Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

This article comes from Weixin Official Accounts: Touch Music (ID: chuappgame), author: DLS_MWZZ

It's a fitting example of how the plot and gameplay mix isn't ideal enough for game designers to reflect on.

Ixion is a construction game that puts players in the role of settler space station administrators, and early demos have been hailed as "Exile City Space Edition," or "Home and Lithography," which is highly anticipated. The official version came out on December 8, but by the time I started writing to introduce you to the game, the Steam reviews had become "mixed," and I support this conclusion_the game's strengths are long and its weaknesses are really too short.

If you are still hesitating whether this "MOSS Simulator" is worth playing, please listen to me patiently.

In addition, due to too many initial pits in the game, in order to protect the player's experience to the greatest extent, this article will not deliberately avoid any spoilers. Please believe that this is positive, spoilers may improve your initial game experience to varying degrees.

The official self-restraint, the text "personal assistant" is similar to "Wandering Earth" MOSS AI program, let's first say that the first advantage of the game comes from feelings. Knock on a few keywords, such as "Gundam,""Space Academy,""Battlestar," which contains a deep romance that has lasted since the 1980s and 1990s. This is the stage of Ixion, a huge artificial object that allows humans to live normally in the universe for a long time-the space station (immigrant ship). Ixion mimics the feeling of managing a space station through many designs, and it does fulfill the dreams of many players for a lifetime.

One of the most recognizable words in the universe is "finite." The space station in Ixion is not a vast land, but is arranged in a ring of six independent rectangular spaces, each with only 30×56 squares of space, which can be said to be an inch of land. This structure derives from the basic gameplay of the game, requiring players to maintain the "Tetris"-style obsessive-compulsive layout as much as possible during construction. From a planning point of view alone, this is much more head-scratching than most previous city management games, and of course, this is also a feature of space station themes.

I've been waiting a long time to have a space station. In order to support the core gameplay, the game has a corresponding design. From a microscopic point of view, what makes many old "urban management players" most comfortable is that the efficiency of construction and logistics in the game is very high. Construction is done by robots in construction factories, which are not only low-cost and easy to build, but robots are also very useful. Except for early infrastructure, one construction factory in one district is enough most of the time. Each warehouse had several logistics robots independently, and their speed was very fast. There was no despair of seeing a small person slowly wandering at three times the speed.

With such a foundation, plus the demolition does not consume any materials, the game is very convenient for players to carry out all kinds of large demolition, adjustment layout, treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but also gives a very real "this is the space age" feeling. As the game progresses, players may experience some links that require urgent demolition and large-scale production, which also makes this efficient infrastructure reflect its value.

I'm proud of the perfect agricultural area that I've worked so hard to set up, without wasting a square of space, which is a reflection of "limited" space, electricity and population. The space station's electricity comes from external solar panels, which can be built many times and improved by scientific research and development, but there is also a maximum limit, which is not the painting style of 20 power plants built into enemy homes in Red Alert. In addition, reaching the maximum limit of electricity just can't fully supply the full power operation of the entire space station, which requires players to properly open and close buildings with different functions according to current needs, and allocate energy reasonably.

What surprised me most was the design of the population. The population in the game does not grow naturally, which is slightly different from the traditional town simulation game where residents have children. The player's means of increasing the population is to find human freezing chambers in the form of resources in the exploration, and increase the population after thawing. Based on this design, population loss in the game is a very existential problem, and players constantly wander between "not enough people working" and "not feeding too many people," feeling the hardship of survival in space-more examples of these painful resource losses are given below.

Another advantage of Ixion, which is a sci-fi theme, is that it is easy to move. The trouble with games with survival and resource acquisition elements has always been logistics, which makes people unable to mine happily. The root cause is that the location of "hometown" is inconvenient to move, and moving is even more troublesome. This problem is obviously no longer a problem when it meets a space station that can fly around. I will dig all the mines in the whole map!

This design was also reflected in the game. For example, in the process of exploring the universe, players would encounter situations where they needed to invest some resources to set up exploration bases. These resources often needed to be transported by cargo ships at least two or three times from home. Especially in the early stages, cargo ships did not have any technology gains, and each time they spent a lot of time. Then players could move the space station to a closer position, or even directly to the face of the exploration point, artificially increasing efficiency.

The above content is fully reflected in the trial version, but also the most interesting and desirable place in "Ixion." Players who have experienced it will expect the official version to come, so how can the official version get "mixed reviews" now?

Some of the most confusing aspects of Ixion's mixed design are the fact that the game has a larger proportion of plot elements than Exile City, especially the main plot and all kinds of uncomfortable places.

Looking through reviews of previous Exile City games, we will find that many players have made wishes such as "If only there was a story," including myself occasionally wondering whether such games should add story to enhance them. From this point of view,"Ixion" adds a lot of plot elements, tries to integrate with the classic play method, subjective intention deserves affirmation, and whether it is the main line or the branch line in the exploration, from the text quantity can also feel the sincerity of the developer.

