Long Dreams of the Night is a horror puzzle game developed by Magic Fish Studios and the latest in the incubation of the "China Star Project". The game hints at the trauma of the protagonist's heart through a level design that resembles a "nightmare", telling a dark fairy tale about exploring the confusion of growing up and self-redemption. This time, we interviewed Yu Fan, the producer of "Long Dreams in the Dark Night", and asked many questions about this work.
1, this is a story about psychological trauma, in the field of games is a personal color of the more sufficient type of materials. As a giver of this personal color, what is your source of inspiration?
Yu Fan: When I was a teenager, I began to contact a lot of commercial games, because I like games, so I was easily affected by the content of these games, and many good ideas in the game story had a positive impact on my life. So I've always felt that games are an important carrier of spiritual ideas in addition to entertainment, and I've always hoped that games can make people have fun while also bringing people some meaningful thinking. In today's fast-paced society, people's life pressure and learning pressure are increasing, and they will encounter many difficulties and pains that have nowhere to be solved. So I hope to create a black fairy tale story to express that at any time people may encounter difficulties beyond their control, but only by changing their attitudes, setting their position right, and taking the courage to face the difficulties is the best solution. Therefore, the protagonist of the game, Bill, always relies on his own strength to overcome the nightmare in his adventures. The reason why I chose a theme of children's trauma is to say that many times adults have the ability to self-regulate and cope with difficulties, and children need guidance and help in the face of difficulties. Dark fairy tales are a way to help people make associations.
2, the process, story, atmosphere to bring me the feeling, indeed like the "long dream" in its name. So when considering the characteristics of "long", is your starting point more inclined to service level design or service narrative?
Yu Fan: In fact, level design and narrative are an organic whole, and among the design tools we use, environmental narrative is the main design method. Through the interpretation of scene art, in addition to restoring some of Bill's real trauma, it is more to hint at the change of Bill's inner emotions, which is used to allude to the narrative of the game. We didn't mean to make the game very long. Rather, it is this design idea, which requires levels to complete the buckle story. The storyline does not occur in the scene of the game, just the memories of reality that appear in the letters and documents, and the player is in Bill's own nightmare, that is to say, the plot of the game and the actual level are in two different time and space, in order to make the player feel the plot better in the level, we need to use the environmental narrative language to strengthen the connection between the two time and space. For example, in the plot of the fourth chapter of the game, Bill's life has been under the shadow of a huge invisible shadow, and I will not spoil it here, so in the level of the game, the player will face a lot of traps and traps, as well as deadly fog. All this implies That Bill's inner changes at this stage, there is no specific enemy, and he is facing invisible pressure, although it seems that no one is deliberately targeting him, but objectively it is always bringing him harm again and again. So players also have to face a large number of traps in the game, which seem to swallow up the entire game scene, although there are no monsters, but there are deadly dangers everywhere. In this way, we hope that players in different time and space can feel the same state of mind as Bill in the plot.
3. There are many hints or hints given by scenes, props and some details, are you worried that the player will infer part of the truth at an early stage?
Yu Fan: The game uses a chapter system, and each chapter only tells about one of the traumas that Bill suffered. The stories in the first few chapters are relatively independent, so it's not hard to deduce the truth of the story within one chapter. But to know the final truth, you need to put together all the stories. We do not focus on the suspense of the storyline, but focus on showing the protagonist Bill's psychological state changes through the story, so that players understand what effect these traumas have on Bill, how he has changed, and the game's level design is also created with this concept. Some of the letters distributed in the game contain information about key events, and the acquisition of these letters may cause the story to evolve in different directions. Even if the player collects some props in the game and sorts out some of the original appearance of the story, if the player does not collect the files showing Bill's inner changes in the face of these events, it is impossible to predict whether Bill will be able to release his wounds next. So in the game the player may end up facing a variety of different endings.
4. What was the design inspiration for The Nightmare of the Mist (a big man with long eyes)? It seems to resemble the mascot of the Osaka Expo...
Yu Fan: If you carefully understand the plot, you will know that Bill's biggest fear in the school bullying stage is from the eyes of his classmates and teachers, which is a kind of piercing damage for him. Because everyone's attention to him at this time is prejudiced or ill-intentioned, in Bill's inner figurative performance, it is transformed into a monster with many eyes watching and looking for him, and the monster's strong body symbolizes the strength of the school bully, and in this chapter, these monsters appear on the streets full of fog, suggesting that these bullies are always hiding in dark corners waiting for an opportunity to spy on Bill. This represents the most difficult thing in Bill's heart at this time, because Bill is still relatively young at this time, and the main way he chooses is to avoid the problem, so in the game, the player needs to constantly avoid the sight of these large numbers of monsters.
