Talk to two producers: How to make a good domestic game?

On April 23rd, WeGame held a "Game Night" online conference. A total of more than 30 new games were launched at the press conference, of which 16 products participated in the follow-up trial festival activities.

Taking this opportunity, I interviewed Deng Yongjin, vice president of Passya Technology, and Wang Kun, CEO of Era of Magic, who each brought new works on display and participated in the follow-up demo festival and "developer". face-to-face" activities. How does

make a good work? Some people think the key is a good story. But good stories aren't the only answer, so we're still going to keep digging and exploring -- and you'll realize that from the stories of these producers. Other aspects of a good game are equally important. Constant exploration, repeated polishing, and no fear of starting over. And, find good boosters for yourself.

Feelings are the most important

Deng Yongjin, vice president of Pasiya Technology, told me that as a sequel to "Times at Portia", "Times in Sandstone Town" inherits the worldview and timeline of the previous work. Sandstone Town is a city next to Portia. Unlike Portia, where birds and flowers are fragrant, Sandstone Town is full of sand and stones. "There are few natural resources, and there will be sandstorms from time to time, which is a relatively poor living environment." Although the main process is "come to a new place, build a workshop, and make the town better", a set of simulated management gameplay, but the new setting will bring a new experience.

The living environment with scarce natural resources in Time in Sandstone Town

And Super Bucky Ball looks a bit special. It is a 3v3 casual sports game based on physical collision - although it looks very different, Deng Yongjin told me that "Super Bucky Ball" inherits to a certain extent from their previous work "Planet Explorer", an open World Sandbox Adventure RPG.In that game, players had a lot of freedom to customize their characters and gameplay. Some players created a robot sparring scene, which gave them an idea to make a robot sparring game that players can customize freely. . The idea was tweaked over the next two years, eventually turning into a competitive game.

"Magic, right?" He said happily, "From the most intuitive feeling, I think the most attractive part of these two games may be their world view and character design."

"Pasya seems to have always They all pay more attention to the shaping of worldviews and personalities?" I asked.

"It is better to say that we have always emphasized the feeling of the player." He said, "Do you know the meaning of the name 'Pathea'? The word comes from the ancient Greek Pathos, which is Aris One of Dodd's three elements of creation, Pathos stands for emotion and feeling, and Pathea is a variation of that word."

He went on to explain to me: "When we first defined the direction of the company, we wanted each of our games to be Give players a certain feeling. Later, our games were also established on this level. You have to create feelings for players. The most intuitive thing is to shape the world view. The more detailed, the more style, the more you want Players will feel deeply what they express.”

At Pasya Technology, when a team proposes what kind of game to make, they need to explain to everyone what kind of feeling the game wants to bring to the players. "It's our DNA in the company's name," he said.

Super Bucky Ball is a 3v3 casual sports game - does it look like a lot of fun?

Hook

The Era of Wei Mo - as a game company, this is really a domineering name - CEO Wang Kun told me that the story of "The Road to Awakening" has been brewing since the end of 2017.This is a zombie-themed survival adventure game. A mother and son struggle to survive in a zombie-infested world. The mother has been bitten by a zombie - there is not much time left for her and her son. In the final countdown to life, the mother has to collect supplies, explore routes, fight zombies, have a good relationship with NPCs, and cultivate her son's ability to survive, so that he can still live in this world after losing his mother.

This is a bit reminiscent of The Last of Us. Before I asked this question, Kun Wang told me that some players do refer to their game as "the poor man's version of The Last of Us." Hearing this kind of evaluation, Wang Kun "is actually more happy". One of the biggest features of

"Road to Awakening" is its pursuit of narrative. At the same time, it also has some RPG attributes, "Children have skill trees, some skills in survival, combat, and manufacturing, you can't fully cultivate them, and choosing to cultivate in different directions may bring different effects. ending". In

"The Road to Awakening", mother and son are looking for survival hope.

Compared with large companies, small teams are relatively subjective and emotional, but this also allows them to have more freedom to create the stories they want. What Wang Kun's team valued most in the project establishment is also "expressing something". To put it directly, they will condense the story they want to express into one or two sentences and tell it to different people, looking at each other's feedback and ideas. "If these two sentences can impress others, it means that the story itself has a chance to succeed." Wang Kun said, this can also give them confidence in communication to a certain extent.

"I call it the Hook of the project," he said. The word "hook" is often used in screenplay writing to mean "to hook the audience's heart." "Find this sentence, keep polishing this sentence, and find the best point.This point is not only used to communicate with the market and players externally, but also to communicate with the team internally, so that the entire team can focus on making the game a unified temperament in the next year or two. "Wang Kun said.

" What is the hook of "The Road to Awakening"? I asked.

"You're not my mom, you just look like her zombie. He said.

