A year after the release of the EA version, Z Studio launched a crowdfunding campaign for them, Shenzhou Zhi: Journey to the West, a meat pigeon card strategy game that incorporates RPG elements, hoping to continue the development of the DLC version. Although the game has been praised since its release, sales are far from filling the previous million development expenses.
Recently, GameRes interviewed the main creator Dr. Z, from his sharing of the development process and design thinking of "Shenzhou Zhi: Journey to the West", we learned that the two developers of Z Studio actually had no actual game development experience before, and the program, planning, and art triangle they lacked a high-cost art member, and the pursuit of music quality did not want to lead to high costs. From the story of Z Studio, we see their persistence in their dreams, and of course, there are some experiences of stepping on the pit to remind peers to pay attention to cost control and development risks. The following is Dr. Z's Sharing:
7*14 high-intensity full-time work, just to complete the dream of game development
Hello friends of "Shenzhou Zhi: Journey to the West", I am the creator of the game. Z。
As a post-80s generation who grew up under the influence of games in developed countries such as Japan and the United States, I personally dreamed of making games like works of art since high school.
My partner Xiao Mo and I were classmates during our Ph.D. studies in the United States, and since then we have been discussing making indie games together, and I have been developing games amateur since undergraduate. Before the project started, we all worked for Fortune 500 companies, and our direction was technically related to games, but not directly related to the game industry.
In September 2019, we established Z Studio and started our first commercial work "Shenzhou Zhi: Journey to the West". I've also quit my job to focus on developing my studio, which is now funded by my own savings. I personally work 7, 14 hours a day to supervise and complete all aspects of the project.
In the past three years, I have been mainly responsible for project management, design, development; Xiao Mo is responsible for the copywriting, which is completely based on their respective strengths. At the same time, because it is a small studio, many times as long as there are things, people who are free will be on top, so this is just a general division of labor.
2020 – 2023 Github commit history
West Heaven Scripture + Meat Pigeon Breakthrough, classic characters tailored skills
Considering the lack of resources and manpower, we chose a relatively small game category. The 2019 Meat Pigeon Card is just emerging, and the Killing Spire is a huge success. After discussion, we felt that such a mechanism is very suitable for the classic story of the eighty-one difficulties of taking scriptures from the Western Heavens. Implanting innovative gameplay and content on this basis should have good results.
Combined with the game's meat pigeon breaking through the level, the story we created mainly revolves around the theme of the disaster star appearing, the heavenly path will collapse, and the various forces are ready to move. The purpose of the original westbound is slightly changed to be able to carry the plot of each protagonist of the game going alone. At the same time, in order to show the classical culture, the text in the game refers to the original text of Journey to the West, and adopts the mode of literary vernacular. It is a great test of the copywriter's literary skills, and Xiao Mo has lived up to his mission, with a beginning and an end, completing a text of nearly 300,000 words alone.
In the game, the plot is mainly reflected through dialogue during the battle, and events outside the battle. The player's choices will affect subsequent encounters, such as the player's choice to kill or release the bone spirit during the battle, thus affecting the direction of the final outcome. This makes the complexity of the plot increase exponentially. Sometimes there are dozens of conversations in a battle. For example, the player's battle in the battle of the nine-headed insect will trigger different plots because of the previous encounter with the Halloween Dragon King Dragon Girl, and the earlier encounter with Yang Jian.
In order to enrich the content, we also introduced the characters and plots of other classical stories, such as the Legend of the White Snake, Qiannu Ghost, Hong Kong version of Journey to the West, Journey to the West Postography and so on. Although it is a lot of work, we hope to give players an additional RPG story element on top of the meat pigeon cards.
In terms of gameplay design, "Shenzhou History: Journey to the West" is based on the mechanism of the classic DBG meat pigeon card (such as Killing Spire, Full Moon Night, Monster Train, etc.), which increases the gameplay of team combat, that is, the protagonist team and the enemy on the battlefield are multiplayer at the same time.
At the same time, our most important goal was to transform the familiar characters from Journey to the West into interesting gameplay for the characters in the game. For example, Goku's 72 transformations can learn the skills of any enemy. Monkey Fur can summon baby monkeys to fight for you. The Ruyi Golden Hoop Rod can be lengthened to make all individual attacks range, and heavier to double attacks. Tang monks can completely rely on attacks, but persuade the enemy to surrender through their mouths, so as to surrender without a fight. Bajie can increase its maximum HP by attacking and so on.
