In various types of games, "air" is often the same as "fire", "shadow", "nature", "holy light", "earth", etc., which belong to the "basic elements" of the game. Basic elements can make up the skills used by the characters, the decorations of the game scene (such as the green leaves and flowers that symbolize the "natural" elements and various plants), and even the game scene itself (such as a stone cave full of "earth" elements made entirely of rocks, or a temple full of golden light elements, etc.) and the biological units in the game world (in many games, the "phoenix" is a "biological unit" composed of purely flame elements). "Air" as a common basic element is of course no exception, and the "basic element" in the game, even if it is not the top power, will be set as one of the oldest forces in many cases, because all the basic elements in the worldview setting are accompanied by the "origin story" of the whole world, after all, in our cognitive range, if there is no such basic element, the whole world is just a "chaos", there will be no biological units surviving here. Of course, there will be no follow-up story.
In addition to "ancient", the related elements of "air" in the game are often associated with "speed", "flight", "displacement" and other attributes linked to "mobility", which is a point that the production team needs to pay attention to when designing, because in the creation of cultural works for many years (in addition to games, including animation, film and television, novels, etc.), "air" has been associated with "mobility" countless times, and the audience has basically formed an inherent impression, just like "frost corresponding to injury reduction", Vines correspond to winding", whether it is designing biological units, scenes, or skills, they should be equipped with "air" characteristics.
What I want to introduce to you today is the design method of the "air" related elements in the game.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > visual representation of "air" related elements in the game</h1>
Most of the time, "air" in reality is a "colorless, invisible, invisible to the naked eye" state, and it is precisely because of this that we can observe the world through our eyes when we are normal, and when there is a sandstorm, heavy smog and other weather, our vision will be obscured, and the visibility of the eyes will be seriously reduced at this time. However, in the game, the related elements of "air" obviously cannot be designed as "invisible to the naked eye", one is that the game belongs to the visual product, and the player mainly obtains information and reacts through images; second, if such a design is adopted, it is equivalent to being confused with the state of "invisible" and "camouflage", so the production team has the following 4 common techniques when designing the elements related to "air" in terms of vision.
First, the "flowing air" is expressed through "lines". This is a very ancient method of expression, has been extended to the contemporary game industry, basically "wind" and "airflow" will use lines to express, the direction of movement of these lines represents the direction of the wind, if it is a "whirlwind" or "tornado", then visually it is a spiral line, such as the classic Chinese role-playing game "The Legend of the Paladin Sword" In the heroine Zhao Ling'er used the "wind spell" is the appearance of "small whirlwind", although there was no fine 3D modeling in that era, However, the production team adopted a combination of lines of different lengths and shorts and let these lines move on the plane to give the "wind curse" a certain three-dimensional sense, at least at that time, there were not too many players attacking the picture level of "Paladin Sword";
In "The Legend of paladin", the "Wind Curse" is expressed through simple lines
The mantis demon boss "Blade Lord Tayak" in the quest "Heart of Fear" in World of Warcraft: Mystery of The Panda Man can generate a powerful airflow to repel the player, and the direction of the airflow is expressed in the "direction of movement of the line".
The direction of the air flow emitted by the "Blade Lord Tayak" of the "Heart of Fear" can be observed from the direction of the movement of the surrounding lines
Although this is a very traditional design technique, but it is also really effective, you can easily make the original colorless, invisible and invisible air into concrete, image, visible, but it should be noted that the "line" is limited to the expression of "flowing air", if the air is in a "static state", then it is not suitable for the use of lines to express, but this also leads to another use of the scene - the moving lines also represent the "air-related elements" constitute the living state of the organism, and when the air stops flowing, the "lines" on their bodies are not suitable for performance, but this also leads to another use scenario - the moving lines also indicate that the "air-related elements" constitute the living state of the organism, and when the air stops flowing, the "lines" on their bodies are not suitable for performance. When it disappears, it also represents death, so in many games (including the Heroes Series and the World of Warcraft series, etc.), pure "air elemental creatures" do not leave a complete wreckage after death, some do not leave any traces at all (the death animation effect is "the dissipation of air"), and some only leave their own "core" as its wreckage (after all, in many games, the wreckage has important significance, such as for the player to pick up loot, or to locate the location of the creature's death). However, time has passed, and the rough "lines" of that year have long been replaced by the more realistic particle effects of the contemporary era.
