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

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: Zhu Siqi

Don't waste your life because of absurdity.

Toule has reported on many student developers.

Most of the time, these young people appear in articles about college game competitions and Game Jam, standing on the podium or in the spotlight of the exhibition, and those who see them prefer to see them as a symbol of their expectations for the future of the gaming industry. These expectations include aura that has not yet been honed in the workplace, frankness and abundant desire for expression, or simply a formidable temperament. "adults" who have been in the industry for many years need such examples to cheer themselves up for the future.

Such reports focus on 2019-2021. At that time, most of the student developers were in their junior year, which meant that they had either gone into society or chose to go to graduate school. They still have immunity for new graduates and newcomers to the workplace, but as they get older and more social experience, the situation they face will eventually become more complicated. Sometimes, I think of my student days in the ivory tower as a tiny island. I may be able to spend a relatively comfortable time on it, but there are always waves coming in all directions. One day, the sea will submerge the island. People must leave it and sail through the wind and rain.

I wanted to know how they lived after they left the island, so I contacted these better student developers again. They may still be playing games, they may have joined the company they love but are determined to leave, or they may have given up on the road altogether. We want to record the changes in their choices and ideas over the years, and also reflect their image of the industry in a small way.

Of course, there are special circumstances-we found a boy who was only 8 years old when he won the prize on Game Jam. He attended CiGA activities with his father in 2018 and is now in his first year of junior high school. The anxiety about the industry is still far away from him. We wonder what it is like to "play games" in the eyes of such a child, and what his father thinks about the industry and the future of the next generation from a practitioner's point of view.

Zhang Suhang: I still choose to make independent games. In 2020, Super Chicken, a game produced by Zhang Suhang, won the gold medal in a game design competition for college students, along with several students from the same school and the school next door. At that time, he was a junior majoring in game art and design. I still remember the description of the team by the judges and my colleagues: perfect, mature and impeccable roadshow. For the student team, this is a great compliment.

When I contacted Zhang Suhang again, it was 9 p.m., and he picked up my phone in the conference room.

"I still choose to make independent games." He said.

Among the students in the same group in that competition, this choice was quite different. Zhang Suhang said that basically other people have gone to large and medium-sized domestic manufacturers, such as Tencent, NetEase and Byte, while he has taken the postgraduate examination of game design and is now a graduate student. Usually he is not often at school, focusing on his own game projects. He found a low-cost office space in the incubator of an industrial park in Shanghai and recruited a partner to work with several other practitioners who aspired to independent games.

At present, Zhang Suhang has a card board game project, and plans to launch crowdfunding in the first half of the year. For him, games have a social function, while the face-to-face interaction provided by board games is purer and classical, which is what he wants to do, but in a sense it is a passive choice. He doesn't know which path is right and only hopes to make a choice that he will not regret in the future.

"I know what I don't want," he said, "so I use exclusion."

The first option to be excluded is to enter a big factory. In fact, when "Super Chicken" won the gold medal, he was already an intern in a large factory, and his job was the art of the operation department. Zhang Suhang answered the questions very seriously, even in a methodical manner, and every sentence in the Wechat message ended with a regular stop. Only when it comes to internships, he uses a more intense description: "I was really miserable at the time."

"imagine you are in Toule, and the only thing you do when you get to the office every day is to open the Word document and type in it from morning to afternoon. Do you think this kind of work makes sense? will it improve you?" He used my job as an analogy, "anyway, it's so boring."

After graduation, he joined the independent team cool house game, which was the "white moonlight" he once longed for. He felt that it was much more comfortable than the big factory, regardless of the content of the work or the relatively relaxed atmosphere. "everyone is very approachable and approachable. I can tell my boss directly that unlike in a big factory, when facing people with a much higher level than you, I always feel that there is a gap, like a glass wall."

