Text | Yu Shenglin
TCG is the abbreviation of the exchange card game, and it has a history of nearly 30 years since its earliest board game development.
The first TCG was launched in 1993, which is the well-known board game “Magic” that became popular as soon as it was released, and it also made the company behind it Wizards step by step to the top spot in the industry.
Later, in 1996, Pokémon, which was popular in Japan, also launched its own TCG. In 1999, the card game “Yu-Gi-Gi” that domestic players are most familiar with was officially released.
Then these cards quickly occupied the convenience stores of major, middle and primary schools in China and became the absolute dominant of everyone’s spare time. Game Daily Yu Yu’s family still has hundreds of cards that he won when he was a child. Of course, most students did not know the specific gameplay of TCG, but at that time there were already many full card stores in first-tier cities in China for everyone to play these board games.
Brand stores in Beijing in 2005/Photo source: Wuxia Amon
Although offline board games are very popular, there are few TCG online games at home and abroad.
In 2001, “Legend of Blood” was just introduced to China, and online games ushered in a blowout development in 2002. In that wild era of domestic online games, Wu Xia Amon, who had just graduated from university, designed the first TCG online game in China, “Interactive Martial Arts”, which opened up his own fate with TCG.
Interactive Martial Arts Press Conference
After the first game of Wuxia Amon was launched, he had the idea of resigning and starting a business. Although he had no money or qualifications, he had dived into the “no return” of game entrepreneurship with his love and motivation for this type of game. That year he was 26 years old.
For more than a year, after dozens of failed investment investment, Wu Xia Amon, who was heavily in debt, finally couldn’t stand it and found a class to go to Suzhou Game Snail to serve as the main planner of “Mecha Century”.
More than two months later, Wu Xia Amon finally found an opportunity, got an investment of 1 million yuan, and began to develop his second TCG “Xiaoyaoyou”. At that time, Wu Xia Amon never expected it and was meticulous.I didn’t even see the first one in the game I designed.
“Xiaoyaoyou”
On the eve of the game’s launch, investors felt that the game had been completed and no longer needed Wu Xia Amon, so they set up a new company, and all the employees and computers were pulled away, leaving only one poor Wu Xia Amon and his main program friends. However, “Xiaoyaoyou”, which lost the producer and main program, was down for a long time on the public beta day, and various vicious bugs frequently appeared and disappeared soon.
Later, Wu Xia Amon, who was unwilling to give up, worked with his friends in the main process and made a brand new TCG “Eight Immortals Online”, which was officially launched in 2008. As a result, the new game was cheated by the distribution company as soon as it was launched. Not only did the distribution company not give it a share, but also copied a Babaylan web game “Ten Thousand Demons” out. “The King of Ten Thousand Demons” made micro-innovations based on the “Eight Immortals”. As a result, because of the inaccurate copying, the numerical system was not tense, and soon Cinema was in a state of chaos. After that, Komiks “Eight Immortals Online” experienced several twists and turns, and finally operated it in Wu Xia Amon for 2 years like a private server until 2019 Cinema2019, until it was bought out by a Shenzhen company.
“Eight Immortals Online”
BabaylanCinema is Wu Xia’a’s favorite game, planning and artThe website is all done by Wu Xia Amon himself, and there are no restrictions on the content, so you can do whatever you want.
In 2013, the popular Blizzard Hearthstone began testing.
Furthermore, among the games in this category, “The Five Elements Master” launched in 2017 is considered a representative work.
Yuyu: Why is it named Wuxia Amon?
Wu Xia Amon: In 2002, I took it when I was doing “Interactive Martial Arts”. I like martial arts very much. I have seen a lot of martial arts girls. Babaylan said that I wanted to change the online name to “Martial Arts Dream”, but I felt a little stingy, so I used the homonym of “Martial Arts Dream” to “Wu Xia Ameng”.
Yuyu: How was “The Five Elements Master” born?
Wu Xia Amon: After selling “Eight Immortals Online”, I started my business again in 2012 and was fortunate to make millions of dollars from other games. At this time, I was facing the problem of project establishment. Based on my interest in CCG and my feelings for “Eight Immortals Online”, we finally used all the money to make a CCG “Five Elements Master”, and the combat rules are inherited from “Eight Immortals Online”.
The Five Elements Master can be said to be the continuation of life in “The Eight Immortals Online”. In “The Five Elements Master”, I designed an achievement commemorative card called “Tumbler” to commemorate the years when I was pushed around but didn’t want to fall down. Haha, it’s pretentious, manual dog head~
Yuyu: After “KomiksFive Elements Master” was launched, will any player compare it with “Heartstone”?
