After the explosion of "Finished! I Was Surrounded by Beautiful Girls" (hereinafter referred to as "Finished") last year, many people began to pay attention to the track of interactive film games, hoping that it could take advantage of this wave of momentum to give birth to more popular models, and even reproduce the quality of "Invisible Guardian" (hereinafter referred to as "Hidden Guardian") in 2019.
But this year, the results seem to be somewhat unsatisfactory - there are a large number of games on the market that imitate "Finished", but the quality and reputation are generally not high. It can be said that most of the products are just catching up with the heat and trying to make a wave of quick money. The domestic interactive video game market wants to create brilliance, but it seems that it is still a distant illusion.
However, in this wave of craze, there are also some players who have paid attention to an interactive movie game called "Fame and Fortune Game". It went live in February of this year and has 89% positive reviews on Steam. In terms of plot, although there are some controversies about it, but after the overall experience, Grape Jun can say that this is most likely one of the best quality interactive film games in China since "Hidden Guard".
Many people have also discovered that this game happens to be the new work of Dizi, the director of "Hidden Guard". Previously, he rarely posted news on Weibo, and most people didn't know much about the movements of this popular director. After "Fame and Fortune Game" was launched, he spoke out publicly and promoted the new work.
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A while ago, Grape Jun and Dizi chatted about "The Game of Fame and Fortune" and the situation of domestic interactive film games. In the dialogue, he describes in great detail many interesting details of the production, as well as the methodology they have accumulated over the years. For example, how to turn natural disadvantages into advantages in interactive film games, and have more depth in character building. In addition, he also lamented that "Hidden Guard", as a former benchmark, once made people feel confused, but as long as the product is done in a down-to-earth manner, there must be more than one way to succeed.
You may also be curious: why can't the domestic interactive film and game market make a second "Hidden Guard"? How will this market develop in the next few years, and will it get better in the end? After reading this article patiently, you will definitely have your own answer.
Here's a transcript of the conversation (including spoilers, read as appropriate):
01 What was once a benchmark has become a mountain in my heart
Grape King: What have you experienced in the past few years since the launch of "Hidden Guard"?
Dizi: Shortly after I left the team in 2019, I started a new team with some old and new partners to focus on developing new products. In 2023, we feel that we have to take a product out and go to the market to do some verification. We have done more than one script and product, and we have also tried to benchmark "Hidden Guard", but as the first attempt of a new team to face the market, we chose "Fame and Fortune Game", which is relatively controllable.
Grape King: Did the new team go well?
Dizi: It didn't go very well. In the past few years, the market has been cold, and the industry has many doubts about this track, which is not a setback for our team.
Grape Jun: "Hidden Guard" was so popular at the time, why did the market become cold?
Dizi: Maybe it's because "Hidden Guard" is the first benchmark, and the height is too high, and the pressure on emerging markets is too great. First of all, this kind of script with a score of 9.8 is hard to come by, and every step of the way in other modules such as shooting, dubbing, post-production, music, etc., is also within budget.
This also made me feel less confident about "The Game of Fame and Fortune" at first. In terms of subject matter, it is not as strong as the righteousness of the family and country in "Hidden Guard", and our psychological expectations are too high, but the production cost is an order of magnitude worse. These situations once made me feel lost, and I believe that this confusion of mine is what a large number of practitioners have felt since 2019. I always think, is this the only way to succeed?
Grape King: Listening to you say this, "Hidden Guard" seems to be a demon.
Dizi: It used to be a mountain in my heart. With such a benchmark, everyone will inevitably have high expectations. As a result, you don't have to wait for the audience to question it, you will first doubt yourself, which is why we have repeatedly polished the script.
But in the process of casting, character building, on-set photography, lighting, and post-editing and soundtrack, my confidence in the product gradually grew. I understand that in fact, if you put in a good effort in every link, and if you have experienced people in place, you can make good products.
Grape Jun: What was the impetus for the establishment of the "Fame and Fortune Game"?
Dizi: At the beginning of 2023, "Hurricane" became popular, and I watched it very well. I think it would be great if I could use interactive film games to create a character like Gao Qiqiang and show his choice and growth along the way.
Moreover, the theme of Vanity Fair can also meet some basic elements of our style: the first is that it is always accompanied by disputes, and it is easier to design a good choice point; the second is that it is naturally easy to be related to handsome men and beautiful women, and will be more attractive to the market; and the third is that it has some realistic attributes, and it is easier to make thought-provoking content for everyone to remember this product.
