This game is not in the magical space, not in the distant past.
Today, the indie game "Most", which released a teaser PV last year, opened demo testing on Steam.
Blue-collar life as the theme of "Most" is probably the most "grounded" game in recent years, after the first promotional film, because it caused everyone to think about the play scene: going to work during the day, playing "Most" after work, once called "the annual defense game" by netizens.
In the "Producer's Notes" of the public account of Youguang Games, the producer Weed told the story of another creator who confided to him the idea of "Most" solo game in not wonderful language, he "looked at the floor the whole time, afraid that he would see the tears swirling in my eyes", which told us that "Most" will be a serious and touching solo tour at the core.
They want to make a very realistic artistic expression, depicting the blue-collar life of the "majority" in this society, singing for the laborers.
This inexplicably poked some emotions in my heart, and after getting in touch with the publisher of "Most" Hot pulse games, I also got the game Demo in advance and entered this "virtual reality".
01
There is no unlocked life and step-by-step career
The entire "Most" Demo open experience process is only about two hours, is the first of the four story chapters "in debt", you can see that the entire game system has been basically completed, but due to the imperfect player guidance, but also because of the end of the unfinished, I experienced twice.
For the first time, I experienced a life without unlocking.
My father owed 10,000 yuan in loan shark debt due to gambling, "I" decided to leave my sister to take care of my mother, went out to the city by myself, started my part-time work life from 0, and opened the curtain with a "beautiful boy" from the aunt of the small hotel after getting off the bus.
The "I" who first entered the society entered the talent market with 51 yuan, no education and skills, and could only save money from the most hard-working construction site to move bricks, and the hard-earned wages of a hard day had to be strongly pumped by the intermediary.
Under the pressure of 10,000 yuan of debt, if the principal and interest are not repaid, the sister may be poisoned by the debt collector. So "I" began to move bricks at the construction site during the day, pick up waste products along the street at night, and even steal electric vehicle batteries.
"I", who has not unlocked new professional skills, has been staying at the construction site to move bricks for 10 days in Demo, although with the increase of working age, the salary has risen, but it has also led to the character's mood system has been on the verge of collapse, need to actively or passively seek entertainment and venting, and often due to a bad mentality, resulting in work can not be played in manual form, can not get the highest income.
Personal emotions are one of the core systems of "Most", in the early stages of the game, unless you don't go to work and don't pay the interest of usury at 100 yuan a day, or steal the battery too often and be caught by the police, the biggest threat to the failure of the game is that the "I" mentality slides into depression, anger or inferiority, which will lead to "I" making some uncontrollable behavior in the night after the end of the daily game flow.
For example, in the first experience, due to the inferiority caused by moving bricks all the time, "I" tossed and turned after sleeping and could not sleep, and finally went out to spend a valuable 190 yuan to buy a good cigarette to "fill the façade", if it is not enough to work the day before, the next day will face the desperate situation of not being able to eat and not paying.
The second process, I finally found a place to unlock new vocational skills, the same story background, the same experience time, although after moving bricks for two days to do security, after doing security and then handing out flyers in the career, did not move bricks to earn more, "I" mentality has always remained positive, and near the end of the demo experience, new job opportunities and ways to rise - the emergence of vocational skills training and exams, but also on and off the screen I am full of expectations for the next life (game content).
Another core system of "Most" is ability improvement, through work and career upgrades, unlocking more accessible abilities and more advanced classes.
These two systems constitute the core of the gameplay of "Most", on top of this, "Most" uses countless gameplay and details that are realistic to build a virtual world with a strong sense of substitution.
02
White depicts the virtual world of reality
In the B station video uploaded by Youguang Games, we can see that in addition to the first PV and a development log, there are also two actual recordings of producer weeds collecting style in the talent market and construction site, and many scenes in the game are based on reality.
This is reflected in the art scene of the game, whether it is the overall architectural style and street shops, or the roadside vendors selling sausage flour, pancake fruit, fritters, baked sweet potatoes, vans parked on the side of the road, dumped orange shared bicycles, etc., are no different from what we often see in our lives, and the songs of the wandering singers on the side of the road will also make me stop and listen.
In addition, park balloons, square dance aunts, chess game masters, etc., which appear as entertainment games, are also further alive in this virtual world with gray and dark tones.
The test questions of the talent market training are also real questions with real data.
The real shocking narrative is not the sensationalism that overflows between the lines, but the white painting, which nakedly shows the touching reality in front of everyone.
As can be seen from the demo of "Most", the portrayal of blue-collar life by the light game is almost without any emotional output, but simply constructs a detailed, vivid and gray world, giving the characters a background story and arranging a series of events. But they made "Most" as much as urban blue-collar real life, full of survival pressure, sweat and dirt.
Although this experience is only the tip of the iceberg of the complete game, I feel the oppression of the balance numbers overhead, and the feeling of rushing around the construction site, shopping malls and other places is extremely real, seeing that plastic bottles and cartons must be collected, and even once extended my hand to the electric car battery - a battery can be sold for almost a day's salary.
According to Weed, the salaries of occupations in the game are all borrowed from real-life data, and even "no need to change has been balanced", which makes me see that the whole nine hours of security work can only get more than a hundred yuan salary, and a battery can sell for about 90 yuan.
During the play of "Most", I was often tired of running back and forth between scrap stations, construction sites and hotels, and if I chose to do two shifts of brick moving in the morning and afternoon, and even had to eat or walk around the park in the evening, this was another reason why "my" emotions often faced a collapse during the first experience process, and even one night, I did not have time to return to the hotel to book a room, and had to sleep on the street.
It's all a stark reality, a busy life for a living or a burden on your shoulders, a crowded small hotel dormitory or a rental house, a roadside stall dealing with a meal...
In such a reality, a group such as the "Three Harmony Gods" has grown, and it is also the blue-collar workers who have experienced such a reality that have supported the foundation of urban construction and life.
I think of the stories told by my fathers when they came to the south to work hard, and I still remember that when my father came to Shenzhen to work as a courier around 10 years ago, I rode with him in a Wuling van, carrying large and small packages, shuttling between the most developed and the most crowded in the rising super-first-tier cities.
Ten years later, when I returned to Guangzhou, I hurriedly stayed in a small room of ten square meters in an urban village with a heinous population density, and shuttled through the alleys of the black hole cave every day to see the changes in the world, and I was lucky that my future still looked very promising. Although I quickly moved out of there, those small spaces still accommodate the lives of many people.
(Even in the brightest sunshine, it is often a dark alley))
03
At last
The solo tour of "Most" and the things it depicts provoked a lot of thoughts outside the game that it was difficult for me to clarify when I wrote this manuscript.
To sum up, from the perspective of gameplay, the theme of "Most" is novel, with an excellent career framework and countless real and detailed gameplay, which makes me want to continue my "my" part-time work career after the trial.
Although the beta version still has no novice guidance, inconvenient interaction, and lack of modeling for some scenarios (such as stealing batteries), this does not prevent Most from becoming a kernel-deep, playable game.
On the other hand, the life of the blue-collar characters it depicts in white is real enough, with the background and scene of the story, so that people can think for themselves after playing, what kind of status quo and future these "most" people who exist in our lives but have a certain distance are facing.