Chapter 456 The Pain and Pride of a Producer
The first part of the video was strung together with other game materials and various sand sculpture emoji packs. The audience quickly entered into the state with Teacher Qiao’s unique husky voice.
At the same time, the theme of the video became the theme of Be Quiet. Teacher Qiao was about to introduce the gameplay of this game!
“Many people did not experience this game because of anger and other reasons. I will introduce the gameplay in detail and talk about the highlights of this game.
“Please jump to the final conclusion if you already have an understanding of this.
“This is a multiplayer horror game that requires connection to the Internet. Therefore, everyone, please throw away all your stereotypes of standalone horror games from your mind. Let us embrace a new fear mode!
“Standalone horror games of the past only create horror effects in these few areas: setting and model, unexpected plots… unexpected surprises…
“There are often many terrifying scenes in these games such as misty mysterious towns, cannibal villages full of crazy villagers, laboratories full of zombies, etc. They create a visual and auditory impact through the setting.
“At the same time, these standalone games use plots to manipulate the players’ fears. For example, NPCs will tie up the protagonist and then inflict various tortures on the protagonist such as gouging his eyes, pulling his tongue, and cutting his fingers-doing everything he can.
“When the player is brought into the protagonist’s first-person perspective, you will also get a sense of extreme horror. The last would be some sudden shock such as a corpse suddenly falling down when the door was pushed and was suddenly caught by a monster while walking
“These are the horror we can experience in traditional standalone horror games.
“Of course, these are very cla.s.sic horror game segments, but now, I want to point out the two shortcomings of this approach.
“First, the stimulation is too straightforward. To increase the horror effect, many manufacturers only blindly add gore to the game, make all kinds of disgusting monsters, and design all kinds of torture horror plots…” “But this kind of stimulation is mainly a kind of sensory stimulation, which may cause some physical discomfort. At the same time, too much sensory stimulation will also make the game itself appear too heavy and give people a feeling of crudeness.
“Real fear comes from the hearts of the people!
“Secondly, the repeatability of play is not high.
“Players will be able to get the ultimate shock effect when they experience the process for the first time. However, everything will become dull once the player clears the game.
“A normal gamer will not want to experience it a second time. It would become a parkour game[1]. The horror game will lose its original meaning
“And Be Quiet turned out to be a new way to solve these two problems that had never been solved. Fear is struck from the heart without seeing too many gory scenes and allows the game to be played endlessly at the same time!”
Next was the introduction to the basic gameplay of the game as well as the revisit by Teacher Qiao towards the gameplay.
Each round of the game was randomly matched according to the player segment. They were also randomly a.s.signed onto the map. The players would be refreshed and sp.a.w.n on a certain point on the current map.
The purpose of each room and props would be randomly refreshed on the map. However, relatively speaking, some larger rooms and more critical locations with better props.
The eight players would play the role of policeman, good person, mentally-ill patient, and ambitious schemer. No one could identify the others except for the policeman. Each had a different game goal.
The way to win for the police and the good person was relatively simple. The entire map was blocked. They had to search for decryption spells everywhere. A random exit would appear when a certain number of spells were activated, and everyone could escape at random.
Teacher Qiao divided the general process of the game into four stages.
The first stage was the free search stage where players were far away from each other at the beginning. They had to search for open s.p.a.ces and roam around as much as possible to try to get as many items useful to their ident.i.ty as possible. They would have to determine their next steps based on their items obtained.
Next would be the initial contact stage. Generally speaking, a small number of mentally-ill players would choose to become mad at this point in time. However, they might also be besieged by the police and many good people with props.
Some mentally-ill players would choose to disguise themselves as good people with props. A portion of the mentally-ill players would choose to disguise as good people.
Generally, the police would simultaneously summon other players to find the decryption spell hidden in the map.
However, the sanity meter in the game was set; the more people gathered in the area, the easier it was to activate voice chat. However, voice chat would cause the sanity meter to decrease.
Therefore, it was impossible for players to gather for a long time. They must be dispersed in a certain way, watch looking for the decryption spell.
The game would then enter into the third stage which was the chaos stage. At this stage, some mentally-ill people would attack good people frantically with all sorts of tools they had acc.u.mulated. The good people could also fight back. Of course, the mentally-ill people could also reduce the sanity meter of good people through some method and make them into mentally-ill people as well, forcing them to walk the madman’s victory path…
In short, the game would be pretty chaotic at this point in time. Players could also sabotage one another.
The final stage was the closing stage. Generally speaking, at this stage, players had already been eliminated to two or three people. Most decryption spells on the map had been solved. Players would compete with the technology and tools they had through searching and obtain the final victory.
Qiao Liang then briefly introduced some of the more interesting situations he had encountered.
Of course, these replays were not particularly exciting in Pei Qian’s eyes. There was always a limit to what the game would offer since players would not understand if it was too complicated. That would be embarra.s.sing.
However, one would be able to get the most exciting gaming experience when one was in
it!