Second, about the color of "air-related elements". Generally speaking, "Air" in the game even if the "visual design" will be used close to the clouds white or gray, whether it is "Air Elemental Creatures" or "Air Elemental Skills", or other "Air-related elements", such as the "Wind Wall" of the "Wind Sword" in "League of Legends", which is composed of countless white lines; the "Wind Element Lord Orakil" in World of Warcraft: The Fission of the Earth is a huge "Air Elemental Creature". His overall tone is a gray color that is biased towards "dark clouds", and it can even be said that the appearance of "Orakil" directly adopts some of the appearance characteristics of "dark clouds";
"Wind Lord Orakil", it is not difficult to see that he has the appearance of "dark clouds"
The original painting of the card "Sky City" in "Poetry of Shadows" is a floating city standing in the clouds, using the direct use of "white clouds" as an ornament for the "air element" of the scene.
The "Sky City" in "Shadow Poetry" uses white clouds to represent the visual effect of the "air" element
However, the production team can use visual language to tell players what other "additional attributes" are in the corresponding skill, creature or trap by matching these "air-related elements" with different colors, for example, purple or green air represents "poison gas" in the game; blue air represents "ice wind" in the game, etc., for example, in the shooter "Overwatch", the ultimate skill of meteorologist "Xiaomei" is to use a drone to spray a large amount of cold wind in the development area to freeze the enemy. The color of the cold wind is the blue color that represents "frost" in most games, and the same frozen target is also represented by this color.
The ultimate skill of "Little Beauty" in Overwatch, the drone spews out a blue air stream representing the effect of frost
Air can only be used as a carrier for these additional attributes, such as the gas injected by Zhou Meiling using the drone in Overwatch is only the carrier of the "Frost" attribute, and the poison gas of the "Alchemist" in League of Legends is only the carrier of the "toxin", which does not highlight too many characteristics of the "air" itself, but can also have the characteristics of both the "additional attribute" and the "air itself", such as the boss "Allerese Revlar" in the "Emerald Nightmare" copy of "World of Warcraft: Legion Returns" In the battle with him, the player needs to dodge the purple "Twisted Wind" skill that will appear on the scene, if the player is hit by this skill, not only will the player receive continuous shadow damage, but also be hit by the whirlwind for a period of time, which is a skill that is reflected in the typical "additional attributes and air itself characteristics" (both the "wind" strike and the "shadow" sustained damage features).
The "Twisted Wind" released by "Allerese Refraul" has the characteristics of both "wind" and "shadow"
Third, use imagery closely related to "air" to refer to "air-related elements." Sometimes the design does not necessarily use the image of "air" itself to represent the relevant elements, there are many images that are not "air" itself, but the public can easily associate them with "air", most of these images are used on various icons with "air-related elements", especially the icons of equipment and skills, and as mentioned earlier, these equipment and icons are also basically related to "improving mobility", such as in the role-playing game "Might and Magic 6: Orders of Heaven", "Flying Magic" The effect is to allow the player to gain the ability to "fly" for a period of time, can ignore most of the terrain and obstacles to move, the icon of this skill is a pair of boots with wings, the meaning is "so that the original unit can only walk can fly"; also in this game, the "falling feather" icon also uses the same design idea, the effect of the skill is to slow down the player character from falling from a high altitude to avoid the character falling to death, the icon of the skill is a few feathers slowly falling, the meaning is "using the power of the air, Make the character as light as a feather", whether it is "flying magic" or "falling feather magic", in the worldview architecture of "Magic Gate", it belongs to "air magic", and there is no "air element" such as "air flow" or "wind" directly in the icons of the two.
Skill icons for "Feather Fall" (left) and "Flying Magic" (right) in Might and Magic 6: Orders of Heaven
Most of the time, "feathers" and "wings" can mean "flying", "light" (slow fall), "speeding up" and other effects related to "maneuverability" in the game, which happens to be the things that air spells are good at.
