This year's solo travel circle is too explosive. Before I could recover from the strength of products such as "Mountains and Rivers Travel" and "Cup and Cup Full", not long ago, there was another popular domestic solo tour with a small and broad size:
The AVG (Word Adventure) game "Hungry: A Thousand Miles at the End of the Ming Dynasty" (hereinafter referred to as "Hungry"), which hit the shelves on April 23, sold nearly 100,000 copies in the first week and 165,000 copies in two weeks. According to the discount price of 29.6 yuan when it was first put on the shelves, the turnover has now reached at least 4.88 million.
(The following contains serious spoilers, please read as appropriate)
You may have recently swiped some memes about "Starvation" on the Internet. For example, Zhu Yuanzhang (the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty) traveled a thousand miles at the end of the Ming Dynasty; Zhu Youzhen (the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty) denounced his ancestors for not giving them strength in the Steam comment area.
Don't be fooled by this superficially cheerful and tricky atmosphere. "Starvation" actually tells a dark story: the player takes on the role of a bandit named Liang, and together with his accomplice Tongue, in the context of the famine at the end of the Ming Dynasty, transports four little girls, Mansui, Qionghua, Hong'er, and Cui'er, from Huazhou, Shaanxi Province, to Luoyang, Henan Province to be vegetable people (people who are eaten as vegetables). The choices players make during their journey will lead to different endings.
"Hungry" is not the first hit of Zero-Creation Games (hereinafter referred to as "Zero-Creation"), and their debut game "Burial Flowers: Dark Peach Blossoms" (hereinafter referred to as "Burial Flowers") in 2021 is one of the most successful domestic Galgames in recent years. After "Funeral Flowers", Lingchuang also launched an AVG+ war chess game called "1/2" last year, but it did not perform well.
Click on the image to enlarge it
The failure of "1/2" once made Ji Ling, the founder of Zero, doubt his life: he started his business at the age of 16, tried to make novels, comics, and movies, and later dropped out of school to make games in his sophomore year.
But after talking to him, I found that it was this frustrated state of mind that inspired him to make "Starvation". After being pushed into the trough, but digging opportunities in the trough, this is not a blessing in disguise.
01 In the negative emotions of losing 2 million, find creative inspiration
It may be said that the debut performance of "1/2" was too bad, which stimulated Zero to make "Starvation".
When "1/2" was about to be released, Ji Ling talked to us about his concerns about this game: they set a relatively big goal, to combine AVG and war chess; In addition, try group narrative, which means that the story does not have a core protagonist, and 12 characters need to be portrayed at the same time. The process was not smooth. Both wargames and AVGs are highly immersive experiences that are difficult to integrate; The group narrative also has the problem of fragmented content experience.
And the performance of "1/2" after it was officially put on the shelves far exceeded Ji Ling's expectations for its lower limit. What he originally thought was that if he invested 2 million, he would be able to sell at least 3 million guaranteed, because this is the result of "Funeral Flowers". But the final result was that "1/2" invested a total of 3 million, sold 1 million, and lost 2 million.
Image source B station @ Zero Creation Games
He admitted that the failure of "1/2" had a lot to do with his pride and misjudgment of the financing market.
Ji Ling said that the success of his first product "Funeral Flowers" made him a little fluttery. He remembers a quote from The Art of Game Design: "The first ten games you make are rubbish, so get rid of them." "And he succeeded the first time, so he mistakenly thought that making games was an easy task.
Moreover, 2021, when "Funeral Flowers" was launched, was the time when domestic game financing was booming. Ji Ling was thinking at that time that even if "1/2" failed, it could be regarded as spending money to buy lessons and refinancing later. But in 2023, when "1/2" overturned, the market environment was already much harsher, and he found that financing became extremely difficult, and finally had to borrow money from a friend to keep the studio running: "It's embarrassing, the company was almost played to death by me." ”
This unsatisfactory experience made Ji Ling's thoughts become more and more negative. He began to doubt his own level, and even worried about whether he could survive in the future: "It's been ten years, and the works I lead will still lose, and I won't keep losing and starve to death from now on, right?" ”
Image source B station @ Zero Creation Games
Following this slightly exaggerated pessimistic line, Ji Ling began to search for text and pictures about the famine. What he found was not people like himself who thought they would starve to death, but people who were really starved to death.
