[Interview/Observer Network Zhang Yiqing Zhao Noya] "Some netizens summed it up particularly well: 'Telling the Chinese story well does not necessarily mean telling the Chinese story'. I think this generalization is exactly what we think.
"Since foreigners can do games with the theme of China's Three Kingdoms, and can also do Kung Fu Panda, we can actually do works with other national themes from our own perspective." And I think Chinese's interpretation of other themes is also part of Chinese ideology and culture. ”
On January 7, the trailer for the new domestic single-player game "Showa Rice Story" was born, which attracted heated discussions among players at home and abroad. The trailer quickly broke through a million views on Bilibili's video site and Weibo, with thousands of comments pouring in.
Video Production: Observer Network Zhang Yiqing
The unique world view of "Japanese culture colonizing the United States" presented in the video is the biggest focus of players. Luo Xiangyu, the founder of the producer Suzuku Games and the production director of Showa Rice Story, recalls that he received many foreign cultures as a child, but due to the strong inclusiveness of Chinese culture, these cultures presented a strange sense of integration in China.
Later, when Luo Xiangyu thought about what kind of game he wanted to make, he thought of starting from his childhood memories, integrating American and Japanese culture, and then expressing it in an exaggerated way. "It's about having a feeling of 'this is a game that only Chinese can do.'"
Suzuku Games is a game production company based in Wuhan. Although not well known before, the team members have participated in the production of classic games such as Age of Empires, Need for Speed and Cell Splinter. Previously, Suzuku Games had also produced a word-of-mouth console game "Dying: Trial of Rebirth", and accumulated a lot of experience.
On January 11, Luo Xiangyu was interviewed by the Observer Network and told the interesting and unknown story behind the game production.
Luo Xiangyu, the founder of Suzuku Games, himself provided the picture
Interview highlights
· I want everything to be taken from the memories of our creators, even if we don't remember correctly, and some of the objects in the game have some deviations from reality, and I think this is also a feature of the game. Because these contents are not that we have to copy some of their cultural content, but the content that we process in our minds and memories, which is also the characteristic of our Chinese developers.
· Since they (foreigners) can do The Three Kingdoms theme of China, and they can also do "Kung Fu Panda", we can actually do the theme of other countries from our own perspective. And I think Chinese's interpretation of other themes is also part of Chinese ideology and culture. Some netizens summed it up particularly well: "Telling a good Chinese story does not necessarily mean telling a Chinese story." I think this generalization is exactly what we think.
· Although the theme of our game is related to other countries, it contains our thinking and values, and it can also be understood by players around the world. For example, although the Japanese "Voyager King" manga depicts the western pirate genre, the Japanese have used their own culture to change this theme, which can also be welcomed by the whole world. Therefore, we can also find and open a breakthrough in the global market from this perspective.
· Counting 2020, our game has been developed for more than two years so far, and now the overall completion can be said to have reached about 75%. In fact, many players can see through the trailer that some of the main things are missing now. For example, the current degree of production of art resources in the game is not very high, and there are a large number of actions that have not been replaced with the latest version. Then, there are a lot of maps and character resources to make in the game, and this part is mainly missing.
· Several of our most important creators are very passionate about the console game industry, and we ourselves are also very core console and stand-alone gamers. My personal dream was to make a good console game, like those famous game producers, to show their inner thoughts, so that players all over the world can play their own games.
· In some of our ideas, there's a lot of interesting stuff that hasn't been made. Now this trailer reflects only a part of the current version of the game. I hope we can do what we find very interesting first. Some good ideas for players, we will end up in the form of Easter eggs, so that players may also find it more interesting.
The following is the full text of the interview
Observer.com: First of all, congratulations on the success of the game's first trailer, which has received a lot of views and discussions at home and abroad. Can you tell us about the mood in the team before and after the trailer is released? Have there been any changes within the company?
Luo Xiangyu: Actually, we have been doing "The Tale of showa rice" for a long time. We were curious, after doing the game for so long, and finally editing it into a trailer of more than two minutes, what kind of reaction would the players have when they saw it?
Our development team was very curious about this at first. After all, the content of this game, we ourselves find very interesting. At the time of development, we were stealing fun in the group. Now that the trailer is going to be shown to players around the world, most of our team is nervous and looking forward to it. A few days before the trailer was released, many of them, including the game director and art director, asked me if the current version of the trailer had reached the feeling you wanted, and they also asked me how many points I could rate the trailer, and also asked how you thought the response would be after it was released.