Fourth, the visual representation of the amplitude of "air" power in the game. The power amplitude of "ice", "earth" and even "toxin" can be easily visually expressed, for example, the same spell that fires "ice arrows", the larger the volume of the ice arrows, the stronger the ice power contained in them; similarly, the larger the volume of the stones that appear in the "falling stone" skill, the stronger the earth power contained in it, and the "earthquake" type of skill can show the strength of the power through the scope of the "earthquake" and the degree of damage to the ground, such as the bear warrior in "DOTA 2". The difference in skill animation between "Shake the Earth" and "Earthquake" of The Sand King, even those who have not been exposed to this game at all can easily see that the intensity of "Earthquake" is much higher than that of "Shake the Earth".
The Bear Warrior's "Shaking the Earth" in DOTA2 has a smaller scope
The "earthquake" of shawang in "DOTA2" has a large range of effects
But for the power of "air" for visual performance is not so easy, after all, "air" is more special, not only invisible itself, even in the game to make it "visible to the naked eye" already need to spend a lot of effort, so in the performance of the strength of "air" strength is there any better design method? The answer is "contrast and contrast". If it is inconvenient to directly reflect the strength of the air-related elements, then it is much more convenient to use its consequences and effects, such as the storm that can overturn the house, its strength strength is definitely stronger than the wind that can only blow the garbage can, and the effect that the air can produce on objects of different heavyweights represents the strength of the air, for example, in Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, the blowing wind of the raptor Druid can only blow up a separate ground unit, but the ultimate skill of the Naga Sea Witch "Tornado" Not only does it have a larger range to blow up more ground units, but it can also deal sustained damage to enemy buildings, so it's clear that the tornado has a strength level far above that of the Raptor Druid's Blowing Wind.
Also in "Game King", from the original painting we can feel that the power of the "Earth Binding Whirlwind" is far less powerful than the "Great Storm", the former blows up the objects are only sand and stone, while the latter can blow up people, cattle and boulders, from the effect of the cards, of course, the "Great Storm" is better, because the "Great Storm" can indiscriminately destroy all the magic and trap cards on the scene, but the "Earth Binding Whirlwind" must be launched when there is a "Ground Binding God" monster on its own scene. The effect is only to destroy the magic and trap cards on the opponent's scene.
The original paintings of "The Great Storm" (left) and "Whirlwind" (right) in King of Games
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, the types and characteristics of "air" skills in the game</h1>
"Air", as one of the "basic elements", is also the power that many skills in the game need to use, just as the basic elements such as "disease", "ice" and "earth" have their own characteristics ("disease" skills usually cause sustained damage and will affect the target with debuff effects; "ice" skills usually have a deceleration effect; "earth" skills often cause direct damage, and many can cause "stun" such hard control effects), air skills are also unique, At the same time, the air class skills are also more "versatile", and can achieve a variety of effects in the game. There are 5 types of "air" skills that are more common in the game.
First, damage-type skills. In the game, air-type skills can assume the responsibility of damage output, most of the time in the form of various "wind", such as the "wind curse" in the previously mentioned "Legend of the Paladin Sword", and the skill "Wind Seeing the Sun" in Regulus Sword: The Other Side of the Cloud and the Mountain" is all based on the wind as a means of attacking enemies. In addition to "Wind", "Air Blade" is also a common air damage skill, which is also the skill of Karma in "Regulus Sword: The Other Side of The Cloud and the Mountain", "White Tiger StarFall" is to use the power of the White Tiger to lower a huge air blade through the target, and the ultimate skill of the "Banishment Blade" in League of Legends can also fire a huge air blade to deal damage to enemies in the front fan-shaped range, and also has the effect of killing.
The air blade released by the ultimate "Banishment Blade" skill in League of Legends
Damage-type air skills are also shown in some games can cause "multi-segment damage", such as the "KOF" series of "Tojo" super kill and "Street Fighter 5" "Rashid" super kill main element is "whirlwind", although they belong to different fighting games, but the two super kills are the type of multi-segment damage, and "Overlord Xiang Roar Fist" this "single shot high damage" super kill is completely different.