The impact of this information gradually turned Ji Ling's previous negative feelings of suspicion that he would starve to death into a desire to create. Combined with his little knowledge of history, the image of a little girl in the background of the famine in Shaanxi at the end of the Ming Dynasty jumped into life: she was skinny, wanted to cry but didn't even cry, her eyes were mixed with sadness and despair, and the desire for revenge...... This was his initial inspiration for the creation of "Hungry", and it was also his initial expectation of the image of the protagonist Mansui.
So, less than half a month after the release of "1/2", he and his team immediately began to work on "Starving".
Ji Ling looks back on his original thoughts a year ago
02 At the beginning of research and development, I knew that "Hungry" would definitely be stable
I asked Ji Ling if he would be too impulsive to start doing it as soon as he was inspired, and he said no: from the moment I decided to make Starvation, I knew that the game would be stable.
First of all, because the background of the famine in troubled times is more convenient for in-depth exploration of human nature.
At first, when searching for information about the famine, Ji Ling was shocked by some real cases. One of the things that impressed him the most was "changing children and eating" - exchanging children with each other to feed their hunger. He believes that the performance of 9 points of animalization and 1 point of human nature makes this matter even more sad: judging from the result, children have to be eaten, and in exchange, it is just in human nature that it can bring a little comfort to those who eat children.
This kind of helplessness that can't change the result, combined with the self-comfort of human nature, is also reflected in "Hunger".
For example, at first, my tongue thought that it was to sell 4 hungry and cold little girls to live a good life in a rich and noble family, so there were all kinds of intimidation and threats on the road, but after learning that they were actually selling them as food, his attitude changed 180 degrees, and he invited them to eat and buy snacks...... But he never thought of terminating or changing his trip, so it was probably just a hypocrisy on his tongue to make him feel better.
Is the tongue to blame? In an age when you can't even eat, do you want to give up your ego and fulfill others, or do you want to ensure that you have a life to live? Ji Ling felt that this was a difficult question to answer, and it was also a question that players could feel and think.
Secondly, the end of the Ming Dynasty was a period full of tragedy, but there were not many works focusing on the hungry people, and Ji Ling felt that there was room for play.
When talking about the rise and fall of the Ming Dynasty, many people will start from the perspective of national history, and mention the ups and downs and unwillingness of the Han people - they overthrew the Yuan Dynasty established by ethnic minorities, and then were replaced by the Qing Dynasty established by ethnic minorities and became the last Han dynasty.
But Ji Ling felt that there were too many stories recorded in the past history that highlighted the national integrity, and he would only fall into the old routine if he took this as the core to talk about the heartfelt heart of the princes and princes to defend the country and defend the Han people. Moreover, the famine was most experienced by the civilians, who were all about to starve to death at that time, how could they talk about national integrity.
What added to the tragedy of the common people was that Li Zicheng, who robbed the landlords and distributed grain to the people, was finally defeated. Ji Ling emphasized that he did not think that Li Zicheng was a good person, but that he was at least willing to think about the weak. For example, when he traveled to Henan, many hungry people took refuge in Li Zicheng, and from a rational point of view, the best solution would have been to keep the young and strong, drive away or kill the old and weak, women and children, but he did not do so. However, after losing the Battle of Shanhaiguan, Li Zicheng was defeated and retreated, and there were fewer people willing to follow him.
Li Zicheng in "Hunger".
"Just like what is said in "Let the Bullets Fly", the common people are who wins and they help whom. Especially in that era when their lives can't be saved, they are unlikely to prioritize thinking about who will be good to them in the future, but will give priority to choosing sides to see who will win. Ji Ling felt that the choices of the people in the late Ming Dynasty were difficult to judge by right and wrong, and this was just the way they had to survive in troubled times.
