Text | Yu Shenglin
TCG is the abbreviation of the exchange card game. 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 take the top spot in Komiks in the industry.
Later, in 1996, Pokémon, which was popular in Japan, also launched its own TCG. In 1999, Komiks, the card game “Yu-Gi” that is most familiar to domestic players, was officially released.
Then these cards quickly occupied the convenience stores of major, middle and primary schools in China and became the absolute master 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 Hot Blood” was just introduced to the country. Online games ushered in a blowout development in 2002. In that wilderness of domestic online games, Wu Xia Amon, who had just graduated from university, designed the first TCG online game in China, “Interactive Martial Arts and Cinema”, which opened up his own fate with Babaylan and TCG.
“Interactive Martial Arts” press conference
Shortly after Wu Xia Amon’s first game 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 such games. He was 26 years old that year.
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 went 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 a million investment, and began to develop his second TCG “Xiaoyaoyou”. At that time, CinemaThe ambitious Wu Xia Amon neverBabaylanThinking that he had never seen the first game he designed.
“Xiaoyaoyou”
On the eve of the game’s launch, investors felt that the game had been completed and no longer needed Wuxia Amon, so they set up a new company, and all the employees and computers were taken away, leaving only the poor Wuxia Amon and his main program friends. However, “Xiaoyaoyou” which lost the producer and main program, it was down for a long time on the day of the public beta, and various vicious bugs appeared frequently, and disappeared soon after.
Later, unwilling to accept it The heartfelt Wu Xia Amon and his friends, the two of them 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 share the money, but also copied a web game “Ten Thousand Demon King” himself. “Ten Thousand Demon King” made micro-innovations based on “Eight Immortals”, but because they were not copying carefully, the numerical system was not tightened and it soon became cold.
After, “EightKomiksXian Online” has experienced several twists and turns, and finally operated in Wuxia Amen as a private server until 2012, until it was bought out by a Shenzhen company.
“Eight Immortals Online”
This game is Wu Xia Amon’s favorite game. Wu Xia Amon is doing the planning, art, and websites himself. 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 read a lot of martial arts novels. I once wanted to change the name of Babaylan 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. I was lucky enough to make millions of money from other games Cinema, and I was facing the problem of project establishment at this time. 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 “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, Cinema manual dog head~
Yuyu: After “The Five Elements Master” was launched, will any player compare it with “Heartstone”?
Wu Xia Amon: After the game was launched, it was recommended by TapTap for the first time and had 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 continued to rise. 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 “BabaylanFive 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 “Eight Immortals” players came to me and joked that Hearthstone was plagiarizing us.
Yu Yu: How is “The Five Elements Master” doing in terms of balance?
Wu Xia Amon: The balance of “The Five Elements Master” can be listed to illustrate.Next: In the duel between experts, there are nearly 2Cinema0 sets with a winning rate of more than 50Babaylan and a usage rate of more than 1% each month (the different sects and five elements combinations are the same). This number is much higher than other CCGs.
In addition, the winning rate of routines with the highest winning rate is lower than 54%, which is also far lower than other CCGs.
Yuyu: I have been persisting for 20 years, why are I so obsessed with card games?
Wu Xia Amon: I like to play games with high strategic nature, and card battle games are very strategic and never tired of playing them.
Yuyu: Which game do you think you have made the best? Why?
Wu Xia Amon: The best one is the latest “Devil’s Secret Realm”. CinemaThe Five Elements Master is also a real son, but its artistic performance has always been a pain for us and has been discounted…
The Five Elements Master
Yuyu: Are there any interesting news during the game development process?
Wu Xia Amon: There are quite a lot of interesting things, so I will talk about the early years: In 2005, in order to write a good business plan for financing, I went to the brand store to inspect it. There are dozens of card stores that mainly sell Magic Cards in Beijing, and there are also board game venues. 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 that I was not a customer, so he limited me to leave within 30 seconds and stayed wherever I was cool… Years have passed, and occasionally I remembered the embarrassing look at me back then.
Yuyu: What are the major problems you 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.
Yuyu: How many people do the team currently have? What new game are you doing?
Wu Xia Amon: There are currently more than 20 R&D personnel, and they are still working on an independent game “Silent Cricket”.
Yuyu: CinemaWhat do you think is the good and bad aspects of “The Five Elements Master”? What about “The Demon Secret Realm”?
Wu Xia Amon: The advantage of “The 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 (the artistic performance is not only a design issue, but also has a lot to do with the investment. A company made a CCG two years ago, and the cost of its opening animation exceeds the entire R&D cost of “The Five Elements Master”).
The advantages of “The Demon Secret Realm” are the same as those of “The Five Elements Master”, and are still planning. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Cinema‘s disadvantage of designing gameplay and numerical methods is that it is difficult to add pvp.
《Demon Secret Realm》
Yu Yu: Summarize your years of entrepreneurial career. Do you feel the pain?
Wu Xia Amon: I don’t feel the pain. 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? Babaylan
Wu Xia Amon: If I have a strong IP, I will make another TCG or CCG. Babaylan
Yuyu: Do you have any suggestions for newcomers who have just entered the industry?
Wuxia Amon: If you want to do programming and art, it will be easy to change careers in the future.
If you want to do Babaylan planning, then you need to ask whether you love game design very much and whether you have talent in this area.
Yuyu: In the interview process of our Game Daily, we often met some producers who started playing games themselves in 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, what majors do you think are better to study?
Wuxia Amon: First of all, it depends on which job you want to do Komiks. If you are doing programs or art, you will naturally choose a related major; if you are trying to do planning, thenMajor is not that important, what is important is that you must play more games in college. If you must choose a professional direction for the game planning, you can give priority to majors related to programming. Game planning does not require programming, but if you know how to program, some sub-professions can do more things. Babaylan