Text/Labyrinth (Qin Liang'an also assisted in this article)
Lead
Last week, a female version called Codename: Iris quietly ended a small-scale test to the game. The game is very low-key, not only does not have mainstream channels such as TapTap and B station, but also does not even have an official social account, obviously intending to control the scope of test spread. The information on the Nine Tours and Good Tours Quick Burst pages of Codename: Iris both point to the publisher's Love Nine Tours, that is, Ali Games.
Good Tour Quick Explosion shows that the publisher of Codename: Iris is Aijiu You
It is reasonable to speculate that Codename: Iris is a game released by Ali Games, and it should also be the first pure female game ("Traveling Frog" counts as a casual placement class).
At this moment when women are fiercely competing in the game market, in addition to the two professional outdoors of paper folding and friendship time, there are also big manufacturers such as NetEase, Mihayou, Tencent and Sunrise Lightyear to share a piece of the pie. Ali Games' intention to enter the game is not surprising, even a little late. After I tried to play Codename: Iris, "Codename: Iris" was still quite a highlight in terms of the quality of the first test, but it also exposed a bunch of problems.
01
Extremely expressive L2D
First person substitute sense explosion shelf
At first, it was the rolling-eyed gif of the male protagonist in "Codename: Iris" that made the game popular on Weibo. Many players shouted, can the small actions of women to the protagonist of the game be so delicate?
Really entering the main plot of the game, I found that there are many such highly expressive Andrea 2D scenes in Codename: Iris. I cut two plot gifs at random, please feel this expressiveness.
It should be pointed out that the above plot section is still an operational stage for the player, and it is not simply a preset animation to play. Judging from my shallow mobile game experience, it seems that the only thing that can achieve this level of Live 2D performance at this level is the "Undetermined Event Book".
The Live 2D performance of "Codename: Iris" has a feeling of making the male protagonist "live". In the game, players are no longer simply "watching PPT" to fall in love, no longer watching the male protagonist pose concave shape, no longer enjoying one or two high-precision plot CG pictures after a lengthy dialogue, but can truly feel that the male protagonist is standing opposite you.
I could clearly see the male protagonist's smile and various delicate small movements. When talking with Liu Wei, he repeatedly poured wine and drank with me; walked hand in hand with Fu Rong, he turned back and smiled and stretched out his hand; and with Yuan Ji on the boating lake, the boat fell together, going with the waves...
In "Codename: Iris", the male protagonist's Live 2D is not only a fluttering shirt and a change in the corners of the eyes, but also a variety of behaviors that conform to the plot, expressing complex emotions of anger or pity or intimacy.
In short, the game's Live 2D performance tension and the expansion of the lens focal length create a very full first-person feeling and a sense of substitution.
Live 2D is also used in game cards, where SR and SSR cards all use Live 2D performance. I have to say that whether it is the most ordinary N card or SSR card, the "Codename: Iris" card face vertical painting is still very online.
Part of the SSR caligraph
Another big selling point for women to the game is the game's voice cast. Although the voice actors of "Codename: Iris" have not been officially disclosed at present, according to the voice recognition in the game, popular actors who are active in the front line of radio dramas such as Chen Zhang Taikang, Phantom Voice, Cloud Only, and Koi should be enabled.
As far as the first test of dubbing performance is concerned, I think these young actors are still in place for the performance of the character's emotions and emotions. At least I feel that the dubbing is more "face-to-face".
02
The budget is spent on the main plot
Compared with the well-made main plot parts, the other content of Codename: Iris can be described as "simple".
Game UI with prop icon
Let's talk about the game UI and prop icon first. When I first entered the main interface of the game, I couldn't help but sigh that the game icon design was too simple, that is, the bold font nested a layer of gradient mask? This is very different from other icons where women have a sense of design for games.
The ui of the main interface of the game
The game prop icon design is also a bit rough, giving me the illusion of playing the MMO game of five years ago. Comparing other women's antique games, it can be perceived that "Codename: Iris" did not spend much effort on this part of the design.
Codename: Iris prop icon
Antique style game a prop icon
Antique style game two prop icon
There is no draw card for performing animation
yes! When other games are eager to cram the most gorgeous lottery performance animation into the game to stimulate the player to draw cards, Codename: Iris does not have any draw animation!