Tojo's Super Kill Tornado can deal multiple damage
In addition to "multi-stage damage", the second feature of the air-type damage skill has been briefly mentioned before, that is, it can be easily integrated into the effects of other elements, such as the "Ice Wind" skill with a frozen effect and the "Shadow Hurricane" with shadow damage, etc. In this case, the attributes of "Air" will be weakened, and the effect of additional elements will be amplified, such as the boss "Erudaks" in the "World of Warcraft: Fission of the Earth" copy "Grimbaatar", its skill "Shadow Hurricane" The damage dealt is pure shadow damage, and only the "Eye of the Wind" setting and the animation effect of the skill are related to "Air". Of course, there are also examples of both "additional attributes" and "air characteristics", such as the previously mentioned "Allerese Refraul" that can release a whirlwind with "flying" and "sustained damage" effects.
Erudax's skill "Shadow Hurricane", the setting of "Eye of the Wind" retains the characteristics of "Wind"
Finally, some of the symptoms and effects are basically impossible to cause by pure air skills, which also needs to be paid attention to when designing (if you need to produce such effects, you need to add "additional elements"), such as bleeding, curses, and diseases, which cannot be caused by pure "air skills", or it can be said that pure "air skills" are difficult to cause continuous damage to "symptoms", which are basically direct damage (unless "the storm is continuous, the target will continue to be damaged during the duration"). Such a setting).
In terms of lethality, air-type skills may be inferior to those with attributes such as fire and shadow throughout the game, but air-type skills usually produce some other effects while dealing damage.
Second, therapeutic skills. Air skills with healing effects are usually presented in the form of "wind", but specifically, unlike the damage skills that use more "storms", "hurricanes", etc., "breeze", "light wind", which can bring people comfort in reality, are more suitable for healing air skills, such as "World of Warcraft: Fission of the Earth" team copy "Wind God Throne" in the first boss "Wind Council" "Anshar" will cast the healing skill "Tranquility Breeze", This skill can produce continuous healing for Anshar and will also silence players who enter the range of this skill.
However, if you simply compare healing abilities, then the air skill is not the top, the power of "holy light", "nature", "water flow" and "soul" tends to produce better healing effects, but the air skill will also have a lot of additional effects while healing the target, such as "Anshar"'s "Tranquility Breeze" can silence the enemy target within the skill range while healing.
The green circle in the picture is the "Calming Breeze" skill, in which the boss will continue to bleed back and the player will be silenced
Third, control skills. In addition to the very common soft control effect "slowing down", the air type skills also have very special "hard control" abilities, which are very powerful in some games and will cause the enemy a lot of headaches. One of the most common effects are "flying" and "knocking back", which is simply to make the target "passive displacement", and "flying" will have different performances in different games, for example, in Warcraft 3 and DOTA2, the raptor Druid's blowing and the prop "Eul's Divine Staff" effect are blown up in place, but during this period the target will not take any damage, but in the "League of Legends" blown by the "Wind Sword Hero" enemy target will still be damaged, However, the same point is that units affected by the "Flying" effect of the air skill will not be able to move and be controlled by the player, so this control belongs to the scope of "hard control".
In Warcraft 3, the Raptor Druid uses the wind to blow the Beast's Sword Saint up, but the Sword Saint will not be harmed at this time
The "Knockback" effect is basically the same in each game, the air force will push the target along the direction of the flow of air, thus creating a passive displacement effect, the ultimate skill of the hero "Gana" in "League of Legends" and the "DeSalon" in the previously mentioned "World of Warcraft: Legion Revisited" Black Heart Woodland quest have the ability to cause this effect. Moreover, even in card games, the "knockback" effect of air skills can be reflected, for example, in "Game King", the effect of the "hurricane" card is to return the trap cards and magic cards present on the field to the holder's hand.
The Hurricane card in King of Games allows traps and magic cards on the scene to be returned to the holder's hand
When designing air skills for control, it is important to note that they cannot cause fear, seduction, mockery, hypnosis, etc. related to the "mind", nor can they cause the effect of "disarming", and the effect of "fixation" and "entanglement" is also very rare.
