Perhaps everyone will have their own past that they want to change, and the culture and entertainment products that make a fuss about the theme of "time" have always been the favorite of many creators and audiences.
Movies such as "The Girl Who Traveled Through Time", "Groundhog Day", "Interstellar" and other movies are still talked about today, and games such as "Gate of the Stone of Destiny" and "Strange Life" have also allowed many players to experience the feeling of manipulating time and the cost of changing the past.
Recently, a "modern retro occult two-dimensional strategy mobile game" called "Back to the Future: 1999", with its official positioning that is long to awkward, PV with pop style and character standing painting with era style, has captured the author's attention on tapTap's appointment list.
At present, the number of reservations for the game on TapTap has exceeded 230,000, and according to the statistics of the game's official website, the number of reservations for the game has reached 537,000. As a two-dimensional mobile game that has no real machine, "Back to the Future: 1999" still scored a high score of 9.0 on TapTap, which is not easy.
The developer of "Back to the Future: 1999" is Deep Blue Interactive from Guangzhou, which was founded by its founder Zhou Jian after leaving BIOX after leaving Biot Family Interactive, which is a game startup focused on the two-dimensional field founded last year. As early as the beginning of this year, just one year after its establishment, Deep Blue Interactive, which has not even announced its first product, has received investment from Tencent, which holds 20% of the shares.
What is the strength of Zhou Jian and Deep Blue Interactive, can get the favor of Tencent in a short period of time, and perhaps "Back to the Future: 1999" can tell us the answer
Here is the first version of the game PV:
The Gate of the Stone of Destiny returns to the future
Like all two-dimensional games, since Deep Blue Interactive does not currently release the game's real machine, "Back to the Future: 1999" still has a strong riddle man atmosphere.
From the current official release of the publicity PV, world view, camp and other related information, the author combined with the real background and the Easter eggs found in the PV, roughly covered the story background of the game.
Pop Wind Image source: Back to the Future: 1999 official website
The first is the "occult" in the positioning of the game. Unlike the current occult, which is often used in novels, film and television works as a story setting, and is considered pseudoscience, in the 20th century, a group of sociologists, philosophers, etc. actually carried out a lot of academic discussion around keywords such as "mysticism" and "mysticism".
However, with the advent of the information age and the development of science and technology, the occult gradually declined, and the British philosopher Colin Wilson once compared the occult to the "knowledge garbage basket" in his book "The Occult".
Secondly, in the official plot summary and PV, a torrential rain on the last day of 1999 is highlighted. Whether it is the official copy of "The rain curtain makes you and I become John Tito" or "Pedestrians and walls peel and dissolve in the rain, the world seems to have come to a new old era", it is clear that this rainstorm has the power to let the protagonist travel through time and space.
This is confirmed by the frequent countdown device in the PV similar to the "WorldLine Rate of Change Detector" in the Gate of the Stone of Destiny, but in addition to traveling through time and space, the appearance of the device is estimated to mean that the game will adopt the same linear view of time as the Gate of the Stone of Destiny, and the player's changes to the past will affect future development.
The above content can actually infer the current background setting of the game. In Back to the Future: 1999, the 20th century is also a world where humans and the occult coexist, but behind the scenes, a purge of the occult is also quietly being carried out, echoing the decline of the occult in reality. And the protagonist needs to play in the game is one of the few occultists in the world at the end of the century.
However, a torrential rain at the end of the century allows the protagonist, a mystic who has been appointed to have the ability to observe the times, travel through time and space, and the protagonist in addition to saving the mystic partners of different eras and countries in the journey again and again, through the choice of the past, affecting the future, uncovering the secrets behind the rainstorm at the end of the century, and moving towards the new century.
Of course, there are more content in the official materials, such as the Millennium Worm Virus, Hysteria, Omnisight, etc., with the subsequent test of the game, the whole story will be officially unfolded.
The subcultural wave of the 1960s, the British "Mord culture"
According to the official previous revelations in the video, the current development progress of the game has entered the "stage where the first test can be carried out immediately". And in order to play the best level of the team, the official also said that the game did not use the 3D modeling commonly used in quadratic games at this stage, but mainly based on high-quality 2D.
Of course, in the author's opinion, this choice is also understandable. Take the character "Snyder" announced on the game's official website as an example, with intricate beads, short hair, light and close-fitting coats and feather skirts, etc., and every detail shows us a Flapper Girl under the influence of women's liberation consciousness in the 1920s. If such a character full of details is turned into a Q version of the villain who is reduced to a two-headed body in 3D in battle, it is not worth the loss.
In the interview video released earlier this month, the official also said that one of the major characteristics of the "Return to the Future: 1999" is realistic, supported by historical facts and historical backgrounds, and has the role of telling stories.