In this process, Zhang Suhang gradually realized what environment he was suitable for and what environment he was not suitable for. Of course, realistic factors will gradually seep into this consideration. The most direct thing is the income problem. Joining a small team and starting your own business does put invisible pressure on Zhang Suhang. "after all, look at those peers, they are treated very well in big factories."... if you look at yourself, this comparison will bring some anxiety. "

Financial anxiety is only one aspect. Nearly three years later, looking back at "Super Chicken" and even the project at hand, Zhang Suhang's feelings about playing games are also changing.

"in fact," Super Chicken ", including my current project, I feel that a bigger problem is' want and want'. After all, as a producer, you want to put everything in it. You want to play well, but also want to have a profound story; you want separate levels made up of rooms, and you want to connect the rooms into a map with freedom of exploration." These requirements are often beyond the ability of the team, and do not work well together. At present, he is still learning to give up and focus on a certain point of his work.

I can't help but wonder if his award-winning experience brought him any convenience. People always have expectations and tolerance for student developers-no matter whether this expectation of "expressing", "creativity" and so on is in line with their own wishes. What's more, strictly speaking, he is still a student.

But Zhang Suhang no longer wants to be seen as a student developer, nor does he always want to hide under the protection of student and newcomer status. After winning the prize that year, he did not participate in other college competitions. "in fact, I can now easily crush a group of undergraduates with a highly completed work, but this is no longer what I should do at this stage. I can't always stay in the comfort zone without facing up to the cruelty of the game market."

"that is to say, I want to be a real developer as soon as possible." This is how he summed up.

In Zhang Suhang's opinion, the award of "Super Chicken" did not bring any real effect, which does not mean that Zhang Suhang does not miss his college days. When completing the "Super Chicken", there is no pressure on the students' life, and they will not consider all kinds of realistic factors. The students who participate in it are as excited and devoted as if they are building a life-long career. This feeling is hard to find now. Even if Zhang Suhang still has this enthusiasm, it is difficult to ask others to be like him. After entering the society, a large number of people will separate their life from work. The partners who play games with him now do not necessarily regard his project as a career. In Zhang Suhang's view, the whole creative process and the enthusiasm they poured into it made it difficult for him to find the feeling of working together in the first place.

"in fact, at the end of last year, my partner left." Zhang Suhang said. This is one of the reasons why his last project didn't work out in the end. Another reason is that the idea of the project is very radical and risky. In the original scenario, it would be a narrative game similar to "Paradise Disco", with many branches and leaves. "when he left, he said, I am not looking for a partner, but a soul mate, because I always ignore the individual needs of my partner and ask him to give unconditionally for the group as much as I do."

Zhang Suhang does not think that there is a difference between right and wrong in this attitude, but that each person has different personalities and choices. Zhang Suhang is the kind of person who finds it difficult to separate life from work. For him, playing games is a part of life. "have you ever played a game called Before Your Eyes?" He asked me, "there is a line in which I am particularly impressed." it says that the only way to fight against time is to leave great works. "

Zhang Suhang does not know whether he will leave a great work or not, and he always hopes to fulfill this wish one day.

Many of the operations of "vivid memory" require players to blink, and life seems to be in a moment 404: can still express, but will not continue to work in part-time projects. I first came into contact with 404 and his game in 2021 on Nuclear Fusion. He and his partner Xiao Hong showed the Demo of the two-player game "Wireman" in the independent game exhibition area, which he took to take part in a student competition. In my initial article, I wrote that "Wireman" is a rare work that I haven't seen for a long time, even without exquisite art and attractive plot.

At that time, 404 was a junior in computer science, and Xiao Hong, his senior, had just graduated and worked in a field that had nothing to do with games. At that time, 404 still planned to continue to play games. He has a clear plan for his career: taking advantage of his student status to participate in more game development competitions or summer camps. And he had already found an internship in the big factory at that time, hoping to improve his code writing level as soon as possible with the help of a relatively perfect training system.

Two years later, I contacted 404 again. His experience over the past two years is quite different from what he envisioned. Because of his busy studies, he did not take part in other student competitions, focusing on graduation and looking for a job, so the further development of "Wireman" was shelved. The internship of the big factory, but also because some of the school arrangements did not go to their favorite studio, but went to another department. In his opinion, the training of new recruits there is relatively tedious and lack of guidance, which makes him "not feel particularly good".

