the charm of the female characters. Don’t worry, I know exactly what I’m doing, I’ll make each of them as eye-catching as the cover of a doujin!” Ruan Ningxue said in high spirits.

“Well, it’s no problem to understand it this way.” Chen Xu nodded, then took a deep breath, “If there are no issues, let’s get to work!”

Hearing Chen Xu’s words, Ruan Ningxue gave him a thumbs up before booting up her laptop.

The development of ‘Mirror’ started off much smoother than he feared.

Some of the non-critical art resources were outsourced to save time.

The four headlining characters would be the Dark Elf Thief, the Ice Dragon Maid, the Female Shogun, and the Chinese Zombie Disciple.

As for the soundtrack, it is not impossible for Chen Xu to do it himself.

But it is time-consuming and exhausting, and the licensing fees didn’t cost that much, so Chen Xu decided to just purchase it directly.

Next came the dubbing.

You can scrimp and save on background music.

But as for illustration and dubbing, it was better not to be stingy with these.

After all, these two were the essentially the core points of ‘Mirror’.

“Hmm, perfect! But something still feels off…”

Looking at Ruan Ningxue’s illustration that had just been coloured, Chen Xu could not help but be amazed.

In his previous life, he wasn’t exactly a nobody in the gaming industry.

He had met and exchanged ideas with some of the industry’s bigwigs at some summits and conventions.

Naturally, he has picked up a thing or two when it comes to appreciating concept art, having been impressed by some of the great artists of his former life.

Such as the fantastic Yang Qi, who worked on ‘Black Myth Wukong’,

Shigenori Soejima, known for the ‘Persona’ series,

And Tetsuya Nomura, of the acclaimed ‘Final Fantasy 7’

These well-known people in the industry, Chen Xu has studied and come to understand the philosophy behind their designs.

But as for the character concept presented before him, Ruan Ningxue really gave Chen Xu a shock, her skills could not be understated.

Of course, it is not without some shortcomings, after all, the concept art used in the gaming industry is inherently different from those used by cartoonists or comic artists.

Even the illustrations used by a Gal game is not the same as those used by manga.

“That’s right! It’s indeed not quite the same as drawing a doujin.” Listening to Chen Xu’s words, Ruan Ningxue thought for a moment.

“Well, even if it’s a visual novel game, the illustrations used are completely different from a comic.” Chen Xu gently nodded towards Ruan Ningxue.

Inside the rental house, they continued to discuss the key features of the game.

Currently, the game as a whole was basically finished.

The only thing left was the voice acting.

For this kind of game featuring beautiful girls, having voice acting would play a significant role.

Regarding the allocated funds for this part, it was one of the most expensive parts of the whole game.

Of course, due to budget concerns, Chen Xu was not going to dub the entire game, just the pivotal parts, which would be more than enough to serve its purpose.

As for the male protagonist in each story?

No way he’s wasting money on that.