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

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: drag mud money

How difficult is it to make a Sanxiao game that uses the play mechanism to make players happy and addicted, rather than inducing payment?

Sanxiao game can be called one of the most well-known types of games, it can go beyond the age, across groups, many people know, but also played.

I like Sanxiao game very much. I played "gem maze" on Palm Treo and "animal keeper" on NDS many years ago. They are all full of fun. However, I have also found that the game types such as RPG, action, strategy and so on, which are also classic with Sanxiao, have been advancing with the times, from 2D to 3D, with richer designs and more interesting experiences. But the type of Sanxiao seems to come to a standstill after a certain point in time.

The "gem maze" on Palm Treo (also translated as "diamond infatuation" at that time) once made me and my friends indulge in the rise of mobile games with the "free plus in-house" mode, and games played by Sanxiao generally chose to adapt to this mode. The most famous and lucrative Candy Legend (Candy Crush) is made of checkpoints and props. There is no doubt about the commercial success of such games, but their in-house designs are generally based on "preventing players from going through customs".

It's not surprising if you get stuck in this kind of three-elimination game from time to time. In 2014, computer scientist Toby Walsh published a paper proving that part of the hurdle of the Legend of Candy is the NP-hard problem. The concept itself is already quite complicated to explain, and in general, the paper tells us that for Sanxiao games like Candy Legend, specific customs clearance requirements can be very difficult-this is common at later levels. Players have to pay extra money-- that is, the pay-point design of the game-- or time to achieve results in the game. In a sense, this is also taking advantage of human weakness.

The general player's deepest impression of the "Candy Legend" is the large number of levels, feeling that they will never be finished (screenshot from the player "Johnny Crush" 10,000 clearance video). There are countless payment points waiting for you in the "Candy Legend" mode. another popular type is RPG and strategy games, which is equivalent to the round variant of Sanxiao. Personally, this is a "lazy play" that may be limited by technology or play design when Sanxiao is combined with RPG. Most of the Sanxiao play in this kind of game is just the whitewash of the operation, changing it into mouse click skills or other ways, there will be no change, Sanxiao is just an optional embellishment.

I once excitedly downloaded the Battle of Crusade, and as a result, there is only one line of elimination in the game. I have tried a lot of Sanxiao games over the years, some of which are very good, but most of them are of mediocre quality. Slowly, from the Sanxiao game I played, I pieced together some of the reasons for the lack of changes in the way I played the game. As a Sanxiao game enthusiast, I would also like to discuss with other players who like this type: how difficult is it to make a Sanxiao game that uses the play mechanism to make players happy and addicted, rather than inducing them to pay for it?

At the beginning of the game experience of "Candy Legend" is not bad, the feel is smooth, the picture is beautiful, under the addition of visual effects and sound effects, there is indeed a bit of a feeling of "eliminating new heights of happiness". But the picture poor dagger see, probably after 100 customs clearance, the difficulty of customs clearance suddenly increased. The number of steps I have left is not enough to remove the obstacles needed for customs clearance. I can either buy props or steps, or start over and try my luck next time.

"Candy Legend" this kind of "obstacle plus goal plus internal purchase" level design influence is so far-reaching. To this day, it is still the "standard design" of Sanxiao game. the original purpose of these levels is to direct players to pay by not allowing players to pass. Step limits seem to be "solving puzzles with limited conditions", but they are actually paid hooks. Step limits, levels and props make the game look like a puzzle elimination, but these content services are for in-house purchase, not for the player's experience.

After that, a lot of Sanxiao games similar to "level plus props plus step limit" emerged on the market, and its core is the design concept of "candy legend". The player's experience is only one of the bargaining chips of the target income, no matter how balanced, the game is to serve the income, not the player.

But the revenue from Candy Legend proves how successful this design model is in business and how rewarding it is. The game, launched in 2012, grossed more than $20 billion by 2023. In the face of this magnitude of commercial return opportunities, I understand that all developers will do "candy legend" or similar games.

