Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 48 Gameplay
Micro Era is a single-player game, roughly the same size as its predecessor, Frostpunk.

In this game, players need to start from the first micro-era, learn about it, and build the micro-era themselves.

Based on this requirement, although the game adopts the framework of a simulation construction game, the core gameplay is not entirely focused on the simulation construction project.

As the decision-maker in the micro-era, players need to handle three things.

These three things correspond to the three gameplay modes in the game.

First, there is the city's construction system.

This is the most basic simulation building gameplay.

Secondly, there is the propaganda of the Micro Era.

In the game's setting, to enhance gameplay, before unlocking the final technology, the player's population growth mainly comes from the shrinking of macro-humans. In other words, players need to use propaganda to get more macro-humans to voluntarily join the micro-era.

Thirdly, there is diplomacy and warfare.

Diplomacy involves dealing with the Hongren government, while combat mainly focuses on the expedition gameplay.

These three core gameplay elements also show that the focus of the entire game, Micro Era, is not entirely on simulation and construction.

The entire game's design plan uses levels as its starting point.

Just like The Wandering Earth, from the construction and ignition of the planetary engine to the various stories in between, the time span of each event is actually quite large.

In movies, this kind of leap is achieved by jumping directly through a single line of subtitles.

However, in the project proposal for the game "Micro Era", the idea is to use levels to slice out different micro eras.

Players can experience the entire process of the Micro Era from its establishment, development, and growth, to its eventual takeover of the Macro People, its escape from crisis, and finally, its meeting with the last Macro People.

Traditional level-based design is not actually a very good fit for simulation management games.

Because simulation management games offer a sense of accomplishment, a feeling of watching a city slowly develop and improve, with roads going from congested to smooth, the economy becoming more and more prosperous, and more and more new buildings appearing in the city.

In short, many small things add up to something great.

Under this model, there are very few simulation games that can create well-designed levels.

Because players know that the levels will end, many simulation game players often head straight to sandbox mode when playing the game.

So how does Chu Chen's "Micro Era" address this issue, or rather, what methods are used to attract players to play the levels?
The answer is actually very simple.

variable.

The biggest difference between Micro Era and traditional simulation building games lies in its time span.

In the project proposal, Chu Chen also expressed that the focus would be on delving into the details of each segment level in order to provide players with enjoyment.

For example, the first level.

The earliest micro-era cities were built in laboratories, and their scale was only one-thousandth of the original scale, hence the term "micro-era."

There is interaction between micro-level researchers and a large number of macro-level researchers.

Players can switch between three perspectives of the city: a free view from a fixed point on the map, such as focusing on cars or pedestrians.

While it's impossible to control cars and pedestrians, you can focus your perspective on them.

Secondly, there's the classic building perspective used in normal gameplay, which is the top-down perspective of a typical simulation management game.

Finally, there's the macro perspective.

In the first level, this macro perspective will shift the viewpoint to that of human researchers. From this perspective, the city built by the player will resemble a world seen through tilt-shift photography.

It looks extremely small yet incredibly realistic.

In this level, players will experience what sets Micro Era apart from all other city-building simulation games: the "Visual Wonders" system that runs throughout the entire Micro Era game.

The first level presents two distinct visual spectacles. One is that during the construction process, players will encounter complaints from residents demanding the enactment of legislation.

The bill prohibits humans from entering laboratories. The reason for these complaints is that observations from the macroscopic world can have a profound psychological impact on humans living in the micro-era.

Imagine if, from time to time, a pair of eyes that blot out the sky would appear above your city and stare at you—this kind of "visual spectacle" would be truly amazing.

Secondly, at the very beginning of the Micro Era, in order to facilitate city construction, the Macro People would directly use their hands to transport resources to the vicinity of the city.

Even to the micro-human, this action was quite oppressive.

These massive external objects directly impact the "happiness" and "work efficiency" of the micro-individuals.

Even at the very beginning, there was a guaranteed event that would be triggered in the first level.

In other words, players need to cooperate with Hongren to film promotional videos for "Micro Era." During this process, Chu Chen also wrote a "mini-story."

A reporter accidentally turned on the flash while taking a photo.

This led to a minor "flash" crisis in the entire Micro-Era world.

all in all.

In the game "Micro Era", mood is a very important metric.

Especially in the first stage, the resources were almost entirely provided by the macro-man.

Players need to build "psychological counseling centers," establish numerous recreational facilities to alleviate residents' emotional stress, and negotiate with the Macroman government to enact relevant legislation to mitigate external influences on the Micro Era.

Of course, the first level of the game won't only show the bad side; it will also show the good side.

For example, in the initial micro-world, players obtain resources by directly acquiring materials from the human world, but the human world is produced according to the macro-world.

Therefore, a sugar cube in the laboratory becomes a sugar mountain waiting to be mined for the micro-humans.

A small piece of bread is enough to sustain the entire community's food supply for several days.

There are also some amusement facilities that can only be built by scaling them down.

In addition, during this phase, the Micro-Era City needs to work with humanity to conduct many tests, which are also one of the game's objectives.

We've reached the second stage.

The Micro-Era City will be built in the wild, starting from the laboratory, to test the possibility of reconstruction after a disaster.

During this phase, the entire game environment changes completely.

The gameplay has also become more diverse. Players can no longer receive direct material support from the people, but instead need to organize "expeditions" to search for resources within nature.

They built factories and began to be self-sufficient.

The fun for players at this stage lies in how to cleverly transform "resources" in the macro world into valuable resources in the micro world.

This process of turning waste into treasure is full of creative pleasure.

Meanwhile, they left the laboratory and went to the field.

Some new challenges have emerged, as players need to build a canopy to defend against "outside enemies" such as birds, as well as various "severe weather" such as giant raindrops, hail, and so on.

For micro-people who need to go out and explore.

Even if they possess firearms, on a scale of one in a thousand, the world is still quite dangerous.

In addition, as mentioned before, the gameplay of Micro Era is not just about building.

The core data of the game, namely population growth, depends on persuading macro people to voluntarily shrink.

Before the global crisis has truly arrived, attracting macro-humans to abandon everything and start anew in the micro-era is no easy task.

In the game, this data is also included in the requirements for clearing game levels.

(End of this chapter)