Our reporters Xu Xinyi and Wu Kezhong report from Shanghai
A new game has been added to the two-dimensional game market.
Recently, the game developer Manjiu Network announced the PV (Promotion Video) and actual demo of "Blue Star Plain: Travel Rumors", which quickly attracted the attention of players. At present, the number of appointments on its whole platform has exceeded 1.5 million. Although this game has not appeared in the public eye before, it has shown a super high degree of completion as soon as it was exposed.
The production team of "Blue Star Plain: Travel Rumors" told the reporter of "China Business Daily" that due to the huge volume of content of the project, the development team hopes to not show unfinished or unfinalized content until they are sure that the game has reached a certain quality standard and completion, so as to avoid inconsistencies between the exposed content and the official content. For the category of "Blue Star Plain: The Ballad of Travel", the production team believes that it is an action RPG game with a high degree of freedom sandbox gameplay. In terms of technology and expressiveness, this game has made a big leap compared with the previous product of Manjiu Network, "Blue Route".
The number of appointments exceeded one million
In late March, the two-dimensional game "Blue Star Plain: The Ballad of Travel", which had never appeared in the public eye before, announced the first exposure of PV and actual machine demonstration, which showed a super high degree of completion as soon as it was exposed, including pet raising, home infrastructure, plot main line and other gameplay content.
Not only that, "Blue Star Plain: The Ballad of Travel" has recently obtained a version number. The reporter's inquiry found that in January 2024, "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballads" was approved for mobile and client versions.
The game quickly caught the attention of players. At present, the official website of "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballad" has 1.5 million reservations, 5.8 million PV playbacks, 772,000 fans and 670,000 reservations on Station B (Bilibili), and 500,000 fans and 510,000 reservations on TapTap.
In 2017, Manjiu Network launched the battleship-themed beautiful girl development game "Blue Route". According to the company's official website, "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballads" is its second public product.
According to the description of Manjiu.com, "Blue Star Plain: Traveling Ballads" is set in a world called "Promilia", where players will encounter a variety of magical Qibo (animals in the game) and characters with very different personalities, "The game aims to bring users into a world where people live in symbiosis with nature, and I hope everyone can stay alive and full of joy in this adventurous journey." ”
On April 2, the production team of "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballad" told reporters that "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballad" has been approved around 2021. Due to the sheer volume of the project, the development team wanted to avoid showing unfinished or unfinalized content until they were confident that the game had reached a certain quality standard and completion, so as to avoid inconsistencies between the exposed content and the official content.
"At this stage, our plan is to stabilize the existing build first. Once stabilized, a series of very small external player closure tests may be conducted to gather feedback on the product. After that, the open recruitment test will be opened. The production team said. It has not yet revealed information about the official launch of the game.
"At present, our assumption is that after the launch, Blue Star Plain: The Ballad of Travelers will regularly open new maps and the scenes, characters, creatures, etc. contained in the map ecology, and launch corresponding plots, activities, quests and other version content. Talking about the operation after the game is launched, the production team said.
From 2D strategy to 3D ACT
The "Blue Route" previously launched by Manjiu Network is a real-time naval battle-themed game, with bullet hell shooting, collection and cultivation and a variety of casual gameplay, etc., and has won the love of players with exquisite dynamic 2D art.
The video of the new work "Blue Star Plain: Traveling Ballads" shows that the game has a vast world, different forms of creatures, walking, flying and other ways of traveling, and interactive methods such as striking and collecting...... Compared with "Blue Route", "Blue Star Plain: The Ballad of Travel" has made a great leap forward in terms of immersion, gameplay richness, and content.
The production team of "Blue Star Plains: Traveling Ballads" told reporters that Manjiu Network has accumulated rich experience in art management before, and hopes to further highlight its own style while maintaining the aesthetic fit of players, and create a new product with rich content, comprehensive game experience and diverse gameplay, "The vision behind the project of "Blue Star Plains: Traveling Ballads" is to create a game with wonderful content, rich exploration elements and unique aesthetic design. We hope to bring players a more cutting-edge gaming experience with this new title."
