Game Making: Start By Healing the Player

For general games, especially stand-alone games.

When its popularity is the highest, it is basically the first week and the next week.

Then the popularity of the game will become lower and lower, especially the games that were promoted on a large scale in the early stage.

This is also a normal phenomenon in the game circle.

After all, for many players in a single-player game, after the customs clearance, there will not be too many players to play a second time except for collecting and swiping the second time.

Because I have seen everything in the plot, unless it is the content of the gameplay, it is difficult to have the desire for the second week.

In addition, the subsequent game manufacturers will not continue to increase the promotion of the game, and the popularity will naturally come down.

But Dark Souls is completely uncharacteristic.

The heat is rising steadily.

Especially as more and more players pass the level and come into contact with the more detailed content in "Dark Souls".

The game's rating has slowly climbed from 8.3 at the beginning to 9.3, and it seems that there is still potential to continue to climb.

This also makes countless game designers in the industry feel incredible for a while.

'Why is the reputation of this "Dark Soul" getting higher and higher? Confused! ’

‘The main reason is that the ratings of “Dark Souls” were indeed underestimated before, and now it has ushered in a rebound, but what I can’t figure out the most is that “Dark Souls” has been online for almost a month, right? Why is the heat even higher? ’

'yes! The video platform and live broadcast platform have almost all been slaughtered by "Dark Soul"! ’

‘It can only be said that Chen Xu is poisonous to his Nebula game! ’

'But looking at the third-party statistics of the sales of "Dark Soul", although it is popular, the sales do not seem to be so explosive? Sales in the first month are estimated to have peaked at 4 million. ’

'That's because the popularity of "Dark Souls" is too explosive. The sales of a masterpiece of 4 million in the first month are very low? Follow-up with the discount activities to enter the ten million club sooner or later. ’

'I feel that the design of "Dark Souls" is completely contrary to the previous APRG games! Why is it so successful? ’

With the popularity of "Dark Souls", the game industry is constantly discussing this phenomenal game.

Major game makers and game designers are also researching Dark Souls in turn.

After all, in the past, the game industry felt that Chen Xu was playing off.

There is no minimap, the game is too difficult, and the death penalty is too severe. All of these are the points that made "Dark Souls" complained by players in the early days.

But why have these points become the advantages of Dark Souls over time?

Confused!

Countless game designers have looked at the popularity of "Dark Souls", and the whole person has a little doubt about life.

This simply subverts their cognition.

Of course there are more doubts about life.

That is, when the word of mouth of "Dark Soul" collapsed at the beginning of the release, some game makers and designers who were going to cut the bush and pick peaches.

All are dumbfounded now.

In Falcon Entertainment, Li Xiang felt that his blood pressure was a little high, and in a trance, there seemed to be stars in front of him.

He thought about it a lot, but he didn't expect that a game whose online word-of-mouth didn't seem to be good could actually be flipped without changing the content of the game itself.

The game is no problem, the player has a problem, and the player has to adapt to the game.

This is a joke of many game designers.

Basically, senior practitioners will not write letters.

But he never expected that the game "Dark Souls" would really fit a little bit with this sentence.

The more critical point is that the popularity of "Dark Soul" has not cooled down at all.

Now they are facing a more embarrassing situation.

Is it still not on the new game?

The above words must withstand the output of "Dark Soul", and there are two major VR threats from Tenghua and NetDragon behind.

If not, the preheating of the propaganda has been rectified before.

Inside the office, looking at a group of subordinates who were looking at him, after a moment of silence, Li Xiang found them a step.

"I think there is still room for improvement in the game's plot and gameplay settings. In order to give players a better experience, I think we should choose to bounce tickets. After all, no one will remember those junk games that were released on time. Tickets are there to present players with games that are more in line with their expectations, all for the players!"

Looking at the team, he thought of what Chen Xu said at the gameplay exhibition, and Li Xiang copied it perfectly.

Not to mention that this sentence is really useful.

Why bounce?

It's not that I'm afraid that the sales of competitors will fail, it's all for the sake of the players!

Like Li Xiang, a large wave of games that were previously promoted all chose to bounce tickets by coincidence.

Of course, there are also one or two games, which are still selected to be launched according to the original plan.

But it's not an RPG type of game.

………………

Chen Xu didn't pay much attention to the impact of "Dark Soul" on the industry.

At this time, he is more concerned about the situation of the overseas version of "Dark Soul".

Although it has represented many games of Nebula Games, the main direction of the target software is still on "Dark Soul".

For translation, multiple languages ​​are carried out at the same time, but the dubbing is only adapted to English.

Approval materials from various countries, online channel promotion and operation, and the target software can be said to be quite optimistic about the performance of "Dark Souls" overseas.

