"Only Chinese dare to do the game", "Cultural Archfire", "Troll Game of the Year" - After Suzuku Games announced the first official trailer of "Showa Rice Story" on January 7, the game has been on the hot search trend of multinational social platforms in just a few days, attracting players and netizens with such eye-catching keywords.
assemble
I have to say that the trailer is really wonderful – so much so that in some forums, you can see people's very different attitudes towards Showa Mi Kuni Monogatari before and after the PV release.
If there is one word to describe the "Showa Mikoku Monogatari" currently presented, it must be "impact". Not to mention the specific gameplay that is not shown much, the unadorned "stereotypes" that are directly in front of you show a powerful force; this power is probably the source of those "cultural confidence" in the comments.
In fact, Showa Mikoku Monogatari is an RPG game set in Showa 66 set in the context of the elevated "America Under Japanese Colonization" – so how did this alternate world come about without any reference material?
"Extract it from inside our heads." Luo Xiangyu told me. He describes constructing a new world as "assembling"—by the way, there is a fairly high proportion of glue guys in the production staff—and the parts that carry impressions "from the inside of the head" are the cornerstones of assembling the world.
"In reality, Japan has been influenced by a lot of American culture and has formed such a state; if you want to make an America under Japanese domination, you can't actually use the current Japan as a reference."
"We will think about what unique traditional cultural characteristics Japan has, and then find a way to put these traditional cultural characteristics on the land of the United States... If this happened, how would Japan transform American land? How will you emphasize your dominance? Based on this we made all kinds of attempts, and then until the end of the presentation is what it is now. ”
Showa 66 years with childhood memories
Luo Xiangyu, a native of Wuhan, has never even been to Japan – extracted from the "brain" of the main creative team, more of a stereotype of Japan (and the United States) by the Chinese of the 80s and 90s than the real "Showa scenery".
"Showa 66" – or in the real world, Heisei 3 – is an interesting year. At the time when Japan is facing an economic crisis and turning from prosperity to decline, and the Chinese of Luo Xiangyu's era is receiving unprecedented foreign cultural influence under the influence of reform and opening up.
"This is the time when our generation is just beginning to come into contact with foreign cultures. There is a lot of content in our memories that can be taken out to extract, and the background of the times is also very in line with our desire to make some memories of childhood, with a little nostalgic feeling. ”
Speaking of childhood memories, the "rolling iron circle" played by the heroine in the trailer is one of the memories of that era - we have almost never seen such a real childhood in a domestic game like this, which belongs to the perspective of Chinese. When fragments of childhood memories are combined with impressions of Japanese and American culture, an absurd and beautiful fantasy emerges —Chinese children listening to tapes from the United States (but never on fire in their homeland) and imagining the island nation where cherry blossoms are falling may only come from Chinese.
Luo Xiangyu also talked about the influence of the "Like Dragon" series that he may subconsciously have received: "I did not deliberately refer to it, but because I have played it for generations, I am very familiar with this thing. ”
"When I designed the game, I thought that players would like to have some places to explore in the game, something to play; these things are best more age-sensitive, and in line with the context of our special worldview - there may be some aspects that will be unconsciously affected, and I think this is still quite real." 」
Not deliberately emphasized, nor deliberately avoided
In the eyes of many players (especially those with shallow game experience), "Showa Story" has become a symbol of the cultural output of the new era. Exaggerators even refer to the game as a kind of "cultural archfire" – they believe that making a game like Showa Mikoku Monogatari means Chinese a whole new cultural self-confidence.
"I don't think I'm trying to emphasize this issue." Luo Xiangyu said affirmatively.
"Because first of all, whether it's a player in that country, first of all, he has to be interested in the work itself to understand the creator behind it and the culture of the country he's in — the same process that we used to get into with the culture of other countries." They believe that the so-called "cultural output" does not need to be deliberately emphasized, nor does it need to be deliberately avoided.
"Our team is all Chinese developers, and I think it's fun to do something like this. This is something that is developed from our point of view according to our understanding, and it will naturally contain a lot of Chinese ideas. There are definitely many differences between these understandings and the actual situation of life overseas. He naturally has some cultural exchange elements, but we don't need to deliberately think about it, just make the game fun. ”
Since the trailer was released, many media have made various "references" to the trailer; in general, "Showa Mikuni Story" is a unique cognitive perspective that belongs to the Chinese. It is rigid, bizarre, inaccurate, real, vivid, and meaningful.
"The process of creating this new style was a lot of fun. Because since there is no reference, no one will accuse us of not being authentic enough. We thought it should be like this, so we made it like this. This is why "The Tale of Showa Rice" is so imaginative and "self-liberating."
"Sneak a laugh"
I think many people can still remember the shock of watching the trailer.
