Douban 9.2, this kind of variety show can be out of the circle?

Mango TV has invested a powerful new chip in its proud maze track. "Forest Evolution" broadcast in July, the Douban score was stable at 9.2, becoming one of the highest-scoring online complexes in domestic entertainment this year.

The show found 16 players to fight through four original board games "Forest Battle", "Cat and Mouse War", "Territory Battle" and "Final Battle Farm", and the whole show adopts a point system, and the player with the highest final points is the victorious "King of the Forest".

The main lineup of players is Mango's own "Detective Academy" "acquaintances", anchors who have participated in werewolf killing shows such as "GODLIE" and "PandaKill", and guests from "Exciting Offer", "The Strongest Brain" and "We at the Beginning of the Workplace". The show continues the original guest selection criteria of "Detective Academy", and more than half of them graduated from prestigious schools, trying to ensure the watchability of the game "game".

However, due to the different recording periods of each guest, the final "King of the Forest" attribution to the end is no longer so important. If players want to win each game, they can only calculate everything, and because of factors such as luck and poor information in the nature of the game, the final effect on the field is that the "heart eye" and "horse catching" scenes fly together - this is also the scene that the audience of the show wants to see the most.

Poison Eyes found He Yubai, the designer of the three games "Forest War", "Cat and Mouse War" and "Decisive Battle Farm" in the show, and talked about the design ideas of the game and the new thinking that appeared after the combination of games and variety shows.

The birth of "Forest Evolution"

The first appearance of the variety show "Battle of the Forest" was the pilot film of "Detective 8".

The eighth season of "Great Detective" carried out innovation in the form of camp books, board games and other forms of the case, I don't know if it was to pave the way, in the advance party did a whole issue of board games, He Jiong, Wei Daxun, Zhang Ruoyun, Da Zhang Wei, Wang Ou and other 10 guests played a board game, and then made an "academy version", and found the guests of "Detective Academy" to play the same game.

In fact, "Battle of the Forest" was first born in 2021. The designer, He Yubao, himself a fan of works such as "The Game of Fraud" and "Apocalypse of Gambling", had the idea of designing a similar game as early as watching these works - this idea gradually took shape in January 2021, and he wanted to do a miniature experiment on the "law of the jungle" in the form of a game.

Since his job is a contemporary artist, making this game is actually based on the idea of making works: "If I can make some of my artistic ideas through a medium of expression that more people can recognize, and then I can make some money on this, I think it's also good." ”

In terms of the length of creation alone, "Battle of the Forest" is the longest-produced game, with a closed beta time of half a year, hundreds of games, and several modifications in the middle, and then sold tickets in offline stores.

Mango TV's Yanji Studio team came to the door at this stage, actually experienced the "Battle of the Forest", proposed to put it in the pilot of "Great Detective", and because the pilot film received a good response, then decided to make a separate show.

"Detective 8 Advanced Party Academy Edition" wonderful "species extinction"

After the pilot film, He Yubao and the team of Mango TV had the possibility to continue to work together, and then created two more games, "Cat and Mouse War" and "Decisive Farm", in which "Cat and Mouse War" was inspired by the "Veil of Ignorance" in John Rawls's "Theory of Justice", that is, making decisions for identity before knowing it. The "Battle Farm" is more like a new model of the prisoner's game, where the best choice of the individual is not the best choice of the group (three-person labor).

"Forest War" has undergone many closed tests and adjustments, and there are 15 initial skills, and after the broadcast of "Detective", 5 skills have been added: poison, tail break, hibernation, forest scepter and natural enemy bloodline. "I hope to reinforce the importance of 'positionology' through 'forest scepter' and 'hibernation', 'broken tail' and 'predator bloodline' to increase the use of predation cards." 'Poison' is meant to encourage players to pay more attention to other people's health ranges. ”

The third game of "Forest War" caused "double death" because of "highly toxic"

When the game was really put on the show, He also discussed with the program team and modified some of the rules, such as when the "Decisive Battle Farm" was tested offline, the whole game time and the small black room labor time had specific restrictions. The predation of the "Forest War" player caused one person to be eliminated, and only 3 extra drops of health were added to the original rules, and in order to match the broadcast effect of the show, the rule of "inheriting predation cards" was added.

And the feedback after the broadcast of the program also brought new inspiration to He from the production of the game.

Audience feedback is sometimes "counter-intuitive." He originally thought that the simpler the rules of the game might make it easier for the audience to accept, but after the broadcast, the most discussed was the "Battle of the Forest" with the most complex rules. From a strategic point of view, Ho's favorite issue is the second game of "Cat and Mouse War", because it shows a wonderful long-term layout and also creates the "multi-cat" situation he is looking forward to.