Image source B station
Therefore, Ji Ling did not want to tell the story from the perspective of national history from the beginning, but wanted to stand in the perspective of people's history, with ordinary people as the protagonists, and tell about their struggle between hunger and human nature.
This niche perspective has aroused doubts from some netizens. Some people felt that the interpretation of history in "Starvation" was wrong, and Ji Ling later received physical threats because of it. However, he explained that he felt that anyone could interpret and imagine the established history that had taken place from any angle, and that his taking the people's view of history did not mean that he denied the rationality of the national view of history.
Ji Ling discusses the controversy caused by "Hunger" in the late Ming Dynasty on Zhihu
In addition, there is another advantage, which Ji Ling didn't expect at first: the gimmick of "eating beautiful girls" is enough to hunt for curiosity.
When "Hungry" was first exposed, someone asked what the game was about, and Ji Ling replied casually: Send the little girl to others to eat.
This casual reply ignited the heat of the game discussion: some people said that it was too curious; Other players who have knowledge of the history of the late Ming Dynasty will take the opportunity to popularize the true history of the famine at the end of the Ming Dynasty; Players who receive new knowledge will popularize science to those around them...... The number of times "Starving" has been collected by Steam players into the wishlist has even reached 8 times that of "Funeral Flowers".
The source network of the picture, the role in the picture is full of spikes
Ji Ling later figured it out: if something is hated by some people and supported by others, online public opinion will naturally provide traffic. He didn't think about making a controversy, but he was right.
03 6 people R&D for half a year: 260,000 words of script were written in only 3 months
As for why he wrote the story of "two robbers and four little girls trekking through mountains and rivers" around the famine at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Ji Ling said that he did not have an industrialized and process-based methodology, but only the basis of his previous experience and creative experience, so he naturally came up with such a plot.
This may be because he has watched a lot of film and television works involving children and human nature.
Ji Ling mentioned "Blind Shaft": two adults often trick migrant workers into going down the mine, blowing up the shaft, disguising it as an accident, and defrauding compensation, but after deceiving a 16-year-old child, one of the adults gradually wavered in his heart, and finally had a dispute with his accomplices about whether to kill the child, and finally died with his accomplices, saving the child's life.
Stills from "Blind Well", source network
Ji Ling also mentioned a lot of road trip film and television works, such as "This Killer Is Not Too Cold", "Kikujiro's Summer", "Paper Moon", "Black Contractor (Season 2)" and so on. In these works, adults and children move around, and the experiences of the journey allow them to soothe each other's shadows and grow together.
Stills from "This Killer Is Not Too Cold", source network
Therefore, writing the script of "Hungry" is like building blocks for Ji Ling - he has seen many works, and there are enough building blocks at hand to easily build them.
In addition, years of script creation have made Ji Ling understand that it is necessary to create multiple people with different backgrounds and three views in order to collide with interesting plots.
As a result, there are many character control groups in "Hunger":
Although Liang and Tongue are both bandits, their values are actually very different. Liang feels guilty about killing, while Tongue thinks only of himself;
Four little girls have different reactions to the same thing. When Liang and Mansui demonstrated the shadow puppet play, Qionghua, who was born in a wealthy family and was well-informed, was quietly appreciating, because the family was so poor that there was not enough food to eat, and the two sisters Hong'er and Cui'er, who were sold by their parents to human traffickers, had never seen a shadow puppet show, and the elder sister showed a curious look, while the younger sister was asking what was delicious in the shadow puppet show......
The interactions and different reactions between these people will contrast and emphasize the character characteristics that Ji Ling wants to embody: compared with other lambs, Man Sui seems too calm and mature, losing the innocence and childishness that should be present at this age; Compared with the tongue, Liang looks more cold-blooded, but on the contrary, there is still humanity in his heart.
With the direction of the script already clear, the development progress of "Starvation" is quite fast. Ji Ling completed the 260,000-word script in only 3 months; There are 6 people involved in the production of "Starvation" in Zero Creation, although the span is one year, but the actual development time is only half a year, because they still have half of their time every day working on another RPG development game "Black Nest: Snake Contract" (hereinafter referred to as "Black Nest", which is not currently on the shelves).