Let's recall what is expressed in the PV - in the song of "それが事" (the original Japanese version of "Red Sun"), the audience experiences a short but extremely rich absurd journey with the game camera. The new Yokohama Police Station on American soil, vintage Japanese billboards hanging from buildings, the Golden Gate Bridge with red lanterns, classic Japanese gangsters and sky-breaking drills (and the "that" pool). The most striking thing is the zombie in the taoist costume at the beginning of the promo, who hesitates for a moment and makes a standard 90-degree bow to the camera.
At present, the interesting point of the content presented by this game is actually these "non-gameplay" things in the trailer. Many people worry that the final game content is just "play memes" – which naturally lags with people's expectations.
When the player does enter the game, what is the proportion of these "stems", or highlights, in what way is it presented, and how is it connected?
Luo Xiangyu answered my question. "We're actually writing plots and stories that we find interesting, but when we design these plots, we get some weird ideas popping up in our heads, sneaking a laugh of ourselves, and then naturally adding these ideas to them."
"Actually, I hope that when you actually play, after you put these things aside, it will still be a good game; and these interesting points can be used as a topic of conversation and discussion."
Why zombies?
In the world of Showa Mikuni Monogatari, the most impressive thing is the many zombies that appear in addition to the United States, which is ruled by Japan. In the gameplay demo screen, zombies are the enemies of the heroine; in a subsequent screen, zombies become the tools for the bicycle to generate electricity. We can also see the picture of zombies and people "living in peace" - at the end of the promotional video, the heroine sits in the back seat of the zombie's bicycle, galloping on an empty American road.
"We're making a fuss about zombies because we want to be able to let go, to create that feeling and smell. If you take a real person, it may make some players feel uncomfortable. Like the zombies you see stepping on bicycles to generate electricity, you will feel that since it is a zombie, how to get it is very reasonable - this is the effect we want to achieve. ”
"He's able to play on a scale that's convenient for us."
Zombies are used to demonstrate the use of three weapons, and that big drill impresses players. According to him, the operation difficulty of the game is not high, more emphasis on refreshment, most players are easy to get started; there are many kinds of weapons, and there will be some things that need to be "coded".
Luo Xiangyu described the general gameplay of the game: "Its core is actually an RPG game, and the performance of this part of the action in the trailer is actually mainly to reduce the optimization cost of the game, and then strengthen the stylized expression according to our imagination, so that the taste of this B-grade film can be more direct." ”
"The main line of the game is like that road, and in the course of their journey, they will encounter various things and complete some kind of growth of their own. In addition to promoting the main plot, players can also play some folk games in this context and explore in the scene. The Tale of Showa Rice is a semi-open world with a certain degree of freedom. ”
intrude
Some players found Suzuku's office and even broke into it — something that happened shortly after the trailer was released.
This is actually not a big deal, but we can see the impact of the trailer after it became popular.
"The members of the team were in the same mood as the players after the trailer was released. They were all very happy and excited, and I reckon a lot of people didn't sleep well for the first few nights," Mr. Luo told me, "And on Monday, we had an emergency meeting to get the temperature down and get back to normal development." ”
"A little bit exceeded our expectations."
Like the player who broke into the office, the Showa Story trailer was an unexpected intrusion for both the player and the production team itself — fortunately, this "unexpected" is now a surprise for both sides.
But after the joy and excitement passed, the players began the long wait before the game was released, and the production team had to consider the steady production of the game content step by step.
"I also hope that everyone will not be too stressed," Luo Xiangyu mentioned when asked about "what will be the impact of the unexpected heat", "Some people may think in their hearts that the player's expectations are particularly high, is it necessary to increase the cost... Even if you say that you have the original plan to modify it or something, I think there may be some variables - this is not very good. Now we should put our minds at ease and do this thing according to our original plan, which is what we are most concerned about now. ”
In Luo Xiangyu's description, the game is currently in the stage of mass production of art resources; although it is impossible to give a specific release time, according to another interview, the production of "Showa Rice Story" is more than halfway through.
"Now is to polish our existing content, and then to produce a lot of art resources that need to be used in the official version."
As for the relevant hot memes that currently appear on the Internet, they will not join the game story that has been polished for two years in real time, in contrast, they may show these contents through Easter eggs.
Speaking of Easter eggs, we also talked about two interesting details in the interview: one is that the production team made the uncle at the front desk of the company into "Showa Rice Story" (an image of a high-ranking Japanese black official appearing on a poster); second, when we asked "if there will be a big robot that the protagonist can drive", he told me that "I can't answer it yet".
As one viewer in the comments section put it: "To tell a good Chinese story, you don't have to tell a Chinese story" – in Showa Mikoku Monogatari (at least in the trailer), I saw a "Chinese perspective" that was almost unprecedented. Hopefully, the game will be completed as they originally planned, and I'm looking forward to meeting the sunset of Showa '66 one day in the future.