Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 379 Different paths lead to the same destination

The most captivating aspect of the Werewolf game is that players can use this information to deduce, reverse, frame, and lie.
Therefore, as long as the game can provide this mechanism, whether or not one has an identity is actually irrelevant.

In the gameplay of "FGO Assassination," in order to enhance player engagement and lower the barrier to deduction, all the Servants who appear have different skills when they belong to different factions.

For example, when Artoria is in the (good) faction, she has the skill [Intuition]: 60-second cooldown, which can sense whether there are corrupted Servants (wolves) nearby (range hint, not named).
For example, when Medea is in the (wolf) faction, she has the skill [Territory Creation]: she can place "magic traps" in the corners of the map. Players who step on them are unaware of the traps, but Medea will share their vision.

When players are in a third-party faction, they can freely choose to use either good guy skills or bad guy skills based on their final identity as a "survivor/evil spirit".

This whole set of skills looks very complicated.

However, in reality, after playing a couple of games and going through the tutorial, you can get a basic understanding of several heroes.

Ultimately, a hero only has two skills, and those skills switch depending on the faction.

In the beginning, the standard version only had 9 Servants to choose from. After using a Servant twice, you would be completely familiar with their skills.

While Yanchuan was still giving his presentation, Chu Chen had already put down his pen and then gently tapped the table.

"Yanchuan," Chu Chen suddenly spoke, interrupting his demonstration.

"Hi!"

Yosuke Shiokawa almost instinctively stood at attention, thinking that something had gone wrong with his demonstration.

"You just said that the core of our approach is 'providing reasoning information' and 'lowering the barrier to entry,' right?"

"Yes."

“In traditional Werewolf games, identity is everything. Seer, Witch, Hunter… the functions of these identities are clear and explicit. Once players are given an identity, they know what they should do, and the information chain is more direct. Why should we replace it with a more complex ‘Heroic Spirit Skill’ system?”

The fact that Chu Chen asked this question clearly indicates that it wasn't because he didn't know the answer.

After all, this "Heroic Spirit Skills" system was the core framework that Chu Chen proposed when he initiated the project.

But the framework is just a framework; the actual filling and refinement of the details were all done by the Japanese team led by Shiokawa. What Chu Chen wanted to hear now was how deep their understanding of this core design was.

Shiokawa clearly knew that Chu Chen was testing his thinking on game design.

"Our team has also had in-depth discussions about this issue."

“We believe that traditional identity systems, while classic, have several inherent problems, especially when porting them to the FGO IP and mobile platform.”

“First, the ‘experience penalty’ for newbies is too heavy.” Shiokawa organized his thoughts. “In traditional Werewolf, if a newbie gets a key role, such as the Seer, and if he speaks poorly on the first day or makes a mistake in checking people, he can easily be identified by the werewolves and eliminated first.”

"This will not only cause him to have almost no sense of participation in the entire game and feel extremely frustrated, but it will also cause other players to collapse as well."

Players who have played Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm know that often, a player's frustration doesn't stem from their own actions, especially in "cooperative games" like this.

The reason why "Heroes of the Storm" had a wildly popular start was that it ended with Bao Si (a character from a Chinese novel).

Because *Heroes of the Storm* emphasizes teamwork so much, if there's even one incompetent player on the team, it's basically game over. This is also reflected in *Werewolf*, where if a crucial role falls to a novice, the game is practically a "blood pressure game."

To some extent, this is one of the reasons why the original version of "Werewolf" did not become mainstream.

"Our skills system allows almost everyone to form their own chain of positive and negative reasoning."

"Secondly, there is the issue of the user's sense of immersion in the IP."

Shiokawa's speaking speed gradually increased, clearly indicating that he had gotten into the flow.

"The core appeal of FGO lies in its Servants. If we simply use the roles of 'Seer' and 'Witch,' are players actually playing FGO, or just a reskinned version of Werewolf?"

"When a player chooses Joan of Arc, and then you tell them that she's a 'witch' this game, isn't that a bit jarring?"

"But now, Jeanne is in the pseudo-Heroic Spirit camp. Her skill is [Dragon Witch], which can designate a player and have their votes anonymously invalidated in the next vote."

"This not only fits the 'witch' setting of Jeanne Alter, but also serves to interfere with the voting process, making the sense of immersion completely different."

"Third, and most importantly, it is to create the possibility of 'dynamic game'."

“Traditional identities are fixed; a prophet is always a prophet. But in our system, the same heroic spirit has different skills in different factions.”

"Let's take Joan of Arc as an example again. When she belongs to the (good guys) camp, her skill is [Revelation]. Before each round of meetings, in addition to her own vote, she can also cast an extra vote for another player."

"But if she is assigned to the (werewolf) camp, she becomes Jeanne d'Arc Alter, and her skill becomes [Dragon Witch], which can invalidate other people's votes."

"Since everyone has skills and provides too much information, in order to balance the difficulty of the werewolf, the voting in FGO Killing uses anonymous votes. So how Jeanne uses her skills, how she speaks during the voting process, and how she uses her speech to uncover the other party's identity are all very important things."

"This uncertainty is the core of dynamic game theory, which forces players to shift from 'identity logic' to 'behavioral logic'."

Chu Chen nodded, signaling him to continue.

Seeing Chu Chen nod, Yan Chuan felt even more confident. It was just like seeing the teacher nod during an exam; it gave him confidence and made him more assertive when he spoke.

"Fourth, it is for the long-term operation and commercialization of the model."

"The identity system is closed; there are only a few identities, making it difficult to expand. But the Heroic Spirit Skill System is open."

"FGO has hundreds of Servants, and new Servants will continue to be introduced in the future."

"For each new hero, we can design unique skills for him under different factions."

"This means that the FGO Killing mode can continuously add new characters, new gameplay, and new strategies as the game itself is updated, thus maintaining its freshness and vitality for a long time."

"Furthermore, the hero's skin can also be used in this mode. If a player buys a skin, they can use it not only in the regular mode but also in this system, thus increasing the skin's value."

(End of this chapter)