Chapter 475 Comet
Su Tong simply said the perfect answer in Lilith's mind.
Although the addition of survival elements does not seem to be special on the surface, it immediately becomes the finishing touch when considering the previous game framework.
For simulation business or strategy games, the question of "what is the external enemy" must be solved.
For example, in some national construction strategy games, the enemy is other countries.
These countries will also grow, build, and develop with the players. Wars may break out between them, and eventually end with a country's comprehensive conquest of the world.
Although the forms of conquest may vary, such as military conquest, cultural conquest, institutional conquest, etc., in general, it is still necessary to surpass other countries in a specific indicator.
There are also some strategy games where the enemy is some specific external enemy.
For example, the enemy of "God Forsaken City" is the enemy army that is constantly refreshed outside the city.
Of course, there are also some strategy games that do not have external enemies, but have a more peaceful goal, such as constantly building production lines to integrate resources across the map, and finally building a grand wonder, etc.
But there are also games that choose the natural environment as the final enemy.
A more classic design is severe cold.
In a severe cold environment, players must collect resources, build heating facilities, and increase the ambient temperature as much as possible. Otherwise, with the arrival of the cold wave, a large number of workers will be frozen to death or amputated, resulting in a shortage of labor, slowing production, and even the collapse of the entire game.
The same is true for other natural disasters.
Whether it is heavy rain, floods, heat or other disasters, in general, these disasters do not have specific battle scenes like ordinary military invasions, but they can allow players to deeply experience the survival threat from genetic instincts.
Therefore, this type of game is also enduring and popular.
Su Tong's suggestion is not limited to one type of natural disaster, but two types, namely severe cold and heat.
This means that the player's strategy has an additional dimension.
If there is only severe cold, then the player only needs to make a choice between "keeping warm" and "ensuring people's livelihood."
Let the workers live a little worse, eat less, and work longer, in exchange for more shelters and more coal, so that fewer people can die when the next severe cold wave comes.
How to strike a perfect balance between the two is the essence.
But after adding the heat, players need to make more complex decisions.
You can't build too many simple heating facilities and cooling facilities, because resources are limited.
Both facilities must be built in a balanced manner, or facilities that can take into account both heating and cooling must be built.
But facilities that can take into account both often consume more resources, or have higher requirements for the technology tree.
Therefore, how to allocate resources appropriately to ensure the survival of the most people in both extreme cold and hot environments poses a more severe challenge to players.
In general, this game must be hardcore and complex.
Even if you try to simplify the technology tree, players still have to set up each production line and make a series of decisions for complex situations.
Why is it important to choose a political system?
Because it also represents a game between players.
This game is a two-player game, one person plays the leader and the other plays the bureaucrat.
These two identities are actually naturally unequal.
If the leader cannot decide the political system and cannot limit the power of the bureaucrat, it is not very realistic and will not help to intensify the contradiction between the two.
Imagine that the leader becomes suspicious of the loyalty and ability of the bureaucrats, so he promotes political system reform and restricts the power of the bureaucrats.
And this behavior will further intensify the bureaucrats' hatred of the leader, forcing him to develop in the direction of lip service and secret sabotage.
Just like the relationship between the emperor and the ministers at the end of the dynasty, it's very exciting to think about it.
At this point, the general framework of the game has been built, and the next step is only some specific details.
But obviously, these details are not what Su Tong is good at.
And Lilith also happened to show her magnanimity and equality, so she looked at the other three people: "You can also talk about some of the details of this game design.
"Of course, it must not violate the general premise."
Zhou Yang thought for a while and said: "I think it's best if this game takes place on an alien planet, and even the creatures inside, it's best to use the image of aliens."
Lilith nodded: "Well, why?"
Zhou Yang explained: "Mr. Li, I thought of it from the point of 'severe cold and hot environment'.
"It is actually very difficult to achieve this special natural environment.
"If it is an ordinary planet, it is impossible to have extremely cold or hot weather. It is usually either extremely cold or extremely hot.
"Because it depends on the distance between the planet and the sun.
"If it is just like on Earth, the difference between the sun shining directly on the Tropic of Capricorn or the Tropic of Cancer is not enough to form a large temperature difference.
"So, assuming that this is a science fiction world, not an unreasonable magic world, then it must conform to the laws of nature.
