Introduction: tear off the traditional culture.
B station release, Chinese style, domestically produced games...When these words are combined, it is hard not to be interested in a game that focuses on traditional Chinese culture.
On March 12, the national style mystery game "Chong Ming Bird" officially landed on the Steam platform, just like its predecessors, "Unheard" and "Vulnerability of Delusion" released by Station B, like "Chong Ming Bird". "After going online, it caused quite a lot of response among the player community: Station B was rated 8.8 points, 580,000 people made reservations, and Steam was mostly praised.
"gentle", "dream", "beautiful"-for this game that focuses on solving puzzles, and includes collection, horizontal jumps, adventures and other gameplays, many players who have experienced it It is not hesitating to praise it, "single-stroke artistic style, this is the only one on the market, it is definitely worth the fare." As a horizontal puzzle game, it still has shortcomings in decryption, operation, and scene interaction.
Behind these mixed sounds, few people know that Starpan Technology, the developer of this game, was originally an art outsourcing company. Their first work after the transformation into game development was given a glance by Station B. In phase".
The cost of making a game systematically for the first time, "different players’ opinions are difficult to weigh"
"When I first outsourced it was to help others make some original games and UI for the game, and it was uncomfortable to charge by piece." In the days when Pan was in the art outsourcing industry, Guo Zhen, the producer of "Chong Ming Bird", still has bitterness in his mouth. "It seems that you can see the end of life at once. It is difficult to do things aggressively. I feel that everything is to support the family. Make a living, make a living."
This is very different from the ideal state of most people in the Star Pan team. They always believe that gamers have a dream: to be able to form their own team and make the game they really want to make, and the sense of accomplishment they get is far greater than doing outsourcing. Even if there is not much income, it is hard to do, but life is full of hope at least.
After repeated considerations, Xingpan finally took that step forward three years ago. They made up their minds to make a game that truly belongs to them and has a soul instead of an outsourcing company forever. However, what they didn't expect was that in real games, there were more difficulties and ups and downs than they had imagined. Many areas were not within the scope of their previous familiarity, and they had to pay a corresponding price for this. For the art style of "Zhong Ming Bird", it took Xing Pan a full year to set the general direction, and then it took more than two full years to develop the game. And more importantly, they are still lagging behind in industrialized process production, who are trying to systematically develop games for the first time.
Guo Zhen admitted that, apart from understanding the puzzle links and lack of guidance in interactive elements, they sometimes can't figure out the players' thoughts. "Currently player feedback has two extremes: some players feel that certain puzzles are designed very well and interestingly, even if they can’t solve them and know the answers, they find it very interesting; another part of players think that a few puzzles are unreasonable and unreasonable. Friendly, some adventure levels are designed too difficult."
Switch between the two protagonists. Sometimes you can change the scene to complete the puzzle
by moving and changing the position, changing the perspective effect, and finally completing the puzzle
game design There are a large number of adventure levels, some of which are quite difficult:
. The biggest confusion for Xing Pan is that it is difficult for them to make trade-offs.On the one hand, there are hard-core puzzle game players who successfully cleared the level without spending too much time, and on the other hand, the mass player group attracted by the theme. Xing Pan faced a choice in their first game, and in Guo Zhen’s In his vision, he hopes that different players can experience the same goal in this game-immersive experience.
A quiet flat boat may be the best way to bring players into the game.
emphasizes immersion in puzzle games. "It is indeed a gamble to do such a long process."
Many people who have experienced "Heavy Bird" The player wrote in the review that the total process of the game takes at least 15 hours. If you take into account collection, hidden levels and other content-which is very common in "Chong Ming Bird"-a complete experience of the entire game may be required It took more than 20 hours.
such a long time is really rare in puzzle games. In fact, most of the same kind of work will control the weekly viewing experience to less than 10 hours, while mobile works tend to be compressed to less than 5 hours, breaking the routine "Chong Ming Bird" stretched the process so long is very likely to incur criticism from players.
re-examined the game process and the length of the game of "Zhong Ming Bird", Guo Zhen frankly said that there is no lack of "gambling" nature-putting the relatively mild puzzle-solving gameplay in a short process, in fact, it takes a lot of risk . The first time he made a game by himself, Xing Pan was not sure whether this approach was right or wrong, but Guo Zhen believed that it was necessary and worthwhile for "Chong Ming Bird".