02 Reality and fairy tales, the intersection of two destinies
Grape Jun: There is a lot of room for this theme to be played, at the level of the script, where did you start thinking about it?
Dizi: The growth of a character. In "The Game of Fame and Fortune", the protagonist Lu Yuan has gradually become a well-known nominated director from a fledgling director, and then to a veteran in the industry who is valued by Daqiang, and finally covers the sky, which is the process of his growth.
But you will find that as he grows up along the way, the price he has to pay, the guilt and tests he will face are getting bigger and bigger - choosing to stop in time in the prologue will trigger many good endings, such as "soft rice and hard food", or living a life of "raking ears", and failing in the first chapter, you may lose money and go bankrupt, so that you live on the streets, and after that, your price will become to pay for your life, or even implicate the people who accompany you all the way.
The protagonist insists on working his own, which will lead to several good branch endings
For example, Xiaomeng was discovered by a brokerage company and became a big star, and the protagonist became an underground boyfriend
Overall, the main line of "Fortune Game" is more realistic and cruel, and the side lines are more fantasy and fairy tales. That's where we come in and what we do.
Grape King: Traditional interactive video games are all played all the way to the end, in pursuit of a perfect ending, but "The Game of Fame and Fortune" is the opposite - the best ending is in the front, and the further back you go, the deeper you fall. Wouldn't this be a bit too shocking for domestic players?
Dizi: For us, it's the subject matter of the story. If we add a particularly satisfying future to such a realistic theme, there will be problems with the concept of the product. So for the sake of the story and the theme itself, we can't compromise.
However, in the later part of the plot, we still set up a more happy ending "Hidden in the Dust": if you can stop at the right time, then you can still live a peaceful life, and you will meet all the old acquaintances.
In this ending, Guan Haiyue takes the place of the protagonist
In the end, Lu Yuan gave up everything, and the two got married
Grape Jun: Another problem that has a big impact on everyone may be that in the plot direction of the prologue, the protagonist is almost always set by the plot of his girlfriend He Xiaomeng's "NTR". What do you think about this?
Dizi: We spent three or four months polishing our script, and we overturned several versions in between. The most discussed issue is He Xiaomeng's character design.
We initially had two directions: one was that she would abandon you, a frustrated young director, in pursuit of fame and fortune. She was by her side when you were beautiful, and she left decisively when you were down. This design has obvious advantages, that is, it is easy to create a refreshing feeling of counterattack and slapping the face, and the other is to make her a love brain that loves you with all her heart, and becomes a stepping stone in the process of your pursuit of fame and fortune, and is finally abandoned by you. But no matter which way it goes, it will make the character of He Xiaomeng seem too thin.
So I talked to a lot of actor friends, especially some actresses who are struggling in the circle. One of their sentences that I remember the most is: "In this circle, an actress has a valuable youth for only a few years, not because she doesn't love it, but as a little-known young actor, many times, reality and love can only choose one." 」
I picked the first half of this sentence and added it to Xiaomeng. The bottom line is that she loves you, provided you don't force her to make realistic choices. The practical significance of this relationship is similar to the uneasy feeling of white moonlight and cinnabar moles. So we decided to use this version of the idea to make everyone have a deeper memory of her.
The protagonist was busy with the filming of the crew, so he didn't pick up the little dream that was drunk
So Xiaomeng was taken to the hotel
This purpose was indeed achieved, but ...... We have also been under tremendous pressure and challenge.
Grape: Some players will feel that this design reflects that you are still more directorial - in the third perspective of the film and television drama, the audience may be more receptive to this kind of plot, but in the first perspective of the game, it is often difficult for the player to accept the betrayal of the character.
Dizi: That's right, we have carefully read all kinds of comments, and we have also had in-depth exchanges with players in the QQ group. The verification of "Fame and Fortune Game" is actually giving us more information from different perspectives. Without this information, we would have been stuck in the director's mind.
If we could design it again, we would still insist on doing deep character design and storytelling. But after experiencing this time, we have thought of a lot of ways to achieve both: for example, we can do more big branch expansion for the branches, so that the plot line of soul torture similar to the death of Xiao Gu in "Hidden Guard" or the abandonment of Xiaomeng in "Fame and Fortune Game" should not be too hasty. Trying to stretch it out and tell the story thoroughly may be a better way to do both.
