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

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: Peng Chuwei

He has experienced the baptism of game industrialization, in the decline of online games, the rise of mobile games in the market, with a stable state of mind to re-engrave the happiness he once felt.

Producer Lao Lin in July 1996, Lao Lin, a fourth-grade student in Primary School, got a good grade. As a reward, his parents bought him a new computer, along with Monopoly 3, a board puzzle game just released by Daewoo Information. Install the game, and parents into the game, in bursts of "God of Wealth good News" melodious soundtrack, Lao Lin spent the happiest night in his memory.

At that time, Lao Lin would never have thought that 20 years later, he would become one of the makers of this kind of happiness. The first happiness he created was called "lost City: the Curse of the Stars".

I first heard about this game in a "soul player exchange group". Some people said that this is a new domestic "soul" game. The "soul" refers to a series of stand-alone games released by the Japanese company FromSoftware in the past decade or so, which are famous for their "highly challenging", "excellent action design" and "unique art style". One of the representatives is "Soul of Darkness", the group friend told me. This game is very similar to Soul of Darkness.

According to the Steam Store page, this is an action role-playing game that focuses on "dynamic combat systems" and "provides players with a balanced experience of both challenge and fun to explore, where players can challenge thrilling levels and make choices in an immersive story experience."

"lost City: the Curse of the Stars" in the Steam store, which remained "particularly well received" more than two months after its release, over the next few days, I started playing lost City: the Curse of the Stars. There are not many special elements in the game, but I firmly hold on to my heart. Apart from eating, sleeping and working, I devote all my time to the game. I feel happy and satisfied to explore the dungeon in circles, listen to the plot songs of the banshee repeatedly, chat with each character and make my own choices.

This happiness and satisfaction comes from the integrity of the game. As an independent game, it is well designed in terms of action and plot, which makes me curious. With this curiosity, I contacted Lao Lin, a developer in Taichung, Taiwan. The word "Lin" smacks of nostalgia-the popular surname of Mazu, which has been popular in Fujian and Taiwan.

Lao Lin's Wechat portrait is a giant panda with his head down and eyes down-to a large extent, in line with the impression he left on me, not so passionate and gentle, but also because he knows he is talented. so always say ambitious words in a hesitant tone. As a new generation of Taiwanese gamers, Lao Lin is both aggressive and cautious in character.

This character shows up at the beginning of our conversation. At that time, Lao Lin told me that lost City: curse of the Stars was the first game made by their studio. I asked him if he was satisfied with the game, and Lao Lin replied firmly that the map design of the game was "not top-notch, but at least outstanding." Before I could ask the next question, he hesitated to add: "maybe some people don't like weapon design so much."

Lao Lin designed six weapons for the game, each with its own enhancement and talent system. When it comes to this design, Mr. Lin is very interested, he said, which not only reflects the producer's effort on weapons, but also saves a lot of cost. "it's too expensive to build a bunch of new weapons like the Dark Soul." Lao Lin told me that in order to make up for the lack of weapons, they also made a more innovative "weapons dual-holding system."

In the game, players can seamlessly switch between two weapons through two different sets of buttons, which is very different from the "Soul of Darkness". It can make the character's action in battle faster and more complex, rather than using one of the six weapons alone. The consideration of the combination of weapons can also give players a greater sense of choice.

At this point, Lao Lin seemed a little ambitious, but when I asked, "is this the most innovative part of the game?" his voice dropped again, saying that he had thought so until he played a game called the Earth Kingdom. Only to find out that there is the same system in that game.

I asked, "what is the Earth Kingdom?"

"Oh! it's the Kingdom of Amara: crime and punishment. You should have heard the name."

I nodded that such a conversation had occurred among us many times. When talking about games, Lao Lin is used to using Taiwanese-translated game names that I am not familiar with, but before I express my doubts, he can always accurately name other names that I am familiar with-as a player, his understanding of the game is almost the same as mine, but there is something unique.

These homologous and unique things always sneak into our conversation. In 2005, Lao Lin passed the academic test and finger exam and entered the university. In college, he joined the Chinese music club and became infatuated with erhu. "the tone of erhu is very sad," he told me. "babbling, like crying." When he encounters difficulties in development and feels unable to continue, he will hide and play the erhu for a while to express his sorrow, because he feels that "men do not cry easily."

