1 person + 8,000 pieces + 20 days, what kind of game can you make?
This may not sound very reliable, but Station B UP master Chen Jiacheng did use such a little money and time to make a game with 95% Steam praise.
The game, called Dead Silence, was launched on steam on September 5 last year and has been reviewed by 11,992 reviews so far.
In fact, Chen Jiacheng's original intention was not to make a game, as a UP master who engaged in Unreal Engine, "Dead Silence" was originally just a live challenge for him. After the live broadcast, he made the game all the way at the request of fans.
Continuous improvement has brought more and more people's attention. The game is now also at number 50 on Steam's 2021 Hits list.
(There are only 8 domestic games in the top 50 of the list)
The attention of "Dead Silence" is not only in China, but also played by many players abroad. There are 4464 non-Chinese reviews on Steam, and a search for Deathly Stillness (the English name of "Dead Silence") on YouTube can see a lot of gameplay videos.
Why does a game that runs out of a live challenge have such a high degree of attention? What kind of game is it?
01
The content is not much, but the details are brilliant
"This is a boring and plotless third-person zombie game," is an introduction to the game that Chen Jiacheng wrote on the Steam store page. It's true that Dead Silence is a storyless shooter, and the player's only mission is to kill all the zombies, but that doesn't mean it's not playable.
As stated in the game introduction, players have health bars in the game, but there is no blood pack in the scene, and if you want to complete the level, you must always pay attention to your health. In addition, as in other shooter games, players must constantly search for bullet supplies while eliminating zombies.
The core gameplay is simple, but the player's experience is good, as you can see from the reviews.
Many players will compare "Dead Silence" with some big manufacturers, not because of how high the quality of the game is, but because of the combination of resources and results, Chen Jiacheng himself spent money and time to make this game, indeed worthy of those words of praise.
Updated so far, Dead Silence has three maps: highways, villages, and old chinese alleys.
Among them, the "Highway" and "Village" maps are included in the original version of the game, destroying all zombies in different maps, the scenes are daytime, and the "Village" has more cover (including buildings) and will be slightly more difficult.
("Highway" on the top, "Village" on the bottom)
"Old Lane of China" is the most difficult map at this stage, joined a month after the game was launched, Chen Jiacheng exploded for three days during the National Day, and made this map of Chinese elements.
Compared with the first two maps, the "Old Lane of China" is much more complicated. The night environment, dim light, winding alleys, and a carefully prepared Easter egg - the Chinese zombie BOSS.
The mission in the map is not only to destroy zombies, but also to collect spells and kill zombie bosses, and finally find escape points under the chase of a large wave of zombies.
Compared to other shooters on the market, Dead Silence has arguably very little content. Three maps, I spent about 1 hour to clear the level, the time is mainly spent on the third map (and I was chased by zombies for more than half an hour). A good technology should be less than half an hour to get through the full map.
(Chase?) Hit the tree! ）
Although the content is small, there are many highlights in the short length of "Dead Silence".
1. Light and shade
Chen Jiacheng adjusted many times, and the color presented now is very comfortable, and the fusion of the overall gray-green tones not only fits the gloomy tones needed for zombie shooters, but also does not go too full or too low, in this depressed scene, even if there is no plot, the task of destroying zombies will not feel violated.
(Before and after contrast of scene tone adjustment)
2. Sound Effects
The low, eerie background music, in the dark and gray scenes, pulls the horror atmosphere just right. Even the players who have read countless times can't help but sigh that they are really scared by the whole atmosphere.
The sound effects of shooting, shell landing, headshots, etc., also sound crisp, with background music to eat, the player's cool strip will indeed be satisfied.
3. Favorite character mods
Guns, I want, beautiful women also I want, both have to benefit (dog head).
At the request of fans (begging hard), Chen Jiacheng later added a lot of character mods to "Dead Silence", so that a game of "fighting zombies and practicing shooting" suddenly had an ornamental nature, and also attracted many players who admired it.
So there are people who want to open up the workshop. But after all, the Internet is not an extralegal place, and I believe that this request is still relatively difficult to achieve.
4. Game Mechanics
The basic gameplay of "Dead Silence" is no different from other zombie-themed shooter games, but the zombie "random speed" and "active search for people every once in a while" mechanism is more unique, adding a lot of fun to the game.
If the speed of the random zombie is the slowest, the player can slowly practice marksmanship, but if the face is a little darker, random to the fastest zombie, it is necessary to run while fighting, but also have to find bullets at the same time, the difficulty is not a level at all.
(Alert or unable to match his speed)
Even if it is difficult to eliminate the zombies around them, the player can not be careless in looking for bullet supplies, because zombies have an "autonomous search" mechanism, and no one knows whether the next one will appear is a bullet or a zombie.