To Pei Qian, he had never experienced Be Quiet in depth before since it was a network game and he could not play it alone. Pei Qian finally understood that with Teacher Qiao’s introduction.
The initial stage of the game was searching for items that were a little similar to eating chicken. The ident.i.ty setting was similar to board games such as Three Kingdoms or The Werewolf Game. The battle portion was a bit like the asymmetrical compet.i.tion like Dead by Daylight.
There were three aspects to the game itself:
First of all, its replayability had a certain degree of luck. Many people will pursue the sure win in the game. For example, a mental patient would find a house and tools with a sanity meter and health items.
They would unleash a ma.s.sacre immediately; some people get the ultimate victory by following the police or playing well when the initial props were not good.
Second was a test of wits within the rules. Using limited language to command or mislead other players, guessing the ident.i.ty of the other players was no different from that of a board game.
Lastly was to showcase operations like Dead by Daylight. Use props and techniques to defeat more powerful enemies. At the same time, a good player would also experience a special sense of horror.
Players would be cautious of each other. No one would know when they could be suddenly caught and attacked. They could only move forward in the dark, cautiously, not daring to make a sound.
Such horror would come from the other players, from the heart of the player. Therefore, it was scarier than standalone games.
For example, some mentally-ill players would purposely hide within a room. He would wait for the good men to search for the decryption spell and then suddenly jump out to attack!
In short, no matter how good the video was, it was certainly impossible to fully explain the feeling of playing it in person.
However, Qiao Liang a.n.a.lyzed the core cool points of this game through his own editing techniques and detailed a.n.a.lysis. Bullet screen comments with ‘F*ck’ instantly floated by when talking about the game. Everyone sighed; the game could be played this way?
Finally, the video entered its final stage.
“I’m sure everyone has a certain understanding of Be Quiet after watching this video. So back to the original question, why did the production team work so hard to make ARG and eye-tracking games?
“You have to know that they could have done nothing and start selling immediately. They could just put the players into the game at once.”
“However, they created such a complicated puzzle-solving activity and added a threshold to the purchase of this game in the form of a game to ensure a certain degree of entertainment without charging a penny. “That is so that every player could integrate into the game with ease!
“If players spent money on the game-only to find the content unsuitable, they would have to ask for a refund, which was very troublesome. Therefore, the production team decided to do it outside the game so that the unsuitable players were saved from the tedious step of refunding.
“Someone would definitely ask… would he be suited for this game if he were to pa.s.s this test?
“I have to say, most likely but not definitely.
“Let us think, what is the most important quality of this game Be Quiet? It requires a certain IQ, good resistance to horror games, and a serious att.i.tude towards learning. “Everyone should have discovered by now; the pre-conditions for the purchase happen to be the test!
“The puzzle-solving aspect of the ARG was to train IQ for the game; the eye-tracking game was to exercise the ability to resist the horror; and the entire test itself was to examine whether you had the patience and the att.i.tude towards learning
“If you give up after encountering some difficulty or are not interested in puzzle games, or you might have completed the decryption but could not even be bothered to copy the homework, or if you cannot persist in the eyeball catching game… “Then, you will definitely not be able to enjoy Be Quiet. Instead, you will affect the gaming experience of the other players!
“This test can be said to be taking care of two types of players at once. To people who were suitable for this game, it guaranteed their gaming experience. For those who were not suitable, it saved them time and money.
“The only party that made a loss was the gaming company itself with a loss of income. “However, game companies are willing to give up this part of their income for the sake of a longer life of the game and a better experience for the players. Even when it caused heated disputes and was criticized badly, they did not come out to explain and accepted everything with silence.
“Therefore, many said that the game merchant is sick. They can just sell it directly, why did they need to set a precondition for the purchase? Wasn’t it disgusting?“I want to say, it really is the case. It really is dissuading players in a certain sense.
“But, please calm down to think. What if the producers did everything not for themselves but for all the players to have a better gaming experience?
“Therefore, the t.i.tle this week is ‘The Pain and Pride of a Top Game Designer’!
“He worked so hard to set up so many complicated preconditions for purchase of the game, for players to have better gaming experience. At the same time, he is too proud to explain to all players, and so he put on a calm disposition: ‘It doesn’t matter if you understand me; praise me or scold me, the game is here.’
“I think it is the blessing of all domestic players to have such a thoughtful, individualistic, and conscientious game producer!
“Too many game dealers are trying their best to suck up to the players, the ballers. You can become a master and have your way in the game by paying money. They don’t set up any obstacles or let you use your brain; they only give you some false experience points and props just by clicking the mouse… “But are you really happy? Is your wallet getting thinner? Is your thinking becoming more rigid? How long have you not experienced the shudder of the soul by solving a puzzle or discovering a kind of new gameplay? “Don’t you feel that it’s a pity that most local game designers are making such games? “So, I hope that students who are interested in this game can calm down, experience the designer’s true intentions, patiently complete the prerequisites, and experience this complicated game in person.
“I believe you will be able to find a totally different world!”
[1] This refers to games where the player only runs and goes through obstacles with speed.