Not long ago, a new game "Singularity Era" just finished the second round of testing of the national service. However, on various platforms such as Station B, Tieba and TapTap, the game has almost drowned out in a scolding. At the beginning, he "cuckolded" the male protagonist, the male protagonist was humiliated by the female protagonist's head, and he engaged in lilies in the male love game... At first glance, the "guilt" of this game is somewhat unimaginable.
This is a "male love mobile game" that takes the road of commercial operation, which is still quite rare in the current mobile game market, and there is even no similar precedent. As the first person to eat crabs on this new track, the pit that the Age of Singularity team stepped on now seems a bit outrageous, but it is very instructive for latecomers to the entire track.
It began with the crisis of giving players a "green hat"
The story of "Age of Singularity" is very simple, the male protagonist started a grassroots business, created a new generation of products that "subverted the Internet industry", and met four girls in the process and started a romantic relationship.
The game uses a CCG-like card collection and battle gameplay, but the main body of the game is still the story
In terms of "angry people", the game was revealed when testing publicity. In the two official early promotional images, the male protagonist looks humiliated.
"We originally just noticed that the suction effect of this diagram was very good, and wanted to take it out as a gimmick, but we didn't expect it to cause such a big misunderstanding." The home of the "Singularity Age" operation team said. The official later specially explained the relevant content, clarifying that the content in the picture was just a nonsensical imagination of the male protagonist, and did not actually happen in the plot. The team also quickly replaced the relevant picture materials, optimized the picture of playing mahjong, and removed the male protagonist at the feet of the two female protagonists, and changed it to a scene picture in the original plot where the sister watched the two sisters fighting for the male protagonist.
"Male Love Mobile Game" is the official definition of himself in "Age of Singularity", and the plot of suspected NTR (now generally refers to the object forcibly occupied by others) appears at the beginning of the story. This is the most scolded point in "Age of Singularity".
The setting of the male protagonist is a programmer, which can almost be equated with the group of "honest people". In the first chapter of the game, the programmer goes to meet his girlfriend who has returned from overseas, but accidentally bumps into her dating the rich second generation. The next day, it was also discovered that this rich second generation was the company's new CEO, and he was expelled from the company after being humiliated. After losing her job, her girlfriend also proposed to break up, and she had nothing overnight.
This programmer male protagonist is also angry. When I bumped into the two dating, I just hid in a corner; When the rich second generation humiliated him, he didn't say a few words from beginning to end; After breaking up with his girlfriend, he even gave out designer bags for birthday gifts prepared in advance — which cost him 80% of his savings — and was rightfully ridiculed again by "I don't carry this entry-level luxury."
At the end of the day, players simply can't substitute themselves as programmers, let alone talk about starting a business and developing a new relationship after the second chapter.
It has to be said that the high art quality is a major advantage of "Age of Singularity". In terms of plot, the emotional connection between the male protagonist and the four female protagonists to redeem each other and spend the storm together is also quite well depicted. But it's hard to offset the anger of players being given "green hats."
Even the two-star cards are quite aesthetically pleasing
When the game was just three or four days old, there were only more than 20 dissatisfied reviews on TapTap about plot issues, less than 0.25% of the number of people who participated in this test. However, it seemed that overnight, bad reviews poured in.
The topic of "male protagonist being green love game" itself is quite eye-catching, public opinion through B station, Tieba and other platforms quickly fermented, a large number of players who have not experienced the game were brought to the rhythm, following the trend into the game review area to brush bad reviews. On station B, the game had more than 300 reviews with a rating of 8.6 before the test started; near the end of the test, there were more than 1,200 reviews, and the rating dropped to 5.5. "But our test didn't start at B station at all, just on TapTap." Speaking of which, the house is quite helpless.
The team was torn between the overwhelming attacks: "Comments are acceptable, but we don't have the manpower to deal with these extremely negative attacks one by one." So there is no way to make a more comprehensive official response."
As of the end of the test, with less than 50,000 followers on the official B station account, the game promotion PV has been played nearly 500,000, and the comment area is full of a large number of passers-by who "come to admire" and scold. In just two weeks of testing time, in the comment area of this PV, "I heard that the male protagonist spends money for the female protagonist to go abroad to meet the rich second generation?" Comments such as "long admired daimyo, come on pilgrimage" have been seen everywhere, and it has become a carnival for fun.