03 Natural disadvantage is also a unique advantage
Grape Jun: The example of Xiaomeng is very interesting, do other characters have similar material and design experiences?
Dizi: Both. When creating a character, we think from each person's point of view. One of the ideas we insist on is to try not to be black and white.
In The Game of Fame and Fortune, no one is absolutely right or wrong. For example, we want to design Gao Tingyu as an "attractive bad woman", she must not only be beautiful, but also not obnoxious, which requires a very core internal motivation, and most people must be able to understand.
At the heart of our final design was her desire to escape the fate of her marionette. Everything she did along the way, it was to take control of her own destiny. We've honed and thought about it for many rounds, and there's a version of the design in the middle that makes her a revolutionary partner for you, supporting you along the way. But that didn't feel exciting enough – she had to have her own ideas.
So you will see that she is clear-headed, decisive, can sacrifice her hue in order to control her own destiny, can take advantage of everyone, and if you don't behave well enough, she will throw you into the sea at any time. We originally wanted to portray Lu Yuan as a character like Gao Qiqiang, but later, many players felt that Gao Tingyu was more like the female version of Gao Qiqiang.
Grape: You guys really value character building. Do you have any tips on the interactive video game track in this regard?
Dizi: Compared with film and television dramas, interactive film games have a natural disadvantage in character building: storytelling will use more first-person perspectives - not just subjective shots, but use the information that the protagonist can see and perceive to tell the story. The advantage of this is that the player's flow is consistent with the protagonist, but accordingly, we can't tell the story through a third perspective, or a montage.
For example, Shi Daqiang, who is seriously ill, asks the protagonist about the plot in the ward: He wants to hand over the Dongming Group to you, but he is still suspicious, so he will set up an ambush in advance and use a few questions to decide whether you will stay or not. If it is in a film and television drama, this section will definitely arrange a bridge - you will see him talking to his subordinates, letting them ambush, and then the protagonist walks into the room, and the audience begins to look forward to how the protagonist will find clues and fight wits and courage. From a first-person perspective, we won't be able to let you know in advance that there is an ambush.
But interactive video games also have a unique advantage: they create characters through branching endings. Continuing from the above plot: Although you don't know that there is an ambush, when you nominate Daqiang's young son as the heir, and you are unwilling to marry his daughter, the ending of "The Secret History of Xiaozhuang" will be triggered.
You will find that this boss who seems to be five big and three rough on the surface is actually a delicate-minded tyrant - he took out a copy of "The Secret History of Xiaozhuang", turned to the story of Dolgon, and came to a conclusion: you want to be the "regent". At that moment, you know that he laid an ambush in advance, and at the same time, the character of Daqiang in your heart is also more perfect.
Many other characters have similar plots, such as some characters' true attitudes towards you, which may be difficult for you to verify in the main plot line. But in the ending of the branch, you will find that Xiaomeng really loves you. Zhang Peng has also been paying attention to you silently, but only at the moment when you have nothing, she will say to you, "Or we can live together".
It's the same with "Hidden Guard": it constantly gives you a lot of feedback through life-or-death choices. Before you know it, you begin to have a flow with Xiao Tu, and at that moment, you really start to lurk.
Grape Jun: I like the plot you said so much. When Daqiang asked about the heir, I had a vague feeling: "I can control his son as a puppet emperor." As a result, when he took out "The Secret History of Xiaozhuang", I was really about to die of laughter.
Dizi: In our opinion, this is the charm of interactive video games. A lot of the time, players will be upset about triggering a bad ending to the game, but by providing feedback this way, you'll be able to make your character more three-dimensional, one choice at a time. When you finish 100% exploration, your perception of a person must be different. In this sense, interactive video games are a bit like interviews, an art of asking questions and giving feedback. A good Q&A can get people into the groove gradually.
In addition, there is another detail about this paragraph: in order to make the plot more black humorous, we searched for a long time and found a pink copy of "The Secret History of Xiaozhuang", which made Daqiang rough on the surface, but in fact, the contrast was a little cute.
Grape: Are you paying attention to these details, to what extent?
Dizi: We've done a lot of details, but we may not be out of the circle enough for everyone to discover one by one. Here's an example: we want to create a sense of interlacing planes, where you meet the same people on different planes and they still do the same thing. This will be reflected in many details.
