From last year's "Wind Country", "Ghost Valley Eight Wilds", "Dyson Ball Plan" to this year's "Warm Snow", in recent years, the achievements of domestic independent games believe that everyone can see. Today, there are still a large number of "loners" in the industry who shine for the ideal game in their hearts.
Recently, GameLook noticed that such two domestic independent games "Jinyiwei" and "The Legend of the Hidden Excalibur", both of which uploaded real-machine demonstration videos on the B station not long ago, and received a large number of players' attention.
As of now, these two videos have received millions of views on station B and have come to the top 10 popular videos in the game area.
In addition to the wide attention of players, the popularity of video continues to rise, the two independent game teams also have a big common point, that is, they have recorded the game development and studio formation bit by bit through video or live broadcast on the B station, and looking at the previous video can understand the mental journey of these developers in recent years.
It is not difficult to guess that from a few to a million views, it is not only the player's affirmation and expectation of the game content, but also for them, it may also be a breakthrough in growth and self.
6 people research and development, hardcore martial arts, "Jinyi Wei" is highly anticipated by players
The first game, Kinnikuman, was written by Mr. Li And their team.
Friends who often pay attention to the indie game circle should be no stranger to Mr. LiYou, who has spent two and a half years developing a game "Sword Spirit" by himself, and the high degree of freedom and hardcore action gameplay are widely loved by players.
However, the new game announced this time will no longer be a single player for Mr. Worries, and the size of the team has risen to 6 people, of course, even so, it is still difficult to support the team's final idea. At the bottom of the real machine demonstration video, Mr. Li You expressed his hope that through this video, he would find people, find money, and cooperate for the team to complete the game.
According to the official introduction, "Jinyiwei" is currently only the tentative name of this game, and the game is actually only a smaller game, which is still in the early stage of development. Even so, the first live demonstration showed the huge potential of the game.
First of all, at the screen level, thanks to the powerful ability of Unreal Engine, the screen expression of "Jinyiwei" can be said to be very good, in fact, although there is a phenomenon of frame drop, but the various scenes in the game are very exquisite. And judging from the demo content, it seems that the developer has also made a weather system in the game, both scenes with clear skies and gloomy rainy nights.
At the gameplay level, according to the official version, "JinyiWei" is positioned as an ARPG game, players will be able to inquire about intelligence in the urban area (take on tasks) and then go to the target location to fight, or they can dress up their own courtyards, practice martial arts, etc.
For example, in the real-machine demonstration, the official showed the player how to peel back the cocoon and investigate step by step after getting the intelligence, and find the target person or the required items.
At the combat level, "Jinyi Wei" continues some of the characteristics of "Sword And Dragon", and the combat is more hardcore and biased towards the SoulLike style. Judging from the real machine demo content, the combat process of the game is more realistic, and it also requires players to have faster reactions.
In addition to combat, the game will set up heavier cultivation content, divided into internal skills, moves, light skills, etc., players can learn the corresponding martial arts through cheats, and cheats are mainly obtained through missions, home raids, black market purchases, etc. Officials said that at present, the martial arts cultivation system has actually been developed, but it is temporarily impossible to display.
Perhaps it was the early development of "Sword" was all responsible for one person, or maybe it was to let more players pay attention to their own games, unlike other independent game studios, during the development of "Sword", Mr. Li Yu would develop the game while broadcasting live.
It is true that the live broadcast of the game development work will more or less cause "spoilers", players will lose some freshness when they personally touch the game, but Mr. Li Worries has said that he hopes to let the audience become my "overseer", and at the same time, he is an encouraged personality, and the support and encouragement of players is the biggest motivation for his own development of the game.
From the video of the first "Sword" in 2017 to the official opening of EA on Steam in 2019, to the announcement of the real machine demo of "Jinyiwei". The love and persistence that mr. Li Yu went on with the team, and now he has finally shined through the video of this new game.
As a result of the dormant years, The Hidden Excalibur is about to open the EA on Steam
The second game, The Hidden Excalibur, comes from Nerve Knife Studios.
In contrast, the completion of "The Legend of the Hidden Excalibur" is much higher than that of "JinyiWei", according to the official introduction, after about two years of full development, the game will officially open EA testing on the Steam platform on April 15, and the publisher is Block Games.
Like Mr. Li You's two games, "The Legend of the Hidden Excalibur" is also a game developed using Unreal Engine, but in terms of painting style, it does not take the realistic route, but chooses a half-card ventilation that is very close to "Paladin 7".
According to the official version, The Hidden Excalibur is a mythical ARPG story-to-stand-alone game. Judging from the currently announced content and the previous real-machine demonstration content, the battle from the 3D perspective should be the core of the game, and the combat performance is very gorgeous, and the player can use various forms of attack such as royal sword, immortality, magic weapon, and swordplay.
However, there are also some overhead gameplay scenes interspersed in the film, which is speculated to be a specific mode in the game.
Similar to Mr. Li You, the producer of "The Legend of the Hidden Excalibur", Nerve Knife, also loves to share and communicate with players, and since 2019, he has begun to share the experience and experience of independent game development on Station B, and fans of Station B often affectionately call it "Brother Knife".
According to him, he was not actually a "professional counterpart" to join the game industry, came into contact with programming by some serendipity, and taught himself Unreal Engine, and since then he has had the idea of developing games.
Over the past four years, Brother Dao has developed three games, including decryption and armor, shooting, and even survival games. However, in his opinion, because the technology was not particularly mature at that time, in retrospect, these works were more like "garbage games".
In the end, the sales of these games were "not surprisingly" very dismal, according to brother Dao's own account, these three games only brought them a total of 35,000 yuan in income, including debts and their own savings, they lost 270,000 yuan.
Due to the pressure of indie game development running into walls everywhere, coupled with the pressure of life and the debts generated by the development of independent games, Brother Dao finally chose to temporarily give up solo travel and try to apply for a game company. According to his recollection of his state of mind at that time, on the one hand, he was indeed in debt, and on the other hand, he wanted to take this opportunity to prove whether the technology and experience he had learned and accumulated before was solid and useful.
Facts have proved that several years of development experience has still brought it an advantage, one of the "three swords" developers to the knife brother to throw an olive branch, because the development direction is a single-player game, the two hit it off, the knife brother officially joined the company's stand-alone game project research and development.
However, after working in the game company for a period of time, Brother Dao finally chose to devote himself to independent game development, but the solo game development work did not go smoothly, and during the period, he also encountered various troubles, such as good investment, later investors repented, and then such as studio personnel changes and so on.
After stumbling, the "Legend of the Hidden Excalibur", which was still called "Juvenile Line" at that time in 2020, was on the right track and officially put into development, and now there is this live machine promotional video that plays millions.
epilogue
For players, indie games may represent innovative, beautiful, and distinctive games, but for solo developers, every game is actually full of love.
In a video recording a solo studio, Brother Dao revealed that his biggest wish is to have a permanent studio name, because the previously developed indie game has run into walls, resulting in its repeated change of studio name.
After the development studio finally stabilized, there was a small detail in a certain video, and Brother Dao first shared the new logo of the studio with the players after a few words of greeting at the beginning of the video.
The documentary "Indie Game Movie" believes that indie games are a form of self-expression. Doing world-class games, spreading ideas, and being recognized by more people represents high-level self-realization.
Because of this, independent game developers seem to always be full of love, even if the funds are tight and the development environment is harsh, it is difficult to stop their enthusiasm for development. As an outsider, GameLook is also very pleased to see these solo developers go from being uninvited to receiving a lot of attention.
Developers pay for their love of research and development, players pay for love, perhaps this is the charm of independent games.
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GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
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