"I didn't expect players to be so unacceptable, and I didn't expect it to cause such a big public opinion." Zhai said frankly.
Originally, according to the design of the team, the plot of the first chapter was just to promote and suppress, providing an opportunity for the male protagonist to climb from scratch. However, judging from the fermentation of public opinion, this "squat before jumping" seems to be a little too hard for players who have not fully experienced the game.
As a remedy, the team released a "punch producer" video and inserted it into the game as an Easter egg, hoping to provide an outlet for angry players to vent their emotions and slightly save some negative reviews. However, judging from the comment area of this video, the majority of players who do not buy it.
The team believes that the game also suffers from a plot that is too slow and hot.
"The development cycle of novels and games is completely different," Ataya explains, "For example, chapter 20 of the novel finally defeats the boss, in fact, the 20 chapters of the novel are relatively short, and they can be experienced quickly for the reader, and the author of the novel can write it very quickly." But our game development cycle is relatively long, and the speed of player experience is relatively slow."
In the first chapter, the rich second generation who snatched the male protagonist's ex-girlfriend, although he was repeatedly beaten in the face by the male protagonist since then, it did not hurt the root. As of the eighth chapter plot updated by this test, the rich second generation has not been completely overthrown, and continues to create trouble for the male protagonist, which greatly affects the player's refreshment.
"We made some operational mistakes. Maybe for players in love, their sensitivity will be much higher." The house concluded. Even a small mistake can bring about a crisis that is unimaginable.
Zhai recalled that there was a promotional picture with the words "Perfect Female Colleague" before, and the word "thing" was just blocked by the long picture logo of the platform. One player commented on the phrase "perfect lesbian", and one of the operators at the time wanted to adopt a more playful and mischievous tone, responding "maybe it's a little". As a result, this reply was screenshotted by many unacceptable players and scolded. Officials also later had to clarify several times that there was no Lily plot in the game.
"In fact, doing this kind of thing is relatively common in many two-dimensional games. But we can't, as long as you reveal a little bit of wind, you will be arrested and scolded." Zhai said. Lesson after lesson has been taught to the team that players in love games are more demanding in their operations, and even a small indiscretion can hurt players' trust.
One player said in the comments section: "Why do you like two-dimensional? I think it's not satisfied with the reality of the three-dimensional that I will choose the two-dimensional virtual character as my wife." For players, these "paper wives" are not only as simple as game characters, but also more attentive. This is also a major difference between the commercial "male love mobile game" and the traditional Galgame. To treat the player's sincere heart, the game should be careful in terms of plot design and operation.
Otaku also mentioned that there may be certain differences between players in national and Taiwan servers. In October last year, the Chinese Traditional version of "Singularity Era" ("Singularity Story") was launched in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Zhai revealed that the data of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Service is actually better than the team's expectations.
Macao's iOS double ranking, picture taken from Qimai data
"We have used Taiwan service as a research and experiment at the beginning, and there is really no big problem with the response there, and there are very few such feedback that I think green hats or lilies cannot accept, so we did not do too much repetitive detailed research in the national service. We may have underestimated the attribute gap between Taiwan server and national server players." The house reflected.
He revealed that the retention data of the national server in this test is a little better than that of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and the game actually has great potential. At present, the game has not actively bought on Douyin, Weibo and other platforms, and has naturally gained a total of two or three thousand attention. He expects that if these platforms are promoted when they are officially launched in the future, they will also have a lot of potential.
"Black and red can't bring players"
"Who wants black and red if they can be red, because black and red can't bring players." The house is worried about the future.
The team certainly didn't want to be dragged down by public opinion issues at this time. Now that the game as a whole has been finalized, no major changes will be made in the future, but details will be adjusted to the problems found in this test.
First of all, some of the plot details that players focus on expressing disgust will be modified appropriately. For example, in the first chapter of the plot, the rich second generation wants to return the 500,000 yuan that the male protagonist originally provided for his girlfriend to study abroad to the male protagonist, and the current setting of the game is that no matter what option he chooses, the male protagonist will not charge money, and will shoot the money on the face of the rich second generation, and many players still feel dissatisfied.
The option here may be changed to the male protagonist will still slap money on the face of the rich second generation, but will leave words like "I don't accept cash, hit my card".
For example, as mentioned earlier, after the girlfriend announces the breakup, the male protagonist will still catch up and give a valuable birthday gift. The options here may be modified to allow players to opt out of gifts.