However, in some games, the "downwind" and "headwind" settings can be used to make the battle interesting, the player can adjust their position to put themselves in the downwind position or the headwind position, in order to get additional acceleration effects and other kinds of buffs, such as the World of Warcraft: The Fission of the Earth copy "Top of the Whirlwind" and "Altairus" in the battle, the player needs to always pay attention to whether they are in the headwind position or the downwind position, in the downwind position can increase their movement speed, Spell casting speed and attack speed, if you are in a headwind position, the speed will be greatly reduced, which can be said to be a more innovative design of a battle.
In the battle between "Top of the Clouds" and Altairus, the player needs to adjust his position to keep himself as "downwind" as possible.
Fourth, buff-type skills. In addition to directly healing the target, air-type skills can also apply a boosting effect to the target. Of course, most of these buffs are related to "speed", and are related to the "downwind effect" mentioned earlier, for example, the "wind walker" skill "wind walker" in "DOTA2" is to use the power of air to increase their movement speed, while reducing the movement speed of the surrounding enemies, which can be seen as an effective use of "downwind"; the "wind rage" skill of the shaman priest in the "World of Warcraft" series is to use the power of the air element to greatly increase their attack speed.
The Windwalker's "Wind Walk" skill in DOTA2 increases his movement speed and reduces the movement speed of nearby enemies
Air skills can also give a target a buff effect that affects the way they move, as mentioned earlier in Might and Magic: Order of Heaven, where the air-based magic "Flying Magic" and "Falling Feather Magic" fall are both such buffs. Of course, the types of buff effects are not limited to this, for example, in League of Legends, Gana's "Eye of the Storm" can increase the attack power of the target when it lasts, but it is relatively small, and the more mainstream design method still needs to associate air skills with "speed".
Fifth, protective skills. Air skills can also have a protective effect, you can imagine the air flow protecting the target will attack the various flying weapons all the picture, this is the general principle of air protection, in addition to the "League of Legends" Gana's "Eye of the Storm" can apply a layer of absorption shield to the target, the "Atmospheric Aegis" in "Heroes 3" may be a more reasonable design - "Atmospheric Aegis" will only reduce the long-range damage suffered by the protected target, there is no protection for melee damage, and " The Druid's Hurricane Armor in Diablo 2 only reduces the elemental damage taken by the Druid himself, and is completely ineffective against physical damage.
The "Atmospheric Aegis" in Heroes 3 that can only have an effect on ranged attacks
Therefore, the air skill is also relatively limited in terms of protection ability, at least it is difficult to surpass the two types of protection skills of "earth" and "arcane", after all, the power of "earth" and "arcane" can be transformed into "armor" as the goal to directly absorb and block all types of damage, such a setting is more reasonable.
Finally, a brief collation of the types of "air skill" users, there are mainly the following categories:
Characters who can move at high speeds. They can use extremely fast movement speed to generate air flow to attack or control, such characters are basically unable to use the power of air to heal others, represented by the "Cai Baojian" in the "KOF" series, his high-speed rotation in place caused by the whirlwind can cause multiple damage to enemies, and the "Flash" in DC Comics can also cause winds through high-speed movement;
The Flash can cause high winds by moving at high speed
Masters of the forces of nature. Whether it's the druids in the Warcraft series or the druids in the Diablo series, they are masters of the forces of nature and can also use air-like skills. After all, "air" is a fundamental element of nature.
The Druid in Diablo 2, whose power comes from nature
Traditional magician. Although they do not talk directly to nature, they can use arcane energy (or other magical energy) to control the air around them for the purpose of using the power of air, typically the character "Prayer" in DOTA2, who is a typical magician in the background story, and through a reasonable combination of elements, the prayer can cast spells such as "Strike Hurricane", knocking enemies within a range and causing fall damage when they land.
The mage "Prayer" in DOTA2 can also use the power of air
Special creatures that can use air power. Air elemental creatures, powerful birds of prey, and tengu creatures can all be designed as characters born with the power of air, such as the qi element in the "Heroes Invincible" series can fly with the power of air, while immunity to qi magic; the spirit of the pokémon can learn air-related skills such as "flying"; the Raven Tengu "Shooting Life Pill Text" in the "Oriental Project" is itself capable of controlling the wind, flying against the wind, summoning tornadoes or stopping the wind instantly. It's all things she can do so easily.
