Almighty Game Designer - Chapter 39

After sending the recruitment information, Chen Mo planned to check the application emails later in the evening.

Now Chen Mo needs to plan a version update for 《Plants vs Zombies》.

In his previous world, 《Plants vs Zombies》 has a sequel, but its reputation was very poor, although in terms of profitability it is good, but its reputation among the players is far worse.

Therefore, Chen Mo does not intend to develop 《Plants vs Zombies 2》, why not just make a money charging game if he would just end up getting hated for just trying to make money? At least he can preserve the reputation and brand of 《Plants vs Zombies》.

This update will likely be the first and last version update for 《Plants vs Zombies》, so Chen Mo’s goal is to arouse the enthusiasm of player as much as possible, so that they can develop new ways of playing, which will make people who love this game continue playing.

After all, Chen Mo will soon start the development of new games, and now he doesn’t have much energy maintaining 《Plants vs Zombies》.

After considering it, Chen Mo roughly planned the following contents for the new version.

First, in terms of game content, a new 【Developer Tool】 can be used, anyone can use this 【Developer Tool】 to make some attempts under the large framework of 《Plants vs Zombies》.

You can adjust the value settings of plants, zombies, environment, maps, etc.

New art resources can be uploaded to create new plants and zombie species.

The use of existing art resources to create new maps, or new levels and gameplay.

These newly created mods (meaning modification or enhancement of the game), will have a dedicated portal in the 《Plants vs Zombies》 game, and players only need to download the appropriate mods to play the game.

Players can also score and evaluate each mod, in the mod function, the system will have a default algorithm that sorts each mod by downloads, scores, game duration, etc. and recommend it to the player on a regular basis.

Second, building a networking and community features to make players more connected in the game.

The 《Plants vs Zombies》 developed by Chen Mo has a simple networking and ranking functions, but this is only to meet the needs of players to show off and compare and does not meet the deeper social needs.

With new network and community features, players can add friends with each other or join the same community (can be understood as a guild). Friends or fellow players can watch other players, upload and share videos of their clearing levels, and recommend some fun mods.

Third, developing some simple multiplayer features.

In fact, for the players, with 【Developer Tools】, they will make multiplayer games sooner or later, and Chen Mo was just throwing a catalyst to speed up the process.

The multiplayer game in Chen Mo’s plan temporarily has two modes, which are relatively simple.

The first mode is a multi-person cooperation mode, each person controls 3~5 lanes, can support 2~5 players to play the games at the same time, that is to say, there are up to 25 lanes, the screen can be dragged up and down and freely view the other players.

The Sun produced by each person is calculated separately, which can help other players grow plants to jointly resist the invasion of zombies.

In the multiplayer mode, a player can be revived by a special plant after death and players can also work together to plant some special plants.

The second mode is the multiplayer mode, which can be 1V1, 2V2 or 3V3, every player can get Sun and Moon over time, Sun for plants, and Moon for zombies.

Zombies are produced at a slightly faster rate than plants.

Players must use plants to defend their lawns and use zombies to attack the enemy lawns, once a player is defeated, they cannot be resurrected.

As for why you need both Sun and Moon resources, that is to prevent everyone from planting plants without any zombies, which will make a game round last very long. 

If one party controls the plant and one controls the zombie, the balance will become difficult to control, so Chen Mo did not do it like that. (T/N: so to those who got confuse like me, it seems that both teams are able to control both zombies and plants, they will use plants to defend their base and use zombies to attack the enemy base.)

Whether these two multiplayer modes can be successful, Chen Mo isn’t sure, but he is relatively optimistic, because these two modes basically conform to the original gameplay and the changes are a gain and won’t damage the core fun of the game.

Of course, it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t succeed, there will be various mods that players will independently study.

Chen Mo’s expected development cycle is 2 weeks, this is already a very relaxed time, after all, the main function of 《Plants vs Zombies》 was only developed in just over a month.

It was already evening when Chen Mo roughly finished the outline for the design document.

After closing the experience shop, Chen Mo returned to the second floor, opened his game designer’s mail and began to screen the resume sent by the applicants.

The vast majority of these resumes are applying to be an assistant and only four applied to be employed as a receptionist.

Chen Mo flipped through their resumes and he was not very satisfied, or their understanding of the game was too superficial, or they hardly played 《Plants vs Zombies》 or the two understanding written were perfunctory.

Of course, it was mainly because of the appearance of these four girls, they weren’t attractive to Chen Mo.

Chen Mo wasn’t a member of good looking club, nor does he have any ulterior motive for recruiting receptionist. But after all, this was a relatively well-paid job and Chen Mo had so many choices that he didn’t need to make do with it.

This is also for the sake of his own players, a sweet-looking receptionist will make players who comes to the experience shop to try out the games be happier, therefore he still needs to find a good looking one.

At least she must be cute.

Chen Mo continued to check the resume for the assistant.

There are a lot of resumes, Chen Mo checks them one by one and skips them if he encounters resumes that doesn’t meet his requirements. He currently only needs one assistant, so he just casually skim through their resume.

He doesn’t need to consider it if they are too old.

People who are too old are mainly relatively conservative in their thinking, not active enough, lack of innovation, lack of potential to train, and it can be awkward for someone older than himself to be an assistant.

He doesn’t need to consider it if they have long-term work experience in other game companies.

Chen Mo’s game design concept is completely different from that of other companies. Those who have worked in other game companies for a long time will inevitably have their game design concept finalized and it’s hard to change it.

He doesn’t need to consider those who knew nothing but play games.

Making games and playing games are two completely different things, playing games requires reaction, operation, and game intelligence while making games requires good logical thinking, delicate ideas, a solid work attitude, and a little inspiration.

A pure player is hard to do game design work.

Then there is the understanding of the game sent by these people.

Game understanding can reflect a person’s basic understanding of the game, Chen Mo will not choose a person who is contrary to his game concept as an assistant.

For the understanding of 《Plants vs Zombies》, Chen Mo mainly checks the candidate’s understanding of the game, as long as they can say the game’s highlights in any of the 2~3 aspects of creativity, gameplay, system, level, and value, then they can be qualified.

For the understanding of other games, Chen Mo mainly wants to find out the type of game that the candidate prefers, and their visions. As long as they choose a relatively successful game and simply say the highlights of that game, then they can be qualified.

Then the additional question for the future prospects of the game.

If they judge the future of the game wrongly, then he doesn’t need to consider them, this kind of person is too stupid and can’t be taught.

If the judgment of the future of the game is too correct, it still won’t be considered. This kind of person has a high aspiration, and Chen Mo does not want to cultivate an enemy for himself.