I just want players to save money, but I was made the richest man

On a sunny afternoon, "Hollow Knight" was quietly released on the official website of Ready Player One.

Although Ready Player One has also done some pre-promotion for "Hollow Knight", compared with the previous FPS game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds".

"Hollow" feels more like a stepmother's child, focusing on moisturizing things silently.

Except for die-hard fans who pay special attention to Ready Player One, many casual players don't even know that Ready Player One has released a new game.

However, players will be players.

The major game manufacturers are still closely following the trends of the number one company and are very concerned about it.

As a rising star game company with high performance and high performance, the talent of Ke Jin, the company's president and chief designer, can only be described as terrifying.

The type of fantasy!

Wonderful and wonderful gameplay!

Fascinating plot!

He can do some very cool little games.

He also has a deep grasp of player psychology.

The drama genre that has been abandoned by many manufacturers can regain its vitality in his hands.

Even if it's a card-drawing game that's so popular that it's a bit boring, he can still play it well.

On the FPS track that the giant Netcom suppressed.

With "Jedi", he created the history of the Blue Star gaming circle, allowing players who had always been scattered before to show amazing cohesion for the first time!

And what's even scarier is.

A game designer who has accomplished so many feats in the industry in one fell swoop.

He is not an old man who has been on the battlefield for a long time and has reached an octogenarian age.

On the contrary, he is young!

But at the age of 23, he is even more prime than his prime!

His future is bright!

therefore.

The news that "Hollow Knight" was released instantly exploded in the industry.

All manufacturers, big and small, rushed to buy this game immediately.

And analysis starts from the CG stage.

Even a behemoth like Tengjing Game established a special research group after the success of "Jedi".

Appointed Bao Jingbi, who has extensive experience in game design and is now the game director of one of his company's large-scale online games, "Legend of Blood".

Let’s take a closer look at Hollow Knight

See if there are any redeeming qualities.

Then take it and use it yourself.

Originally, before the designer Ke Jin was born.

The reputation of a talented designer has always been firmly held by Bao Jingbi.

Although he is not the originator of the card drawing school, he can definitely be regarded as the initiator who carried it forward.

The desire reflection principle of the Skinner box has been improved, and the game is advocated for fragmented play, and the lottery mechanism has also been dismantled into pieces.

You must get skin fragments 10 times, you can re-obtain the characters you already own, but no additional uses are given, and you must purchase major holiday gift packs, otherwise you will never be able to unlock the full experience of the game.

The game we are currently working on, "Legend of Blood", was originally only a mid-level game in Teng Jing's hands.

After passing through his hands, a new "siege war" mechanism was added to the game. During the siege war, there is a chance that the equipment will be dropped after the death of the rich man, and can be picked up by other players.

In order to protect the weapons they spent money to build, wealthy players need to purchase large amounts of [anti-explosion talismans]. Anti-explosion talismans are not 100% anti-drop. They also have enhanced levels. Once the enhanced levels are completed, they will fail and return to zero instantly.

In order to be able to explode the boss's heavy krypton weapon and sell it on the market, civilian players will also spend a lot of money to buy [detonating talisman]. The higher the enhancement level of the detonating talisman, the higher the probability of exploding the boss's weapon. Likewise, After strengthening to a certain extent, there will be a probability of returning to zero.

This kind of "using equipment built by rich people with money as a gimmick, and then using it to trigger a war between rich people and common people" can't even be called a white wolf with empty hands.

If you have empty hands, at least you still have two hands.

He has nothing, it belongs to the original nothing, what do you want to do.

This set of operations that stirred up people's desires also instantly made "Legend of Blood" gain momentum and become a regular in the top ten of Tengjing's game list.

Whether he is a genius designer in the gamer world is debatable.

But at least in the eyes of the company, he has made the game revenue hit new highs, and he is absolutely valued.

But now.

When the company's top management meets every three days to discuss.

But he didn't like hearing what he said.

These senior executives have been asking each other recently, "What are the designers doing?" and "How would the designers think?"