The "SpiritEdam" in Pokémon is born to be the master of air power
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three, the design features of the "air element creature" in the game</h1>
Most of the magic background games will have the setting of "elemental creatures", especially the basic elements such as "air" and "earth" are more likely to produce pure elemental creatures, and in some games, "elemental creatures" are created by magic, and there are no elemental creatures born naturally, but no matter what their origin, some basic commonalities are owned by "elemental creatures", for "air elemental creatures", the common commonalities are the following 4.
First, "air elemental beings" are not "physical beings", so they will be immune to many kinds of skills. For example, the qi elemental creatures in the Heroes Invincible series are naturally immune to mental spells; in the earlier versions of World of Warcraft, some of the qi elemental creatures were also immune to the "split" and "bleed" effects, which is a manifestation of their "non-flesh and blood bodies". However, air elemental creatures are also affected by certain special spells (also because of their special body structure), such as the qi element in World of Warcraft will be affected by the warlock's "banishment" spell, and the air element in Heroes 3 will receive additional damage from lightning spells.
The Qi element in Heroes 3 is immune to mental magic, but is also subject to additional effects from lightning magic
Second, the "air elemental organism" usually has a spiral-shaped "base" in appearance, which can show the "convergence of air" and the flow of air elements, and is also a common technique for stereotyping invisible, invisible air as a living thing. Each generation of Heroes is invincible, the qi elements in World of Warcraft, and many other games have adopted this design approach.
In Heroes 7, the "Air Element" still uses the design of the "spiral base"
Third, the "Air Elemental Creatures" basically have the ability to fly in the game. As mentioned earlier, "Air Power" represents extreme maneuverability in the game, in addition to speed, but also the ability to fly "regardless of obstacles". As air elemental creatures, they are born to be the embodiment of air power, coupled with a "light and almost weightless" body, it is very reasonable to have a free flight setting, so even the long-range shooter class "Thunder Element" in "Heroes 3", his mode of action is also "flying", and has a speed of 8, which is one of the most mobile long-range troops.
Fourth, the "Air Elemental Creatures" are difficult to have the highest level of power in the background setting of the game. In other words, all "elemental creatures" are difficult to become the most powerful characters in the worldview setting, because the power types of "elemental creatures" are too single (or they have "one-to-one corresponding powers"), for example, the power of "fire elemental creatures" basically comes from fire, the power of "earth elemental creatures" basically comes from the earth, the power of "air elemental creatures" basically comes from air, and very few elemental creatures can master the power of "crossover", such as "earth elements using shadow energy" or " Fire elements using arcane energy" and so on, the result of a single power is too obvious weakness, when the weakness is caught they will be easily defeated, in Heroes 3, the weaknesses of earth, water, fire, and air elemental creatures are earth magic (the weakness of the earth element is the earth element itself), fire magic, water magic, and air magic (the weakness of the air element is the air element itself).
In addition, the strength of elemental creatures is also related to the scene in which they are located, for example, in the setting of "World of Warcraft", air elemental creatures like Orakil have the strongest power in the unique "air plane", and in the indoor and underground of the building, the air is not very sufficient, and their power will be limited.
In the World of Warcraft setting, air elemental creatures have the best fighting state in the air plane
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > four, a common scene in the game with the theme of "air-related elements"</h1>
In the game, the "basic elements" as the theme of the scene is actually not a few, especially the magic background of the game, such as "garden of life", "ice field", "fire source land", etc., "air" related elements can of course also be used as the theme of some scenes, the more common have the following 3 categories.
The first category, the nest of bird creatures. Whether in reality or in the setting of the game, most of the nests of bird creatures are built in places with a certain height, such as swallows will build their nests under the eaves, weaving birds will choose to build nests on branches, etc.; the "phoenix" in "The Legend of the Paladin Sword" also builds its nest on a big tree.
