In recent years, there have been endless cases of using games as a carrier to transmit China's excellent traditional culture and promote international cross-cultural exchanges. Take the "blue and white porcelain" skin launched by the online game "League of Legends" as an example, since its launch at the beginning of this year, the skin has not only aroused the collective attention of the majority of gamers, but also set off a wave of discussion of Chinese blue and white porcelain culture among young online groups at home and abroad.
It is understood that this is not the first time that "League of Legends" has launched a game virtual product with the theme of "Chinese style". Prior to this, traditional classics such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Classic of Mountains and Seas", as well as distinct cultural elements such as dragons and immortals, have been applied to game product design and deeply attracted global game users.
From this point of view, the "preference" of "League of Legends" for "Chinese style" is not only a vivid portrayal of the increasing influence of Chinese traditional culture overseas, but also once again confirms that combining excellent traditional culture with realistic context and renewing the charm of traditional culture with new means is one of the effective and necessary ways to promote the development of current cultural innovation and tell Chinese stories well.
In a popular culture way, deconstruct the beauty of color white and blue flowers
In the field of gaming, the "skin" is one of the most easily captured and perceived audiovisual elements in the game. Therefore, how game designers control the design of the skin and pass on the concept is particularly important.
In the "Blue and White Porcelain" series of skins launched by "League of Legends" this year, the designer uses the most representative cobalt blue and glazed white of traditional white blue and white porcelain as the main colors, skillfully integrates the blue and white porcelain elements into the appearance of several popular characters, and uses traditional Chinese flower imagery, zodiac signs, traditional costumes and other cultural elements to add a sense of layering of design.
In response, Karl, the skin maker of League of Legends "Blue and White Porcelain", said in a recent interview, "We usually don't look for obvious inspiration in everyday things, but need some unique vision." The unique, representative beauty of blue and white porcelain is one of our discoveries. ”
In addition to showing the external beauty of blue and white porcelain, how to choose game characters that match the temperament to interpret, so that the blue and white porcelain culture can be better integrated and presented in the background of the game, has become another problem that needs to be considered. Karl said that the noble solemnity of Lisandro and the centuries-old vicissitudes of Qianjue can better show the temperament of blue and white porcelain. Lacus's identity as the "guardian" in the game's main universe is a spiritual continuation and symbol of guarding and inheriting the blue and white porcelain culture.
In order to make the story of blue and white porcelain "look logical" in the game, the designer door of "League of Legends" also specially designed a set of background stories to match the game setting, and further showed the thinking of realistic propositions such as "guardianship" and "growth", "We combined with Izzeril's reckless personality in the game's main universe story, let him inadvertently mess up some things about the restoration of blue and white porcelain, but the follow-up with the story of his cooperation and remediation with his partners showed his growth." Karl said.
From the appearance of the skin, to the story setting, to the layer design of the spiritual call, the "League of Legends" attaches great importance to the "blue and white porcelain" skin and the respect for the traditional Chinese blue and white porcelain culture can be described as obvious, including the former "Three Kingdoms", "Legend of the Jade Sword" and "Mountain and Sea Painted Scroll" skin, which have occupied an important place in the skin product line of "League of Legends", and have left a good and deep impression among players at home and abroad.
A skin that inspires the cultural zeal of young people
Around the "cultural significance" of the game, League of Legends skin producer Ambrielle said that the game creates a cultural community that can connect different player groups, allowing people to "communicate and build empathy with people from a variety of different backgrounds and personalities while playing." ”
It is based on this concept that League of Legends not only contributes to the design of game content, but also creates a series of supporting activities with cultural innovation significance, so that a wider range of people can understand the charm of traditional culture.
In January this year, "League of Heroes" and people's cultural creation launched the theme activity of "Blue and White Porcelain National Style Is Guarded by Me", which promoted and popularized the historical knowledge of blue and white porcelain to the students of Guangdong University by linking up with many colleges and universities and teachers across the country, and called for the inheritance of excellent traditional Chinese culture.
Also in January this year, League of Legends also cooperated with Tengjing Sports to carry out the "Blue and White Porcelain Theme Day" activity in LPL, with the help of the linkage of racing and the traditional costume cultural creation method, jointly showing the unique charm of traditional blue and white porcelain culture in modern popular culture.
In addition, on major Internet content platforms such as Bilibili and Douyin, League of Legends has encouraged and guided a group of highly creative netizens to produce a large number of secondary creation content with blue and white porcelain culture as the main purpose, spreading traditional culture in a way that contemporary young people like to hear, and also stimulating the enthusiasm of young people to inherit and promote traditional culture.
Including the "Blue and White Porcelain" series of skins, a series of products of "League of Legends" have received user recognition and feedback, which is a great encouragement for the skin production team. Ambrielle said, "I hope that the community will be stronger and more inclusive in the future, so that the game can become a vehicle for resonance and connect people." I'd love to see games that can make their way into every home and bring joy to more people. ”
Karl said: "I really enjoy contributing to the game in different ways with my team members, just to make the game better, just like we often interact with the player community and seek feedback, which motivates us to keep moving forward." ”
Anchor the direction of traditional culture inheritance and innovation
When domestic players express their love for the "blue and white porcelain" series of skins and the blue and white porcelain culture behind them in different ways, overseas netizens also show their curiosity, appreciation and even cherishing of the ancient culture of the East. As Karl puts it, "Games make themselves vehicles that bring people together through their influence and call on people to give back more to society." ”
On the well-known overseas game forum Reddit, some netizens said: "There is no doubt that the blue and white porcelain series originates from Chinese culture", and other netizens "naughtily" replied "I am a little jealous." ”
At the same time, some foreign netizens spoke directly to the core: "Chinese usually attach great importance to protecting and promoting their culture, and I am glad to see that Fist is also doing this." ”
Admittedly, these overseas reviews are only the tip of the iceberg from the huge overseas group of League of Legends, but through the carriers of games and skins, what we can see is the epitome of the rapid heating up and increasing influence of mainland traditional culture overseas in recent years.
Thanks to the dissemination of films, television, literature and other works of art, and even today's games, we can see the efforts of a large number of contemporary young Chinese people, so that excellent traditional Chinese culture such as opera, costumes, utensils, and Chinese music can accelerate the pace of stepping out of the world.
In this process, such as the League of Legends design "blue and white porcelain" and other series of skins, through the specific artistic creation of traditional culture to modernize and deconstruct, and into the e-sports, games and other trend cultural products, through the latter's global influence by young people from all over the world to accept and love, but also more and more proved, is worthy of further exploration and expansion, to promote the inheritance and promotion of traditional culture of the effective channel.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Wang Lei