Text | Yu Shenglin
TCG is the abbreviation of the exchange card game, and it has a history of nearly 30 years since its earliest board game development.
The first TCG was launched in 1993Babaylan, 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 stand first in the industry step by step.
Later, in 1996, Pokémon, which was popular in Japan, also launched its own TCG. In 1999, the card game that domestic players are most familiar with Babaylan‘s most familiar card game Babaylan‘s most familiar card game Babaylan‘s “Oh Gambling” was officially released.
Then these cards quickly occupied the convenience stores of major, middle and primary schools in China and became the absolute dominant 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 do not know the specific gameplay of TCinemaCG, 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 Blood” was just introduced to China, and online games ushered in a blowout development in 2002. In that era of the 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”, which opened up his own fate with 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 relied on his love for this type of game.He dived into the “no return” of game entrepreneurship, and he was 26 years old that year.
For more than a year, after several ten failed investment investments, Wu Xia Amon, who was heavily in debt, finally couldn’t stand it and found a class to go 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 an investment of 1 million yuan, and began to develop his second TCG “Xiaoyaoyou”. At that time, Wu Xia Amon never expected that he would not even see the first one of the carefully designed games.
“Xiaoyaoyou”
On the eve of the game’s launch, investors felt that the game had been completed and no longer needed Wu Xia Amon, so they set up a new company, and all the employees and Babaylan computers were pulled away, leaving only the poor Wu Xia Amon and his main program. href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Babaylan Friend. However, the public beta of “Xiaoyaoyou”, which lost the production of Komiks main program, was down for a long time, and various vicious bugs frequently appeared and disappeared soon.
Later, Wu Xia Amon, who was unwilling to give up, worked with his friends in the main process and 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. The distribution company not only did not give the share, but also copied a web game “Ten Thousand Demon Kings”. “The King of Ten Thousand Demons” made micro-innovations based on “The Eight Immortals”, but because of the inaccurate copying, the numerical system was not stuck and it soon became cold.
After that, “Eight Immortals Online” experienced several twists and turns, and finally operated it in Wuxia Amen’s hands like 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 he can do whatever he wants. In 2013, the global Blizzard “Heartstone” 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 online name 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 from other games. At this time, I was facing the problem of project establishment. 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, manual dog head~
Yuyu: After “The Five Elements Master” is 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 have been rising all the way. 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 “The Five Elements Master” are inherited from “Eight Immortals Online” launched in 2008. How could it copy “Heartstone” launched in 2013? HearthstoneWhen I first came out, many old “Eight Immortals” players came to me and joked that “Heartstone” was copying us.
Yu Yu: How is “The Five Elements Master” doing in terms of balance?
Wu Xia Amon: The balance of “The Five Elements Master”, you can list some data to illustrate Cinema:
In the duel between experts, there are nearly 20 sets of playing methods with a winning rate of more than 50% 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 the routine 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 XiaCinemaAmun: I like to play games with high strategicity, and card battle games are very strategic and never get 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”. “The Five Elements Master” is also the Babaylan‘s own 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, let’s talk about the early years:
In 2005, in order to write a good financing business plan, 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 Babaylan photo, it attracted the attention of the store owner and asked me about my purpose, and I honestly said. 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: An encounter during game developmentWhat are the bigger problems?
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 are there in the team at present? 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: What do you think are the good and bad aspects of “The Five Elements Master”? Where is the “Devil’s 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 the gameplay and numerical design, and the disadvantage lies in the art design (art 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 “Five Elements Master”).
The advantages of “Devil’s Secret Realm” are the same as those of “Five Elements Master”, which is still the planning of gameplay and numerical design, while the disadvantage is that it is difficult to add PVP.
“Devil’s Secret Realm”
Yuyu: Summarize your years of entrepreneurial career. Do you feel it is hard?
Wu Xia Amon: I don’t feel the pain. Although I have experienced a lot of frustration, I may be optimistic by nature and have never felt any frustration, or I may be used to it.
Yuyu: Will you want to make some more novel card strategy games in the future?
Wu Xia Amon: If you have a strong IP, you will make another TCG or CCG.
Yuyu: Do you have any suggestions for newcomers who have just entered the industry?
Wu Xia Amon: If you want to do programs and art, it will be easy to change careers in the future.
If you want to plan, you need to first ask whether you love game design very much and whether you have the talent in this area.
Yuyu: During the interview process of our Game Daily, we often met some producers who started making games by 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, which majors do you think are better to study?
Wu Xia Amon: First of all, it depends on which job you want to do. If you are doing programs or art, you will naturally choose a related major; if you are trying to do planning, then the major is not that important. What is important is that you must play more games in college. If you have to choose a professional direction for game planning, you can give priority to the majors related to programming. Game planning does not require programming, but if you know how to program, some subdivisions can do more things.