If anyone is willing to write a chronicle for the National B circuit, I think January 18, 2024 must be a strong page.
The high-profile "Love and Deep Space" finally opened the public beta on this day, bringing huge waves to the entire track: from the pre-download (opened on the 15th) stage to dominate the free list to today, after the public beta, it quickly rushed to the top of the domestic best-selling listTop6, relevant people revealed to Gyro, "Love and Deep Space" has reached more than 30 million on the first day of the national server.
These days, the amount of "deep space" on my personal homepage is also surprisingly high, and my friends are discussing several men in Linkong City back and forth - the game Weibo Chaohua is the most popular on the whole platform, and the official account of "Love and Deep Space" has directly exceeded one million fans after the game was launched.
Not only that, but after the game was launched simultaneously around the world, we also saw its strong attraction to overseas players, which can be reflected in the overseas results. On the third day of the open beta of "Love and Deep Space", the number of downloads worldwide has exceeded 10 million.
According to the data, "Love and Deep Space" has topped the free list in many regions around the world in recent days, ending the record of "Monopoly Go" in the free list for more than half a year in the United States, and also won the first place in the IOS and Googleplay double download lists in Japan and Taiwan, China. In the three days since the launch of the service, hot topics have been on the Twitter list in Japan for many times, with the highest total list TOP1, and also on many hot searches in Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia and other regions, ranking 4th.
At the same time, "Love and Deep Space" has also swept the overseas player community, with long queues for offline events in South Korea early in the morning, and a large number of praise from players can be seen under the advertisements placed in Japan. As soon as the game was launched, a number of player-created videos with millions of views appeared on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram, and the hashtag of #loveanddeepspace# on TikTok has reached 67 million.
Queues for offline events in South Korea
Player messages under the Japanese UA video
Popularity on TikTok
Approaching the Spring Festival, it is a routine operation for manufacturers to cross the sea and show their magical powers, but this year's schedule is particularly lively because of the official participation of the new contestant "Love and Deep Space". As the first 3D love interactive mobile game in China, its launch is not only of great significance to Papergames, but can even be regarded as a milestone for the entire track.
For practitioners, the mature and developed love game track for many years needs someone to practice new exploration, and the "bold" "Love and Deep Space" is obviously a typical (and perhaps the only one) sample, and for players, a new husband, a new story chapter, and a new game experience...... What could be more exciting?
In order to better understand and judge the impact of "Love and Deep Space" on the industry and market, Gyrojun has been squatting in the community where players gather for a long time, and has also paid attention to a series of official actions from before the start of the server to after the open beta, so a grand carnival unfolded in front of my eyes.
For example, a large number of players began to nervously "prepare for war" in the pre-download stage: some people incarnated as memory cleaning masters, and even placed orders for new devices overnight, some people set alarm clocks to go online only on time, some people pinched their faces on the preload interface, and some people watched and watched the game PV......
Community discussion before server launch
The PV of the server launch event was released, and the number of views on station B exceeded one million within a few hours
When I was infected and wanted to participate in the pre-draw card activity first to pass the "dry addiction", the gold content of the game's more than 15 million reservations on the whole network taught us another lesson - the webpage was crowded, and we couldn't get in at all.
Maintainer: This is a high-end game
...... Okay.
A fresh wind is blowing in the B tour market
Finally, the day has come when the gates of Rinku City have opened, and the stories of the players and characters have been played out since then.
Rational discussion, under the long-term hard work of various manufacturers, domestic female users are accustomed to eating good and have seen a lot of wind and waves. In recent years, as the market has become more and more mature, the player group has also given birth to three-party activities such as national B offline and Cos commission. For manufacturers, just when everyone thinks that they have understood and understood the emotional play of Yiyou, Papergames, as a pioneer of domestic love games, once again provides new ideas for the market.
The reason why "Love and Deep Space" can create a phenomenal scene is also due to the 3D character performance and the changes in interaction and gameplay it brings. 3D, a direction that was once hotly discussed (and even "ridiculed"), is now in the realm of reality, and players have gained a different sense of content, and they have gradually felt that game companies are challenging the unknown meaning.