Forget it.

What was even more difficult for Bao Jingbi to accept.

The higher-ups actually asked me to lead a small team to analyze the new game "Hollow Knight" to see what was worthy of plagiarism.

Bao Jingbi broke through his defense instantly.

nausea!

So disgusting!

What is my identity, Bao Jingbi?

What kind of rotten fish is he, Ke Jin?

All the games he has developed now are all piled together, and even Liu Shui can't touch half of "Legend of Blood", which he is currently mainly responsible for.

Not to mention those large-scale online games that I was responsible for before.

You want me to study him?

This gave Bao Jingbi the feeling that as a top student in his class who had always been top-notch, he was used to praise and praise, and then one day suddenly a transfer student came into the class, and the teacher asked him to study the transfer student's composition. , look at what other transfer students write.

I'll learn from your mother!

Do you really think that you can show off your power by smashing the "War of Destruction" of Netcom?

"War of Destruction" was not originally a popular work on Netcom, so there is nothing worth bragging about.

If you don't believe it, why don't you ask him to try to pull down "Tintin Tornado" from Net News?

Can he? He can't do it! You know he doesn't have this ability!

Even though I feel disgusted in my heart.

But when the board of directors issued a decision, he, a mere game director, didn’t have the guts to say, ‘I don’t! ’

Then just take a look.

Called the members of the special team and played the CG of "Hollow Knight" in the conference room.

As soon as he saw the picture, Bao Jingbi immediately laughed.

What the hell is this...

Did you put all the cartoons here for me?

Your talents are exhausted, right?

And it’s the kind of animation that’s drawn towards younger children.

The characters inside are far from exquisite, and are even minimalist, outlined by a few line drawings.

The battle scenes that flashed quickly in the CG were even more rudimentary on the screen.

There are no cool and eye-catching special effects, nor a wide variety of weapons to choose from.

The protagonist, who looks like a skeleton knight, only has a gleaming nail weapon from beginning to end.

What about tricks?

Your game has no tricks. How do you attract players and stand out from the many competing games?

And it’s not difficult to tell from the short CG.

This is an action-breaking game.

This couldn't help but make Bao Jingbi laugh even more.

"Director Bao, why are you laughing..." The employees didn't know why.

My director seemed to be in a bad mood today, but after seeing this CG, he seemed to be extremely happy.

Bao Jingbi turned off the screen projection and smiled.

"The moment I laughed, the designer has no ideas but thinks he is arrogant. He always wants to make the type of game he thinks is based on his own weird ideas. I'm afraid he's going to overturn this time."

"Looking at this CG, it is full of loopholes. I can boldly declare that the life of this game has ended."

The employees looked at each other.

ah?

This game has just been released...

Is this the end?

Bao Jingbi said again.

"If I was the one to make this game, aside from other things, I would definitely pay attention to the details in terms of action performance. There are so many action design guides in the department that are not just for free."

"But look at his performance in the CG just now."

"Monotonous, boring, and unified moves. In the multiple BOSS battle scenes that flashed, the character controlled by the player made one movement from beginning to end, slashing forward. Then he added a few small skills to death, and then it was gone. ."

"If it were you, would you play such an action game?"

After saying this, the employees fell into thinking.

Although Director Bao seemed a bit arrogant in his words, his analysis seemed to be reasonable.

Action games on Blue Star are considered a minor category.

Mainly because it was swept away by the fighting style derived from it.

In order to distinguish themselves from fighting games, action games have begun to take a different approach during the past 20 years of development.

It has gradually moved towards a hard-core genre with the core of "complex settings, fancy attack methods, and multiple parts of the character that can be moved and attacked".

Although it has abandoned some threshold players, it has also gained support from some niche hardcore fans.

As a result, it has taken deep root in Blue Star's game market.

You might say it's unpopular, but that's okay.

But if you want to say that no one plays it, that’s not true.

Furthermore, the money-making methods of action games are among the best on Blue Star.

