Chapter 22 (1/2)

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Translated by Coldtaco

Edited by Aelryinth

After finishing adventure mode, Chen Mo dedicated himself to minigames, puzzle mode, survival mode, and other modes.

Everything else was fairly simple with the experience of adventure mode under his belt. Chen Mo didn’t try as hard as he did before, as it was just manual labor, playtesting as he went. Within a week’s time, he finished the other modes.

The Zen Garden, almanac, achievements, and shop were even simpler to implement, finishing in three days.

1Chen Mo spent another three days playtesting. He completed adventure mode once, checked if there were any bugs in the other modes, and polished up some of the finer details.

So far Chen Mo had been working on it day and night. After spending a month, the core Plants vs Zombies had been successfully recreated.

In his previous life, Plants vs Zombies was made in three years by a team of one designer, one artist, one musician, and one programmer. This majority of their time was likely spent on revising the design document and optimizing the user experience in order to produce a highly refined game like this.

6Chen Mo didn’t need to code, or make too many adjustments to the numbers. He didn’t have to look for inspiration or change designs. All he did was remake the original piece and it still had taken him an entire month. This demonstrated that video game development wasn’t as easy as the majority of people thought.

2However, it wasn’t done yet!

Although the game was basically complete, the placeholder art from the game engine was still being used. The styles of the artwork clashed, and many of them weren’t the right size. It looked like garbage, calling it an eyesore would be an understatement.

Moreover, the game did not have any music or sound effects, completely removing the tension from the game. The combat wasn’t satisfying, either.

Chen Mo spent his time on improving the art and music to the levels of the original in his previous life.

Luckily Chen Mo had sketched down the plants and zombies and it was all saved on his computer, all that was left was to complete it. However, this was a more painful process, as Chen Mo had to hand draw and animate all of it.

2About forty different types of plants and twenty different types of zombies, combined with the fact that every single one of them had their own subtle movements, added up to a substantial amount of work.

Luckily, the artwork of the plants and zombies were fairly simple, especially when many parts of the zombies could be reused, reducing the amount of work.

Although Chen Mo’s art skills weren’t high, he could manage. The art style was cartoonish, so the lines and colors of the characters were fairly simple.

Of course, Chen Mo could’ve hired someone, but then he’d be required to describe his specifications in detail. Moreover, the results might not be up to par with his expectations. After giving it some thought, Chen Mo decided to bite the bullet and take matters into his own hands.

On average Chen Mo completed one plant and one zombie per day. Combined with resources such as the interface and loading screen, finishing the artwork took almost a month and a half of Chen Mo’s time.

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Next up was sound effects and music!