A new day starts with checking the game sales.
Not bad, today's game sales have increased quite a bit compared to yesterday, probably because the Steam Platform gave it a "Indie Game" showcase recommendation.
Chen Ba is in a pretty good mood.
Because when he woke up this morning, he surprisingly saw foreign currency settlement symbols in the developer's backend.
What does this mean?
It means Cold Window Study Simulator actually has foreign players purchasing and playing it, which completely upends his understanding.
The game's language options only have English and simplified Chinese!
Among them, the English translation of the game documents is full of flaws, just slightly better than machine translation; after all, he didn't really value it.
Can't blame him for not valuing it…
Who would have thought this game would catch the interest of foreign players? He never considered this possibility, so he just did a rough translation.
The sudden appearance of foreign players surprised Chen Ba but also left him a bit puzzled.
Where did they come from?
Cold Window Study Simulator has no reputation abroad, so where exactly did these foreign players hear about the game?
He flipped to the bottom of the game details page and sorted the comment section by "time", and it seemed Chen Ba found the answer.
Tricked!
These overseas reviews are either in traditional Chinese or a mix of Chinese and English, anyone could tell they are overseas Chinese.
"I was wondering where the foreign currency settlements were coming from; so that's it..."
Chen Ba suddenly realized.
He had been happy for a while, almost thinking Cold Window Study Simulator had captivated foreign players, unlocking a new achievement in cultural export.
Turned out the foreigners were indeed foreigners, but not genuine ones, and then there were those orders from the "Panpas District", and all the comments were from domestic players.
Steam Platform has the concept of high-priced and low-priced regions, and due to local policy restrictions, some games may be unavailable for purchase or download.
This led to the operation of "region-switching", making many seemingly foreign purchase orders actually domestic players.
Of course, there were also overseas Chinese.
Feeling a bit foolish, Chen Ba shook his head and exited the Steam developer backend, skillfully typing in the Dream Building Engine forum URL and clicking on the commercial collaboration section.
This is an industry forum he frequents; he learned a lot here when he first entered the field and started studying the Dream Building Engine, and consulted many industry experts; he likes to come by when he's got nothing better to do.
But today he wasn't there to loiter, but to scour the forum for a few good and cheap "2d artists" to outsource art work for Tianba Game Studio's new game project.
Because Living Under Someone's Roof Simulator is a 2D game, Chen Ba directly searched for the "2D artist" tag and quickly saw a string of job application posts.
[Freelance UI design, 2D character design.]
"Hello everyone, thanks for visiting! My name is Kent."
"I've been working as a game UI designer and 2D artist since 2018..."
"Joined the industry only in 2018?"
As soon as he saw this introduction, Chen Ba immediately shook his head, not even bothering to open his portfolio, just passed him.
These newcomers with less than three years in the industry might be cheap, but honestly, how many can really meet the demands?
Even taking a step back, even if this Kent turns out to be a rare talent, he wouldn't be looking for work on a forum; he'd already be snapped up by a big company.
Missing out on talent is not impossible, but the probability is about the same as hitting the lottery, and Chen Ba has no interest in spending a lot of time on a newcomer.
Moreover, this is also an outsider...
Not looking down on outsiders, but foreign game artists might find it hard to meet the actual needs of Living Under Someone's Roof Simulator in terms of art style.
After all, cultural differences are something that needs to be considered.
The second one was much more normal, a Chinese artist with 12 years of experience, with many representative works, had created a small team specializing in game art outsourcing for major studios.
Chen Ba added his WeChat.
Probably because the other party was busy, it took half an hour for them to accept Chen Ba's friend request, and after a conversation of less than ten minutes, Chen Ba gave up.
The prices were just too high.
Although you get what you pay for, and the quality of a single original artwork is indeed worthy of their asking price and not deliberately costly, unfortunately, Chen Ba couldn't afford such high prices in the thousands.
"There are cheaper options too!"
"What price range are you looking for? We can discuss based on your needs."
Probably not wanting to miss out on Chen Ba as a client, they expressed they could customize an art package according to his requirements.
"My requirements?"
Hearing this, Chen Ba was immediately tempted.
He couldn't afford the expensive art resources, but it wasn't necessary to use the most expensive ones either! He could completely have a custom art solution according to his budget and needs.
For instance, for promotional artwork, it could be made more exquisite and detailed since it's the game's selling point packaging.
As for the rest, there was no need for them to be too refined.
After all, players are already used to being deceived by beautiful promotional graphics only to find the actual game falling short.
Using real in-game shots for promotion?
Come on, you're not serious!
How confident do you have to be in your game to use real in-game shots as promotional material? Surely you're talking about a triple-A title?
Game promotional graphics, UI design, character design, map and scene design, character illustrations...
The entire artistic scope of a game is enormous; even though the Living Under Someone's Roof Simulator is a small game, packaging everything up results in an astonishing figure.
After discussing for about an afternoon on WeChat, Chen Ba finally reached a preliminary resolution regarding the art resources, with both parties agreeing to have further detailed communication in the future.
When it comes to outsourcing responsibilities, it's not possible to make a decision with just a few words; at the very least, the other party must clearly understand party A's needs before further cooperation discussions can follow.
To put it bluntly.
Even if it's the much-mocked "colorful black" client joke, at least it proposes specific requirements.
Whether or not party B can fulfill party A's demands is one thing, but at the very least, party A can't just say "whatever" or "anything goes" without being clear.
The art needs must be precise.
The more precise the needs, the better the outcome will be, and those ambiguous requests might end up with a "neither fish nor fowl"!
There were quite a few art resources needed for the game, and Chen Ba needed help from Yang Dong and Lu Jing, each responsible for submitting a part of the art requirements, so they could collaborate to ensure that the game development schedule wouldn't be delayed by the art.
Otherwise, relying on him alone, who knows how many brain cells he might lose and how much hair he might shed just to finish the game!
Cold Window Study Simulator?
That thing didn't have any art requirements; it was all free public templates Chen Ba used, with at most a little "Van Gogh" art style infused into the character design.