Recently, I saw a few very dry articles to share, and I was also encouraged by the serialization of industry stories written by seniors during the epidemic in Shanghai, so I wanted to write something to record. As a small transparent producer in the industry, I often ask myself, "What are you doing in your usual work?" Because I saw that other colleagues' weekly reports recorded the content of their weekly work in detail, and the cases that colleagues were responsible for produced, landed, and verified one after another, while I did not have "actual" outputs, I was very confused. So take advantage of this opportunity to review your work experience, but also as a little inspiration for all the newcomers who want to enter the game industry or want to become "game producers", the following are my own opinions, if there is something wrong or other ideas, welcome to point out and correct.
preface
I believe that many friends who like to play games or are in the game industry want to become game producers one day, and even become god producers like Hideo Kojima, Hidetaka Miyazaki, and Hideki Kamiya. Of course, excellent producers in the domestic mobile game industry are also the motivation and goal of many people, such as Viagra, Sea Cat, and Yuzhong.
So what exactly does it take to become a game producer? From the perspective of job division, the positions on the research and development side of planning, art, technology and even QA can become producers, and the operation of the distribution side also has a precedent for producers. Knowing which paths can become a producer, the next step is to focus on what producers usually do, which can also be understood as "how producers make games".
In my own work, I pay more attention to these four items: core gameplay, content orientation, art style and numerical framework, and I will explain them one by one in the next step
Core gameplay
For games, "playing" is the most important thing, and "fun" is what players care about the most. The definition of "good" varies from person to person and cannot be generalized. But if most people think it's good, we can think of it as "good." For the core gameplay, we first refine the core experience brought by various types of games, and we can see that RPGs take "story advancement" as the core, ARPG takes "precision operation" as the core, and FPS and racing classes take "getting the sense of killing and speed that cannot be experienced in reality" as the core. The core experience of different types of games is very different, which is why the game is rich and colorful.
As a producer, you first have to determine what kind of core experience the game is trying to provide to the player. Of course, this needs to be based on the premise of market prospects, industry experience, player perception, etc. to get a sound conclusion.
Knowing what type of game to do, you should want to do it, usually there are four means: restoration, iteration, integration, and innovation. Innovation is the most difficult, the best is unparalleled in the world, and no one survives if it is not done well. It is the easiest to restore, but the player's recognition is relatively low. Therefore, iterative and fusion methods are generally adopted, iteration refers to the experience or art iteration on existing categories, and integration refers to the integration design of the core experience of two or more categories.
After determining how to do it, the producer will repeatedly discuss and determine the presentation method and quality control means of the final core experience, after all, the game is an electronic product, and it needs to be made to ensure that it can be made. And in this process, it is also necessary to exchange ideas with internal and external "target users" so as not to affect the direction of the entire product. In this process, we must also constantly think about the differences with other competitors of the same type, and what are the characteristics of our own game products, which if you can think clearly, you will have a lot more confidence in the project.
After a period of discussion and research, it was finally decided what kind of core gameplay to do, it should be determined how to make this gameplay, and it was necessary to determine whether the planning side, the art side, and the technical side all had the ability and conditions to make the type. For example, to make an FPS game, but the planning and technology do not have any experience with FPS projects, and the producers themselves have not personally led FPS projects, then this decision is very dangerous. After determining that the team members are competent, during the production of the demo, the producer also has to repeatedly verify the core gameplay, constantly polishing and iterating, and nothing is achieved overnight.
Content settings
After talking about the core gameplay, let's talk about the content setting, which is also the part that I personally am most interested in and do best. For the content direction, we are also divided into the following parts: world view, plot, character design, content expansion, of course, the following content does not necessarily need to be written by the producer himself, but must be deeply involved in the creation can be.
Worldview
Speaking of world view, first of all, we must determine the theme, the same theme is not good or bad, mainly based on the producer's preferences and judgment of the market, the mainstream themes are: wasteland, urban, military, horror, love, adventure, detective, science fiction (utopia, artificial intelligence, doomsday, steaming saipeng, virtual reality, alien creatures)... The selection of themes needs to be considered from the aspects of player attractiveness, market vacancies/trends, and policy review, and finally choose the appropriate theme. After the theme is set, the general idea can also begin to build, first of all, to build "what is the world like". This includes the formation of the world, historical developments and important events and elements, the political/cultural/educational/military/economic aspects of the current world forces, and what are the characteristics of the creatures in the world. It can be imagined that what information is needed to describe the earth to aliens.