For multiple attack parts such as hands, elbows, legs, fingers, palms, and heads, you can spend money to extract high-level armor or emblems, allowing players to enjoy the pleasure of big numbers.

Over time, players have become accustomed to the positioning of action games.

That is - a multi-body attack method of the hardcore genre + big numbers and extremely cool skill performances + a variety of krypton gold system = action type

The current promotional CG for "Hollow Knight" reveals shabbiness and poverty everywhere, with a single move and a simple style of painting.

Forget about the action genre, if you throw it into the fighting game next door, fighting game players will have to hold their noses and walk away.

"It seems that this is indeed the case..."

"Just looking at this CG doesn't really arouse my desire to play."

"Then do we still want to experience the actual content of this game?"

The employees were discussing in low voices.

Bao Jingbi said decisively: "Have you finished your own work? You should seize the time to do your part of the work. I will take care of it for you. I will just write an analysis report to the superiors later. .”

Hearing this, the employees were immediately delighted.

They are temporarily drawn from various departments in the company.

But there is no shortage of work that should be done at hand.

If I took the time to play this game from beginning to end, I would have to be busy at get off work after work.

Now someone is telling the truth, and one or two people stand up one after another.

"Thank you, Director Bao, we will go back first."

"Thank you Mr. Bao."

After all the employees left, Bao Jingbi also turned off the experience machine nearby.

I picked up a report form and wrote something casually.

The general idea is that after in-depth experience and discussion among the group members, the game "Hollow Knight" is lackluster and its advantages are not obvious. It is true that it is a sincere work of Ready Player One, but blah blah blah, what is written next? Jingbi even forgot about it.

Anyway, you can't be stupid and brazen. Just give it a few compliments to make it look more real.

What?

What if "Hollow" takes off and I'm held accountable by my superiors?

Stop being funny.

The company has held dozens to hundreds of research seminars like this in recent years.

After each game becomes popular, the company will conduct corresponding research and analysis.

There are no less than ten meetings that he has led alone.

Every time I have a venomous vision, as long as I say something to the game, no one can get over it.

I've made it this far without having anything real. Do you really think I'm here to embarrass "The Hollow"?

See it through your own eyes.

The game "Hollow" is also certain to die.

At best, they can only gain support from their die-hard fans.

But this little bit of flowing water is unlikely to attract the attention of its own board of directors.

Therefore, he does not need to worry about his leadership discovering that he cut corners on the analysis report.

Anyway, judging from the results, they all died suddenly, and it doesn't matter how they died suddenly.

"Let me learn from him?"

"Oh, he's pretty much the same as me." Putting down his pen, Bao Jingbi said proudly with a bit of contempt.

————

"Okay, dear viewers, friends, and employees, this is the game live broadcast of "Hollow Knight", a new game produced by Ready Player One, brought to you by Wang Laoju Live Broadcast." He opened his mouth as if he was eager to pay back the rental. Wang Laoju, after starting the live broadcast, prayed at the speed of light and directly clicked on the homepage of the official website of the number one player.

During the more than half a year of its operation, this company was as productive as a sow, producing high-quality products frequently.

The massively multiplayer FPS online game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" developed last month even sold 4 million copies in the first month, kicking open the door to a "great success".

The company has also moved up a level with "Jedi" and is now an A-level game company.

There were only a few hundred or thousands of fans at the beginning, but now the number of players who just follow the official website to receive first-hand information has exceeded one million!

Wang Laoju is also a member of the watch list.

As soon as he received the news that "Hollow Knight" would be released, he launched it at light speed.

A large number of water friends began to gather in the live broadcast room in just a few minutes.

"Hello, Chairman."

"Die, it's so early today?"

"Damn it! Is this company releasing a new game? Even the pigs in the production team don't dare to do this..."

“Why is Gravograph a god!”

"In less than a year, seven games were released... Except for the original "Origin of Species" because the base was too small, the other six games were all high-quality products. "Jedi" is even known as a masterpiece, and the new game is a masterpiece. what type?"

