Text │ Hitting a dog stick
On February 4, 2021, a Chinese-themed horror suspense puzzle game "Fireworks", produced by Shiying Studios and released by Gamera Games, was released on the Steam platform. The story takes place in a remote mountain town, where an accidental fire at a funeral involves a closed case. Newcomer police officer Lin Lixun re-investigated the door-killing case by chance, and as the investigation deepened, the victim's past slowly surfaced, but the truth of the case became confusing.
Since July 2020, as soon as the game demo was announced, it has caused a huge sensation in the domestic game circle, with a nostalgic watercolor painting style, a cold and eerie atmosphere, a twisted and bizarre story, a wonderful narrative method, and a complex and profound theme that made "Fireworks" praise on Steam. At present, the number of reviews has exceeded 17,000, and the praise rate is as high as 98%, becoming one of the most undisputed excellent domestic games in the past decade. Ranger Network, 3DMGAME, video game bus, Nomad Starry Sky and other professional game forums have successively released "Fireworks" interview articles, marking that it has become another landmark Chinese horror domestic independent game after the "Hong Kong Mystery Record" and "Paper Wedding Dress" series.
In April this year, Shiying Studio once again released a new work "Three Volts" demo, this time the story background changed to the city of Chongqing under the 90s qigong boom, and the protagonist also changed from one person to a man and a woman. Although the theme is very different from the previous work, the demo of "Three Volts" has once again received thousands of praise, and many netizens believe that from the picture to the story, "Three Volts" has a hidden tendency to surpass the previous work.
On September 10, 2019, the game's creator Moonlight Cockroach announced on Weibo that "Fireworks" will be filmed and televisionized, and the producer is Wuyuan Culture, a production company that has produced a number of high-quality suspense works. This "cross-border" joint has attracted a high degree of attention, and "Three Volts", which has not yet launched a full version of the game, has also become the focus of netizens' attention.
Horror and suspense have always been popular film and television drama themes, and they are also the genres with high popularity and high reputation in recent years. A large part of the previous suspense theme IP comes from novels, and the combination of game + film and television may indicate a new direction for future suspense theme film and television adaptations.
What do indie games have in common with online texts and film and television dramas at the level of storytelling? What are the advantages and difficulties of the film and television dramas adapted from it? What is the current state of the industry for indie games? Bone Duo invited the creators of "Fireworks" and "Three Volts", the Moonlight Cockroach of Shiying Studio, to talk about his personal creative path, his views on the film and television of domestic independent games, the requirements for the film and television of his own works, and the industry status of domestic independent games.
Good plot: The winning side of domestic indie games
Talking about the film and television of domestic independent games, Moonlight Cockroach thinks that this topic is too big. In his view, "Fireworks" and "Three Volts" belong to the branch of "visual fiction" in word games, which is a relatively niche category in independent games. The focus of this category is on the creation of plot and atmosphere, the requirements for operation are relatively low, and it is a type that is more suitable for filming and television in independent games, because it and film and television have interoperability in creation, and content is the first.
"I know that the American drama "The Witcher" and our early "Legend of the Paladin Sword" are all plot-oriented games, on the one hand, the game itself has a relatively complete and rich character design and a clear plot design, on the other hand, the plot-oriented theme of the game is not too far from the audience's life, whether it is myths and legends, or demons and ghosts, are already elements in the audience's cognition, and "Fireworks" is directly a realistic theme story."
He believes that if a game only focuses on the game experience itself, such as a very good sense of blows and a good shooting experience, it can indeed bring a "cool feeling" to the player, but this happiness is short-lived, and after playing, there may be nothing left in the player's mind. And if a game has a good plot and a good performance atmosphere, it will leave players with a lot of memorable things, and players may be willing to become "tap water" and go to other people's Amway your game because of these touches and memories.
On the other hand, constrained by objective conditions, no matter how hard independent games work, it is difficult to compete with the big factories in visual effects and technology, and only in the plot and art to carry out personal stylized exploration, taking the small and beautiful route, is the way for them to settle down. "In recent years, not only word games, but also more and more shooters, action combat independent games, have also paid more attention to the plot, I think this is a good trend."
All the art of storytelling is content first
Speaking of the failure of many large-scale game film and television failures in recent years, Moonlight Cockroach believes that compared with niche independent games, game IP with a larger number of players and a larger world view is more difficult to adapt. How to show the game's magnificent worldview architecture and complex character design? How to balance the acceptance of fans with the general audience? How to ensure the narrative level of the work? These are all issues that need to be considered when adapting.
"Taking "World of Warcraft" and "Glory of Kings" as an example, these two games can be regarded as 'overhead' themes, the game itself has its own independent operation system, each tribe and each hero has its own special skill setting, which is the threshold for watching movies." For gamers, he may quickly accept, and the general audience without the corresponding accumulation of knowledge, will be confused, perhaps asking why Li Bai and people of other dynasties mixed together to fight? "In this case, it is a very test of the narrative level of film and television adaptation." How to let ordinary audiences slowly understand and accept the world view of the original work with the development of the story through the appropriate narrative rhythm is a difficult problem that the director and screenwriter of the adaptation need to think carefully.
