Endless Debt

Hello everyone, this is Andlao, your loyal friend who will be listing.

I have been thinking before, what should I write in my acceptance speech and talk about the origin of the work? Or is it some plot reason? But I think these things can be left to the final remarks.

So after thinking about it for a long time, I thought it would be better to talk about my writing ideas.

Readers who are familiar with me should know that before I wrote code, I was an art student... I can’t even call it art. My school taught everything. They even taught me WeChat public account operation (the operation method is to sneak into various group chat to send advertisements).

I personally love art. Affected by these, I always think about some artistic sense when writing articles... This sounds a bit nonsense, after all, the carrier of my thoughts now is words, not pictures.

But I wanted to lean towards this. Before writing this book, I also discussed with people that the stories I wrote were limited by my own logic. For example, I care more about the uniformity of the art style, which led to When I write a book, I try my best to avoid things that don’t fit the style of the story.

Accordingly, I also want to write something novel, something that can make everyone feel "novel".

For example, some common weapons in novels, such as swords, guns, swords and halberds, have been taken for granted by everyone. In order to bring some novelty, a "familiar yet unfamiliar" feeling, I chose the folding knife as a weapon. In the construction of the entire Opos , I also try to move closer to a sense of design.

Readers who have read my last book should be able to feel that the old Dunling in the previous book was like this. The whole city looked like a big tree, with airships flying up in the sky, and the huge Dunling Tower rising straight into the sky. , the top of the tower is the broken dome of the command center. Under the tower is the huge steam system furnace pillar. Deep underground there is a scientific research center. Complex pipelines and railways are spread all over the surface and underground. At the end of the darkness, there are The place of mourning is the ending.

Because of the focus of the story in the last book, I didn’t write too much about architecture. Personally, I still like architectural design, environment, etc., so in this book, I think I will build the city better and Integrate it into the plot.

As mentioned in this chapter before, I saw someone mention "The Battle of Two Cities". In fact, the construction of Opos and the Great Rift is not Zaun and Piltover.

Although this hellish place like Zaan is a mess, it is still more or less a city based on common sense. The wandering fork road in my imagination is more like an outpost. In front of it is a huge abyss, which hides countless nightmares and a group of desperate people. The disciples survive here, offering sacrifices to the unknown existence in the abyss in exchange for a living space.

I was inspired by "From the Abyss" to a certain extent. A city is built on ruins. There is a huge crack in the center of the abyss. There are all kinds of weird things lurking in it, and no one knows its end. All The conspiracies and secrets are waiting for future generations to explore.

This is a very healing work. If you are interested, you can check it out. I also ordered a toy from Ming Qing, which was postponed from last year to March. It’s numb.

I like Metroidvania-type games very much, such as "Hollow Knight" and "Ori". I like the way that as the plot progresses, new maps are constantly explored. That sense of exploration. In my design, the Great Rift is also Such a place will be revealed to the readers little by little as the plot progresses.

More importantly, the horizontal version mode gives it clear up, down, left, and right. With clear indicators, players will think about what is at the end on the left, what is at the end on the right, what is at the top, and what is at the bottom. What.

So I wanted to incorporate this sense of end into the story to give the city a sense of "depth".

Of course, I hope that these designs of mine are related to each other, rather than east to west. For example, the connection between Ashina Castle and the surrounding areas in "Sekiro" is very good. They are related to each other and closely connect.

I like the distortion and weirdness of normality, so Opos will have all kinds of weirdness and wonderful urban legends one after another under normality.

In fact, everyone should be able to feel from this that when writing this book, I was thinking more about what I would do if this was a game. Therefore, the plot advances, just like a Metroidvania game. Get new abilities and new knowledge to explore new areas. The areas are related to each other, and there will be no abrupt feeling like changing maps.

Then let’s talk about another one that everyone mentioned a lot, the prototype of the Bureau of Order.

This started out one night when I was listening to Maozi’s post-punk. I don’t know if it was due to historical factors or something else, but I felt that Maozi’s post-punk was very interesting. When I heard the song “Клетка”, I was reading the album The cover is great.

At that time, I was struggling with how to add a sense of "novelty" to my new book. Even though it was text, I also wanted it to have a sense of imagery. I saw that the cover of the album was a Brutalist building, and after looking at a few representative pictures , I became enlightened at that time.

This time I got it right.