I asked, "what kind of music do you like? is it" two Springs reflecting the Moon "or" ambush on all sides "?

I like to play "fireworks are easy to get cold". "

Fireworks are easy to get cold. It's a song by Jay Chou.

Happiness has been developed for five years before and after "lost City: the Curse of the Stars". In the past five years, Lao Lin hid in the practice room from time to time to play "fireworks are easy to get cold". The longest time he played was when he realized the map he designed in the game. He found that he could not use the Unreal 4 engine to create seamless levels, which were the core of his design for the game.

Game scene design I asked Lao Lin why he insisted on designing seamless levels. Lao Lin talked about his experience of playing "Dark Soul" for the first time. "I was shocked by the feeling of exploring in all directions. It was really wonderful," he said. "I had a great time."

He summed up the reasons for his happiness as each map in the Soul of Darkness is skillfully connected to each other, so exploring in it can be full of surprises. In order to repeat the surprise he had, when designing the level for "lost City: the Curse of the Stars", he put forward two requirements for himself: one is that players can run from the first level to the last level. Second, all players can see the scene can be explored.

"the Unreal 4 engine is not an engine built for a seamless world. Games previously made with Unreal 4 need to be read when they pass," Mr. Lin and I said. "so when we want to create a seamless world, the engine doesn't have a complete function to assist us. We have to explore and develop ourselves."

For a long time, Lao Lin was so worried that he even thought of giving up the whole project. Later, a senior developer who came across on the online forum gave him and his colleagues hope that after a period of collaborative research, they realized the idea of a seamless map in the game, and the players could center on the stronghold of the waterway. move between big maps with your legs and memory, heading for all open and connected scenes Until the unlock transfer function-the design is very similar to the process before the Dark Soul acquired the King's Soul, Lao Lin said, this is his "salute."

The "salute" in Lao Lin's mouth has a dual meaning of gratitude and inheritance. Most of his "salute" games have given him happiness. He summed up the process of getting this happiness, wrapped it in different skins and gave it to the next person.

"I want to bring the feelings I have had to players," Lao Lin told me, "because the direction and experience of game design can be reproduced through different packaging."

Out of this consideration, Lao Lin has been playing games and summing up games. Of all the types of games, his favorite is role-playing games, because the feeling of "living somewhere else" makes him happy.

When he was very young, Lao Lin experienced the fun of role-playing.

In 1986, Lao Lin was born in Taichung County in central Taiwan and spent his childhood in the countryside in the mountains. At that time, his parents went to work in the city, and there were only grandfathers and cousins in the family. Because they had to work in the fields, Grandpa was often unable to take care of the children. Lao Lin and his cousin traveled together to explore along the path by the stream.

"the most common thing we do when exploring is to build a secret base of our own," Mr. Lin said. "put the stones, toys, bugs or animals found in the base and pretend to be the owner of the land." In his memory, it was the earliest role-playing game he had ever played-collecting materials, exploring adventures, and creating a new identity for himself. These are several reasons why role-playing games can bring happiness that he unconsciously summed up when he was a child.

At the age of 6, my mother picked up Lao Lin to go to school in the city. During the days with his mother, he listened to her tell a lot of historical stories. He was impressed by the frequent impromptu changes in his mother's story. "I never thought so many interesting things had happened in the world before," Mr. Lin said. "after some adaptation of ancient history, there will be a great feeling of a real and a little fantasy world. I was fascinated by that sense of immersion. I later relived this feeling in role-playing games."

As he grew older, Lao Lin continued to play some domestic stand-alone games. The period from the 1990s to the beginning of this century was the golden age of Taiwan's game industry, which coincided with Lao Lin's adolescence. From "Xuanyuan Sword" to "Chinese Paladin" and then to "Wind Fantasy", these games and many of the pleasures he got from them are stored in the old computer he bought when he was in Primary School.

Nourished by these stand-alone games, he established a love of role-playing games.

Talking about this experience, Lao Lin counted with me little by little: "the first game I played was the second generation of 'Xuanyuan Sword'. I remember the protagonist's name is he ran, and the heroine I forgot her name. There is a fox fairy and a very powerful samurai in it."

He knows a lot about these characters, but what he likes most is the world and stories in the game. "Xuanyuan Jian II" tells the story of the war between people, gods and demons in the Spring and Autumn and warring States period. This kind of fiction has a real feeling that Lao Lin wants: "I think players take risks in such a world, this feeling is particularly interesting."