Despite the overall gloom in the industry last year, 404 successfully joined a two-dimensional game manufacturer as a client developer. "it's really difficult for a lot of people to find a job."... but I was relatively Buddhist at that time, and I didn't submit many resumes, as if it wasn't my own business. " "I just didn't really think I'd miss," he said. "

He is very satisfied with the present working environment. In the technical aspect, there are veteran programmers, you can ask if you don't understand anything, and the level of writing code has improved rapidly. The KPI pressure that is common in big companies, such as the inspection of pipelining and user retention, is unlikely to extend to a more back-end position like him. Unless there is a serious phenomenal Bug, their jobs will not be affected by the increasingly inward competition in the industry. In addition to the version day, I don't usually work overtime.

"I've been on the job for less than a year, and I haven't felt any pressure. I've been learning new things. and there is no competition between the project team of our company, and the atmosphere is not so tense." 404 said, "maybe some old people, who are very familiar with projects, will gradually find their work boring."

In a work environment that sounds quite pleasant, the only thing that bothers him is "bickering with planners". On the day of my interview, he was still working with the planner to find out what the other person wanted and what they could achieve. But that's part of the job, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Wireman's cooperative two-player mechanism once caught my eye when I talked about my views on Wireman in my student days, and even his earlier works such as TimeLeap. 404 gives some technical thinking. "I still think Wireman is very creative and very good to play." He said, "but my feeling after work is that small works can certainly work hard like this in a place like a small workshop. But once the scale of your work has gone up, your world outlook, staffing, combat, and other parts have to be integrated. You have to go to multiple platforms, and you really need a set of very commercial and pipelined pipelines to organize and coordinate, so that the project can be done. Moreover, QA is very important. Like the game we made before, there are a lot of Bug, which is actually very irresponsible to the players in commercial works. "

In other words, although 404 does not like every big company, he believes that today's commercially successful games do have their own set of valuable methodologies. This is something he was unable to accumulate and take into account as a student developer.

This is the life of 404 now, but my problem continues. I wonder if the newborn calf-like halo in these young developers has faded, and whether that personal, inflated desire for expression still exists.

404 tells me that those things still exist, but he won't place them on the game. The reason is simple: he doesn't want to confuse hobbies with work.

"my attitude towards the project at hand is to throw up and never want to see it again." "if I play another game in my spare time, I will certainly look at it from a professional point of view that it is not good enough here and there, and I will go to work again," he said. "

404 had expected this to happen, so when he was about to graduate, he consciously pulled himself out of the "want to create something" state. He tried to find something completely different from the game and finally chose to write. The works cover a wide range of subjects, including science fiction, fictional stories and documentary texts. He posted some of the articles on the Internet.

"because the text is different from the code after all, it has an aesthetic experience. Chinese characters can give people a deep enough association, but also more directly express the space of imagination."

His own satisfactory works have something to do with his cousin in his hometown. My cousin is studying excavator and has experienced some frustrating things. So 404 wrote some documentary words for him.

"if I don't write it down, no one will." 404 said, "after I write it down, I still can't give an answer. But I believe it will have some impact."

You can easily find an excavator simulation game, but it's hard to really simulate the lives of some people. Later, I read this article. At the end of the article, he wrote: "my school is rich in academic masters, speculators, entrepreneurial talents and financial fraudsters. His (cousin) school is rich in construction workers, local hooligans, ghost fire teenagers and freight drivers." Some of my classmates run themselves into exquisite and expensive sex dolls that send SCI; some go to government offices to be selected as transfer students and quickly get tobacco, wine, tea and spider cards; others mix cream and matcha in their parents' beverage shop, repair ice machines, and others bend on the deck of ocean-going fishing boats and break into the center of the typhoon. I am called "classmate" in the company, and he will be called "master" in the future. "

In fact, I also prepared a lot of questions, such as whether it is possible to finish "Wireman", such as his views on the macro "Chinese game industry". But after reading this passage, none of them seems to be so important.

