Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 305: A glimpse of the leopard through the pipe
"Techniques, sects, events, characters—these are all just 'points.' What we need to do is connect these points into 'lines,' and then weave countless lines into a 'net.'"

Chu Chen walked to the whiteboard, erased the scene sketch he had drawn earlier, leaving only the word "Change".

"Remember what I said before, that we're making long-term service-oriented games?"

Chu Chen had actually considered whether to make "Floating Dreams" a gacha game or a single-player game.

His final choice was to develop long-term service-oriented games.

On the one hand, in 17, free-to-play games were still the mainstream, and if they wanted to have a wider reach, they had to lower the barrier to entry for paid games.

Secondly, although the gacha system was heavily criticized in the previous game, in reality, this type of monetization had a very small impact on gameplay.

In games that basically use gacha pools as a "pay-to-win" mechanism, there is a lot of room for creativity, at least in terms of gameplay design.

Because theoretically speaking...

Your core gameplay can be completely independent of the character gacha pool. In other words, many games can still be played without you pulling any characters.

On the other hand, long-term service games have two advantages for "Floating Dreams"—firstly, they greatly shorten the development time.

If we compare game genres to film and television works...

Service-based games are like TV series; once the framework is established, they can be launched directly even before the subsequent content is completed.

Single-player games, on the other hand, are more like movies, requiring the entire story to be filmed from beginning to end.

This is very important to Chu Chen. He has FGO in the Japanese market, but the player base covered by Final Frontier in the domestic market is not enough.

Chu Chen needs "Floating Dream Song" to quickly build up its fighting strength and poach players from the larger pool, just like how "Genshin Impact" in its previous life actually attracted a lot of players from the large MMORPG community.
Of course, besides this "utilitarian" reason, choosing long-term services is also related to the game's framework.

Chu Chen drew an irregular circle on the whiteboard with a pen. Inside the circle were two smaller circles, with the words "Starting Point → Ending Point" written on them.

"The version launched in the public beta is our first version. In this circle, we have a relatively complete main storyline, the Central Plains region as the core explorable area, and enough characters and skills for players to experience and develop."

“But this is just the beginning.”

Chu Chen tapped the tip of his pen outside the circle.

"What lies outside this circle? It's the unknown. It's the region shrouded in the fog of war on the map. The yellow sands of the Western Regions, the dense forests of the Southern Frontier, the fairy islands of the East Sea, the snow-capped mountains of the Northern Border... Players know of these places in the logbook and in the snippets of conversation from NPCs, but they can't go there."

In fact, any player who has played a mainstream sequel would laugh when they see this.

Because Chu Chen's approach is a typical open-world update logic, focusing on one region and one event.

However, "Floating Dreams" is a little different because it "has no main storyline" but only "objectives." For example, in the first version, the player's objective is to kill their "enemy."

In this process.

There will be many events related to this thing, and some key events, but how exactly to kill this enemy, which sect to join, what martial arts to learn, whether to poison, assassinate, or fight one-on-one.

It's the player's own decision.

Simply put, each update of Floating Dream Song consists of a series of events, which players need to connect themselves into a coherent narrative.

This seems very difficult, but the workload has actually been broken down, and since "Floating Dreams" is a 2.5D game, the production costs are much lower than for 3D games. This approach has many advantages.

First, the geographical location can be repeated.

Simply put, even if the main storyline of "Zhongzhou" ends and the player kills an enemy, in future versions, a bunch of event packs can be updated in "Zhongzhou" to change the target and let the player do different things in a familiar place.

Secondly, it fits the game's framework.

Since there are personality options, if players get bored if all the choices in the main storyline are the same, they'll get tired of it.

Finally, the strong sense of purpose leads to higher player motivation.

You're making players go through a 3-hour main storyline just to kill one NPC? Most players will find the story boring, since they'll eventually be able to kill him anyway, so what's the point?

But if you start by telling the player, after the prologue, to kill an NPC on their own, then...

The chapter ends after this one is finished.

Goodness, I reckon most players won't follow the tutorial and do the event quests unless they die a dozen or more times. Even when they're doing the same event, their mental state is completely different.

It's like solving a problem. In traditional linear games, you can't get the result unless you follow the task to the end.

However, in "Floating Dreams and Long Songs", it's quite possible that players will join a sect, learn some skills, and then immediately go to practice against a boss. After completing a few quests, feeling they've learned enough, they'll go practice again.
This initiative may seem no different, but in actual gameplay, it can be a very strong motivator.

Why are roguelike games so addictive? One reason is that roguelike games have a clear objective: everything is for completing the game, and completing the game is everything.

Anyone planning to poison someone would probably have already chosen a gang known for their poisoning skills from the start.
Those who want a one-on-one fight probably went to learn martial arts by now.

In addition, the game can also set up regional events as activities. For example, in a certain version, it is suddenly said that a treasure has appeared in the Western Regions, and players are asked to find it.

When players arrive in the Western Regions, they find that the region is in complete chaos.

In the same Western Regions storyline, players on the 'Upright' path might choose to help the government, 'Benevolent' players might choose to mediate disputes, and 'Free-spirited' players might choose to flirt with dancers.
And players who are 'only myself' might choose to double-cross each other, stealing all the treasures from both the sect and the bandits.

Different choices lead to different endings, unlocking different character relationships and subsequent events, which will increase the level of discussion and replayability exponentially.

Once you complete the objective, the game will determine that you have completed the task and will award you a reward.

The core motivation for players can be to become stronger, experience a new story, meet a new "wife," or learn a cooler set of martial arts.

In this gacha system, it's not true that "you can't play without spending money."

Instead, it's "I'm willing to spend money to have a soulmate on my journey through life, so that I can roam the world more freely and in a way that better matches my imagination."

Of course, these things are easier said than done.

It won't be easy to actually implement, and players can only get a glimpse of what it will ultimately look like from the trailers.

Chu Chen knew very well that for a brand new game, especially one that didn't quite match the current mainstream gameplay, a single trailer was far from enough.

(End of this chapter)