Japan's "cultural invasion" of the United States worldview is the focus of attention from the outside world
In fact, my mood at that time was still a little complicated, because since I first thought of this idea, in the past few years, I have actually imagined countless times, on the day when the game is officially released, what kind of feedback will it receive? I'm mostly confident inside, so I tell people that the trailer will definitely catch fire. Because we all like things, there must be a lot of people who like it.
But on the other hand, I still have a little bit of worry in my heart, because I think my luck has never been very good. I'm also worried that my tastes are too niche, or in case there's a detail in this trailer that the player isn't happy with, misunderstands us, misinterprets what we meant. Players may criticize us fiercely.
The night before the trailer was released, someone on our team was already nervously asleep. I think my psychological quality is still quite strong, so I slept soundly the night before, and I also comforted others and said that I should calm my mind. But on the night of the trailer's release, I lost sleep myself because the response heat increased so quickly that there were a lot of people coming to us in a short period of time. I was in a state of information explosion and no time to consider. Those who couldn't find me went to the team members.
From the night of the release to today, I have not slept for several days in a row, and I have probably learned about the rest of the team. From the moment the trailer was released, they were all in a very happy and excited state, and then actively paying attention to various information on the network every day.
We've actually seen a lot of players' comments. At this time, I felt that this situation was not very good, and I wanted to simply let the team members have fun and relax for two days this weekend, and then I must find a way to lower the temperature.
So as soon as I arrived at the company on Monday (10th), I gave everyone an emergency meeting and said that I hope that the mentality of all of us can return to the daily development state as soon as possible. Because, our game is not yet in the stage of development, there is still a lot of work to be done, the current heat, on the one hand, it increases our confidence, on the other hand, it also brings more pressure to our development team than before. We all want to make this game the best we can be and not disappoint the players. Moreover, I did not expect that after the weekend, players began to run to the company and break in directly from the front desk on Monday.
We are in a park in Wuhan, and people from other companies in the same park are also inquiring. Employees of other companies in the park sometimes exercise with our employees and hang out. These people in the park will also find people from our team to talk to, and some people on social networks say that they want to "form a group" to come to Suzuku to play "Holy Land Tour".
I understand that if a player loves the work, he will also be interested in the development team behind it. We see the love and excitement of these players, and we are very happy in our hearts, but I also really hope that the players will try to pay attention to the work itself, and don't run to the company, which will scare us developers. So I later decided, in order not to affect the team as much as possible, to remove the sign at the entrance of the company and block the big logo at the front desk.
I hope that after a while the heat has faded, we can concentrate on getting back to our development work as soon as possible.
Observer Network: The trailer of the game shows a very unique flavor, both the Japanese "cultural colonization" of the United States worldview, but also the integration of a lot of popular culture "memes", such as MAGA, the Japanese version of "Red Sun", "Tengen Breakthrough" and "Gundam" and so on. The trailer is densely packed with so much information, what are the considerations behind it?
Luo Xiangyu: Regarding the terrier aspect, because the direction we set out at the beginning was a game that was dominated by the pop culture of the eighties and nineties, with a lot of Japanese and American culture, but from our Chinese our own point of view. These cultures are, first of all, a relatively familiar part of China.
Then, the player plays the game to have fun and feels that it is "very fun" to play the game. I designed every game so that everyone could play the game together without any negative impact. I had some considerations in designing these memes, deliberately avoiding research and inviting experts to be consultants.
I hope that everything is extracted from the memories of our creators, even if we don't remember correctly, and some of the objects in the game have some deviations from reality, which I think is also a feature of the game. Because these contents are not that we have to copy some of their cultural content, but the content that we process in our minds and memories, which is also the characteristic of our Chinese developers.
A video of Growing Pains that appears in the trailer
When I usually think about these stems, sometimes I think about them intensively, but most of them are when I usually have an inspiration and record them.
Some players have said online that some things are not the inspiration of the developers after drinking. These players' comments are actually correct, but they are not. Because not only me, but also other members of the team will contribute some fantastic ideas, and there are still many "strange" people in our team, and there are many points of interest and hobbies.
So in general, I want to make something that we find interesting to show the players and see how people react. That's how I think about it.
The most impressive thing about the game right now is the fusion of Japanese and American cultures from the 1980s and 1990s. Our readers are curious, how did they come up with this worldview in the first place?
I chose this genre because when I was designing games, I wanted to make games that would be fun to players all over the world and that only we Chinese game developers could make. These two conditions are actually more difficult, and if they can really do this, it should make everyone feel very novel.