Tangerine: bang, suddenly I don't like this industry. I got in touch with Big Orange across 7 hours of jet lag.

On the overseas phone, her voice sounded lively and enthusiastic. She told me that she had been preparing to study abroad since graduation. She is currently studying language in Italy and will pursue further studies in illustration after prep.

Playing games is a thing of the past for her. Maybe she will still have the opportunity to enter the industry and participate in the art work of some works in the future, but in her eyes, the industry is not particularly attractive, and she will not aspire to become a game developer.

Nearly three years ago, this was not the case. At that time, five junior girls, including Big Orange, co-produced the game "Axe Day" and won a bronze medal in the student development competition. Among the 5 individuals, 3 majors are in the direction of game art, while others are in the direction of game technology. Orange is the one who is partial to the direction of art in the team.

In retrospect, she thinks the students are very energetic and hopeful when they play games. After coming up with a good idea, you will feel that you are very good and promising. "and everyone got good grades at school at that time, so they were very confident." In fact, axe Yue was done as homework at first, and this was the first time we played a game from beginning to end, Da Jing said. when it was on display at school, everyone came to play, and the response was good, and we were very happy. later, by coincidence, because the competition was famous, we went to take part in the competition. "

The picture of "Axe Yue" corresponds to the text level. In the second pass, the protagonist "Pangu's Little axe" needs to help Nu WA cross the river by breaking down the words. Da Ju feels that playing the game itself is quite interesting, that is, very tired. The main reason for this kind of tiredness is to use your brains desperately to figure out how to play, and then put the idea into practice before the "dead line".

"Axe Yue" still seems to be a good idea to play with word groups. But it was this kind of creativity that brought her some unpleasant experiences.

"in that game, there was a group game that looked different at first. But when we entered the semi-finals, it was exactly the same as" Axe said. "as soon as we looked at it, we thought it was copying."

Tangerine was so angry that he complained to the team members around him, but was heard by the members of that group. "well, my mouth was too big at that time. Anyway, after they heard me, they scolded me together in a game group."

Later, Orange complained to the organizing committee about the game, and the opponent's qualification for the semi-finals was disqualified and stopped in the last 16. However, after "Axe Yue" won the bronze award, the other party still made comments on various occasions, saying that Big Orange and her companions were "morally mismatched" and entered the rematch by running on other teams.

Tangerine is still bitter about it. She is not jealous of other teams, but appreciates some of the works of the same year. When I heard that I needed to know more student developers, she recommended the production team "knowing the Forest" and "Iron Mountain Strange Tam" to me, although I didn't write the stories of these teams for the time being because of the space.

In addition to being scolded, another thing that frustrated Orange was that some of the judges didn't seem to play their games. She still remembers that during the competition, a judge asked her, "is your game difficult?"

"I don't even know how to answer." Tangerine said, "it's a personal feeling. Just try it on yourself." and in the experience area, most people have cleared our game, I think it should not be difficult. "

At halftime, Orange also tried to invite the judges to play their game. "but they were all busy, and I didn't find anyone." In short, the scene of the competition purely rely on eloquence to prove to the judges that their game is excellent, which is a strange thing in Orange.

Tangerine felt that the art style of "Iron Mountain and Strange Tan" was particularly powerful. Although Orange thanked the competition for giving them the Bronze Award, it was not a pleasant experience. Especially for the reputation of manufacturers to participate, and finally found that things are not the same as they thought. "I think it's boring." Big orange said.

After the competition, the manufacturer will have a small interview to recruit students who are interested in internship. Big orange was not hired, but a student in the same technical direction in the same group was hired. In this regard, she did not feel particularly sorry.

"I suddenly didn't like this industry at that time, and I was very disillusioned. after all, that manufacturer is very representative of the industry, even like this …..." "and although we study game art, we still paint," she said. "where can't we draw? there's no need to play games."

