Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 557 Star Ring Route
"Ah, yes, that's basically it."

He adjusted his glasses, seemingly organizing his thoughts.

"Actually... actually, we didn't have a direction at the beginning either."

“When I watched the Star Carnival, Mr. Chen said that he wanted to support developers, so I went to the developer forum to take a look.”

"What impressed me most was a point that Mr. Chen mentioned in the 'project initiation': 'Emotional value first.' He said that today's players don't lack games, but they lack the emotional connection they can find in games."

"Therefore, when starting a project, don't first think about 'what gameplay I want to create,' but rather 'what kind of emotional experience I want to bring to the players.'"

~~~
As Liu Yu said in an interview, many people who analyzed why Star Horizon was successful found that the game is a very standard "Star Framework" game.

The so-called space opera sounds high-class, right?

Essentially, it's just taking the core framework of the StarCraft: Final Frontline storyline and moving it into space.

Players take on the role of the captain of a ship called "Far Star," who leads a group of beautiful female crew members on a journey through space in search of a legendary home called "Terra."

It's a classic wasteland wandering template, only this time the yellow sand and wasteland have been replaced with a vast starry sky.

In terms of gameplay, they drew inspiration from Clash Royale.

At the start of the battle, the player's fleet is on the left side of the screen, the enemy is on the right, and the vast starry battlefield is in the middle.

The beautiful girls in the game are not ordinary people, but "navigators" with special abilities.

Different navigators have different skills, such as 'Main Gun Overload', 'Energy Shield', and 'Emergency Evasion' (of course, they are not called these in the game; for example, Main Gun Overload could be called Sirius's Fury or something similar).

Together with the player's basic deck, they form the player's hand. There is an energy bar at the bottom of the screen that automatically regenerates over time. The stronger the command card, the more energy it consumes.

Players can simply drag the command card onto their own ship or onto an enemy to activate it immediately.

Simple, fast, and perfectly suited for mobile phone screens.

Furthermore, since the characters don't actually need to appear in the game, and only character card animations are required, the development team of "Starship Troopers" focused their efforts on this.
The card animations for these characters are quite beautiful.

Liu Yu explained why he did this during the interview.

"As Mr. Chen once said, in addition to gameplay, 'performance' is also very important in the core of battles in anime card games."

"After players draw a character, they often want to experience the character's direct feedback in battle. This... in Mr. Chen's description, is called 'value visualization'."

The most basic explanation of "value visualization" is the wings in traditional MMORPGs.
However, selling wings in anime-style games is just too low-class.

For example, in the game "Starship Route," there's a command card called "All Ships Fire." Its effect is simple: it increases all damage for a period of time.

This is a normal skill. If it's just a buff icon flashing above the fleet's head, then this card and the character behind it, even if they're marked as SSR, won't excite players.

The approach taken by "Starship Troopers" is to add animations to the cards. When a player plays a card, a silver-haired girl with a cool and aloof demeanor wearing a white naval uniform will appear on the screen.

The camera first focuses on a close-up of her hands, her white-gloved fingers gently tapping the control panel.

Then the camera zooms out, and she stands up, places one hand on the table, leans slightly forward, and waves the other hand forward, giving an order in an emotionless tone.

Then, the camera pans upwards, sweeping over her straight legs, the hem of her skirt fluttering slightly with her movements.
What is value visualization? It's the special effects of Naruto's character ultimate skills, the increasingly revealing skins in Azur Lane, and even the individual character stories in Final Frontline.
Everything that makes players feel emotional changes is part of the character's value.

Chu Chen has repeatedly mentioned these things in interviews and when participating in variety shows.

In Chu Chen's opinion, *Starship Troopers* is at best a 70-point product, because players will eventually get tired of this kind of character presentation style after the initial novelty wears off. However, the game's theme is very well chosen; soft science fiction has no competing products in China, and it also has a sense of novelty.

With a bit of luck, it wouldn't be surprising if "Star Ring Route" succeeded.

The problem is, Chu Chen can figure this out.

That doesn't mean others can figure it out too. To be honest, by 18...

Seeing the success of Xingchen's new game on the internet, most people, including Xu Menglu, are no longer primarily driven by envy as they were two years ago.

More than anything, it evokes admiration and respect.

Just as many people are envious of Tencent's continued success, there are some who are jealous, but definitely not many.

The stars are the same at this moment.

Two years have passed, and StarCraft's enormous size and continuous success have made people feel that StarCraft's success is a normal thing, something that others cannot learn from or be envious of.

To put it bluntly, ordinary game companies don't even have the right to be jealous of StarCraft.

But Starlink is different.

The success of this game is truly exhilarating.

So, while Starship Troopers only had a minor hit among players during that period, it was a major upheaval within the gaming industry.

The last few working days before the Lunar New Year have become a "Starry Night Learning Week" for major game companies.

Tencent, NetEase, and Wanmei—basically any well-known game company—almost half of the game industry professionals were required to report on their work during that period.
The servers of the Starry Sky Games Developer Forum were overwhelmed.

Originally a forum serving only the Starry Sky Games Alliance and some independent developers, its visitor count surged by nearly 500% within 72 hours, not just 100%.
The backend operations and maintenance personnel, seeing the almost vertically rising access curve, initially thought it was a DDoS attack.

Due to the sudden surge in server load, the forum administrator had to urgently post a pinned announcement: "Due to a surge in traffic, the server is experiencing fluctuations. We are urgently expanding capacity. Developers are requested to visit the site during off-peak hours."

This announcement was quickly screenshotted and forwarded to various game developer communities, especially among independent game developers, where the screenshot became a cause for celebration.

"Hahaha! I can't laugh anymore! The big companies have finally remembered to read the instruction manuals?"

"Just a couple of days ago, a friend from Tencent asked me where the forum entrance was. I thought he was going to switch jobs and come to our small workshop."

"The person upstairs is narrow-minded. They're here on official business to learn, and they have to write a report when they get back."

“I remember last year a planning director from NetEase said on Zhihu that the guide was ‘the poor man’s bible and the rich man’s toilet paper.’ I wonder if he’s found the toilet paper yet?”

For most independent developers in China, Starry Sky is somewhat like a cherished ideal.

From the earliest investments in the Star Project, to Star Tap, to the Star Game Platform, many independent game developers in China have benefited.

His feelings for Xingchen might be even deeper than those of the employees at Xingchen headquarters.
As for Chu Chen's development guidelines, they were among the earliest practitioners and beneficiaries.

Now, seeing those big company employees who once scoffed at this guide now frantically rushing in to "catch up," it feels like watching the good students who always listened attentively in class, while the rich kids who usually skipped class are frantically copying their notes before the final exam.

Besides gloating, there was also a great deal of exhilarating satisfaction.

(End of this chapter)