(Useless, zombies won't care if you're a cute bunny girl or not)
Although some of these brilliance are due to the credit of the engine, they are more due to Chen Jiacheng's intentions. So how did this UP master who did the engine tutorial make "Dead Silence" step by step?
02
Origin live broadcast, love persistence
It all starts with a live broadcast.
On June 7, 2020, Chen Jiacheng had a whim in the live broadcast and launched a challenge to "make a zombie game in half an hour". The challenge ultimately failed, and it took him two and a half hours to barely make a very basic zombie game with only shooting.
Next, he spent 3 days to refine the game slightly, and the prototype of Dead Silence first appeared. After opening up to fans to play, more and more people played, and he also received more and more feedback. So he spent 10 days to thoroughly refine the game and put it on a homemade game website for fans to download.
But the download speed of a cloud disk is understood, in order to give fans a better experience, he resolutely paid money to register the Steam developer, and put "Dead Silence" on the Steam platform.
Coupled with the 3 days of the later liver explosion to make a new map of "China Old Alley", Chen Jiacheng shared 20 days to make this game (the time to fix small bugs from time to time was not counted).
Regardless of the cost of time, the development cost of the game totals more than 8,000 yuan, including material purchases, website development server fees, Steam developer deposits, etc. Eight thousand pieces doesn't sound like much, but it's all chen jiacheng took out of his own pocket.
With money to contribute, the game is also free, and Chen Jiacheng's production of "Dead Silence" can be said to be "generating electricity with love". Although it is not difficult to see that part of the reason he improved the game was to let more people pay attention to him through the game. But in the process, he formed a very good interaction ecology with the player.
Fans feedback bugs, he will take time out of his busy time to fix; players put forward suggestions about the content of the game, he will also seriously consider, reasonable additions to the game.
For example, the most vocal among them is that players hope to join the "DuangDuang special effect", in order to show the technology, Chen Jiacheng risked kneeling washboard to add this special effect.
(I'd like to call it magic)
Throughout the development process of the game, Chen Jiacheng basically made videos, and from these videos, it can be felt that he is indeed doing this with enthusiasm, although liver, but it is worth it.
Some friends have asked him why he doesn't consider charging, after all, even if he only sells one dollar, he now makes more than a million. But he just laughed and said that he felt that the game was not good enough, that he had higher quality requirements, and that he would consider charging for it when he came up with higher-quality works in the future. Now, he just wants to do Dead Silence well.
03
There are so many people making their own games on Station B, why can "Dead Silence" get everyone's attention?
In fact, there are many UP masters of self-made games on the B station, including many with high attention, why can Chen Jiacheng's "Dead Silence" be done all the way down and on the Steam annual hot list? I think there are two reasons for this.
(There are various VIDEOS related to up main homemade games on Station B)
First of all, since entering Station B in 2018, Chen Jiacheng has begun his teaching path of Unreal Engine 4. Through two ways of free tutorial videos and live lectures, he completed the accumulation of initial fans, and the fan stickiness is very high.
(Chen Ka-shing's free tutorial on Station B)
Therefore, when Chen Jiacheng made "Dead Silence", the game already had a certain fan base. Later, fans spontaneously rushed to tell each other, which also ensured the attention of the game.
Secondly, unlike other UP owners, his original intention of making games is not for everyone's entertainment, but to show Unreal Engine 4, to make an example for everyone's reference, and the production process of the whole game is more professional, which ensures the experience of the game to a certain extent.
Compared with other UP masters' self-made works, the "sense of 3A" of "Dead Silence" is significantly higher.
(Just look at the game screen, you may think which AAA masterpiece this is)
Although the characters and scene models are purchased directly from the engine mall, the GAME's UI production and interaction, functional logic, character movement system, pickup system, shooting system, damage system, scene atmosphere, AI system, and game optimization are all done independently by Chen Jiacheng.
Professional knowledge coupled with excellent personal ability also ensures that "Dead Silence" will gradually improve.
After receiving a lot of attention, Chen Jiacheng made it clear that he would continue to update "Dead Silence" for free until his funds and abilities reached the limit. He refers to many zombie doom games, such as The Last of Us 2 and The Road to Survival, and decides that the game will take two routes.
First, based on the current game content, it is still a storyless and zombie-destroying line, but it will add more weapons, more types of zombies, and more different ways to play (hold, clear, escape, etc.).
The second is the survival line, which is based on a simple plot background, and players need to collect supplies, destroy zombies, and escape to survive.
Many players said in the review that they are very optimistic about "Dead Silence", but what content this game will update specifically, let's wait and see.