Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 614 Novelty

Better lighting and shadows, better water rendering, and most importantly, perspective and rotation of scenes in 2D game view.

Ye Feiyang moved the right mouse button, trying to get a better view from a different angle. Typically, in 2.5D games like this, the camera angle is locked, or only allows for limited zooming.

However, in the game's PV, "Star Core Extinguished" demonstrated the rotation function. So, as the mouse was turned, the image on the screen actually rotated in response to the player's movement.

Although the rotation angle is not large, only about 45 degrees to the left and right, it is this limited rotation that immediately brings out the three-dimensionality and depth of the entire scene.

The originally flat scene instantly came to life.

He can see the shadows behind the trees and the textures on the sides of the rocks.

This rotation is different from previous 2.5D games. This technology, called "2.5D+", is a unique feature of the Starry Sky game engine.

It is derived from HD-2D, but it is different from HD-2D.

Unlike many games that use 3D technology and a top-down camera to achieve rotation, Starry Sky 2.5D+ uses 2D pre-rendered textures to ensure extremely high artistic precision and detail, while significantly reducing hardware performance requirements.

However, key interactive objects, such as characters, are modeled using 3D.

Finally, the engine integrates the two together.

It sounds simple, but to implement it, especially to solve a series of problems such as the unification of lighting and shadows, occlusion relationships, and physical collisions between 2D backgrounds and 3D models, the technical difficulty is no less than developing a pure 3D engine from scratch.

So why do we do that?

The answer is actually quite simple. Aside from the pursuit of artistic merit, the biggest advantage is that typical 3D-to-2.5D games still require significant performance on mobile devices.

However, 2.5D+ technology can still deliver the smooth picture quality expected on mainstream mobile phones in 18.

Even the lighting and shadow effects can be maximized because they are pre-rendered textures.

Of course, Ye Feiyang's biggest feeling was that his laptop could easily run at the highest graphics settings, and the unique detail and visual quality of 2D games were presented very well under these settings.

Just as Ye Feiyang was marveling at the scene, the character in the picture slowly moved and struggled to sit up.

A speech bubble appeared above the character's head.

[Water... Am I still alive? My head hurts so much... Where am I?]

As soon as he said that, the mouse appeared on the screen. Ye Feiyang subconsciously clicked the mouse, and the character stood up, staggering before regaining his balance.

Clearly, this is the game's "tutorial".

Sure enough, the classic game control prompts appeared in the center of the screen.

Ye Feiyang controlled his character to turn around in the scene a couple of times. It was a stream at the bottom of a canyon, and a little further up was a waterfall.

Therefore, if the player wants to move, they can only go down.

This is a typical StarCraft game-style tutorial. Although Ye Feiyang doesn't play many single-player games, or rather, the single-player games he does play are mostly StarCraft single-player games.

But I'm still quite familiar with this type of guidance; it gives you an open space, but the path to explore is very clear.

"But what kind of game is this?"

Although the graphics are good, to be honest, StarCraft has made a lot of 2.5D games in recent years, and he is somewhat tired of them. If it weren't for the fact that Star Core Extinction has a relatively novel theme, it would be a different story.

It wasn't an apocalyptic story like "The End of the World" or a martial arts story like "Floating Dreams," otherwise he wouldn't have been so interested.

We walked down the canyon a few steps.

He noticed something flashing in the soil nearby. Moving the mouse over it, a speech bubble quickly appeared above the game character's head: "A strange iron rod. Why is it here? Oh well, maybe it'll come in handy."

Immediately afterwards, the character bent down, picked up the iron bar, and examined it closely.

This craftsmanship suggests that the world's technological level is more advanced than I imagined.

The two sentences appear, although the protagonist's background is not explained.

However, from some details in the dialogue, it can be seen that the protagonist does not seem to be from this world.

"Have I traveled through time?"

Ye Feiyang made a rough guess, but didn't think much of it and just followed the plot.

After obtaining the "weapon," he continued downstream along the stream, and the environment changed from forest to open mudflats.

Just then, a crab the size of half a washbasin suddenly burst out of the sand, brandishing its two huge pincers, and charged menacingly toward the character.

Time noticeably slows down just before an attack is about to hit a character.

The screen indicated that pressing SHIFT would dodge the impact. As Ye Feiyang pressed the corresponding button, the character in the scene dodged the collision with a stylish roll.

"Oh?"

Ye Feiyang raised an eyebrow, starting to show some interest.

This is his ideal beginner's tutorial.

Instead of telling you step-by-step which key to press, the game creates a scenario for you to figure out on your own. After dodging, the game enters the battle interface.

The crab, having failed in its first attack, charged again sideways. This time, Ye Feiyang was prepared and dodged again at the right moment.

The crab's huge claws missed their target and slammed hard into a nearby rock, causing it to dazzle and its head to spin.

opportunity!

Ye Feiyang immediately clicked on the crab, and his character rushed forward, using the iron rod in his hand to frantically pound the crab. The crab struggled a few times and then stopped moving.

Bubbles appeared above the character's head again.

Are crabs this big in this world?! And the oxygen levels didn't seem to be too high. Anyway, this solves my lunch problem.

Then, the character skillfully flipped the crab over and broke off its two legs.

An item pickup notification appears: [Fresh Crab Legs] x2
"Using what's available and being self-sufficient is the first principle of wilderness survival. But... I don't seem to have any fire."

Ye Feiyang smiled.

He was almost certain that the game's scriptwriters were highly skilled.

This well-timed self-talk not only motivates the player's actions but also shapes the protagonist's character in a lighthearted tone.

A guy who's a bit of a chatterbox, extremely adaptable, and whose knowledge base seems a bit odd.

The tutorial itself doesn't have many highlights, but the gameplay is quite enjoyable, mainly because the game offers a strong sense of novelty.

And the further you play, the stronger this feeling becomes.

(End of this chapter)