Author|Riding the Wind Home
On April 11th, the side-scrolling puzzle game "Joy and Mourning" developed by the Dajili production team and published by Gamera Games was released on Steam, and so far, the game has received rave reviews, with 95% of the 1186 comments in the Steam comment area.
On major video platforms, there are also many well-known bloggers who publish game-related video content, because of the local themes that the game itself focuses on, as well as the domestic human trafficking, funeral culture and other content reflected behind it, "Happy Funeral" has attracted a lot of audiences outside the circle.
The game flow is basically about two hours, and the plot is roughly a little girl who participates in her grandmother's "happy funeral" (the celebratory funeral of the elderly who is dying), but quietly discovers that behind this happy funeral, the tragic and distorted fate of her grandmother's life.
The game was tagged as "scary" on Steam. However, unlike the usual horror games, there are no Jumpscare or chases in Joy and Death. Just the storyline, magical village, art and music created in the game based on the real world will inevitably make everyone who plays or watches the process video feel scary and even creepy.
Entertainment Capital also took the opportunity of the game release to get in touch with the Dajili production team and Gamera Games, talking about "Chinese horror", talking about local games, and the current situation of China's independent game industry.
The clever story and realistic style move people's hearts
The inspiration for the plot story of "Happy Funeral" originated from a trip that made a member of the production team, Shrimp Ball, just left his job.
When buying raincoats at the shop, shrimp balls encountered a large funeral procession, and the spirit flags, honor guards, relatives, etc. were arranged in order, marching through the streets. However, while onlookers, Shrimpball heard the boss complaining about bad luck and hoped that they would quickly walk away.
Funeral culture has a place in traditional Chinese culture. However, judging from the performance of the people, it reveals more of the taboos about death and funeral. It just so happened that the theme of the BOOOM indie game creation event was "Giggling", so Shrimpball gradually thought about and combined local themes, and finally created the story in "Happy and Mourning".
In that year's BOOM competition, "Joy and Loss" won the first place in the "Most Popular Player Award". As a result, the team set out to further improve the prototype, and there is now "Happy Funeral" in front of us.
In the game, the festive and cheerful atmosphere of "joy and mourning" at the beginning is only the surface, and the cruel reality that makes people think about it is extremely terrifying gradually unveiled with the gradual decryption and exploration of the protagonist: "human trafficking", "family breakdown", "magic village", ......
The soothing and cheerful music and celebratory graphics style are gradually replaced by heavy and sad BGM and dark and calm atmosphere, and in the fragmented and closely connected plot narrative and story expression, players can experience the huge contrast between the story and the front and back. Behind this ordinary and universal enough story, the cruel social problems are closely related to all people and cannot be ignored.
The domestic game industry has been cultivating "Chinese-style horror" for many years
Chinese-style terror is different from the bloody violence of European and American terror and the physical discomfort of Japanese and Korean terror, but focuses on creating a "sense of weirdness" in an environment that is familiar to our people.
Weddings and funerals, folk customs, yin and yang...... Under the collision of traditional culture and modern culture, the ignorant and backward parts of traditional culture and traditional society have always existed, and with various realistic events being continuously amplified, the theme of "Chinese horror" has also won the favor of literature, film and television and other work industries.
As a medium, games have more unique advantages than literature, film and television works, etc., which bring players a rich degree of interaction and a deeper sense of immersion, so that players can often more deeply understand the helplessness and struggle of the characters in the story in the "Chinese horror" elements such as human ethics, feudal superstition, and fatalism after continuous exploration and choice in the game.
Gamera Games, the publisher of "Happy Funeral", has been working in the Chinese horror game scene for many years. On April 19, 2019, the horror game "Paper Man" was released. And then in January of the following year, "Hong Kong Strange Record" also went to players. Gamera Games has published two horror games that have built a good reputation and results. Since then, Gamera Games has also released a series of Chinese-style horror games such as Fireworks, Three Dogs, and Female Ghost Bridge.
Duoduo, the publishing director of Gamera Games, told Entertainment Capital that the core of "Chinese horror" is most of its elements, which are social components that most Chinese people have witnessed and experienced with their own eyes, and can empathize with.
For example, in the "Paper Man" series, the most intuitive Chinese horror element is the paper figure in the funeral culture. The game uses this as an introduction to tell the family tragedy that happened in an ancient house a hundred years ago, "Fireworks" focuses on the problem of missing children and abduction in society through a story of "rural murder tragedy", and the game plot of "Three Dogs" is directly adapted from the "three-eyed prodigy" incident at the end of the 90s of the last century.
Chinese horror, under the eerie and terrifying appearance, hides bizarre social phenomena and the sinister nature of people's hearts. The real shocking and touching point of Chinese horror is that many of what is described and conveyed in it is all around us, and we are silently coexisting with these shocking real beings.
Starting with a campus horror game, the country opened a prosperous era of making horror games. In addition to the games mentioned above, a series of horror games such as the "Paper Wedding Dress" series, "Evil Town", "Soul Exploration" and "Ghost Fighting" have all achieved good reputation and relatively successful commercial results.
At that time, as soon as "Hong Kong Strange Record" was born, you could almost see the anchors live broadcast "Hong Kong Strange Record" on the live broadcast platform of the whole network. During the live broadcast, the anchors also created a large number of hot stalks. For example, at that time, many well-known streamers and players in the League of Legends e-sports circle would choose to broadcast "Hong Kong Strange Record" in their free time, and left a lot of live video clips of screaming, covering their faces, and smashing computers. So, netizens jokingly said, "Jiahui (the character in "Hong Kong Strange Record") is a woman who has killed the most LPL players alone".
In many people's opinions, the trend of domestic production of horror games is also largely due to the success of many previous high-quality games in word-of-mouth and commercialization. This trend has made practitioners see the opportunity, and they have also entered the game. Of course, in such a realistic context, the homogenization of products is also a problem that needs to be considered.
In order to support small independent production teams in China, Gamera Games launched the "Chlorophyll Project". This plan has allowed excellent horror indie games such as "Fireworks", "Three Dogs" and "House of Decay" to be seen by more people. All projects that participate in the "Chlorophyll Project" will not participate in any form of revenue sharing until they have sold 10,000 copies. To a certain extent, this has created a more comfortable and friendly environment for domestic horror game makers.
Compared with the increasingly mature independent game industry abroad, the domestic independent game industry is still in its infancy. Whether it is an independent game developer or an independent game market, there is still a certain gap compared with overseas, which is also an objective fact. But in the eyes of many, domestic independent game developers will inevitably catch up.
In fact, the quality of domestic games has a blowout upward trend. Taking the most important horror games as an example, the "Female Ghost Bridge" series, the "Paper Man" series, "Three Dogs" and "Fireworks" all show the huge potential and market of domestic games. And just recently, the new work of the Female Ghost Bridge series "Female Ghost Bridge Soul Liberation Road" will also be released on May 9, and the trailers and releases of countless works reflect the majestic and vigorous power of the horror game.