Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 284 Skin and Bone

Chu Chen took another look around the port area.

Overall not bad.

So he controlled the commander to walk to his room and switched to the battle system.

If the port system is the "skin" of Azur Lane, then the battle system is the undisputed "bones." No matter how good the appearance is, if the skeleton can't support it, it's just a vase that can be knocked over with a push.

Due to the success of "Final Battlefront", this timeline...

Sixteen years ago, there was a "hundred flowers blooming" of games, but sixteen years later, "Terminator-like" sequels have become the mainstream. So, what is the "Terminator-like" mode?

The answer is simple.

[One PVP gameplay mode] + [One PVE roguelike mode] + [Two to three hours of main storyline from a major update]

In fact, many game developers have never figured out the logic behind "this formula" or why Final Frontline is so popular.

They only followed suit because Xingchen made money using this formula.

The most outrageous thing Chu Chen had ever seen was a studio invested in by Shengda. They made, or rather, temporarily didn't know where to use the materials, and "skinned" a game that had never existed in his previous life.

The game is called "Leisurely Farm".

This is a game that focuses on casual farming and simulation management.

Originally a casual game, it "debuted" halfway through and piggybacked on the anime/manga genre, which is actually quite normal, and simulation games and anime/manga are actually a good match.

The art style of this game is quite good.

It belongs to the category of large companies that have a relatively good anime/manga style.

Therefore, it still attracted some popularity during the PV stage. According to the PV, the gameplay of this game called "Leisurely Farm" is to grow vegetables, raise small animals, and decorate your own house, which is a very "peaceful and quiet" game.

"and then?"

Fishball's curiosity was piqued, and he couldn't help but ask more questions.

"Then they followed our example and created the Starry Night set."

Chu Chen's expression became very strange when he talked about this.

This game, called "Leisurely Farm," is one of the few games that he found very interesting after playing it, especially in the first version available for trial play.

Players can lead their own chickens, cows, and sheep to form a "farm army" to attack other players' farms and steal their vegetables and minerals. Winning players will be ranked on a leaderboard and awarded an exclusive "Farm Overlord" title.

"They also created a farm pigeon game where players lead a farm army to fight off a pest army."

Chu Chen said it was very subtle.

On the one hand, "Leisurely Countryside" is clearly a formula that is rigidly applied.

The result of applying the formula was that the game completely lost its casual style and instead became a numerical game where you could become stronger by spending money, which led to a terrible reception during the game's beta testing.

This is the same principle as the previous game "Open Space". You are attracted to female players, but the gameplay is the same old pay-to-win system.

The players definitely won't accept that.

But then again.

Chu Chen also felt that the formula the other party had extracted was actually quite interesting.

With just a few minor changes, such as replacing vegetable farming with Pokémon farming, adding a capture system, and adjusting the battle system, it becomes a "Palu-like" game.

If we adjust the numbers a bit more, maybe it will become a playable game.
So, there's nothing wrong with applying formulas. But there are techniques to applying them correctly.

The formula used in "Azur Lane" is quite skillful. Although it's a bit obvious to say that, since the formula was given by Chu Chen, the "founder," it's naturally skillful.

The formula for Azur Lane, in order of production capacity priority, has become: [Port Romance GLAGAME] + [PVE] + [Racing PVP] + [Main Story].

是 的
You read that right. The most important production task Chu Chen had Yuwan do was to first create a port-themed romance game, and then the subsequent gameplay content. Chu Chen even compressed the main storyline of Azur Lane.

Because a production team's capacity is limited.

As a "new" IP, "Final Battlefront" requires a lot of effort to develop its worldview.

But Azur Lane doesn't need that.

Azur Lane is a ship girl game. In some ways, ship girls are very similar to Touhou Project. Although the original game has no story, a lot of fan-made content makes the world view very complete.

So while Azur Lane does have its main storyline, production capacity, including PVE gameplay, is more important to prioritize.

Chu Chen attaches great importance to the PVE aspect of Azur Lane because this version of Azur Lane retains the complete "large-scale construction" gameplay.

In other words, players can invest a certain proportion of the resources they obtain each day into the "construction pool" to directly acquire characters.

Once you have the large-scale construction feature, the cycle becomes very simple: farm maps, get resources, become stronger, use the large-scale construction feature to get new characters, and continue farming maps. This cycle was the foundation for Kantai Collection's explosive popularity back then.

The monetization aspect of this gameplay is also very clear: it essentially uses "quick construction" as a form of gacha pulls.

On this basis, Chu Chen added the "popular" "guarantee" system: 60 launches in a large-scale construction, and the next large-scale construction will definitely yield a reward.

It also provides a character enhancement system. In addition to characters with the same name, it also retains the logic of using rare items to enhance characters. This logic itself is also linked to the previous dungeon crawling.

Based on this, a feature has been added that increases the drop rate of new characters.

Although it seems that this large-scale construction mode is no different from "Final Frontline", where players can "draw" characters every day, the only difference is that the resources obtained are different resources instead of lottery tickets.

In reality, it's still the same map-clearing logic; a change in one point leads to a change in the entire game system design.

"Is your combat system complete?"

"It's almost finished."

Chu Chen asked the question while clicking "Go to war".

After selecting to embark on the expedition, you will see the nautical chart, which is clearly divided into three color blocks.

The light green area near the continental shelf is marked "shallow sea"; the azure area extending outwards is "nearshore"; and the outermost edge of the map, a deep, almost inky color, represents the "deep sea".

Then, four more directions—east, west, south, and north—form a total of 12 "sea areas."

Each sea area has fixed enemies, which are the story levels, as well as random events, which are the roguelike levels.

Chu Chen randomly selected a sea area, chose to set off, and then entered the formation interface.

The formation interface is designed to be simple and intuitive. On the left are the three slots for the main fleet in the back row, and on the right are the four slots for the vanguard fleet in the front row.

In the back row, he placed Richelieu and Hood, whom he had seen in the port area before. In the last position, he reserved it for an aircraft carrier company employee with white hair reaching his waist.

Battleships, battlecruisers, and aircraft carriers—a classic combination of firepower.

He then placed Laffey and Z23, who had been arguing at the convenience store, into the vanguard fleet.

(End of this chapter)