Among the dozen or so new two-dimensional games I follow, "Back to the Future: 1999" ranks in the top three, attracting me with an artistic atmosphere that is very different from others but portrayed just right, and of course attracting nearly 400,000 players on TapTap, and the game's popularity has been growing since the PV first exposed in August last year.
Today (January 7th), the game ushered in the first test, unveiling the true face of Lushan to players, from the personal perception (regret not to grab the test qualifications, only can play on the cloud on the B station), "Back to the Future: 1999", has the potential to stir up the pattern of two-dimensional mobile games.
What's the highlight of it? Art, story, worldview setting.
A worldview that is constantly being revisited
Back to the Future: 1999 chooses a very attractive but less accessible backdrop – modern times.
The game's timeline is fixed on the day before the millennium, on December 31, 1999, the "rainstorm" falls, the wheel of time continues to roll forward, players will play the protagonist Vertine, the Saint Love Foundation's approved "Si Chen", back to the past to find mystic partners of different eras, and gradually uncover the secret of "Rainstorm".
Not an overhead fantasy, not medieval Europe, not a futuristic metropolis or the end of the world, but the 19th and 20th centuries, which are fairly close and far away from the times in which we live.
Speaking of proximity, from the perspective of real time, it is the history of the past one or two hundred years.
To say far, it is because this point in time happens to be in the era of frequent major historical events, the era of history moving towards the history of the world, the era of science and technology, art, social life and even the change of social form, rapid development, the historical record it leaves behind is described as a little shallow, ordinary people learn from middle school history textbooks, it is only the tip of the iceberg, it has a lot to say, there are many places that can be said, and there are many places that are enough to fascinate people.
For example, the game focuses on the mass cultural movement.
Some examiners can see many of the art styles that pay tribute to it from the PV released by the game, and the character design will also be designed and packaged strictly according to the era in which he was in, such as Xingyun, who appeared in 1966, when the subculture movement was popular, the production team designed the mantra of "it's gas", which was the buzzword at that time, and the costumes catered to the straight miniskirt revolution at that time, decorated with a stack of records banned in britain at that time.
When the player enters the game, they can also see the game prompts with clear black and white characters:
The production team does have a certain courage and insight, and it is not easy to tell this chaotic but starry era.
In addition, the game has added a mystic setting, allowing developers to have a certain amount of freedom outside of history, while also adding additional charm to the game world.
The best art for you
Exquisite art has become the standard of the head of the two-dimensional mobile game, in the case of major manufacturers continue to spend a lot of money on high art quality, how to make new products differentiated in order to break through is a problem that developers must think about.
Back to the Future: 1999 chose to be visually expressive close to the game's worldview.
A unique and rarely accessible worldview allows the game's art to win half, and then how to express its concept in concrete works, and constantly fill in and refine. According to an interview with Sen, vice president of game art at GGAC, the art of the project team "needs to have a deep enough understanding of modern history and occultism, and at the same time be sensitive enough to the visual design of modern fashion, such as the cutting of clothing from different eras", and at the same time, to avoid overemphasizing retro and appearing old.
The words "occult, retro, grotesque, artistic, romantic" are the art tone of Back to the Future: 1999, which combines "retro design elements, film and television representation, fashion magazines, and pop-like painting designs."
The drawing is modeled after a collage in Pop Art
In terms of creative craftsmanship, the production team revealed in a previous developer interview that the game did not use 3D technology, but 2D, "because when our team made things, they hoped to do the best in a certain direction, and then we evaluated that if we did 3D, it seemed that we could not do first-class level, so we chose the 2D direction."
And the truth is that, as the production team said, the game's 2D art has reached a fairly high level.
For example, the light and shadow changes of the main interface:
For example, in the details of the scene, the carving is directly realistic photos:
Another example is the combat special effects that integrate retro, fashion and magic:
The production team mentioned in the interview that the character design of "Back to the Future: 1999" is not to run to the tension of the picture, but to emphasize whether it is in line with the tone of the game's world view, this sentence also applies to the combat performance in the game, it does not have to use exaggerated visual performance, brilliant particle special effects, and highly impactful shock screen effects, but stepped on a point that makes the player comfortable and stunning, while using carefully formulated sound effects to enhance the combat performance.
The same is true of the characters in the dialogue plot.
There are subtle movements in the hands, eyes, mouth, head, etc
Instead of using the usual static vertical drawing, it does not have 3D modeling, but uses 2D bone animation to simulate 3D effects and accurately convey the emotions of the characters.
Interesting gameplay and plot
Back to the Future: 1999 uses a standing pile turn-based card game in which players drag a card in the lower right corner of the screen to perform a combo attack.
See watermark for source
It is not unique, in the current number of two-dimensional mobile games that have not yet been launched, you can see similar gameplay, but not only completely fall into the trap, turn-based card design is a subtle art, it can use reasonable numerical design, rich card effects, differentiated card mechanism to make the game fun and strategic depth, but also easy to overturn, from the test after the player review, the game's gameplay is still within the accepted range.
The game's plot appeals to me more than the gameplay.
It shows excellent atmosphere-building abilities at the beginning of the game, including but not limited to simulating the white noise of "rainstorms", star antimony accompanied by rock and roll and a long series of self-talking lines, the same picture can be cleverly designed to mobilize emotions, and from mystery to joy to emergency - three atmospheric tones change rapidly in just a few minutes.
The next series of story development is even more unexpected by the player, the game prologue undertakes the important function of explaining the background of the story and the basic gameplay, but "Back to the Future: 1999" has done some plot "turns" in it, making it stand out from those bland and watery conventional games, and the whole English dubbing is even more colorful.
The dubbing and art here are quite in place to express the emotions of the characters, which is diametrically opposed to the sunshine image presented in the previous plot
Through a short one-hour plot experience and early PV appreciation, "Back to the Future: 1999" will be another two-dimensional mobile game that knows how to play music and PV, and it is a game work that really emphasizes the plot, heavy characters (not charming), and digs deep into the worldview.
epilogue
The developer of "Back to the Future: 1999" is Deep Blue Interactive from Guangzhou, which was established in 2020, focusing on the two-dimensional and female to the game track, and has received investment from Tencent before the product is announced, holding 20% of the shares.
Looking at the new two-dimensional products exposed in the past one or two years, the competition on this track can not be described as fierce, but the works that break through the sand are not uncommon, and if you want to break through, in addition to using your own resources to do one thing, you may also have the "adventurous" of "Back to the Future: 1999".
For most manufacturers, art and gameplay are actually more difficult to distinguish, and a differentiated worldview, and how they will manage this worldview, so that it is highly unified with other game content, may be more effective.