Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 444 Gameplay Cycle
Reimu Hakurei's personality is actually quite endearing.

He may appear lazy, but he is actually reliable.

She usually seems to lack a sense of crisis, spending her days idly at the shrine, either pretending to clean or drinking tea. However, once something happens in Gensokyo, she will not hesitate to step in and resolve it, becoming a reliable guardian of Gensokyo.

He may seem greedy, but he is actually indifferent to wealth.

In various fan-made works, Reimu Hakurei often comes up with all sorts of ways to attract pilgrims, never missing any opportunity to make money.

But essentially she has no concept of the value of money, and she treats everyone the same, neither gentle nor harsh; she is a very simple-minded person.

She gets angry when she's angry and laughs when she's happy, possessing a straightforward and innocent personality.

These qualities are what Touhou Project fans love about Reimu Hakurei, and they are also what the game developers wanted to recreate, such as this repair quest.

In other games, NPCs might just give out quests, but while Reimu Hakurei does give out quests, she asks players to lend a hand instead of making players do it themselves.

Of course, these are only a small part of what Reimu Hakurei's personality is like. In the full version, with the addition of voice acting and as players gradually complete the main story, these traits will become clearer.

Returning to the main storyline of DEMO.

Chu Chen followed Reimu Hakurei to the offering box.

"This is it."

"It was damaged by some little monsters before, and I haven't had time to fix it. You're quite handy, so you can lend a hand."

As soon as the words were spoken, an interactive interface popped up in front of the player character on the game screen.

[Repairing the money box]

【whether】

Chu Chen chose "Yes".

There were no tedious loading screens, nor did the screen simply go black and items disappear. Instead, there was a completely new gameplay interface.

The regular UI disappears, the camera is fully adjusted to face the building, and then a dedicated building interface appears in front of the player.

This interface consists of two parts: a white dotted cross grid and a row of build buttons that pop up at the bottom.

Chu Chen was not surprised by the appearance of this UI.

This system corresponds to another core gameplay element in the "Touhou Gensokyo" project proposal.

"Production and Construction" is a cyclical gameplay of [physical/time input → resource output → resource accumulation → equipment/tool ​​upgrade → efficiency improvement → higher-level resource output].

A quick glance reveals that this is a typical "Harvest Moon" type of repetitive gameplay.

However, Touhou Project is not meant to be a Harvest Moon game. The core purpose of introducing this system is to provide players with direction by laying the groundwork for daily gameplay.

The gameplay design of a 2D game can be very difficult, but it can also be very simple.

Because the system of spending money to draw characters is actually separate from the gameplay system, theoretically, all gameplay elements can be used to showcase the needs of the characters.

This allows it to be integrated into the profit model of anime-style games.

However, the difficulty lies precisely in the fact that all gameplay elements can be integrated, which is why many teams fail to create successful sequels.

Many people say that domestic game developers are bad at making sequels, but in reality, the reason most teams fail at this isn't because they're incapable of making sequels, but because they simply can't make games properly.
Many domestic teams, without the traditional MMORPG concepts of "numerical pay-to-win," "PVP," and "social interaction," simply don't know how to make games.

Even when copying, they can't do it properly.
How do you determine if a second-tier gamer can survive?
The simplest way is to remove the gacha system and focus solely on the gameplay itself – can it keep players engaged and entertained? Looking at it this way, those games featuring Bao Si (a character from a Chinese folktale) are basically uninteresting because Bao Si herself isn't a fun character.
The same applies to Touhou Gensokyo. When Chu Chen decided to go for daily gameplay, in addition to defining how players should interact with the characters, he also...

Another problem to solve is how to get players to "be willing to play the daily gameplay".

Players are very realistic.

Many anime-style games in the past had production elements, but since the core combat power improvement from gacha is characters and exclusive weapons, these production elements were basically considered "unplayable even by a dog".

But the problem is.

For a game that requires long-term operation, it will be very tiring to develop if you don't have a gameplay loop.

The only option is to keep investing resources into the main storyline, putting all your bets on it. But if the main storyline collapses, the game's revenue will drop drastically.

Chu Chen attaches great importance to the main storyline and the plot.

But as I said before, a game needs to be fun first in order to last.

In Touhou Gensokyo: Paradise, players take on the role of someone who accidentally wanders into Gensokyo and must survive and find their way home.

In the main storyline, he followed Reimu Hakurei through various incidents, such as the Crimson Mist Incident, the Spring Snow Incident, and the Eternal Night Incident. He experienced all the incidents that existed in the original work.

at the same time.

Players will also need to settle down in Gensokyo.

In the game, the development team has prepared different foundations for players, each with different unlocking requirements. The main gameplay outside the main storyline of Touhou Gensokyo is character interaction.

Therefore, the task of building houses is actually part of the character interaction.

As the main storyline progresses, building materials will be provided, allowing players to have a "rough house," though this rough house might only be slightly better than a wooden box.

To truly build a home of your own, players need to complete various production elements: farming, logging, brewing wine, earning money, fighting monsters, and socializing.
It can be said that a house is the "center" of all gameplay elements in Touhou Gensokyo.

This includes a gacha system.

In addition to encountering characters on the world map and building up their affinity, players can also enjoy a "cohabitation" system in the game. Players can build a character's private bedroom and invite the character to live there.

Whether a game is fun and whether it provides a sense of purpose are very important.

After players farm, the items they obtain can be used to make dishes for use in battle. This motivates players to keep farming in order to ensure that they can eat top-quality dishes made from rare materials that increase attack power by 100% or even 1000% in high-difficulty dungeons.

Players can craft various dungeons into furniture that increases the coziness of their homes, allowing cohabiting residents to quickly improve their affection for each other.

Wait, wait, wait...
How to make these resources circulate within the game is a complex issue.

[Contact the character (Reimu) → Collect the required materials (wood) → Complete the required materials (gained through battle) → Unlock affinity (submit items) → Submit resources (repair the shrine) → New requirements are generated (other future requests) → Unlock higher affinity levels]

This demo perfectly connects the four systems of combat, gathering, building, and social interaction, and makes them all serve the core goal of "building bonds with characters".

Every action a player takes is not isolated.

The trees were cut down to build a shrine, and building the shrine was to increase Reimu's affection for her. Increasing affection would unlock more story content and interactions.

It can be said that the current demo of "Touhou Gensokyo" has presented a framework, and it is a framework that looks relatively feasible.

(End of this chapter)