The most important point is that the 3D makes the emotional atmosphere more straightforward. After years of polishing and debugging, the art style of "Love and Deep Space" seems to have finally approached that subtle tipping point: a little more real than 2D, a little more dreamy than reality.
Of course, whether you prefer 2D or 3D style is a matter of opinion, but the potential 3D style appeal of players always exists, and the huge number of users and fierce response after the open beta of "Love and Deep Sky" have verified the feasibility of 3D appearance in the vast market. The aesthetic experience between the second and the third dimension has poked into the hearts of different groups, expanded the "recipes" of too many people, and also made the stories of countless players and Shen Xinghui, Li Shen, and Qi Yu start from love at first sight.
The technological leap has not only brought 3D men, but also a more immersive first-person perspective. Judging from the few chapters of the plot I have experienced so far, a large number of close-ups, real scene interaction, and the camera movement in line with the flow of the protagonist (player), the experience upgrade in all aspects is like an invisible hand, breaking down the barriers between "me" and several male protagonists and the game world.
From the narrative level, the first perspective strengthens the dramatic tension and lowers the threshold for experience. Especially for people with a lack of imagination like Gyro-kun, for the first time, when they go through the plot, they feel nervous and intense, and they feel all kinds of emotions such as thumping and heartbeat.
And another big change in the flow of players is the adoption of the ultimate killer interactive card face in 3D, although it was passed by the show as early as the closed beta, but when you poke around the screen and feel every delicate response they make under their fingers, you understand what it means to be inhumane fun.
A heart rate of 220 beats/min may be my limit, but it's clearly not the limit of Love and Deep Space
Along with the 3D interactive card image, there is also the face pinching system of the protagonist implemented in Love and Deep Space. Players can pinch their own image by hand (and even adjust their voice), or they can import photo recognition. This is enough personalization, but the development team has taken it a step further by integrating the image of the protagonist into the card surface through real-time rendering technology, and finally achieving a picture effect unique to each player, pushing the sense of immersion to the peak.
Previously, Gyro-kun mentioned in the article that a cruel fact is that the otome track is on the verge of "no roll". This is not to say that there is no chance for new projects, but to recreate the prosperity of the otome market in the past, it is necessary to have a revolutionary evolution and breakthrough in products. "Love and Deep Space" is obviously a solution to the current environment, and judging from the user feedback these days, they have won the bet.
Start with users and polish a diversified combat experience
Papergames' ability to grasp the preferences and needs of user groups may have been recognized in the industry for a long time. In addition to providing an "epoch-making" 3D immersive interactive experience, in terms of gameplay, "Love and Deep Space" is also more radical than traditional love mobile games.
Regarding its action combat gameplay, many practitioners and players have doubts, and Gyro Jun is also one of them. However, with continuous iteration and optimization, the gameplay performance of "Love and Deep Sky" after the open beta actually far exceeded my expectations. Under its "aggressive" appearance, the essence is still based on the design ideas of the target users' preferences and habits, so it makes the actual experience more friendly to players.
For example, for those who are keen on combat, there are a wealth of choices of weapons of different types and feels, mechanics such as cooperative skills and successful dodge not only increase the upper limit of operation, but also bring additional benefits, and a variety of level gameplay and mission objectives enhance the sense of accomplishment of clearing the level, etc.
For the plot party and the casual party, with the help of automatic battles, simplified operations and other mechanisms, you can also clear the level painlessly, and continue to experience the parts you are interested in.
Under such a framework, the common experience of all players is the joy of "fighting side by side" with the male protagonists: a large number of character interactions are set up during the whole battle process, when the male protagonist is injured, the player's voice will be triggered to care about his condition, the male protagonist will also stand up when the player encounters danger, and there are gorgeous two-person animation performances to fill the emotional experience of the combat link.
Maybe it can't meet every player's wishes, or maybe it's still a bit "naïve" in the eyes of some people - the key is that it provides them with a choice based on respecting and understanding the needs and habits of thousands of users, and it is up to the player to decide how to experience the game.