Even if it is a familiar story of Journey to the West, a novice guide still needs to be done well. We combine the beginner's tutorial with the story of the Heavenly Palace of Journey to the West, and select the part of the Heavenly Court's crusade against Huaguo Mountain. Generally, beginner tutorials should not be too difficult and complicated, so we used the part where Taibai Jinxing brought the giant spirit god to persuade and Goku won easily as the part to familiarize players with the game. After the player is familiar with the operation, the Goku and Yang Jian fighting method is introduced, and the slightly more difficult battle is introduced as part of the player to experience the card composition when playing cards cheerfully.
Art outsourcing stepped on the pit, and made great efforts to reverse and change
In terms of art style, in order to reflect Chinese classical culture, we adopted the style of ink and ink mixed cartoons. Based on the original Journey to the West, we defined the map of the land of Shenzhou according to the plot. Each of the 4 chapters of the game has a local map, including the Great Tang, the Western Regions, India, Lingshan, Heavenly Court, etc. These are presented in the same ink cartoon style.
At the same time, in order to give players a good sense of immersion, unlike the simple presentation of some competing products, "Shenzhou Zhi: Journey to the West" matches animations and special effects for each card and skill. For example, in order to achieve a better sense of blow, the game will dynamically determine different attack methods, the type of attack object, and select the corresponding hit special effects and sound effects. For example, Goku's Fire Eye Golden Eye's flame attack hits the metal, and the blunt weapon attack of the Golden Hoop Rod hits the body, and you will see and hear different results. In total, the game includes more than 1,000 special effects and sound effects.
I personally attach great importance to game music, so I asked Deng Zheng from Xiaoxu Studio who scored the soundtrack of Sword of Immortal 7 to do it. The more than 30 background music songs in the whole game are created by Mr. Deng Zheng through a lot of communication and communication. Strive to fit the story and setting of the game.
Since it is the first work, there are many detours in these aspects, such as the unpleasant choice of the style of fine art. For example, each level has a purely hand-drawn battle background that matches the current location, and some levels even define multiple backgrounds due to the large difference in the distance between the optional locations.
Unfortunately, when we first EA, the art evaluation was very low, which really made us feel like a cocoon. Because the workload of art is actually very large, consuming a lot of money and time, but it has become a pain point because of style. Since this year. We have also been addressing this issue and believe that it has improved a lot now.
Three and a half years of losing millions, players recognize the gameplay and persist
We started working in September 2019, and it's been a little over three and a half years now, and we've stepped on a lot of thunder on this project, so much that I can't count it myself. Since we pay out of our own pockets, we don't take a penny ourselves. As mentioned earlier, our art and music are outsourced, including animation, which we can't do by the two of us alone, and millions have been spent on this.
"Shenzhou Zhi: Journey to the West" released the EA version in March last year, and although the sales and reviews were far less than expected, we still resisted the pressure to persist for more than 1 year and tried to solve the problems encountered. The only thing that is more gratifying is the most important part of a game, but also the soul of the game - gameplay, and Shenzhou Zhi is recognized by most players at this point. All that can be done now is to look forward. It is a good thing that the detours taken now may be avoided on larger projects in the future.
The official version of "Shenzhou Zhi: Journey to the West" is expected to be launched at the end of June, and the content and UI are still being polished. Later, if funds permit, several DLCs on new protagonists and gameplay are planned. By the way, we launched a crowdfunding campaign at Modian hoping to support the development of the DLC version once (after all, the loss of millions of funds bottomed out), interested friends can support a wave -
Here are the studio plans announced at the beginning of the year at the beginning of the week. The original official version was released as scheduled at the end of March. Due to some polishing and optimization considerations, the time to leave the EA has been postponed to the end of June, and the DLC will be launched after the official version, and the specific time will be adjusted according to the results of the crowdsale.
The reason why we were able to persist in losing 7 figures was not only our love for the game, but also the support of all Shenzhouzhi players. Including QQ groups, Steam communities, B sites, etc. You are a ray of light in the darkness for us. Thank you all very much. We will continue to follow the path of indie games and deliver works that will satisfy everyone and ourselves.