Resonance and Innovation

What surprised me was that both Wang Kun and Deng Yongjin tried to pursue a more general resonance in their works. Wang Kun told me that the formation of this setting conforms to the changes in the human environment around the world to a certain extent. "More and more overseas film and television works feature non-European and American ethnic groups as the protagonists, bringing a lot of trendy Influence... So I think, we are a team in China, and we can push this narrative from a Chinese perspective to the world. "Wang Kun said, "There will be some elements of Chinese culture in it, such as the way mothers communicate with their children, but the elements of Chinese culture will not be very heavy. I believe this expression can resonate more generally - whether the player is Chinese or foreigner. "

The works of Pasya Technology also pursue "expressions acceptable to the whole world", which has a certain relationship with the founder's background. The founder of Pasya, Wu Zifei, graduated from Brigham Young University, majoring in animation, and many of his classmates After graduation, they all worked for large animation companies such as Disney and Pixar.

"Disney tells a story that everyone in the world can accept. They took stories from various cultures around the world and told them in their own way, so that people all over the world could understand and accept them.Deng Yongjin said, "The core of what Disney is adhering to is that they are telling something that is common to human culture... what is love, what is bravery, what is sacrifice. "

" So, if I had to add a tag to Pasya, I'd say globalization. Our products do not have a typical Chinese style and are aimed at players from all over the world. He said. In addition to the emotional resonance of

, innovation is also what game developers are thinking and exploring. "I think innovation is to put what you have in your mind-maybe other literary and artistic works you have seen, or your experience. The things you've been, maybe the places you've been - tell it in your own way. Deng Yongjin said. In his opinion, the most important point of innovation in

is, "The story you tell is your own story, and what you express is what you want to express." In "Super Bucky Ball", There is such an expression. "It was a cyberpunk-style world, and the inspiration for this world came from our city, Chongqing. We really want to show what we are proud of, such as Chongqing's special geography, special buildings and urban landscape. "

This is really the creator's prerogative - you can put everything you like, things that you think are beautiful or fun, all into your work, so that others can also feel it.

For Wang Kun , "The Road to Awakening" is a "very innovative" product. Whether it is the setting of the dual protagonists, or the mother who is getting weaker and weaker during the game - this is the opposite of the usual RPG protagonist growth logic. . Until the game is almost finished, looking back, Wang Kun still thinks that they have taken a step "pretty bold attempt".

His idea of ​​innovation is similar to Deng Yongjin to a certain extent."We don't expect too much innovation in gameplay. More innovations are from the perspective of worldview and narrative, and combined with the story to integrate some gameplay, which can already bring new feelings to players."

Wang Kun believes that There are two motivations for innovation. One is the desire for breakthroughs, and the other is not afraid of risks. "These are the two core forces." When he started working on "Road to Awakening", the entire company was at rock bottom both in terms of mentality and capital. "So there are not too many rules and regulations, no matter what you do, you will not fail, and it will not be worse than at the time anyway."

"When you have enough wealth, you may have concerns and fears. I hope we will not be afraid to innovate in the future." He said with a smile, "There is a saying, when you have money, you may It won't be so interesting... and what I want to say is, I want to try."

Balance and tradeoffs

From a vague feeling to actually making a game, it is a long and tortuous road . Deng Yongjin and Wang Kun have a deep understanding of this.

The original concept of "The Road to Awakening" was that the mother woke up and found herself bitten, and only vaguely remembered that she and her child were separated. In the process of looking for the child, her entire state slowly declined, and by the time she found the child, she had almost turned into a zombie.

This may be a direction full of narrative tension, but in the actual development process, they realized that this concept would make the game experience "extremely lonely", so they changed it to a mother who has been with the child, and the child learns to grow in the process.

The story is set, so what is the genre? Wang Kun's team collected some game sales data on various platforms. "Don't Starve" sold well, but the style and gameplay were too special to learn from.Further down, "This War of Mine" is not bad, and there are many survival games with millions of sales on the market... More importantly, survival games seem to "can be made by a team of up to 10 people. ”, that is, within their reach. So they started thinking about combining the story with the gameplay of a survival game.

Deng Yongjin's story has many similarities with Wang Kun, and is also full of balance and trade-offs. "For example, at that time we wanted to give players a casual feeling..." He used "Time at Portia" as an example to me, "In the beginning, we made a casual RPG in the countryside, but we lacked the ability to control a complete RPG internally. The people of the story." They wanted to "make it simpler," so they cut out the strong storyline and focused on the gameplay—and finally, they made a flight sim.

Can you imagine Time at Portia becoming a flight sim?

Deng Yongjin turned on screen sharing and shared with me the results at that time. "It seems to fly well, but in fact, there is a problem with the feel, and no matter how you adjust it, it feels wrong." He said, "Finally, we don't have a real core flight simulation enthusiast inside... So we plan to make one. A game that everyone knows. What does everyone know? So we changed it to an ARPG..."

Tossed back and forth, and finally settled on a simulation operation. The choice of simulation management is based on quite practical considerations: money is limited, art resources are limited, but I want to make a game that "allows players to play for a long time".

These explorations are not actually romantic. For a small startup, constantly adjusting direction is a huge drain."The money in the account is decreasing day by day, and I haven't found a direction that everyone thinks is fun. I am very anxious at this time..." Deng Yongjin said that during the process, there were at least two "immediately run out of money", they thought It took a variety of ways to get through the crisis.