This has become a game between designers and players, and it has also allowed He to add a new direction of thinking in addition to the original game experience.

In the second game of the "Decisive Battle Farm" game, Huoshu teamed up with Luo Yutong to find an "optimal solution" that "left work in 10 minutes" and could get a high score, becoming the second place in the game on the spot.

"This is something he likes to do very much, against the game designer, the audience will think he is very good, but from the editing point of view, the whole show will have less material, but I can't control the player's gameplay, all the gameplay is reasonable when the rules allow, all I can do is continue to improve the rules, and then if I do other games, I will try to play with the player in this regard," He joked, "This time to learn from experience, will not let him appear 10 minutes off work again." ”

Can the game be good as a variety show?

After the broadcast of "Forest Evolution", the program won a high score of 9.2 on Douban and nearly 3,000 short comments, and the #Forest Evolution #Weibo topic exceeded 1 billion views.

As a variety show with games (especially board games) as the main content, such achievements are undoubtedly very outstanding, and it is unimaginable for similar programs in the past.

In the past, most of the internal entertainment game variety shows were interspersed with small games in the variety show process, such as tearing up famous cards, you draw me guess, guessing lyrics, etc., and the most advanced "heart eye" struggle may only reach the level of who is undercover. Using a certain game genre throughout the variety show is very rare in officially recorded network ensembles.

The reason is simple, this type of game needs a threshold for both guests and audiences. The case design of the reasoning variety show is more hardcore, which will be criticized by some audiences for being too complicated. The werewolf killing rules are easy to understand, but there are specialized jargon, underlying rules (no "face-to-face", etc.) and nocturnal communication gestures. Mi Wei's "Dinner Werewolf Killing" launched in 2017, the Douban score of 6.4 has just reached the passing line, and some viewers commented quite tactfully: "I hope that the person invited will play a little." ”

However, immersive games such as script killing and secret rooms can "open up another way" from other angles, such as adding touching plot lines and terrifying links, so that the audience can immerse themselves in the plot even if they don't watch complex reasoning, or be frightened by the guests to kneel directly on their knees to laugh.

It is difficult for board games to make such a link design, so the early board game variety shows were mostly launched by major live broadcast platforms, and the production was relatively simple, and there were almost no clips that could form a story line.

The live broadcast platform has intensively launched werewolf killing variety shows around 2015, such as "Lying Man" on Battle Flag TV, "GODLIE" on Huya Live and "PandaKill" on Panda TV, in which the players are mainly platform anchors.

The live broadcast platform on the vent needs to create other exposure opportunities for its own anchors, and the live broadcast platforms at that time chose werewolves to kill this popular board game - for game anchors, it is easier for viewers to convert fans by exerting their strength in the game.

At this time, the werewolf killing variety show has glimpsed one of the most important elements in this type of board game variety show, that is, the choice of guests. Game streamers have accumulated a certain number of fans within the platform, and the gameplay has its own characteristics, and it is easier to play the role of "1+1>2" by aggregating them to play board games.

This is why The Evolution of Forests was established. Among the players at the top of the standings in the show, the personal style and personality differences of each guest are very obvious, which directly leads to the dramatization of the diversity of the "plot".

He gave the example of two players who "have a relatively high level on the field": from the perspective of game skills, Firetree is a well-deserved master in the overall strategic planning of the game, while the less helper is better at point-to-point negotiation and various details. The guests' strategy styles are also quite different: "Some players have a very stable strategy style, and some players have a very aggressive strategy style, so when these two players exist on the field at the same time, the show will look good." ”

As for Mango TV's years of attempts in the maze track, it has also accumulated the emergence of "Forest Evolution".

In the most opening guest introduction session, the program group directly counted the graduation or study college as a resume, and almost engraved the "intelligence level of the guests" on the brain.

And the seventh season of "Detective Academy" also proves the stability of the sticky user group that this group of guests can drive - according to Yien data, the user portrait of "Forest Evolution" accounts for 85.12% of women, and users aged 18-24 account for 60.76%, and the fan attribute is quite obvious.

Source: Artiste Data

It can even complete the "push" of guests inside the variety show matrix of Mango TV like the early werewolf killing variety show. Zhang Beiyu, a guest in "Forest Evolution", is an amateur guest in Mango TV's own "Our First Season in the First Season". As long as Mango TV still insists on cultivating in the maze track, his amateur guest lineup can use such programs as the debut stage to complete the "inner cycle" of guest selection.

However, from the current point of view, "Forest Evolution" is still difficult to "copy". If board game variety shows want to be established, they are still inseparable from "people" who have a certain degree of popularity and can play wonderful games. Gathering a table of guests who are willing to expose part of their true character in front of the camera can really play the game exciting, and also make the board game variety show to a broader public.