I played for six or seven hours, and I only completed about one-third of the process
"At the beginning of the project, we have been thinking about a question, how to differentiate in the somewhat unpopular category of puzzle solving." What they think of is the addition of game elements such as collecting jade baht, finding partners, and the need to meet many pass conditions in the game scene. Through such content, the player's desire to explore from the game mechanism is stimulated, and the boring point of the puzzle game is weakened.
In Guo Zhen’s mind, good game graphics may not be particularly exquisite, but the game must be full of details in both the plot and the immersive atmosphere. "We pursue the visibility of the plot, and at the same time want to ensure the player’s The fluency experience will not be interrupted by frequently triggered plots. After consideration, the process of the game is finally lengthened."
In the cognition of the Xingpan team, whether the game can bring joy, sorrow and joy to the players And immersion is far more important than a puzzle. At the moment when players' mentality is generally impetuous, they hope that the soothing feeling created by "Chong Ming Bird" can somewhat alleviate the players' eagerness for success. The other intention of is even more obvious. In such a game full of traditional culture, they expect players to slow down and savor the beauty of classical culture that has been passed down for thousands of years.
does not stop at restoring and preserving, "traditional culture is more than just a layer of skin"
villages like white bricks and blue tiles ink paintings, Dunhuang murals and all kinds of complex patterns that cannot be named. These " The objects and sceneries in "Chong Ming Bird" constitute the traditional cultural sentiments that Chinese players can't explain clearly, and also condense Xing Pan's research and insights on traditional culture.
In fact, before entering the game industry, Guo Zhen, like many ordinary players, always felt that the game industry’s understanding of traditional culture was too superficial. The works of martial arts and fairy tales were similar, and the homogenization trend was obvious, so that the players were right. This subject matter is getting colder. Guo Zhen, who came from an art class, believes that he can break industry conventions.
However, when it came time to truly integrate traditional culture into the game, Guo Zhencai discovered that there is more than a gap between what he thinks and what he does. There are too many values and cultural connotations in traditional culture that are worth studying and exploring. A treasure house that is endless to explore. "The amount of knowledge and cultural connotation in this is fundamentally unfinished. With the deepening of game production, more and more things need to be understood and excavated, and more and more interesting. "Z3z
Armillary Sphere
In "Chong Ming Bird", Xing Pan faithfully turned all their favorite cultural symbols into entities: they are the Western Han Dynasty lanterns you find on the roadside, based on the Sanxingdui copper longitudinal eye mask. The robber of the road, or a kiss with an open mouth.
A statue based on the Western Han Dynasty lanterns
The so-called "Nine sons of the dragon", the mask is the ninth son of the dragon zz
, in Guo Zhen’s view, the so-called cultural relics and ancient books have been shelved for too long because they bear the image of traditional culture. Most of the time they are placed in museums, and onlookers often take a utilitarian mentality. Come, walk around and watch the flowers, and you will finish reading after reading. The exquisite utensils, patterns, and carvings that have stretched for thousands of years have been left out in the cold and forgotten in the corner of history. Few people care about it. "As a gamer, all we can do is to They are put in the carrier of the game. "Z3z
Nowadays, letting players understand and even like traditional culture because of the game has become one of Guo Zhen’s fun and motivation for making games." Putting traditional culture in the game to present the beauty of these things from another angle , This is the simplest and most direct value of the game. "In addition, Guo Zhen also believes that the expression of traditional culture in games is not limited to simple patterns and shapes, but should shape things in the bones. A more intuitive example of
is the use of single-character names in "Chong Ming Bird" Create the image of each character. Guo Zhen feels that one word and three words convey completely different feelings. Three words sound a bit verbose, but one word is simple and powerful, like the same five-character quatrain, with not many words. But it's memorable. For example, the two characters symbolizing Go in "Chong Ming Bird", one is named "Wu" and the other is named "Lu", both of which represent the black and white two in Go.
three words, character personality Already on the paper
is actually a kind of title for Go, but there are not many people who know it now.
If Xing Panhua’s thoughts only stay on the preservation and restoration of traditional culture, then they The "Chinese style" art expression techniques and traditional storytelling attempts show that they seem to have taken a step of innovation carefully.