Activision Blizzard bought King, the company behind Candy Legend, for $5.9 billion in early 2016, a price that reflects the future revenue power of Candy Legend and its sequels. Are there any exceptions? There is one. That is Taobao client elimination game "hot continuous elimination" (the game used to be called "saving money to eliminate", perhaps there are other names, hereinafter referred to as "hot continuous elimination"). In 2021, I discovered this game. Except for art, its playing method and operation mode are more or less the same as most of the free internal purchase games represented by the Legend of Candy. The biggest difference is that it is a completely free game with no in-house purchase.

On the left is the game interface, and on the right is the game main interface, which has a lot of new function entrances than when I started to play. The reason that this game is relatively simple is simple: the main purpose of this game is not to make money, but to guide traffic and keep alive for Taobao client, as well as to weave a huge marketing operation network covering as many types of users as possible with other "Mini Game" in Taobao client. Under this premise, "hot continuous elimination" is very friendly to the players. Can not pass, you can use in-game currency or Taobao gold coins to buy props; physical restrictions are oriented to Taobao client opening rate and user habits training; most of the checkpoints are designed to be more relaxed, the difficulty is also responsible for the opening rate and other indicators.

Games in Taobao and Xianyu plus physical strength correspond to the active and guiding behavior of their respective App and several "game-like" modules to channel some modules and operational activities in other games, as well as in "hot and continuous elimination", but because they rely on the e-commerce platform, some activities play the same as in other games, but the logic behind them is completely different. For example, failing to clear customs, the pop-up menu "continue to play after payment" is to buy goods. As for whether a product can appear in this location, according to the algorithm of the e-commerce platform, it should be a paid marketing service for sellers. This makes "hot continuous elimination" into some kind of "built-in advertising free game", with wool coming out of pigs.

Similar logic is also the small activities of brand naming, the degree of implantation is deep and shallow. At this time, players play games (with implanted elements) to get props (income), which is a bit like "the brand gives money to the platform and teaches money for the players".

These advertisements are the "lesson money points" in other mobile games, but the money does not come directly from the players' pockets. It is considered that the e-commerce platform sets up a platform for merchants to sing and invite players to watch, earn merchants' money, and whether merchants can let players buy things. it depends on your own skills. in "Hot continuous extinction", the business pressure of game operators may mainly come from whether they can contribute to the activity of Taobao client. Whether the currency in the game can be balanced with other operating modules of Taobao (gold coins, farm energy, etc.); can the operational activities or content of the game provide resources for the marketing service system of Taobao sellers. If these businesses want to be done well, it all has something to do with whether the players have a good time or not. So in the "hot continuous elimination", I can hardly feel the design of "forcing lessons". Most of the content in the game serves the players directly and achieves the business goals indirectly. Among them, there are some more "naked" tasks, but just like "high praise and cash back", players can still have some sweetness after doing so.

During the period when I played more frequently, "Hot Lianxianxiao" updated the checkpoints regularly, had daily operations, and added the pass system (purchasing with virtual property) and active team (group) functions that were popular in mobile games at that time. This is a complete mobile game, not a general web page Mini Game. And its experience is unlikely to be experienced on other in-house mobile games.

The pass, which is born for income, is only used here to enhance the activity. "Hot continuous elimination" is undoubtedly a special existence in Sanxiao mobile games. On the one hand, Taobao is rich enough to give up the income from mobile games to create a product without internal purchase; on the other hand, I am afraid that only e-commerce can use mobile games as a marketing tool to earn back the income from giving up internal purchases in other businesses. The two complement each other and are indispensable.

However, "hot" also proves a point: the existing "candy legend" mode of mobile games, it is through "upset players" to stimulate players to pay.

The influence of money has already gone deep into the bone marrow. Can you improve the experience of a Sanxiao mobile game without internal purchase? No, not really.