However, from 2D to 3D, from strategy operations to ACT (action game) battles, from light gameplay to exploration, combat, farming, and cultivation, the technical span is also a big challenge for Manjiu Network. According to the production team of "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballads", in order to develop "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballads", the development team learned new technology stacks and development tools to achieve more complex game mechanics, higher levels of graphical performance, and more dynamic world building.
The production team also introduced that unlike "Blue Route", which focuses on combat and strategy, "Blue Star Plain: The Ballad of Travel" is story-driven, which means that the development method needs to be fundamentally adjusted in terms of aesthetic design and narrative techniques, and more attention is paid to creating the diversity of cultural ecology, building a fascinating worldview and the emotional expression of harmony between man, Qibo and nature.
"It's a challenge to make a game with an indie IP and a deep worldview. The production team poured great enthusiasm and effort into "Blue Star Plain: The Ballad of Travel". The first challenge in building a new fantasy world was to create a world view that was both unique and engaging, "which requires not only carefully envisioning multiple aspects such as history, geography and culture, but also creating a system of rules with internal logic to ensure that the story is coherent and engaging." In terms of character design, the production team strives to give each character a unique background, character, and growth path to make it alive and attractive to players.
"The creation of music and sound effects is another key part of immersing players in the game's world. According to the production team, "Blue Star Plain: Travel Ballad" invited senior music producers such as Yang Bingyin, Yasuchi Nishiki, and Kenji Kawai to participate in the production of the soundtrack.
It is reported that Yasuchi Nishiki has scored for a number of games and animation works, including the game "Octagon Traveler"; Yang Bingyin's works include music for domestic TV dramas and animations such as "Yanxi Raiders", "Spirit Cage" and "Heavenly Official Blessing"; and Kenji Kawai has scored for well-known Japanese animations, TV series, movies, and games such as "Midnight Bell".
There is still room for high-freedom games
The reporter learned from the production team that "Blue Star Plain: The Ballad of Travel" is an action RPG game with high freedom sandbox gameplay.
With the improvement of game technology and hardware performance, players can access more abundant and immersive game mechanics, and they are less likely to be bound by established processes and pursue a higher degree of freedom.
From open-world games with epic narratives such as Assassin's Creed, GTA5, and The Legend of Zelda, to in-depth sandbox games such as Minecraft, Project Dyson Sphere, and Eight Wild Valleys, to platform games such as Fortnite, many console games strive to create free, open, and non-linear products for players.
The same is true on domestic mobile game platforms. In 2020, the launch of Genshin Impact gave more players the opportunity to explore the open world on mobile. The success of Genshin Impact has prompted many game manufacturers to announce projects or expose their products with elements of free exploration in the big world. In recent years, these projects have either been gradually implemented or unveiled.
Among them, the ARPG game "Singing Tide" developed by Kuluo Games announced that it will be officially launched in May after the third test ended in March this year; the martial arts-themed game "Sixteen Voices of Yanyun" invested by NetEase has attracted much attention since the 2022 Cologne Game Show and will announce the open beta time in April this year; Eagle Horn Network's IP sequel "Tomorrow's Ark: The End", and the fairy sword IP product "Sword and Fairy World" developed by CMGE will complete a round of testing in 2023; Received the release number in February, and the beta will start soon. In addition, there are also urban-themed "Mochizuki", "Codename: Infinity", and the national style action game "A Thousand Faces" has been announced before. It is expected that in the future, there will be more game products with a high degree of freedom with different gameplay and themes in the game market.
The data shows that for now, high-freedom mobile games still have a large market space. According to the "2024 China Game Industry Trend and Potential Analysis Report" by Gamma Data, a third-party research organization, 55.4% of users prefer open-world, explorable large maps, which ranks first among many subdivided gameplay. In the game market in 2023, IP-based games and open-world RPG games are an important source of incremental growth. However, the demand for product quality has increased again, including the largest map in the achievable range, consistency with the real world and more freedom of play, and real-world detail standards.