The former 3D main beauty of Black Myth Wukong participated in the production, and the internal test of this two-dimensional mobile game was blown up?
I believe many people will not be unfamiliar with mobile games with the theme of “two-dimensional + tower defense”. As a sub-category of the two-dimensional track, many manufacturers have tried to enter, but only a handful of people can really rank the top. countable. In a sense, compared with traditional two-dimensional mobile games, tower defense two-dimensional games have higher requirements for the overall quality of the game, including character portraits, gameplay, etc., which are all aspects that players are more concerned about.
The high barrier to entry also discourages many small and medium-sized teams who want to try this category. But as the circle gets bigger, there will always be some teams that are brave enough to challenge. For example, the recent two-dimensional tower defense RPG mobile game called “Ring Hostel” has attracted the attention of many users at Station B, which has attracted the attention of Game Daily.
“Ring Hotel” is a 3D real-time strategy RPG. The highlight of the game is that it has as many as 40+ characters with exquisite modeling, and another 6 kinds of character occupations + various special skills that come with them, which greatly improves the overall strategy. In January of this year, “The Ring Hostel” exposed the first PV+ real machine demonstration video at station B. After the video was exposed, it attracted many users’ discussions. At present, the cumulative number of views of the video has exceeded 700,000.
At station B, the attention of “Circle Hostel” has always been very high
Along with the high level of attention, the expectations of “Ring Xing Hostel” among the core two-dimensional player groups have also continued to rise. Already more than 200,000. In addition to the game itself being highly anticipated by players, Game Daily also noticed another point, that is, the main creative team of “Ring Hostel” may be more worthy of industry attention.
There are rumors that the main creative team of “Ring Hotel” is currently formed by a number of industry veterans from large factories, including the former Tianmei Studio’s senior art concept design, “Black Myth Wukong” 3D main beauty, game science main planning. Wait, maybe it is precisely because of such a “luxurious” creative team that they have the confidence to challenge ideas that are difficult for other small and medium-sized teams to challenge.
Now that the second test of “Ring Hotel” has ended, based on the comments of players from Station B and TapTap and other channels, everyone still maintains relatively high expectations for this game. On this occasion, Game Daily interviewed the game’s producer, Fofo, to learn more about the origin of the members of the main creative team and some game design concepts of “Ring Hostel”.
“Ring Hostel” producer Fofo made a “branch man” character based on himself
In the interview, Fofo confirmed to Game Daily that the origins of the members of the main creative team came together because of the word “fate”. In addition, he also said that the core reason for choosing “two-dimensional + tower defense” is because everyone likes it. This style, coupled with the desire to make a new product, finally chose this theme.
At the end of the interview, Fofo, as a past person, gave the most sincere advice to those who want to start a business from a big factory and make games – if you have already figured out the difficulties of starting a business, you might as well be brave.
The following is a summary of the interview:
Game Daily: Thank you for accepting the interview with Game Daily. First of all, please give a brief introduction.
Fofo: My name is Fofo, and I am the producer of “The Ring Hostel”. Although I have over 10 years of experience in the industry, I am indeed a new producer. I have some work experience in big factories before, but I am too embarrassed to mention it at this time, I am afraid that the game is not well done and I will embarrass the big factories. I am grateful to the former clubs who have trained me.
Game Daily: It is understood that the main creative members of our team are from various major manufacturers. What kind of opportunity brought everyone together?
Fofo: I’m ashamed to say that, although we have worked together as chief strategy, chief beauty, and chief Cheng, this is indeed the first project we have done together, and of course we have paid a lot of tuition fees because of it. But now there is a tacit understanding on the right track. If we talk about the opportunity, I think it can only be explained by fate, or more importantly, it comes from the obsession with making excellent games.
We have two art founders, one is responsible for concept design, and the other is responsible for the final implementation of 3D, action, special effects, etc. in the final game. I actually met Thirteen, the person in charge of concept design, in 2016. At that time, I wanted to get him to make comics together. It took me more than a year to convince him. Later, when I wanted to make a game, it was a hit with him.
And our art production director, Brother Long, is a godsend. It was completely impossible for him to join us, because the project he did before was also a project he liked very much, but because the project team moved to another city as a whole, he chose to stay in Shenzhen due to family reasons, and he and Our person in charge of concept art design used to be a colleague, so after chatting a few times, we confirmed that we had the same idea and chose to join.
And our main process and main strategy are all partners Long has worked with before. When these two important positions need to find people, he will naturally search in his mind the people he has worked with before according to their reliability. Sorting, screening, the whole team is formed in this way, so, fate…it’s amazing.
“Ring Hostel” real machine demonstration
Game Daily: How did you originally want to make a two-dimensional strategy tower defense RPG game like “Ring Hotel”?
Fofo: We chose to do the two-dimensional style, not because we want to take advantage of the popularity of the two-dimensional category, but because what we want to do is the so-called “content-oriented game”, we hope that the content can reach people’s hearts. Recalling our own life, we find that the things and people that can truly move us, make our blood boil, make us cry, and can’t let go are all encountered when we are young enough.
All of us love this style, it doesn’t look greasy and good looking. The next step is to choose what to play. In fact, the logic is very simple, can you do it? Are there any enthusiasm? And are there any new ideas… I finally chose tower defense.
