Hogwarts "started school".
Text/Isaac
On September 7th, after NetEase's self-developed "Harry Potter: Magical Awakening" (hereinafter referred to as "Magical Awakening") was opened for pre-download, information related to the opening of Hogwarts was screened on Weibo, circle of friends and other places. On the day of the 9th public beta, it landed at the top of the iOS double list.
At the same time, it has also been on a lot of hot searches. For a moment, everyone seemed to be a new student at Hogwarts.
Such a situation may surprise you a little. But at least this year, "Magic Awakening" may be the most innovative and invested product in THE IP mobile game. Combined with the previous test and the experience of this public beta, Grape Jun feels that the investment in packaging, design and other aspects of "Magic Awakening" has made it a rather "restless" card game.
01 Restless Selling:
Without a realistic painting style, you can also fill the sense of immersion
Why is it restless? Because card games already have a fairly mature system, for ip of the magnitude of "Harry Potter", rapid development may allow NetEase to "lie and make money". However, around the proposition of "immersion", "Magical Awakening" has spent a lot of time and energy to polish.
The external part is easy to understand: in order to make recognition, NetEase chose a retro picture book style that matched the temperament of the original work. This style not only has a higher acceptance of character design, but also a good blend of people's perception of the World of Harry Potter – the antiquity of the 20th century, the antiquity of old movies, the sense of fairy tale narrative, and the mystery of the magical world hidden in the shadows...
Diagon Alley scene
In addition to the large number of scenes and fine quality, the perspective of the characters in the open beta has also been iteratively turned to be 360 degrees. Although this is very intimate from the player's point of view, it also confuses me: spending so much effort to build scenes, smashing art resources... Is this really a card game?
The inner parts hidden in all corners of the game reinforce this feeling to me: if you look closely, you will find that the UI design of Magic Awakening is quite bold and flexible. On the one hand, game art has always highlighted the British Academy style. In addition to designing some of the level interfaces into the form of books, the game is also repeatedly invoking classic elements such as letters and fire paint.
In this public beta, "Magical Awakening" also revealed some new details. For example, when sharing the photos of the sorting house, you will find that everyone's expression is a little different. This kind of nervousness and careful thinking at the time of admission is very subtle.
The feeling of the academy is there, but what about magic? This brings us to the other side: classic memory points and magical elements distilled from the game. Like an owl, the sense of presence is very strong, standing directly on the left side of the chat channel; the magic wand that can be seen everywhere also replaces the gestures, progress bars and other components in traditional games; and the footprints on the virtual joystick are reminiscent of the marauder's map.
If you open the magic book in the game, this feeling will be even stronger. In the new version, each magic card in the Book of Magic—note, each one—comes with a corresponding animation and interactive effect. For example, you can throw stones at trolls and cast floating spells on people. What impressed me more was the "Weather Spell" card, after clicking on the card surface, the dark cloud will even cover the returning UI, only click again to make it dissipate, in order to continue the operation.
But looking back, Harry Potter seems to have brought us this feeling—every detail of the wizarding world feels new and surprising.
Now you should understand where the immersion of Magical Awakening comes from: the style that fits the original, plus the feeling of college life, the magical world, and the sense of surprise laid out with the content. That's ambitious enough, right? But that's only the first level.
02 Restless Gameplay:
Don't follow the traditional card routine
At the gameplay level, Magic Awakening is equally restless. Instead of opting for the traditional card mode, they introduced more complex instant battles.
The difficulty of this innovation is obvious, in addition to the higher technical requirements, there are also certain requirements for the design of the rules - if it is simply a bombardment spell, the playability of the game will be very shallow. So Magic Awakening has made some changes to strengthen the depth on the basis of the traditional CCG.
The bottom change is the operational dimension: the player needs to use "move cards" to plan the character's position to find a better position to cast spells, or to dodge their opponent's spells. This makes the previously strategic card gameplay a little more maneuverable - spells, although powerful, are useless if they cannot be hit.
The magic in Magic Awakening is divided into instant magic and resident magic, and can carry a total of 8 cards during battle. Instant magic is a spell that is released instantaneously to inflict damage, control, or generate effect areas, such as "Lightning Storm" and "Speed Imprisonment"; stationary magic is similar to summoning retinues of different attributes and skills, such as "Three Monster Books". The companion cards can only carry 3, but they combine the effects of two magic cards, and they are usually in-game characters, such as Kassandra, Lottie, or classic characters such as Harry Potter, Hermione, etc.
