Whether it is ordinary players or practitioners, as long as they often pay attention to the trends in the video game industry or new products, I believe they can see a clear curve of growth and evolution of the game category.
In fact, the same is true in the world of board games. Recently, a movie called "Blood on the Clocktower" blew up the circle of friends of board gamers.
To what extent is it on fire? As long as you open Weibo, Douyin, Xiaohongshu search for related keywords, you can see a large number of game introductions and strategies, and on the player side, in order to play this game, players began to organize games on Tencent Conference and other conference APPS, and some players who have experienced the game said that "a day is not stained, it is uncomfortable."
On the well-known overseas board game chart website, the score of "Blood Stained Clock Tower" reached a high score of 7.8, what is the concept? The "Avalon" series of games, which are well-known in the field of board games, have a rating of around 7.2 to 8.5 on BGG. As a latecomer, the results of "Blood Stained Clock Tower" can be described as very good.
So what kind of game is this? And why can it stand out in a short period of time?
More identities, richer gameplay
In recent years, the development speed of board games and physical entertainment has been obvious to all, and the rapid expansion of the industry has also made more and more non-core players gradually contact board games.
For them, what they have heard or contacted is more of the products of the "kill" characters, such as "Three Kingdoms Kill", "Werewolf Kill", "Script Kill", etc., and "Blood Stained Clock Tower" actually integrates the game characteristics of these "Kill" characters.
In terms of gameplay framework, Blood Stained Clock Tower is very similar to Werewolf Kill, and can accommodate 5 to 20 players to play together. Participating players are divided into three main lineups: the good guys, the bad guys (also commonly known as the demon faction), and the "storyteller" faction of the third-party tandem game, which alternates day and night.
The game's winning and losing conditions are also similar to werewolf kills, when the bad guy lineup is all killed and can no longer be revived, the good guy faction wins, and when the good guy faction has only two players left, the bad guy faction wins.
But unlike the traditional werewolf killing, the identity cards of the two players in each game are not fixed, but are randomly selected by the "storyteller" from the identity pool and distributed to all players, and there are currently more than 100 identity cards in the game, and different identities have different skills, which is actually very close to "Werewolf in Miller Valley".
Identity pool
At the same time, the speech session of Blood Stained Clock Tower is not like the werewolf killing, where each player speaks in order. Each player, including those who have died, is free to speak or chat privately with other players, including storytellers.
The game's voting session is similar to the mechanics of Among Us, which can be initiated by any player, and when the voting is initiated, all players can no longer speak or communicate. In addition, no one can reveal their identity regardless of life or death, and players must have a private chat with the "storyteller" if they need to activate skills.
The game's most distinctive features are the "Storyteller" and "Traveler" mechanics in the game.
In "Werewolf Kill", the third party generally refers to "judge", the main function is to let the game develop in a fair and just environment, while in the "script kill", the third party is generally called DM, mainly responsible for allowing players to "enter the play" and promote the development of the game.
Similarly, the function of the "storyteller" in "Blood Stained Clock Tower" is the same, connecting the game rhythm and allowing the game to develop smoothly, but the "storyteller" actually has a more important function, that is, to balance, or increase the game experience of both sides.
That is to say, the storyteller in "Blood Stained Bell Tower" is not as "impartial" as the judge in the werewolf kill, he can choose to help either camp, give the player the identity card he wants, and so on.
To some extent, the "storyteller" actually has a game experience, he is like the DM in the script kill, a good storyteller can bring a better experience to other players, so there must be a person (player) to play the role.
On the other hand, because of the existence of "storytellers", "Blood Stained Clock Tower" is actually more of a three-way game, or the word "game" does not fully summarize the real experience of the player, and the player needs to do more to play the role on the identity card he gets.
There were too many characters and the producers created an official WIKI
Another feature of the "Traveler" mechanism, as the name suggests, means that players can openly choose to become a "traveler" and join or leave the game at any time, which largely makes up for the problem of board games.
If summed up in a more intuitive way, "Blood Stained Clock Tower" is more like a werewolf killing in the gameplay framework, but in terms of experience, it is similar to the script killing, paying more attention to fun and role play.
Several teams have been immersed in research and development for three years, from overseas fire to China
Like many popular board games in China, "Blood Stained Clock Tower" is actually a product imported from overseas to China.
According to public information on the official website, the designer of "Blood Stained Clock Tower" is Steven Medway, while Micaela Dawn and John Van Fleet are responsible for the art design of the game, and the publisher is The Pandemonium Institute.
In an official blog, several designers revealed that the game had actually been conceived and developed since 2014, and after three years, they had finally produced a particularly early version and were ready to bring it to the local game show in Sydney, when the prototype of the game's large number of identity cards was actually beginning to appear.
The scene of the game is exhibited for the first time
However, after the first exhibition of the game, they were not in a hurry to release the product. In 2019, they launched a crowdfunding campaign on the well-known website Kickstarter, planning to continue to refine the game and sell it around the world.
At first, the target they set was not high, only $65,000, but the result was very satisfactory, and it took only one day to quickly complete the goal. As the game became more widely known to more players overseas, the amount of crowdfunding also rose randomly, and now the crowdfunding amount has reached $573,000, which is much more than their target amount.
However, due to the epidemic and various preparations, it was actually not until this year that they finally finalized the release time of the game in May or June.
This also means that most of the domestic play may be pirated copies of "Blood Stained Clock Tower", or "reproductions" have been formulated through the official encyclopedia.
The board game market should not be underestimated, and the evolution of the category was born and exploded
With the rise of the industry of "Blood Stained Clock Tower", many script killing or board games, werewolf killing stores have begun to try this game, and achieved good results.
The initial appearance of explosive models has also triggered the discussion of many netizens. For example, there is a discussion on whether "Blood Stained Clock Tower" will be a werewolf killing successor, and there are many senior players and practitioners below to answer and discuss.
Some netizens believe that "Blood Stained Clock Tower" is indeed a board game with great potential, not only the content of the game itself is solid and interesting, but also has a strong expansiveness, and players can play with interesting boards.
Some players believe that since this game has a win or a loss, it will eventually pay more and more attention to "competitiveness", and it is likely to enter the strange circle of werewolf killing "xenophobic", and eventually can only return to the minority.
How long the game will be on fire may not be known, but GameLook believes that the sudden rise of "Blood Stained Clock Tower" is actually still traceable.
On the one hand, the popularity of "Blood Stained Clock Tower" naturally benefits from its own excellent quality and interesting gameplay, as well as a lower threshold for getting started.
For example, more relaxed settings such as not restricting the order of speech and allowing players to join at any time have greatly reduced the threshold of the game and reduced the psychological burden of players, which can undoubtedly help the game attract more players.
On the other hand, under the paving of the two major killings of werewolf killing and script killing, the board game and offline live entertainment market now have a considerable number of users. It may be unintentional willow insertion, or it may be intentional, but it is undeniable that "Blood Stained Clock Tower" has made up for the shortcomings in "werewolf killing" and "script killing" in experience, and completing a category evolution will naturally attract more players.
In addition, with the rapid development of the industry and the increase in the scale of users, the needs of players are naturally gradually diversified, which also gives different types and different gameplay board games the opportunity to grow into blockbusters.
Of course, as for whether "Blood Stained Clock Tower" can take over the baton or even surpass the werewolf kill and script kill, in which direction it will develop, it is too early to conclude, you never know who is the next hit, which is also the charm of the game industry.
····· End ·····
GameLook Daily Game Industry Report
Global vision / depth is material