Game Daily: How long did it take for the game from its inception to the present? Did you come across something that impressed the team along the way?
Fofo: Actually, we only finished the stage of art demo and gameplay demo in June 2021, and started to write the code of the official version. Before that, it was the stage of pre-research and project establishment. The more impressive (painful memory) is actually the exterior scene of the cockpit in the game.
The exterior scene of the cockpit in Chapter 1 of the first test version is a circular setting. We hope to give players a feeling of driving forward and keep moving forward, but we must ensure that the scene has a large visual distance in order to make the kind of wide open. I felt that “continuously moving forward” meant that the location had to be “constantly changing”, and that setting wasted almost a year of our time. In the end, we felt that it was impossible to run on the mobile phone without guaranteeing the effect, and finally gave up.
Game Daily: What part of the core players is the game “Ring Hostel” aimed at? What special designs have been made in the game for these players?
Fofo: I think as a tower defense game, its core players must be inseparable from the vast number of tower defense players. But tower defense can be light or hardcore, and “Loop Hostel” is generally more hardcore, because we feel that there are too many products for light tower defense, and we can’t think of anything new. On the contrary, the hard-core ones can be combined/stitched, plus some small innovations, to make new experiences.
Compared with other tower defenses, “Ring Hostel” has more “means” for players in the game, so the upper limit is very high for hardcore players. The future of the game is mainly to design some honor-oriented games for hard-core players on the premise of ensuring that most players experience fun, rather than material and resource reward-oriented BOSS battles. Although this kind of thing may not be cost-effective, we are still willing to do it. .
Game Daily: Knowing that the expectations of “Ringxing Hostel” on major channel platforms are very high, including Station B, TapTap, etc., what is the team’s feeling about this expectation of players?
Fofo: It’s a wonderful feeling to see some of the team’s hard work and seriousness being recognized by the players. Players have pointed out many known and unknown deficiencies in addition to their expectations, and we will continue to work hard.
Game Daily: The Ring Hostel has been tested twice before. How are the test results? Has the team’s psychological expectations been met?
Fofo: In fact, the retained data is far beyond expectations, because we think it is so difficult, and there are many places that are not visible to the naked eye, so it should not be very good.
Player feedback is also better than expected, because it is necessary to compress time, allowing players to understand so many characters and so many monster mechanisms in a very short period of time. The test also verified that some mechanisms are too hardcore, and finally defeated them one by one in the game . It might be relatively fun to stretch this time out a bit, but the compression can be quite torturous during the short second test period. We expected players to scold, and of course players scold, but after scolds, many players still expressed their understanding, which is very touching.
Players who have participated in the “Loop Hostel” test before, the real evaluation of the game
Game Daily: How long is it expected to be officially launched? What are the team’s expectations for the game?
Fofo: I can’t predict it, because there is no version number yet, but the development progress of the version is still very smooth. I can only say that everyone can believe in the development efficiency of bingkolo. As for the performance expectations, we have never had high expectations. We don’t have a specific number, but we probably have the most realistic idea, which is to give the team a chance. Make the next one better.
Game Daily: How big is the project team now? What is the current focus of work?
Fofo: There are dozens of people in the team. The current focus is to optimize known problems, continue to improve basic quality, and develop follow-up content normally.
Game Daily: What do you think is the biggest difficulty in game development and operation under the current environment?
Fofo: The biggest difficulty in game development actually comes from not thinking clearly when setting up the project. Thinking about it is often because it is not pure enough and has too many mixed purposes, which will make the game very complicated, a complex game. , the development difficulty will increase. In fact, it is very difficult to make the game interesting and fun. On the basis of fun, it is difficult to achieve other various purposes.
In terms of operation, I have to mention a famous saying in the industry, “treat players as people”. Anyone who knows it knows that this is a joke at the beginning, but I think it’s also a true story. The higher the earning game, the harder it is to do this. Even if the boss of the company has this original intention, he cannot ensure that the students who operate the specific operations will engage in some short-sighted and “inhuman” operations for the sake of KPIs? On the contrary, the operating classmates care about the players, but will the boss be lost in the numbers? And now even if I think I understand it here, if one day bingkolo makes a lot of money, will I also… To be honest, I don’t know.
Screenshot of the real machine demonstration of “Ring Hostel”
Game Daily: What is the biggest personal gain and insight since you have been making games for so many years?
Fofo: The biggest gain is actually the practitioners’ understanding of the industry and users for more than ten years, as well as gaining some friends on the way to work and starting a business, as well as the help and encouragement of friends, these things are invaluable . And there are too many insights. The biggest insight is that it is really difficult to make games. If this difficult process makes you feel more painful than happy, then it is better to change the environment.
Game Daily: What do you want to say to those young people who want to come out of big factories to make games?
Fofo: Whether it’s job-hopping or starting a business, you have to think clearly enough. The first thing to start a business is to figure out whether the worst outcome can be tolerated. Of course, the worst result is definitely not just the four words “startup failure”.
Maybe you will be depressed for a long time and can’t get out, maybe it will be difficult to find a good job that you can find before, maybe even if you find it, it will be difficult to return to the mentality of the previous job, maybe you will owe a lot of debt, or The savings that have been lost for many years will not return to before liberation, because at that time you were still young and courageous. Of course, if you think clearly enough, you might as well be brave.