Of course, deliberately making the art look bad is not acceptable.

Because the system stipulates that you cannot purchase goods or services of obviously low quality.

If you spend this 160,000 to 170,000 and only get art resources worth 50,000 to 60,000, the system will not approve it.

You must purchase services of roughly equivalent value, allowing for a slight fluctuation up or down, but not too much.

At this point, Eric Bennett needs to put his brain to work.

How can you buy decent quality art resources while also ensuring that players don’t like them?

It’s simple: have the artists use their excellent skills to draw in a style that players simply don’t accept!

The key is to come up with an art requirements plan.

Eric Bennett isn’t very confident in his abilities in this area, after all, he’s had the failed experience of “Lonely Desert Highway,” which made him doubt his own execution.

This is where Brian Carter comes in!

Eric Bennett downloaded a generic template for an art resource requirements sheet from the resource site.

This requirements sheet details the sizes of the various resources needed, and then requires some simple descriptions of these resources.

Resources are roughly divided into two categories. One is original illustrations, which are more expensive and require higher skill from the artist, so the requirements must be very clear.

The other category is other resources, such as UI, special effects, and so on.

These resources are pretty much available online, and with some minor modifications, they can be used.

But of course, Eric Bennett isn’t satisfied with just making minor changes—how can you spend money that way?

So, all art resources will be custom-made!

Eric Bennett first listed all the relatively less important resources like system UI and special effects, then filled in some very simple requirements himself.

For example: it must be cool!

It must fit the Three Kingdoms style!

All vague statements like that.

As for what the final product will actually look like...

Eric Bennett doesn’t care at all—whatever happens, happens!

Then, Eric Bennett sent this sheet directly to Brian Carter.

Brian Carter had already woken up by this time.

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

When he saw that Eric Bennett had sent him a form, Brian Carter instantly perked up, tossed the book onto the bed, poked his head down from the top bunk, and whispered, “Time to start working?”

Eric Bennett nodded: “Fill out the form. Use your imagination—just go for it!”

Brian Carter nodded vigorously: “No problem!”

He was extremely enthusiastic about the work!

Brian Carter took a look—it was an art resource requirements sheet, and there was quite a lot for him to fill in, mainly the character illustration requirements.

Eric Bennett had already decided on the game’s theme: the Three Kingdoms.

There aren’t that many characters in the Three Kingdoms, and Eric Bennett picked out a total of 50, including 15 rare cards, 25 excellent cards, and 10 normal cards.

As for the price, the cost of a single illustration can vary greatly, with the cheapest being seven or eight hundred yuan, and the most expensive four or five thousand.

If you go to an art college in a second- or third-tier city and find a student, you can get one for a hundred yuan.

If you commission a famous artist, it’s not unusual for a single card to cost seven or eight thousand.

In any case, you get what you pay for.

Eric Bennett would never commission a famous artist, even though that would let him spend more money.

Because the fame of a well-known artist could actually end up promoting the game!

Similarly, buying illustrations for four or five thousand each would indeed spend more money, but if the art looks that good, what if players end up liking it?!

As the saying goes, in a card mobile game, the most important thing is the “skin.” If you make the skin look too good, even if the gameplay is trash, you could still make money!

So Eric Bennett decided to just buy the cheaper illustrations!

If you want to spend more, just buy more!

Fifty characters, and then create different states for each character as they rank up or increase their star level.

That’s basically 50 base images, each with four variations to show the effects of ranking up.

At a price of 3,000 per base image plus four variations, that’s 150,000, which fits Eric Bennett’s budget perfectly.

After all, a first-generation card game doesn’t need models, which saves a lot of money.

Of course, the specific quote still needs to be provided by the other party—Eric Bennett is just making a rough estimate.

Brian Carter was a bit confused—if all this has already been decided, what exactly is my main job?

After carefully reading the notes Eric Bennett wrote, he understood.

His job is to create original, heavily modified designs!

In other words, he needs to let his imagination run wild and completely overhaul these 50 characters—the more unrecognizable, the better!

Chapter 14 Brian Carter’s Work

Eric Bennett had already thought it through: since he’s going to compete with “Q Cute Three Kingdoms,” he can only choose the Three Kingdoms theme.

But the Three Kingdoms theme itself is actually a decent IP—not great, but not bad either.

If you want players to dislike these Three Kingdoms characters, the best way is to heavily modify them and completely overturn their traditional images!

That way, those players who love the Three Kingdoms will see these messy changes, naturally start cursing, quit the game in anger, and drag down the game’s reputation.