The team has always had a lot of confidence in "Hungry", but when it was about to go live, it still experienced an accident that almost led to a death sentence - "Hungry" failed to pass the fast review on Steam and went into a rigorous review instead. Whether the game can be put on the shelves or not has become unknown.
At that time, the financial situation of Zero Creation was not optimistic, and if "Hungry" could not pass the review, they would face the crisis of disbanding the team. Even if they don't disband and hold on, they can only put all their bets on "Black Nest", and years of entrepreneurial experience told Ji Ling: "Don't let one thing be your last resort, it will probably kill you." ”
Looking back on the days of waiting for the review, Ji Ling said that he cheered for the team all day long, but he always couldn't help but think of Li Zicheng in his mind - after he was defeated and retreated, he also continued to boost morale, but in the end he was beaten to death by several old men with sticks, and he walked not very decently. Every time he thought of such a scene, Ji Ling felt very desperate in his heart.
Fortunately, a month later, "Hunger" finally passed the trial. Its first-week sales were 4 times higher than that of Zero's former peak masterpiece "Funeral Flowers", which directly pulled the team out of the trough.
04 Review of "Hungry": We still need to improve
After "Starvation" was put on the shelves, Ji Ling worked intensively to brush various communities every day, reading and replying to player comments: "This is also a part of R&D, because I can review what is good and what is not good, and help me develop next time." ”
Looking back, Ji did find some lessons to learn from in the future.
First, the failure of "1/2" caused him to get "group portrait PTSD", which led him to only dare to focus on individual characters.
The most obvious thing is that "Hunger" does not portray enough of the three little girls except Man Sui. The player has an impression of them, but they are not impressed, and they do not have too strong empathy. It's not that Ji Ling can't write, but I'm really afraid that it will be too scattered and messy like "1/2". But now he felt that it was overkill.
Second, in the true ending, Liang and Mansui both survived, and in the dialogue, the two characters attributed the fault of starvation to the feudal landlord, but Ji Ling did not handle the process of this attribution.
This is also the most tangled part of his writing script, and he changed it three times. Ji Ling hoped to use a good tone to shout out an indictment against the feudal landlord class - what made the famine even worse was the landlords who still raised taxes on the peasants and did not release grain to save people under the severe drought.
After the game was put on the shelves, Ji Ling realized that he was always staring at Liang, and this direction itself was wrong. In the eyes of the player, Liang is a bandit, a victim of famine, but also a perpetrator. And standing opposite Liang is Mansui who has died in the whole family, but has never harmed others.
Ji Ling reacted: "This kind of emotion of waking up and finally understanding who you should hate is appropriate for Man Sui." She is the purest and lowest victim. ”
Third, the proportion of female players in "Starvation" is not large, which is not in line with Ji Ling's initial expectations.
He originally thought that "Hungry" would be a product that most people liked and did not pick gender. However, when some UP masters with more female fans broadcast the game live, not only did the effect not work well, but they were also washed away by the audience.
Ji Ling felt guilty. He felt that although he had no intention of emphasizing the relationship between the sexes, some of the design in the game might still bring discomfort to female players. The spanking in Chapter 3 and the bathing scene in Chapter 7 may also be mistaken for too much ambiguity.
However, there is a chance for improvement: in addition to "Black Nest", they are also working on the sequel to "Hungry", "Mourning: Diary of Ten Broken Cities". Ji Ling said that the end of the Ming Dynasty was very complicated, full of tragic beauty, he didn't write enough, and there was still a lot of deeper content that he wanted to show players.
05 In the cataclysmic period of the industry downturn, there are opportunities if you don't do well
But what I care about is that even though the two AVG games are selling out, "1/2", which tried to play the game, overturned, why did Zero Tron try RPG development gameplay and make "Black Nest"? Isn't it nice to make money all the time doing AVG? Ji explained that he has greater expectations for Zero Creation.
