Chapter 178 - Presentations

The moment Chen Mo entered the venue, he heard someone call out to him.

It was Qiu Hengyang. Chen Mo walked towards him to introduce himself, “You’re here too?”

Qiu Hengyang nodded, “Yeah, I was going to let you know, but it seems that we’ve ran into one another. I’ve seen the news the past few days, too. You’ve really done it, you’ve managed to generate a huge news topic through a mobile game.”

Chen Mo laughed, “What do you mean a huge news topic. I just thought it’d be a good idea to make a game for the players to fidget with since the conventions were usually quite boring. Anyways, it’s my first time here, so it’d be great if you could introduce me to others.”

Qiu Hengyang nodded, “Of course, follow me.”

The two walked as they chatted.

Chen Mo asked, “Heard your new game did pretty well, you’re A-grade now too?”

Qiu Hengyang nodded, “Yeah, but my move to B to A-grade took four to five years, unlike you who managed that in a year. Your year has been quite insane huh, how many games have you made? Warcraft, Wulin, Onmyoji, Anipop… I doubt there are many others in the industry who could manage four games like you did.”

Chen Mo tried to explain himself, “I started working on Warcraft since October last year, and that took a bit more than half a year, so don’t count that in. And among those games, only Warcraft was the more notable one, the others were more like side projects.”

Qiu Hengyang laughed, “Either way, you’ve been pretty quick on your feet, and the main point is that the games were quite well received.”

The two of them walked as they chatted, towards the venue.

“The main events for today and tomorrow during the day are networking events and talks, most of the talks have been organised by the Game Committee,” explained Qiu Hengyang.

Chen Mo asked, “Are you doing a talk?”

Qiu Hengyang shook his head, “Me? I’m still lacking a lot of experience. Usually only S-grade videogame designers are invited to those talks, and usually have a few VR games behind them.

“Of course you could give a talk about more classic games. You could probably give a talk yourself based on your results in the mobile industry this year, but I think that because you aren’t an official committee member yet, they didn’t organise one because they don’t know you too well.”

“I don’t really want to give one anyways,” said Chen Mo.

Qiu Hengyang laughed, “It’s not bad to give a talk. You can only have so much inspiration alone, it’s when you interact with others that you gain more inspiration.

“Which talk do you want to join?”

Chen Mo discovered that there were many different talks. There were over ten talks a day, each two hours on average. He had to decide which ones he wanted to attend as there were a few happening at the same time.

And if they didn’t want to listen to talks or presentations, they could join networking events. These networking events are started by designers themselves, and the designers could pick and join events that had other similar video game designers.

Chen Mo gave it some thought, “I think I’d like to listen to a presentation.

Chen Mo didn’t want to argue with other video game designers at networking events, which was why he chose to listen to talks.

There were three different talks going on, “The use of lightrays and scenery in levels”, “Casual games design concepts and experience exchange”, and “How to make a high quality VR FPS game.”

Qiu Hengyang asked, “Do you want to go to the casual game one?”

Chen Mo was speechless, “What’s the point in that, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Qiu Hengyang laughed, “That’s true, it’s probably a bit insulting to listen to others talk about casual games with you right by my side. You made games like Plants vs Zombies and Anipop that sit at the top of the casual games leaderboards after all.”

“How about VR FPS games?” suggested Chen Mo.

Qiu Hengyang nodded, “Sure. We can’t make VR games now, but we’ll have to do it eventually. It’s probably good for us to get into the know-how now.”

There were quite a few attendees, and most of them were designers above B-grade, all well dressed and sat properly.

Most of the front row seats were already taken, so the two of them sat somewhere in the back.

The speaker was an S-grade videogame designer from Zen Entertainment, Ran He. His game, Heavy Assault, was one of the best VR FPS games in China, and was rated very highly within the Chinese video game industry.

“I’m happy to be able to share some things I’ve learnt during the development of Heavy Assault at this wonderful venue.

“I think we are still a bit behind in terms of design in VR FPS games compared to the West, which is why I decided on an experience exchange, and I hope everyone would be able to gain something from this.

“I should start off by saying, FPS games are hard to get into, and even more so for a VR FPS game. Because it’s in VR, we need to recreate a realistic environment for warfare, and if that setting wasn’t well done, the game would feel tacky and uninteresting. Compared to FPS games from overseas, Chinese FPS games have no competitive advantage.

“In this talk, I hope to go over how to make a high quality VR game starting from three main points, Environment, Weapons, and Playstyle.”

“First, in terms of the Environment, we must choose somewhere that suits the gameplay and the story as it will affect how the game will play and directly impact on how the players will feel…

Ran He’s talk was straightforward and fluent, and easy to understand. However, Chen Mo could tell that he wasn’t giving out the most important parts of his design.

This way, the designers could learn a thing or two from the talk, but couldn’t take the core of his success and turn it around to threaten Ran He.

Ran He spoke eloquently for nearly two hours, ending with a few questions from the audience. Everybody clapped when the talk ended.

Qiu Hengyang clapped as he asked Chen Mo, “How was it, did you learn anything?”

“Yeah, something like that. It’s definitely better than the casual game talk,” said Chen Mo.

Qiu Hengyang laughed, “It’s about time for lunch, let’s go grab something to eat.”

There was a buffet laid out for any of the video game designers who attended. Chen Mo and Qiu Hengyang grabbed some food before sitting down at a table beside a window.

As he sat down, someone called out to Chen Mo.

“Chen Mo?”

Chen Mo raised his head to find Saury.

They met in the video game convention in Magic City, how did they meet at the awards ceremony again?

Saury skipped the formalities and sat down next to the two of them.

“Isn’t this even just for videogame designers?” Chen Mo wondered.

Saury nodded, “Yeah.”

“How did you enter, there isn’t a song and dance event during the award ceremony right?”

Saury let out a stifled laugh, “Pfft, no.”

Qiu Hengyang looked at Chen Mo before looking back at Saury, “Chen Mo, did you make a mistake? She’s a videogame designer, one that’s better than the both of us.”