On July 31st, the Independent Game Incubator Developer Salon Shanghai Station organized by Tencent Game Academy GWB was successfully concluded. At this salon event, eggplant, producer of "Taiwu Painted Scrolls", Lin Yuhong, the main curator of "One Thought Runaway", and Ye Qianluo, founder of distributor Gamera, respectively brought full industry knowledge and experience sharing to developers from the perspectives of project establishment, research and development, and distribution. In the roundtable session, Huaxia, head of domestic terminal game evaluation at Tencent Interactive Entertainment Game Research Center, led three guests to discuss what difficulties and challenges independent games will encounter in the process from project establishment to launch, and how to deal with them. GameRes has compiled and refined some of the content shared by the guests:
This salon review:
PC-side link: https://gwb.tencent.com/salon?adtag=yzw.tx
Mobile link: https://gwb.tencent.com/h5/salon/?adtag=yzw.tx (you can click "Read the original article" at the end of the article to jump back to see)
"Taiwu Painted Scroll" Producer Eggplant: Game Theme Project Idea
In Eggplant's view, the three important cores of making a game are the game theme, game type and player group, and he first considered the game theme at the beginning of the project. He said that when choosing a theme, choose a theme that the player has a lot of impressions but does not have a deep understanding. For example, martial arts is a common theme of domestic games, and the deeper the player's understanding of the theme, the smaller the creative space of the game, which is also the reason why fans are dissatisfied when the classic IP launches follow-up works.
In addition, he also specifically mentioned that when creators have a deep understanding of a topic, it is easy to bring themselves into the audience or player's perspective, thus falling into inertial thinking and ignoring many details. Therefore, we must break the inherent cognition and not blindly stick to the rules.
Once you have a deep understanding of the topic, developers should next consider which game genre to adopt. Choosing a game genre is easily limited by the inherent gameplay, but the inspiration for creating a game can come from the relevant game or from the perception of life. He pointed out that matching the game with the corresponding gameplay is an important process, and for the theme and type of the game, the producer should present it with the gameplay and integrate it into their own understanding. The form of the game is infinite, but the kernel is the most important.
A good game must not only design a good theme and gameplay, but also consider the demands and feelings of the player group. When setting up a project, you should think about "why the player plays your game", the graphic expression can be a plus, and the most important thing is to design from the ideological level. Work the story and content to make the player have an unforgettable experience and form the unique charm of the game.
In addition, if a small team wants to make a better game, he recommends that the team have the producer as the core. For a team with a producer at its core, the producer's own comprehensiveness is very important. Producers must have the ability to program, read code, write copywriting, but also to know more about the game type, and a wealth of knowledge and skill reserves can ensure the smooth development of the game.
Lin Yuhong, the chief curator of "One Thought at Leisure": sharing of R&D and design ideas
"One Thought Escape" is an ink national style placement Xiu Xian mobile game, the main theme of "placement + social", through the placement to reduce the cost of players' daily cultivation, retain the essence of interaction with other players of the essence of interaction. The game took about two years and four months from booking to launch, during which eight tests were conducted. The size of the team has gone from less than five people at the beginning to nearly forty or fifty people at present. Since its launch on February 1, the overall payment level has been quite good, basically remaining in the top 20 of the iOS best-seller list.
First, the prototype and project establishment stage
Lin Yuhong introduced the prototype and project establishment stage of the project in 18 years, based on the category insight of Xiuxian games on the market, when the download volume of Xiuxian game competitors was expected to have a scale of tens of millions, the main performance was "text + page game style", homogeneous stand-alone play, the sense of substitution detachment, from the side is also a market opportunity. After comparing the designs of similar products, they decided to optimize the design from the parts of art, substitution, and multi-person socialization.
In september 2018, the prototype was originally played with a partial mud map to explore various secret towns, and the battle was also a partial card battle type. It didn't feel particularly good after the experience, so I made some adjustments on this basis.
