Having made up his mind, Pei Qian entered ESRO’s official resource site to search for a generic card mobile game template.

He quickly found one.

This wasn’t the same template as “Cute Three Kingdoms.”

Since “Cute Three Kingdoms” was the originator of card mobile game gameplay and currently the most popular card mobile game on the market—equivalent to a money tree—that company wouldn’t be stupid enough to sell their own game as a template.

But just because they didn’t sell it didn’t mean others wouldn’t.

Many game companies jumped on the bandwagon to create card mobile games, writing their code, but borrowing gameplay elements from “Cute Three Kingdoms.”

Because these companies didn’t make money from their games, they had no choice but to modify their games and sell them as templates on resource sites, thus recouping some of their costs.

The template Pei Qian had found now originated from an already-failed card mobile game imitation.

“A failed product? I like it!”

Pei Qian felt this was a good sign.

He clicked in to check the gameplay systems inside.

Since card mobile games became popular in 2008 until now, “Cute Three Kingdoms” has already gone through many version updates, with gameplay continuously expanding.

This template, however, was quite outdated, containing only the most basic elements.

For example, levels, auto-battles, arenas, and so on.

New gameplay features? None whatsoever!

The entire game looked quite shabby.

Pei Qian was very satisfied with this!

This was exactly the kind of card mobile game template he had been dreaming of—none of the fun features, absolutely no advantages in terms of gameplay!

He checked the price: 100,000 yuan!

“…Only 100,000 yuan?”

Pei Qian was quite dissatisfied with this price—too cheap!

If they had priced it at 150,000 yuan, he would have bought it without hesitation!

But then he reconsidered. The driving simulation template had only cost 20,000 yuan. Although the card mobile game template was more complex, containing many more comprehensive gameplay systems, 100,000 yuan wasn’t cheap either.

Just looking at the download count, this template lagged far behind the driving simulation game template Pei Qian had purchased earlier.

This indicated that its price was already inflated and not very practical.

Pei Qian ordered it without hesitation!

He loved these overpriced products—they burned through money faster without triggering system warnings.

After buying this template, the basic gameplay features were all in place. The next step was to fill it with art resources.

Art resources included interface UI, battle effects, card artwork, and a series of other content.

Besides these expenses, there was also purchasing music and sound effects, renting cloud servers, and so on, but these wouldn’t cost much.

The bulk of the expense would be in art resources.

Pei Qian considered allocating twenty to thirty thousand yuan for music and sound effects, over ten thousand for other expenses, and the remaining one hundred sixty to seventy thousand would all be poured into art resources.

One hundred sixty to seventy thousand—not a small amount, but not too much either.

However, Pei Qian hadn’t quite figured out what kind of art style to use.

Card games were the most suitable for reskinning.

It could also be understood this way: for card games, the “skin” was the most important element.

Precisely because this skin was so important, Pei Qian had to ensure it was done poorly!

Of course, deliberately making it look ugly wouldn’t work.

Because the system rules prohibited purchasing low-quality goods or services.

If he spent one hundred sixty to seventy thousand yuan but only got art resources worth fifty to sixty thousand, the system check wouldn’t pass.

He had to purchase services of roughly equal value, allowing for slight fluctuations up or down, but not too much.

This was when Pei Qian needed to use his little brain.

How could he buy high-quality art resources while ensuring players wouldn’t like them?

Simple—have artists use exquisite drawing techniques to create styles that players wouldn’t accept!

The key was still to come up with an art requirement plan.

Pei Qian wasn’t very confident in his abilities in this area. After all, he had experienced the failure of “Lonely Desert Highway,” which made him question his execution capability.

This was where Ma Yang’s role came into play!

Pei Qian downloaded a generic art resource requirement form from the resource site.

This form detailed the dimensions required for various resources, followed by sections for simple descriptions of these resources.

The resources were roughly divided into two categories. One was original artwork, which was more expensive and required higher skill from artists. These needed to be drawn with more detail, and the requirements naturally had to be very clear.

The other category was additional resources, such as interface UI, special effects, and so on.

Similar resources for these could be found online and roughly modified for use.

But Pei Qian was certainly not satisfied with simple modifications—how could he spend money that way?

So, all art resources would be custom-made!

Pei Qian first listed all the relatively less critical resources, like system UI and special effects, then filled in some very simple requirements.

For instance, they should be cool!

They should fit the Three Kingdoms style!

All vague descriptions like these.

As for what the final product would look like…

Pei Qian couldn’t care less. Whatever it turned out to be, so be it!

Then, Pei Qian directly sent this form to Ma Yang.

Ma Yang had just woken up by now.

But after reading that thick book for two minutes, he was already showing signs of falling asleep again.

Seeing Pei Qian send him a form, Ma Yang instantly perked up, tossed the book onto his bed, poked his head down from the upper bunk, and whispered: “Ready to start working?”

Pei Qian nodded: “Fill out the form. Use your imagination freely, be bold!”

Ma Yang nodded vigorously: “No problem!”

His enthusiasm for work was very high!

Ma Yang looked at the form—it was an art resource requirement form, and he had quite a lot to fill in, mainly character artwork requirement descriptions.

Pei Qian had already determined the game’s theme: Three Kingdoms.

The Three Kingdoms characters were limited in number. Pei Qian had selected a total of 50 characters, including 15 rare cards, 25 excellent cards, and 10 common cards.

In terms of pricing, the cost of original artwork could vary greatly—some as low as seven to eight hundred yuan, others as expensive as four to five thousand.

Recruiting a student from a second or third-tier city art school could get artwork for as little as one hundred yuan per piece.

Commissioning a well-known artist could easily cost seven to eight thousand dollars per card.

After all, you get what you pay for.

Pei Qian absolutely would not commission well-known artists, even though it would allow him to spend more money.

Because famous artists’ reputations could potentially provide promotional effects for the game!

Similarly, buying artwork at four to five thousand yuan per piece would indeed allow him to spend more money, but if such beautiful artwork were released, what if players liked it?!

As mentioned before, the most important aspect of a card mobile game was its skin. If the skin was made too attractive, the game could potentially make money despite terrible gameplay!

So Pei Qian decided to buy relatively inexpensive artwork!

To spend more money, he would just buy more!

Fifty characters, plus different states showing character advancement and star upgrades.

That meant essentially 50 base images, with four variations of each to represent advancement effects.

Calculating at 3,000 yuan per base image plus four variations, this would amount to 150,000 yuan, which fits Pei Qian’s budget perfectly.

After all, first-generation card games didn’t need character models, saving one expense.

Of course, the specific quote would still need to come from the other party; this was just Pei Qian’s rough estimate.

Ma Yang was a bit confused. If all these details were already decided, what was his main responsibility?

After carefully reading Pei Qian’s notes, he understood.

His job was to create original content and make radical modifications!

In other words, to use his imagination freely and completely transform these 50 characters, making them unrecognizable if possible!