For example, in the timeline when you met Guan Haiyue, she will tell you that she will come to the overpass to blow the wind when she has nothing to do recently, and when you walk across the overpass with Xiaomeng on your back in another timeline that you have not met Guan Haiyue, you will see Guan Haiyue also standing on the overpass, but everyone's fate is different.
For another example, when the protagonist and Guan Haiyue participate in the film festival together, Gao Tingyu will use beauty tricks on him, and if you insist on choosing to take the line of Xiaomeng, Guan Haiyue will still bring another director to attend. And you will find that this director will also be tested by beauty tricks, and even Gao Tingyu's words to tempt him are the same. The next day, you'll also see a piece of news about a director being beaten up late at night and taken to the hospital for rescue. It could also be your end on another timeline.
Grape: Is it difficult to do this kind of detail, will it add a lot of extra time and energy?
Dizi: There are many teams that can do it, but there are not necessarily many who have the conditions and are willing to do it. It's inevitable if you want to make your content as perfect as possible.
04 A true director, connecting characters and actors
Grape Gentleman: How long did you shoot overall?
Dizi: 20 days.
Grape-kun: So short?
Dizi: Is it short? For this plot volume, we have worked very hard in the past 20 days, and everyone is working hard with all their might. Especially the actor of the main character, who was really squeezed by us - the moment he shouted, he could fall asleep in two seconds at most, really.
Grape Jun: During the filming process, when it comes to the design of these different timelines, do you have any difficulties in communicating with the actors?
Dizi: There will be some, but not as big as everyone thinks. Because as long as you disassemble the script clearly, professional actors can usually understand it quickly. In many cases, we will even tell the actors about the plot to determine whether the story is reasonable.
Grape Jun: After I played, I felt that all the acting skills of all the staff were quite online, which is very rare.
Dizi: Our actors are basically newcomers to colleges and universities, as well as potential stocks who are working hard in the industry. They all have professional acting skills, so as long as the roles are reasonable and we guide them properly, the interpretation will not be bad. But having said that, the depth of our character creation and the difficulty of the performance are actually not so high that new actors can't bear it.
But when it comes to acting, I'd love to speak up for them: in the third chapter, the protagonist is injured and hospitalized, and when you hear the news of his friend's death, you will see the ECG monitor next to him, and his heart rate has risen from 70s to more than 100 in just a few seconds - it is a real ECG device. It is conceivable that the actor was really involved in the play at that time. So when I was editing in post-production, I also reserved the panorama for this shot.
Grape Jun: When you are filming, will the actors play some plots on their own, like Zhang Songwen did in "Hurricane"?
Dizi: We're going to limit one frame to which the actor can play as he pleases. For example, in the ending where the protagonist and Gao Tingyu form a family, our framework is "strict wife", but Gao Tingyu's actor played on the spot and slapped the protagonist, and we thought the effect was good, so we kept it.
Grape Jun: In interactive film games, is the space for actors to play smaller than in film and television dramas? After all, many options are dead.
Dizi: It doesn't make much difference, we really need actors to add color to the characters, as long as they don't move in a big direction. Many film and television dramas can adjust the big shooting plan because they will live in the group and change the script while filming, which is also a relatively rare condition.
Grape Jun: How much do you think a good director can improve an actor in the filming of interactive film games?
Dizi: It's very big, because although the actor has a foundation, he doesn't necessarily know which direction to act. What the director has to do is not to guide the actors in acting, but to arrange the roles we create when writing to the actors more reasonably, so that they can perform them in a way that they are good at. We often say that the relationship between the character and the actor is one of mutual fulfillment, and the role of the director is more to connect the two.
05 The industry wants to get better, and everyone gathers firewood and the flame is high
Grape: As a director and producer of the project, what are you involved in the game production process?
Dizi: I was basically involved in the whole process from writing the script to casting, shooting, post-production, and some ideas for game and programming. If I want to do a larger volume, I need to stand in a higher position to command, and each department below must have a corresponding core person in charge to complete it.
Grape Jun: Is there anything that makes you crazy? I think many directors will complain that the process of filming film and television works is just a piece of chicken feathers.
Dizi: There is a big historical problem, which is to make all departments and types of work understand our branch diagram. This is a challenge for inexperienced personnel. All we can do is take the branch diagram, and everyone sits together, one line at a time.
This kind of branch diagram will become an important link in the production of interactive video games. Whether it is the script, design, or program level, you must ultimately rely on this diagram to make improvements. At this point in time, the development of the industry is still in its infancy, and it takes a lot of communication and energy to make this set of practices understandable to every department.