However, there are many problems with the specific game experience, such as too many restrictions set in the main story. The main plot of the game is six distinct chapters. In the preface, after experiencing the complete destruction of the earth's ecology after the space jump experiment, the player-controlled Tiqqun space station begins to survive in space as the last ark of mankind, looking for a new home, just like the space station in Wandering Earth.

"Wandering Space Station" plot goal is not only a line of words in the upper left corner of the screen to remind players at all times, but also specific to play. The player's space station was irreparably damaged due to the warp flight, requiring constant consumption of steel to maintain it. The natural resources for each chapter were limited, especially in the first two chapters, where steel production was mainly based on iron ore smelting, and iron ore was pitifully scarce... In addition, steel was the main material for the internal buildings. As a result of this design, the system was almost pressing the player's neck to speed up the main story progress. Players who were used to the casual farming style in Exile City would definitely not be able to adapt.

Also embodied in the neck press is the technology tree. In the game, the main way for players to obtain scientific research resources is to explore the main plot and side plot of each chapter, but resources are limited, and the production capacity of their own technology center is almost negligible. The advantage was that the first three chapters could clearly give players a sense of the rhythm of unlocking the Level 1 Technology Tree, but the disadvantage was that they naturally had no freedom to play.

What's more, the numerical design problem of the game is not small. There are quite a few "useless" upgrades in the science and technology tree, which have become "pits" that consume already distressed scientific research resources. In addition, R & D required a long period of time to take effect. There were still several R & D projects that had to be clicked in the main storyline…When players first saw this huge technology tree that was known to have holes, they inevitably felt helpless. Who would I click on that would not cause the file to be loaded?

It only required three cheap probes, and the cost of research and development was reduced by two levels. It was like a joke that the players 'IQ was outside the main line, and the exploration of the side lines was mixed. It should be mentioned here that players have a total of three types of ships in the game-mining, transportation, and exploration. All of the plot content is completed by exploring the ship to go around, so the exploration ship is a very critical resource for players, but the exploration ship is often due to some unreasonable aspects of the game design accidents.

The side quest contained interesting content. There were strange scenery that science could not explain, sci-fi horror scenes where the exploration ship was replaced by people who looked like parallel worlds, and love where the owner would rather die than put his pet in the freezer. The plot was really good, but it was a little awkward to play.

One of the awkwardness is that after the player makes a choice in the exploration, it takes a certain amount of time to see the result. After seeing the result, there may be further and further choices. Every time, he has to wait for the cycle, and even when he has to leave safely, there are emergencies. Although it is more "real," in order to find the best solution to the task, this process is a bit tiring. There are also quite a number of "first kills" hidden in these choices, which will kill people or lose all exploration ships at any time.

The annoying thing about first kill is that it often comes out too far. For example, in the early stages, some side quests would tell players that investing more resources to establish a reliable base for exploration was the right idea. The quests did indeed give better rewards, making it easy for players to establish a logic of play. However, later on, they deliberately gave some choices, allowing players to build bases but causing the exploration team to be completely destroyed. This was contrary to the previous thinking. Although the intention might be to reflect the uncertainty of space exploration, the result was that players felt confused about the logic of the game.

As mentioned earlier, the population in the game did not increase naturally, so it was already extremely precious. If the branch selection caused the exploration ship to die, not only would they lose resources, but they would also be given an additional penalty of-1 stability in the entire station. This forced the players to let the exploration ship survive.

The exploration ship was also designed to accumulate experience points. With limited resources, exploding it would be equivalent to losing all the above problems. Coupled with the delays caused by the gameplay, it was easy to give the player a feeling of hopelessness under various forced plots. For example, on the one hand, I was glad that I had brought a full 4000 units of ice to pass the third chapter, which ensured that there was plenty of food in the last two chapters, which was quite predictable; on the other hand, I was crazy because I had stored 2000 units of helium that I could not use at all, which took up a large amount of space and almost failed to meet other clearance conditions.

In short, whether it was based on the City of Exile style city management gameplay or the rich and colorful plot, they were all remarkable in themselves, but the combination of the two not only did not add to each other, but also damaged each other's light.

I'd like to announce the best side story of my personal experience, and I'd like to introduce the mascot of this site-a greyhound with ant nests. The developers of Ixion are obviously inexperienced, and there are a lot of basic problems that have not been solved in the game. It's hard to say.

One of the most vicious problems with large games is that the game is stuck, which causes me to play a game that should take 20 to 30 hours to complete, but I played it for 40 hours.

In Chapter 4, players will fight against an enemy warship. Under normal circumstances, the enemy warship will slowly pursue the player, releasing missiles and drones to attack. The player will need to deal with it through production, manufacturing and scientific research. This would have been quite innovative in a production game, but I accidentally triggered the "enemy ship does not respond" Bug (later found that many players encountered this Bug). Since I was playing for the first time, I naturally didn't notice it very quickly. After two years of leisurely wandering around the game, exploring all the planets in the galaxy and digging up most of the minerals, I spent a few hours in reality before I realized that the game was stuck…The solution was to start this chapter again.