It then focuses on the description and setting of the current world, including but not limited to the geographical location, development status, technological level, overall style, ethnic composition, and historical overview of the various factions/forces/countries in the current world. There is also the overall design of the characters of each faction, according to factors such as geomorphology/technology, the characters of different factions will have different characteristics in skin color, shape, clothing accessories, and weapon props.
plot
After the worldview is built, you can start to design the plot framework, which mainly contains the main driving force of the plot advancement, the core emotional points, the short-term/medium-term/long-term goals, and the design points such as the ups and downs, suspense, and reversals of the plot. After the plot framework and outline are finalized, the specific plot writing will be much more reassuring, whether it is handed over to other plot planners or outsourced to scripting companies.
Human design
Character setting is an important factor in determining whether the game can be remembered by the player, first of all, based on the world view and plot to design the main character settings, that is, all the characters that will appear in the plot. The position of the secondary characters in the plot and their relationship with the protagonist is also considered here. Then, with the goal of enriching the breadth of the game's characters, we should design the settings of other characters. The content of the character setting will be very complicated, usually including: name, gender, age, race, height, weight, hairstyle, body shape, as well as detailed appearance characteristics, clothing descriptions, character life and background, personal experience and so on. Whether the character is brilliant or not comes largely from the design skills of the plot planner for the design of the person, of course, the more "rich" team can take the way of multi-person comparison to ensure the quality. For example, 10 plot planners, each person designs 1 character, and then a meeting is held to evaluate and select 2-3 of the most attractive characters.
Content expansion
For students who design the world view and plot, in addition to completing the above work, they are also responsible for a lot of peripheral work, such as gameplay, packaging and naming of props, and the setting and interpretation of relevant rules in the game.
Fine art style
After talking about the content side, it is time to reach the most anticipated art style part, and many people will wonder, is the art style not the main beauty decision, how can it be related to the producer? Yes, the art style is ultimately determined and realized by the main beauty, but the pre-producer must also be deeply involved in the discussion and acceptance, otherwise there will be many unexpected problems in the subsequent development. If a producer who is not from an art background wants to discuss the art style with the main beauty, he needs to have a basic art cognition. Otherwise, the main beauty and you discuss the hue, brightness, and purity, and you ask the main beauty whether the 53-degree sauce-flavored Moutai is pure enough, and I think you will die a miserable death.
Here, I would like to focus on "conceptual design", which I also realized in a recent project. Concept design is very different from art design, the purpose of concept design is to design a variety of visual elements in the early stage of the project, and it is also a type of work that carries on from top to bottom in the industrialization of the game, in order to improve the work efficiency of the team. The most different part of the way of working between conceptual design and traditional art design is that "quickly generate ideas and present them with pictures", an original character painting may take 15-20 days of work, but a character concept design may require 5-10 versions of different designs a day. Using advertising as an example, the character concept design is like the 16th edition of the "Crisp Coconut King" one day copywriting, which requires a quick "different" plan, while the original character painting is like selecting a certain copy and designing it specifically. Of course, in addition to the character concept, the concept design is usually divided into scenes, props and keyframes. Keyframes are somewhat similar to illustrations, reflecting important plot or character emotions, but compared with illustrations, the keyframe concept design is much lower than the illustration in terms of completion, detail and refinement.
Having said all that about conceptual design, what exactly is art style? In fact, art style is also a very important work in the conceptual design stage, exploring, iterating and determining the art style in the conceptual design stage can provide a very good basic framework for subsequent batch production, so that art members can play under a clear framework, so as to ensure the overall unity. In fact, there is no clear definition of "art style", borrowing a picture that has been seen, it can be roughly divided into two dimensions: cartoon/realistic, East/West, so that four quadrants are obtained.
Knowing the direction of art style division, the next thing to say is which factors affect or determine the art style, I personally feel that the following points have a very important impact on art style: proportions, lines, shape, coloring, light and shadow, face design. And the way of painting: celluloid, thick paint, celluloid and thick paint combination, American manga, Hong Kong manga, flat. As a producer, you can't draw, but you must know what art styles are suitable for the project, and you must repeatedly discuss with the main beauty and the plot planner which style is suitable for the project. Then, together with the main beauty, according to the team's ability, mass production and other factors, determine the final art style to be adopted.
The above is a 2D art style, and the 3D art style is roughly divided into two directions: restoring the 2D style and the 3D independent style. The former is well understood, that is, to restore the 2D style as much as possible in the 3D production process, but also to consider the construction period and cost. The latter is more representative of "Maiden Frontline: Cloud Map Project", the 3D model is a Q version of the short head, which is very different from the original 2D character painting in terms of art style. The choice of 3D art style should be repeatedly discussed with the main beauty, considering the team's ability, development cycle and cost, market competitors and other factors, and finally determine the most suitable 3D art style.