Looking back at many overseas games we have played, even if they are not doing their own themes, they actually have many distinctive characteristics of their own culture. For example, many games like the United States have their own humorous way and some aesthetic that makes us think it is very strange. For example, in Japanese games, many of them have a partial "secondary two" thinking, some serious preaching, and some "protect this and protect that" concept. Since they can integrate their own ideology and culture into any genre, why can't we do it when we make games?
Since they can do The Three Kingdoms theme of China, and they can also do kung fu panda, we can actually do the theme of other countries from our own perspective.
And I think Chinese's interpretation of other themes is also part of Chinese ideology and culture.
I think some netizens summed it up particularly well: "Telling a good Chinese story does not necessarily have to tell a Chinese story." I think this generalization is exactly what we think.
I was born in 1983, it was the early days of reform and opening up, and a large number of foreign cultures entered China, which made our childhood and the childhood of overseas players have some similarities, but there are still many differences.
Because of the strong inclusiveness of our Chinese culture, these foreign cultures present a very peculiar, integrated expressiveness in China. I now think back to these things I came into contact with as a child, and they have some magical feelings in my memory. When I was walking and thinking about what kind of game I was going to make, I thought about starting from our childhood memories, to integrate the culture of Japan and the United States, to express it in an exaggerated way, and I thought it was a good entry point.
"Make America Great Again" (MAGA) in the trailer
I think that such a game, with the help of this sense of integration, can not only evoke some childhood memories of players in this era, but also allow these players around the world to find some resonance in it.
And I was wondering if this unique way of blending would give players all over the world a sense of "this is a game that only Chinese can make.", and I was curious about it. So after I thought of this idea, I immediately stood on the side of the road and took out my mobile phone, recorded the idea on a memorandum, and then rushed to talk to the team as soon as I arrived at the company the next day.
I think it's inevitable that content creators in a country will bring their own characteristics when creating content. For this piece, we do not need to express it very deliberately, nor do we need to deliberately avoid it, as long as it is only the content we do, it will naturally have our characteristics.
I'm a native of Wuhan and haven't lived abroad, so there are some differences between a game like Showa Mikoku Monogatari that is actually made and actual Japanese and American culture. But what we show in it is the Japanese-American culture that we understand and see from our own perspective.
Conversely, players in these countries will certainly have a familiar and unfamiliar feeling when they see The Tale of Showa Rice. We thought it would be fun, so we decided to make a game like this.
Observer Network: When it comes to Chinese games, an inevitable problem is the "cultural output" of games. Your team members have said before that Chinese games don't necessarily have to use martial arts and xianxia themes to find breakthroughs. After the trailer came out, some netizens believed that even if the game story is related to other countries, it can deconstruct the culture of other countries through the perspective and values of Chinese, which is also a "cultural output". What do you think of this statement?
Luo Xiangyu: I very much agree with this statement. I think something similar completely understands the way we think about making games.
I've already said a part of why I want to make such a game. I think the so-called cultural output does not need to be deliberately emphasized. Moreover, we do not necessarily have to take the theme of martial arts and immortals as a breakthrough. Because, these have a lot of domestic game manufacturers to do these themes, they have dug deep and done a good job.
If these genre games are not done well, but are released overseas, it will create a cultural gap with most overseas players. We currently have limited funds and manpower, so we do not compete with big factories on the theme of traditional Chinese culture, nor do we necessarily have to find a breakthrough in these themes. I myself want to try another route, that is, to do some innovation, add Chinese their own things on a subject that is more familiar to players around the world. As long as the game is made by our Chinese developers, it will certainly contain a lot of Chinese thinking and values.
Although the theme of our game is related to other countries, it contains our thinking and values, and it can also be understood by players around the world. For example, although the Japanese "Voyager King" manga depicts the western pirate genre, the Japanese have used their own culture to change this theme, which can also be welcomed by the whole world. Therefore, we can also find and open a breakthrough in the global market from this perspective.
The Golden Gate Bridge with Japanese elements appears in the trailer
This is a philosophy that I have been stressing repeatedly since the early days of Sukuku Games. In interviews with some media in the past few years, I have said many times that I hope to make such a game, and now "Showa Mikuni Story" has achieved a positive direction, and I am very pleased.
Such directions and ideas can be recognized by players through the game "Showa Rice Story". This proves that the path we have adhered to for so many years is completely feasible.
Observer Network: In the trailer, the original version of "Red Sun" was used as the background music, why did you choose this song in the first place?
