Recently, the first promotional video of the new work "Oriental: Hirano Lonely Hong" (hereinafter referred to as "Hirano Lonely Hong") developed by Xishanju has been publicly exposed, and the game has now been listed on the Steam store page in overseas, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, opening a wish list reservation to support Chinese Traditional.
In addition, the alpha test that was originally scheduled to open in March will be postponed to April, according to official earlier news, the reason for the ticket jump is that the small team of 14 people cannot afford the bug fixes that follow the new features, and it is also inseparable from the epidemic.
"Orient: Hirano Lonely Hong" promotional video
Through the first promotional video published by Xishanju, it can be found that "Hirano Lonely Hong" integrates ancient Chinese architectural art into simulated urban construction and business strategies, which allows players to freely build their own oriental ancient towns, but also to find the resonance of that blood in the human fireworks of ancient cities.
Urban construction strategy games have always been deeply concerned and favored by players, and the word guofeng is unique in the eyes of Chinese people and even global players, what kind of spark will collide in this game? Since we have not yet experienced it personally, GameLook does not know what kind of delicious food it will offer us, but looking at the setting of the simulated urban construction category game, "Hirano Lonely Hong" with a single cultural output may be able to shine in the depth of mining content.
It is worth mentioning that this game uses the homologous engine of Xishanju 'Sword Net 3', and some players have doubts about the optimization of the game after learning about it, but considering that "Sword Net 3" has been running stably for many years, in fact, technical problems do not need to be particularly worried.
Break the mold for immersion
"Players will clearly feel that it is not easy to achieve the expected goal under the supervision of the superior, but also to create a dream of an ancient oriental city under the supervision of the people - pain and happiness", according to the official introduction, this game is different from the common urban construction management game, the biggest feature is that the player is no longer a builder with a "God" perspective, but instead an ordinary person living in the mezzanine.
Think about it, you are a busy construction, in order to strive to create a brilliant town construction of the official, after the day and night rush to stop, leisurely strolling in the brightly lit ancient neighborhood night market, occasionally in the ears will sound the vendors shouting, diners feasting, crisp cups and plates colliding, and even the side of the gossip of the words, this scene is definitely a kind of spiritual relaxation and enjoyment, so the player can be deeply immersed in this city full of fireworks and human taste.
Of course, this first-person setting is not unique, in Anno 1800, the player plays the role of a person who is pit by his own relatives, and the player can also switch to the first perspective of the NPC by pressing the button to experience it.
The "annoying" ending of Ice Age
Immersion can be said to be the most abstract source of fun in the urban construction simulation class, in simple terms, in each game, the system will continue to guide the player to continue to obtain positive feedback by developing the main body of the business, and the accumulation of positive feedback is bound to make the player's main body grow stronger and stronger, and then promote the formation of immersion.
At present, the mechanisms that help players in-depth game content have their own characteristics, such as "The Sims" that experience life in a small town; "Ice Age" allows players to re-experience the development of the city through the rapid replay of the end of the game, and uses thought-provoking ending questions to arouse player emotions and stimulate immersion generation; of course, "Minecraft", needless to say.
Therefore, the author believes that the shaping of immersion can be divided into two categories in a broad sense, one is to regard the entire city as the main body, and the city is thriving growth fun experience; the other is to strip the player himself out and transform it into a growth fun experience that is as large as the city and as small as the home building constructor.
In this way, the development team of "Hirano Lonely Hong" is not ambitious, why do you say so?
First of all, the game has a growing fun experience setting that looks at the whole town as the main body.
Jurisdiction over each piece of land in Hirano is hard-won: players need to prepare resources and money, sign a VAM agreement with the jury, and ensure that the "plot" construction goal challenge is achieved within a limited time to obtain ownership of the "plot", so as to obtain more resources and new building blueprints. Of course, once the challenge fails, it means that all your investment will sink into the sea.
Players will be angry and strong for getting more and more "plots", through their own rational planning to gradually achieve the big goal of urban expansion, the clever step-by-step "obstacle" design makes the frustration caused by the failure of small goals have been weakened to a certain extent, and the accumulation of more building blocks will continue to help players harvest growth fun experience, thereby increasing immersion.
Of course, a design that has a goal and can be achieved is not good enough, because if the player does not know how the goal is achieved, in other words, the player must know how to grow himself, in order to have more sufficient motivation to play in addition to the curiosity power provided by the goal value.
We all know that double first-class schools are great, but if you can't learn, you probably won't pursue them, the same reason as above. Therefore, whether there is a rich and interesting and easy-to-understand content of the pre-teaching level is often the lower limit condition that determines whether the urban construction operation game is fun or not.
Secondly, "Hirano Lonely Hong" also has a growth fun setting based on the theme of the individual.
In terms of this content, the official said: "As a local county order, the game does not have so much time for you to slowly prove your personal ability." In the limit time, through reasonable business decisions, resource allocation, building collocation and other planning to complete the instructions of the superiors to pass the assessment of the jury; and in the face of the people, you also need to always consider their happiness. In addition, the game also has a set of explorable events, and players need to explore the conspiracy lurking in the shadows in the growing Hongye County and dig out the truth of the matter.
Putting the player in a conspiracy field, with the feelings of the people, the instructions of the superiors, the economic development of the city and the player's own ideas to build the "Hirano Lonely Hong" properly links the personal and social environment, the dual-subject, chiaroscuro parallel game content setting can be said to satisfy the appetite of the players, immersive fun to achieve a circular self-consistency.
The four seasons are distinct and the antique style is ancient
The game adds a four-season alternating system to the traditional day and night system, and the trees, crops, and environment seem to change color with the passage of time and seasons, and the expression of content becomes more realistic, but this replacement system is a very basic setting in simulating large-scale games.
The four-season climate brings different beautiful scenery, but there may also be hidden crises in the real-game: natural disasters such as insect plagues, droughts, famines and other natural disasters may at any time bring down the town that the player has worked so hard to run. This means that players need to use different functional buildings such as submarine fire camps and insect barriers to prevent and control these disasters, so as to show your excellent management and leadership to the local people.
Urban construction simulation games have always been a slow-paced puzzle game, the so-called puzzle solving is that players need to constantly explore, figure out which kind of resources to obtain, leveling is the most suitable for the current urban development; and slow pace means that players do not spend hours, dozens of hours to play all the content.
Different from the fierce confrontation between MOBA and FPS, this category characteristic of "slow work and fine work" seems to be on the next level under the interpretation of the antique environment, creating a kind of "quiet" art that helps players achieve calm - facing a blank paper-like city, with the player's desire to express themselves as the object of imitation, through the way of clicking to draw a work of art with a distinct label.
The sense of accomplishment brought about by this "quiet" art is very large and obscure, which not only makes "Hirano Lonely Hong" a drawing board for the player's self-expression, but also maintains a certain order in the whole town due to the player's thinking, and the sense of control generated by it is fully exerted.
epilogue
Players tend to pay more attention to detail and depth
Whether the graphics are good or not does not determine the playability of the game, and the logic level must be consistent with life whether it is in the classic pixel style or in the AAA level of burning masterpieces, "Hirano Lonely Hong" is not an overhead simulation management game, so the development team's later research and development work is still quite arduous.
The game is not currently open for testing, and the specific game content and performance remain to be seen. From the overall point of view, the tone of the game is full and distinct, the design idea of dual subject plus double line is also a very innovative performance of this development team of only 14 people, as to whether the work can continue to improve in the future, we still need to wait and see.
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