“How...?!” I asked confused as I saw his side of the board with a bunch of creatures while my side only had two weak goblins!
Smiling at me, he calmly explained. “You see, the key to controlling the game isn't just playing the most powerful cards. The trick is in the strategy of how you use your resources.”
He looked at the cards remaining on my side of the board and, with a slight nod, continued:
“In a game like this, what really matters is how you handle your Mana. You need to plan your moves carefully, save your strongest cards for decisive moments and know when it's the best time to attack or defend. I, for example, used some simpler cards at the start to build up Mana and ensure that, when the time was right, I had everything I needed to take control of the game.”
He paused and looked at me, as if waiting for me to absorb the information.
“Also, don't underestimate the little cards. They may not seem like much at first, but used in the right way, they can become the deciding factor in a match.”
Listening to his explanation I was a little stunned, but remembering how the game seemed to be balanced and suddenly he completely dominated the board I think I began to understand the game.
He was just discarding weaker cards at the beginning to keep the game going, even if he took a bit of damage, but he was keeping the right cards that matched each other in his hand, waiting for the right moment to play those cards.
The only way I could reverse this would be to beat him before he could use his good cards, or to have a plan in my deck to counterattack at the same level.
'What an interesting game...' I thought excitedly, not letting myself get too down about the defeat.
After the game was over, my opponent waved to me as his body disappeared from the table and I went back to being alone in my tavern.
Having learned from my mistakes, the first thing I did was look at my Deck and learn the effects of all the cards.
I had to know how my cards could be used and how to combine these cards to know the best time to use the cards.
After preparing for 20 minutes, I clicked play again and to my surprise, my opponent was someone else!
Smiling politely at him, I held out my hand and said. “Hello, I hope we have a good game.”
He was surprised by my attitude and also smiled as he extended his hand to me, acting a little nervous.
'Maybe this is his first game? ' I asked myself excitedly.
Unlike the game I had against my first opponent, in this game I was completely dominant, combining cards, taking advantage of his carelessness, and every mistake he made, summoning cards without purpose, I was able to penalize him.
That game ended quickly, and soon afterwards I looked for another opponent to play another game.
Without realizing it, I was playing for more than 6 hours, a much longer time than I normally spent training in other games.
I even unlocked [Ranked Match] and managed to move up from a Bronze 4 player to Bronze 2! When I played again tomorrow I could become a Silver player!
When I disconnected from the game and went back to my room, the first thing I did was try to feel the changes in my body.
At first I didn't notice any changes, which left me a little disappointed, thinking that this game might be a waste of time, but after taking a good look at my Mana core I realized that my total Mana had increased!
[Levitare!]
Using a simple levitation spell I realized that not only had the total amount of Mana increased, but my control over my Mana had also increased a little!
The total amount of this increase wasn't something extreme, but it's as if I had spent these 6 hours practicing my magic and my body non-stop!
'Six hours of continuous practice is no small feat, and best of all, I'm not the least bit tired mentally or physically! ' I thought excitedly.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Training for 6 hours and getting that result is natural, but having fun for 6 hours and getting the same result as 6 hours of training is incredible!
Sure, I'd still need to dedicate some of my time to actual combat training, but muscle training and magical development could be left completely to Runestone!
Looking at my belly that was a little round, as long as I used enough creatures in Runestone I wouldn't be able to slim back down to the perfect body I had when I was a teenager without having to go to a gym?!
Thinking about the game's explanation that Gold Rank players received an even bigger boost, and that Diamond Rank players received the biggest possible boost in the game, I was excited to find out how much that boost would be.
Turning my gaze to the computer screen and seeing the NFA's request for me to review their student's game, I didn't think twice about writing a good review!
- Theo POV -
I didn't know the reactions that everyone was having outside of the game, but I could tell that people were enjoying playing Runestone when I logged out of the game as a Player and accessed my Game Creator Back-end to analyze the Players' statistics and saw the data.
'Wow, this is going better than I thought! ' I thought excitedly.
