Chapter 145: Indie Game Plans
Recently, everyone had made their final decision about which club to join.
Naturally, Wan Chaoxiong signed up to join the Anime Club, which was the place where he had been dreaming of finding like-minded peers.
Xiang Bingbing signed up for Basketball Club and was now a key player in the schools womens basketball team.
In addition, Xiang Bingbing had also expressed interest in photography for the first time and signed up for the Photography Club.
At first, Liu Xiaoyu had no intention of joining any clubs, but Xia Yuan dragged her along to participate in the selection process for the Etiquette Society.
The Etiquette Society had a somewhat organizational nature, essentially selecting hosts for evening events as well as award presenters and reception hostesses. They would get to wear many beautiful outfits.
Both Liu Xiaoyu and Xia Yuan had outstanding temperaments, so they were both successfully selected for the Etiquette Society.
Of course, Liu Xiaoyu also had a job as a music arranger, and it was Xia Yuan who helped her get familiar with the use of FL Studio.
Because it was a job she was interested in, and it could provide a good subsidy for her living expenses, she studied it very seriously and made quick progress.
Apart from the selection process of the Etiquette Society, Xia Yuan and Lin Youxi didnt put much thought into other clubs during this period. They spent this time with Mei Fang preparing materials to create their own club.
With the experience of two games, Life Restart Simulator and Reigns, which were already available on the App Store, their club creation application was quickly approved, and the three of them found an office space in the club building.
The signboard of Ximilu Studio was officially hung at Jiangcheng NOHS, and the officially registered members of the club currently only included the Mei You Yuan trio and Liu Xiaoyu, who was assisting with the music arrangement.
The most valuable assets of the entire club were the three laptops worth 10,000 yuan each purchased by Mei Fang, as well as the Olympus E-P3, a top-notch single-lens camera purchased earlier for filming Xia Yuans performance.
After the release of Life Restart Simulator and Reigns, they quickly received strong market feedback. The first week sales in the Chinese App Store for both exceeded 1,000.
Although the current income was only a few thousand yuan, it was a very good start. More and more local users began to recognize Ximilu Studios name and left comments to participate in discussions.
During this time, Mei Fang, apart from observing the market feedback of their self-developed products, spent a lot of time browsing overseas websites.
With the help of C Site webmaster Mountain Has Forests special identity, he easily made connections with many indie game developers who were seeking like-minded friends on overseas forums.
The first producer was a college student named Gao Kan from Canada. At the moment, he was using the traditional RPG Maker software to create a narrative-based game.
Although Gao Kan didnt know much about programming languages, he created everything for this project, from composition to copywriting to the overall flow. It was said that he started designing it since his sophomore year.
This work is set in a scientifically advanced future where humans can use machines to alter and rewrite human memories. This technology is used to help fulfill the dreams and wishes of those on their deathbeds, allowing them to depart without regrets.
In the story, players need to play as two professionals from the company, helping the main character fulfill an unattainable childhood dream by rewriting his memories.
And in the process of making the dream come true, players will also gradually uncover a profoundly touching story of companionship and dedication through the perspective of the professionals.
When this work was initially released on overseas forums at the beginning of the year, it did not have much impact abroad. However, when Mei Fang discovered this work, he took the initiative to provide Gao Kan a Chinese localization support because C Site had many high-quality Chinese translation groups.
The still inexperienced Gao Kan was full of gratitude towards Mountain Has Forest and even actively asked her some questions about programming and technology.
In addition, with the assistance of Xia Yuan, Mei Fang also took the initiative to help Gao Kan optimize the melody and rhythm of some of the music and used two notes to complete the prelude to the impressive theme song For River[1].
As a repayment for Mei Fangs selfless help, the young Gao Kan and Mei Fang reached a simple contract agreement, handing over the full rights for the local distribution and publishing of the game to C Site.
C Sites webmaster Mountain Has Forest uploaded the game to the gaming section of C Site and even personally gave a famous comment:
This is undoubtedly a trash game, because you wont be able to see the screen through your tears.
This was the process of how one of the most famous RPG Maker narrative-based indie games in Mei Fangs previous life, To the Moon[2], was released on C Site.
The second young person Mei Fang met was a well-known figure, Liang Qiwei, who recently released a martial arts ink-style game called Rainblood: Town of Death[3]. He was a masters student from Yale University.
Although this game had a cool art style and gameplay design, Mei Fang found his source code to be quite terrible, with many bugs appearing here and there.
So Mei Fang sent a private message invitation to Liang Qiwei, expressing his willingness to help him refactor the code. The next day, he received a reply email from him, which included the development source code for Rainblood: Town of Death.
Mei Fang and Lin Youxi spent just one weekend completing the code refactoring for this game. When they sent it back to Liang Qiwei, he was very satisfied with their work and even intended to pay them 3,000 USD as compensation. However, Mei Fang politely declined the offer and requested the local distribution rights on C Site instead.
People often hold their first game project in high regard, so Liang Qiwei didnt rush to make a decision. Mei Fang waited for a month before finally receiving his agreement email.
At that time, C Sites gaming section had just finished development. Mei Fang gave this section a name that wasnt popular yetIndie Games.
The concept of indie games only became well-known around 2013-2014 due to a movie called Indie Game: The Movie[4], which was about game developers.
The gaming section on C Site exclusively featured indie games, including two self-developed games from the Ximilu Studio, along with To the Moon and Rainblood: Town of Death. The most expensive game, To the Moon, was priced at just 8 yuan.
It was basically impossible to think about making money
Because C Site itself had a relatively high membership threshold, the players who commented on these games were relatively discerning and had good taste in games. Mei Fang and his team received numerous positive reviews in the comments section, and the atmosphere was harmonious.
Mei Fang knew that as their Indie Games section gained more prominence, there would soon be more renowned indie games from the market joining C Sites gaming section.
Compared to the popular and lucrative mobile games of Mei Fangs previous life, such as Temple Run, Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, and Fruit Ninja, the money that could be made from these indie games was almost negligible.
Of course, it didnt mean Mei Fang was planning to reject the aforementioned games for C Site. He would still pursue opportunities to make money.
But he thought, now that C Site had gradually established itself as a portal website, its existence might bring some fresh air to local games, perhaps?
For local games, especially single-player games, even if there was only a 1% market development space, they might produce unexpected qualitative changes and show unprecedented possibilities.
And when Mei Fang took this step, the name of C Sites webmaster Mountai Has Forest began to quickly spread among game industry professionals, especially indie game developers, both domestically and internationally
Translator's /games/rainblood-town-of-death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_Game:_The_Movie<!--
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