5, many scenes in the game are designed to be relatively wide, why is it designed like this?
Yu Fan: Because the game contains two parts, stealth and exploration, especially in places where some monsters may chase the player, we need to give the player a relatively large space to mediate with the monster. In stealth play, a big element is that the monster can hear the player's footsteps or see the player, so it is necessary to maintain a sufficient safe distance between the player and the monster. This makes the game scene look relatively wide from an isometric perspective, but in fact, in many scenes of encountering enemies, the safe range in which the player can move freely is still quite limited, and if you are not careful, you will enter the alert range of the monster. In addition, for the collection elements of the game, the wide scene also increases the exploratory nature of the game. Players may miss many corners of the scene, and there may be unexpected passages or chambers.
That being said, most of the game's route is still linear, which is why we didn't add map functionality, and players don't have to worry about going completely off the beaten track like an open map. In the few very complex mazes, there are exclusive maps.
6. The "through the wall" and "free movement" of the sprite are so powerful that people can not use it all the time, has the addition of this tool brought about the concern of faster game pace and greatly reduced difficulty?
Yu Fan: In fact, this is the core function of the game, without the help of this "powerful" dream elf Bikti, players will feel that the game is too difficult to continue. In earlier versions of the game, Dream Elves were unable to fly away from the player. Judging from the feedback from early game testers, when they are in a dark game environment and cannot grasp their own orientation, the difficulty of the game is hellish for them. In addition, the game's perspective also gives the dream elf a reason to fly away from the player, in most 3D perspective stealth games, the player's field of vision is unrestricted, the player can hide in a corner, the layout of the entire room can be seen. In the equidistant perspective, the player's field of view is limited to the current screen, and it is impossible to grasp the situation of distant monsters without the help of the dream elf. We don't want the pace of the game to be very fast, but we still want the pace of the player to be kept at a relatively smooth level. As for the dream elf's piercing through the wall and not being discovered by the monster, it is because the dream elf Bikti is a creature that Bill imagined when he was extremely lonely, and does not exist in the real world, so those monsters that are traumatized by reality naturally cannot see the dream elf.
7, the forum has players said: sneaking has a sense of fear, once the dew began to chase, but it is not so scary (because the monster seems to run as fast as the player). So how does the difficulty of the game balance in the action scenes?
Yu Fan: In many cases in the game, players need to complete the puzzle while dodging the monster's pursuit, although the simple race with the monster is no threat, but to consider that if the puzzle is completed at the same time, we still need to reduce the threat of the monster appropriately. In terms of difficulty, stealth and escape are two different modes, the gameplay is also different, when sneaking, the player needs to act carefully, observe the environment, and think twice. When chasing, with monsters following close behind, what is needed is a quick response and accurate judgment of the player's route, escape, or puzzle-solving target. So to a large extent, the difficulty of the stealth part depends on whether the player can quickly switch between the two. For example, if the player needs to get used to careful crouching when sneaking, as long as they are in a hurry, it is easy to be found by monsters. Once the action plan is decided, it is necessary to be decisive and quick, and if you hesitate in action, you will be caught by the monster. In general, we encourage players to sneak more, so the chance that players will not be able to escape after being found by monsters is still relatively large.
8. The current conditions for entering the true ending seem to be somewhat harsh - if you fail to obtain key items in multiple levels. Are you considering providing some convenient remedies after customs clearance?
Yu Fan: Indeed, because the game's level design is to follow the direction of the story, it is necessary to meet the conditions for a true ending in the plot to enter. The true ending route is not only a different ending, but also shows different game progress in the process of the game. For the more complex collections now, we will try to add some features later to facilitate the player to collect items.
9, the game as a whole does not have many hints, what is the starting point of this design?
Yu Fan: In the game, we did not use too many literal and straightforward prompts, because the puzzle is one of the core systems, we integrate most of the prompts into the game environment, many of the puzzles of the puzzle is actually hidden in the environment, we hope that the player can fully use their own observations and associations to find the clues of the game when solving the puzzle, in order to increase the sense of achievement. For some situations where it is not easy to find a goal or easy to get lost, we have actually added an auxiliary goal guidance function to the game. For players who don't want to challenge too hard, you can use it selectively.