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A miracle of 30° north latitude
When I first saw The Great Chain of Existence, my first reaction was: what kind of game producer would give a game such a name that is neither popular nor difficult to understand. And if it's not icon and first exposure PV, it's hard to relate all of this to the quadratic element.
But that doesn't stop me from showing a lot of interest in The Great Chain of Existence. In the powerful two-dimensional game market, "The Great Existence Chain" has a good recognition; like many people, I am very curious about the naming of the game, and I also think with a skeptical attitude about the connection between the name and the game itself, after all, it is too common to be more famous than the real situation this year.
Later, the producer [Rhythm] told me that the idea for naming the game came from Aristotle's philosophical view of the chain of existence, and he agreed with the view that life is a ladder of development and connection with nature in the chain of existence, and was also interested in the "chain of great existence" that was popular in the medieval era of religious rule, which later became one of the inspirations for his creation of The Great Chain of Existence.
Before that, the rhythm had an unpleasant past.
01
Study abroad and test the waters
Like many producers who enter the game industry, Rhythm has an opportunity to enter the game industry.
Unlike Steam, which is now in full swing, Steam 15 years ago was far from being very good at influencing and player coverage, and developers at that time had not listed it as a necessary choice for launching on digital platforms as they do now, and even many developers did not know the existence of Steam, or did not know the value that Steam could bring to them.
At that time, he was still studying in Spain, and he decided to use this opportunity to enter the game industry. He and his friends met a domestic AVG game, and cooperated with CP as a publisher to make the game appear on Steam.
This is where the transition from player to developer begins, as Rhythm discovers a lot of hassles and problems in the process that are difficult for players to realize.
"The game we took didn't match the steam's requirements, basically needed to be re-done, and had to find a program to tune specifically; and at that time, Steam had to have English, but some of the more famous ACG translation teams quoted relatively high, far beyond our budget, so we spent some time to find a matching Chinese-English team", Rhythm told me, in this process he first felt that it was not easy to make the game.
Fortunately, chinese players are very powerful, and only a week after the game was submitted, they passed Steam's green light plan, and the $5 pricing also made players call out the real fragrance. But in the end, players support it because of domestic production, not game quality. From this time on, rhythm had the idea that "you must make a work that you are satisfied with".
02
Love, can't move electricity
At the end of the study, the rhythm returned to his hometown xi'an, although it was in the period of rapid development of China's game industry, the game atmosphere in Xi'an was still not very good, so he did not rush to start a business at the first time, but chose to study and precipitate in the training institutions in the game, and at the same time deepened his understanding as a teaching assistant.
Rhythm wanted to make a single-player game with a focus on RPG content, and he liked to run groups when he was a student. In addition to personal factors, he believes that although there is a lack of an environment in China that attaches importance to content creation, it is not enough to create a self-created one.
The rhythm work "The Old Story of Adelacey" is partly designed
"I've always felt that I have to be patient enough to make a product, so I was mentally prepared to develop this game in years, but I was still too young, and the loss I suffered when publishing a game was not a big deal compared to making a game", speaking of this, rhythm showed a helpless expression.
"In fact, all problems can be classified as no money."
Because there is no money, do not understand the rhythm of the company's handling process to run to the Industrial and Commercial Bureau to squat, the big mother who handled it saw that he had not been able to do it for 3 consecutive days, and saw that the last place of the day was made for him on the pitiful part.
Because there is no money, the budget for recruiting people is seriously insufficient, and the relative lack of game talents in Xi'an, the speed of the project is not satisfactory.
Because he didn't have any money, the publishing and operation that he talked to would even "take the initiative" to help him come up with ideas and teach him how to make money in the game.
The result is predictable, after insisting on making DEMO, he ran to Chongqing, Suzhou, Shanghai and other places to talk about investment and issuance, but none of them wanted to sign or invest.
I later watched the DEMO that rhythm did, and to be honest, if this product appeared in the investment boom in the middle of 20-21, then this running group project may not become history, of course, there is no "Big Existence Chain" behind.
In order to survive, after the rhythm took the team around for a while, it finally stopped in Hangzhou; at this time, there were only 3 people left, which is the main creative team of the current "Great Existence Chain".
03
The righteous view of the game
Rhythm is a Christian, and I had heard about it before I officially met him. So I've always wondered what the game I've made as a Chinese believer would look like. But when I think about it, I actually came into a misunderstanding, that is, is there a relationship between playing games and faith?
Rhythm's exposure to Christianity was during the study abroad period. By chance, he went to a local church and came into contact with a Christian sermon. He originally just thought these things were fresh, and even looked at religion with some prejudices, but the actual contact was not the same as he imagined.
"Everyone is living as a modern person in the 21st century, and religion does not teach people to do evil, but always to the good," rhythm thinks. Therefore, in the most difficult period of entrepreneurship, whenever the rhythm feels confused, depressed, and anxious, the church becomes a place for him to release weakness, strengthen himself, and find spiritual comfort.
