Meta games have been favored by the market in recent years, "Stanley Fables", "There Is No Game", "Evil Meditation", the acclaimed and popular meta games have been born more and more frequently, and many games have tried to "break the fourth wall" to talk to players about their hearts. "Brave Moth" was born in such a background, the game will be "bug" as the theme, the production of a large number of new and interesting puzzles, players will also follow this "in-game game" to experience a different journey.
A world full of bugs
It must be said that it is not a simple thing to make a game full of bugs. Most of the interaction points in "Daredevil Moth" have very different interaction results from traditional games. For example, when you press the interactive button on a door and want to enter the room to find out, but you pick up the door in your backpack, it is ridiculous. The counterintuitive interaction result given to the player is the most core creative point of this game, this alternative design method, the absurdity and surprise brought by it is difficult to find analogies from other games, it feels like using the game to interpret the talk show, so that people can't guess where its next sentence lands.
Congratulations on getting the gate
Even though we have such a great mission as finding artifacts, defeating the Demon King, and saving the world, when I found that I could kick the guards like footballs, the pace of advancing the plot unconsciously slowed down. Similar bugs are filled in every corner of the game, may exist in the character attribute interface, may also exist in the game's map scene, each NPC may be the carrier of bugs, this exploration of the interaction brought by the sense of surprise is constantly flowing, so that my desire for the ending, far less than the expectation of "bug".
Teammates who go shopping to reap the rewards: A basket of pears that can take off at any time and flee the battlefield
Use the skillful meta element
One of the starting points of Meta game design is to enhance the sense of substitution, this type of game has a often used technique, in shaping the game plot, to create another concept of the real world outside the game's world, to make a nesting doll narrative, so that you are unconsciously wrapped around, gradually blurring the boundary between reality and the game.
This is how the meta-world of Daredevil Moth is built. Over the course of the game, the "designer" of JRPG Game Terrarbane constantly gives feedback on your behavior in the game, as if his every action is being observed in real time. These interactions are so timely and accurate that you forget that the name of the game you are playing is Daredevil Moth, and unconsciously assume the identity of the game tester.
A starting screen full of bugs
The "designer" is inexplicably confident in the game he makes, often jumps out to confront the player, attacks the player's various operations in a partial way, and defends himself when the game cannot continue to run, as if the schoolboy is caught and the foot is painful, which cannot be said to be annoying or funny. No matter what kind of psychological drive, people can't help but have the idea of doing it against him, and more unscrupulously sabotage in the game.
The compilation of the "designer's" lines in "Brave Fighter Moth" is interesting and accurate, and every pop-up dialogue makes his image more vivid. The production team's excellent script creation and precise control of the overall content structure of the game further enhance the immersion brought by the meta element.
The designer who gives a name to himself
Only the player can make the game
The core gameplay of "Daredevil Moth" is to solve puzzles, and the constant emergence of bugs becomes a major obstacle in the adventurer's journey. When cracking puzzles, the usual puzzle solving ideas often do not work, and you need to change your thinking and find ways to use bugs to solve the puzzles. These puzzles not only give the player a sense of epiphany when cracking, but also resonate with the player through bugs and game memes full of déjà vu.
In the game, you can revisit many familiar game types, text adventure, horizontal jumps, trading cards, music games, these content points and bugs are closely combined with the theme, adding icing on the cake to the game's puzzle gameplay and making the game content appear more full. I could clearly feel that the production team were all experienced veteran players. For playing with terriers, they are serious.
Quite a Wanning chess style
Multi-week level design
The game has multiple completely different branch levels, and your path of exploration will take you into a very different world. Quests require you to gather three Elemental Gems, after which you may experience: a careless attempt to collect Gems will cause the game to crash and make you switch to another word adventure game; if you collect gems, you will enter the Palace to face a new test; if you are unfortunate enough to be killed by a hidden boss, you will enter a town full of wrong souls. The unfolding of the gods represented by these story branches provides a strong impact, making players marvel at the game and anticipate the next story.
The Soul Healer was left out in the cold
The branch levels contain a large number of game content points, so that the two-week and three-weekly versions have become an important part of the game. It is inevitable that there will be some repetitive game content in the process of multi-week purposes, and the production team foresaw this, opening up the function of selecting levels after the first level of work, which largely avoided the repetitive game process.
With a large number of collecting elements scattered throughout the game, the only hints are almost negligible, you will not be disturbed by the question marks full of maps, whether you choose to go shopping, go out of town to fight monsters, or even just open the game interface, you can find new "bugs". The density of the content supports an uninterrupted sense of harvest, prompting the player to enter a state of flow and always maintain the motivation to explore.
The Unexpected Ending: The Story I Had to Tell with The Slime Lady
However, when you have already experienced all the levels and are still committed to the mission of the tester, with the goal of collecting bugs, the experience of these large numbers of collection elements is not as good as before. Revisiting a level that has already been explored is as unappetizing as if only pizza was left on the side, just to find one more bug, and you have to start the story flow from scratch that has been repeated many times. And due to the counter-intuitive bug puzzle design, when exploring again, the player's mindset makes it difficult to find the interactive content that cannot be found in the first exploration, and this problem seems to be expected to be solved by the community.
A list of bugs to be collected
summary
The Moth is a creative meta-game in which bugs are no longer distressing, but are cooked and brought to the table as a main dish. Unlike traditional games, the joy brought by "Brave Fighter Moth" comes more from the absurd and humorous ideas of the makers, they are comedy artists who have been immersed in the game field for many years, and the jokes and baggage they create can only be received by gamers.