In October 2018, the prototype confirmed the realm numerical qualitative transformation framework, the circle combat performance, and the initial gameplay of the concept of trying to cultivate immortals.
The March 18 prototype confirmed that the idea was not mud exploration; heavy framework and light content; turning the town into a functional collection.
After a few months, the overall game prototype is relatively close to the finished product in the first test stage, the player places the character in the secret realm to hang up the monster, and the materials obtained are refined, improving their cultivation and strength, and constantly growing.
Second, the test tuning stage
"A Thought of Escape" from pre-research to public beta span of 2 years and 4 months, after 8 tests, the project took 10 months to determine the core gameplay of "placement + social", after two small-scale tests, it took 11 months to wait for the version number and then after 4 tests and small steps to enter the public beta and it took 5 months, an average of 5 weeks to open a round of buying test. As a result, different stages of testing were done on different platforms, and the second stay and seven stays of "One Thought Runaway" reached the level of more than 60% and more than 30% respectively.
The first beta version (19.05), 1 program + 1 planning + 1 art, 4 months to adjust the iteration. Confirm the personal cultivation basic cycle (hang-up→ alchemy→ Dan medicine equipment→ improve cultivation & strength); confirm the main line secret push map; verify the acceptance of core players. The core players of the first test data were 86% left, and the feedback of players was good, which affirmed the free cultivation of immortal play, a variety of choices, secret battles and player interaction, and expressed strong demands for social networking.
The 2019 test is mainly the final verification of how to combine the two of the placement game and the social game. Because other games are more single-player gameplay in the first and middle periods, "One Thought Runaway" in turn introduces a lot of confrontational content in the early stage, while constantly deepening the sense of substitution.
In 2020, we will develop a paid system, wait for the version number and test it. Test objects, from Q group to Tap, to buy volume, small steps run mode, every two months to buy test, according to player feedback timely adjustment of development direction. Use the test results to speculate whether some ideas are correct, and help determine which direction to go next.
After the game was launched in 2021, the Tap platform test score plummeted from 6.8 to 3.9, because players felt that it was a commercial game. In fact, the data is that the overall players, whether in retention or payment, have a significant gap with the players imported in the same period, and the number of paying users has reached more than twice. The conclusion is that players think your game is good or not mainly through data performance rather than through scoring.
3. The game mechanism design of "One Thought Runaway"
Lin Yuhong said that players with xiuxian themes will care more about bringing in a sense of involvement than players with other themes. So how do you make a sense of substitution? First of all, it must be inseparable from the packaging and design of the game about art, sound effects, copywriting, etc. The process of functional design with a sense of substitution:
1. Novel perception - perceiving the concepts that the novel wants to convey, understanding the specific world view settings;
2. Abstract extraction - extract abstract concepts such as "immortal world" in reference materials;
3. Fine art and functional expression - visual representation of the extracted concepts;
4. Substitution sense verification - verify whether these immortal elements can be successfully expressed in the actual landing.
Lin Yuhong cited several design cases in the idea of idleness, such as designing the core mechanism of the game based on the sense of substitution: the realm numerical qualitative change and the combat performance of the circle; at the same time, because it did not meet the sense of substitution, he gave up the pet system to use the form of ten consecutive extractions, which paid additional development costs, but also effectively maintained the cultivation atmosphere in the game. Lin Yuhong said that the sense of substitution is not the whole game. If in the game development, the "authenticity" of the novel world is restored, and the "gameplay" that considers the game function and play needs conflicts, the former should be considered first.
In the combination of placement and social design, the placement idea of "A Thought of Escape" is: 1, intentionally control the upper limit of the game time, generally within 1 hour; 2, the system stage graduation or inheritance, the transition to the existing old system; 3, the burden reduction assistant.
