Chapter 138 Extreme Speed
This year's Mid-Autumn Festival does not coincide with the National Day, and the atmosphere of the festival is quite acceptable.
Tianba Studio is very lively.
After a round of recruitment expansion, the current total number of employees in the studio has exceeded 20.
These are the core employees. If you include the employees of Xianyu Digital, media operations, channel specialists, etc., the total number of employees is almost fifty.
Mooncakes are definitely distributed during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
In order to customize the mooncake gift box to satisfy everyone's wishes and tastes, Chen Ba also held a public vote to let everyone choose their favorite mooncake type.
The results were surprising.
I thought that the fighter among mooncakes, the five-nut mooncake would definitely come out on top. Unexpectedly, the final voting results showed that the bean paste mooncake was everyone’s favorite!
"I'm really tired of eating Wu Ren."
I have to say that when it comes to mooncakes, Wuren is the name. After so many years, everyone has stopped catching a cold.
Just bean paste!
Anyway, it was a choice made by voting, and Chen Ba did not object. He asked someone to customize a batch of red bean paste mooncake gift boxes and distributed them to everyone on the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival.
After eating the mooncakes, the short vacation is over.
On the first working day after the Mid-Autumn Festival, Chen Ba summoned all core employees of the studio to hold a new game seminar.
Yes, new game!
The official version of "Love Staff" has been released. Although the nature of the game has changed and many changes have occurred in the process, it is finally on the right track.
Mobile terminal development does not require so many people. The next focus of Tianba Studio’s work must be to develop new games.
But here comes the problem...
What type will the new game be?
According to Brother Ba’s description, their next new game is expected to sell for over a hundred yuan, which is three digits.
For a game of this price and size, there aren’t many themes to choose from.
"Gun, car, ball!"
Chen Ba knew that he had to define a general scope for everyone, otherwise he would just discuss it blindly and achieve no results after a year of discussion.
So he set a range.
That is the "gun, car, and ball" combination that has endured for a long time, is popular in the gaming industry, and is widely loved by players!
Guns refer to first-person or third-person shooting games, that is, games such as "Half-Life", "Call of Duty", and "CSGO".
Car refers to racing simulation games, which can also be said to be driving racing games. Representative works include "Need for Speed", "Forza Horizon" and so on.
The ball is special...
Ball games in a narrow sense actually refer to ball sports simulation games, such as the classic "FIFA", "NBA" and so on.
However, since the rise of the Internet, the meaning of the word "ball" has changed slightly. Traditional gun racing, ball, and ball in a broad sense also refer to those adult games that are "forbidden to play under the age of 18."
Ahem!
Who says XX is not a ball?
All in all, "Guns, Cars, and Balls" is an enduring game genre in the gaming industry, so it is definitely a suitable choice for Tianba Studio's first 100-yuan game.
Everyone is fine with this.
However, there was a heated discussion about which one to choose between gun, car and ball.
"FPS!"
Xiao Lu raised his hand and said: "No matter when there is a market for gun games, this is definitely the most suitable one."
"That makes sense."
"But, gun games are a bit too complicated, right? Regardless of whether they are big or small manufacturers, they basically have their own gun games, and it is difficult for us to beat them."
"Moreover, although the market share of gun battle games is large, players have become saturated. It is difficult for new games to steal users from old gun battle games..."
This is indeed a big problem.
There is no doubt that among games such as gun, car and ball, gun games must be the most popular and have the largest player base.
But this field is really complicated!
Even Chen Ba, who is fearless, heard "Call of Duty", "Battlefield", "Counter-Strike", "Halo", "Far Cry", "Rainbow Six", "Borderlands", " When I read the names of a series of masterpieces such as "Titanfall", I felt tired.
Can't roll it up at all...
If you want to make a name for yourself in the gunfight field, how much effort and effort do you have to put in?
“Then let’s have a racing game!”
"On the one hand, ball games are niche, and on the other hand, because of the relatively high degree of specialization, we do not have sufficient preparation and accumulation, so it is difficult to make a ball sports game." Yang Dong analyzed carefully.
FIFA is the leader in this category!