"Quick, quick! Bring it here! I'm going to starve to death!!"

Under the discussion of the barrages.

Wang Laoju also quickly clicked on download and installation, and glanced at the game type introduction.

Action game.

The combination of free single-player + in-app purchases is not uncommon on Blue Star.

Not long after, the installation was completed, under the urging of the barrages.

Wang Laoju clicked on the game interface.

The opening UI that comes into view is a dark and deep interface.

The four block letters of "Hollow Knight" are displayed right at the top of the screen. Different from the dark background, the fonts are bright white, and fluorescent special effects are also added, making it look like it exudes a faint light.

As if fighting against the darkness behind.

The piano background music also played soothingly at this moment, but the tune was sad and hollow, and every note struck seemed to be telling someone's past.

After Wang Laoju pressed the [Start Game] button.

The start UI fades away, and a paragraph gradually appears on the black screen.

"In the distant wilderness, they are full of awe and regret when you mention your name.

No one can tame our wild souls, and you accepted the challenge

Under the paleest gaze, you teach, we change, our instincts are redeemed

You have given bugs and beasts a world they never dreamed of

————From "Elegy of Hallownest", written by teacher Monomon. "

Soon, the opening monologue subtitles disappeared.

The opening CG is presented.

In a dark room, something bound by multiple chains was hung high and sealed in mid-air.

The shape of the body seemed to come from some kind of arthropod insect.

But the chain of imprisonment seems to be worn out, and the body used to seal something has also burst out with many cracks, and orange light is constantly seeping out from it, as if it will be released from the seal at any time.

And the camera lens turned.

The next moment, the camera zoomed out.

Next to a desolate and abandoned house made of snail shells, a small anthropomorphic beetle that looks like a double-jawed stag beetle is walking slowly at the far end of the camera. On its white skull, there are no facial features, only A pair of dark and empty eye sockets.

It carries a handful of sharp bone nails with a cold texture on its back, and is wrapped in a windbreaker. The tail of the windbreaker is broken and swaying in the wind, which seems to be a metaphor that it has been wandering and practicing for a long time.

After a few steps, its footsteps stopped at the edge of a tall and steep cliff.

He raised his head and looked to the farthest distance in silence.

This composition is filled with a lot of gray and black depressing colors.

As far as the eye can see, thousands of lights are shining.

As if guiding it there.

The next moment, the nameless little knight jumped off the cliff.

At this time, the role control rights are also handed over to the players.

Wang Laoju, who had been silent for a long time, finally spoke when she saw the CG scene ended.

"This game seems to be a world view from the perspective of a bug, and I quite like the simple style of the painting."

"There is an indescribable refreshing and clean feeling."

As he spoke, the little knight had already landed.

Wang Laoju controlled the little knight, followed the novice guidance integrated into the background, and began to explore the gameplay.

What surprised Wang Laoju was.

Although this game is advertised as an action genre.

He was even ready to spend half an hour thinking about the order of various moves.

The result was experienced in three minutes.

Just a few buttons.

The left and right sides are for movement, and the top side is for interaction and dialogue.

Jump, long press the jump button to jump higher, click it to jump short.

Then comes the attack.

The little knight quickly pulled out the bone nail from his back and slashed forward.

Then……

Then it was gone.

Wang Laoju was shocked.

Does this game really pursue the ultimate refreshing feeling?

The graphics are clean and the moves are single.

Isn't this a bit inappropriate in an action game category that is known for being hard-core, where you can't even understand the moves without memorizing the moves?

But since it’s already open, let’s experience it first.

Putting aside his thoughts, he looked at the camera and said.

"Okay staff, it took me 3 minutes and I have completely mastered how to play this game."

"As an action game, it is much simpler than I thought, and the moves are relatively simple. It is estimated that the process will not be too long. Let's see if we can finish it in one go before releasing it."

I recommend a friend’s book, Seedling Stage. The theme is a copy of an alien game. The protagonist, Goldfinger, is a guide to mastering the clearance of major games. Brothers who are interested can go and collect it~