Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 213 Personal Characteristics

In short, Xiong Rui's logic in "Starry Sky First Engine Martial Arts Tournament" is to create an optimized version of the 2D-HD side-scrolling game based on Ishii Akira's work.

Fuller, however, completely reconstructed 2D-HD technology, or rather, reinterpreted it.

These technologies sound mysterious, but the final results are quite stunning.

(For general technical details, please refer to the screenshots from the game "The Land of Wind".)

The first game scene.

That's the player's sanctuary on the main interface.

A bed made of white bricks and huge cement slabs, with some holes underneath through which the remnants of burned items can be seen.

Common sense tells us that this should be a facility similar to a heated kang (a traditional Chinese bed-stove).

In the center of the cabin was a small table made up of discarded machinery. On the tabletop was a silver metal shield that had been picked up from somewhere. On this shield table were a candle and three empty cans.

Next to the round shield table was a small round pit surrounded by stones. Above the square block, a small pot was suspended by three intersecting round metal pipes, resembling water pipes.
Next to the small pot, against the wall opposite the bed in the hut, was a bench made of sandstone, where a brother and sister sat.

As the mouse moves closer, the camera zooms in once more.

The two little ones snuggled together.

The older brother had short, jet-black hair and some grime on his face, giving him a youthful appearance.

The younger sister has long blonde hair, striking and adorable features, and crystal-clear blue eyes. Both siblings are wearing military uniforms that they seem to have picked up from somewhere.

This is a dark green military uniform, and its style has been adjusted by the art team to make it look very harmonious.

Moreover, although the brother and sister wore the same military uniform, there were still some differences in the accessories on their uniforms.

The camera freezes here, and the player's mouse appears on the screen. Ye Feiyang glances at it and sees that when he moves the mouse over the character, the character lights up.

This is a seemingly ordinary camera movement, but in reality, very few 2D games today can achieve such camera movement.

This is because the camera movement is essentially the same as the movement strategy used in 3D games.

Back in the "Star First Engine Martial Arts Tournament," Fuller used this camera work to shock everyone present, and Fuller also said something rather pretentious.

"Technology isn't about showing off skills, it's about serving the game..."

anyway.

After glancing at the two characters briefly, Ye Feiyang chose the older brother as the protagonist without much consideration.

Although Ye Feiyang used to prefer playing female characters when playing MMORPGs, so he could easily see their underwear and thighs, this is a game by StarCraft, and naturally, you have to choose a male character when playing a StarCraft game.

After selecting a character.

The game camera switched again, freezing on the control perspective. Immediately afterwards, two speech bubbles lit up above the younger sister's character's head, and a little girl's voice appeared in Ye Feiyang's ear.

"Gu..."

"Brother, I'm hungry."

Immediately afterwards, the bubble above the player's head lit up.

"We ate the last can of food last night, so we need to go out and find some new ones."

"Will we be able to find something to eat today?" "I think so."

This dubbing segment doesn't immediately catch the ear, but it's not jarring either. This is mainly due to two reasons: firstly, the dialogue is quite colloquial.

Secondly, there's the StarRing game engine, which can blend the scene's built-in sound effects with the voice acting.

Combined with the bubbles above the characters' heads, and the characters' movements, visuals, and sounds, the plot progresses naturally. Moreover, the goal of this dialogue is very clear: to find food.
This is basically the first step in survival games.

It's 2017 now, after all, and survival games are nothing new. Ye Feiyang even got a free copy of a game called "Don't Starve" a few days ago.
Although he didn't understand the game, that didn't stop Ye Feiyang from accepting the settings within three minutes of entering the game and clarifying his next goal: to find food.

After a short scene, Ye Feiyang controlled his character to depart from the shelter.

This is actually quite interesting. Because of the background of the main UI, Ye Feiyang had been thinking he was in the middle of a tall building. Even when the conversation ended and the male protagonist said he was going out, he was still wondering where to go downstairs.
Following the instructions, they climbed out of the shelter through the window.

He then realized that there was actually flat ground outside the window.
In other words, the building we just saw was "sunken" underground.

Although this scene setting is not particularly ingenious upon closer inspection, it is simply a scene where a building has collapsed underground, so you can go directly outside from the window.

But these "unusual" details do indeed add to the feeling of the apocalypse.

After entering the outside world.

The game's UI has now fully appeared.

The top left corner features two profile pictures, one of a brother and the other of a sister.

The two status bars to the left of the avatar represent health and stamina, respectively. Below the health bar is a smaller icon depicting a stomach, which is simple and clear.

In the upper right corner is a basic compass and a map that is still shrouded in fog.

There is also a time progress bar in the lower left corner.

At the bottom of the screen is a row of semi-transparent inventory squares.

The UI layout was very classic, typical of survival games. Ye Feiyang subconsciously moved his fingers.

The WASD keys control the character's smooth forward, backward, left, and right movements. Pressing the Shift key will cause the character to immediately lower their body and sprint, and the stamina bar in the upper right corner will be visibly consumed.

He manipulated his character to swing a fist at the air.

Since there are only two playable characters in "Final Survival Guide", the development team put a lot of effort into the character animations, including not only interactive animations but also battle animations.

The smooth combat animations, combined with the sound effects, create a visibly enhanced "feel" for the game.

"It feels nice to the touch."

Come on, let me find something to eat.

from the beginning till now.

These few minutes were a fairly standard experience for Ye Feiyang. There's no way around it, it's 2017 now, not 2007. From Minecraft to Don't Starve, to 7 Days to Die, Arknights, The Forest, and this year's Subnautica and No Man's Sky.
The survival genre has been developed to a very high standard.

However, if it's just about survival, there are too many competing products on the market. So, if "The Last Survival Guide" doesn't have its own unique features, it will get boring after playing it a couple of times.
So, in this game, has Starry Sky Games created its own unique features?

The answer is, of course, yes.

(End of this chapter)