In The Legend of the Paladin Sword, the phoenix builds a bird's nest on a tree
Although the boss "Season Vulture" in the "Raiden Throne" of the "World of Warcraft: Mystery of Panda Man" replica "Thunder Throne" from its backstory, it temporarily built the bird's nest in the deep well below the Fortress of Thor, but the battle field with it still visually makes a certain performance of "height", such as the player needs to use the feathers dropped on the scene to fly to reach the nest of the hatched offspring of the season vulture, and the player will die due to the fall on the combat platform, which is a manifestation of the "height" of the site.
Although the nest of the season vulture is in the background in a deep well, it still feels like it is located on a "high platform"
Through such examples, we can see that in scenes such as "bird's nest", the production team most of the time uses the environmental characteristics of "high altitude" to express the "air-related elements", or that "high altitude" itself is one of many "air-related elements", in this kind of scene, players need to face the invisible threat of "air" - although they do not have to face too many obstacles, but in fact, the players can move in a very limited space, a little careless will fall into the abyss and then die. Whether it is the birds as the owner of the nest, or the air elemental creatures will not be threatened by this, the fundamental reason is that the player's character does not have the ability to control the air, can not fly or float in the air, but if this problem is solved, the problem of "falling to death" will no longer exist, and the entire area for the player to move will become more extensive and three-dimensional, and the player who temporarily gets the feather in the "Season Pelican" battle can have a short flight experience, and in the "Wind God Throne" and "Orakir" In battle (although this scene does not belong to the bird's nest), the player can also gain the ability to fly and float at the end of the game, and the battlefield at this stage will also change from the more conventional "flat battlefield" in World of Warcraft to a more three-dimensional battlefield that requires the player to move up and down, and this special battlefield terrain and the way the player moves are also one of the features of "air-related elements".
Battlefields against "Aorakil" require the player to make "three-dimensional" moves
The second category, cities in the clouds. As the name suggests, Cloud City is a city built in the air, and the common setting is "floating in the air", of course, there are also "cities built on tall foundations", which is similar in the classic comic "Dragon Ball". Such a setting will inevitably make the audience feel that the construction of "Cloud City" is very difficult, after all, the transportation of building materials and aerial construction are theoretically more difficult than building cities on land, so there are basically only two types of forces in the game to build Cloud City - either mastering high-end magic or technology, or belonging to unique creatures that naturally master the power of air, such as the "Academy City" in "Heroes Invincible 5" Their city is a typical "Cloud City", and the "Academy" force is also "technology" in its background setting. (mainly alchemy and mechanics) and magical knowledge of the dual specialization of the force, the "Academy" hero has a high "knowledge" parameter growth so the mana value is sufficient, "Titan" and "Golem" are forged by alchemy, "activated" by magic, such a setting shows that the "Academy" forces can combine powerful magical knowledge and cutting-edge technology.
"Academy City" in "Heroes Invincible 5" belongs to the typical "City in the Clouds"
The "Top of the Spiral Clouds" in the Cloud City in World of Warcraft was built by the "Air Elemental Creatures", and the Wind Elemental Lord Orakil and his lieutenants gathered a large number of troops here as an outpost to invade the world of Azeroth, where players can see the white marble columns, the cyclone as a "transportation hub" and the beautiful clouds with distinct "air elements" and other landscapes.
The beautiful "Top of the Spiral Clouds" in World of Warcraft
Compared with the "Bird's Nest" scene, the player's activity space in the "Cloud City" will be larger, and the player rarely needs to worry about falling into the sky and falling to his death in the "Top of the Cloud" copy, after all, the "Cloud City" is a city for intelligent creatures to live, if the design is too narrow to make it easy to fall down, it is contrary to the design logic. In addition, there should be special modes of transportation in the cloud city built high in the sky, such as the previously mentioned "Top of the Cloud" where the player needs to use a cyclone to reach another platform from one platform, even in the old game "Super Mario", the player needs to find a special vine to climb the cloud top to get hidden rewards, which is obviously borrowed from the fairy tale "Jack and the Magic Bean" in which Jack climbs up the tall bean stem to reach the bridge section of cloud city.
