Just these two days, taking advantage of the warm-up of Valentine's Day, a movie called "I just want to be single!! 》（I Just Want to be Single!! The word game was listed on Steam.
According to the description, it is a "reverse lily simulator": Aya, the heroine of the society, transfers to a girls' high school, which she thought was the beginning of another bland and lonely life; but somehow, Aya is very popular among the girls at the new school, and several classmates show unusual interest in her, and Aya has to prevent her from getting too good to enter the love plot without losing friends.
As the slogan says, "If you don't want to date, you can only snuff out the little flame of love and turn them all into friendship!" ”
Since demos are only in English (and most likely the official version as well), the game is not too much discussed among domestic players; I took a little time to play through this not-so-long demo and found that there are many things worth talking about - "Single" is essentially a traditional Galgame, but there are no small innovations in the idea and form of expression.
Judging from the content currently unlocked, Single has created at least 5 Raiders - Oh No, Resistant Raiders characters. In Demo, the production team made initial contact with these characters in the form of "Kaede taking Aya as a transfer student to visit campus". They have distinct characteristics, exaggerated personalities, and are very retro in terms of human settings, or in other words, play with terriers. Among them are red-haired sports idiots, sick and petite rich families, artistic girls with a thin sense of existence and middle-aged short people, and the sense of vision cannot be described as strong.
The game uses the classic method of assigning color to distinguish the characters, and in line with its general art style of dynamic comics (many plots are indeed dynamic comics), it initially creates a relaxed and nonsensical campus atmosphere.
Although the characters and scenes of "Single" are very old-fashioned, some of its manifestations are completely new. Probably in order to show the social fear attributes of the protagonist Aya, the player needs to actually "type" in the dialog box to select the dialogue option most of the time (the prompt of the option itself will appear in the upper left of the dialog box), and even after typing, they have to press and hold the enter key to control the volume of the sentence - although this is not very friendly for non-native players, it does make the player feel the protagonist's entanglement and the weight of the options.
In addition, the option of Katsumi in demo has a time limit - imagining this beautiful girl with a knife and a blood (chicken blood) staring at you typing out English is a cardiac arrest experience.
Like the average Galgame, each character has their own favorability bar. A few of the options in demo aren't enough to make favorability full or zero, but I guess the main purpose of the game is to keep favorability between two extremes, neither falling in love nor breaking the line.
At some point, you need to face the character's problem without prompting. This may require some early memory — for example, Nozomin, a sophomore girl, will ask you in a long conversation about one of the many strange titles she threw in her opening remarks, and you may have to type those words without options. Of course I think this part of the operation may be of an additional bonus nature, and completing this type of challenge correctly will give a "star" that does not see its effect in Demo.
What amused me the most was the protagonist's encounter in the art classroom. Since Kaede somehow fails to see Shizuka, the player needs to help Aya draw the girl she sees on the canvas – a real "painting". My board is not at hand, and I can only draw an indescribable object with the trembling of the mouse; in the game's official Discord, many players upload their own paintings in this scene, which can be said to be interactive.
Near the end of the demo, a chase takes place: the popular Aya is chased around by girls who want to be her girlfriend and hides behind the fountain. Here, she and a teacher have a conversation about the nature of the game: "Why do you just want to be single?" ”
The game ponders the question with three options and then answers Aya in the words of a teacher — probably the only slightly more serious part of the Single demo. When the class bell rings, Aya returns to the classroom, awaiting her with a new life of girls who can be friends and colors; and Demo's last option is the title of the game: "I Just Want to be Single!!"
In my opinion, "Single" is not only a fun, innovative sketch game, but also a targeted "live game".
Practice has proved that the category of word games – or visual novels – has a good live broadcast effect at home and abroad. From The Invisible Guardian to Detroit: The Changing Man, the convergence of games and live streaming continues despite the debate over copyright (including "whether live visual novels affect game sales"). Judging from the results, live streamers (especially VTBs) are always looking for the latest and most memetic word games, and many games in this category have begun to pave the way for live broadcast effects at the beginning of production.
Some time ago, the popularity of "Anchor Girl Heavy Dependence", which discussed the relationship between anchors, viewers, the Internet and mental state, is precisely because many real and virtual anchors have a new dimension of daigo; and in "Single", you can even see the "live broadcast mode" specially provided for VTB.
The game reserves the location of Live2D (of course, it can also be the camera of the live streamer) and the bullet bar for the VTB, which is clearly marked by a white box in the setting, which can be said to be painstaking; and the game content itself has something in common with the "lily business" often carried out by the manager, which can naturally lead to a lot of related discussions.
People have called the VTB of the formulaic linkage game miscellaneous "mass production manager", and we may be able to summarize the main characteristics of the "mass production manager golden tour" from "Single": select the "stalk" theme related to the target population of the live broadcast; consider the live broadcast effect in the game production, rhythmically introduce slots and mechanisms (imagine the degree of grass in the game process in the studio); set consideration for the live broadcast, reserve space on the UI and interface; and issue a statement to accept all profitable or non-profit secondary creations.
It is difficult to say whether this trend is good or bad for the development of word games, but in this practice, it is particularly important to grasp the degree of integration. Obviously, game live broadcasting relies on various games to maintain its popularity and audience and survival, but in my opinion, games cannot become a complete work that relies on live broadcasting.
Specifically, the live streamer's reaction, operation and emotional catharsis in the live broadcast of the game can only make this journey a creative content that is independent of the game and close to the film and television work, and cannot be used as a kind of supplement to the game itself. Can a game that is useless without live streaming still be called a game? I am deeply skeptical of this.
Back to the game itself. From the demo point of view, the content of the Single game is still relatively complete and self-consistent, but the content is small (there is not even most of the dubbing at present); considering that the release date is approaching (within March), I still sweat about the overall game quality. I hope that before they consider the live broadcast effect, they will first write the plot and characters of the game; and I also hope that all the word game makers will not lose themselves in the ocean of program effects while exploring the feasible path.