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

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

Although it is inevitable that there are some "style problems" and "not elegant", the years of working with Society I have been a very interesting experience after all.

On July 14, Illusion, a well-known "special theme" manufacturer in the industry, suddenly announced that it would end its game development and sales activities on August 18. As soon as the news came out, many people sighed: "my youth is over again."

In the minds of many players, Illusion (hereinafter referred to as "I Society") has a "industry pioneer" status. Although this title has a touch of ridicule, it is not a complete mockery. As players, after experiencing the works of Society I, from its development, to its peak, to its lack of progress, and finally to its cessation of operation, we can still sum up a lot of interesting things related to it-their impact on players and the game industry is not limited to pictures and themes.

Of course, the legends of Illusion can't be recorded in just one article. Just from the intersection of the history of the industry, through the extraction of cocoons in some small places, to reflect the company's very interesting sense of existence.

Is it really a vision problem? "trailing", which was released in 1999, is a well-known work of the I Society, and it is also an important step for its games to officially begin to become fully 3D. Two years later, the second generation of this series made great efforts on 3D images. At that time, how much impact did this work have on the players' vision? A simple comparison can be made here.

In February 2000, Capcom partnered with Sega to release "biochemical Evil: code name Veronica" on the Dreamcast (DC) host. At this time, the Sony PlayStation 2 will not be available for another month, and the 3D quality of the game is amazing compared to the square mosaics of the PlayStation era.

Although it is inevitable that there are some traces of polygon optimization, "trailing 2", which was already very excellent at that time, entered the game with the same screen as Veronica, directly piercing the cognition of many players. Especially the character's hand, at that time, many games even unified the hand into a square, but the I club has already made the character's fingers clear. Of course, this has the tilt of production resources and calculus resources brought about by differences in themes, but it will still be shocking if it is really done. Even if the game screen is put today more than 20 years later, it is not too much to say "can see".

What is more innovative is that the selection picture is not static, but a circular little girl dance, even if the dance is very short, the action is also very simple, it is enough to refresh the cognition.

Looking back now, you may even wonder if there are any travelers in the I club. However, compared with the "on-the-job content", the "trailing" series has given birth to another feature of printing history from the perspective of game design, and that is the magical "vision". After 2000, the game began to pursue authenticity because of the development of 3D technology, and there were many realistic works, such as "raid" of "Real RTS" and "Flash Action" of "Real FPS". Even some fantasy-style action games, the height of character jump is not as exaggerated as in 2D era.

"trailing 2" is also a 3D environment, but it may be because of the limited technical ability, or because of the players' goodness, the characters they want to track have extremely poor eyesight, especially when using the "squat" feature. all kinds of places that must be seen in people's common sense will be inexplicably safely avoided. Snake would be envious.

For example, as long as you squat down, even this distance will not be found at all, although the design is unreasonable, but it also reminds many designers and players who were addicted to "reality" at that time: the game is after all a game, for the sake of gameplay, the unreasonable place does not have to be completely reasonable-- just like all kinds of interesting assassination games in "biochemical Evil 4: remaking", the enemy is "little blind and happy". No problem.

Interestingly, to this day, the game pays homage to this intentionally or unintentionally. For example, in Dave the Diver, which is on fire in recent days, there is a section of "chasing cats" in the main story. Although it is not stated clearly, the design of "squatting will not be seen" is very obvious. With the thorough understanding of the culture of the house embodied everywhere in this game, it is hardly a pure coincidence-you never know which big guy who is playing the game now has played the I Society game when he was young, and thus has the light of great love.

A healthy, positive and reasonable "follower" moved Heaven to say that "Light of Love" is not pure bullshit. There is an anecdote often mentioned by Society I: in a work in 2001, the writer wrote the story miserably by virtue of the advantages of high age and few restrictions. The death of supporting actress Qian Yu touched the heartstrings of many players, and many people petitioned Society I. With this in mind, half a year after the work was put on the market, the official launch of the "Survival of thousands of Rain" DLC-- wait a minute, what was the original theme of the game?

From today's point of view, the whole thing may have a certain hype factor, but the game company listened to the views of players, really made the result, even if there is hype, it is still worth affirming.

Especially since the 1990s, Japanese works have been rich in all kinds of "uneasy" death plots, and even become a routine. From this point of view, it was a novel and tender way for Society I to keep the character alive in the form of DLC at that time. In the minds of I Club players, the effect of "Qianyu Survival" DLC can be compared with the following illustration.