Wuxia Amon: After the game Komiks was launched, it was recommended by TapTap for the first time with a high score of 9.4. However, many players saw that it was a card game, and they scolded us for not playing it for a while, and they gave us a bad review, which led to a continuous decline in the score… Later, due to the recognition of quality, the scores have been rising all the way. Now there are more than one million downloads on TapTap, and they still retain a high score of 9.0.
In fact, the rules of “The Five Elements Master” are inherited from “Eight Immortals Online” launched in 2008. How could it copy “Heartstone” launched in 2013? When Hearthstone first came out, many old players of the Eight Immortals came to me Cinema, joked that Hearthstone is copying us.
Yu Yu: How is “Five Elements Master” doing in terms of balance?
Wu Xia Amon: “Five Elements Master” balance, we can list some data to illustrate:
BabaylanIn the duel between experts, there are nearly 20 sets of playing methods with a winning rate of more than 50% and a usage rate of more than 1% each month (the different sects and five elements combinations are different, and the playing methods are much higher than other CCGs). In addition, the winning rate routine with the highest winning rate is lower than 54%, which is also far lower than other CCinemaCG.
Yu Yu: I have been persisting for 20 years, why are I so obsessed with card games?
Wu Xia Amon: I like to play highly strategic games, and card battle games are very strategic and never tired of playing them.
Yu Yu: Which game do you think you have made the best? Why?
Wu Xia Amon: The best one is the latest “Devil’s Secret Realm”. “Five Elements Master” is also a son, but its artistic performance has always been our pain and has been discounted…
“Five Elements Master”
Yuyu: What’s interesting in the game development processBabaylanHear?
Wu Xia Amon: There are quite a lot of interesting things, let me talk about the early years: In 2005, in order to write a good financing business plan, I went to the card store to inspect. There are dozens of card stores that mainly sell Magic Cards, and there are board games in it. When I took the second photo, it attracted the attention of the store owner and asked me about my purpose, and I honestly told me. He knew I was not Gu Komiks guest, I am limited to leaving within 30 seconds, and I stay wherever I feel cool… Years have passed, and I occasionally remember the embarrassing look.
Yu Yu: What are the major problems encountered during the game development process?
Wu Xia Amon: The biggest problem is the choice of art style. It must not only meet the characteristics of the subject matter, but also cater to the preferences of the majority of players, but also take into account the development costs, development cycles, and subsequent maintenance difficulties… There are too many restrictions.
Yu Yu: How many people are there in the team at present? Are you doing a new game? Komiks?
Wuxia Amon: There are more than 20 R&D personnel, and they are still making an independent game “Silent Cricket”.
Yuyu: What do you think is the good and bad aspects of “Five Elements Master”? “What about “Devil’s Secret Realm”?
Wuxia Amon: The advantage of “Five Elements Master” is that its gameplay is high enough, and its disadvantage lies in its visual performance. In other words, the advantage lies in its gameplay and numerical design, and the disadvantage lies in its art design (art performance is not only a design issue, but also Komiks has a lot to do with the investment. A company made a CCG two years ago, and the cost of its opening animation exceeded that of “Five Elements” href=”https://comicmov.com/”>BabaylanThe entire R&D cost of Master of the Demon).
The advantages of “Devil’s Secret Realm” are the same as those of “Five Elements Master”, which is still planning the gameplay and numerical design, while the disadvantage is that it is difficult to add pvp.
《Demon Secret Realm》
Yu Yu: Summarize your years of entrepreneurial career. Do you feel it is hard?
Wu Xia Amon: I don’t feel it. Although I have experienced many setbacks, I may be optimistic by nature. I have never felt any frustrations, and I may have been used to it.
Yu Yu: Will I want to make some more novel card strategy games in the future?
Wu Xia Amon: If you have a strong IP, I will make another TCG or CCG.
Yu Yu: Do you have any suggestions for newcomers who have just entered the industry?
Wu Xia Amon: If you want to do programs and art, it will be easy to change careers in the future.
Wu Xia Amon: If you want to do planning, you need to ask first whether you love game settings very muchKomiks plan, and whether they have the talent in this area.
Yuyu: During the interview with the Game Daily, we often met some producers who started playing games by colleges and even high schools. As the college entrance examination is approaching, what majors do you think if you want to enter the industry and make games in the future?
Wu Xia Amon: First of all, it depends on which job you want to do. If you are doing programming or art, you will naturally choose a related major; if you want to do planning, then the major is not that important. What is important is that you must play more in college Komiksv.com/”>Cinema game. If you must choose a professional direction for game planning, you can give priority to majors related to programming. Game planning does not require programming, but if you can program Babaylan, some sub-jobs can do more things.