Luo Xiangyu: We chose this song for several reasons in the first place. The first reason is because there is a cover version of the song in China, and the Hong Kong singer Li Keqin, whom we listened to when we were children, sang a song called "Red Sun", which I have heard many times. The original version of the song, the melody can resonate with both Chinese and Japanese players, is very much in line with the kind of theme I said earlier, the similarity and differences that I want to express.
The second point is the original Japanese version of the song, which I have always stored in the playlist. In the early days of the new crown epidemic, the world was full of unknowns and fears about the new crown virus, and I stayed at home during that time, often listening to songs. I happened to hear the song again, and combined with my state of mind at the time, it gave me a wonderful feeling, positive and sad, and a self-deprecating emotion. So I think this song is a perfect fit with "The Tale of Showa Rice Country". I especially want to convey this feeling to the player.
Third, I checked it myself, the song was released in 1991, when the Japanese bubble economy burst. I've seen some players find this out too. Moreover, 1991 also happens to be the fictional "Showa 66" in the game. So I think this song is simply "tailor-made" for "Showa Mikuni Monogatari". There may be something wrong with this statement, it seems to have a first-come, first-served order, but at the time I thought, I must sign the authorization of this song and make it the theme song of "Showa Rice Story".
After I came up with the idea of signing a contract, I was actually a little worried, afraid that after the licensor saw our game, it would think "what the hell is this" and reject us. But later, when we wrote the material to introduce them, the other party was fine, everything went well, and this worry was completely superfluous.
Observer Network: The trailer has been a huge success and has brought a lot of expectations to players. In the trailer, we have seen a relatively mature combat system, character modeling and scene construction. We can see from the official website that the game has been developed for more than 5 years. What was the biggest difficulty you encountered along the way? Can you share the current development progress?
Luo Xiangyu: Divided into several stages, the difficulty of the first stage is that we are worried, whether we can make such a game, what kind of genre do we want to make this game? Personally, I think the game's worldview is unique and can feel novel.
From the player's point of view, I would definitely like to explore more in this world, meet more interesting people, and have more interesting stories. So, if we just make an action game, it may be a bit wasteful.
I think the best way to express this genre is to make it a role-playing game (RPG). But to make a RPG game of such a large volume, it takes a long time and cost. Well, we encountered another difficulty, which is how to calculate and consider the budget, as much as possible to make sure that we can safely put the game last night.
So in the pre-design part, we spent two years. At that time, together with several other creators, I made an expected plan for the game's story outline, included gameplay, side quests, mini-games, duration, number of characters, and the magnitude of art resources, and then calculated the cost.
Battle screen of the game
We also went abroad with a game called Dying: Trials of Rebirth, which made a decent income, plus we raised a sum of money. At that time, we thought we could do this project. After determining this, our team was more excited, and we moved to the next stage, and we encountered a second difficulty: how to determine the visual art style of this game?
After the trailer was released, I saw a lot of players say that the game's art performance is very interesting, creating a very peculiar "Showa Mi kuni" visual perception. In fact, when we first realized the visual perception, we went through countless trial and error, repeated trials, and combined with different elements to make it reach the state in our minds. I tried and experimented with our 2D concept designers on a lot of scenarios before I came up with the effect in the trailer.
We only started formal large-scale development around 2018, and then in 2019 we encountered the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team was in Wuhan, unprepared, and it was during the Chinese New Year. After the emergency lockdown in Wuhan, we did not take the computer home, but the information was in the company computer.
So, we stopped work for a long time. In lockdown, we couldn't run to the company to move computers, so we had to stop work at home. I and a few other creators continued to think about some of the details, content, and gameplay in the game, but the others couldn't be in a working state.
I was a very cautious person, and after the epidemic cleared at that time, I waited for two more quarantine periods, and then found that there was no rebound in the epidemic, and then I let the company return to the state of offline development, but that time was already after the National Day. And a lot of people on our team were volunteering. So, we spent 2020 basically at home, and the game didn't advance at all.
Then counting 2020, our game is probably more than two years in development so far, and now the overall completion can be said to have reached about 75%. In fact, many players can see through the trailer that some of the main things are missing now. For example, the current degree of production of art resources in the game is not very high, and there are a large number of actions that have not been replaced with the latest version. Then, there are a lot of maps and character resources to make in the game, and this part is mainly missing.
Observer Network: The establishment and project of Suzuku Games are unique among domestic game companies. We know that some domestic companies will accumulate experience and funds by making mobile games. However, Suzuku Games was committed to single-player games at the beginning of its establishment, producing the game "Dying: Rebirth Trial" on PSVR. Now the mainstream of China's game industry is mobile games, stand-alone games in the eyes of many people "thankless", why did they want to take such a route in the first place?