Balancing the needs of game fans and general audiences is also a problem for big IP adaptations. "It's not just games, it's also fiction." Moonlight Cockroach compares the Harry Potter series to the Fantastic Beasts series. "The Harry Potter series is well adapted, and the average audience can gradually integrate into the author's magical world from the first part. But you watch "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", the first one is good, but from the second part, it has completely become a fan-oriented work, and if you have not read the book and do not know the relationship between several protagonists, you may not understand what the movie is about, which is a problem in creation. I think that a good adaptation must not only restore some famous scenes in the original to fans, but also make ordinary audiences accept and integrate into the world of your movie. ”
Asked about the advantages of adapting an indie game over adapting an online text, Moonlight Cockroach believes that adapting a game may be easier and more efficient in terms of visual communication, because it can borrow from the scene construction, lighting and picture effects in the game, and the idea of camera movement. Taking scene construction as an example, the scene presentation in the game is more intuitive, and some details can be added or adapted when filming and television, and even the original scene can be directly restored. "This is much less effort than relying on pure text descriptions to construct a scene, from text to visual, each reader has their own fantasies, and there is no way to guarantee that the effect will satisfy the audience.""
But the filmization of the game also has special difficulties. On the one hand, there is the incompatibility between the game language and the lens language part. The biggest difference between games and film and television dramas is the interaction with players, the essence of text games is actually to play a role by the player, through the character in one space after another constantly search for clues, get feedback, and finally piece together a fact. In order to increase the sense of interaction, the game creators must forcibly add one deciphering mini-game after another to the story, and the player obtains clues by cracking the mini-game. These are the parts that cannot be directly presented in the film and television drama, and the director and screenwriter need to strengthen the narrative and camera design.
On the other hand, for domestic independent horror games, the sensitivity of the subject matter is also a problem. Taking "Fireworks" as an example, this story is led by a murder case, exposing the superstition and ignorance that are difficult to remove in rural life, containing a large number of horror, supernatural and traditional funerary cultural elements, how to adapt to pass the strict review of the film and television industry on the basis of retaining the core of the original work, is also another major problem faced by the adaptor. "But in the end, all IP film and television adaptations are essentially the same, the content comes first, and a good adaptation must be a good narrative to let ordinary audiences integrate into your world."
Regarding the filming and televisionization of "Fireworks", Moonlight Cockroach said that it is still in the early stages of script creation. "I mainly play a role similar to that of a literary consultant, responsible for determining the direction of adaptation suitable for film and television in the early stage, and I will definitely check the script, but I should not actually participate in the writing of the script, and everything is still uncertain." For possible changes, he also said that he has been mentally prepared: "There will definitely be changes, and I can accept a certain degree of necessary adaptation, but I definitely do not accept distorting the original character and world view in order to please the audience, such as 'fried CP'." ”
When Bone Duo mentioned that "if the film and television of "Fireworks" is successful, will it be expanded to create a 'fireworks universe'", Moonlight Cockroach denied three consecutive: "No." For me, the story of "Fireworks" has been completed, Kobayashi's character arc has long been completed, and it is easy to force the expansion at this time, and it is easy to continue the mink. On the other hand, for independent developers, it is definitely more attractive to develop new works than to continue to write old works, because new themes can be explored without being constrained by the previous works. I want to do something new all the time. ”
Created by the Twenty-Eight Laws and the Nine Dead Lives of indie Games
The success of "Fireworks" did not completely exceed the psychological expectations of moonlight cockroaches, thanks to his "80%+20%" creative logic. "When I create a work, I will ensure that 80% of the part is understood and liked by ordinary players, and the remaining 20% of the deeper self-expression part, I will hide in various details, leaving it to 20% of players who are willing to explore, as an Easter egg." 」
How to ensure that 80% of yourself can be accepted and liked by most players? The answer is market research.
"Before I do a project, what I must do is to research the market and do the topic planning. You have to know what the audience likes, what the reader likes, you can't completely follow your own ideas, you have to know what kind of character design the audience likes, what kind of story you like, what kind of elements you like. I myself usually like to brush Weibo, many people may think that I am touching the fish, in fact, I am looking at some netizens forwarding more content, and then analyze why everyone likes to forward these, in this way, to understand what kind of subjects everyone likes now, what kind of works they like. The results of these analyses will be used by me in my own creations. ”
Taking the character design in the new work "Three Volts" as an example, the occupations of the male protagonist and the female protagonist are Taoist and investigator respectively, which will make the audience feel fresh. In terms of character design, I think ahead about how to make players like my character, and what character attributes are likely to be disliked by today's audience. Then, according to the perceptual experience of visiting Weibo and B station, I found that as far as female characters are concerned, the vase-style character has been favored by players, so the heroine of "Three Volts" has become a seemingly natural stay, but also a bit of a black belly, but also a very reliable character. ”
One of the problems faced by many developers of indie games, especially narrative games, is that many people are immersed in "self-congratulations". Although indie games are called indie games because they contain a strong personal temperament of the creator, the essence of the game is still a commodity that requires players to spend money, so the creators need to serve the audience, meet some of the needs of players, let players have fun, and can experience the game comfortably. Unless the author only wants to make a fan-oriented game, how many such people can there be?
"An indie game developer said: Indie games are a nine-life industry. This is not an exaggeration. As far as I know the data, steam will have nearly a thousand games released every month, but when you open its monthly sales ranking, there are only about twenty or thirty of them on the list, and the rest of the games have been drowned, and it is difficult to improve after that, because in the second month there are a large number of new games pouring in, and there are new popular games. ”
In such a difficult environment, if the game developer can not take into account the needs of the audience in the early stage of creation, continue to make a car behind closed doors in the personal spiritual world, in a good case, may be able to wait until one day in the future, their own game is turned over by a famous anchor, as a bead. But how many such opportunities can there be?