Entering the senior year, the study is busy, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, people are not particularly devoted to graduation works. "the main reason is that they don't want to join the profession anymore." According to Da Jing, the five girls in the same group at that time, including the one who successfully interned with the manufacturer, have not entered the game industry now. Some went to other professions, while others continued to study like her.

In the process of chatting with Big Orange, "I don't like it" and "I'm not interested" is a word she mentions frequently. For her, enthusiasm is particularly important and is the driving force for her to invest her time and energy. "without love, passion fades, not." She repeated the idea over and over again.

I asked her if she had ever tried to play independent games, even if she didn't go to a big factory.

"if suddenly someone gives us a lot of money or wins the lottery," Axe said, "it should go on." She said, "do you know Wang Laoju? he was originally an anchor, but after making money, he began to play independent games on his own. I mean, just like him."

However, the focus of her attention in recent years is still on masterpieces like the Legend of Zelda, and she does not know much about domestic independent games. Of course, it's not a bad thing that the domestic gaming industry is improving. "that's everyone's happiness, that's good," she said, "but it has nothing to do with me."

Liu Yixi: I wanted to join the profession when I was a child, but my father wanted me to be an inventor. In 2018, the winning work "Cuddle Battle" in CiGA Game Jam Guangzhou Tianhe Division got some attention. The reason is that one of the young developers, Liu Yixi, who is only 8 years old, is in charge of the art part of the work. He was joined by his father, Liu Huibin, who was mainly responsible for planning, and Ren Zijiang, a college student programmer who formed a team on the spot.

A few days ago, I first contacted my father, Liu Huibin. Originally one of the organizers of Game Jam in China in his early years, he participated in organizing a lot of activities from 2015 to 2017, and did some independent game projects himself. In 2018, he could not participate in the preparation of the event because of his work, but in order for his son to see the world, he took Liu Yixi to the event and really made a small work.

As a work completed within 48 hours, the game is relatively easy to play. The game is full of cute villains who shake their heads and try to embrace the protagonist controlled by the player. But when the protagonist is hugged, he will bleed. To this end, players must find ways to avoid these hugs, and there are some props that can be used. On this basis, the game is full of childish art style impressive.

"in fact, our method at that time was to let him (Liu Yixi) draw casually and then make the game according to what he drew." Liu Huibin said.

Liu Yixi when I joined Game Jam in 2018, Liu Yixi was beside my father when I chatted with Liu Huibin. Liu Yixi, who is in the first year of junior high school this year, is one of the few boys in her class to have a Switch. When he was a child, his father picked out a lot of classic games for him. In the fourth grade, he has passed the Super Mario Odyssey, and has also played the Legend of Zelda: the breath of the Wild and my World. He made his own maps in my World, but he didn't share them publicly.

Another hobby of Liu Yixi is to draw all kinds of real-time strategy games similar to chess on paper. He will call several classmates, take a piece of A4 paper to draw a map, and then put goods similar to arms on the side. People use virtual money to buy arms, put them in their own territory, and begin to fight. Liu Yixi said that the game was once very popular in the class. "everyone has their own chess game." However, the life of this kind of games is not long, usually about a month or two.

Liu Huibin said that his son "likes to draw these from an early age, painting everywhere", textbooks and so on, "there is no place is blank." Liu Yixi's sister, too, has played games with her brother since childhood and painted everywhere. The pamphlets drawn by both of them were preserved by their parents.

Now, Liu Yixi's most common game is "the original God". "the class is playing around, so there's nothing to talk about with them if you don't play." He said. Because he is still a minor and attaches great importance to study, he can hardly touch the game and can only play for two hours on weekends. Usually, he brushes bilibili's game Erchuang and live broadcast.

He is proud that he has not taught Kim in the game: "my materials and resources are all typed by my hands, and my liver comes out." This won him praise and admiration among his classmates.

After the 2018 CiGA, Liu Yixi also participated in an offline event called "Paper Game Workshop." Together with three or four adults, he made a similar board game out of dice, cards and pen and paper in an afternoon.