His ultimate goal is to build a company with strong cultural attributes like Cygames: the main business is to make games, and at the same time to make many derivative cultural products, such as anime.
Typical example of Cygames' "Horse Racing Lady"
To reach this height, Ji Ling believes that the company cannot be limited to the AVG category: "If the team is like a dragon, then I may be like a knight, now using AVG to hunt and raise the dragon little by little with meat, so that we can fly over the cliff together in the future to challenge more difficult monsters." ”
At a time when financing is difficult, it is not an easy task to "feed the dragon". But Ji Ling felt that the cataclysmic period was also an opportunity. He mentioned that Japan's economic bubble burst, saying that at that time, the prices of many assets fell very low, and some people took the opportunity to buy assets at a low price and opened hot spring hotels, and as a result, they made money.
The downturn in the industry has brought some similar turnarounds to Zero, for example, they are now better at hiring. Ji Ling remembered that he wanted to recruit an artist in Chengdu 2 years ago, with a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan, and only received 20+ resumes.
Not long ago, they recruited administrative assistants, with a monthly salary of 5-6 thousand, and the recruitment information was out of the circle in NGA. Many netizens complained about the zero trauma slam on the door, the salary was low, and there were many things. But as a result, it became a top 50 popular position in BOSS Zhipin at that time, with more than 20,000 people browsing it, and finally 1,900 people took the initiative to contact it.
Ji Ling sighed: "It's just a battle royale." In order to be one in a thousand, he had to add some skills, such as graphic design, video editing, etc., otherwise he would not be able to screen out people at all. But judging by the results, it does allow them to recruit more versatile talent.
So Ji Ling is not very pessimistic about the future. He said that just like the famous line of the TV series "The Great Era", everyone else is dead, as long as you don't die, you win.
Image source B station @小丸子石ying
While optimistic about the future, Ji Ling doesn't advise anyone to jump into the gaming industry unprepared, especially dropping out of school to make games. Although Ji Ling did this, the comic studio he opened when he first started his business had a stable income of tens of thousands of dollars per month. This background alone is different from someone who simply wants to drop out of school.
At the same time, Ji Ling believes that sometimes the so-called destruction of the boat is more like an escape, and some people will add weight to it in order to strengthen their determination to escape. The same is true for dropping out of school to make games: if you don't have the ability to make money, you can't even go to school, thinking that if you sacrifice so much, you will definitely get results, but the outcome may not be as you wish.
Besides, there are a lot of pits that are easy to step on in this industry, and Ji Ling feels that it is not simple:
The cost of making a game is not easy to control, and in the later stage, once you want to change a certain design, it will affect the whole body;
It's a test of creative judgment, and some people may feel that their ideas are invincible, but players don't like them;
Jumping out of the dead cycle of game homogenization is not small, and many people don't want to make novel games, they just can't afford to do it.
He has seen too many AVG peers make Japanese-style campus-themed products, because there are enough objects to learn from, and some materials can even be used directly, which is very cost-effective. But this will fall into a vicious circle, becoming more and more rolled, and losing its freshness. In contrast, last year's AVG game "Migratory Birds", which drew Chinese school uniforms and told Chinese love stories, made a small explosion.
Listening to him count all kinds of pitfalls, I couldn't help but ask: Do you regret changing careers to make games? On the contrary, he said, making games is a good decision for him: "The game industry will continue to improve with technology, but it is difficult for novels and comics to change with technology." So I don't think I'm taking the wrong path. ”
Besides, is stepping on a pit the worst outcome? Perhaps what is even more frightening is that the pain of stepping on the pit is only visible in the eyes, and the opportunity to climb out is ignored. Ji Ling once complained that every time he started a business, he would make a big mistake on the second attempt, because he was eager for quick success, but he was also more confident in the third work: "When we do the next work, we are a team that has experienced success and failure, and the experience of failure can make us grow more than success." ”
Image source B station @ Zero Creation Games
Nowadays, it may become more common for gamers to step on pit than ever, but does that mean it's the worst of times? can make a comeback with a loss of 2 million, I think, this era may not be so bad.