Build a "fun" story on the gameplay.
Dozens of characters of birth, gender, experience, age, a spaceship of infinite reincarnation, and several alien invaders with unknown identities and purposes, most of the time, these elements are combined to mostly mean a plasma-spattered R-rated thriller, but if you add a "manager" to these elements, the story will become a different picture.
The makers of Gounorhia called the "manager" of their game "gods", and it was because of the presence of 147 gods that the game, known as the "PSVita End Rare Masterpiece", has become what it is today.
"Gounoshya" is a Japanese independent game development group "Petit Depotto", launched in 2019 "SF Man Wolf Simulation RPG", and following the 2020 game was adapted to the NS, this game landed on the Steam platform at the beginning of this year, although the original game content has not been much changed, but in the text language, added a complete Chinese Simplified.
As the game genre indicates, the theme of this game is "SF" plus "man-wolf game simulation", and the main purpose of the player in the game is to participate in one "man-wolf game" after another, helping themselves and teammates in the same camp survive in one debate and crisis after another.
The fourteen NPCs in the game are full of personalities, making it hard to hate them
When first entering the game, the game will hardly provide any superfluous information, and the only thing the player can know is that he is trapped in a spaceship, and among the human companions around him, there are two dangerous people named "Gunoxia".
In order to find the end where all the members survive, the survivors of the ship, starting a game of "mutual suspicion", are identified by most people as members of Gunoxia, will be forced into a dormant state, and if the real Gunoxia is not quickly deduced, then all survivors have the danger of being directly erased during the "night" dormancy, eliminating all threats, or the number of Gunoxia is half of the survivors, and the game ends directly.
It can be seen that although the skin of science fiction has been replaced, the underlying gameplay of "Gunoxia" is still not much different from the "man-wolf game" we are familiar with. As the background of the story and the tutorial unfold a little bit, the player will gradually see the full picture of the game, including a total of seven special classes in addition to the passenger (villager), and their different special abilities.
Of course, these classes themselves are not special, they are basically the "man wolf game", those familiar with the profession of the special treatment of the independent version, if there is something, is different from other similar products on the market, that is, the entire game is "full stand-alone", and no matter how the player chooses, the game will not "end" these two points.
Of the eight identities that can be played in this game, many of the identities are adjusted for "single-player games"
A spaceship caught in an "infinite loop" is the true core of Gunoxia as a "game". For some reason, the player will always reincarnate into the next game after each game, with the memory of the last "man-wolf game", and each time the reincarnation is experienced, the player must face a completely different situation, whether it is the identity of all people, or the number of characters present, there will be unexpected changes, it is likely that the last reincarnation is still with the player's allies who are on the united front, this time it becomes the cruel Gounoshya.
To a certain extent, this design simulates the characteristics of the real-life man-wolf game, "you can't trust anyone around you until you get accurate identity information", and after avoiding any information that may cause logical confusion from the script level, it disguises itself as a self-consistent "random situation generator" -
Until "Seth", the character who, like the player, appears with a reincarnation memory.
In a sense, Seth is the player's only "partner" in the game.
Remember when I asked at the beginning about the theory of "gods" in the game? That's not really what I'm talking about, at least the makers of this game said in an interview with IGN Japan.
Although the interview about the structure and mechanics of the Game of Gounoshia was one of the most abstract conversations I have ever seen, after actually playing the game, I can understand to a certain extent what the creators want to express, that is, everything in the game is co-existent, seemingly random game mechanics, in order to rationally induce player behavior. Even if it seems to be the same game experience in different reincarnations, the real main story has never stopped.
In the game, as long as the player has put together certain conditions preset by the maker (the number of game participants, player identity, etc.), it will trigger independent events outside the reincarnation, which will unlock the information of the members of the ship and become a clue to solve the mystery of reincarnation.
Some of these characters' identities also help with the player's reasoning
In order to smoothly induce the player to trigger the event, the game before the start of each round, for the player to prepare a function called "event searcher", as long as the event searcher preset situation to start the game, the player can be the fastest speed, unlock the higher priority of the event, although very little prompt information, and some harsh trigger conditions, or occasionally will make the player confused, but in the huge event base, and with the help of the number of events accumulated with the number of events trigger rate, the process of exploring the truth, It's not as "random" as it sounds.
There are also many events that must be experienced under the identity of "Gounorhea"
After ensuring that the player will follow the game's guidance, the infinite reincarnation of the "man-wolf game" in Gounoshya is given a deeper meaning, it must be able to support the entire story framework and not make the player feel bored.
It should be admitted that although the basic rules of the "man-wolf game" are used, "Gunoxia" cannot provide a completely original "man-wolf game" experience, first, because it sometimes needs to serve the narrative, and the strategies that many wolf players are familiar with are not universal here; second, because the game itself only has a single-player story mode, and although NPCs can make actions such as "identification", "doubt" and "disguise", they cannot give "why", such a deep logical information, and more importantly, Even if the player has reasonable logic, it cannot be communicated directly to the NPC.
Most of the time, information about NPC identities is obtained from such mutual tug-of-war
All NPC actions are driven by a complete set of values, but these values are highly susceptible to external thrust (such as the statements of other NPCs, their respective identities, and special plot events), and the meaning of the "RPG" system is here, in order to quickly obtain information and make the situation develop in a strong direction for themselves, all the player has to do is to control the direction of these values.
After each reincarnation, the system sends the player experience points as a reward, which players can assign to their abilities, such as "leadership" that can easily bring rhythm, "concealment" that makes it difficult for them to become a gunoxia target, or "intuition" that is easy to obtain additional information when the other party lies.
As the number of players reincarnates more and more, these abilities will gradually become stronger, and the actions that players can do will naturally become richer, and with the help of this system, even players who are not good at human wolf games can experience the fun from the initial "going with the flow" to the final "taking charge of the overall situation".
Interestingly, the other NPCs in this game also have six properties that are independently calculated
Despite the addition of the rules of the man-wolf game, "Gunoxia" did not make the gameplay more complicated, on the contrary, the above system was very successful in combining the "growth" fun in the RPG with the "information channeling" in the human wolf game, and also avoided the real human wolf, which may be due to the player's personality, environment, social ability, interpersonal relationships and negative experience, even in the eyes of the original "human wolf player", this evasion process itself is somewhat "evil".
Of course, the "single-player game" in the "game" between the "game" and "narrative" at the same time, but also have to give up some things, those who are helpless to eliminate the human wolf strategy needless to say, in the process of reincarnation, the reused line text, see more is indeed a headache, its "independent game" identity, but also from the beginning to determine that it has no character voice, gorgeous plot performance, full of personality of the watercolor style art, may not be so suitable for the current trend, but these have not become him, An obstacle to being selected as a PSV final masterpiece.
The existing gameplay, combined with the most routine settings, did not come up with any answers that we had seen before. Gounoshya is as self-consistent as possible in terms of story, worldview, characters, and gameplay, but it's not a game of "pretending to be deep" or about despair.
Gounorxia may not be suitable for hardcore players who pursue strong logical reasoning, but after leaving the game environment called "reality" and the rough story framework that is difficult to justify, it has achieved what all indie game makers want to achieve:
"Interesting and special"