When you click the draw button, the game really just jumps out of the cards, and even the SSR card is drawn without any special prompt. This made me not feel any sense of surprise at all by unpacking the blind box, let alone the urge to "post".
Codename: Iris has made some innovations in the card draw. Most women draw cards to the game, and it is the protagonist who draws cards. The differences between cards are the card face, the card values, and the accompanying story. Codename: Iris draws not the protagonist's cards, but the cards of other historical figures.
This is innovative, but it brings a sense of separation. The player's good feelings with the protagonist in the main plot cannot be transformed by drawing cards. And the characters in the card pool, some of which appear in the side plots, can be said to be "we are not very familiar". Such a design may weaken the player's enthusiasm for drawing cards.
"Sit-ups" fighting
Codename: Iris' combat sessions are unattractive, and even the card combat performances are somewhat clumsy.
After entering the battle, when I saw the card characters doing "sit-ups" in turn, I heard the sound of the anticipation established by the main line of the game in my heart, and began to collapse.
The game's action-driven approach, which blends plot and combat, looks relatively new. I understand that the main creative team wants to make the real-time combat feeling of PC and console games, but after the actual playing experience, you will feel the separation of the plot and the battle, and sometimes you don't know where the plot is progressing, and it is also very troublesome to review the plot.
Fortunately, it was only the first test
Codename: Iris has a number of other issues that affect the gameplay experience. For example, some rumor clues are hidden too deeply and are not easy to collect; some side paths that choose one of the two, because they cannot go back, force the player to brush twice, and so on...
Fortunately, this is only the first test of the game, and the project team will also polish the game. I believe that in the subsequent development process, the game can improve the quality of the icon and card performance animation. But problems such as battle design and side play may require more wisdom to solve.
03
Real historical figures
Is this really possible?
"Codename: Iris" is set in the last year of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the player dressed as a man to play the Guangling King of the Han Dynasty, the head of the intelligence agency called "Embroidery Building", in the chaotic world to preserve everything they cherish.
Most of the characters in the game are also historical figures from the Three Kingdoms period at the end of the Han Dynasty. Take the three male protagonists currently open as an example, they are all well-documented real people in history.
Tianzi Liu Jie was historically the penultimate emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and was the half-brother of Liu Xie (Emperor Xian of Han), the "Son of Heaven" in the "Emperor Tianzi" of the "Emperor Tianzi". Liu Wei ascended the throne in a foreign coup, was deposed in Dong Zhuo's coup d'état, and was poisoned by Dong Zhuo, reigning for only 4 months. The plot of "Codename: Iris" also reflects this historical fact to some extent.
In the history of Taipu Yuan Ji, Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu's brother, who were killed by Dong Zhuo in the war against Dong Zhuo, while Fu Rong was a figure of the Southern and Northern Dynasties 200 years later.
Considering that "historical nihilism" is repeatedly denied in today's audit standards, such as "Codename: Iris" is set on the real historical stage, and the game characters are also real historical figures, but the fate of the characters in the game plot is not completely consistent with the fate of historical figures, will this mislead adults (this year's newly listed women basically only serve adults to the game)?
Thinking that the first beta version of "Codename: Iris" is Chinese Traditional, has the game side not considered the mainland market?
04
This is a lucrative market with serious homogenization
It seems that it is currently difficult for women to jump out of the shackles of card games.
Most women play the same way to the core gameplay of the game, coupled with the fact that the male protagonist is carved out of a mold and hires the same big-name voice actors, resulting in serious homogenization of the game. At present, the core competitiveness of women to the game lies in the level of art, the scale of the card surface and the sense of immersion created.
Cards Or cards
More critically, female gamers have a very strong spending power, and even the game population is almost equal to that of male players. Looking at the "Day and Night" activity flow data of "Light and Night Love" at the beginning of the year, the game was sent to the iOS best-seller list Top 4, which made me deeply aware of the love and payment ability of female players for the game. So it's not hard to understand that manufacturers value female gamers.
Codename: Iris, which is also a card female to the game, has taken the protagonist's performance to a higher level, but there are still many deficiencies in other aspects. There is still time after the first test of Codename: Iris. It is expected that after it has undergone polishing and modification, it can stand out from the market where this homogeneous product is gathered.
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