Start a business with an all-rounder
Since the 20th century is actually not far from now, as a game product that is not completely overhead, in GameLook's view, this kind of attention to the details of the times and the sense of substitution of players is very necessary. And as the official said, in today's two-dimensional mobile game crazy inner volume, since it is impossible to make 3D to a new height, it is also a good choice to expand the team's advantages through 2D.
As a fanatical fan of 20th-century related content, coupled with the special significance of 1999 for the author, the overall performance of "Back to the Future: 1999" is still unsatisfactory in my opinion.
Of course, in addition to the various features that "Back to the Future: 1999" currently shows that distinguish it from other two-dimensional games, such as English dubbing, as well as the high quality of the story and the vertical painting, Zhou Jian, the founder of Deep Blue Interactive, may also be the reason why Tencent trusts such a startup so much.
Looking back at Zhou Jian's various projects and history in the past, it is "all-round" in one word.
Before joining BIOC in 2015, Zhou Jian worked for Guangzhou Feiyin, one of the leading domestic bosses in the page game era, and the monthly revenue flow of the company's page game "The Myth of the Flood" exceeded 20 million yuan, and then in 2013, it was adapted and transplanted by China Mobile Game. Another page game, "Mortal Truth Repair", even entered the Korean market and was issued by the Korean entertainment virtue Wemade company.
After coming to Biodio in 2015, Zhou Jian was responsible for the research and development of BIOC's game projects such as "Creation Law 2: Pioneer Heroes" and "Food Language". In the five years of Biao, Zhou Jian not only successfully achieved a big jump in career, jumped from page games to the mobile game industry, from MMO to two-dimensional and female directions, but also successfully created a number of housekeeping game products for Biao. In particular, "Food Language", since its launch in 2019, the game's art and plot have been well received by players, and the game's overseas achievements are also quite eye-catching.
Food Language
In fact, the example of Zhou Jian reminded the author of the news that "I have 10 years of legendary game operation experience, but I can't find a job" reported by GameLook not long ago. On the one hand, through these news, we can better understand the difficulty behind Zhou Jian's entire team's transition from page games to mobile games, on the other hand, although the author also understands that it is now 2021, not 2015, many opportunities have passed, but Zhou Jian's example may also give some colleagues who are in trouble, some encouragement or inspiration.
Quadratic deformity inner volume
However, even with the blessing of the gold medal producer and the relatively excellent and novel personality, in the comment area of the game, the author, like some netizens, still found some strange phenomena.
From the game TapTap 230,000 people to book, the score of 9.0 is not difficult to see, high-quality and fresh story setting, coupled with the historical endorsement of Zhou Jian's "Food Language", "The Law of Creation" and other products, players' expectations for "Back to the Future: 1999" are naturally not low.
In tapTap's comment area, in addition to a variety of players who played the 1999 confidentiality agreement terrier, for this game without real-machine gameplay demonstration, many players still expressed their love for PV and music, with the classic 4-star expectation, so that their favorite games can be seen by more people.
But what GameLook wants to discuss is not positive reviews, but bad reviews of the game.
As a game booked online in August, there is currently no gameplay related content that makes some players dissatisfied, and the author can understand it. However, some netizens found that soon after the release of the game's first PV, there were some bad reviews of unclear significance, such as "seeing the second dimension is big" and "when will the tea in the PV be drunk into the mouth".
TapTap netizen "Bokulitick" even posted that some companies will specifically pull groups to ask people to brush bad reviews for games that are in the testing period.
Excerpt from a comment by netizen "Bokulitick"
Of course, GameLook also has no first-hand evidence to confirm this statement, but it is indeed very abnormal to see the comments of "seeing the second dimension is big" and "not smooth enough" in the comment area of a two-dimensional game. In fact, this is not an isolated case, in many other two-dimensional games, we can see similar situations.
Excerpt from codename: The Legend of the Red Xuan
In the current high-quality game, the production cycle of a game is also relatively fixed, coupled with various problems such as version number, from the game opening reservation to the official launch, almost any game must go through a long or short preparation time.
As a two-dimensional game with a story and a larger number of people than the sky, some people with ulterior motives, once the rhythm of the game is brought up, the image of the character is labeled with plagiarism and other two-dimensional games that have been carried by a number of street-throwing games, even if the official clarifies, the damage to the character and the image of the game is usually irreparable.
Many two-dimensional games also need to rely on operational activities such as planning and second creation in the early stage to activate the player community before the game is launched
In fact, the reason for all this is because the current two-dimensional game market is really too rolled, some companies choose to do better in the face of pressure, but some companies will choose to "find another way". For fragile game projects that have not yet been launched, it may be an empty comment, or it may be a statement that causes players to contradict themselves, and a project that the team has worked hard for several years may be in vain.
Of course, GameLook also has no good way, as a player, for their favorite games, the author can only express his support through reservations and four-star expectations. The control of market public opinion and improper speech, suspected bad reviews and other phenomena still requires the joint efforts of platforms and game companies.