In Liu Yixi's eyes, playing games is "playing". This was precious after I interviewed several student developers who were becoming increasingly worried. However, 13-year-old Liu Yixi doesn't feel much about what it means to play games and what the game industry itself looks like. What he is thinking about at the moment is very simple-"get into a good school". Asked about his plans for the future, he replied vaguely, "will consider the direction of programming."

"I wanted to get into the business when I was a kid," he said, "but my dad wanted me to be an inventor." Liu Huibin laughed loudly.

Liu Yixi's game map makes all kinds of notebooks full. Liu Huibin has more things to think about. He currently provides design services for manufacturers in the game industry, and has witnessed the situation in the industry in the past two years, but he will not easily dictate which direction his son will go in the future.

"playing games doesn't mean it's useful as soon as possible." In the face of some news about middle school students and minors playing games as a gimmick, Liu Huibin is very cautious. "now the barriers to entry in the game industry are really low. You will use Unity and 'illusory' engines in middle and high school. You can only say that you are willing to touch these things early. You have the spirit of exploration. But this does not mean that after you are famous with these things, you can continue to maintain an open and creative mind."

In Liu Huibin's view, playing games is something that requires teamwork after all. Moreover, there is no shortage of applied talents who can program and use development tools, and the important thing is whether they can provide innovative ways to play for the industry. "it is very difficult for children to create games now, and they mainly imitate them. Whether on paper or in board games, they are duplicating the games and systems they have seen." There are also aesthetic issues, "creating games requires not only technology and art, but also observation and experience of life, which are very subtle."

Later, I asked Liu Yixi again what he thought about the future, even if he really wanted to be an inventor. "actually, I haven't found a favorite game that belongs to my heart." He replied, "so there is no prototype of the game I want to do in the future."... "

"the original god doesn't even count?" The father asked.

"No! it's not attractive without being with the students in the class." Liu Yixi murmured.

Finally, Liu Huibin expressed some expectations for his son: "in fact, playing a lot of games is not very related to being able to make good games in the end."... creators and consumers are two different identities. I still hope that my son will spend more time on the role of creator in the future. "

The unfinished proposition on February 14, the Game work Committee of the China phonetic Association released the 2022 report on China's Game Industry. According to the report, China's game industry showed an obvious downward trend in 2022, with the actual market sales revenue falling by 10.33%, the number of users by 0.33% and e-sports 's market revenue by 15.96%. These figures add accurate footnotes to the "cold winter of the industry".

In the cold winter, many people feel that the future is not very clear and are trying to make their own choices. We want to keep records of as many players coming and going as possible. The manuscript with a return visit is also part of the record.

In this narrative, I hope to restore as much as possible what these new student developers are thinking: what they are satisfied with, what they are dissatisfied with, and what they think of the "student temperament", "first heart" and "aura" that are often talked about. I don't want it to be a record full of "adult perspective", but I still have a vision for the interviewees.

This vision comes from a decadent adult. In fact, when chatting with Zhang Suhang, we also talked about another thing. The original interview about "Super Chicken" mentioned that the protagonist Chicken would have experienced a bigger adventure. "it's a story about rebelling against fate." I would like to know whether this proposition is still meaningful to Zhang Suhang.

"do you think this proposition still makes sense?" He asked rhetorically.

I can only answer honestly that if it is an adventure story, this proposition is still very wonderful. But if we say that in real life, many people's lives are not so dramatic, people may not know what "fate" exists in them at all.

"I think so." Zhang Suhang answered. Nearly three years later, his attitude towards this proposition has indeed changed a little. At that time, the chick went through adventures and finally found that fate had already been doomed and all resistance was useless. Zhang Suhang said that that direction is actually a bit of a "Secondary two". Now he thinks more about the story of Sisyphus.

"just live a serious life." "I can't change my fate, but I can do things right now," he said. At the very least, I will not be perfunctory about the matter at hand. Do not waste your life because of absurdity, this is actually a kind of resistance. "

(at the request of the interviewees, 404, Xiao Hong and Da Jing are aliases. )

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