In the circle of script killers, "A City" has some legendary colors:
First of all, it's a 4-person ben. Players' carpooling difficulties are small, but the store's income will also become lower (because the script kill is charged per person), so many stores do not like to open this book, and the stores that are willing to open will be called "conscience shops" by players.
Secondly, its reputation is particularly high. Enigma app, set stone net, script killing mini program together... On the mainstream script killing scoring platform, the rating of "A City" is above 8 points, and there is also word of mouth among players, even calling it "4 people ceiling".
Finally, it's not available on all major platforms. Little Black Detective, Buy Ben, GoDan... All of them could not buy this script, so some people speculated that this script was removed because of "content sensitivity", which further enhanced the fame of "A City" and aroused the curiosity of more players.
But, yes, I'm going to say but again.
The script of "A City" is actually not as godly as some people pass it on.
Script title: A City
Number of players: 4 (2 men and 2 women)
Script Type: Emotional/Running Group/Criminal Investigation
Game duration: 4 to 5 hours
Script Author: Old Ginger
Release date: 2020
Synopsis
In 2009, in the small city of Dening in a certain country, an ordinary teacher disappeared after school.
The police investigating the case made no progress, but three other unconnected cases were traced, and his whereabouts are unknown.
In order to find a loved one, or to redeem themselves, four ordinary people who do not know each other come together and embark on a journey of uncertain future together...
Biography
Xi Yong is a 30-year-old uncle with inconvenient legs and feet
Li Siqi is a 33-year-old single dog who has experienced vicissitudes
Bai Weiwei is a 21-year-old college student
Chen Dandan, 32 years old, a female journalist in XiuWaihui
Takedown storm
"A City" is the author's second script killing work of Lao Jiang, which was officially released in 2020, but less than half a year after its release, this was removed from the shelves on platforms such as Little Black Detective. Because the content of this script involves some dark sides of society, some people believe that the removal of the script must have something to do with the content.
In fact, regarding the reasons for the removal of the script, the author has written several long articles on his public account, sharing the causes and consequences of the matter.
To put it simply, the author Lao Jiang and the distributor "play with the club" tear each other apart because of contracts, payments, after-sales and other issues. The author said that because the distributor did not carefully proofread the script, there were a large number of printing and typesetting errors in the script when printing, which caused many complaints from stores, and in the face of consumer complaints, the distributor put it in order, pretended to be dead, and refused to solve the problem, resulting in the script being removed from the shelves of major selling platforms due to too many after-sales complaints.
Finally, the author said that he was afraid of the pit and simply dumped the development bank to sell the book himself, resulting in this book not being bought through other channels except in the author's personal public account.
In short, through the stories outside these scripts, we can also see some chaos in the barbaric growth of the script killing industry.
Script issues
After talking about the script, let's talk about the script itself.
First of all, I personally finished playing this book, and my first feeling was a little disappointed. 4 hours to push, the result is this?
The biggest slot point of the script is the ending, many of the doubts in the case have not been explained, and the black hand behind the scenes has not come out. When the player is confused, DM tells us that the author wants to write the second part, and the remaining doubts must wait for the sequel to be solved.
So, this is to split a story into two to sell?
I personally feel that the premise of a script to kill a sequel should be to tell a complete story in the previous work. Sequels can use the same character, the same worldview, but not like a serial.
Players play script killing is running to reasoning, fierce to come, the result I played a ben, play to the end to tell me that the black hand behind the scenes has not come out, several cases still have doubts, but there is no way to continue to investigate, want to see the final ending please buy the second part, what is this called?
And we finished pushing this book, the whole process only took 4 hours, basically there is not much particular brain-burning place. If calculated according to this volume, the author can add two hours of content and explain the doubts clearly, but the author did not do this, but chose the second part.
This is something I can't accept.
Scripted gameplay
"A City" is a PVE model, and also borrows some gameplay from the running group. The way four players get clue cards is similar to "map search", which requires deducing the correct search location, and then DM distributes a new clue card to the player.
On the surface, the character script of "A City" is very thin, only a few pages, but there are many clue cards in the back, especially many of which are A4 size cards, which is equivalent to the reading volume of each player having a normal script to kill 2 to 3 scripts.
In fact, according to my understanding, this kind of gameplay is to break the character script into clue cards and divide them into stages for players. There will be slight differences in the scripts and clue cards of the four players, and communication will be required to restore the truth, but the differences are not too big. After the player gets the clue card, he can basically restore the truth, and the difficulty of reasoning is not great.
Many people say that playing this requires a certain amount of social experience, because this plot is somewhat similar to a criminal investigation drama and an anti-corruption drama, and the four player characters are very miserable, but I have played it and felt that way. There is only one place that really feels that there is an impact (no spoilers), but the overall plot is still relatively flat, and there is still a gap compared with many high-quality criminal investigation dramas and anti-corruption dramas.
The intention of this script is good, and the social problems reflected are very realistic, but there is nothing particularly surprising about tricks, techniques, reversals, etc., nor is it interpreted, and there are not many points that impress me.
In general, I think the playability of "A City" can only be at the midstream level, far from "god work" and "ceiling".
Article Author: Needle in a haystack