But it is very difficult for a studio that has never developed such a game to create a game comparable to FIFA from scratch.
"Can!"
Chen Ba thought for a while. Although racing games are also quite complicated, and it is difficult for new developers to win the trust of players, they are at least better than gun games.
"Does everyone have any objections?"
After questioning and confirming that everyone agreed with the proposal, Chen Ba made the final decision: "That's it, we will release a racing game next year."
The direction is set.
What we want to discuss next is some general framework of this project, as well as the core selling points and gameplay of the game.
There's not much to say about this.
Chen Ba heard a joke a long time ago, that is, the boss of a company wanted to make a new game, and he made many requests for this.
As a result, the person in charge of the project, the chief producer of the game, did not listen to what the boss told him. He simply asked: Tell me, who is copying?
Yes, that's rough!
Don't tell me about the ones that are available or not, just tell me whoever you want to copy the new game from.
Is it useful to say so much?
It's better to be simpler, use a ready-made game as the target of plagiarism, activate the Sharingan directly, and carry out pixel-level copy imitation...
certainly!
Chen Ba is still relatively thin-skinned and cannot plagiarize his friends openly. He hopes to make a different game based on the successful experience of his friends.
"It's worth learning from, I understand!"
Everyone burst into laughter and instantly understood what Brother Ba meant.
"Don't laugh so obscenely..."
Chen Ba said speechlessly: "I did ask you to learn from your friends, but I didn't say to copy them exactly as they are. We can't do anything that will lead to lawsuits. We still have to have the bottom line."
There are so many racing games, there is no need to focus on just one.
This one steals a little bit, that one steals a little bit, and the main focus is to integrate and combine the strengths of hundreds of schools!
"It's also possible to turn into a suture monster, a pile of Shet..."
Chen Ba said with a smile: "It's best not to do this. We still have to make something unique of our own to distinguish it from other racing games."
What are the features?
He thought of one thing, and that was to make a fuss about the "racing" model. Instead of sticking to those sports cars or rally cars, maybe we can find another way and create a "classic car" racing game?
"The King of Rags Competition, right?"
Xiao Lu couldn't help but said: "A bunch of antique scrapped cars found at the junkyard made strange noises and crossed the finish line at a speed of 30km/h..."
"What's the problem?"
"Who stipulated that this type of racing game must use luxury sports cars or professional racing cars?" Chen Ba asked rhetorically.
With the development of racing games today, many models are too far away from players.
For any racing game enthusiast, the garage is filled with all kinds of luxury cars and sports cars, such as Porsches, Lamborghinis, Ferraris...it will make your mouth water.
Luxury cars, sports cars, and even professional-level racing cars have already been shown in other games.
Chen Ba doesn't want to make these cars that are too far away from ordinary players and may not be able to drive in a lifetime of hard work. He wanted to make some models that are approachable, down-to-earth, not so expensive, and can be seen everywhere on the street.
"non-mainstream?"
Zhong Shengwei turned the gel pen in his hand and said thoughtfully: "Mainly used as a family scooter or a grocery cart?"
"right!"
Chen Ba nodded: "Not only family cars and grocery carts, but also those Laotoule, Sanbengzi, and electric cars can be added."
Focus on a down-to-earth attitude!
Not only the car models are very down-to-earth, but the track maps also need to be down-to-earth. Traffic lights, morning and evening rush hours, random traffic jams and lane changes, ongoing construction... it's not an exaggeration to say it's an obstacle course.
The gameplay of the game is actually similar to other games. A group of cars starts from the starting point, passes through a series of checkpoints, completes a series of road sections, and finally settles the ranking and performance points.
But the game has built-in traffic rules.
For example, if you encounter a red light, you must stop and wait for the green light, otherwise you will be penalized. If you encounter random pedestrians or electric vehicles, you must also give way, otherwise you will also be penalized.
"Isn't there still a speed limit?"
As the only person in the studio who has never passed the driver's license test, Zhang Xiaojuan came up with a very strange idea: "If a racing game has a speed limit, it would be too abstract..."
"No speed limit!"
