Chapter 118 - 105: Match-Three Game (Part 2)

The first mobile game should ideally be simple. Even if it fails, it’s okay, we’ll treat it as practice.

With this premise, Chen Ba felt that everyone was a bit too excited, talking about making stuff like Identity V and Honor of Kings right off the bat, which just sounds terrifying.

Come on!

This is our first time making a mobile game. Can we be a bit more realistic and not think too far ahead?

"Simpler?"

Hearing Ba’s words, everyone looked at each other in dismay.

"That’s right!"

Chen Ba straightforwardly said, "Even though we’ve had some success on PC, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re a blank slate in the mobile market."

Newbies should keep a low profile.

Whoever heard of a new player in the industry going all-in right from the start? Do you have the capital to go all-in?

The development cost for mobile games isn’t low either. Tianba Studio, dipping its toes into the mobile market for the first time, should set its sights a bit lower and not aim for big titles right away.

"I think match-three games might be a good subject in the realm of casual games!"

"Match-three?"

Everyone looked puzzled.

Tianba Studio had Star Emperor before and Divine Grace Continent after; each one a renowned masterpiece.

And now their new game turned out to be a match-three game?

That’s really something...

Although not spoken out loud, Chen Ba could tell from their expressions that they found this plan too conservative.

True, match-three is very basic.

But so what if it’s basic? A well-made match-three game can still be the absolute "casual" king of the mobile game market.

Not to mention mobile games.

Even on PC, a well-made match-three single-player game can still sell many copies, so why look down on match-three?

"But Ba... didn’t you say we’re making this mobile game as a multiplayer online game, not single-player?" Lu timidly raised his hand.

"Exactly, multiplayer online!"

Chen Ba nodded in confirmation, "Is there a conflict between match-three and multiplayer online? There isn’t, right!"

Lu: "..."

There may not be a conflict, but there are hardly any multiplayer online match-three games on the market.

How does this even work as a multiplayer game?

"Matching opponents and doing a PK system!" Chen Ba said casually.

"Within five minutes, whoever clears more blocks wins and the player with the highest score wins. Isn’t that a form of multiplayer online?"

We could even set up a room and pull in friends and family to see who scores higher and clears more levels.

"Well, that could work!"

Although Ba’s multiplayer plan sounded unreliable, it could be used, preventing it from being a pure single-player game.

But is match-three really that fun?

Zhong Shengwei, who had played many match-three games and often saw people playing match-three games on the subway, had something to say about it.

He explained, "Ba’s subject choice isn’t the problem here; the user base for match-three games is still very large. Both the elderly and children like match-three games."

The subject isn’t the problem.

Match-three games have always occupied a significant share in the mobile game market. You think no one is playing? That’s just your perception.

It’s similar to how people scratch their heads wondering who exactly plays Tanwan Blue Moon...

That’s just how match-three games are.

They have incredibly tenacious vitality and their popularity is comparable to card games like Dou Dizhu and Mahjong.

"Match-three games also depend on the situation."

After thinking slightly, Chen Ba said, "Conventional match-three games certainly don’t have much appeal or eye-catching elements. I wasn’t planning on making simple, crude games either."

"This is what I have in mind..."

"Traditional match-three games, let’s be honest here, even a keyboard warrior in a forum could make one."

"But we’re going to make a pseudo match-three game wrapped in a match-three game’s skin with embedded character development systems."

"What?!"

Now everyone was even more confused.

What is a match-three game with an embedded character development system? Everyone recognized those individual words, but when pieced together, why do they sound so unfamiliar?

"You guys are clueless!"

Chen Ba said helplessly, "Why are we making a mobile game?"

"To make money!"

"There you go! Since we aim to make money, to support our single-player business, don’t we need a monetization scheme?"

Then Chen Ba pondered while touching his chin, "There are generally two ways for match-three games to make money; one is through ads, the other is selling various items."

But Chen Ba didn’t like either of them.

Match-three games with ads have a terrible gameplay experience, where an ad pops up anytime and can easily cause players to quit.

Selling items is slightly better, but only slightly. After all, to push items, some levels have their difficulty adjusted to be ’just right.’

What’s ’just right’?

It’s when you’re so close to passing, but the timer ticks away quickly. If you had an item, you’d pass instantly, but without it, you’re left in failure...

There’s actually another way!

But that one’s too shameless—having both ads and item sales, not missing a single opportunity to make money. It looks too ugly.

Chen Ba doesn’t like that approach, so he decided to embed character development gameplay on the foundation of traditional match-three games.

This way, it ensures playability and opens up a new monetization channel.

Monetization is through drawing characters.

Each character has different skills, which can be seen as ’items’ in traditional match-three games.

"Isn’t that still just selling items?"

"Not the same!"

Chen Ba shook his head and explained, "Items you can use together, but for characters, you choose one, so you can only use that one skill."

"Besides, each character has different elements, and each level map will also have element distinctions. Using the mutual restraint of elements to tackle specific levels works great."

The elements are tentatively set as the five elements.

A character with Water Element in a Fire Element level will be significantly enhanced, with not only more powerful skills but also special effects.

Or say a Fire Element character has a skill to explode a certain area of blocks, originally a 2*2 area, but in a Water Element level, it might become a 1*1 area.

Cultivating characters can also upgrade skill levels to unlock more interactions and dialogues.

"Okay!"

After basically understanding Ba’s so-called character development system, Yang Dong was the first to speak up, "So for this game, Ba, who do you plan to put in charge?"

Surely not all of us?

It’s just a match-three game. No kidding, anyone in Tianba Studio, except for Zhang Xiaojun, could handle it.

It’s just a matter of time taken.

"I’ll do it with Lu, and you guys can contact the voice actors and artists, which are quite important."

Chen Ba explained, "Our monetization point is the characters, so their design really needs attention and can’t be done randomly."

The anime style has to be there, the style that young children like, and characters that appeal to the aesthetics of middle-aged and elderly people also have to be there...

To put it bluntly,

The art style of this game aims for comprehensiveness. Regardless of age or gender, everyone can find a character they like in the game.

Whether they’re strong or not is another matter...

After all, each character only has one skill, and there’s a cooldown. How strong they are really depends on how players use them.

"And for the multiplayer part..."

After thinking it over, Chen Ba made a final arrangement, "Just make a matching entertainment system, let’s not go into rankings."

Casual games are for playing in fragmented time; making it too formal with ranking battles would be ridiculous.

This kind of game is just to kill time, playing it like it’s work isn’t good.

Of course!

We definitely need a leaderboard.

Clearing a certain number of levels can get you on the board. The more levels you clear, the higher the ranking, and that’s an honor!

There’s no shortage of top players in match-three games, providing them a platform to showcase skills. Let ordinary players see how awesome match-three game’s technical masters are!

Apart from level leaderboards, matches can also have a win rate leaderboard.

As for the core game—matching and clearing blocks—is what Chen Ba least cared about. After all, as everyone knows, the easiest thing in match-three games is the matching part...

With just a few blocks, who are you looking down on? Even two college students could do it, right!