After graduating from college, Lao Lin went to the United States to continue his studies, majoring in computer and information engineering. Later, because of various coincidences, he joined Blizzard after completing his master's degree in 2012 and participated in the production of World of Warcraft: the Mystery of the Panda and StarCraft II: the Heart of the Swarm, in both projects, he worked as a junior mission designer to design tasks and levels in the game. At Blizzard, Lao Lin learned the importance of hurdles and narration.

The experience of this period has further strengthened his love of role-playing games. "one of the great features of MMORPG is that you can create your characters according to your preferences, regardless of height, fat and thin, boys and girls, white or black skin, what kind of pattern you want on your face, what kind of shape you want your equipment to look like. This is a role-playing process." "another feature is that it makes the running group more simplified, making it something that can be played directly and experienced immediately," Mr. Lin said. "the feeling of being able to experience another period of life immersively through only one computer is very special."

The "running group" in Lao Lin's words is a desktop role-playing game. During the five years of game development, he and his studio members spent countless weekends wearing medieval armor, waving weapons and playing dice while playing foreign wizards and warriors according to the rule books. in the process, he gained the experience of living and taking risks in another time and space-- what Lao Lin learned the most in Blizzard in 2012. Is how to bring this sense of role-playing to World of Warcraft players.

In 2013, when Lao Lin learned that he had the opportunity to return to China to participate in the development of domestic MMORPG, he returned to Taiwan to work for a local game company. In the new company, he met many excellent developers, but in the middle of the game, because the cost of the project was too high, the company thought that in the market environment at that time, it was more profitable to make mobile games by drawing cards, so he decided to change his strategy and transfer the people who used to develop online games to do a new mobile game. This is very different from Lao Lin's idea. In the end, he and several familiar colleagues chose to leave, found a place in Taichung, and began to play independent games.

"I personally think that if mobile games can be done well and reduce the addictive design of gambling or drawing cards, it will be a very good game carrier. because it is convenient, it can make full use of the trivial time of modern people," Lao Lin told me. "but after the company changed its strategy, I couldn't adapt to the development of mobile games, so I decided to come out and play games myself."

When Lao Lin talked about "coming out to play games by himself", his tone was very insipid, and there was no desperate helplessness or passion to realize his dream, as if it was just an ordinary career choice. He didn't plan to play stand-alone games at first. "if there is a way to do a continuous MMORPG, I should be able to lead a project," Mr. Lin told me, "because MMORPG has a wider audience than stand-alone, and it can really build a world where people can live in it." But at that time, Lao Lin and his small team did not have the ability to operate and maintain such projects. In spite of this, they still try their best to plan for their first independent game.

At first, Lao Lin planned to make a classic RPG, but after a survey of players' preferences, he changed the game type to ARPG, because "today's players enjoy high-speed fighting more than the traditional round system."

Through the inspiration from the Dark Soul and the Dark bloodline, Lao Lin designed a crisp action system and a map structure for the game. On this basis, he also needs to create a fantasy world real enough as a stage.

Lao Lin chose this stage in the period of the ancient Roman Republic, on the one hand, because most of the 3A masterpieces on the market were based on ancient Europe or Viking times, and on the other hand, he felt that "the Roman Republic was made by the elite parliamentary system. At the same time, there are huge contradictions in society, under such circumstances, if things related to core power are replaced with magic in the game. That can produce some very interesting stories.

"these stories will make the plot more reasonable." Lao Lin said, "you will think that these stories happen in that world, whether it is a tragedy or a comedy. I think only if it is reasonable and reasonable, can we make the game feel better."

Three years before the development of lost City: curse of the Stars, colleagues were still familiar with the game engine, and when all the map levels stayed at the stage of building blocks at the table, Lao Lin and the copywriter were slowly adapting historical stories with paper and pen. replace the tricks in those stories with magic, replace natural disasters and rebellions with monsters and evil factions, and build a fantasy world that is "a little real". More importantly, Lao Lin uses the way of "narrative of two protagonists in the table" to show players a very classical story, which is the biggest difference between the game and the "Soul of Darkness" series. Lao Lin believes that this will make players have a more sense of character experience.

