Game Development Giant

Looking at Hideo Kojima who is still shy now, but his eyes are full of confidence.

Jester couldn't help but feel a sigh of relief.

Because he knew that in his world, the fate of Hideo Kojima was to leave forever Konami, where he had worked for more than thirty years, and what he had created with his own hands. Moreover, it could be said that it was better than him. The most important work for children is Metal Gear.

Of course, in fact, regarding the story of Metal Gear, Hideo Kojima may have wanted to end it a long time ago.

It can only be said that at the moment Metal Gear Solid 5 is released, for the entire video game industry, Hideo Kojima, who can be called the most iconic figure since Shigeru Miyamoto, will forever be remembered. Leaving everything he is familiar with, or in the future, the greatest game designer of his generation can still produce new and outstanding works, as Hideo Kojima proved in p.t.

Although Metal Gear is an out-and-out legend, I don't just do Metal Gear.

Have you encountered any difficulties in development?

Jester asked again.

He had learned before that it seemed that for Hideo Kojima, the most important form of expression for his game had not yet been finalized. During this period, his team had been discussing it, but Jester could not tell what the discussion was about. And know.

In fact, Jester doesn't really want to get involved in Hideo Kojima's thinking.

Because, as someone who knows Hideo Kojima's future, Jester knows that Hideo Kojima is not someone who is willing to accept other people's opinions.

This kind of character is basically a common problem among Japanese designers, but Hideo Kojima's authoritarian character may be more obvious. This is also determined by the style of game design. The Japanese value talented producers, while Europe and the United States pay more attention to them. Value brainstorming sessions that bring together new ideas.

Jester prefers the latter one.

but. He cannot deny that authoritarian producers do help improve efficiency.

But Jester may be an exception. Hideo Kojima really wants to know what Jester thinks about the development of his new game, Metal Gear.

Because the idea of ​​the game Metal Gear, the idea of ​​Hideo Kojima's hide-and-seek game, was only possible because of Jester. And it is truly perfected.

Moreover, Jester described the idea of ​​the so-called cinematic game to him, and then allowed his imagination to fly endlessly like a pair of wings, and he could come up with many things that he had never imagined before. Game play that is impossible to imagine.

Yes, teacher, I am indeed a little confused.

Hideo Kojima doesn't call him boss like others. Instead, he was called his teacher directly. In the eyes of Hideo Kojima, Jester was his guide and mentor in the game.

I heard Hideo Kojima say this. Jester pondered for a moment.

In fact, he really doesn't want to participate in Hideo Kojima's games, because Hideo Kojima's game style is so unique that no one else can. It's impossible to imitate, so Jester naturally doesn't want to participate, and... Kojima himself can come up with all the ways to play hide-and-seek games, and he can make this series the ultimate.

At this point, Jester really had nothing to tell him.

However, when Jester thought about it, he suddenly thought of something, which was about Hideo Kojima and his hide-and-seek game.

In later generations, it is well known that Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear is the originator of the stealth game, which is commonly known as the hide-and-seek game. He can be said to have created this series and made it the ultimate in this series. All the rules of this game were formulated by Hideo Kojima.

Everyone thinks that maybe this type of game is just like this, and there will be no more breakthroughs. Hideo Kojima has thought of everything that can be thought of because of this type of game.

However, in 2014, Kojima recommended a game on his Weibo, and in many interviews, Hideo Kojima mentioned more than once that his 2014 The best game of the year is this game, a small independent game called Fatal Frame. The studio that developed this game is called **'s Cabin. It has only three members. They are all loyal fans of hide-and-seek games. , at the same time, he is also an admirer of Hideo Kojima.

There is a saying that goes well: rules are meant to be broken.

This is what the game Fatal Frame does, and there is no doubt that this game has also been praised and loved by the originator of this genre, Hideo Kojima.

Fatal Frame is the first original work of the Three Musketeers of Love House. How to classify it is really a troublesome thing, because this game belongs to the kind of you have played games for decades and never Of course, if you have to classify it into a category, the all-encompassing genre of puzzle games seems to be the most appropriate.

In this game, players face a story composed of fifty comics, each comic is composed of several panels. After the start of a level, the protagonist controlled by the player will act in each grid from left to right and top to bottom. Of course, according to the original order of the grids, he/she will definitely not be able to reach the grid in the lower right corner. What the player has to do is to change the order of the middle grids in various ways so that the protagonist can reach the end of this page smoothly.

To give a simple example, one page of the comic has four panels. In the first panel, the protagonist jumps out of the window, hangs his suitcase on the wire and slides to another building; in the second panel, the pursuer is aiming at the wire; in the third panel It's a pigeon on the wire; the fourth frame is another building overlooking. If the original order is followed, the player will be hit by the pursuer in the second square and the game will end. However, if the player switches the positions of the second and third squares with his hands, the protagonist will startle the white bird in the second square. Dove, and interfere with the pursuer's sight in the next square, allowing you to escape safely.

It seems very simple to say, but the design of Fatal Frame contains a very interesting concept, that is context/environment (context). In most games, the player controls the actions of the protagonist. (action), and the so-called context/environment is equivalent to the world view or story setting, which generally remains unchanged. Players complete various tasks through various actions in this fixed environment, which is interaction in the general sense.

But in Fatal Frame, every action is determined in advance. What the player needs to change is precisely the context/environment, and the change in this environment causes the meaning of each action to change, forming a new story. In this sense, the creative core of Fatal Frame has penetrated into the bottom layer of game interactivity, fundamentally subverting the interactivity that you and I default to.

Seeing how designers use different contexts to design different or even completely opposite meanings for the same action is the most amazing experience in the entire game.

In order to complete this design, we have to face many problems. One of them is how to use the static image displayed in front of the player. On the one hand, the player will not guess where the protagonist's adventure will be when they first see this comic page. Which one is in crisis.

On the other hand, it also needs to allow players to construct another story direction based on this identical comic after learning about the crisis, or to be more precise, imagine another ending of the story.

This requires the designer to present potential dangers and solutions to avoid dangers at the same time on this page of comics in a limited number of cells that can be moved freely. If the clues in the former are too obvious, players will find the story boring; if the clues in the latter are too subtle, players may not be able to come up with a solution and finally pass the level by repeatedly trying various possibilities.

Another problem is that all adventure games must face, how to control difficulty.

As mentioned above, the fun of the Fatal Frame game mode lies in using existing clues to build a new path, and its core concept is trial \u0026 error.

Players don’t have to worry that mistakes will lead to the end of the game, they just need to try again. However, once the difficulty setting is unreasonable, players will definitely try to pass the level through exhaustive methods. This is a problem for Fatal Frame which is based on comic grid order and has limited possibilities. 》, it is another problem that must be avoided. Fortunately, among the fifty levels, only one or two levels were so difficult that I reached the edge of using the exhaustive method. However, these levels had a large number of grids. Even if I used the exhaustive method, it would consume a lot of time. In the end, I still failed. By carefully observing the prompts in the static screen, I can deduce the correct sequence to complete the level.

The use of the trial and error method needs to be strictly restricted. Once abused, it will cause players to give up after too much frustration. For the Soul series, the moment of finally defeating the enemy boss is already a great achievement. For Fatal Frame, the reward for passing one level is a new level. How to ensure that players can persist in the process of countless failures?

Of course, it is the new possibilities that players can see during the failure process.

This is a very good game, and Hideo Kojima also admitted that this game has greatly broadened his thinking, and many ideas that he had never thought of before came to him like lightning. in his mind.

Jester felt that he could use many of the existing creative ideas in this game to tell Hideo Kojima something he hadn't thought of. (To be continued...)