The main art style of the Bureau of Order is Brutalism. The game "Control" that everyone is more familiar with is of this style. The design of this game gave me great inspiration.

Compared with its plot or gameplay, what I like most about this game is its artistic design.

Whether it's the weird style of the Foundation or the super-powered shooting, everyone must have played it a lot, but this is the first time I've experienced such an interesting and complete architectural style in a game.

It integrates the designs of many famous people, such as Tadao Ando's Church of Light and Waffle Tray. I won't mention the names of the dishes or the names of those big names here.

The prototype of this game itself is the real-life American Long Line Building, which is a concrete building without any windows and a fortress standing in the city.

After reading the relevant art analysis, I relied on my feelings. In words that are easy for everyone to understand, it is probably huge, weird, gray and cold, powerful, concrete, concrete, or some other kind of concrete.

Just kidding, this thing is quite complicated, and my understanding is relatively simple. Interested readers can learn more about it themselves.

Oh, by the way, I had just finished watching "Dune" at the time. I felt that brutalism combined with the fear of giant objects was not too good. In the end, the Bureau of Order turned into a huge obelisk erected in Opos, just like a myth. The Tower of Babel inside, you can see it as soon as you look up, as if it is a creation that does not belong to human beings.

Speaking of which, I didn’t seem to be taught anything about interior decoration when I was in school.

In the end, I decided to describe the Bureau of Order like this, a place that makes you feel like you are in a prison at work. It is obviously the safest base camp, but you always feel that there is a monster hiding in the office next door.

Solemnity, depression, power, and exposed steel bars under the ruins. I think this extremely rational style and the extraordinary and mysterious color combine to create a sense of contradiction and fragmentation that is very good.

In addition to Brutalism, what made me very interested in architectural design is Erping Mian's "Blame". In his comics, such giants and cold buildings often appear, coupled with the taciturn nature of the characters. , many times reading his comics is more like looking at a future architectural design album.

Secrets, secrets and secrets, one red cross after another, sealing the truth in the dust.

If you are interested, you can learn about Brutalism. This modern and rare architectural style has taken on new vitality through games and other media.

I personally like things like new weird stories, weird cores, and liminal spaces. In short, the weirder the better, and I even say it's a bit "bizarre".

This kind of thing that exists in modern times often makes the cities we live in less safe, just like bad urban legends. You casually talk about the authenticity of these things on the forum, and then one day you walk in In the corridor, I found that all the lights were out...

Unlucky guy, you seem to have stepped into it.

The safe city is no longer safe, or in other words, we live together with the weird, but we just can't see each other.

Combining the above elements, I created a reputation system, that is, urban legends, just like in the game, to further fill in the city.

A city full of all kinds of weird things, but luckily you won't die and you still have super powers.

Yes, when I actually wrote this book, I envisioned a city with all kinds of weird and rampant superpowers.

To put it in a way that is easy for everyone to understand, it is the daily work of members of the Mobile Task Force.

With elements such as ghost stories, there should also be designs such as san value, but I don't want to directly and crudely create a san value slot to represent the character's mental state.

When I decided to describe the city of Opos, I thought it would be better to start with the surrounding environment.

There are absolutely rational geometric bodies everywhere in the Bureau of Order, with sharp edges and corners, and a sense of order. However, with the increase in authority, the "room" in people's eyes has also changed. The absolutely rational geometric bodies have begun to become softer, and the straight lines are no longer What replaced it was a bunch of weird curves, like the twisted and ferocious appearance of a monster.

This is a new idea that I came up with when I was writing a book. Use rational geometry to represent stable order. But when the geometry begins to collapse and become soft and twisted, it is the beginning of madness, showing the ups and downs of san value from the side.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, the Bureau of Order is an absolutely rational geometry, while the Wandering Road is a twisted and winding building complex.

However, Opos is a city of mortals after all, and the war between superpowers cannot turn into urban demolition, so there are designs like "virtual domain", which are like copies, waiting for everyone to download them.

It looks like a small house on the outside, but it's actually a huge maze inside. I like this sense of spatial dislocation very much, such as the Oldest House in "Control" and "The Hell IKEA Furniture City", a project of the Foundation. This furniture city It was so big that it trapped a lot of people inside, and they had to battle with IKEA employees. There was another project that I can’t remember clearly. It should be “Kowloon Walled City”. The description is similar to “IKEA Furniture City”, and it’s also an internal project. The space is distorted, ridiculously large.

