Back in his private workspace, William imported the full versions of the three songs he recorded from Aunt Lisa into his computer.
He used Audition (Au) to combine the music with the game, then finished the last bit of coding. Finally, he could officially announce: Piano Tiles is complete!
[New Developer Task Complete — Bronze Chest ×1]
As the system notification rang out, a bronze-colored chest suddenly materialized beside William. It looked heavy and solid.
The sudden change around him made it hard to focus on work. He stood up and walked over.
After taking a closer look, there were no special patterns on the chest, just a clear seam in the middle—it looked like it would be easy to open.
William took a deep breath, centered his strength, planted his feet firmly, and grabbed both sides of the chest with both hands.
Hmm?
It was a bit heavy.
If he hadn't just eaten a big meal, he might not have had the strength to open it.
*Swish!*
The moment the chest opened, a green light shot out and flew straight into the computer.
Another system notification followed.
[You have received "Art Manual (Beginner)"]
Another book?
Back at the computer, the game had finished exporting. He now had two versions—one for Android and one for iOS.
But William wasn't thinking about that. What caught his attention was the new manual that had appeared on his desktop. What kind of bonus would it bring?
When he opened the Art Manual (Beginner), just the number of pages gave him a shock.
Unlike the Game Engine Manual (Beginner)—which only shows up after unlocking a specific engine—the art manual included everything related to art skills, all at once. It covered things like: scene design, level design, item design, character design, costume design, art style design… and more.
There were so many skills listed that William nearly lost count. Thankfully, he didn't have to study every single one slowly, or he'd fry his brain trying to remember it all.
"My design stat must have gone up a lot, right?"
He closed the manual and could feel that he now had a whole new understanding of game design. Even though it was just an entry-level guide, it still covered nearly everything related to game art. It was the kind of change that felt like a breakthrough.
[Current Design Level: 8]
Just one manual bumped him up 7 levels. For others, that might take decades of hard work. Was this really just a reward from a bronze chest? What about the ones after this—how crazy are they going to be?
William didn't want to think about it too much. He was afraid of getting too full of himself. If he lost his drive to create and just focused on opening chests, it'd be no different than losing his passion or faith.
He tried to calm down and refocus on the game.
Since he didn't use any advanced technology, the game didn't have many hardware requirements. It was very simple in terms of content—just two game modes and three songs. Basically, as long as the device was a phone, it could run it.
No more talking. Time to test it on his own phone.
It took a little while to install. After it opened, the interface was very minimal. It didn't even have what you'd call a proper UI.
The background was just clean black and white piano keys. There wasn't even a "Start" button. As soon as you tapped the screen, black tiles would begin sliding down over the white background.
William played for a bit, and everything ran smoothly. The difficulty was just right. It seemed like if someone wanted to finish a whole song perfectly, they'd probably need a few days of practice.
He put down his phone and opened the site where developers could submit apps for release.
On Blue Star, launching an app had three steps.
Step one was submitting it on a review site. This step was to confirm the app's category and release model. If it was a paid app, you also had to provide the right license.
For example, a paid learning app counted as online teaching, and since it was education-related, you needed teaching credentials. Without them, the platform wouldn't approve the app.
If a company really wanted to release a learning app but didn't have the license yet, they'd sometimes sneak it out by marking it "accidentally free." They'd use the first wave of traffic to build hype, then take it down soon after, so they could relaunch it later with proper marketing.
This worked because free learning apps didn't need a license. They just had to include a warning at the start of the app saying: *This is not a professional app and is for reference only.*
Once the first step was done, the next step was to talk with the platforms.
For paid apps, developers had to negotiate with the platform owners — usually the major phone brands.
On Android alone, there were seven major brands. That meant seven separate app stores. Each one had their own revenue splits and promo packages. In practice though, the deals were more or less the same. No one wanted to mess up the market. Competing too hard would just benefit developers, not the brands.
That said, if an app was really good, brands would still try hard to get exclusive rights. That's when the deals could get much more interesting.
For free apps, you didn't need to worry about revenue sharing — but there was one thing you couldn't avoid: promotion fees.
Before launching an app, every brand offered promotion plans that promised steady visibility. The higher the price, the more attention your app would get. But no matter the plan, the price was always high.
William obviously couldn't afford any of them. He skipped the whole thing. He already had a feeling his app would end up buried deep in some corner of the store — the kind you'd never find unless you searched for the exact keywords or scrolled all the way to the bottom.
This setup worked well for companies that wanted to claim a spot on the store without actually giving too much away. But for developers who really wanted to release something for free, it was pretty unfair.
Luckily, William already had a three-step marketing plan. The first two steps were done. Now he just needed the platform to approve the game.
The review time depended on the platform. Most Android brands would finish in one or two hours. iOS took longer — usually a full workday.
As for whether it would pass or not, as long as the content didn't break any rules or laws, there was nothing to worry about.
Now, it was time for the final move.
When William was mixing the music in Audition, he had also clipped a few highlights from the three piano tracks — about fifteen seconds each. He planned to upload them to video and music platforms to catch the attention of music lovers.
Once all the work was done, William finally had time to log out of his workspace and take a proper break.
After working non-stop for over ten hours, even two livers wouldn't have been enough to handle it.
It was ten o'clock at night. The review might be done around midnight. That way, the game would launch right at the start of the new day. If he got lucky, he might even slip into a gap where the platform was swapping out featured apps, and get a burst of exposure. If that happened, it would be a huge win. If not, no big deal — by the next day, someone would still eventually find his free learning app.
But things didn't go the way he expected.
Right after William fell asleep, a system alert jolted him awake.
"What's going on?"
His mind was still half asleep, his eyes barely open. But the system dragged him back into the workspace and forced him to boot up.
William was about to complain — but then he saw the numbers on the screen. His eyes froze, and he was so shocked he couldn't even say a word.
A new 4×4 chart had popped up on the screen. It had a clean white background, the words "Piano Tiles" in the top left, a curve below that, and under the curve at the bottom were the numbers "0", "5000", and "". The curve itself was incredibly steep—almost going straight up. On the right side of the chart was a live download counter:
The very next second, the number changed to "". In just one second, downloads had shot past 10,000!
Even though he had expected it, William still couldn't contain his excitement. He slammed his fist on the table.
The game had exploded!
Right after that, the system gave him another piece of good news.
["Piano Tiles" downloads passed 100,000! Milestone unlocked!]
[Milestone reward: "Piano (Beginner)"]
Another book?