Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 77 What Mischief Can a Cat Have? (3K)

"Sister Song! I'm bothering you again."

"President Chen is here!?"

"Oh, Mr. Chen, you've come all this way, why did you bring milk tea?"

"Hey Lao Liu, did you fix that bug from last time?"

"It's all sorted out! Thanks to you, otherwise I would have racked my brains and still couldn't figure it out."

"Xiaolin, come out for milk tea, Mr. Chen is here."

"Mr. Chen."

"Come on, come on, choose for yourselves, choose for yourselves!"

Chu Chen's appearance immediately drew cheers from the crowd.

If you didn't know better, you'd think some Tencent leader had come to entertain the troops.

~~~
As mentioned before, Chu Chen always makes a stop at the Blue Warfare Studio whenever he visits Tencent, as he is a "distinguished guest" who has been personally greeted by Li Xuan.

They adopted the attitude of mutual learning among anime and manga studios.

There's absolutely no problem with him coming here.

And don't forget, a few months ago, while "Final Front" wasn't as popular as it is now, it was still a huge success compared to "Azure Wars".

In addition, Chu Chen himself was good-looking and knew how to get along with people. After only a few visits, he quickly became familiar with the people in "Azure Wars", including Jiao Xiaofei, the producer of "Azure Wars".

"Speaking of which, did you guys come up with anything for that demo question I asked last time, Fei-ge?"

"It's done..."

If you want to dig for gold, you naturally need the right tools.

After all, Tencent has a lot of talented people, but also a lot of slackers. Without the right tools, it's hard to guarantee that you'll find gold or something else entirely.

Therefore, Chu Chen specially prepared a proposal and asked them for help under the pretext of visiting them to seek their advice.

This project is called "What Mischievous Thoughts Can Cats Have?"

Although it was a proposal created for testing purposes, Chu Chen gradually finished writing it.
This is a typical "social media promotion" game.

What is meant by "social media promotion"?

Games like "Getting Over It," "Goose Game," and "Goat Simulator" can all be categorized as "social media marketing games."

By inducing players to share spontaneously through entertainment, topicality, and low-barrier gameplay, and leveraging social media to achieve viral spread, the game uses "unconventional gameplay" or "absurd experience" as its selling point.

Achieve high exposure at low cost by leveraging the characteristics of social media platforms.

In short, "Let the streamers play it first! Only sell it to regular players after they've proven successful."

Games that follow this design approach, or those that initially didn't follow this approach but eventually went down this path, can all be considered this type of game.

Of course, "What Mischief Can a Cat Have?" is not a game that completely follows this path; it's just that Chu Chen happened to need a very simple 3D environment demo.

Ideally, this demo should showcase the developer's attention to detail in areas such as hair, character rendering, and skeletal animation.

Therefore, this is equivalent to a set topic for an essay.

Of course, to maintain secrecy, Chu Chen only provided a requirement and did not release the detailed plan. He only provided a separate scene and the requirement for the cat's skeletal animation.

Used as a "litmus test"

~~~
The core of the "What Mischief Can a Cat Be Thinking?" project is not complicated, and the gameplay is very simple. The map consists of only one town, and what players need to do is control a kitten to "cause trouble" in the town.

This gameplay is essentially an extension of puzzle-solving gameplay, and it's very similar to the "Prankster" game that many people enjoyed playing as children or the "Goose Game" from a previous life.

Simply put, players need to find things in the town that can create a chain reaction.

For example, at a fish stall, the proprietress is loudly hawking her wares, with fresh fish displayed in front of her, and a large yellow dog is tied to a pillar with a rope next to her.

Players can control a kitten to grab something that will attract the dog and place it where the big yellow dog can't reach it but can still see it.

The big yellow dog was attracted by something and started barking loudly. The proprietress heard the noise, turned around, and noticed that something was wrong with the big yellow dog. She stood up to see what had happened.

At this moment, players can take the opportunity to jump onto the fish stall, snatch the fish, and then quickly disappear into the alley.

This is a typical "decryption" gameplay.

However, in this game, to make players more eager to explore and find towns to solve puzzles, Chu Chen added a "cuteness" element to the project proposal.

In addition to causing mischief, players also need to collect or find relevant NPCs to improve their image so that they can "act cute" to escape after being caught causing trouble.

Yes.

In the game, if a player fails to cause trouble, they won't be caught immediately. Instead, a close-up shot of a cat being cute will be shown.

At this point, if the player has enough "cuteness points" and has learned enough "cute" actions, they can "get away with being cute" and get the NPC to say something.

"Hmm, it shouldn't be this cat."

"Indeed, this cat is so cute, how could it be it?"

"What bad intentions could a cat possibly have? I must be mistaken."

Things like that.

That's why the game is called "What Mischief Can a Cat Have?"

The entire game is structured around three systems: "solving puzzles and causing trouble," "obtaining items," and "using cuteness to survive."

The three systems are independent of each other, yet they can be intertwined.