Grape Jun: Maybe this is a big hurdle for interactive video games. In contrast, short dramas have a lower threshold for understanding and are developed faster.
Dizi: Yes, and for many film and television drama teams, they do short dramas to reduce dimensionality. Of course, short dramas also have their own thresholds, such as rhythm, which cannot be done simply well.
Grape Jun: More importantly, it may be that there is a clear market space for short dramas, but in China, everyone is still not sure about interactive film games?
Dizi: In a way, we owe a debt of gratitude to "The End" for that. As people who have gone from that wave of craze in 2019 to the present, we have experienced a long period of doubt, but "Finished" has brought new vitality to the market. If a market wants to have a healthy and sustainable development, it must be inseparable from the emergence of successful products, and it must be successful products of different themes and types. Some people focus on love, some people focus on plots, and some people focus on operations, puzzles, and so on.
This year's craze gives me a very similar feeling to that year, but it is a little different. The place is like everyone is trying to break through, and the difference is that in the past, everyone's reference was only the benchmark of "Hidden Guard". Now that there are other types of success stories, there will be more and more angles for people to participate.
Grape Jun: Is this really the case? After "Finished", some new products in the interactive film and game track seem to be generally of low quality, and most of them are imitators with poor reputation.
Dizi: It's an inevitable screening process. The industry itself is to C, practitioners make products with their hearts, users take money to vote, and good products will be sought after. If there are enough good products in multiple directions that continue to appear, the industry will be able to gain a foothold. At least as far as I can know, there are already a lot of people trying to make a good product.
Grape Jun: In the interactive film and game track, can there really be another product of the volume and quality of "Hidden Guard"?
Dizi: If you want to achieve that kind of quality, the script must be one of the cores, and the production volume, experience time, and the sophistication of each link must not be left behind.
Along the way, we have actually always dreamed of making another product with the height of "Hidden Guard". But now, our goal is to make the best products we can at every step, and I believe that as long as we go down this road, one day the market will have a larger capacity, allowing us to make more large-scale products.
Grape Jun: What are your plans for the next product?
Dizi: At present, we have two good choices, one is the second part of "The Game of Fame and Fortune", which continues Lu Yuan's completely crazy ending and starts a new story, and the other is the product "Northern Expedition" that we have been polishing for many years, which is comparable to "Hidden Guard" in terms of volume and duration, and the world view and story have been designed, and we have also selected some of the attempts to kill the script, called "Northern Expedition 3: Who is the World".
Grape Jun: You said that scripts are the core of good products, so why are good scripts so rare? From the perspective of our content market, people are actually not so lacking in creative ability.
Dizi: First of all, good things must be rare, and secondly, we see few good scripts in the market, and there are many factors. I can't comment on other industries, take interactive film and television as an example, there are many stories that are suitable for making products, but this industry still lacks many people to create stories that belong to this genre. A lot of people may be doing it in a hurry, and they can't settle down and do it well.
Also, good products can't be simply copied, even if you copy them 1:1, you can't do the height of the previous work. In essence, this is a problem of the right time and place, and what practitioners can do is to do a good job of the product with their hearts, and leave the rest to the market feedback.
Grape Jun: Are you optimistic about the development of interactive video games in the coming period?
Dizi: Personally, I'm optimistic. First of all, compared with the past, many old practitioners have a flat mentality, and they don't have to pursue the top script - it's not the only way to make a good product and make everyone like it, which may be the biggest point of "Finished" for everyone's horizons.
Secondly, in order for a category to continue to have explosive products, the premise must be that there are enough people taking root. And the current situation is really different from the feeling of struggling in 2019. Because the traditional content industry has also encountered some bottlenecks, many film and television practitioners will look for some new directions and breakthroughs. Whether it is good or bad, if it can be made, there will be a market, more people will do it, and there will be a greater chance of a hit.
In addition, we have an internal consensus: compared with traditional games, interactive video games naturally do not have too much competitive pressure. After experiencing product A, many players will still experience product B, because it takes a relatively short time and will not take up too many resources. Including after "Finished" came out of the circle, you can obviously see that the popularity of "Hidden Guard" has risen a wave.
So I'm pretty confident about the future. There is no too vicious competition here, but there is a feeling that everyone is gathering firewood and the flame is high. As long as practitioners strive to do more products, we can push this industry to a bigger market.