Readers who are familiar with Metroidvania games should know that when you explore an area almost completely, you will often open a "shortcut" to connect the maps, such as in the "Ruins Area" of "Kenshi". Is there a door that leads to some strange place?

I like to describe a city in detail, just like the old Dunling in the last book. When I look at many works, they rarely describe these. I remember when I was a child watching "Naruto", I was very curious. What is the structure of Naruto's house? These ninjas are like monkeys in the trees. The buildings have become messy and people can be killed anywhere. I think this feeling is very novel.

Of course, some people also asked, "This city is just like Gotham, why are all the monsters and monsters here?"

Don't ask, asking is just foreshadowing. I always dig holes and fill them, and I will give you a satisfactory answer when the time comes.

Then everyone can feel that I am deliberately designing some symbols. I am imagining some perfect icons for the Bureau of Order itself and various departments, including the hesitant Mammon coins and so on.

In this part, I am greatly influenced by Robert Langdon. He is a fictional character written by Dan Brown and a professor of semiotics. Every time I see him talking about a symbol and the meaning and history behind it, I thought, "Grass is so cool." After that, I started designing these intentionally or unintentionally.

Chains and swords, serpent-wrapped fruits, staffs and swords, and more.

The movie that has had a greater impact on me recently is "The Raid". I feel that this movie really refreshed the action movie, with blood, fists and flesh, from beginning to end.

Plot? What is a plot? The plot is the time, place and how many people are going to be beaten, whether they are crippled or killed.

It's really great. If you are interested, you must watch it. Influenced by this film, I became a "Corridor God of War" enthusiast.

Based on all the above, plus the fact that I worked in art before, which may be due to occupational diseases, I always want to present that sense of picture as much as possible and try to stylize my stories.

Just like the theme song of a game, although it changes generations, the melody of the theme song will not change, at most it will just be a variation.

Cheap blood, blaring music, and two grumpy old men talking and laughing while prying open the door...

I like this kind of black humor very much, and there is also some strange and indescribable sense of weirdness. The one that gave me this feeling the most is probably "The Holy Mountain" in the Blasphemy trilogy. At the end, the scene is stretched and the camera Appearing on the screen, my brain felt like it was going to explode for a moment.

The above are probably some of the questions that readers are currently curious about. Just like what I wrote in "Working after 117 Days", writing a book is a very metaphysical thing. Thinking is related, and one idea after another collides with each other. , maybe I was inspired somewhere.

To tell a joke, when I first came up with the idea for this book, the story was completely different.

The background of this book is around the 20th century, and its original appearance was a post-apocalyptic world. The protagonist was also an immortal, but he was essentially a mechanical doll that had been running for an unknown number of years. The work that inspired my original idea was " Interracial xx Shop".

As for how it was inspired, I won’t tell you.

I didn’t expect it, everyone, I didn’t expect it either, hahahaha, I laughed so hard. When I was chatting with my friend about my initial thoughts, he asked me what I thought of it. I honestly didn’t have the nerve to say it, but luckily I changed it in the end. is beyond recognition.

Another example is the many gates standing in the darkness in the "Transit Station". In fact, an old man in the chapter guessed it correctly. When I wrote this thing, I was thinking of "Monsters Electric Company".

I have imagined a situation. In "Monsters, Inc.", every door leads to the human world, and monsters want to invade it. But what if their roles were reversed?

Human beings face countless doors, and behind them are unknown things hidden one after another. These doors may lead to bars, employee dormitories, some kind of crazy death state, or sleeping monsters. .

What's worse is that many doors have been forgotten. They are hidden in the darkness and may one day be opened from the other side.

Like House of the Rising Sun.

“Keys” and “doors”, like specific portals, make the urban space more complex.

There is also the "dynamics of the scene", just like the design of urban buildings I mentioned before, I am very concerned about this atmosphere and the changes in the environment.

When I was talking about writing ideas with people before, I said that the boss battles in some novels are like arena battles. It seems that it doesn't matter where the fight takes place. It's just two people fighting each other and then it ends.

I thought why not let the scene also join the battle? For example, the battlefield is set in a dynamic environment, such as a speeding train, a chaotic battlefield, a carnival crowd, an out-of-control airship... These are the boss battle scenes I used in the last book, where the protagonists are killing everyone. At the same time, the scene is also changing rapidly.

