Touching funny words, nonsense and games every day, ghost things, new things.
Photo/Xiao Luo
More than two months ago, I traveled to Shenzhen and visited Yihai Games by the way. This visit has nothing to do with work, but as a player of "New Moon Walking" and "No Regrets Huaxia" (both of which are games owned by Yihai), I want to see what the working environment of the project team is like. As I have visited other companies before, I walk around the office twice to see how the employees are working and how their workstations are furnished, and I ask some friends about the big picture of the project.
My impression of the "Walking with the New Moon" project team is that the employees are more individual. That's what I thought when I interviewed them before, and after seeing what some of the interviewees really looked like, that impression was greatly strengthened.
Let's take Mr. Bai Bohuan as an example. In previous conversations, he was always relatively silent; But when it comes to what he likes, he will gush endlessly, occasionally "violent arguments", which is the kind of sentence that is very suitable for direct copying in the article. When I was interviewing, I imagined him in a state of silence, but in reality, he would look up at the ceiling, cross his hands, or press the ballpoint pen constantly, so that I could feel a "thinking" temperament. I used to think that he would look as thin as a stereotypical otaku when he writes books at home all year round, but he is strong, and he says that he is "at work" - everyone works hard for "New Moon Companion" like this, after all, the game will be launched on October 24 this year.
The furnishings of the "Crescent Moon" work area are no different from the general second tour project team, and there is also a special display area for the periphery, which has many peripherals that have not yet been announced. What caught my attention the most were the felt dolls of Chiaki and Hengsha. There are almost no manufacturers in China who sell this style of merchandise, and I guess that this should be done by the employees themselves.
I thought of the "Song of Silk" that I haven't heard from
There are a variety of merchandise and award certificates on the display shelves
After visiting the "Crescent Moon Companion" project team, I came to the "No Regrets in China" project team. As one of the very few strategy games on the market developed against the background of ancient Chinese chronicles, "No Regrets in China" has almost no competitors, so the project team has been operating very smoothly for 2 and a half years. I want to use "small but beautiful" to describe this game, in fact, most of Yihai's games have the characteristics of "small but beautiful" - the game size, R&D, operating costs are not large, and the player circle is not large - but each game has full characteristics, and these characteristics are particularly "specialized" for a certain group of players, who are the core and support the long-term operation of the game.
"No Regrets in China" is a sand table simulation single-game game. Each game simulates the time progression of dynasties, and when a certain region unifies the entire map, the game will usher in the ending of the corresponding region, as well as some endings that can only be ushered in after completing special conditions. Because most of the endings need to be unified, the system places a lot of emphasis on army strength. Players almost every game is to study policies and technology, enrich the country and strengthen the army, and unify the whole map. After completing the match, players can earn resources to strengthen their retainers.
I am an open server player of "No Regrets Huaxia", and I played almost addictively for 3 months, and then chose to abandon the pit. I still remember the reason for abandoning the pit: the game will update a dynasty every once in a while, and each dynasty has a special system, such as players can obtain resources through divination in the Xia, Shang and Zhou periods, and weaken the enemy through the use of space in the Spring and Autumn Warring States. However, the characteristics of the previous dynasties will not have a particularly big impact on the outcome of the game, resulting in players not having a strong perception of the unique system, and after playing for a long time, they will feel tired of the homogenization of the game. I briefly asked about the recent situation of "No Regrets in China" next to the work area, and this problem has been improved to a certain extent.
At present, the version of "No Regrets in China" is the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Han Dynasty campaign script of "Five Orders in Contention" was launched last month. The campaign script is different from the sand table simulation of the main gameplay, similar to a roguelike, and it pays more attention to the player's choice of strengthening in the road. The relevant person in charge told me that they felt that the Han Dynasty scripts before "No Regrets in China", or the Xiongnu stories told in popular TV series, novels, and games on the market now, were told from the perspective of the Han Dynasty, and there were almost no stories from the perspective of the Xiongnu.
I rarely visited the work area of the non-two-dimensional game project team before, and the feeling of "No Regrets in China" is "quite historical". The producer's camel's workstation sits on a thick stack of history books, and on the wall facing it is a huge map. Camel told me that their game is special, whether it is planning, art or programming, and the people who come to join are more or less fond of history. I believe that when a team has some kind of commonality, and this commonality can become the driving force for the collaborative production of games, the resulting game must stand the test of the market.
The workstation of "No Regrets in China".
The terrain on the map is tactile and distinct