"You say it has had an impact on my personal work and life, but it doesn't. Because what I realized in it was a supreme pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty, and the basis of these understandings came more from the more advanced ideological iterations of our Chinese since ancient times, and religious belief was only an incision in which to explore the self," rhythm said, including the birth of the "Great Chain of Existence" later.
Most of the worldview settings of "The Great Existence Chain" are inherited from the original failed RPG project, and the era of The Great Existence is set 10 years after that story, and some of the factions, beliefs and factions in the game are designed from his own understanding of the Eastern and Western thinking patterns.
Rhythm later also talked to me a lot about the ideas and applications of the "chain of existence", including how Aristotle proposed, how later people perfected, and how they evolved in modern society; I seemed to understand and listened, and finally I couldn't help but ask how to achieve what you said in the game. The rhythm calmly tells me:
"It won't happen, or I won't try to instill these immature philosophical understandings in the form of a game, and it won't make sense to the player." As a game developer, I conceived of an alternate world, and the arrangement of this world is more exaggerated than the real world in some contradictions. I hope that players can experience the complex world that these contents want to express through the plot, battles, and world view portrayals in the game, and if we can help us understand our real lives and achieve edutainment results, we can even contribute to society in our own posts."
04
The beginning and end of the great chain of existence
Unlike many producers who love the second dimension and choose to develop two-dimensional games, the reason why rhythmic "Great Existence Chain" is not only liked, a large part of it comes from his trust in the core two-dimensional player group.
In his view, the core two-dimensional users treat the game as a work of art or work, not a commodity, and it is precisely for this reason that in the process of creating the "Great Chain of Existence", the core of the design of the worldview is "logical self-consistency".
The worldview of "The Great Chain of Existence" is set in an alternate world similar to the early 19th and early 20th centuries, after an unprecedented world war, the balance of the elements of the world is broken, chaos emerges, including the enemy, powerful forces are trying to "rule" the world in their own way, and the plot of this game is that the player stands on the side of the order to destroy the conspiracy, adjust the contradiction, and maintain the balance of the story.
It sounds like a very common story about the king of swords and magic, but it's not. Take the protagonist group, for example. There are three non-player protagonists in the Great Chain of Existence, and these three characters actually represent three kinds of thinking and identity in the setting, full of contradictions. This detail is also the central idea of this worldview. This is true at different levels such as gameplay and plot.
Rhythm means that this is actually a microcosm of Da Cun's thoughts. The actions and encounters of the entire protagonist group are also a process of "discovering self-nature", knowing themselves, understanding others, understanding the world... Then, give your energy and change it.
"(Should) to do the game with a "complete" concept, do not do things that lose sight of each other in terms of art, plot setting, gameplay, operation, etc., tear down the east wall and make up for the west wall", rhythm feels that this is not only a professional quality, but also a manifestation of the road of "self-discovery", and is also an important consideration for players to test the game in the future.
Regarding the game's combat, the rhythm design scheme is card strategy, a character-centric card game that emphasizes strategy and on-the-spot deployment. The difference between the protagonists mentioned earlier is also reflected in this gameplay design, and the player's choice in the plot will also affect the combat part of the game, and he values the RP part very much.
As for the development progress, Rhythm said that they will gradually start testing the game next year, and the pre-concept PV released in mid-August this year is their first step, but he also stressed that it is only a concept disclosure, and the core gameplay of the game has yet to be improved, so there is no display of the gameplay part.
In the past two months, from the release of the concept PV and the disclosure of some worldview settings, they have received a lot of player feedback, and some players have even discussed the root of the idea of "chain of existence" in the comment area of TapTap, and the rhythm indicates that these precious opinions will inevitably play a positive role in promoting their production.
05
Next thing
Since the end of 19 years, the rhythm has been in Hangzhou for almost 2 years. For this city with a good Internet atmosphere, the biggest feeling of the rhythm is that the air here is particularly good, and it is okay to open the window here for a week without wiping the table, but in Xi'an he does not dare to do so.
However, the rhythm has not liked the local food habits of Hangzhou until now, which may be the reason for personal preference, but when he arrives here, he still maintains his taste as a northwesterner, especially he can't eat Dongpo meat and scallion oil mixed noodles.
The talent problem has always been a headache for him, and I can understand that very well. Hangzhou has Ali, there are bytes, there is Hangzhou NetEase, all lack of people, are also digging people, there are also Shanghai manufacturers to Hangzhou to dig people, Hangzhou local talents are really not enough, let alone do the second dimension.
"So one of the purposes of sending that PV is also to hope that there are more talents on the airwave to join us, and the current production capacity is indeed a little low, at least at the end of the year we will expand to more than 20 people, and the treatment is the average level of Shanghai."
Finally, I suddenly remembered that I didn't know the name of their studio yet, after all, until now they were basically either the production team of "The Great Existence Chain" or the main enterprise Asaru, and the rhythm told me that their studio name was N30.
"N30 stands for 30° north latitude, which is where civilization is abundant."