Chen Ba knew what she was thinking, rolled his eyes and said: "How can there be a speed limit? The competition in the game is to overcome a series of obstacles in the journey and reach the finish line as quickly as possible in the shortest time."
The shorter the time, the higher the record!
It is impossible to limit the speed of this kind of game, because the speed limit means that the upper limit and playability of the game are greatly reduced, and there is no motivation to hit new records.
So there are other rules, except that there is no speed limit. The game does not object to everyone driving fast, and even the faster the better...
As for how to drive a vehicle flexibly through urban roads at such a fast speed, it will test the players' skills.
“Will there be traffic jams during the morning and evening rush hours?”
"meeting!"
Chen Ba further explained: "There are definitely traffic jams, but the traffic jams in this game will leave enough room for players to jam."
To put it bluntly, if you have good skills and are confident of overtaking all the way through traffic jams, you will have no trouble passing through the morning and evening peaks.
But if your skills are poor, then just wait in line and wait for the passage! Don't think about adding blocks randomly, as it will cost you more than you gain when you avoid being fined...
"What about the car model?"
"Buy a license from the car manufacturer!"
For this reason, Chen Ba was mentally prepared for bleeding. Fortunately, he is targeting some household scooters and grocery shopping carts, so the licensing price should not be as expensive as luxury cars and sports cars.
In addition to the basic appearance of the model, if there is a chance, some specific parameters and component composition details of each model must be obtained from the automobile manufacturer.
This is also very useful!
Most of these racing games support "car modification".
Modifications include appearance and paint modifications that have nothing to do with performance and only affect the appearance of the vehicle. There are also component modifications that affect performance.
The latter is more important.
Chen Ba knows that personalized modifications of racing cars are also something that players are very concerned about, so he plans to provide a variety of modification details.
However, the performance ceiling must be locked.
The degree of freedom in modification is very high, but you can't modify a car to be faster than a rocket. That would be outrageous.
"correct!"
"In addition to purchasing racing cars from normal 4S stores, you can also go to second-hand car markets and scrap centers to pick up missing cars."
Chen Ba couldn't help but laugh out loud and said: "This can also satisfy the hands-on desire of some players. They can renovate a car that is on the verge of being scrapped and modify it into an excellent racing car to accompany them in various competitions..."
Doesn’t Xiao Lu look down on classic cars?
It's really exciting to change it. It's not that classic cars can't be played, it's just more time-consuming.
That’s it for the basic framework.
As a racing game, the core is still "racing". As long as you do the racing and the track well, there won't be much of a problem.
As for the track...
In addition to standard urban roads, Chen Ba also plans to do several common tracks, such as beaches, grass, ice and snow sections, steep mountain roads, etc.
These are some common track types in racing games and are used to enrich the content of the game.
"And the weather system!"
Chen Ba seemed to have thought of something, and finally added: "Thunder and rain, wind and snow, fog and heat... I hope to show all kinds of weather changes in the game."
The weather is pseudo-random.
Pseudo-random means that before the start of a game, players will receive a weather forecast and can make targeted adjustments, such as car selection, tire replacement, etc.
"This is easy to handle!"
A completely random weather system may not be that easy to implement, but a pseudo-random weather system is not a particularly big problem for Yang Dong and others.
After all, they have already made similar attempts in previous games.
For example, in the game "God's Grace Continent", as the game time goes by, different weather will appear in the game.
Compared to this...
What everyone is actually more concerned about is, how to solve the control problem of this game?
The main focus of racing games is one-hand control. If the control is insufficient and the driving experience is terrible, then it will be useless no matter how good other aspects are.
"Brother Ba, what's the name of the game?"
"The name..."
When Chen Ba heard this, he frowned and thought for a moment before saying, "Go at top speed!"
This type of game is all named in this style, either extremely fast or fast, either furious or wild, or speeding or racing. The main theme is to choose a random name.
Anyway, as long as it doesn’t go off topic.
If there is a sequel in the future, it will be "Fast 2", with a serial number added to the end of the original name.
Why doesn’t the first one include numbers?
This is industry practice!
Normally, the first game in the series will not specifically add a "1". Only the sequel will start adding the number 23456...
It's been checked again. Let's see if it can be released later.