Reborn Game Pioneer

Chapter 120 The game is simple, but the values ​​are not simple

The reason why Gu Feng chose "Plants vs. Zombies" as the first test for Wang Chen was actually quite simple, because he wanted to explore the depth of his other ability.

This ability is - numerical value!
How important are numbers to games?This can be seen from the industry ecology. In the game industry, the average salary of numerical planners is generally second only to main planners and a little higher than system planners.The more powerful the company, the higher the numerical salary. It is not uncommon for some to have a salary higher than that of the chief planner.

Except for a few games that do not use numerical design at all, such as "Hidden Object Detective" and "Maze of the Machine"...

Most games are inseparable from numerical values.

Whether a game is fun or not, the influence of numerical values ​​is actually not that big, but whether a game has a high enough upper limit, enough depth to be explored, and enough freshness to be played for a long time, then the numerical value has a big relationship.

The difficulty and difficulty of the game will give players two completely different feelings of loss, one is excessive frustration, and the other is a sense of accomplishment that is difficult to feel.

People who have played "Plants vs. Zombies" may think that this game is very simple, with simple gameplay and simple art style. Everything seems to be done with hands.

Putting "Plants vs. Zombies" and "Happy Match" together, most people may think that the difficulty of making the two games is about the same.

This is normal, because superficially, the two games do look similar in terms of style, gameplay, interface complexity, and other aspects.

After all, players pay most attention to whether the game is fun or not. As for whether the game is good or not, that is not within their scope of consideration at all. This is why so many players always complain about the quality of the game's graphics without thinking about why the designer abandoned some of the graphics. qualitative reasons.

At first glance, "Plants vs. Zombies" and "Happy Fun" seem to be very similar. In fact, the numerical complexity of the two games is not at the same level at all.

"Happy Xiaoxiaole" doesn't get excited despite the shouts of "excellent". The calculation of fractions can actually be done with simple addition and multiplication. Maybe elementary school students can figure out the formula.

Moreover, the numerical formula of "Happy Match" almost doesn't need to consider balance issues, it doesn't matter if you give 1 million points for a single elimination, just change the target score for reaching the star and you're done.

But "Plants vs. Zombies" can't do it. After all, it involves confrontation, and if there is confrontation, it is inevitable to consider the issue of balance.

To give a simple example, the pea shooter fights against ordinary zombies. Designers who don't know much about the values ​​​​may only think of the damage values ​​​​of pea shooters and ordinary zombies.

But the doorway inside is not as simple as it seems.

In addition to damage, peashooter's bullet flight speed, attack interval length, zombie's movement speed, and damage per unit time.How many hits does it take for a peashooter to kill an ordinary zombie? How many seconds does it take for an ordinary zombie to drop a peashooter? When the player has enough time to create the first peashooter, where is the most reasonable position for the first zombie to go to?

All of the above are numerical issues that need to be considered.

This is just a one-on-one scenario between pea shooter and ordinary zombies. If ice shooter is added, how much should the zombie's movement speed be lost? How much should the new zombie's blood volume be set reasonably? How many seconds should the new zombie appear before it can be ensured? The player has enough sunlight to build a Peashooter and an Ice Shooter on the same road.

It can be said that the more types of plants and zombies there are, the more fancy the skills and mechanisms are, the more complex the map mechanism is, the more difficult it is to control the balance difficulty of the game, and the difficulty of this numerical balance is not a simple linear increase, but a linear increase. Exponentially improved.

This is why the previous game "Plants vs. Zombies" received almost unanimous praise and praise when it first came out. However, "Plants vs. Zombies 2" has more plants, zombies, levels, and special gameplay types, but the evaluation is far lower than the first game. .

Not to mention the problems in its gold-earning mechanism, it is impossible to save its reputation just because of its terrible balance at the end of the game.

To be honest, let alone "Happy Match", even "Dead Cells" may not be as numerically difficult as "Plants vs. Zombies".

