Chapter 26: Subsequent Agreements
With Undertale enjoying both critical acclaim and strong sales, the keyword "META" has also captured the attention of countless game designers across the industry. While the narrative alone is excellent, it certainly wouldn't have achieved the success and acclaim it has today. However, with the incorporation of the "META" element, everyone who plays it experiences a unique sensation: astonishment.
Not only designers from the indie game community, but also mid-level and senior designers, as well as those specializing in virtual reality games, have taken notice of Undertale. In a sense, it's a lesson for all game designers, teaching them what "META" elements are and how they should be incorporated into games.
However, compared to the attention given to many designers in the video game industry, Alex was quite relaxed at the moment. Undertale's success was a double blow: fame and fortune. In his office, Alex clutched a bottle of milk, contemplating the system interface that only he could see.
'Not exciting!' Although it offered more points than the previous game, Mirror, it only managed two draws out of ten. After discounting the probabilities, Alex's accumulated points totaled 2.1 million, just enough for 21 draws. Compared to Mirror, Undertale offered a lot, but not too much. Alex summarized the reason: only the player's purchase and the emotions they felt while playing counted. In short, spending money and experiencing strong emotions were the only ways to earn points. Simply watching, however impressive, did not count.
Beyond the initial encounter with meta elements, the most impressive aspects of Undertale were mainly due to the "genocide" story arc. However, few players followed it, especially after the release of several video tutorials. Many players chose to skip the experience and, instead, opted to watch it online. Therefore, the large number of points he had accumulated so far was mainly due to the players' initial surprise.
While reflecting on this, Alex continued to draw. With only 2.1 million points, Alex hadn't drawn ten times in a row. Anyway, there's no such thing as a guaranteed SSR drop after ten consecutive draws, nor special discounts. All draws are done individually, as they say, miracles happen when you draw individually, and there's a sense of ritual to it. But there's one thing: can this golden light be exchanged for something else? Alex stared at the flickering golden light before him, his heart remained calm.
The light faded, revealing an ordinary skill book with +1 plot. The brightest golden light, but the most ordinary item, you're truly incredible! With a sigh of gratitude, Alex clicked on all of them. After 21 consecutive draws, Alex felt he hadn't washed his hands beforehand. Aside from two memory capsules, the rest were all ordinary skill books, not a single rare one. As for genres, art, music, story, levels, and stats, everything was covered.
After taking a sip of milk and sighing, 'I'm a poor man,' Alex exhausted all the skill books and turned off the system. He opened the official game engine backend on his computer, logged into the city's Game Department partition, and reviewed his permissions.
Compared to his previous 1024 resources, Alex's available resources have increased to 2048, almost doubling. Apparently, despite not having received any promotion notification, the video game department took notice of his development of Undertale and promoted his designer rank.
"Now I have to think about subsequent games," Alex said, leaning back in his chair, lost in thought.
'An AAA game?'
Alex immediately dismissed it. It wasn't realistic. Whether it was due to resources, manpower, funding, or Alex's current skills, developing an AAA game was still quite difficult. After all, low-budget games rely on creativity and narrative, while AAA games focus more on overall performance. Therefore, Alex decided to focus on small-scale production. Meanwhile, he would form a team and get Nebula Games up and running as soon as possible. After all, the only three people in the company developing games were Lisa, Jane, and himself. Now that he had money, he naturally needed to hire more people. He also wanted to accumulate points and improve his skills.
As for pay-to-win games, Alex had no plans for the moment, as they could negatively affect his and Nebula Games' reputation. The phenomenal success of Undertale demonstrated one thing: the parallel world market was completely different from his previous life. Profits could still be made through buy-to-play games. Given this situation, Alex naturally planned to adopt a high-quality product approach.
In the conference room, observing everyone present, Alex briefly analyzed the achievements of Undertale and the Mirror DLC. He also discussed the main direction of development and the expansion of the team department, as well as some relevant regulations. As the boss, Alex inevitably offered touching advice. It is worth mentioning that the feeling of making such promises and giving such advice was completely different from having your boss impose them on you. At that instant, Alex understood why so many people in his previous life loved such promises and such advice. It was truly refreshing.
After discussing administrative and human resources matters, Lisa and Jane remained in the conference room to discuss the game.
"And now we'll launch an Undertale sequel?" Lisa asked with an expression of anticipation for the future. This was her ideal video game industry!
Jane, standing beside her, was also excited. She had initially joined because of the relationship between Alex and Lisa, and also because she felt comfortable creating games and felt there was a future. But now? It wasn't just a future, it was a very distant future! She saw some websites where people had drawn fan stories for Undertale and Mirror, which gave her an even stranger feeling. After all, they were all projects she had participated in, and she had always drawn them, but now she could see others drawing them.
Hearing Lisa's question, Alex smiled and nodded: "There are certainly new projects, but they are neither Undertale sequels nor meta-type games."
'Not an Undertale sequel, not even a metagame?'
Lisa and Jane were stunned.
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