Pei Qian had already considered that since they were going to compete with “Cute Three Kingdoms,” they could only choose the Three Kingdoms theme.
However, the Three Kingdoms theme itself was a fairly decent IP—not particularly great, but not too bad either.
To make players hate these Three Kingdoms characters, the best method was to completely transform them, utterly subverting their traditional images!
This way, those players who loved the Three Kingdoms would naturally curse loudly and quit the game in anger when they saw these chaotic modifications, thereby lowering the game’s overall reputation.
And this important task of transformation was assigned to Ma Yang.
Pei Qian had complete faith in Ma Yang’s abilities. Any work that Ma Yang seriously undertook would certainly turn out to be a suitable disaster!
Looking at the character names, Ma Yang showed a troubled expression.
He poked his head down from the upper bunk and whispered, “Brother Qian, I… I’ve only watched the Three Kingdoms TV series, and I can’t even identify many of these characters…”
Pei Qian couldn’t help but feel delighted—wasn’t that perfect?
If you knew the Three Kingdoms characters like the back of your hand, I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving you this task!
“It’s fine, I trust you. The point is to subvert tradition, so feel free to use your imagination—the more subversive, the better!”
“Besides, don’t worry, what the final character designs look like will still depend on the artist. You’re just providing a direction.”
“Just design freely; since it’s meant to be subversive, no one will criticize factual errors.”
Pei Qian repeatedly reassured him.
He certainly didn’t want Ma Yang to give up and push this work back to him.
Ma Yang finally nodded: “Alright, I’ll try my best.”
Pei Qian, still concerned, added one more instruction: “Remember, it must be subversive! The more outrageous, the better!”
Ma Yang sat on his upper bunk and began scratching his head in frustration.
After struggling for ten minutes with no progress, he couldn’t help but poke his head down again and say, “Brother Qian, should I buy a copy of ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ first…”
Pei Qian immediately stopped him: “No, absolutely not! I value your innovative spirit, understand? You haven’t been influenced by the traditional images from ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms,’ which is why you can achieve this kind of subversion!”
“Don’t even consider what their original images were—just use your imagination freely and transform them completely!”
Ma Yang had no choice but to sigh and withdraw his head, continuing to scratch his head in frustration.
A moment later, he poked his head down again to ask Pei Qian: “Brother Qian, can I design Guan Yu as a dragon?”
Pei Qian nodded: “Sure!”
After a while.
“Brother Qian, can I design Ma Chao as a centaur?”
“Sure!”
A bit later.
“Brother Qian, can I design Zhou Cang as a dragon lady, Zhuge Liang as a great inventor, Huang Yueying as a mechanical puppet, Xu Chu as a tiger, Cao Pi as a tentacle monster, Lu Meng as a dragon-slaying loli… is that okay?”
Pei Qian slapped his thigh: “Absolutely! That’s perfect! Old Ma, do you know you’re a genius? Just keep going with this approach!”
Ma Yang had initially been full of doubt about his designs, but seeing Pei Qian’s approval, he became more confident.
Watching Ma Yang work so earnestly, Pei Qian was overjoyed.
He hadn’t chosen the wrong person!
Designing Zhou Cang as a dragon lady and Lu Meng as a dragon-slaying loli?
Look at what brilliant nonsense this was!
Pei Qian himself would never have been able to come up with such ideas!
With such completely unreliable concepts, and then finding a relatively cheap artist to wildly draw them, could the game’s artwork possibly look good?
Imagine players drawing Cao Pi and discovering he’s a tentacle monster;
Drawing Ma Chao and finding out he’s a centaur;
Drawing Lu Meng and finding that the great general has turned into a dragon-slaying loli…
Wouldn’t fans of the Three Kingdoms theme curse them to death?
A famous international actor once said that dramatic adaptations aren’t meant to be nonsensical, and changes aren’t meant to be random fabrications.
But this was exactly nonsensical and randomly fabricated. When this game was released, it would undoubtedly be despised by thousands, making Three Kingdoms fans cry inside!
Pei Qian’s gloom of the past few days completely disappeared, and he instantly felt that his life had become bright again!
Lose all 300,000 yuan, net gain 300,000 yuan!
Pei Qian felt that a wonderful life was beckoning to him!
While Ma Yang was filling out the form, Pei Qian went to the resource site to briefly check out the artists’ situations.
ESRO’s resource site integrated a large number of resources in the domestic game industry, including human resources.
Whether designers, artists, or programmers, they could all offer their services to buyers with transparent pricing on the resource site.
Buyers could see these people’s resumes and work on the resource site and, if satisfied, could negotiate cooperation.
For instance, buying a certain number of original artworks from an artist.
Pei Qian searched for artists specializing in original art and began rapidly eliminating candidates one by one.
Very famous master artists? All eliminated.
Reputable industry elite artists? All eliminated.
He specifically looked for novice artists who only charged seven or eight hundred yuan per original artwork!
After searching through many people’s works, Pei Qian found that they all seemed quite similar.
This resource site had a threshold; not just any art student could get certified.
ESRO staff would conduct reviews, and any novice artists listed on the site had decent drawing fundamentals.
Pei Qian searched and searched, finally locking onto a new artist with very few representative works.
All of this artist’s representative works were in a 2D cute style, with no realistic style works.
This suggested he likely wasn’t very skilled in realistic style!
And Pei Qian’s game required realistic style original artwork.
“This is the one!”
Pei Qian immediately decided.
Of course, Pei Qian couldn’t find just one artist because he needed too many original artworks.
Some card games would make their card artwork as detailed as posters, which would take even an experienced artist a week to complete.
The artwork Pei Qian required was for a card on a mobile phone screen, so the level of detail could be significantly reduced. But even with an artist who was capable and hardworking, it would still take about two days.
This meant that one artist working intensely for a month, without considering quality, could produce at most around 15 original artworks.
Of course, though Pei Qian said there were 200 original artworks, they weren’t 200 completely different ones.
There were only 50 characters, with 4 artworks per character, representing different star levels.
For example, Zhuge Liang, from one-star to four-star, would only have changes in details and effects, not completely redesigned from scratch.
Therefore, all four original artworks for each character could be produced as a set.
Even so, with a conservative estimate, Pei Qian would need six or seven artists to ensure all the content was completed on schedule.
Pei Qian planned to first talk to one artist about pricing, then look for others.
“Hello, our company is currently preparing a card mobile game and needs to commission a batch of original artworks. I’d like to discuss pricing and timeframes with you. If you’re interested, please reply.”
Pei Qian left a message for an artist named “Ruan Guangjian” and waited a few minutes with no reply, assuming he wasn’t online.
Pei Qian wasn’t in a hurry; after all, Ma Yang’s requirement form wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow at the earliest.
Looking at the time, it was already evening, and Pei Qian felt his stomach growling.
“Old Ma, shall we go eat?”
Pei Qian got off his bed and looked at Ma Yang on the upper bunk.
Ma Yang was still rackingx his brain to come up with ideas while typing on the keyboard. The requirement form already had large blocks of text.
“…No need to be so serious. Come on, let’s go eat first,” Pei Qian said.
Ma Yang was still somewhat immersed in his work, but he was indeed hungry, so he climbed down from the bed.
“Cafeteria?” Ma Yang asked.
Pei Qian shook his head, patting his chest as he said, “No, we’re eating out today, my treat!”
Ten minutes later.
The server brought a bowl of noodles and a bowl of egg fried rice, placing them in front of the two.