If you can see the multi-dimensional diagram of the design difficulty ratio of "Plants vs. Zombies", the highest score is 10, you can clearly see that other things like art, music and sound effects are basically 2 to 4 points, and the numerical value is completely reachable A top-notch 8 points.

Simple game, not simple values...

Through "Plants vs. Zombies", Wang Chen's numerical level will be magnified without any concealment. This game is like a magic mirror. Whether the numerical value is good or not can be known by looking at it.

Of course, after all, the main purpose was to examine numerical values. In order to ensure that Wang Chen would not be occupied too much by other factors, Gu Feng provided him with some relatively basic mechanisms of several plants and several zombies.

Plants include pea shooters, sunflowers, cherry bombs, nuts, potato mines, ice shooters, and dual-shooters. Zombies include ordinary zombies, flag zombies, roadblock zombies, iron barrel zombies, pole zombies, newspaper zombies, iron gate zombies, and footballs. Zombies.

Gu Feng asked him to make an alpha version first and take a look at it. At that time, he would put forward some modification suggestions for the problems existing in the alpha version. After all, tests are tests, and the final quality must be guaranteed.

After arranging Wang Chen's work tasks, Gu Feng returned to the office and continued to work on Pokémon. Because he was copying the code after eating memory jelly beans, with Gu Feng's speed of almost 4000 words per hour, he has been able to write a few words in the past few days. He just coded it whenever he could, and so far, he has coded the first 50 chapters.

The rough plot is that Tingshu left Qingguwu (orphanage) with hunting swallowtail butterflies. During the assessment process to become a junior cultivator, he met Joey Chun, Master Shengzong, and Mi Keli, and then went to Yantu Mountain to learn about Qixi Bluebird. After proving himself, he tamed the second elf green cotton bird and obtained a meteorite. Later, when he went to the library of the breeding house, he met Xiaogang, the breeder who had been a partner with Xiaozhi in many generations in the original work, and then encountered After the Gu Niuniu Tunnel incident was resolved, Ting Shu participated in the gorgeous contest for the first time, and it was also the first appearance in the gorgeous contest for hunting swallowtail butterflies.

That’s pretty much the plot of the first 50 chapters.

Although coding is time-consuming, it is copied from the original work, so at least it does not take a lot of brain work. For the time being, 50 chapters are enough content. The most painful thing for Gu Feng now is designing the storyboards.

After all, as the only person who has contacted and deeply understood the setting of Pokémon, only by doing it yourself can restore the charm of Pokémon's battle.

If you want to create an embarrassing battle scene that doesn't involve shouting "get out of the way", the design of the storyboard obviously cannot be simple.

Special attention should be paid to the control of skill special effects. At least the audience can roughly judge the strength of the skill from the skill effect. It cannot be the same skill. The special effects of a green caterpillar in the early stage and the hammering of an empty seat in the later stage look exactly the same, right?

This thing must be done with a good sense of proportion, take the next door Dou Po as an example.The special effects are too weak, just like the TV series version where the fighting spirit turns into a horse, making it feel like Han Fu's general Pan Feng could go up and kill the Dou Huang with two swords.The special effects are too strong, just like the battle scenes in the animated version of The Great Fighter are comparable to those of the Fighting Emperor. They are so terrifying that just by watching the animation, you really can’t feel that there are three major differences between the Great Fighting Master and the Fighting Emperor.

Not to mention Dou Po, the problem of special effects recognition also exists in the original Pokémon. Anyway, just looking at the special effects from beginning to end of Pikachu's One Hundred Thousand Volts, there is basically no difference in strength. If you say it is powerful, then give it a try. For a newbie, I would say that the electrotherapy spa is not very powerful, but it still has the highlight moment of one shot of the divine beast.

Anyway, whenever he goes to a new area, the Oscar winner Pishen always resets his level to zero inexplicably, and directly transforms into a [-]-[-] level with wild vegetable chicken Pokémon.

In short, there are still quite a lot of complaints in the original work. If he wants to make Pokémon more mature, Gu Feng has to consider more than just the 01:30 point.

(End of this chapter)