Just after 2023, the teahouse found the "figure" of China's first two-dimensional team tactical shooter "Calabichu" in the subway stations of Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chengdu.
As a pure shooting game, "Calabichu" unique "paper man" string gameplay has produced a circle-breaking heat in the shooting circle, with the help of the two-dimensional attributes of the product itself, the distinctive personality of the "super string body" (two-dimensional character) has gained a lot of "cooking power", which has been talked about by players and even used love to generate a large number of secondary creations.
Therefore, it can be seen that in this subway announcement, Yvette, Michelle, Star Painting and other popular characters have become the highlight, which is very rare for a product with shooting as the main gameplay, and it also reflects the characteristics of "Calabichu" that integrates two-dimensional and shooting. As the core slogan of the game's open beta, "make shooting more interesting", it also shows that "Calabichu" has a more suitable understanding and confidence in shooting gameplay.
Truth be told, Calabichu was probably the most surprising shooting product of the last year. Why do you say that?
On the one hand, as we all know, the shooting game track has been very volatile, especially in the category with traditional competition as the core, and it may be difficult to break through if its own strength is not strong; on the other hand, the successful commercialization of the integration of shooting and two-dimensional gameplay has not yet appeared.
Judging from some of the officially released data, "Calabichu" at least "stands" in the shooting section.
In the 2023 interim performance report released by iDreamSky, it was mentioned that "Calabichu" was launched for a month without deletion testing, with an average daily online time of more than 120 minutes, an ARPPU of more than 200 yuan, and an average weekly active of more than 700,000. Considering that this is the data of nearly half a year ago, the indicators of "Calabichu" near the open beta will only be more impressive.
Therefore, looking back at "Calabichu", which takes "making shooting more interesting" as the core slogan of the product, it seems that I can somewhat understand this "self-confidence" that comes from its own strength.
01
Who doesn't like a beautiful girl shooting?
As the first two-dimensional team-based tactical shooter in China, the dilemma faced by "Calabichu" comes more from the unique category integration, and in the process of exploring alone, the development team needs repeated trial and error and polishing. From the uncensored beta to the upcoming open beta, Calabichu has been continuously updated and optimized along the way, and "Calabichu" has given us a glimpse of the team's creative ideas and future potential. Among them, "differentiated game experience" is undoubtedly the core strategy of "Calabichu".
"Who doesn't like beautiful girls shooting?" In all kinds of shooting games, all kinds of beautiful girls' skin-changing mods emerge in endlessly, so they have also spawned a very objective audience.
From the beginning of its announcement, "Calabichu" has taken a maverick path, capturing a large number of core players with selling points such as "beautiful girl and shooting". To put it simply, since shooters don't reject two-dimensional characters, I simply want them all. It can be seen that while ensuring the core competitive shooting experience, "Calabichu" has made a big fuss about "character design and skill matching".
For example, Michelle's styling characteristics are mostly cats, not only cat ears and cat tails, but also character skills are "firepower". The costumes of the support "nurse" star paintings are mostly embellished with constellations, and the character skills also show meteor effects. Compared with traditional shooting games, this kind of character and skill design that is more in line with the two-dimensional taste can not only deepen the player's memory point, but also provide a certain opportunity for many second creations and player culture to break the circle in the future.
From the perspective of gameplay, the "changes" emphasized in "Calabichu" bring more interesting and fresh shooting experience. This change is reflected in the innovative mechanism "stringing" in the bureau to create more operational fun, whether it is a piece of paper on the wall or gliding in the air, on the traditional shooting experience, adding more three-dimensional shooting experience. In the preparation phase, skills and stats are strengthened with points earned in previous rounds, which leads to more tactical strategies, so that the variables of each game increase exponentially compared to traditional shooters.
In addition, "Calabichu" has found a more suitable balance between shooting and two-dimensional. Players can not only have a hearty competitive confrontation in the game, but also cultivate emotions with their favorite characters in the "dormitory" system. It is connected by various characters, and strengthens the emotional connection between players in and out of the game through two-dimensional designs such as character development, exclusive voice, and expression painting.
Traditional competitive shooters mostly use "wins and losses" to bring an intuitive sense of achievement, and the multi-faceted emotional interaction of "Calabichu" not only improves player stickiness, but also brings more deep inner fun.
02
Player feedback that he really listened
Within half a year of the undeleted test, "Calabichu" has been affirmed by more and more pan-user groups with its distinctive and differentiated experience and growing player ecosystem. But at the same time, there are obviously a lot of difficulties in the integration of shooting and two-dimensional gameplay, which also makes "Calabichu", which crosses the river by feeling the stones, face a lot of challenges during the test.
For example, during the undeleted beta period, there are still fewer characters, maps, and gameplay in the game, and the balance between classes and guns needs to be further optimized. In the teahouse's view, product testing itself is a gradual progression process, and there is no terrible thing to worry about, players are more concerned about whether there will be arrogant replies such as "I know, but I just won't change", and to some extent, the attitude of the development team determines everything.
At the first offline symposium of "Calabichu" in December last year, the project team responded to various previous questions one by one, which was well received by many players.