If you are given a chance, please choose the teammates you want to resurrect, although similar routines still appear frequently in many subsequent works, the experience of Society I is also widely used in the game industry. Especially for card-drawing mobile games, if any character gains high popularity as a result of miserable experiences, it is easy to get additional production resources first, or as linkage candidates. The logic behind this is not difficult to understand-it is true that from an artistic point of view, a reasonable description of death in a serious subject matter should of course be respected, but from a business point of view, think about it, how many players can be willing to pay for "regret being healed"?

In addition, "Thousand Rain Resurrection" is worth reviewing from many angles, such as the mentality of players, which may be precisely because it is a "special theme" game, players do not set up psychological defense, but are more likely to break defense, and so on. Some topics have even been discussed by players so far.

"I don't play games anymore!" There is also a reason to say that Society I is good at "doing a good job". In 2004, it solemnly announced: "I don't play games!"

In terms of the background of the times, the Japanese game industry developed by leaps and bounds in CG technology at the beginning of this century. In 2001, the film "final Fantasy: the depths of the Soul" was pulled out by "the Animation Company held up by Games". Although it was a mess in the market, it was technically shocking. People can't help feeling that the age of science fiction is coming.

Although the I Society is far from the edge in the type of games, it has a special preference for describing stories, and many of its works have a remarkable plot, not just to deliberately render the content of special themes. Under this premise, the I Society resolutely launched a full 3D interactive film in 2004.

There is a gap between the times, but at that time, the CG really did not lose to the mainstream masterpieces. At that time, there were a large number of interactive film games, but most of them were shoddy products shot by real people, and a few excellent works were based on 2D animation that Japan was good at, and there were almost no 3D pictures. The exploration of 3D interactive films is unexpectedly made by "special themes", so it is difficult for anyone not to think highly of the I Society.

Now when we talk about interactive movies, the first thing that comes to mind may be Detroit: being Human in 2018, or the Walking Dead series in 2012, where the attempts of Society I are not well known among public players. However, excluding the quality of the story itself, subject matter and other factors, only from the perspective of technical realization, the overly exaggerated enterprising spirit of the I Society is not easy.

Of course, the I Society itself did not continue on this road. Maybe it's just for a gimmick, or maybe it's not good. Later, Society I changed its tune and continued to play games, leaving only a legend of "whole life" among the industry and players.

Due to the reasons of the times, there are still places where players need to operate specifically, but on the whole, it is still a super unexpected "Equality" in the form of interactive movies. At the end of 2007, I launched "artificial Girl 3". At this time, it coincides with the gradual rise of private Mod, and the "Road to Survival" sold the following year can be called a "Mod big winner". In this context, "artificial Girl 3" is a "miserable" folk secondary development of the most and longest I Society works.

One of the most amazing developments is undoubtedly that players began to change the gender of their characters, turning the story that was originally limited to "male and female" into a big fight between "male and male" and "female and female". In particular, the "male plus male" situation, so that "artificial Girl 3" unexpectedly won the favor of many female players. Even for quite some time, female players were more active and enthusiastic than male gamers, because no woman at that time had the same level of content to the game-full 3D virtual space, higher freedom, interactive play in which players can participate in person-it doesn't seem to be much today.

What is even more gratifying is the reaction of Society I. Unlike some big companies that are keen to teach players to play games, the I Society, which is as broad-minded as its characters, perceives the situation of "artificial Girl 3", the established impression is that the manufacturers who are supposed to serve male players directly provide optional genders in the sequel "artificial Academy", and men also have a full set of action matches (although it can be seen that developers are not very good at this …... ). Since then, many games of Society I have supported the function of arbitrary gender adjustment of male and female roles, which can be called "players teach me to play games and feel a community with a shared future".

Love to live in 2018! In, the support for male role elements has been good. In the product line of Society I, the "Beach" series, which first appeared in 2002, was originally a fan orientation, referring to the idea of "death or Life: beach Volleyball" in the mainstream market. bring together the heroines who have appeared in the company's products to play the "robot war"-style resource reuse, and the game is also inclined to subtraction, focusing on relaxed leisure temperament.

There is a "small production" feel of the choice interface, but I did not miss this "enterprising" opportunity. "Beach" series has been determined to iterate the technology, and finally made a special theme open world beach vacation game in 2015. As we all know, 2013 is the time when "three men, one dog and five" stands in the history of the game, and it is also a milestone in the maturity of the concept of an open world. Only two years later, Society I was able to fill in the gap of "special theme" and "open world" while developing other works.