That's not all. The way to fight the enemy ship is to trigger the pulsar explosion of the galaxy, which produces an electromagnetic pulse-like effect. After success, the enemy ship will be silent, and the game music will be relaxed at once. These are all very logical, right? - Except for the missiles already released by the enemy ships, they were completely unaffected. They continued to attack me!

Yes, as an experienced fleet commander in the game world, an ace pilot who has defeated countless enemies on his own, under my command and control, the Taikun naturally evades and detours the enemy's missiles. With the help of faster cruising speed, it stops while charging, balancing production and ensuring the complete safety of the space station. So, I followed five or six missiles launched by the enemy over a long period of time. They slowly approached me in a soothing and peaceful music... I must point out that even if the player maxed out the strength of the space station through scientific research, he could only resist two missiles at a time...

I, uh, felt the, uh, jeers from the producers. Well, a mockery of, uh, talent.

Bite your teeth, read your file.

The screenshot named Despair looked like there were four exclamation marks, but in fact, the first two or three missiles had already overlapped. There were still some medium-sized problems in the game, affecting the game operation, UI, etc., which greatly reduced the game experience. For example, I have been looking for a long time, it seems that the game does not support "circle selection" this very basic operation, usually this problem is not big, but encounter chapter 3 to avoid interstellar storm, need a large number of circle selection mine situation, the workload is particularly large.

Unreasonable numerical design is also widespread and often linked to the core player experience. For example, in storage, the storage capacity of Level 1 warehouse is 100, accounting for 4×4 grids; the storage capacity of Level 2 warehouse is 300, accounting for 4×8 grids. Guess what the storage capacity of the 8×8 level 3 warehouse is? According to the previous logic, regardless of the reference level or the number of cells occupied, it seemed that it should be three times 900 of Level 2. However, in fact, the higher cost of Level 3 warehouse storage was only 600 stacked by two Level 2 warehouses. The reward for upgrading was only a small reduction in power consumption and labor.

Every red box in the picture is manually single-pointed by me. It is more tiring than playing StarCraft. Don't count it. There are also many small problems. The most typical is the "garbage" problem that may be particularly confusing to Chinese players. The default garbage disposal method in the game is burning. If you choose to recycle garbage as a resource reuse, there is actually a penalty of-1 stability. In the game, garbage recycling is an important source of infinite steel in the later stage, which is a powerful support for players to relax and form self-sufficiency in the whole station. Stability-1 not only makes players lose their sense of substitution due to contradictions, but also tears up the logic of play and plot.

For example, the space station sailing animation originally given to the game circle powder, spectacular handsome and romantic, originally no problem, but the fourth chapter because of the enemy ship, players need to sail frequently, I am afraid the number of sailing times in a chapter can account for half of the whole article, an animation repeatedly looked not so wonderful, here should have an animation close function, and the developer not only did not give this function, but also cleverly designed an achievement "Who has this leisure time"_as if to say: "We knew there was a problem, but we brought it to you. "

I turned to look at my half-full bag of beverage bottles and was really confused.

Small bugs, such as the mystery of the building stack, I do not know how to appear..."Ixion" is such a game, its wonderful place is really wonderful, magnificent space adventure, exquisite science fiction art, is a lot of games do not have unique content, its shortcomings are really annoying, even people wonder what the intention of taking the name "Ixion" is.

Ixion was originally a topic figure in Greek mythology. He did all kinds of bad things and went after Zeus 'wife Hera. Zeus was so angry that he sent him to hell and tied him to a wheel that burned and revolved forever.

Ixion's name doesn't just seem to suggest the ever-rotating wheel of punishment in Greek mythology, the production company seems to be using a nice prologue demo to lure players in for slaughter. From a professional gaming perspective, it is a fitting example of how plot and gameplay are not ideal, and it is worth reflecting on how the two can be better integrated to serve players together.

Because there are many small problems that need to be slowly updated to solve, and developers have also done a version update error, affecting the archive, had to roll back the bad things, reflecting the technical shortcomings that may exist, I very recommend interested players to wait for a few more version updates, especially after the free mode to consider starting, then may get a relatively better experience.

If you love space, have enough experience to predict the dark pits in the game, and have a good personality, patience, and not too short of money, then you can experience it immediately. This game still has a great sense of respect for Wandering Earth, which can replace Lieutenant Colonel Liu Peiqiang and MOSS daily.

From the ending, this game is really a "Liu Peiqiang Lieutenant Colonel Simulator"... advantages

+ Magnificent, romantic space exploration

+ Mature iterative city management gameplay

+ A serious space science fiction story with some depth.

disadvantages

− A combination of plot and play that both lose.

− Quite a few counterintuitive designs

− More bugs, big and small

- Unreasonable selling price

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.