He Bin is the producer of the indie game Lost Castle and a Guangdong university student who only graduated in 2015.
The Lost Castle will end beta testing on Steam on September 1. Prior to that, the beta version of the work had sold more than 130,000 copies on Steam. This fairly well-done indie game was created by Hunter Studio, a group of just three people, and in this 2D side-scrolling action Rouge-Like game, you can see shadows of Dark Souls and The Combination of Isaac.
The 2D horizontal version of "The Lost Castle" supports 2 people working together on the same screen, and will gradually add online functions after the official version is released
In Lost Castle, players take on the role of a daredevil who goes on a journey to explore Harwood Castle, which is legendary to be ruled by demons from the Otherworld. The game really starts in the castle dungeon, where you continue to fight and explore, and finally defeat the castle lord and cut off the root of evil.
<h3>"I just want to make a game myself"</h3>
He Bin and his friend Chen Weichen founded Hunter Studio in their sophomore year, when the two players came together out of interest, playing games and making games at the same time. And since then, a belief has taken root among Hunter Studio members – to make a hardcore action game.
The appearance of "Lost Castle" stems from He Bin's dream during college, and also from the graduation choice that every college student will face. "I didn't want to make my own game in the first place. But when the three of us interned at Hangzhou NetEase together, we were also in the game department, and later we gradually found that we were not doing the games we liked to play. He Bin said.
The "Soul Sacrifice" system prepared for Multi-Weekly enhances the initial abilities of new adventurers, "making sense for every adventurer to die." ”
The love for games cultivated from childhood, and the obsession with wanting to do the games they really want to make, made He Bin and his friends resolutely choose to leave NetEase. "Graduation is not too much trouble for us, we have decided to make our own independent games, before we also refused to go to school and the company's retention, now think about it at that time is a bit of a mess." He Bin now mentioned the choice at that time, it seems that the cloud is light and the wind is light.
Hunter Studio is full. From left to right are Yang Jintang, He Bin, Chen Weichen
"My family thinks we want to start a business and they support us." When He Bin and his team members mentioned to their families that they planned to make games, they were not too hindered, but they did not understand why they did not choose the hottest mobile game at the moment, but after an explanation, the family quickly agreed with He Bin's idea and turned to support He Bin to do it, and the family of another classmate in He Bin's team even provided a set of idle rooms in Shenzhen as an office space for three people. "The three young men stayed there for more than half a year, built the car behind closed doors, and nothing interfered with us during that time, and they concentrated on doing what they liked, so happy."
The producers added a lot of interesting memes to the game according to their hobbies, such as this salted fish sword
<h3>"The games that have influenced me the most are Dark Souls, Monster Hunt, Isaac</h3>."
He Bin was a very pure player before becoming an independent game developer, and the purpose of his game was to make the game he wanted to play. When talking about the game development process, He Bin talked about the various modifications made in the development with great interest, "At the beginning of the design of the plot had tens of thousands of words of background story, the current game plot text is not a lot, discarding some story details. For example, the battles designed at the beginning were more hardcore, and now the game battles are relatively smoother. ”
The big sword is charged, the double knife slides, the bow and arrow are curved, and the one-handed defense is held. When talking about how Monster Hunter affected the game, Ho Bin said to me, "If you're a Monster Hunter player, just look at those weapon skills. ”
"Lost Castle" from the beginning of development to the official launch of nearly a year, talking about the lessons learned in the development process, He Bin said: "Don't think of players too simple, they can dig your game to the bottom, carefully and carefully, any details are not spared." You feel that the small details that don't matter, 100% will be discovered by the player. ”
Five levels and one week, the setting of multiple weeks to unlock the ability is reminiscent of "Isaac's Union"
In Lost Castle, there is a goblin king-bred dinosaur, in the normal process it will eat the goblin king, and the team at that time set up a player can think of the dinosaur throwing chicken legs to attract the attention of the dinosaur, and then take the opportunity to attack the hidden setting of the dinosaur, at first they thought that this detail may never be discovered, and the fact is that many players have discovered this detail. This incident gave Great encouragement to The He Bin team, Who believes that "any detail of the game may be discovered by the player, and it makes sense to polish every detail." ”
You can also see a lot of this detail in "Lost Castle", such as the banana peel left on the ground after eating the restored health item banana, whether the enemy or himself will slip after stepping on it, the player can rely on this design detail to interrupt the enemy's charge, and even use the invincible judgment of the banana peel after slipping to avoid the fatal attack.
Not only banana peels, but all kinds of food in "Lost Castle" will be discarded after eating, such as apple cores, bones. There are many more details of this care in the game
<h3>"More of a player than a developer"</h3>
Referring to the process of developing independent games, He Bin replied with a smile: "At the beginning, I didn't know that what I made was called an independent game, and I was only called an independent game at the beginning of this year. He Bin is not very concerned about his identity as an independent game developer, as he said: "When I see a game, I first pay attention to whether the game is fun or not, not whether the game is an independent game." "Indie games have flourished in recent years, bringing a lot of bright colors to the game industry, but people's kindness to indie games has also bred some haze, "This circle should first pay attention to whether its own products themselves are enough to attract players, and it should be less to show the identity of 'independent games' to attract players." ”
In 2016, "The Lost Castle" won the nomination for the best game in the 2016 IndiePlay China Indie Game Competition, although it was nominated, He Bin and his team were also very satisfied. When He Bin talked about his relationship with the independent game circle, he mentioned: "The industry is still relatively clean, but clean also means that it is easy to be exploited and corrupted. I hope that the success of "The Lost Castle" will inspire people who are still working hard in this industry but are still temporarily unknown, and I hope to inspire people who have just set their sights on this path. ”
Finally, I also talked to He Bin about his vision for the future. "The overall environment is getting better, the number of domestic Steam users continues to grow, and the awareness of legitimacy is also strengthening." Of course, we would also like to thank our publisher anotherindie studio and Heartbeat Network for their full support in all aspects of the market and technology, "The Lost Castle" has many unrealized ideas, such as hidden endings, hidden levels, etc., we will continue to update the game after the official launch of the game, bring more game content to players. ”