I just want players to save money, but I was made the richest man - Chapter 243

c235 Game design ideas that make global manufacturers kneel down!

“The lighthouse effect used in the game is not a socioeconomic lighthouse effect. Its presentation is more intuitive. As the name suggests, it is like a lighthouse in the vast sea, guiding the direction for lost ships.”

“In linear games, the existence of the lighthouse effect is not important. Many times NPCs, tasks, prop rewards and other things can guide players forward.”

“But the open world gives players a higher degree of freedom. It is very important to allow players to establish goals from confusion.”

“To give a simple example. “Elden’s Ring” has the most obvious lighthouse effect – the golden tree.”

“The golden tree standing at the junction can be seen from any angle unless you are in the underground world. It is like a beacon guiding the player forward. No matter where the player goes, they will eventually move towards the foot of the big tree. ”

“Arrived at the golden tree is an invisible pull, but many game manufacturers on the market, when designing open worlds, draw on this ‘beautiful sense of giant objects’. They set up various eye-catching buildings, which do not have the effect of A good guidance effect just makes it look very visual. Some giant buildings cannot even be interacted with or entered. It is just a texture. Judging from my statistical data, the sales volume of such a game is not ideal.”

“Let’s take a look at how Zelda uses the lighthouse effect.”

“Friends who have played “Zelda” should know very well that all over the continent of Hyrule, you can see a towering teleportation point called Shika Tower.” (Those who have played the original game will understand. into a statue of the Seven Heavenly Gods)

“In fact, the temples that have been unlocked in the game can also be used for teleportation, so why does Shikarta still exist?”

“Ready Player One is not a game company that likes to design useless gadgets.”

“Obviously, these shika towers, which stand everywhere in the world and attract players’ attention from a distance, are the lighthouses guiding the direction on the sea.”

“Of course, it’s not enough to attract the player’s attention. You have to give the player some benefits. For example… after climbing up the Shika Tower, you can unlock the map fog in this area.”

“This also exists in “Elden”, but compared to the stone monuments in “Elden” that are inconspicuous and even easy to be missed by players, “Zelda”, which uses the lighthouse effect to the extreme, obviously has this point. The links are better designed.”

“Now, the lighthouse is tied to the reward mechanism. With these, players will at least establish a short-term goal in their mind. Whether I am taming a horse now, or cooking, whether I am catching butterflies or rolling snowballs, sooner or later I will climb Nearby Shika Tower unlocks a map of this area.”

“Then rely on the shika towers to invisibly guide the player forward slowly. So don’t think that “Zelda” has no guidance. On the contrary, the most powerful design in “Zelda” is their guidance system. This guidance system is so well done that it leads the way out without the player noticing it, but it does not delay the player’s exploration. The lighthouse is there anyway and will not escape. Even if the player gets lost, he can see not far away when he looks up. The landmark Shika Tower in the city will be back on track. This sense of design is undoubtedly very clever.”

“According to my observation, all open world games currently on the market have not achieved this.”

“Then there’s the second core point of Zelda, the triangle design.”

“Perhaps if I just say the noun directly, many players will have difficulty understanding the meaning.”

“I found “The Continent of Gods” for horizontal comparison.”

Brother Beici interspersed a picture from the game “Continent of Gods” in the middle of the article.

In this picture, the design is very rich in terms of points of interest.

There is a hawker on the far left side of the city gate. After leaving the city, turn left a few steps and you will see an NPC giving out side quests.

There is another mine with a torch on the right.

Further ahead is a huge waterwheel, which is shining with a strange light.

In the center of the city gate, there is a carriage that has overturned on the ground. It is obviously an interactive mission that requires players to step forward to investigate.

If you look to the top of the mountain in the distance, you can see a Gothic-style tower building, which is constantly ringing bells irregularly.

Looking up at the sky, the birds will flutter back and forth periodically, and the huge leader bird seems to be holding a letter in its beak.

These are just some of the more conspicuous interactive events. There are many more small details in the game that are also circled in red by Brother Beici.

“This is a screenshot taken at the gate of the secondary main city “Almia” not long after the game started. It can be seen that there are so many points of interest to guide players, which is dizzying. ”

“But in fact, too complicated points of interest will not only fail to arouse players’ interest, but will also lead to boredom due to too many choices.”