The experience of joining the Chinese music club in college and lyric erhu after graduation also inspired Lao Lin. In addition to the story and world settings, Lao Lin also wanted to reproduce the wonderful experience he had gained from music in the game.

On November 23, Lao Lin issued an announcement to all players who bought "lost City: the lost Curse" to "a letter to the North Wind Legion." To begin, players are asked to vote for the best soundtrack award in the 2022 Steam Awards of the year.

The reason why he chose to participate in the Music Awards is that Lao Lin believes that the original music in the game can bring more pleasure to players.

When the world in the game was still in the pen-and-paper stage, Lao Lin read a lot of ancient Roman epics and learned that there were many bards in that era. Make a living by composing, writing or narrating or commenting on the major events that took place at that time. He plans to restore this in the game, so he has Melissa, the banshee in the game.

The banshee Melissa is a key NPC in lost City: curse of the Stars. Players need to save her in the early stage to continue their adventures. After rescuing her, she will play and sing the music collected by players in the shelter, providing players with a different perspective on the whole world. The words of these scores were all written by Lao Lin.

Melissa and a member of the Song of Stars: "I have studied the history and culture of the ancient Roman Republic and found that many major events at that time were shown through music." Lao Lin hesitated for a moment, and then found a more accurate description, "is that poets record big events in poems and then sing those poems in music." so, I think songs are essential if you want to recreate a world with a sense of persuasion and substitution. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to tell players the background information of the world in eight poems. "

The eight songs are scattered all over the lost city in the game, and players find them, listen to them when they return to the shelter, and then return to the cruel, enemy world outside. Lao Lin hopes that players can gain happiness and courage in this process, because he himself has used erhu to please himself, narrate his thoughts, and gain the courage to continue in this narrative.

It took a lot of effort for Lao Lin to write these songs. In order to restore the sense of vicissitudes of ancient European poetry, he decided to write lyrics in English. for this reason, he found many epics in Latin and copied them little by little compared with the English translation. in order to solve the problem of broken sentences and rhyme in English poetry, I also consulted many writers whom I knew when I worked abroad. But what gives Lao Lin the most sense of achievement is to invite the famous composer Zhang Weifan to write the soundtrack for the game.

I asked Lao Lin if it was worth the effort to make game music. His answer shows an idealistic side-he wants to restore the experience he feels good about. As for whether the player can appreciate the beauty of this experience, he just asked me, "how does this music make you feel?"

When I recall how I played the game, these songs linger in my mind, bringing a feeling of sitting by a warm fire in winter. My favorite song is called "Nostalgia", which is the theme song of the game, which makes me feel a kind of quiet pleasure.

Lao Lin watched the rhythm of the song and thought about the poem. Lao Lin shared a video with me about the creation of "Nostalgia". "Nostalgia" means "homesickness". One player commented that the song was reminiscent of the place he was going back to-the joy of returning to his heart in the midst of chaotic pressure.

For Lao Lin, the place where he wanted to go back was the mountain and stream of his childhood. Up to now, he still climbs mountains from time to time when he feels stressed. He likes the serenity brought to him by forests and streams, which is put into "Nostalgia". "there are a lot of hiking trails of more than 1000 meters in the north, middle and south of Taiwan," Mr. Lin said. "I just follow this trail. It only takes a few hours to get back and forth."

In 2020, affected by the global epidemic, Lao Lin and his colleagues also had to work from home. From April to December, game development almost came to a standstill, during which time he adapted by playing erhu and mountain climbing.

When talking about these difficulties, Lao Lin's tone is still gentle, just as he and his colleagues spent three years designing games and researching engines, but still remained patient. Although he leads a team of more than 20 people, he has the temperament of an independent game developer who works alone.

The same is true of the maps he designed for the game. as a developer, he ran from the first level to the last level in the development process of "lost City: the Curse of the Stars". He believes he can make it to the end. Then he did it-- and this is the clearest impression I got after talking to Lao Lin: he experienced the baptism of game industrialization, and in the market where online games are declining and mobile games are rising, he recreated the happiness he once felt with a stable state of mind, resulting in "lost City: the Curse of the Stars."

At this point, my curiosity was satisfied. Finally, I asked Lao Lin, "what is your ideal game?"

Across the screen, I could feel the slightly raised brow of Lao Lin: "A game that makes players smile."

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