The modern interpretation of Chinese style stories, "traditional culture is not absolute"
in fact Guo Zhen does not fully agree that the style of "Chong Ming Bird" can be simply summarized by the term "Chinese style." Z3z
Xingpan has a common perception: the style they understand is more expressive or creative. Techniques, such as how the brush strokes are, whether it is thick or thin, and whether the shape inside is triangle or circle. "In our opinion, these are the real styles. "Guo Zhen gives an example, "Using Western sketches to interpret Chinese themes, its style is actually a Western drawing technique. Then we can say that it belongs to the Oriental theme, but it cannot be said to be the Oriental style. "Z3z
is embodied in the "Chong Ming Bird". Xing Pan combines the traditional Eastern style represented by Dunhuang with the Western elements represented by France. In terms of animation expression techniques, "Chong Ming Bird" uses China in a wonderful way. The traditional elements are combined with French comics and animations to be interpreted in the form of sequence animation , which also means that the characters in "Chong Ming Bird" have neither 3D bones nor 2D bones. All action animations need to be drawn frame by frame. Come out.
Guo Zhen believes that traditional culture is never absolute. In terms of spatial dimensions, , and do not have to be too obsessed with ink paintings in Chinese style, and there is no need to be too entangled in whether the style is too "western" , "because the integration of Chinese and Western styles is inherently indispensable." Guo Zhen pointed out. "Don't be too conservative about Chinese style or traditional things. Since foreign things can be seen by everyone, it means that they have their own brilliance. Beautiful things should be combined to be more charming."
and in the time dimension, traditional culture needs to focus on how to use ancient themes to resonate with players in contemporary life. In Guo Zhen’s view, culture is ultimately the traces of people’s life and behavior. Ancient things may indeed be good, but they may not be suitable for contemporary people’s aesthetics and values. What cultural practitioners have to do is to use modern stories with ancient themes. Reinterpretation and adaptation, "For example, "The Return of the Great Sage of Journey to the West" and "The Devil Child of Nezha" are all brand-new stories. After breaking away from the original prototype of the mythology, it needs to fit the public aesthetics and the rhythm of contemporary stories. "Journey to the West" and "The Romance of the Gods" may be counterproductive." Z3z
Xing Pan also incorporated their understanding of the re-interpretation of traditional stories into the game "Chong Ming Bird": the story is caused by a haze that harms the world. At the beginning, in order to find the heavy bird that can fade the haze, the two protagonists found many haze-spitting machines, but after tracing the source, they found that all this is not as simple as it seems. There are a lot of steam and mechanical elements in the game
Cut through the plot logic of "Chong Ming Bird", you can see a story that progresses from the outside to the inside and layers as the game progresses. Focusing on the search for the legendary Chongming Bird (from the collection of ancient Chinese mythology and mythology novels written by Wang Jia of the Eastern Jin Dynasty) that can eliminate the beasts and monsters in the legend, "Chongming Bird" uses a logically complete and clear outline of a modern story outline. The ground repackages all traditional cultural elements to make them more grounded and easier to be accepted by contemporary players , and these are exactly what Guo Zhen hopes to see.
independent game-this may also be the long-running "Chongming Bird"
As many players say, "Chongming Bird" is far from perfect. Since its launch on March 12, Xingpan has successively updated several patches in response to player feedback. Guo Zhen said that at present, all of Xing Pan's energy will be devoted to the subsequent optimization and improvement of the work. They don't have so much energy to reopen the hole, and it is absolutely impossible to abandon the hole.
Guo Zhen likes a sentence he heard from others before: playing a game is not a math problem. If you do it right, you will be done. It is a Chinese problem that can be done infinitely well. may not be good enough now, but they always have to try.
is the same as most indie gamers told me. Guo Zhen thinks that it is hard to be an indie game. He recalled the development process of "Chong Ming Bird" in the past three years. He can't tell too many interesting things, just remember those all night. Da Dan’s night and his friends in hardships, fortunately, playing an independent game gives them some privileges- If you want to convey certain spirit and characteristics to the players, use your power to express as much as possible. and this is the only thing they can do right now.
Lu Banxian, who has repeatedly cheated players on money in the game, is actually a program in the Xingpan team who loves fortune-telling for others:
. At the end of the interview, I asked Guo Zhen if "Heavy Bird" is not successful enough, will your dream of making games continue? He told me very positively: "As long as the company is still alive, we will continue to do it."
I think everyone in Xingpan probably also has a "heavy bird" in their hearts, chasing this sacred bird, they will plug in and dream of it. Wings.