“At this time, only a simple action is needed to change the current status. Please see Figure 2 for details.”

Brother Beici added a picture below.

He put a wall on it, right across the entrance to the city, to make it look like the wall in a public restroom with the notice for men on the left and women on the right.

“At this point we can notice that when this wall appears, the selectable targets within our field of vision are instantly reduced to only the vendors on the far left and the mine with torches on the far right.”

“Players only need to make a choice between the two. If you want to interact with the NPC, go left. If you want to venture into the mine, go right. It’s simple and intuitive.”

“And when you get out of the mine, you can just provide guidance to points of interest in small amounts and multiple times.”

“Of course, my intuitive examples cannot be used in the game. It is impossible to just put a piece of public toilet wall here in any scene. It would be too dramatic. And if it is replaced by other close-up obstructions, once or twice is fine. The number of times If it’s too much, players will definitely feel that the field of view is not broad enough. After all, you emphasize the open world, so why do you always block my field of view? It’s not free enough at all.”

“Let’s take a look at how Ready Player One handles this problem in Zelda.”

In Figure 3, Brother Beici captured a scene inside the “Zelda” game.

A distant view of a mountain.

On the left side of the mountain is a station where you can rest and trigger side quests, and on the right side is an inactive temple.

Then it’s gone. Except for some decorative environmental props and scattered collectibles, this picture contains all the points of interest that the player can see.

“Through comparison, we can find that the number one player directly uses the method of ‘a mountain as an obstruction’, so that the player’s eyes can only focus on two or three more conspicuous points nearby. Then these conspicuous places are where the player will go next. Target.”

“This is obviously not something I’m specifically looking for for Ready Player One. If you arrive at the temple on the right and then look up at the mountain from a ‘temple-side perspective’, you will find that the surrounding points of interest will change again. ”

“As shown in Figure 4, Shika Tower, which was originally invisible from the perspective of Figure 3, will appear on the side of the mountainside in Figure 4, and a Bokobulin camp will appear on the right. These are not visible from the original perspective. of.”

“Through comparison, it is not difficult to find that “Zelda” almost implements the triangle design principle to the end, so that no matter which perspective you are in, there are only two or three points of interest visible to the naked eye, making it easier for players to make choices.”

“Why name it a triangular design? Because you will find that the shape of a mountain looks like an isosceles triangle from a macro perspective.”

“Mountains should originally exist in nature and can be seen everywhere, without the abruptness of a ‘public toilet wall’.”

“‘Always able to keep players interested, but not distracted by too many points of interest.’ This is the second strength of Zelda’s design in my opinion.”

“The next third point is that I think the design concept of “Zelda” is the absolute best! Under normal circumstances, I feel that even selling courses for a fee is not an exaggeration, and there are currently no other evaluation articles on the market that express this view. .”

“However, old viewers who are familiar with me know that you guys, Brother Beizi, are not greedy for such a small advantage. And even if I don’t do it today, I will probably have to imprint the character of the designer after the first wave of popularity of the game subsides. , Ready Player One should also publish the design principles, so I can at best be regarded as a person who lends flowers to Buddha, so I will only accept a small like from everyone. If you think the quality of the article is good, you can also help share it and forward it to your friends/呲Teeth/Tooth”

Halfway through the article, Beici made a small joke, but soon got to the point.

“The third point is the framework structure – the reason why I put it last is because the core of the entire open world of “Zelda” is completely supported by this structure.”

“Before I talk about this framework in detail, to facilitate understanding, let me first talk about how other game manufacturers have designed their open world frameworks in the past six months.”

“Perhaps they are deeply influenced by the originator of the open world, Elden’s Circle. The open games born in the past six months all have a very distinctive feature – a free large map for players to explore.”

“But to be honest, even the originator of “Elden”, its core attraction for players is actually the cyclo-like experience, not the open world. The open world is just more inclusive than the cyclo-like, so many manufacturers will choose it. Push hard in this direction.”

“But after removing the environment-like elements from your respective open worlds, the remaining content is completely insufficient to support players’ desire to explore.”

“Various problems often arise, such as ‘uneven distribution of points of interest’, ‘improper control of the upgrade rhythm’, ‘unbalanced distribution of side rewards and main rewards’, ‘making the map bigger for the sake of getting bigger’, etc.”