With the most basic type settings, the battlefield becomes rich. You must not only find the right time to cast spells to break the siege for yourself, but also keep an eye on the other party's position and shake before casting the spell. In addition to the more conventional control of the field, damage, these cards also have some unique designs. For example, the "Wandering Ball" card can be used repeatedly on the field, up to five times. If placed properly, the upper limit of this single card will be quite high.
The interesting thing is that such a core card can usually form a completely different idea of fighting. As shown in the image above, in addition to using the moving card to move the position, you can also use the "Shape Shift" to instantly catch the ball, or use the "Flying Charm" to change the opponent's position to achieve the highest hit rate.
There are various genres that can build decks with "mobile" as the core. For example, the Wild Blast Spell Stream, the Creature Shop Stream, the "Australian Dragon" and the "Fierce Fire" as the core, the genre of strengthening the victory of individual creatures by sacrificing their own small creatures... Each has a different experience, and there are even genres with "Avada Soma" as the core card.
Rest assured, you won't get into Azkaban if you use it (from the player test video)
You read that right, there's really this magic card in the game, and it also comes with a spike effect. Of course, its trigger conditions are very harsh, but once played, it will be quite refreshing. Otherwise, Magic Awakening would have no balance to speak of. This is another problem it faces: after joining the real-time battle, the numerical balance of Magic Awakening involves factors such as biological behavior paths, operational forces, etc., and will be more difficult to regulate than the traditional CCGs with static values.
So you can see that Magic Awakening took several tests to adjust the combat environment to a relatively balanced degree. For example, in the last test, in order to test the "kryptonite pressure strength", the production team deliberately enlarged the game value. There was a card called "Time Converter" that was quite brainless at the time, but after several iterations of the version, it was no longer a "version tumor".
The effect of the time converter is similar to that of a manufacturing doppelganger
And after many iterations, NetEase seems to have found it in the paid piece. To take the most stark example: every day after entering a dueling club, players can use the "Copy into Double" spell to copy an opponent's cards 3 times, even legendary cards. Objectively speaking, this design is friendly to both novice and low Krypton players.
Grape King copied the purple card
In addition, the production team is also designing cards with a relatively restrained approach. For example, the Avadaso life is set to "kill 4 units" before it has a second kill effect, so you must first carefully move in position, control the field, and accumulate a few damages before achieving a one-hit second kill. This restraint is an important factor in avoiding the loss of control of the rhythm of the battle, and it is also one of the reasons why moving requires the consumption of cards - when the number of moves is limited, the game and pull between players will be more cautious and more ornamental.
In this way, the sense of rhythm can be grasped in this way, on the one hand, different types of players can find their own fun, on the other hand, it is also in line with the concept of "wizard duel" that "Magic Awakening" wants to highlight - not only pay attention to the level of operation, but also test the combat IQ. Of course, Magic Awakening is played in more than just PvP duels. This is also the second thing NetEase has done after digging deeper: broaden the breadth.
The gameplay cycle of Magic Awakening is simple, and its core is not PVP, but a content system called "School Year". Consuming content, participating in various gameplay, earning Academy points, and unlocking new content through rewards are things that players can do every day. And these gameplay have their own characteristics, completely supporting the game time of non-PVP players.
For example, some mini-games that restore magical school life: the Magical Animal Protection Class protects Hagrid's pumpkin, similar to tower defense; the divination class tests the players' expression ability and tacit understanding, similar to you draw my guess; and the History of Magic class needs to answer the relevant questions of the harry potter series original book, suitable for the original party.
These gameplay may also confuse you: a card game, why do you have to do so many different ways to play? Grape Jun felt that perhaps NetEase's original idea was not to make a gorgeously packaged card game, but to tailor a set of games for the IP of "Harry Potter": as long as you enter Hogwarts, you must have a magical campus flavor - whether it is duel, exploration or dancing, it is part of your campus life.
03 This bomb,
How big a splash can it make?
Compared with the IP itself, NetEase's operation of "Magic Awakening" may be more intriguing. They have always been cautious, but this time they are quite restless, and they have broken through the conventional scale in many designs.
The game's Book of No Name gameplay restores some famous scenes in the form of puzzles
In today's card category, the advantages brought by this restlessness will make it difficult to be surpassed in all directions - whether from the perspective of art packaging, gameplay depth, or IP influence, it is a big move released by NetEase in the second half of this year.
Game Grape Recruitment Industry Reporter/Content Editor,
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