Two rounds of testing have been held overseas, and NetEase's "Ice Age" may not be benchmarked

Building gameplay has always been one of the core experiences of business simulation games, laying flat fields on the land of the manor and lifting towering buildings, and these architectural wonders completed by the hands of players have always been the gifts of this type of game to the player.

In the mobile market, the construction gameplay is also an important part of the simulation business game. However, for a long time, the construction gameplay often did not play the role of the core experience of the game, but was reduced to a pure resource production system, serving the player to attack the city or casual games.

This situation has changed in the simulated business mobile games such as "Jiangnan Hundred Views" that focus on management and construction gameplay. The so-called main management and construction gameplay, that is, while taking management as the core of the game, it will also pay attention to showing the construction results of the player, and work the artistic performance of the building, giving the player a considerable degree of construction freedom, so that the player can build the city in his heart like free painting.

After "100 Views of Gangnam", countless construction simulation management games are eager to become the next top player in this category. NetEase's Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice (hereinafter referred to as the Ice Age) is also one of them.

(Analog build-in-progress product open for appointment on TapTap)

The origin of this "Ice Age" is not small, it is a mobile game adapted by NetEase and 11bit Studio according to the IP of the "Ice Age" end game version, and it was exposed at the NetEase Game 520 conference in 21 years.

(The total sales of the "Ice Age" end game version reached 3 million sets)

As a simulation business game developed by NetEase, it has become a focus on how novel simulation business experience it will bring to players. At the same time, as an adaptation of 3 million sales IP, how much "Ice Age" restores its end game version is also worth paying attention to.

Fortunately, we don't have to wait until it goes live to know these answers, because recently, Ice Age has opened a new round of testing in several overseas regions, and we can explore these answers directly in the game. The current score of the game on the Good Game Explosion is 8.0 points.

01

This is the coldest apocalypse

"Ice Age" is set in a hypothetical 19th-century human society, when an extreme climate called "Eternal Winter" brought the average temperature of all habitable areas of the earth below minus 40 degrees Celsius, which brought a prosperous human society to the brink of survival in an instant.

Fortunately, before the advent of "Eternal Winter", humans built huge energy towers with powerful heating power, and as long as they settled around the energy towers and carried out the necessary production, humans could continue the fire of the race until the end of "Eternal Winter".

The player assumes the role of leader, arranging people's production activities, planning facilities around the energy tower, and formulating the laws of the energy tower shelter, leading the surviving human race to overcome the extreme weather and make the energy tower shelter prosperous.

Today, when the simulation business game is fully developed, the world view of "Ice Age" is very recognizable, and the unique world view design also makes the art of the game very distinctive.

The 19th century is a century of steam and steel, and Ice Age, set in this era, uses the art style of steampunk to show the game's standard building, the energy tower.

Buildings other than energy towers do not use the steampunk style, but return to the original architectural form of the 19th century, with all-wooden residential buildings, classical-style churches, and simple glass greenhouses, which are sent to the player like toys, allowing players to arrange their positions according to their expectations.

As mentioned above, the basic condition for building as the core experience of the game is that the game must have a high degree of freedom of construction gameplay and beautiful, unique building art, and Ice Age seems to have done it.

In addition to the architectural art, the game's event system illustrations are very distinctive. In the course of the game, some events will be randomly generated for the player to choose. It's hard to make a good decision in the context of apocalypse, so all the event illustrations feel dark, cold, and desperate.

You can see that through stylized architecture and event illustration art, Ice Age is a good example of what a late 19th-century survivor camp should look like, and then it's up to the player to build the camp with the help of a simulated management system.

02

A business simulation game with survival at its core

Through the story, we can learn that survival is the core game experience of Ice Age.

The survival gameplay of this game revolves around the three key points of resources, production, and labor.

Compared with similar products, one of the characteristics of "Ice Age" is that the basic resources are consumed all the time, the huge energy tower must burn coal uninterruptedly, and the residents of the survivor camp also have to continuously consume rations, if the player does not continue to obtain these resources, it may lead to a large-scale escape or death of the residents of the survivor camp.

Therefore, through the production co-ordination system, the player arranges for the workers in the survivor camp to dig coal mines and find potatoes in the wild to maintain the normal operation of the energy tower and the camp.

The acquisition of labor, including workers, is not simple, in addition to the labor force sent by the game opening system, the new labor force requires the player to return to the camp one by one through other systems, so the player must manage the living environment of the camp and leave these labor forces in his hands.

(If the player has abundant resources in his hands, he may exceed the supply of heat or food needed by the workers to improve the labor efficiency of the workers)

As the number of survivors continues to increase, players will need more and more infrastructure to meet the survivors' survival needs, such as more living space, medical stations where treatment can be performed, and taverns that can regulate the mood of the workforce.

