pinnacle game producer

Chapter 331 Soul Game
Wang Jian noticed the "soul-like" on the label. He had never heard of this type before, so he couldn't help asking the system curiously: "System, what is a soul-like?"

[This question involves a lot of content, including some unique game design concepts, 300 points]

Wang Jian happily paid the points.

I only deducted 6 points for asking Sid Meier in front of Civilization 10 and why PT is a semi-finished product, but asking about soul games requires 300 points, which shows that this question is still very valuable.

Immediately, he understood the relevant content.

The ancestor of the action PRG series that created the "soul game" is "Devil's Soul", and subsequent masterpieces of this genre include "Dark Soul", "Nioh", "Sekiro", "Salt and Sanctuary", etc.

The biggest difference between "Devil's Soul" and other RPGs lies in the "fixed level design", which can be said to run counter to the mainstream practice at the time.

In Demon's Souls, the levels are varied, high-quality, and designed with an astounding level of sophistication.The series of castles with multi-level architectural levels, the series of tunnels with tricks to lure falling, the series of repeated similar scenes, the series of towers with high ground drops to lure getting lost, and the series of swamps with difficulty in moving, these are the styles that can often be seen in subsequent soul games and scene.

All these scenes hide all kinds of malice, hidden elements and hard-to-find enemies, which constitute the vast majority of the difficulty of soul games: players often have to use their lives to explore the secrets hidden in these levels, so as to experience To the subtleties of level design.

The level design technique of "Dark Soul" follows the basic principles of "Devil's Soul", but adds two very important changes: first, all maps are connected and can be reached and shuttled at will; Shortcuts have been added. After the player completes a certain amount of progress, these shortcuts can be permanently opened, which is convenient for players to quickly travel between various "camps".

In addition to the biggest feature of "fixed level design", soul games also have some other features.

In terms of narrative techniques, other RPGs are mainly line narratives, that is to say, the player talks to the NPC, and the NPC tells the player what happened.

For example, if the player sees the field at the east end of the village being gnawed by a pig, the village head will ask the player to kill the pig, and then after the protagonist submits the wild boar teeth, he will lament that the wild boars are particularly manic recently, and hope that the player will go to the middle of the forest to investigate the wild boar mania s reason.

After the player went to investigate, it turned out that the seal of a cave was opened, causing the magic energy to leak, and then asked the village chief, and the village chief would tell how many years ago a demon king was born, and then he was beheaded by a brave man and sealed. In the cave.

This is roughly the case, through the communication with the NPC to understand the story of the game.

The soul game is different. There are very few lines in the whole game. It will not directly tell the player what the world is like. It is even discovered from the description of the dropped items to infer the appearance of the world.

Such a fragmented and largely blank narrative technique has its own advantages, that is, it conceals the weakness and confusion of the script itself, and the process of piecing together the plot itself also brings the fun of exploration.But this also leads to a problem, that is, the plot of the game has become ambiguous and difficult to interpret. The average novice player may not know what is being said after playing the entire game, and the research and analysis of the plot by soul scientists is also a part of the analysis. Lots, and in the end there may still be a lot of disagreement with each other.

Another characteristic of soul games is difficulty.

In ordinary RPG games, players exist as heroes. In the beginning, small monsters such as slimes and goblins can be killed casually, so there is no need to worry about not being able to defeat them. a familiar process.

As for soul games, even if it is a basic miscellaneous soldier, three cuts can kill the player, which may make players who are new to it feel confused.

What, I was beaten to death by a miscellaneous soldier?

And when the player finally masters the basic operation of the game, can kill the miscellaneous soldiers, and weeps with joy, the next boss he will face is several levels higher in challenge difficulty than the miscellaneous soldiers, and he will be abused to the point of doubting his life.

Like that joke: Let's say you have a rabbit.

Suppose someone gives you another rabbit.

Now, count the number of rabbits you have, and you will get the result of two, which means that one plus one equals two rabbits, that is, one plus one equals two, and this is how arithmetic works .

So, now that you have some understanding of the basic principles of arithmetic, let's take a look at the following simple example to put what we just learned into practice.

try it!Example 1.7: logⅡ(N)=(N+1/2)logN... (a full page of complex formulas)
Players who have just mastered the basic operations probably feel this way when they face the first boss.

And this is another feature of soul games, growing up in battle.

When first encountering the BOSS, the player will feel that the BOSS is so strong, and he is simply a weak chicken.

In most other games, encountering unbeatable monsters is very simple, go to level up, go to brush up advanced equipment, apply enhancements, and rely on piles of attributes to survive.If it is a mobile game, you can also consider buying a gift bag, which will instantly increase your combat effectiveness. The importance of operation cannot be said to be non-existent, but it is very small.

But soul games are different. The improvement of players does not lie in the attributes of the characters in the game, but in their own operation level.

With repeated challenges, players gradually become familiar with the monster's attack mode, knowing when to slash twice and when to dodge, then they will feel, hey, it doesn't seem so difficult!

It's not that the monster has become weaker, but the player has become stronger.

This kind of defeating powerful enemies through the growth of one's own operating skills is the greatest charm of soul games.

Of course, soul games have some other features, but these are the most important ones.

Wang Jian stroked his chin and thought for a while. As a game producer, he immediately felt the groundbreaking contained in it.

"A very distinctive game type, which is indeed completely different from the mainstream in the market now! I just don't know, if the game is too difficult, will only a few players be able to accept this style?"

It is natural to buy.

After Wang Jian bought "Sekiro", a huge flow of information suddenly appeared in his mind, with more content than ever before. It took him almost an hour to absorb it this time.

With so much content pouring in at once, Wang Jian felt dizzy and swollen, pressed his temples, and couldn't help sighing: "It would be great if there was a game to understand the fruit!"

(End of this chapter)