What's more important is interacting with the environment, like Jackie Chan entering the Furniture City, using the environment to perform various executions, or picking up props and then hacking and slashing.

Then let’s talk about how I got into coding. I’ve mentioned this a few times before. For example, I started writing random stuff when I was in junior high school.

I feel that what drives me to write is more of my own desire to share. I am a person who is very keen on sharing. To use a familiar word, I am an Amway maniac. I often like to give others the things I like. .

When I was in junior high school, I fantasized about whether I would become a coder one day in the future, but for me at that time, it was indeed a bit unrealistic. This feeling of unreality continued until college.

It wasn't until I finished writing "The Gun of Embers" that I felt a sense of enlightenment.

Damn, I seem to have become a good coder.

how to say? It's strange and very fortunate to have the feeling of not forgetting your original intention. After all, it's quite difficult to not forget your original intention.

Then there are some settings. I like to recycle waste. Some settings that have not been developed, I want to expand them in detail in subsequent works.

If any readers have read all my works, they should be familiar with some setting vocabulary in this book. For example, the King's Secret Sword is the organization in my first book "Wings of Ashes". At that time, I wrote I'm so immature that I can't even read what I wrote, but it's still my debut, so besides being a little ashamed, I don't feel much at all.

The Bureau of Order is from "Distortioner", and the purge mechanism is also from "Distortioner", but once it was used in "Ember Gun", it is no longer used.

The secret power system is a direct copy of the power system of "The Distortor", and some character templates were dragged out and modified from previous stories. Some of them I like very much, but I couldn't detail them in the story. The characters they describe turn them from supporting roles into a starring team.

Like the lucky kestrel.

a ha ha ha.

This happened when I was writing "Ember Guns". At that time, I was researching how to make a depressing story more interesting. My friend said, why not add a comic character?

This not only prevents the protagonist from frequently making jokes and making people laugh, but also adds interest to the story. In the end, I chose the role of Kestrel.

Many books include the author's "private life". For me, my private life is probably some comedy. I like black humor very much. While sawing the devil with a chainsaw, I tell cold jokes, study what to eat at night, and then talk to each other. Looking at the blood on the ground, he said, "This is a good color, if you want to eat stew at night."

I put a lot of my own ideas into the character, and because comedy characters are invincible, Kestrel survived the story in the last book until the end.

Speaking of which, I often prefer supporting roles to protagonists, probably because these roles don’t have to bear the pressure of the protagonist’s “main shot” and allow me to play as I please.

You ask me what to do if I mess up?

Have you ever heard of receiving a box lunch?

a ha ha ha.

The main character group is now like this. If you think about it carefully, they are just mindless and unhappy.

And although I have talked about so many setting issues above, you don’t have to worry about the reading threshold. The stories in each of my books are not related to each other and are all independent.

At least it's still independent for now.

At present, I have imagined five plots of different sizes, some are one paragraph, and some are a whole volume. I won’t say much more here. Keep writing, and everyone will see it.

After it is put on the shelf, I should keep updating it twice a day, at least once, because I want to take this book more seriously, and I need some good manuscript storage to ensure that I have time to think and revise.

So I always make sure that I have about 60,000 saved manuscripts as a buffer.

For example, for the part of the plot that you see on the shelves now, I wrote several versions at the beginning and had to revise it about seven times. After showing the final version to the operation officer, the operation officer gave me suggestions, and I made choices and modifications, and then Before publishing, I will read it again and make corrections.

It can be said that I have refined it several times, but why can't I find the typo?

Well, that's pretty much it. I'll leave the rest for the final remarks.

You may also have noticed that I have a strong desire to share, so my chapter reviews are surprisingly long. If you are interested in some of the things mentioned above, you can check them out. They are all quite good.

(These were not written in one go. I wrote them intermittently for a month. When I write my reflections, I actually just write whatever comes to my mind. When I need to post it, I find that I have accumulated a pile of reflections. Then let it out in one breath.)

Today is a really good day, the old headband is also on sale, I will play some games first.

No brother, no lawful ring, I have saved 150,000 deposits, which can be consumed by 60,000 deposits, which should be enough for me to finish the game.

Today's explosive updates and whatnot have been released on time and will be released.

It will be available today at 12 o'clock, just one hour later. Thank you for your subscription.