On April 28, a live-action interactive movie game, "Bad Detective", was released on Steam, and soon there was a high degree of discussion among players.
Speaking of which, the emerging game category of interactive movies has undergone a period of rapid development from scratch in the past few years, but since "Invisible Guardian", high-quality movie game works have rarely been seen in China. And this adaptation from "Wind Rises Luoyang", which lasted more than 600 days and occupied more than 30,000 square meters of scenery, naturally attracted the expectations of many enthusiasts.
Two years have passed quietly, will there be a better "interactive movie game"? I clicked on "Divine Bad Detective" and entered Luoyang, and a delicate picture scroll slowly unfolded in front of me...
(Compared with the serious plot of the original "Wind Rises Luoyang", the story of the derivative "Bad Detective of The Gods" as a whole is biased towards a relaxed and funny tone, and here we do not think more from the perspective of the play, but more from the perspective of the game to understand this work).
[pagesplitxx] [pagetitle] Detective Master's "Mind Map" [/pagetitle]
Detective Master's "Mind Map"
The story of "Divine Bad Detective" is set in the Tang Dynasty. In the great pit near the divine capital Luoyang, the bad well, there lived all kinds of exiled people, and their commander was called "bad handsome". The protagonist, Du Xun, is a small trader with an antique shop in a bad well, with a flexible mind but content with the status quo. One day, his good friend Anqi is involved in the death of the "bad handsome", and the two begin to investigate the truth of the matter...
The game is basically based on "detective" reasoning as the core gameplay, when Du Xun is doing antique business, we have to "use" reasoning ability to do some "pit and cheat" small business. Observe the details of clothing and demeanor, find clues related to the event, and then combine the clues to select the correct option to advance the plot.
The same is true when investigating, moving the mouse around the scene for clues and suspicious items.
Or, to create a language loophole in the dialogue, so as to gain a verbal advantage or provide information on the case.
The biggest highlight in the game is the ingenious reasoning process.
When we collect enough clues at the scene of the crime, we will open the "thinking" mode, combing through the branches of the case in the mental space: starting from each known clue, extending these clues through reasoning, finding out their hidden commonalities, connecting into a network, and finally getting the seemingly impossible but interlocking truth.
"There is only one truth"
The process of solving the puzzle is not difficult, but there is a feeling of playing a traditional reasoning game to slowly sort out the truth.
The game has a total of 5 times of content, and the "detective" process accounts for more than half of it. Overall, "Shendu Bad Detective" pays great attention to the depiction and performance of the reasoning and puzzle solving process, interesting, boring puzzle design also complements the overall style of the game, and the core element "Detective" also makes it obviously different from other "interactive movie games".
In addition, it is worth mentioning that "Divine Bad Detective" is also very careful to polish the small details of the game design, such as the opening "continue to chew the dog's tail grass" is not idle, and even a few times will complete the achievement of the "spirit of exploration";
In the comic-style chapter page UI, a dynamic display effect after clicking has been added, which will also make players smile easily after the tense game.
[pagesplitxx] [pagetitle] Further under "Shadow of the Predecessors" [/pagetitle]
Further under the "Shadow of the Predecessors"
In fact, the concept of "interactive video game" has a long history, such as "Rainstorm" released by French studio Quantic Dream in 2010 and "Extraordinary Twins" in 2013, which are excellent interactive games. But what really made this concept appear in the public eye was the interactive film and television game "Detroit: Change" produced by the studio in 2018, which sold more than 5 million copies that year and became a phenomenon game in this category.
In 2019, the excellent quality of "Invisible Guardian" continues to be hot, but also let domestic players truly recognize the "interactive movie game" this emerging game category. However, limited by the pressure of funds and time, "Invisible Guardians" uses too many static pictures, and despite the artistic treatment of advanced film storyboarding, it has been questioned by players.
Now as a successor, "Bad Detective Shendu" has made improvements behind the predecessors, insisting on presenting the content of the game in the way of live-action interpretation and full video. Such an attempt is the first time in the domestic "interactive film game", and the difficulty brought by it is also imaginable. "I think that the connection between the film and television part and the interactive choice is the content that best reflects the sincerity of the product." Diao Yu, the director of "Divine Bad Detective", said so in an interview. Obviously, the creators of the game want to do something for the player than the difficulty of production.
So we can see the details that are rare in the previous "interactive movie games": while providing players with plot choices, the game's screen is not static, but through a large number of looping frames shot in advance, to enrich the interactive part of the play experience.
For example, in the fifth time, Du Xun went to the pawnshop to redeem the items of the bad handsome. And if you look closely at the dialogue between him and the pawnshop owner, you will find that each time the options are different, the speed of the pawnshop owner dialing the rosary beads will be slightly different, which is easier to convey the boss's emotional changes at that time than static pictures -
The efforts in these details allow players to not look like "looking at ppts" when interacting with the plot, thus enhancing the overall sense of immersion. It also makes "Divine Bad Detective" more fluent and coherent than most of the "interactive movie games", and the problem of "sense of separation" in the "interactive movie game" has been solved to a certain extent.
In addition, the construction of the full real scene and all props, the meticulous and meticulous and not exaggerated costumes, and the excellent acting skills of the actors are all remarkable places in "God Bad Detective".
[pagesplitxx] [pagetitle] A brief preamble to the story [/pagetitle]
A brief taste of the preamble story
A slight regret is that the current volume of "Divine Bad Detective" is still shorter. In the first 5 story developments, Du Xun helped Anqi solve the puzzle, resolve the fight, and get the Shuai Seal, all of which occurred in the exiled place far away from the gods - the bad well, the scale of the whole story is actually very small, the time from the bad Shuai accident to the found of the Shuai Seal is only a few days, there is no big scene in space. The "Shinto", which is supposed to be the protagonist's great skill, only appears in some of the game's cutscenes. As the protagonist Liu Xun has not yet begun to grow, Anqi has not completed his ambitions.
A quick glimpse of the "Divine Capital"
Therefore, if you look at "Divine Bad Detective" as a movie, the current story is just the foreplay before the climax: the protagonist shows his ability for the first time, solves the small troubles, and will go to the end to usher in a new big map. According to the quality of the "bad well" presented in the game, I am still looking forward to how the production team will show the "Shendu", a fascinating and broader stage.
However, it is precisely because the current story is still in the early stage of not needing to derive too many branches, resulting in the overall story development is relatively single linear, and both the plot direction and the choice in the game are somewhat straightforward and simple. This makes "Shendu Bad Detective" look a little "virtual" inside under the interesting game framework and the excellent outline of the exquisite costume path.
Fewer feeders
For example, in the game, when we make a choice, there are often only two endings of "either life or death", which sometimes seems thin. Admittedly, in the part where Xiao Tu and the "Axe King" fought in "Invisible Guardian", the same is either dead or alive, and the effect is very good: the perverted murderer and various sudden tragic deaths made my adrenaline soar when playing, and I still remember it vividly.
But I also clearly remember the endings of Xiao Tu's failed mission and being sent back to the Border Zone, and "Sent Back to the Border Zone" was even more circulated among players than "Axe King". In a way, the process of disqualification without a word in "Invisible Guardian" will make me understand the difficulty of lurking work more than the simple death.
Games not only have "life or death" multiple choice questions, but should also have complex and diverse developments. Whether it is more realistic game details, more complete full video presentation, or the richness and perfection of the plot, they all point to the same goal - to make players more immersed in the world of the game, in fact, "Detective God" is good enough in quite a few aspects, but as players, we still hope that they can go further and look forward to improving the plot in the future.