First of all, the production team of "Calabichu" doubled in size during the period of non-deletion. Therefore, the update cadence and the quantity and quality of content in future versions will be greatly improved: in the game, the season mode will be updated in a two-month cycle, and a new superstring and one dormitory character will be added in each season to ensure that players have the experience demand for a large number of characters.
In addition, during each season, 1 or 2 maps with different gameplay will be updated according to the actual situation, and the blast mode, which is the core gameplay, will also maintain the rhythm of updating once every two seasons, completely solving the player's worries about the single gameplay mode. In the near future, there will be multiple modes such as "cart" added to the game.
In the upcoming Season 3, the actual "Crystal Ore Rush" is not only a new map, but also a new gameplay mode. Players will need to accumulate a number of resources through mining, looting, and other ways to achieve the final victory.
In addition, the addition of new characters does not only mean that players can get a set of "new skins", whether it is from teamwork or role positioning, the introduction of each new character means that a new set of tactical strategies may be born, and a new set of strategic gameplay may emerge.
For example, the upcoming superstring "Flavia", which is positioned as a duel, will be designed around hallucination and remodeling. Her ultimate can spawn a field within its radius, so enemies outside cannot see the characters in the circle, and once she dies in the field, Flavia will enter an invincible state for 3 seconds and revive at full health. Combined with the passive damage reduction skill CD, many players will inevitably develop a variety of interesting playing styles.
From this point of view, each map and character update is not just a simple "visual change", through the new gameplay mode and the random combination of character skills, the player's experience will also be "updated".
Of course, in the optimization and polishing of the details of the game, the development team also showed irresistible sincerity, and it is strange that fewer players sighed, "I complained about these, the project team really listened, I cried to death."
Not to mention that the "Little Bear Dance", which has become popular, has successfully joined the emoji family bucket, and the official promise will continue to add more interesting special effects and easter eggs that do not affect the balance. Even the small details of some character capes that affect the player's duel experience have been noticed by the official, and the switch switch of hidden capes and parts has been added.
In terms of the balance of the game, the official will respect the demands of players, increase the balance adjustment and frequency, and reduce the adjustment range, and a new stable balance model will also be implemented in the third season, providing players with a fairer and better game experience. In terms of game content, more dubbing and mini-gameplay will also be added to the dormitory gameplay, and as for the "love mode" that players have in mind, they can also look forward to it in the future.
03
Shooting plus two-dimensional is not a false proposition
In fact, at the beginning of the launch of "Calabichu", there has always been a voice of doubt about this new game, thinking that two-dimensional users pay more attention to the single-player experience and are not very good at traditional competitions with multiple people, but "Calabichu" follows the "I want them all". This contradiction makes the gameplay category of shooting plus two-dimensional more like a false proposition?
Chen Xiangyu, CEO of iDreamSky, responded: "From the very beginning, Calabichu has been clearly positioned as a strong gameplay driver, and we are now very sure that this gameplay has been recognized by young players, and the most active core users are concentrated in hardcore competition. Therefore, on this basis, we will first stabilize the first batch of core users, and then gradually expand to the lower threshold through the attributes of the second dimension and other content. ”
From the current point of view, as the first pathfinder to try two-dimensional tactical shooting, "Calabichu" is not only steadily moving in this direction, but also has unlimited potential in the future in the eyes of the teahouse.
First of all, it is relatively difficult to integrate the gameplay of the two-dimensional and shooting genres, but judging from the results of "Calabichu" for half a year, it has been fruitful. In addition, there are few direct competitors on the market today, so the experience provided is unique to the audience. This also means that "Calabichu" occupies a unique advantage in the product, the track and even the market.
In the future, with the help of team expansion and the construction of production and research pipelines. Calabichu will not only be available on mobile and console, but will also target open opportunities in the global market. iDreamSky not only hopes to bring "Calabichu" to every player around the world who likes shooting and two-dimensionality, but also hopes to explore more possibilities in this huge world built with "string theory" to launch a series of derivative works.
In addition, the two-dimensional attribute is strong and the player viscosity is high, especially in the emotional connection and cultivation of the character, "Calabichu" players are more willing to "pay for love". It offers more ways to have fun than a purely competitive shooter, with less rout and a higher willingness to stay. At the same time, as a shooting product, relying on the attributes of large DAUs, "Calabichu" has the characteristics of both to a certain extent.
Finally, within half a year of never deleting files, thanks to the natural attributes of two-dimensional products that are easy to spread, the related player ecology of "Calabichu" has gradually matured, and there has been a large-scale phenomenon of breaking the circle. Especially on video platforms like Bilibili, which focus on the two-dimensional player group, the topic reputation has been successfully fermented, and the UGC content such as the second creation of related characters is very impressive in terms of quality and quantity.
In addition, the official sincerely listens to the feedback of players and has made a lot of optimization and polishing of the content and experience of the game, which is also conducive to the expansion of the product from the core user to the pan-user circle, reaching more potential users, and further feeding the player ecology.
From all of the above, it is not difficult to see that "making shooting more interesting" is not an empty phrase of "Calabichu", but a real differentiated content experience as the core, a mature player ecology as the driving force, and sincere feedback as the guarantee, so that the upcoming official public beta of "Calabichu" is "more interesting".