Although there are some problems and defects because of the limited technical ability of Society I, players do have the same freedom in the game as other open world works, such as fishing, cooking, and fighting against gangsters. The details even make the "special subject matter" part seem less important. As a result, some players asked the ultimate question in the special subject area: "what on earth are we playing this game for?"

This "enterprising spirit" has also affected many newcomers. With the popularity of Unity and other engines and the promotion of many "masterpieces", we can now see many small-volume games in an open or semi-open world, objectively raising the bottom line of play and technological development. For the I Society itself, the obsession with the sea and the island is far from stopping.

Meticulous simulation over the years, Society I has been very focused on depicting the details of player interaction, especially in the stage before 2010 when there is a clear technological advantage, each year's major work, interaction will have a considerable degree of evolution, and most of them are one or two steps ahead of the concept of the times. I can feel that it really wants players to maximize the sense of reality by using a basic device like the mouse.

Because of this, many ideas of interactive operation have been born in the works of Society I. as they are very rare in conventional subjects, many of them are impressive and enlightening, and have become the reference inspiration for some operational designs today. From a technical point of view, if the younger generation of designers want to play tricks on mouse operation, they may want to look back at what Society I has done. Although it is not always a successful experience, it is just like a failure before scientific research achieves results. It is worth using for reference.

I Society insists on simulating the ultimate form of feeling, which is the "VR girlfriend" in 2017. The most vivid impression of the game in social opinion is "the VR game that can be played without VR." From the point of view of the equipment, it retains the design of keyboard and mouse operation, although there are some deficiencies in hardware technology, but in the era of entering the VR field, compared with many other companies that needed a variety of extra accessories at that time, the way of the I Society has some feeling of returning to its original intention and has more affinity.

"VR girlfriend" can be said to achieve some of the long-standing pursuit of Society I. in short, there is no doubt that Society I has profound technology, experience accumulation and great enthusiasm in the simulation and performance of special themes. Maybe this is not a selling point on the table, but even today, this piece should not be blank.

That may be what Society I intends to do. as the pieces accumulated over the years put together, the textbook-level "AI Girl" was finally released in 2019. On the virtual island surrounded by the sea, the I Society completely realized the ideal virtual life of intimacy, ease and relaxation, which made the game word-of-mouth out of the circle. The "shrunk version" on Steam sells for more than 400 yuan, but it still gets "most of the praise", and more than 2000 players leave comments-an achievement that some Japanese factories have never received.

More importantly, one of the reasons why the work is well received is the rich content of personal life, rather than the "special subject matter" in the traditional impression. And even if the "full version" of the "special" part is not deliberately removed, players often regard it as a normal component, not a spectacular selling point, just like in reality.

Jokingly called "closest to the back of the brain intubation", yes, according to tomorrow's Light Schrodinger's coffin board, it is not unacceptable for the I Society to stop operation-technically and conceptually, since about 2010, its pace has been gradually slowing down, from leading the industry in concept, to mediocrity, and finally to the end.

"AI * Girl" in 2019 is great as the ideal ultimate form of beach and sea, but "Raft" has been bred in the mainstream market in 2018 with similar feelings and temperament. Even some "old drivers" have said that it would be nice if "AI * Girl" could combine with "Raft", but unfortunately they did not.

The times have changed, and now there are formal channels to receive this news. 20 years ago, I dare not imagine that the character style of I Society's works has always been realistic, which may be considered to maximize the audience in the early years, but not completely close to the second dimension. Although there are some cartoon rendering products, the aesthetic taste inherited over the years is obviously a bit out of date when there is not enough technical help-for example, the I social kneading system has not supported two different socks for a long time, and now in the popular new characters, wearing different socks on the left and right feet is becoming a trend. In addition, from the perspective of business content, the core attraction of many games in the I club is also being dismembered by Mod.

However, there is no hurry to be sad. After all, I Society is good at "rectifying work". Such things as "suspension in August and reorganization in September" may be unthinkable in other companies, but it is really hard to say when it comes to Society I. I even worry that if this manuscript is not written soon, the magical guys of Society I who have been bringing surprise and joy to players, just like the company's name "hallucination", may come up with something else.

In short, although it is inevitable that there are some "style problems" and "not elegant", the years of traveling with Society I have been a very interesting experience after all.

Do you want to say goodbye?

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