"The main reason is that we are more afraid of death, and more afraid of failure. You feel that there are problems with the things you make, and of course players will feel that there are problems after you release them. You have to make something that you find fun at least." Deng Yongjin said, "First of all, we have to make ourselves happy - the principle of our game is to make ourselves happy! Otherwise, don't do it."

"Since the existential crisis is so serious, why not make some... products that can solve the crisis?" I Asked, "Actually everyone knows which things are the most popular."

He laughed. "Let me put it this way, first, even if you do certain types of games, it doesn't mean you can survive, because their market competition pressure is greater; second, our genes determine that everyone we recruit likes consoles , also like stand-alone, if they do that kind of attempt, it is estimated that they will fail, and they have to go their own way.” The meaning of the

platform

Repeated attempts require costs and help—for these development teams, Through trial and error, WeGame has been a supporter.

In the project of "Super Bucky Ball", Deng Yongjin's development team conducted many rounds of tests after determining the direction of balls and making the first version, and a large part of the tests were in WeGame's test area . Testing is an essential part of game development, and user feedback can provide reference for version iteration.It was from multiple rounds of testing that the development team realized many problems with the game-these problems existed in various details, such as novice guidance problems, such as balance problems between old users and new users, these small details Maybe it can decide the success or failure of a game. Deng Yongjin believes that the test area is of great significance to game development. He feels that "continuous adjustment based on user needs is the significance of the test area".

In addition, WeGame also provides developers with a lot of free public resources in the test area, "These resources can attract traffic and traffic, and developers can set up pre-testing according to their own schedule to guide players into the game. After the test, we will interact and communicate with the players.” In his view, these features provide developers with an important verification-in the process of exploring and adjusting the direction, the feedback from players can most directly tell developers how popular this direction is. Black, the producer of "The Great Immortal Cultivation Simulator", also said that WeGame's players are "more willing to express and interact" than other platforms, and each update will have a lot of feedback, "The rate of positive feedback is also very fast."

Users continue to provide modification suggestions in the WeGame comment area of ​​"Road to Awakening" and "Super Bucky Ball"

"Many developers, especially in the independent game circle, feel that WeGame's influence is constantly rising." Wang Kun said , "We just put it up for a few days, and there are more than 200 comments, and the activity and participation of the player QQ group is also very high... During this process, we are also constantly learning, many technical pits, process problems Pit, including the ability to deal with players, we still need to learn a lot."

"This game night is a very comprehensive opportunity for me to publicize."Wang Kun told me: "At least 3 weeks to a month before the event, there is a complete plan, which interview room to go to, what video content to be produced, the content material of the question, which game will be recommended one day... and the UP master. And the plan of the live broadcaster, etc., there is a fairly detailed table. And this table is maintained and supported by a team. They'll push us especially aggressively, how's the day going? How about this topic? How about this theme? How is this picture? when do you have time? Can you make a video someday? "

" is a very different feeling. "Wang Kun said, "During this process, the platform constantly strives to help you sort out how to better present your game. This is very different. "

The "Road to Awakening" team participated in the interesting interactive session of WeGame's "Producer Reads Comments"

Deng Yongjin introduced new works in the live broadcast room during the "planning face-to-face" activity of the game night and connected with the players by voice. This approach Inspired him. "We have to do this kind of activity frequently in the future. He said, "We used to live broadcast on various platforms, and players used the way of barrage to interact with us, but there were too many barrages to watch, and we couldn't have a deep communication with the players. "

Everyone attaches great importance to the opinions of players. Deng Yongjin told me that a large part of the suggestions made by all players have been "doing it", and at the same time, in the process of communicating with players, he was able to verify and be more convinced The necessity of these practices. However, he has some reservations. "Players need to listen, but not all. "

Deng Yongjin has a lot of feelings for WeGame's help in publicity."Actually, we also know that WeGame helps us promote our game, and players may not necessarily buy the game on WeGame in the end. After all, there are many platforms to choose from... But WeGame still helps us promote and expand users. At this level, I am very grateful to them, because other platforms will hardly help you to do such a thing."

In the future

Deng Yongjin feels that there are more and more good domestic works in recent years. "These good works will inspire more people to enter the industry, and these people will create more good works. I believe this is a positive cycle, and also have a positive and optimistic attitude."

is like As he said, those who enter the stand-alone game industry today have more or less what they want to express. They may not have the opportunity to implement the ideas in their hearts at the first time, or they may be subject to costs and resources, or the road may be long and tortuous, and they still need to accumulate and settle... But I believe they will do it, one day. , they will do it.

They will also encounter problems, and most of the problems are similar: not enough resources, unable to find a suitable direction, fear of failure... In this process, supporters like WeGame need to help as much as possible.

This is not a story of idealism - the game industry cannot lack ideals, but it cannot be driven by ideals alone. Every person and every company featured in this story has one quality: They're not that kind of fanatical idealist. They are mostly calm, they know what they are doing, they know what they will gain and what they will lose in the direction they choose - they understand the gains and losses along the way, and they make their own choices.

I hope we can see more idealistic and reality-based game developers, we will see their work, and the game industry will move forward on the basis of these works.I also hope that more platforms like WeGame can go with them and help them when necessary - and we will see more and more good works born in this industry.