Having made up his mind, Pei Qian quickly opened ESRO's official resource marketplace and searched for a generic card-game template.
He soon found one.
It wasn't the template from Cute Three Kingdoms—the original developers certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to sell their successful formula.
However, many other companies had jumped on the card-game bandwagon, creating their own versions. Since these copycats failed commercially, their creators decided to slightly modify their games and sell them as generic templates to recoup some losses.
The template Pei Qian found was precisely from one of these failed clones.
"A failed game? Perfect! I love it already!"
Pei Qian saw this as an excellent omen.
He clicked in and took a closer look at its mechanics.
Since Cute Three Kingdoms launched in 2008, it has gone through multiple updates, adding numerous features and enhancements.
But this particular template was clearly outdated, offering only the most basic mechanics like stages, sweep functions, and a basic PvP arena.
No innovative features whatsoever!
The whole thing felt embarrassingly outdated.
Pei Qian was delighted.
This was exactly the kind of card-game template he'd been dreaming about—completely lacking in fun or innovative gameplay, offering absolutely no competitive edge!
Checking the price, it was 100,000 yuan.
"…Why only 100,000?"
Pei Qian felt rather disappointed by the low price.
If they had listed it for 150,000, he would've happily bought it without a second thought!
But after reconsidering, Pei Qian realized that his previous driving-simulator template cost only 20,000 yuan. Considering card-game templates were indeed slightly more complex, containing multiple interconnected systems, a price of 100,000 yuan wasn't exactly cheap.
The low number of downloads for this particular template indicated that it was clearly overpriced and impractical.
Perfect!
Without hesitation, Pei Qian clicked "purchase."
He loved overpriced products like these—they burned through cash quickly without drawing warnings from the system.
With this purchase, the game's basic mechanics were complete. Now, it was time to fill it with art assets.
Art resources included UI elements, battle animations, and card illustrations, among other things.
Other minor expenses like sound effects, background music, and cloud-server rentals would consume just a small portion of his budget.
The main expenditure would be art assets.
Pei Qian planned to set aside around 20,000–30,000 yuan for music and sound effects, plus roughly 10,000 yuan for miscellaneous expenses. The remaining 160,000–170,000 yuan would be poured entirely into artwork.
Around 160,000–170,000 yuan wasn't an insignificant amount—but neither was it excessively generous.
Still, Pei Qian wasn't entirely sure yet what kind of art assets to buy.
For card games, the "skin" was crucial—arguably the most important factor. A good skin alone could determine a game's success or failure.
Precisely because the skin was so critical, he had to ensure he botched it completely!
However, deliberately choosing poor-quality artwork wouldn't work.
According to the system rules, he couldn't intentionally purchase obviously inferior goods or services. If he paid 170,000 yuan but received artwork worth only 50,000–60,000 yuan, the system would deem it a violation.
He had to buy artwork roughly matching its market value—minor fluctuations were acceptable, but not excessive ones.
This called for him to get a bit creative.
How could he buy genuinely high-quality artwork that players would nonetheless despise?
Simple: He'd hire highly skilled artists to deliberately produce artwork in a style players hated!
The key was preparing the art requirements specification.
Pei Qian wasn't very confident in his ability here, especially after the "failure" of Lonely Desert Road, which left him somewhat doubtful of his own execution.
This was where Ma Yang's value would shine!
Pei Qian downloaded a generic art resource requirements template from the official asset store.
This requirement sheet included detailed descriptions of the necessary dimensions and characteristics for various resources. They were roughly divided into two categories:
The first type was character illustrations (original art). This was the most expensive category, requiring highly skilled artists and precise, detailed instructions.
The second type was miscellaneous resources, such as UI designs, special effects, etc.
These second-tier resources were quite generic and could typically be sourced online, just needing some minor modifications to fit a particular theme.
But Pei Qian wasn't satisfied with generic modifications. How could he burn through money quickly with such cheap, ready-made assets?
So, he'd custom-order everything!
He started by quickly listing the relatively unimportant resources—such as UI and special effects—then casually filled their requirement descriptions with extremely vague statements like:
"Must look awesome!"
"Match the Three Kingdoms theme!"
All deliberately ambiguous and unclear.
As for how the finished products turned out…
Pei Qian couldn't care less. Whatever happens, happens!
Then, he directly forwarded the requirements sheet to Ma Yang.
By now, Ma Yang had woken up again. But after holding that heavy programming book for two minutes, he already showed signs of falling back asleep.
However, upon seeing Pei Qian sending him a task, Ma Yang instantly perked up. Throwing the thick book aside, he excitedly leaned over from his top bunk and whispered:
"Are we finally starting work?"
Pei Qian nodded. "Fill out this form. Be imaginative—let your creativity run wild!"
Ma Yang enthusiastically nodded. "Absolutely, no problem!"
His motivation was off the charts!
Ma Yang glanced at the document and realized it was an art resources requirements form. There was quite a bit for him to complete, particularly in character artwork descriptions.
Pei Qian had already determined the game's theme—Three Kingdoms.
Since there were only so many prominent characters from the Three Kingdoms period, Pei Qian had selected a total of 50 characters—15 rare cards, 25 high-quality cards, and 10 ordinary cards.
The prices for illustrations varied significantly. Lower-end illustrations could be acquired for around seven or eight hundred yuan each, while premium-quality art could easily reach four or five thousand yuan per piece.
Hiring art students from second- or third-tier art schools could even yield illustrations for around a hundred yuan per piece.
Meanwhile, commissioning famous artists could easily set him back 7,000–8,000 yuan per piece.
After all, quality typically matched price.
But Pei Qian definitely couldn't commission renowned artists—even though it would rapidly burn his funds.
Famous artists brought name recognition, which might unintentionally provide positive publicity for his game!
Similarly, while premium-quality illustrations could help spend money faster, Pei Qian worried they might inadvertently attract players because of their excellent quality.
As Pei Qian had emphasized, for a card game, the visual style was absolutely crucial. If the artwork turned out too attractive, it might turn a profit regardless of the poor gameplay!
Therefore, Pei Qian decided he'd go with cheaper illustrations!
To burn through his money, he'd simply buy more!
Each of the 50 base characters would also have several variations, representing their different stages of upgrades and star ratings.
Thus, for each of the 50 character base images, there would be four different variations to indicate progression, totaling 200 illustrations.
Based on an estimated 3,000 yuan for each character (including variations), this would perfectly reach his target budget of around 150,000 yuan.
Since the first-generation card games didn't require 3D models, he'd also conveniently save on that cost.
Of course, the exact pricing would ultimately depend on the artists' quotes, but this rough estimate aligned nicely with Pei Qian's budget.
Ma Yang felt slightly puzzled. Since the requirements for art had seemingly been settled, what exactly was he responsible for?
Then, upon reading Pei Qian's detailed instructions, it finally clicked:
His job was to make original—and utterly bizarre—character redesigns!
In other words, his mission was to unleash his imagination, radically transforming all 50 Three Kingdoms characters until they were barely recognizable!