Therefore, after the open beta, Gyro-kun obviously noticed that players still bought this kind of gameplay, and some people were even willing to use a "cultivated" mentality to look at the combat system of "Love and Deep Space".
To borrow the words of players, like 3D, the combat gameplay of Love and Deep Space is another core point of difference. With the blessing of these two major selling points, it is almost impossible to have a benchmark product in the foreseeable future, which is the moat that Papergames has built for "Love and Deep Space" with its own technological accumulation and breakthroughs.
The immersive feeling brought by "two-way running".
In addition to the innovative feeling brought by strong technology, the marketing style of "Love and Deep Space" is also worth mentioning.
Focusing on the theme of the game "Deep Space", the team not only invited the legendary artist Sarah Brightman to sing the theme song to bring players an ethereal and romantic listening enjoyment, but also launched a special project with Changguang Satellite in the pre-download stage - to launch the IDs and messages of players around the world into space, so that their hearts can reach eternity under the witness of the stars.
Exclusive commemorative ferry ticket
This is probably the "most world-view episode" I've ever seen. Even each player who participates in the event has an exclusive numbered commemorative ticket, and for those who attach great importance to the sense of ceremony and atmosphere, this romance that continues from the game to reality is undoubtedly in the "good ball zone".
The first out-of-the-circle stalk of "Love and Deep Space" also followed, and now everyone knows that "Paperfold is really going to the sky".
What's more worth mentioning is that even outside the game, "Love and Deep Space" will always make players feel that their hearts are never one-way giving, for example, during the public beta warm-up, the official will supplement the psychological activities of the male protagonist through comics, 24h countdown live broadcasts and other forms.
Gyro-kun has also seen similar slow live broadcasts before, and this kind of live broadcast often doesn't have much to impress because of the duration. In the live broadcast of "Love and Deep Space", Qi Yu, Shen Xinghui, and Li Shen would communicate with players every once in a while, and many players stayed in the live broadcast room, waiting to interact with them. When Gyro Jun heard that Li Shen was preparing for tomorrow's meeting, he couldn't help but sigh that the mood of the male protagonists was as excited and urgent as the players - after three years of waiting, it was finally time to go to the appointment.
Live Interaction - Li Shen
The official Q version of the comic
At the key node of the public beta on the 18th, "Love and Deep Space" used overwhelming actions to stir the nerves of players in an all-round way. On this day, the deep space hunters received a love call from the male protagonist;Offline,Changsha、Times Square in New York、Tokyo、Keelung、Keelung、TaiwanAnd other places3D large screens are turned on simultaneously,The shocking display effect of naked-eye 3D really makes players realize:This time I can finally meet him。
Changsha offline large screen effect
Even though Gyro-kun knew that Paperfold players had always eaten well, he still dropped his jaw in front of the screen (hating why he wasn't there). Naked-eye 3D has undoubtedly brought the large-screen check-in marketing common in the national B track to a new height. In my opinion, this is an important way for the team to bridge the gap between the game and reality for players, a cross-dimensional exploration of immersion, and another unprecedented innovation in the B game track.
And through a few days of gameplay, "Love and Deep Space" also gave me an understanding of what the next generation of immersion should look like:
Through the face pinching system and real-time rendering technology, the player's appearance, voice, and even breath (microphone interaction) have broken through the barrier of the screen to reach the male protagonist. Fight side by side with them to explore more unknowns, take pictures with them, catch dolls, and experience the bits and pieces of life together.
The all-round coverage of online and offline activities has made the presence and realism of several male protagonists in the real world skyrocket-the two-way rush between players and characters has jointly shaped this hopelessly ultimate romance.
epilogue
For domestic games, the birth of another new game that has made a huge splash at the global user level and soared in the world's major lists has further promoted the global competitiveness of China's self-developed games.
No matter from which point of view, the acclaimed and popular "Love and Deep Space" can be called the "number one big player" in mobile game products at the beginning of 2024. At the same time, from the quality and performance of the game, it also shows once again that with the hard work of the producer, the creative category of games still has a broad space for development.
We look forward to more surprises from Papergames and Love and Deep Space, and we also look forward to this track evolving again and creating more miracles.