When establishing the social chain, the two social units of Zongmen and server were selected, based on the choice of numerical framework + paid expansion, from the overly fierce competition tone in Zongmen and Dongfu single service to the atmosphere of cooperation within single service and confrontation between multiple services.
Finally, Lin Yuhong also shared the paid tuning ideas of "One Thought Getaway". Because a thought of the main numerical framework, hanging machine placement, and social elements, then it is not possible to make a single service big world, the idea of deciding to take small clothes and rolling clothes also forces the team to rely on payment to achieve LTV standards, otherwise the game will not run.
GameraGame Leaf Chiraku: Those Things That Happened with Indie Game Publishing
Ye Qianluo, CEO of GameraGame, the publisher of well-known independent games such as the Dyson Ball Project, the Great Xiu Xian Simulator, and the Nile Warrior, shared the knowledge of PC-based independent game publishing. Taking the Steam platform as an example, from the platform listing review, pricing strategy, accumulation of wish lists, hot list, praise rate, refund, discount and so on, almost every detail was shared and discussed.
For example, if you accumulate a certain number of (6k-7k) wish lists, you have the opportunity to appear on the hot upcoming list. After accumulating a certain number of wish-to-order users, users who convert into actual purchases at the time of sale can also rush a wave of hot sales list. At the same time, he also kindly reminds developers not to read player reviews on the day of the game's launch. In addition, because Steam has a mechanism to play a game that can be refunded within two hours, it is recommended that developers make the game content experience time greater than 2 hours. At the same time, the amount of time that can be experienced can also be said to be one of the measures of game pricing to a certain extent.
Finally, he cruelly pointed out the fact that most indie games sell less than 10,000 sets, and good games are actually rare.
Connect with indie games and let more ideas happen (sound)
At the event site, Zhu Guotian, head of GWB publishing at Tencent Game Academy, started from his own experience in the game industry and shared his story of his association with independent games. In the process of communicating with the participants, we found that there were not only producers from large factories, but also many planners of small teams. The charm of indie games is to let more people participate in game development.
Tencent GWB, which has long been concerned about and supports the development of independent games, established an independent game incubator last year. Ding Yun, head of Tencent's GWB game incubation group, introduced that the project aims to cooperate with more early content producers, establish good cooperative relations, establish an independent game ecology, and help a healthy game industry creation environment.
Ding Yun, head of Tencent's GWB game incubation group
Ding Yun introduced that Tencent GWB Independent Game Incubator aggregates Tencent's experts, funds, technology, traffic and other resources to help independent teams solve problems, improve quality, achieve success, and promote the overall development of the diversified ecology of the game industry. The project participants cover Tencent Game Academy, Game Research Center, NExT Creative Workshop, 4 self-developed studio groups, market and user research departments, and provide full professional support to independent games from the aspects of mining, evaluation, R&D and tuning.
At the same time, the number of experts in the tencent game academy expert group has reached 200+, and they intend to help solve the problems of the project, and make up for the shortcomings of the R&D team from the dimensions of planning, art and degree. For example, in the development stage, the client server is selected and the client is optimized; in the distribution stage, Tencent traffic + technical support is provided, and the operation plan is formulated according to the characteristics of the product.
Tencent independent game incubator PM Yuan Shuai introduced GWB's past support cases, such as in the "Great Simulation Xiu Xian Simulator" project, the expert team gave full advice and help in planning plans, Xiu Xian cultural packaging, and multilingual versions. In terms of dissemination, the product is conducted through the GWB and WeGame platforms. He said that Tencent's independent game incubator will follow up the whole process of project polishing and exhaust the research and development problems.
From the sharing of dry goods full of guests to the almost full seats on the scene, Tencent GWB Independent Game Incubator has built a good communication platform for developers through the form of salons, so that more developers can benefit. Whether it is for the industry, developers, or the organizers themselves, it is a win-win situation. At the same time, I also hope that they can continue to output and let more developers' ideas happen.
Developers contact Tencent GWB WeChat: simon102523