Some time ago, tapTap's fifth independent camp came to a successful end, in this 30-day limited-time game creation challenge with the theme of "capture", 136 teams with a total of 1404 participants developed 136 games. Four of the participating teams had impressive resumes, each with five members from Tsinghua University's Shenzhen International Graduate School of Interactive Media Design and Technology (IMDT).
TapTap 5th Independent Camp Theme
Some people say that this major is the game major of Tsinghua University, but in fact, IMDT aims to train future interactive media producers, and the four participating teams are the second batch of students of the major (hereinafter referred to as IMDTers).
Their entries also have another special status, that is, the final assignment of the first professional course "Fundamentals of Interactive Media (Game) Design". The reason was that in October, the teacher assigned a final homework "2 months to team up to complete the development of a game demo", and someone in the middle class group just shared the TapTap independent camp competition, so 20 people in the class signed up for the competition, hoping that activities such as the independent camp would supervise the team to complete the final homework as soon as possible, and second, there was half a month left after the end of the independent camp to continue to improve the game.
A final assignment
In IMDTers' view, participating in the independence camp is a practice and a test of the learning results of this semester.
The four postgraduate teams participating in this competition are called "Slow Half Beat", "Super College-level Fish Toucher", "No More Social Fear" and "Reporting Dish Names". Many students are making games for the first time, and they have been exposed to game design knowledge for less than half a year, but the works they have handed over are more or less eye-catching in some aspect (art or gameplay).
The "Slow Half Beat" entry is a puzzle game called Bulk Unicorn. This work begins with a warm family animation that tells the story of the brother's "dream" for his sick sister. The game uses a fresh and healing hand-drawn cartoon style, and the scene and puzzle design are also full of childlike fun. The biggest highlight is the design of the puzzle - hiding the puzzle in my sister's stick figure, the key to solving the puzzle is to reconstruct the "picture in the picture scene" in real life, and use the camera to capture several important elements of the "painting" to pass the level.
"Bulk Unicorn"
For example, the "unicorn" in the stick figure is a Wang Xingren with a cone on his head in real life, and the "smiling sun father" is a yellow hot air balloon rising high in real life... How to trigger events to unlock the elements in the "drawing" is the fun of this puzzle game.
Unfortunately, the development time of "Bulk Unicorn" is relatively hasty. The independent camp just happened to be stuck in the mid-term assessment node, "slow half beat" only squeezed out a week and a half to prepare the game, as of the end of the game only completed the novice level, the game's puzzle logic, gameplay instructions, compatibility with the system and other details still need to be improved. However, as long as the team is willing to continue to supplement its main context and subsequent levels, I am still more optimistic about this indie game.
The entry brought by "Super College-level Fish Toucher" is "Yan Song Xing". As can be seen from the demo video, this is a rhythm music game, mainly through the scroll bar below the screen and the beat of the background music to control the rhythm of keystrokes, when the white aperture of the scroll bar reaches the black circle in the middle, click to resist or launch a kill.
"Yan Song Xing"
Visually and audibly, "Yan Ge Xing" has begun to take shape in the form of a mature music tour. First of all, the art style is very creative, applying the traditional shadow puppet art to the character design, and the swallow's tail swings when the swallow attacks, which looks vivid at first glance; secondly, the Chinese music similar to the broken array song plays a sense of momentum sweeping through thousands of armies on the battlefield. The downside is that the current demo version shows a slightly single gameplay.
The gameplay design of the other two teams is relatively simple. The "No More Social Fear" entry is a puzzle game called Camera Heaven. Players get new props by shooting boxes, finish points, etc. in the scene, and then pasting photos into the scene, which can change the structure of the scene and help the "camera" to the end. The work of "reporting the name of the dish" is called "Non-Linear", which is also a puzzle game. The player operates a two-dimensional villain to explore the three-dimensional world, comprehend the structural information in space through the mechanism, and seize the opportunity to cross the levels.
It is understood that their works are mainly used in a classic book "Game Design Art", which involves the production of prototypes, the design of core points and the design of player experience. Regarding the evaluation of the results of this practice, Cao, the planner of "Slow Half Beat", believes that they are not yet skilled, and the application of all aspects is very green. Samtsirhc, a member of the "Super College Fish Toucher", also agreed that it may be a bit clumsy in practice, and it will be necessary to slowly understand and appreciate the knowledge learned later.
Interestingly, when asked if the Independent Camp had any works that IMDTers admired, their eyes were on "All Hands In One" (the producer of the game is Yang Zeyu, not IMDTers): "This game looks too weird, impressive, and the degree of completion is also very high, looking forward to its official version." ”
《One by one》
One Hand is the 2021 Indie Camp "Best Game" and "Best Creative Game". As a live-action collage-style thriller card game, the biggest highlight is the game screen, all of which are local materials and live-action shooting. Producer Yang Zeyu uses dynamic hands to simulate human eyes, nose, mouth and heart, and people become the existence of "all hands in one", so the grotesque art style captures people's curiosity at first glance, and players ridicule it as "spiritual pollution" and "easy to drop san".