For more than a year, I played "ZooKeeper:World" (Animal keeper: world), which is not included in Apple Arcade (Apple's game subscription service), which is a game built and operated by a combination of checkpoints and zoos. Three customs clearance checkpoints, access to resources to build a zoo. This is a standard framework for in-house casual games. "World" makes games according to this structure, and then takes away only internal purchases. As a result, as a player, I don't think it's a conscience game, but it's boring, chaotic and unattractive.

In terms of play, eliminating and building and running zoos are good, but the structure of "free plus purchase" affects the fun of game. to cite two specific examples, the level of "World" is the same as that of "Candy Legend". Players need to be in a limited number of steps, through elimination to achieve a certain goal in order to clear customs, and provide a variety of intensity (eliminate one, eliminate 3 × 3) Props for the opening bomb and the curator mode that makes it easier to get the advanced bomb. In the internal purchase game, the difficulty of the level will lead the player to buy props through, difficulty means the intensity of payment; in the "hot continuous elimination", the difficulty corresponds to the frequency of players to open Taobao. In the "world", there is no internal purchase, no marketing needs, this set of props, difficulty system still exists, it does not serve players (the game experience has not improved), does not serve developers. This kind of game design without purpose makes me feel like I'm doing useless work from time to time.

The difficulty of the level in the game is not low, and the use of powerful props can not guarantee a good construction of the zoo in the game, but it is firmly tied to the elimination of the level. The gold coins needed to build and upgrade must be obtained by playing three levels of elimination, and players cannot only build them without eliminating them. At the same time, there are few elements of operation, mainly as a display area to eliminate games and get rewards (gold coin purchase, upgrade)-in domestic mobile games, such construction modules are used as incentives for elimination. In the "world" where there is no internal purchase, the meaning of reward itself is greatly weakened, and this design attachment makes it impossible for players to find a "balance" and play happily.

The construction of the zoo is still good, but the operation is very weak and the playability is not high.

The construction of the zoo is very dependent on playing with gold coins. Only with gold coins can you upgrade the game structure design and remove the internal purchase modules. there are still many in the World. This also makes the "world" more boring.

I suspect that for developers, the cooperation with Apple is not enough to give up the possibility of retaining the "world" and turning it back into a domestic mobile game, or its success in the internal purchase of Sanxiu versus "zookeeper: battle". It has completely turned to the direction of domestic mobile games. Although the failure of "World" cannot be directly attributed to the question of "how much money", it proves that the impact of "income" on mobile games is ubiquitous-even if there are no internal games, it is still on the "internal purchase mode".

The impact of income on the design of mobile games is so deep in the bone marrow and ubiquitous.

The hustle and bustle of the fusion design "shovel rider: pocket dungeon" (Shovel Knight:Pocket Dungeon) is the best Sanxiao variant game I have played in recent years. The core of the game is: in an 8 × 8 space, the enemy slowly falls from above, the player controls the character's movement, and removes the enemy or obstacles through attacks. When the enemy is lined up or connected horizontally or vertically, the attack has a chain effect, that is, "continuous elimination".

The main combat interface is like this, if you attack the red worms, you can hit a dungeon in Dalian. I think the best design is that the default falling speed of the enemy is relatively slow, but the response to the player's operation is immediate. That is, "the player moves one square and the enemy falls, and the player attacks and is counterattacked by the enemy at the same time." In this way, players can stop the operation and think about how to move and attack to create continuous elimination or special effects. Instant feedback keeps the overall rhythm of the game consistent with that of the players. The faster the player is, the faster the game is, and the slower the player is.

For the sake of game design, many Sanxiao games have to choose a point between speed and speed. For example, if the three-elimination RPG of the return system is adopted, it can only be slow; some of the three elimination battles are the competition of hand-speed continuous elimination. The design of "dungeon" brings a lot of play tolerance to the game, which is not available in many Sanxiao variants of games.