After the game's successful review, the promotional video of "Dark Soul" also began to be released in various countries.

The main publicity methods are mainly trailers and live video.

Although the momentum is not large, for domestic gamers, it is obviously still concerned.

Soon the news in the industry also spread.

"Have you heard the news? Dark Souls is going to be released overseas!"

"real or fake?"

"You can go to several well-known overseas game communities and forums to look at it yourself. There are advertisements related to "Dark Souls"."

"Actually, it's expected, right? After all, it's so popular in China, and it's a fantasy game in itself."

"It's not an accident. In fact, the independent games developed by Nebula Games before, I don't think the overseas results are too bad, especially the game "Braveheart: World War", after all, the material is from Europe. war."

"Yeah, it's just that the main direction of Nebula's games was in China before, but then again, can "Dark Soul" become popular abroad?"

"Who can say whether it is hot or not? But I feel there is a relatively high chance, mainly because there seems to be no competitive masterpieces in the overseas market during this period."

Domestic official blogs and game community forums, many players are also discussing.

"I heard that "Dark Souls" is going to launch an overseas version!"

"The overseas version is the overseas version, it has nothing to do with us."

"I don't know if the overseas version of the server will be opened in the future. I want to invade foreigners a little bit."

"Fuck, isn't this bullying? But please bring me one!"

"Take it down one by one! Look at your humiliating game time, you haven't seen it for a week and you still think about hitting a foreigner. Don't be abused when the time comes."

And when domestic players are actively discussing and discussing.

The promotion of overseas target software has also begun to pay off.

Because of its own promotion of this piece of the budget is still relatively limited.

Therefore, large-scale advertising is obviously still difficult.

The target software adopts the most common and direct method in the game circle.

That is the pre-assessment of the media.

In China, Chen Xu did not do anything like media evaluation.

The media has the same amount of time as the player gets it.

However, due to the unique game attributes of "Dark Soul", some large-scale domestic media dare not speak up for a while.

Some small media have commented on the first day, but basically there is no depth at all, no matter whether it is praised or scolded, it is completely unreasonable. When players understand the game "Dark Souls" later, they can Said that all was sprayed and deleted the previous comments.

And some of the more authoritative big media that pay attention to word of mouth, wait until they understand the game "Dark Soul".

Basically, most of the players who have been paying attention also understand what this game is like.

It can only be regarded as a later addition.

In terms of overseas, considering the quality of Dark Souls, and how to attract the attention of overseas players as quickly as possible, the media rating is obviously the fastest and most cost-effective method. .

GameSpot, a well-known overseas media, gave the score on the eve of the launch of the overseas version of "Dark Souls".

'This is a magic-themed ARPG from a Chinese game company on the other side of the ocean. ’

‘Before commenting on the game, I want to express my shocking emotions, the unique map design, unique combat system, and unique gameplay ideas, it obviously opened up a new road for later ARPG games. ’

‘Even here we can boldly predict that this type of gameplay of “Dark Souls” is likely to become a unique branch in the field of ARPG games in the future. ’

'Incomparably hard-core, but painful and happy, death is a good friend who has been with the player for a long time during the game. ’

'In terms of plot, unlike previous ARPGs, which presented a thrilling and gripping story directly in front of us; "Dark Souls" chose to wrap happiness in layers of pain. ’

'If you want to savor carefully, then you need to fight repeatedly, fight more and more bravely, and finally surpass yourself, and this will also give you an unprecedented sense of achievement and satisfaction. This is quite a bold attempt. If they are not careful, they will fall to pieces. ’

'But I have to say that they succeeded. This game is so **** tempting, with perfect level design and BOSS design, it's not difficult for the sake of difficulty, but rather reasonable, every time you pass a level's scene map It is equivalent to a decryption. Every time I conquer a seemingly invincible BOSS, I feel that my blood seems to be boiling. ’

'In addition to this, there are many NPC branch lines in the game, but there is no clear guideline, but requires players to keep digging, and even players may kill these NPCs, which leads to the first week's purpose, this content line. completely disconnected. ’

'In addition, the art style of the game and the map design are even more fascinating. Taking the original Lothric Wall as an example, various exploration routes are used to guide players to carefully walk through every corner of the map. ’

'And the location of the enemies on the map and the patrol routes are extremely particular, so that most of the routes follow and go backwards, which can bring players a completely different experience. ’

'And the rich selection of weapons has enriched the combat system of the entire game and is no longer boring.

'Rated 9.5 points, review suggestion: If you can accept and endure the pain for a while, then "Dark Souls" is definitely worth your experience. ’

After GameSpot gave a high score of 9.5, some well-known overseas media also gave corresponding high scores.