The games in the site's Top 10 had an average of 500 active Players and thousands of players who had already tested their games in total.
These numbers are very good, even more so considering that the government pays Game Creators an average of $6.00 per hour for every 1,000 hours that Players play a F Rank Game, that means having 500 Players online at all times in a F Rank Game represents $72 per day, or $2,160 per month just for creating the game!
Of course, whether these generic games would maintain the average of 500 Players online is another story, but it was still a good incentive for Game Creators.
This amount of popularity that these games accumulated was over the course of one to two weeks, the time that these games had been released.
Runestone, on the other hand, despite not having such large numbers in terms of total players who tested the game, was doing very well when it came to retaining Players!
Of the 92 Players who downloaded and tested the game, 74 were still online in the game, with the 16 players who disconnected having played for at least 2 hours and only 2 players who played a single game and disconnected.
I know it's impossible to please everyone, so I wasn't surprised to see people who hadn't played for so long, or players who didn't like the strategic vision the game demanded.
'No game is perfect, I just have to keep improving my game and in time I'll please the right people.
The data collected by the game today is still not entirely reliable, for me to know how the game was really doing I would need at least 3 days, so I would know if Players were coming back to play because the game is good, or if they only played for so long because they wanted to try the game.
Looking at the $2.88 available from the time the Players played my game, a smile broke out on my face.
Even though I knew it wasn't a lot of money, I wanted to celebrate and decided that I would treat myself well today.
I hadn't left my room once in the last 15 days, now that the game was done and going well it was my time to bask in my glory.
Taking a nice warm shower and putting on nice, comfortable clothes, I left my dorm and looked around curiously.
Following memories of the old Theo, I left the dormitory and walked across the university campus to the exit, where there was a small restaurant full of students chatting excitedly.
The freshmen were chatting animatedly about the things they were learning, about university life, girls, drinks, games, and the like.
On the other side of the restaurant was a group of seniors, classmates of Theo's former class who had also recently released their games for the college test and were apparently chatting about their games.
I intended to just look away and look for an empty table to sit at, but just as I was looking for a suitable seat, a loud voice caught my attention.
“Brooks, come here! There's a place for you to sit here with us!” A male voice came from the group of veterans.
Looking at the person who spoke, it was a blond, tall, athletic young man with blue eyes and a big fake smile on his face.
If he were a normal person, he would hardly notice that the smile was fake, but with Theo having been the worst student for all five years of his studies at college, he had learned to identify when this boy's smile was genuine or fake, since he had often used this fake smile to ridicule him before.
At first I ignored the boy, still looking around to see if there was anywhere else to sit, but realizing that the restaurant was completely full, I shrugged and went to the other seniors' table.
Although this boy was a jerk to the old Theo, the other students weren't bad. Even though Theo was the worst student, many were still polite and helped him when he had the courage to ask any questions he had.
“You finally showed up, Brooks! Did you finally get your game on?” Tyler Evans, the blond boy who always mocked Theo asked with derision.
“Yes, my game was released today.” I replied good-naturedly as I sat down at the table, nodding with a polite smile to the other classmates, ignoring Evans.
“Really?! At least you managed to finish your game before the test ran out of time haha, how are you, did you manage to get out of the bottom rank of the test?” He asked mockingly.
“Yep.” I replied minimally as I looked at the menu, choosing what I was going to eat.
“Really? What's the name of your game, I'm curious to see how good it is!” Evans laughed out loud as he picked up his cell phone, ready to search for the game.
“Come on Evans, leave Brooks alone, he's just here to eat.” One boy in the group was uncomfortable with Evans' clear mockery and suggested he stop.
“Nah, Brooks must be confident in his game if he's out celebrating today, come on Brooks, name your game.” He asked looking at his cell phone.
“Runestone.” I replied as I finally found a nice plate of barbecue on the menu and decided to eat it.
“Runestone, right? Let's see how your game is going...” Evans commented as he opened College Rank and searched for my game, jumping straight to the last page.