After the art style of the project is determined, before the actual development, it is necessary to work with the main artist and the team leader to clarify the standard, construction period, etc., which is what we call the art pipeline. This includes the original character painting, the original scene painting, UI, model, action, special effects, etc., to make the various lines work closely together to ensure efficiency, the early planning and process development is very important, although this part of the work is mainly responsible for the art supervisor, but the experience and experience of the producer will also be very important help.
Numeric frames
Finally, it is necessary to talk about the producer's "compulsory course", numerical framework design, which is why many producers are born in numerical planning, because the stability and reliability of numerical values will determine the final success or failure of the project. Imagine a game with a unique art style, interesting gameplay, attractive plot, and much anticipation from players. However, after the launch, there were many serious problems with numerical directions, such as unbalanced skills, and the effects of some skills were against the sky, which seriously affected the balance of the game. Another example is the unreasonable design of the cultivation delivery, so that the player is always in a very painful state during the game process. For example, the commercial design is unreasonable, and the player who wants to spend money has nowhere to spend money or the player who does not spend money is more comfortable than the player who spends money. Such as the above, are because the numerical framework design is unreasonable or not verified, design and verification is indispensable. A good numerical framework must be obtained by constantly verifying and iterating in multiple projects, and verification and iteration are actually the process of paying tuition, which is why many producers are born in numerical planning, because they have paid more tuition.
How to do numerical frameworks, there are some materials and tutorials on the Internet, although the ages are different, the types of games are different, it may not be completely generic, but people who want to learn will definitely have a way to learn. Here, I will briefly talk about the points that I think need to be paid attention to in the design of numerical frameworks, which are also some of the experiences I have accumulated over the years of verification and iteration.
First of all, in terms of battle values, it is necessary to describe the battle rules in detail and clearly, because the battle rules are the basis for building the battle model later, and it is necessary to consider various extreme and low probability situations and design compatible schemes. Then there is the battle flow, the battle flow is also called the battle rhythm, which is a very subjective design, reflecting the designer's desire to present a kind of combat experience to the player. Then there are various formulas to calculate, from the aforementioned battle rules and battle rhythm as the basis for the formula design, it is conceivable that if the battle rules have loopholes or the battle process design is unreasonable, the formula will be affected. Finally, the properties of the "Standard Model" are calculated according to the formula, which is the basic work of the battle values.
The basic work is followed by the design of the specific role, the design attribute offset according to the different positioning of the role, and the design of the character skills. Of course, skill design is also a very complex and test of ability, in a variety of games, the player is most concerned about the skill, the most reflective of the player's strength is also the understanding and use of skills, skills here are too many methods, will not be discussed.
Next, entering the economic value part, it is necessary to focus on the design of the purpose and attribute proportion of each cultivation system, the purpose and consumption ratio of each play, and the actual cultivation cycle accounting. The actual cycle here refers to the simulation of the player's real game behavior, considering various gameplay delivery, activity delivery, recharge and other behaviors, and the actual cultivation cycle of players at different levels. Game games will be layered according to "big /medium/small R", there are also games that will be divided according to "white prostitutes, micro krypton, heavy krypton", and there will also be games divided according to "salted fish, liver emperor", which requires the producer to determine the standard of division for the target users and user habits of the project.
Finally, the commercialization value, first of all, to determine the main source of income. Card games usually have "card pool" as the primary consumption, MMO usually uses "kryptonite competition brought by PVP" as the core, and SLG takes "spending money to buy time" as an important payment concept. Here, too, the producer needs to clearly determine the core income of the project and make a detailed design for the core income items. Taking the card pool as an example, the difference between the outputs of different card pools, the guarantee rules of the card pool, and the versatility of the card drawing props will all affect the player's paid experience. Then there is the design of various commercial activities, gift packages, etc., and after determining the core resources such as projects, this part will be relatively simple.
epilogue
Having said that so many producers should pay attention to and participate in the work, I believe many people will sigh that it is not easy to become a producer. The difficulty is that the things to be done are too extensive and too complicated, it is difficult to concentrate on a certain thing, and there are no shortcomings in all aspects, even to have a prominent long board, and the most important thing is that the producer should be fully responsible for the project. The easy place is that as long as you like games and like to make games, there will always be opportunities, and learning from reliable producers will also get high-speed growth. Speaking of learning, in addition to learning at work, it is also very necessary to continue to learn and recharge in spare time, watch more film and television works, play more different types of games, read history, and keep up with the trend. In addition, planning, art, technology should be slightly understood, but also have the ability to identify people, but also a very important ability to build a team. Finally, the continuous accumulation, the improvement of ability and experience brought about by project experience, the change in participation and decision-making in the project and the impact on the outcome, the most important thing is "actual performance", as the saying goes, "the experience of a successful project is more valuable than the experience of three failed projects". Because a failed project can only tell you "what was done wrong", while a successful project can let you know "how to do it right".