Starting as a Manga Editor-Chapter 70: Let’s Try

One hour later.
After reading the project proposal, Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin—the two goofballs Kang Ming had dragged in—immediately agreed to join the team.
“This is so cool! Seriously—trying out a new game format? ...D*mn it, Kang Ming, you should’ve said that sooner! I’m in!”
“I’m really sorry we gave you trouble—having a friend like him must be a pain!”
“...”
The two of them sat there, excitedly holding the project documents, roasting Kang Ming like a comedy duo.
Kang Ming stood nearby, the veins on his forehead bulging.
“You guys must be really close.”
Tang Yao closed the newly finished website on her screen, looked up at the three of them, and smiled. Hearing their banter stirred a bit of nostalgia—she’d had friends like that in her past life too.
But… having a friend like Li Xue in this life wasn’t bad either.
“Friends? Nah, don’t know them that well.”
“Just drinking buddies.”
“Welcome aboard. Now, back to the game. Right now everything’s still in chaos. Do you have any initial thoughts or suggestions?”
Tang Yao smiled gently and smoothly changed the subject:
“Kang Ming, you too. Since none of you want to go back to sleep, let’s take a moment to sort things out. Let’s talk next steps and divide the work. We’re still in the early phase, but it’s best if everyone focuses on what they’re best at.”
“...”
Staring at the stunning smile on Tang Yao’s face, both Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin froze for a moment—then blushed.
That smile was lethal…
The two quickly averted their eyes—straight at Kang Ming.
And seeing his almost-bald, not-at-all-handsome face—
They both let out a breath of relief and muttered:
“Right… this is what reality looks like.”
Kang Ming clenched his fists.
But at least the two finally stopped clowning around. After a short pause, Sun Gong replied first:
“I’m better with backend stuff… Kang Ming and Shi Wanglin are stronger at front-end, basically the client-side dev work.
“That said, we’re all pretty well-rounded. We’ve got experience with mobile games. Kang Ming probably told you already—we made a battle platform once. It was basic, sure, nowhere near as ambitious as your plan, but it had everything it needed. Full-stack stuff... Oh, except for the art. We... uh… stole the assets.”
Tang Yao nodded slightly. That battle platform was actually one of the reasons she’d approached Kang Ming.
Because experience meant fewer rookie mistakes.
She thought for a second and followed up:
“So after reading the plan, do you have any feedback about the game itself?”
Sun Gong hesitated, then shook his head:
“Not really… Just thought it was pretty refreshing.”
“I was reading about the 2D animation effects mentioned in the doc… and I’m a little confused.”
Shi Wanglin chimed in:
“Isn’t the story progression for this kind of game more like a visual novel? You know, static character illustrations with dialogue boxes. What do you mean by animation—like the character shakes a little?”
“Nope.”
Tang Yao shook her head.
Sure, in her previous life FGO used traditional visual novel style presentation. And copying that would’ve saved a lot of effort.
But… she’d already lived off scraps for too long.
She was genuinely excited to create a mobile game that would wow players just a little.
So even if she was still using the visual novel format—due to hardware and resource limitations—she wasn’t about to settle for something basic.
When she talked about “2D animated visuals,” she meant something more like the high-quality, dynamic portraits used in the prologue of Reverse: 1999.
Say what you will about that game—it looked amazing.
That was also why she’d been experimenting with 2D animation software.
Not just to make a CM.
In mobile games, art is a big deal. Good visuals add a ton of appeal.
This wasn’t like her previous life—"gacha RPGs" didn’t even exist yet in this world, let alone an industry obsessed with outdoing each other on quality.
Shi Wanglin asked again:
“So what exactly do you mean…?”
“I made a simple 2D animation yesterday. You can take a look.”
Rather than explaining, Tang Yao turned her monitor around and played the animation she’d finished the day before.
Saber, dressed in a flowing battle skirt, held an invisible sword in both hands.
She gently raised her arms, and spiraling wind surged upward from her palms.
Her skirt swayed with the motion.
Tang Yao had just added the background too—it looked genuinely impressive.
“D*mn… that’s clean. Looks awesome…”
“Who is that?”
Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin clearly hadn’t read the manga.
They didn’t even know who Saber was—but they still thought the animation was cool.
“You’re planning to use this technique for the game’s story sequences too?”
Kang Ming was still surprised, even though he’d seen the animation yesterday.
He hadn’t expected Tang Yao to apply it in-game.
“Yup.”
Tang Yao nodded firmly:
“So? Isn’t this a million times better than the usual static portraits?”
“Way better… Wait—this is drawn? Not modeled?”
Shi Wanglin stared at the moving figure on the screen, fascinated:
“It has the texture of 2D, but the fluidity of 3D…”
“Drawn.”
Tang Yao explained:
“It’s just hand-keying a few dozen frames and some transformations, then layering in effects. But fundamentally it’s still 2D. …You think this level of animation can run smoothly on phones?”
“Well… We’ve never tried. Our old battle platform used stolen assets, so we didn’t really test for that… Not sure, but we can give it a shot.”
Shi Wanglin rubbed his chin:
“If we can pull this off, it’d make for a really slick visual novel.”
“Then let’s try. Let’s make a demo.”
Tang Yao thought for a moment, then made up her mind:
“Let’s do two or three short scenes and test them on mobile.
I’ll send you the design doc and art assets shortly.”
“Sounds good!”
Shi Wanglin was pumped:
“I think I’ve got a public visual novel framework saved somewhere. We can just modify that.”
Sun Gong seemed interested too—but clearly, something else occurred to her. She looked around their small office, then turned to Tang Yao:
“The code’s not complicated. The tricky part’s the art. This kind of animated portrait… isn’t easy, right? Who’s doing the art?”
“That’d be me.”
“Huh?”
Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin froze—then widened their eyes:
“Aren’t you the planner?”
They’d just seen Tang Yao pull the project proposal out of her drawer, after all.
“I’m the artist too. And the one making the animated portraits.
You guys just focus on your parts—I’ll get the assets to you soon.”
“…”
Sun Gong and Shi Wanglin looked Tang Yao up and down—elegant posture, calm expression.
Then they turned to Kang Ming.
He nodded.
The two turned back, staring blankly at Tang Yao:
“???”
Kang Ming saw their dumbfounded faces and felt vindicated.
He grinned, then looked at Tang Yao and said:
“Three people might be too many for that VN prototype. I’ve got an idea… Remember the mobile UI doc and the mockup you drew for the home screen?”
He pointed to a stack of documents nearby.
“How about this—we take our old battle platform and repurpose it based on your specs? It’s just sitting there anyway.
Could save us a ton of work, and we’ll get something that runs on mobile.
We’ll skip the subpages for now, of course.”
Tang Yao had indeed drawn a visual concept for the game’s home screen—the first thing players would see after logging in.
That was important.
She hadn’t considered reusing Kang Ming’s battle platform…
But now that he mentioned it—it actually made perfect sense.
Tang Yao’s eyes lit up.
“Perfect!”