Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players
Chapter 26: Plans for What Comes Next
With Undertale achieving success in both sales and word of mouth, the keyword "META" had also attracted the attention of countless game designers across the industry.
If one only considered its story, Undertale was indeed an excellent game, but it absolutely could not have achieved the level of success and acclaim it enjoyed now.
But after combining it with the META element, everyone who played the game was left with only one feeling: shock.
It wasn't just designers in the indie game scene. Some mid- and senior-level game designers, as well as designers specializing in VR games, had also been paying attention to Undertale.
After all, from a certain perspective, the game had given every game designer a lesson.
It showed everyone what exactly a META element was, and how such an element could be woven into a game.
However, compared with the attention Undertale was receiving from designers throughout the industry, Chen Xu himself was quite relaxed at this moment.
Undertale had been a complete success.
He had gained both fame and fortune.
Inside the office, Chen Xu held a bottle of Wangzai Milk in his hand as he stared at the system UI that only he could see.
"Not enough! Although it gave me more points than Mirror did, I only managed to scrape together enough for two ten-pulls."
After rounding down, Chen Xu had accumulated only 2.1 million points, enough for exactly twenty-one draws.
Compared with Mirror, Undertale had indeed provided quite a few more points, but it still wasn't that much.
After thinking about it, Chen Xu had also figured out why.
The points only counted emotions that came from players actually purchasing and playing the game themselves.
Simply put, they had to spend money and experience a strong emotional reaction for it to be converted into points.
If they merely watched someone else play, then no matter how shocking the experience was, it wouldn't count.
In Undertale, aside from the initial shock of encountering the META elements, most of the truly shocking moments actually came from the Genocide Route.
But very few players were genuinely willing to play through the Genocide Route themselves. Especially after various video guides and playthroughs appeared, many players couldn't bring themselves to do it and instead chose to experience it vicariously through videos.
As a result, most of the points he had accumulated so far came from players' first-time experiences and the shock they felt upon encountering the game.
Thinking about this, he began drawing.
He only had 2.1 million points, so Chen Xu didn't bother with ten-pulls.
After all, this gacha system didn't have any guarantees for SSRs after ten consecutive draws, nor did it offer any discount for doing ten at once.
He would just do single pulls.
As the saying went, single pulls could produce miracles. Besides, there was a certain ritualistic satisfaction to pulling one at a time.
There was just one thing...
Could the golden light at least change?
Looking at the golden glow flashing before him, Chen Xu felt absolutely nothing.
When the light faded, it revealed a Common Profession Skill Book: Story +1.
The most dazzling golden light, only to produce the most ordinary reward.
You really are something.
After sighing, Chen Xu simply used all of the rewards at once.
After twenty-one consecutive pulls, Chen Xu felt that he probably hadn't washed his hands before pulling.
Apart from obtaining two Memory Capsules, everything else consisted of Common Profession Skill Books. He didn't get a single rare one.
As for the categories, there was everything: Art, Music, Story, Level Design, and Numerical Design. Not one was missing.
Taking another sip of milk and lamenting his terrible luck, Chen Xu used all the Skill Books before closing the system.
He opened the official game engine backend on his computer and logged into the Shanghai branch of the Ministry of Games. After checking his permissions, Chen Xu discovered that they had been upgraded.
Previously, his resource limit had been 1024. Now, it had been raised to 2048, nearly doubling.
Clearly, although he hadn't received any notification about a formal promotion, the Ministry of Games had noticed Undertale and had raised his designer level accordingly.
"Next, I need to think about what game to make."
Leaning back in his chair, Chen Xu fell into a moment of indecision.
An AAA game?
He immediately ruled out the idea.
It simply wasn't realistic.
Whether it was resources, manpower, funding, or Chen Xu's current abilities, developing a AAA game would still be quite difficult.
After all, small-budget games relied on creativity, gameplay, and storytelling, whereas AAA games placed greater demands on overall production quality.
Therefore, Chen Xu decided that his next projects would still primarily be small-scale games with relatively low development costs.
At the same time, he needed to build up the core of his team and get Nebula Games on the right track as soon as possible.
After all, there were only three people working on game development for the entire company: Yang Xin, Ruan Ningxue, and himself.
Now that he had money, naturally, the next step was to hire more people.
At the same time, he could also use this opportunity to accumulate more points and improve his own abilities.
As for free-to-play games, Chen Xu had no such plans for the time being.
After all, they could easily have a huge negative impact on both his and Nebula Games' reputation.
The enormous success of Undertale, however, had proven one thing: the market in this parallel world was completely different from the one in his previous life.
It was entirely possible to make a profit from premium, buy-to-play games. Under these circumstances, Chen Xu naturally intended to pursue a route focused on high-quality productions.
.........
Inside the conference room, Chen Xu looked at everyone seated around the table and briefly explained the results brought in by Undertale and the Mirror DLC.
At the same time, he confirmed the company's primary direction for future development with everyone, including expanding the team's various departments.
He also went over some relevant policies and procedures. And, as the boss, Chen Xu inevitably gave everyone a couple of motivational speeches as well.
He had to admit, drawing grand visions for himself and feeding himself motivational rhetoric felt completely different from having a boss stuff those same grand visions and motivational speeches down your throat.
At that moment, Chen Xu finally understood why so many people in his previous life enjoyed painting grand promises and feeding employees motivational speeches.
It really was quite satisfying.
After finishing the administrative and HR matters, Yang Xin and Ruan Ningxue remained in the conference room with Chen Xu to discuss the games.
"So, are we going to release a sequel to Undertale next?" Yang Xin asked, her face filled with anticipation for the future.
This was the kind of game industry she had always dreamed of!
Beside her, Ruan Ningxue was equally excited.
When she had first joined, one reason had been her relationship with Chen Xu and Yang Xin. Another was that making games seemed pretty interesting, and she felt there was some potential for the future.
But now?
It wasn't just promising.
It had enormous potential!
Especially after seeing people on various websites drawing fan art and writing fan stories based on Undertale and Mirror, she had developed an indescribable feeling.
After all, these were projects she had personally worked on. In the past, she had always been the one doing the drawing.
But now, she could actually see other people drawing things based on her work.
Hearing Yang Xin's question, Chen Xu smiled and nodded.
"There will definitely be a new project. It's just not going to be a sequel to Undertale. And it won't be a META-type game either."
Not a sequel to Undertale?
And not even a META-type game?
Yang Xin and Ruan Ningxue both froze.