Such details that make players feel that the male protagonist's early personality is too weak may be modified in the next version to make the male protagonist's personality a little harder.
The numerical system is also a big problem that players reflect intensively. The difficulty curve of some levels is not smooth enough, resulting in frequent player levels and affecting player retention. Next, the team will check the position of the player's card level one by one according to the retention curve and adjust the corresponding value.
The producers also have an idea for a "level buff system" that allows players to gain greater buffs the longer they stay in the same level, making it easier to clear levels. "This system is rarely done in games, in fact, because people's numerical design is good enough, there will be no problem of jamming, and the curve is very smooth." But after all, we are a small team, and we don't have the ability to design the values so accurately, and we can't control the behavior of players very precisely, so we can only use this method to make up for the lack of ability." Takaya explained.
The operations team is actively reaching out to players individually, hoping to improve player impressions from the details. When encountering high-quality long reviews and review videos with good opinions, the team actively communicates with players, learns a lot from the communication, and some ideas for improvement are inspired by players.
"Some of the players' suggestions can really be a good reference, I remember a player once wrote a long review of more than 10,000 words, which was very useful to us, and we were very moved." Zhai recalled that at the height of the public opinion turmoil, the team mistakenly blocked a player, but fortunately, people were not angry, but went to TapTap to write a long comment to explain the situation. After seeing this, the team contacted the player individually, explained the matter, unblocked him, and gave him some compensation in-game. Players see the sincerity and are willing to share more opinions and suggestions with the team, which is very helpful for the improvement of the game.
I want to be a "side game" for two-dimensional players
Like many games and the teams behind them today, Age of the Singularity has had a rough time.
Shortly after its establishment, the team "Ultimate Illusion" received investment from Kaiying Network (that is, Shangrao Shengying Network Technology Co., Ltd. in the picture below), which accounted for about 25% of the shares at that time (now about 17% of the shares). Later, the team also received investment from Station B, which at that time accounted for about 18% of the shares (now about 15%), and "Singularity Era" was also determined to be the exclusive agent of Station B at that time. However, later, for some reasons, the team chose to develop itself.
The picture is taken from Qichachai
The team had a tough time before getting the version number. Fortunately, last December, the game finally got its version number and quickly received a new investment, which relieved the team. Recently, Station B has also started to provide some help to the team. Near the end of last week's game test, Age of Singularity had a team of more than 40 people, without dedicated customer service staff, and many members wore multiple hats. In recent days, the team has been expanding in various positions, and now the team has more than 60 people.
"Male Love Mobile Game" is the official definition of itself in "Age of Singularity". The team said that the main target users of the game include core two-dimensional players, core Galgame players, and also want to capture pan-two-dimensional users. "This part of the players actually feels not much different from ordinary two-dimensional users... Their ability to pay is tied to game design and card pool depth." The house sums it up this way.
"Now our pay point is a bit embarrassing." Zhai said. At present, the income of the game is mainly concentrated in the card drawing part, and the income source is not very balanced. In this test, many players put forward the demand to increase the payment of the heroine's dress-up system, which made the producer a little difficult. "He didn't want to make so many krypton gold points," Takaya said, "because we still want to focus on the drama and implement the positioning of the side game." In the future, games may achieve paid collection through additional story activities, such as launching high-quality cards and high-quality event gameplay in festivals such as 520, Qixi, and Double Dan. The team does not currently plan to make major adjustments to the krypton gold module.
In-game dress-up gameplay
Age of Singularity positions itself as a "side game" for two-dimensional players. There are also many modules in the game that can obtain resources by simply placing them, and the burden on players is reduced. Takaya said that from the data of this test, the liver degree and krypton degree of "Singularity Era" are lower than traditional two-dimensional games.
The picture shows the "Company" module that can be hooked up to obtain resources
epilogue
For the Singularity Age team, the more negative public opinion environment is still the biggest problem in front of them, and the source of this problem involves everything from copywriting to operations, from user research to community maintenance. Faced with a brand new track that no one has yet traveled, Age of Singularity still has a lot to explore.
In the story, the male protagonist has created one miracle after another by relying on his own momentum regardless of his own heeds and sincere mutual assistance with the four female protagonists. In reality, will the miracle that will make Age of Singularity go from being the first to eat a crab to being the definer of a new track?