"In other words, the planet where the game is located must be a comet."
Lilith didn't understand: "Why must it be a comet?"
Wei Chengjie coughed twice and took over the conversation: "Because the trajectory of the planet's revolution around the sun is circular.
“Of course, strictly speaking, it is an ellipse, but it is not very obvious. It can even be said that the ellipse of the planetary orbit looks more circular than the circle drawn by most people with a compass.
“Therefore, in some simple calculations in schools, we tend to calculate the planetary orbit as a perfect circle.
“But comets are different. Comets have many different motion trajectories, and one of them is a very standard ellipse.
“The ellipse has two centers, and the sun is at one of them.
“Therefore, the comet will present a special motion trajectory. When it leaves the sun, it will fly slower and slower, and it will fall into a long and severe cold state; when it approaches the sun, it will fly faster and faster, and the temperature will rise sharply.
“In addition, comets will form comet tails under the influence of the sun, which looks beautiful.
“But if it is a creature living on a comet, I am afraid it will not be so beautiful.”
Zhou Yang nodded: “That’s right.
“Since from a scientific point of view, this game takes place on a comet, then the human body structure is obviously not okay.
"From the very beginning, humans did not have the environment to survive on it.
"We can only imagine a special life form that can barely survive in this extreme environment.
"And the ultimate goal of the game is naturally to find a way to collect enough resources, leave the comet, and go to a more habitable planet.
"In addition, there is another advantage of using aliens as the protagonists, that is, players will have less moral burden when playing.
"If humans live on the planet, then players may have concerns when they want to do some cruel and cruel things.
"But it doesn't matter if the aliens are weird."
Lilith was very happy, she looked at Gu Fan again: "What do you think, Mr. Gu?"
Gu Fan thought for a while: "I agree.
"There is another advantage of using comets as the background of the game: comets are actually a relatively short-lived celestial body.
"Because comets are very small, they will be disturbed by the gravity of large planets, and in unlucky cases they will even be captured directly.
"Many comets may be captured by the gravity of a large planet when they enter the interior of a star system for the first time, and then they are completely doomed.
"Of course, comets are not that miserable. Take the solar system for example. Comets spend most of their time wandering around the outer edge of the solar system. When they return, even if they enter the orbit of a giant star, they have been accelerated to a faster speed by gravity, so the probability of being directly captured is not high.
"But no matter what, comets may still suffer a catastrophic disaster at any time.
"This can also be used as a special mechanism in the game to further enrich the game content."
Lilith's eyes lit up: "Huh? Good idea!
"As the players were playing, the situation was originally very good, but when they entered the star system, they were suddenly captured by a large planet and crashed!
"It's exciting to think about it!"
Gu Fan continued to add: "And we can also strengthen this feeling of despair: don't tell players when they may crash at the beginning.
"At the beginning, the players' technology was not developed, so they could not make accurate calculations, so they could not predict when the disaster would come.
"When the players finally developed and the astronomical institutions were able to calculate the orbits of the planets, they would give a warning like 'the comet will be captured by the planet in XX years'.
"I think the expressions on the players' faces at that time will be very interesting."
Lilith showed an unspeakable smile, and Gu Fan's words really touched her heart.
If this situation really happens, how much negative emotions will the two players have?
It's exciting to think about it.
Sure enough, it was the right decision to let Gu Fan attend this meeting. He really proposed good ideas.
"So, let's give it a name in the end?
"What are the names of the leader and the bureaucrat? And what should this game be called?" Lilith looked around at everyone with confidence.
Zhou Yang thought for a while: "I think it's better to use a simpler name as much as possible.
"The leader is called the head of state, and the bureaucrat is called the 'first consul'.
"As for bureaucrats in other fields, they can be called the consuls of the corresponding fields, such as the science and technology consul, the cultural consul, and so on. "
Lilith praised: "Okay, then what about the name of the game?"
Everyone present fell silent. Obviously, no one was good at naming.
Lilith frowned: "Everyone think of a name, Wei Chengjie, you go first."
Wei Chengjie looked embarrassed, but after thinking about it, he said: "Since this story takes place on a comet, and our game is a production and construction game, why not call it "Comet Factory"? "
Lilith thought about it: "It's a name that's neither good nor bad. It means it's almost the same, but it doesn't feel like there's anything special.
"What about you, Zhou Yang?"