To build these special facilities, the player needs to use the basic resources to build production facilities, and use these production facilities to obtain the high-level materials needed to build the special facilities. Therefore, the main line of the game's production gameplay is to let the player continuously produce the resources needed to promote the development of the camp.

(Wood chips and other materials needed for building later in the game cannot be directly mined, but require the player to process the basic resources to obtain)

However, because the basic resources required for production gameplay are linked to the basic resources for camp survival, this makes players have more calculations when producing, balancing the income and expenditure of camp resources, not only ensuring the survival of labor, but also efficiently promoting the development of the camp, which is also the different experience of "Ice Age" and similar products.

(The production of kerosene requires the consumption of coal, but coal is a necessary basic resource for camp heating.)

Whether it is the acquisition of basic resources or the operation of special facilities, labor is required to operate, and there are only two ways for players to obtain labor.

One is to use the lighthouse facility to release a signal flare, which has a probability of acquiring several survivors. The acquisition of the signal flare naturally depends on the player's consumption of various resources to produce, and the more advanced the signal flare produced, the greater the probability of finding survivors.

The other is to explore on a large map outside the camp. On the large map there will be several resources and survivors waiting for the player to obtain. However, this acquisition is not a simple task, the player must bring enough rations and medical supplies to rescue these survivors, if the player does not bring enough medical supplies, the found survivors will die.

It can be seen that access to labor, which is the key resource for the functioning of all facilities and jobs, is very difficult. Maintaining and expanding the workforce is one of the most critical goals in the game, and the rewards of this goal are considerable, after all, one more workforce means a significant increase in the efficiency of access to a resource.

The survival gameplay of the game is to dynamically maintain the survival needs of the camp, while constantly taking out excess resources to develop the camp, obtain new labor, and ultimately let the camp develop into a sound micro-human society.

In addition to the core survival gameplay, "Ice Age" also has other gameplay methods that deeply restore the content of the terminal game.

After the player unlocks the city story gameplay, they can experience the game's preset story script. In the script, the player has to make one event choice after another, and also produce the sufficient resources needed for the development of the plot within a limited time to achieve the goals set by the story.

For example, in the first storyline in the game, the player has to prepare enough supplies to carry the snowstorm before it comes. But at this time, a father needs to take some of the camp's supplies to find his daughter. If the player wants to get to a good end to the story, they must prepare the camp and the resources that the father needs, and appease other disgruntled survivors in the emergency selection, so that the father can successfully find his daughter.

(This story has a considerable reference to the story of the original IP)

After unlocking the Law System, players can sign a series of special decrees to change the survival and working status of the camp. For example, players can sign the Universal Health Care Act to get better care for patients in the camp, or they can sign the Emergency Shift Law, which increases the efficiency of workers in a short period of time.

A significant portion of the system comes from the original IP, but removes the laws that test human nature.

It can be seen that thanks to the inheritance of the content of the terminal game, "Ice Age" relies on many characteristics represented by the survival gameplay to make its own construction and production system different from similar products.

03

A payment system whose main commodity is development efficiency

In addition to the gameplay itself, the paid content of the game is also worthy of our attention.

Like most business simulation games, Ice Age sells players essentially the efficiency of camp development. Pay directly to get advanced materials for your camp or unlock hours of automatic resource harvesting.

On paid bootstrapping, the system will automatically pop up the promotional package when the player finds that they have insufficient resources to develop. For example, if the player clicks the upgrade button of the building when the resources are insufficient, the system will notify the player that the resources are insufficient, and the promotional package will pop up.

While this paid content does have a strong correlation with the core experience of the game, due to the lack of social content in the game at present, this may lead to this part of the content not being sufficiently attractive to players. Perhaps in later versions, we will see social content that helps to pay.

On the other hand, paid content is the appearance content of the game, and you can unlock the appearance drawings and place decorations in the camp by paying for it.

04

epilogue

It can be seen that "Ice Age" is another innovative simulated business mobile game developed by NetEase. The novelty is the key to NetEase's ability to establish and maintain its advantage on countless tracks, such as the doomsday survival track and the asymmetric confrontation track.

On the other hand, "Ice Steam Age" is also a product with a very obvious intention to go to sea, although there is not much noise in China, but in fact, this product has been tested overseas for two rounds, based on product selection IP is very popular in Europe and the United States, we can judge that "Ice Steam Age" is probably another overseas product for Europe and the United States.

From "Harry Potter" to "Ice Age", we can see that NetEase's reserves of overseas products in Europe and the United States are gradually becoming full. It is believed that in the near future, the European and American markets will become the focus of NetEase. And these products that are undergoing market verification will become the guarantee of NetEase's achievements in the European and American markets.