Game Development: Starting by Healing the Players
Chapter 44: Outlast
After the interview, less than twenty minutes had passed, and Chen Xu had not even made it back from the Ministry of Games to Nebula Games yet.
The major media outlets had already published their interview reports.
"Revealed: Nebula Games' Next Game Is Very Likely to Be..."
"Chen Xu: I Think I Should Be a 'Warrior of Love'"
"No Plans for a New Game Yet, but Judging from Chen Xu's Remarks, Nebula Games' Next Title Is Very Likely to Be a Heartwarming Romance Game!"
"A Rising Star Indie Game Developer: The Warrior of Love—Chen Xu!"
The buzz surrounding the Sci-Fi Game Design Competition had not completely died down yet, and To the Moon was still sitting in a recommended slot on the official platform.
These interview articles also introduced Chen Xu to quite a few players.
His official account gained a large number of new followers as well, bringing his total to 800,000.
At this rate, breaking through the one-million mark was only a matter of time.
At the same time, the verified profile of his official account now listed another representative work: To the Moon.
And alongside it was a new label:
"Warrior of Love."
Under the related interview articles, plenty of players were also discussing the matter.
"Warrior of Love? What the hell is that supposed to mean!?"
"Think about it carefully. Chen Xu really does seem like a Warrior of Love. Mirror aside, every character has a pure-love storyline. Of course, there's also all that corruption stuff, but..."
"And then there's the peaceful ending of Undertale, which is practically overflowing with love. And his latest game, To the Moon, doesn't even need explaining. The entire thing revolves around love."
"Now that you put it that way, it actually makes a lot of sense!"
"But I'm even more curious about what Chen Xu's next game will be."
"It should be a really heartwarming game, right?"
"Exactly. After all, he's the Warrior of Love."
.........
Chen Xu, however, did not pay much attention to what was happening online.
Because by the time he had just arrived back at the Nebula Games office, he was sitting alone in his office, conducting a lottery draw.
Golden light burst forth one after another before his eyes.
The visual effects looked incredibly impressive.
The problem was, this thing was just too realistic.
Fifty pulls.
Among them were thirty-seven ordinary skill books, covering everything from story writing and music to level design.
There were also four rare skill books: one for architecture, one for psychology, and two for music.
The remaining nine were all Memory Capsules.
"I've got enough points for one last pull. Might as well use it."
Seeing that he had exactly enough points for one final draw, Chen Xu did not think twice and used them.
As the golden light flashed, Chen Xu was surprised to find that he had actually gotten something this time!
It was not a rare skill book, but a Special Item similar to a Memory Capsule.
"A miracle from a single pull? Is this really that mystical? But what is this thing?"
Chen Xu fell silent for a moment.
[Fear Converter] (120 days)
Effect: Converts the player's Fear Value into ten times the number of points, with a maximum limit of 6,000,000 points.
It was obvious that this was a time-limited item, essentially a double-experience card with a cap, except that it only applied to the player's fear.
The only thing Chen Xu did not know was whether the 6,000,000-point limit referred to the amount before conversion or after conversion.
However, Chen Xu estimated that it was most likely the post-conversion limit.
"This item is different from the Memory Capsules. It's actually time-limited. Is this hinting that I'm supposed to make a horror game next?"
Chen Xu was a little speechless.
As for what kind of game he should make next, Chen Xu had actually still been thinking about it.
First of all, he would not make another small project like before. At the very least, this time he wanted to move toward 3D games.
At the same time, however, the scope could not be too large.
Although game development in this parallel world was much simpler than it had been in his previous life, that did not mean technical expertise and accumulated experience were completely unnecessary.
It was just like building with blocks. Everyone had access to the same set of pieces, but what you could ultimately build with them depended on your own skill.
Games were the same.
This was especially true for genres such as FPS and action games.
Take action games, for example. One of the most important things was the sense of impact.
But how exactly did you create that sense of impact?
Sound effects, controller feedback, visual effects, UI shaking, and various physics-based collision and hit detections.
And there was another even more crucial element:
Frame freezing.
The same principle applied to FPS games as well.
Therefore, Chen Xu was not planning to make anything overly complicated for his next project.
'Now that I think about it, a horror game might not be a bad choice either. I could incorporate some action elements, while at the same time, those action elements wouldn't be the core of a horror game.'
Chen Xu rubbed his chin, thinking to himself.
Although he had an idea in mind, Chen Xu did not immediately take action.
Instead, he first went online and got a general understanding of the current state of horror games in this parallel world.
Simply put, it was not much different from his previous life.
Whether in the film industry or the gaming industry, horror games were rarely made with huge budgets.
They were basically the kind of projects where you invested a little and hoped to gain a lot.
Compared with his previous life, however, the market share of pure horror games was considerably larger.
There are even some titles that have sold nearly ten million copies as a single release.
Of course, these are relatively old types of games. They have been on the market for many years and are practically given away at rock-bottom prices whenever a holiday comes around.
As for horror games that seemed more suited to VR, there were none at all.
After all, VR games could be said to have enormous development costs.
At the same time, horror games themselves were a relatively niche genre.
Unless a developer had a particular obsession with them or an especially strong love for horror culture, no one would choose to develop a horror game for a VR platform.
The risk was simply too great.
As for horror games on PC, they could generally be divided into two types.
One was the low-budget approach.
For example, the kind of development model used by Undertale and To the Moon.
The other was to develop them on the scale of a small-to-medium-sized game.
After gaining a general understanding of the horror game market and its development in this parallel world, Chen Xu quickly made his decision.
He would follow the small-to-medium-sized development model.
With the revenue brought in by Mirror, Undertale, and To the Moon, Nebula Games now had enough capital to take on a project of this scale.
Moreover, although horror games were a niche market, that was only in comparison with traditional genres such as FPS and RPGs.
If done well and capable of generating enough buzz, a horror game could still become a major commercial success.
The next question was which game to make.
When it came to horror games, Chen Xu had quite a few options.
After careful consideration, however, Chen Xu decided to choose Outlast as his next game.
The main reason was that it was a very good fit.
In terms of overall game length, Outlast took around five hours to complete.
Of course, if someone simply rushed through the game using a speedrun route, they could finish it in less than an hour.
Furthermore, compared with horror games such as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and The Evil Within, Outlast had one particularly clever advantage.
In this game, the player took on the role of a journalist who could only run away and had no way to fight back.
For Chen Xu, Outlast was essentially a game that would allow him to further integrate his development team while also giving him a chance to conduct more in-depth testing of the game engine.
As for the action and shooting aspects, those could be represented through the game's monsters, while the player-controlled protagonist would only require basic movement mechanics such as running and climbing.
In practically every respect, Outlast fit Chen Xu's expectations for his next project.
The only thing he really needed to worry about was the approval process.
After all, unlike Eastern-style horror games such as Silent Hill and Fatal Frame, Outlast was purely Western-style horror.
In other words, the game contained quite a lot of graphic violence and gore.
Although this parallel world's review and censorship system was highly sophisticated, whether the game could actually pass approval would ultimately depend on what the Ministry of Games had to say.