In Super Mario, players need to find special vines to climb to the top of the clouds
The "City in the Clouds" scene design should also ensure that the player has a broad field of vision, so that the player can not only see the scenery of the city, but also enjoy the view of the sky outside, which can also constantly hint at the particularity of the player's own scene (in the cloud city rather than an ordinary land city).
The third category, the mountains. "Mountain" is also a scene in the game that may feature "air-related elements", and like "Bird's Nest" and "Cloud City", "High Mountain" has a high altitude and some design similar to "Bird's Nest", such as the player may only have a very limited space to move on the mountain, but the specific details will be different - the player is basically still moving on a plane in the Bird Nest, or moving back and forth between multiple planes, but "Mountain" In the scene, players often need to climb up a path, sometimes the path is a winding and rugged spiral path, for example, in "World of Warcraft: Legion Returns", Storm Fjord has a high mountain that requires players to climb through a spiral path, on this trail there are a large number of air elemental creatures, and the storm dragon waiting for the player at the top of the mountain also belongs to the dragon of the "air" attribute, although the player stays on this mountain for a long time, but you can also feel the obvious "air element" in it. The characteristics of the theme.
The mountain roads of the Storm fjords are winding and rugged and filled with whirlwinds and air elemental creatures
However, if the theme of "air" is to be highlighted, the appearance of certain visual elements should be reduced accordingly, such as the woods representing the theme of "elements of life", the boulders and rock columns representing the theme of "elements of earth", and so on. The empty, narrow alpine trail, surrounded by high altitude and clouds (there is a risk of death), the enemies on the road are mainly birds and air elemental creatures, which is a typical "alpine scene" with "air" as the theme.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >5, the role of "air" related elements in the game on the plot</h1>
Although several "basic elements" are difficult to get a lot of ink in the game story (for example, air elemental creatures are basically not related to the position of the "protagonist"), they will still have an impact on the plot in their own unique way, of which "air" related elements will have the following 3 common ways to participate in the plot in the game.
First, "air-related elements" can be used as a means to advance the game's story. The main reason why "air" can advance the game's plot is because it has the ability to make the target "passive displacement", so the air can create a lot of "unexpected journeys", such as "the aircraft the player plays on is hit by a storm, the attack of the strong air current crashes in a certain place", or "the enemy character casts air magic to blow the protagonist's party to a certain place", etc., along with this "unexpected journey", the player will also come to a new map, contact with new forces and NPCs, This part of the story is basically based on "returning to the planned place" or "returning to the original world" as the main goal.
Second, "air-related elements" can be used as problems waiting to be overcome and solved by the player. In order to overcome these "air elemental" related problems, players may need to go to other areas of the game to find cracking items such as "keys" (such as finding artifacts that can unlock the air boundary), or learn a special skill for their character to move on. It is worth mentioning that in addition to the "puzzle" such as "cracking the air boundary", the air is used as a necessity (resource) that the player needs to manufacture, which is also a good "puzzle" in the survival game, such as the player needs to personally manufacture related equipment to solve the problem of "oxygen cycle" in the sandbox game "Lack of Oxygen".
Players need to solve the problem of the "oxygen cycle" in Hypoxia, where oxygen is set as a resource
Third, the "Air Elemental Creatures" are directly involved in the story as a race or even a separate faction in the game's worldview. At this time, the "air elemental creatures" will behave like other intelligent creatures in the background, such as the use of language, the various organizations within the race and faction, the emergence of a clear division of labor, and so on. However, the "air elemental creatures" are difficult to play the role of "protagonist", and most of the time it is only a party that is used by more powerful forces, or a force that is on an equal footing with the "basic elements" such as "fire" and "shadow" (the plot weight will be divided), and there will be no particularly prominent performance.
For example, in World of Warcraft: Fission of the Earth, the Wind Lord Orakir and his "Air Elements" are only the minions of the dragon Deathwing in the story, and do not reach the level of the "Ultimate Behind the Scenes"; in Heroes 3, the "Air Element" and its upgraded version of the "Thunder Element" are only the second class of the "Elemental City" (the highest level is the seventh level class).
The above is the introduction of the design method of the "air" related elements in the game in this issue, and we will see you in the next issue