Luo Xiangyu: One of the main reasons is that several of our most important creators are very passionate about the console game industry, and we ourselves are also very core console and stand-alone gamers. My personal dream was to make a good console game, like those famous game producers, to show their inner thoughts, so that players all over the world can play their own games.
Those of us who started out in the industry were engaged in the opening up of AAA games in some companies that made console games. Our team members have worked on some of the most well-known game developments such as Cell Splinter, Age of Empires, and Need for Speed. Therefore, when we first started our business, we set the direction of developing console games, and did not want to make mobile games based on paid props.
Suzuku Games has been established for more than 10 years Suzuku Games courtesy of Suzuku Games
We will feel that mobile games are not the same as the direction we like, although it is more profitable and more in line with the current situation in the Chinese market, but we feel that there are many ways to make money, and we must try to choose the way we like. And we think the gaming market is definitely going to be more mature.
Over the years, console games have accounted for about 30% of the global game market. In such a stable and growing market, we develop our own products without any problems. We may not be profitable in the short term, but we are definitely bullish on the prospects. So we started our business and made a plan that we would not have any results in the next 10 years.
My startup partners think exactly the same as mine. Over the years, we've been very much in agreement and have never been apart. So in such a plan and long-term planning, we can patiently slowly develop the game, do some technical reserves, and recruit some team members. Even, some members have no experience when they first join the team, but they will grow with our company.
I remember when we first decided to do console games, we thought it might be difficult to make a home console game from the beginning. So, we chose PSV as the target platform for our first game. But at that time, Sony and Microsoft's Bank of China had not yet entered the mainland market, so we found Sony in Hong Kong, spent money to buy a development machine, and engaged in the development of psv games.
Therefore, the game "Dying: Rebirth Trial" should be PSV. But then when we were about to finish the development, the Sony people told us that now the PS4 game is the mainstream, PSV will soon be out of the market, if the game is only released on the PSV, the prospect is very worrying.
Awards received by Dying: Trials of Rebirth Courtesy of Suzuku Games
After that, we ported the game to the PS4 and redone all the art assets, which is equivalent to making a high-definition version of the game when it was not yet released. Then when the PS4 version was ready, the Sony people came over and said that they wanted us to come up with a PSVR version, because they thought this first-person puzzle game was very suitable for PSVR.
We had made three versions before they went on sale, and we ended up releasing all three versions in one go, which was also the first actual revenue of Suzuku Games.
Observer Network: We noticed that Suzuku Games seems to pay attention to user feedback, will the game add players to the idea of "imagination" in the future? What else will the game "do you do"?
Luo Xiangyu: In terms of "whole life", we think we are very good at it, because our team is full of "happy people". In these comments from players, I think there are some ideas that do work. But I think maybe for the players, they would prefer to see the development team 'whole work' on their own.
In some of our ideas, there's a lot of interesting stuff that hasn't been made. Now this trailer reflects only a part of the current version of the game. I hope we can do what we find very interesting first. Some good ideas for players, we will end up in the form of Easter eggs, so that players may also find it more interesting.
After the trailer was released, our account liked and commented on some players' comments in the comment area, which was immediately pointed out as a hit. The employee in the management comment area was also startled, and he was now afraid to speak casually.
Observer.com: After this trailer, what is the production team's next plan? Is there anything you would like to say about players who support Showa Mikuni Story?
Luo Xiangyu: After the trailer is released, the next step of our entire project is to enter the mass production stage of art resources, and we will invest a lot of art resources into the production of the official version.
Suzuku has a characteristic when developing games, that is, he will put the art part at the end, because we are the most efficient in using funds.
When many big game companies make AAA games, they often use formal art resources and even CG in the first version of Demo. They do, and the specifications and quality of the demo will be particularly high, but in the end, the actual game development continues to shrink. For us, we certainly wouldn't do something like that.
Because if we used the official version of the art resources at the beginning, then the development cycle of making a game is very long. By the time the game was late in development, the resources might have fallen behind the times, and we'd have to remake them. For us, a team with limited financial resources, this is a huge waste.
Therefore, next, "The Tale of Showa Rice Country" will enter the mass production period of art resources. I'm sure players will see more information we post later on and see that the overall look and feel of the game is getting better and better. And our team also "hides" a lot of interesting content that we don't share with players all at once. I am very grateful to all the players who follow showcasing Showa Mikuni Story, and we will certainly do our best to live up to your expectations.