To unravel the mischievous part, Chu Chen hoped to avoid direct interaction with people as much as possible, and instead focus on chain reactions with animals.

This allows players to shed their "moral guilt" and enjoy pure "mischievous fun."

This further lowers the barrier to entry for the game.

For example, in the previous example, the kitten "tricked" the puppy to get a reward, rather than through some other means, such as making the fishmonger trip and fall.
Although the result may be the same, the player experience will be different.

In short, Chu Chen wanted "cute crimes." A kitten would indirectly trigger a series of events through interaction with some animal, ultimately obtaining its desired item amidst chaos or when no one was watching. His plans included many such examples.

For example, there's a girl in the park who's setting up her easel by the lake and is intently sketching.

The player-controlled kitten can quietly push over a bag of birdseed in the corner, attracting the birds by the lake to swarm around it. The girl is startled and her attention is drawn to it.

At this point, the player can go up and take a box of paint, which may be another item in the next round.

If this formula is done well, it can lead to many interesting connections.

Furthermore, the "item" system is not simply about collecting items.

Many props are inherently linked to "cuteness".

For example, in an old lady's backyard, the player controls a kitten to secretly steal a ball of yarn that is drying in the sun. After interacting with it and rolling around on the grass, the kitten's "cuteness" will quietly increase.

They will also "learn" a unique and adorable pose while holding a ball of yarn. These systems will encourage players to continue exploring.

It can be said that this entire system has a complete closed loop, with gameplay, collection, puzzles, and many other systems within it. Even if Chu Chen only disassembled a single scene and met the skeletal animation requirements of the cat.

This demo wasn't easy to make either.

~~~
"Mr. Chen, your demo requirements are too unique. There are very few people in China who can do this."

“We tried several solutions, but we feel that it is still a bit difficult for the engine we have made to achieve this effect, especially this kind of fluffy and agile effect.”

"So we added a new module to this engine..."

Although it's not easy to do.

However, the people from Azure Wars were very interested in this demo after hearing Chu Chen mention the topic.

Liu Jiye, the head of the engine department, couldn't wait to open the demo and show it to Chu Chen.

"We discussed it and came up with some optimization solutions ourselves."

"Brother Jiao also gave us a lot of advice, which was a great help."

Jiao Xiaofei, the head of the studio and a member of Blue War, waved his hand with a smile.

"This feature was mainly developed by Lao Liu."

~~~
At first, Chu Chen was a little worried that the people at Azure War Studio would not accept his demands after he made them using this demo.

However, quite unexpectedly...

Ultimately, not only did the people Chu Chen asked for suggestions offer their opinions, but even the studio's producer, Jiao Xiaofei, joined the production and seemed quite interested in the demo.

Given the current situation.

Judging from this picture alone, it does look like what a game studio should look like, provided you ignore the Tencent logo on the outside of the door.
Chu Chen didn't act like a guest at all.

He actually sat down, picked up the keyboard, and started playing the demo.

To be honest, the demo was much better than I expected, even though it only contained a flat white area with a few boxes and miscellaneous items from the resource library.

But the most important thing, the kitten, has already been made. Not only can you use WASD to control the kitten's walking, but you can also control it to jump and even roll.

She even did one or two cute gestures, like holding her hand up.

Don't say it, really don't say it.

The hair quality was a bit poor, and the modeling precision was a bit lacking, but the motion skeleton and movements were done quite well, even exceeding Chu Chen's expectations.

All I can say is that this is probably the kind of skill that comes with being a "former Tencent employee"... no, a big company employee.

It might be a bit difficult to get them to innovate independently.

But if you can provide something and give them detailed requirements, they can do it too.

"Wow!! This demo is exactly the effect I wanted."

Chu Chen's words were quite sincere.

As he praised them, the atmosphere at the scene became even more enthusiastic.

Amidst the laughter and cheers, a slightly timid voice suddenly rang out.

"Um... Mr. Chen"

The sound came from the corner.

Everyone looked in the direction of the voice and saw a girl wearing glasses who seemed a bit introverted. Chu Chen recognized her; he remembered her name was Chen Xiaolin.

After all, female programmers are already rare in this male-dominated technical team.

Moreover, during their last meeting, she had shown Chu Chen a two-dimensional rendering module that she had devised herself, a unique concept that greatly impressed Chu Chen.

"what happened?"

"Last time you mentioned joining your Starry Sky Games... the benefits are very good..."

"is that true?"

As soon as these words came out.

The entire office seemed to have been muted.

The lively discussion that had just taken place vanished without a trace, leaving only the faint hiss of the air conditioner vents, and everyone froze in their tracks.

It wasn't just the people surrounding Chu Chen, but also the people at other workstations.

Although Chu Chen couldn't see them, he could feel their gazes.

Don't tell me...
If this were a horror movie, at least one person would die.
Fortunately, this wasn't the case, and Chu Chen's answer was quite straightforward.

"of course it's true."

"When have I ever lied to you?"

(End of this chapter)