The game sets up several types of cards such as potions, armor, weapons, threats and memories, each card corresponds to different functions and problems, and the player obtains various skills by playing cards, solves hidden threats, and leads to the protagonist's memories and inner world. Within 30 days, a game with fairly complete gameplay, process, graphics, and plot was produced, and it was well deserved to win the "best game".
The reason why this independent camp gave birth to such a highly completed work as "All Hands In One" is that it is no longer stuck to the traditional "Game Jam" (extreme development activity), but extends the creation time to 30 days (the first-third session is 48 hours offline, the fourth session is 7 days online), and also allows participants to form their own teams and the number of teams is not limited.
The result is naturally that there are more participants, more excellent works, and higher project completion.
Which kind of production time is more likely to be made for IMDTers? Samtsirhc said: "7 days is better, 30 days is easy to touch fish, 48 hours easy to lose hair. Cao insisted: "30 days is more appropriate, the preparation is more sufficient, and the completed project is more ornamental... The change in rules means that the focus of the competition has shifted from fast creative and team execution to team collaboration and game completion. ”
When it comes to teamwork, IMDTers have an advantage. First of all, everyone is a classmate, and the 1410 workshop in the school information building is their base camp, gathering here every two or three days to discuss the progress of the game and the design of the level. Secondly, the members are very focused on communication, for example, in the "slow half beat", Cao will actively summarize the ideas of 5 people, and then design a more reasonable solution that all parties are satisfied with to promote the project, so every brainstorming "basically no dispute". He also said that maybe everyone is more focused on the idea of participation, and the competition between teams is also full of Peace & Love, and the "super university-level fish toucher" even helps other teams with project management.
Learn interactive media at Tsinghua
Many people are curious about what Tsinghua University's "Interactive Media Design and Technology Major" is studying.
In the United States, a mature game design professional education system includes art design courses (2D, 3D, levels, character design, game framework worldview, etc.) and technical courses (computer programming, dynamic capture, game engines, artificial intelligence and other fields) two categories.
In China, the world's largest game market, it has not yet formed a complete game industry ecological chain, especially the lack of a perfect game design education system.
Therefore, how to cultivate a group of game industry talents who truly conform to the law of market development, IMDT has also been groping.
The picture shows students experiencing the application of artificial intelligence and games
Cao told Game Xinzhi that they mainly learn a variety of game-related theoretical knowledge and landing knowledge every day, the teaching force includes Tencent's internal front-line professionals, and students can also apply to intern in the studios or project groups of domestic manufacturers; in addition, the college will also jointly hold a summer online workshop with the University of Southern California to invite overseas well-known game producers to teach (Cao's most admired game producer Chen Xinghan graduated from the University of Southern California with a master's degree in interactive media and games).
Pictured here are the special guests of the IMDT-USC 2020 Summer Workshop: a number of well-known game producers
At present, IMDT offers one class per class, with about 30 students per class (more than 500 applicants). Graduate students come from all over the world, and their undergraduate backgrounds are complex and diverse, such as the 5 members of "Slow Half Beat" who major in atmospheric science, physics and industrial design.
This class is a school bully, and everyone's resume is properly "someone else's child" visual sense. There are bachelor's degrees in the Communication University of China and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, there are part-time lecturers at the Ocean University of China, some works have been exhibited at the Chengdu Exhibition of Machine Core, and some have won a number of independent game competition awards, and so on.
So why do students apply for IMDT? "Because I really love games and I love games." ——This is Cao's answer.
"Because of love, there is nothing to fear." With only two months left before the graduate school, Cao resolutely decided to apply for IMDT, and originally became a scientist according to his parents' wishes. Most imdters parents are supportive of their children's choices.
The introduction of IMDT on the school's official website has a sentence called "Telling Chinese culture and Chinese stories in the language of the world", which hit the hearts of many students. When asked about the game they most want to make, Cao was deeply touched by this, he said that he had the opportunity to make a game about the history of the mainland, "using the language of the world to tell Chinese stories, using games to make history go out." ”
Cao also told the game Xinzhi that recently several students have tried to make games based on Chinese culture. For example, the art music of "Yan Ge Xing" is Chinese style, and "Slow Half Beat" also had the idea of promoting traditional culture when preparing the game at the beginning, but later gave up, and Cao said that he might improve this idea next year.
Studying at IMDT is a process of "chasing dreams and finding like-minded people who are truly on this path". However, IMDTers in the ivory tower are not out of touch with reality in action.
Go to a big factory or start a business after graduation? Do you make indie games or mainstream games? Cao and Samtsirhc invariably chose to "go to a big factory to work first and then come out to start a business".
Producers of large factories often share the commercial operation of games with IMDTers, which makes Cao deeply realize that the biggest test of making independent games is the business model: "In the final analysis, independent games are the production has a complete right to speak, I need to express myself, and then I will face a commercialization problem." That's why I didn't dare try it in the first place, so I wanted to go to work first, understand how commercialization works, or be able to build bridges with certain companies and then do what I want to do. ”
Obviously, for IMDTers, this final assignment, which was born in the Independence Battalion, was the beginning of a vast journey.