Dungeon has a very accurate grasp of the Sanxiao game, and the rich optional characters have a variety of abilities, which greatly enriches the game: the protagonist shovel knight is a damage bonus for chain kill, and the plague knight's attack is accompanied by a poison. Mole knights can drill into the ground to move and so on, the ability to eliminate from different angles to enhance. There are also interesting designs that counter-intuitively eliminate the game. For example, the feature of the rotor Knight is to increase the attack power by 1 after killing a single enemy, and the bonus disappears once it is linked.

Almost all the characters in the Shovel Knight appear and are available, coupled with the excellent art, music and worldview of the Shovel Knight series, the dungeon has become the most interesting and excellent Sanxiu variant game I have played in the past few years.

The regret comes from an important new game in the 2.0 update: the hat store.

Hat shops sell hats corresponding to a variety of Debuff and a small amount of Buff, such as longer checkpoints, Boss at each level, artifacts in each store from one of three to only one, and so on. Obviously, this is a design that allows players to challenge again and again by increasing the difficulty. There is no substantial reward for wearing a hat, and the game also presets some hat combinations to serve as an example for players who do not know how to choose.

You can wear many hats at a time, and I think the reason for the regret is that the Debuff in the hat store has more numerical changes for play than play, which makes the game more Roguelite-like. But elimination play is not that adaptable, and under the influence of Roguelite, many of the enhancements aimed at elimination play will be overshadowed by this numerical change-to put it bluntly, it becomes an action Roguelite rather than focusing on finding elimination variants of elimination play.

Prior to this, many integrated games will make me feel that the elimination of play is only embellishment, or even a publicity gimmick. For example, "Crusade Battle", or some round system three elimination RPG. Only the update of the dungeon made me feel for the first time that the three-elimination game may really be easily overshadowed by other more popular games or designs, even in a three-elimination-based game.

Perhaps Sanxiao play is too fixed to have much room to change, and it is a very casual way of play in public cognition, so that there are few variants. In the integrated game, few developers take Sanxiao as the main design.

Learning from Tetris is both a casual game and a very fixed type of play, so the development of Tetris may be worth learning and using for reference. Especially in recent years, there are two excellent Tetris games-"Tetris: effect", which is visually attractive, and "Tetris 99", which brings a new experience by playing "PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS". The most commendable thing is that the core of these two games is "Tetris". On this basis, through the enrichment of the core play, players have a new experience.

The art design and audio-visual effects of "Tetris: effect" are first-class, weaving a flow journey for players through dozens of levels of different styles. This kind of emotion is expressed by abstract sound and painting, so as to achieve some form of narrative result, which complements the play of "Tetris". Although the Zone model has some innovation in the core play, what I want to attract players back into it is its excellent sound and painting performance.

The ocean pass of "Tetris: effect" has left an excellent impression on me from music to visual effects. "Tetris 99" integrates the competitive mode of "PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS", which greatly improves the playability of the players in the middle and lower reaches. " The strategic and lucky attributes of "PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS" support low-level players and high-level players to compete together, better balancing the benefits brought about by differences in competitive levels in the game, which is equivalent to enhancing the attractiveness of competitive "Tetris" to ordinary players.

The battle of Tetris in traditional PvP is extremely cruel. I was beaten by more than 40 seconds K.O. In the 1v1 of Tetris: effect. Yes, but I can still take the first place when I am lucky in Tetris 99. Anyway, dungeon let me see that Sanxiu variant games can also produce high-quality products, although it has been a long time since the last excellent work of this type, "you must build a boat". 2 successful Tetris is also a good reference, let me think Sanxiao is not a "masterpiece" or multi-player play type.

Sanxiao games have been firmly nailed to the label of "casual games" in recent years, and there are few bright innovative works, but I always believe that this type of game has potential. I am very much looking forward to, but also confident to see a Sanxiao game to get rid of domestic leisure mobile games, porn elements such as serious illness, stand out.

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