“Even for “Continent of the Gods”, which was designed by the Blizzard team that has the deepest understanding of the open world besides “Elden”, one thing I must explain here is that the so-called 37 Principles of Blizzard CEO Mead are really Nonsense.”

“The definition of an open world is nothing at all. It consists of 30% of the main line and 70% of the branch lines + exploration points. This understanding is really too one-sided, as if primitive people saw a lightning strike in the sky, and then the trees caught fire. It’s as one-sided and ignorant as firmly believing that thunder is a necessary element to produce fire.”

“And the design understanding of more manufacturers is even worse than Blizzard. Their understanding of the open world is to just throw something randomly on a big map, whether it is a branch line, a point of interest, or a prop, anyway, it makes them look like Just distribute it evenly so players always have something to do.”

“”Zelda” handles the framework very well, absolutely at the textbook level. Let’s see how Zelda does it.”

In the article, Brother Beici inserted Figure 5, which is an aerial map of “Zelda”. All relevant branch lines, props, points of interest, enemies, etc. are densely marked on the map.

“If we look carefully, it’s not difficult to find.”

“The framework structure of “Zelda” uses the principle of layering.”

“First of all, place a castle in the center of the map, the “Kingdom of Hyrule”, and then the biggest main line of our entire game will emerge. That is to go to the castle and rescue Princess Zelda, right, everyone knows that. ”

“We call this the first-level framework, which is the biggest driving force for players to play this game. Some people may think that I have a lot of fun playing in Hyrule, and I have no intention of saving the princess… But , this is just on the premise that there is this main line. If there is no premise of saving the princess and the player has no ultimate goal, then all adventures in Hyrule Continent are meaningless, and everything feels like a waste of time. Naturally, You will lose interest. So although this main line may seem useless, it can definitely hold up the first-level framework.”

“Of course, this main line is not enough. The huge continent of Hyrule is like a piece of white paper with only one chess piece on it. There is nothing else. The player only needs to reach the chess piece. The game can be ended if there is no place, then this kind of game is undoubtedly boring.”

“So now the designer has refined the first-level framework and expanded it into a second-level framework.”

“The four great beasts are the secondary framework of Hyrule continent.”

“The sculptor evenly distributed the four mythical beasts on the four corners of the continent. The thunder beast in the sand dune area, the wind beast in the snow mountain area, the fire beast in the volcano area, and the water beast in Zora’s territory. The entire continent was divided into four.”

“At this time, in addition to the main goal of the main line, players have secondary goals, which are to go to the areas of the four mythical beasts and collect their power to increase the intensity of the final battle.”

“Then at this time, when players come out of the initial platform, they will not go straight to the central kingdom, but will first choose to explore the four corners of the continent.”

“It’s still a common problem. Large maps in the open world will appear empty in the hands of many game manufacturers.”

“Even if Hyrule has the Middle Kingdom, plus the exploration of mythical beasts in four areas, the progress of such a game will be short, and players will be very bored on the way to the four areas.”

“If it were other game manufacturers, they might have started to place points of interest along the road at this time, but as I said before, you have to figure out the priorities. If the player is too persistent in the task of unlocking the four divine beasts, your No point of interest would stop him.”

“Therefore, the engraving designer refined the frame again.”

“This time, he used level three targets, 16 Shika Towers located around the world. They evenly cut the continent of Hyrule into more detailed sections.”

“The role of lighting up these towers is obvious. It can open the map of the current area. With the map, players can better move towards the area of ​​the four divine beasts.”

“Look, if the points of interest can’t make players stop, then we will introduce some things that are more beneficial to advancing the game to slow down the player’s exploration progress and prevent them from feeling disgusted.”

“Now, players’ attention will shift from rushing to activate the four divine beasts to unlocking all the towers and lighting up the entire continent map.”

“OK, our current map already has a first-level target – the Kingdom of Hyrule, a second-level target – the Four Divine Beasts, and a third-level target – Shika Tower. The entire map looks a little denser, not so It’s clear, and the player’s path has been mapped out. Now, they’re more willing to run around all over the place.”

“But will players really like this game just by repeatedly running around and opening towers to expand their horizons? Can these alone make “Zelda” the best open world game on Blue Star? Obviously not not enough.”

“Therefore, the sculptor injected something more soulful into the entire map. It is this move that completely makes the exploration fun of the entire open world overflow the screen!”