Almighty Game Designer Chapter 555: Thunder Interactive Entertainment: Diablo Factory!

Shortly after the launch of the two games "Dark Souls" and "Knight Glory", major domestic and foreign mainstream game media released game reviews.

Everyone is surprised that even in Europe and America, "Dark Souls" has achieved one-sided success!

When the game evaluation media in Europe and the United States played "Dark Soul", they even played it harder than the domestic media. This made many players wonder, how much money did Chen Mo give them?

Some European and American game media even gave "Dark Souls" a score close to full marks, especially in terms of combat system, level design, worldview design, etc. They gave very high evaluations, and some media even called "Dark Souls". "Soul" is "the unique masterpiece of cold weapon combat design", and even regards Thunder Mutual Entertainment as "Dark God Factory"!

With the continuous release of a large number of game reviews, players are surprised to find that even in Europe and the United States, "Knight Glory" has been completely crushed by "Dark Souls", whether it is professional reviews, player ratings or sales. "Dark Souls" has completely surpassed "Knight's Glory", and it is still showing a rising trend!

As more and more professional reviews are released, many players also understand where the unique charm of "Dark Souls" comes from.

I have to say that ordinary players pay more attention to the experience and feelings obtained in the game, while some professional media will analyze the design of a game more accurately. This kind of evaluation often pays more attention to the art and design techniques of the game. .

After analyzing "Dark Soul", the game media summarized the advantages of this game into three aspects.

The first point is the extremely rich combat system. There are many kinds of cold weapons in "Dark Souls", and there are even many weapons that cannot exist in reality, and these cold weapons have their own usage.

Players can use weapons such as daggers and straight swords for speed and flexibility, as well as large swords and sledgehammers for lethality. However, different weapons have different characteristics, no matter what weapon is used, there will be corresponding weaknesses, and these weaknesses must be compensated by the player with good operations.

This is in sharp contrast to "Knight Glory". Although "Knight Glory" is born out of real combat, its combat methods are very simple. In many cases, the player's reactivity and character attributes are tested.

But in "Dark Souls", there are many fighting skills. Players can even pre-judge the knife to interrupt the opponent's attack, and at the same time cooperate with special mechanisms such as shield reversal, roll, backstab, and execution, the entire battle The system is very rich.

The second point is the ultimate level design. The mainstream level design in this world is still numerically driven, which means that monsters are getting stronger and stronger, mainly because their attributes are getting higher and higher.

Many game companies are even considering using various algorithms to make many monsters randomly refresh, and at the same time to give these monsters corresponding attributes through the player's level progress, creating a sense of randomness for the players.

But in this mode, the player’s experience of going through the level will become very boring. As long as the player’s attributes can crush the monster attributes of this level, it will be cutting melons and vegetables all the way.

If the player's attributes are not up to standard, it will be very painful during the battle, even if the skill is good, it will be difficult to pass.

But "Dark Souls" chose another approach, which is to plan every monster in the level carefully. Although the monster will randomly refresh its position in a small range, the overall configuration is unchanged.

In addition to the different characteristics of monsters and well-designed conspiracies, when the player challenges a certain level, it is equivalent to solving a puzzle.

Did you pull out and fight one by one? Or do you use a specific method to kill monsters? Or put on specific equipment and just go straight over?

Different players have different methods, but not every method is applicable. Players must try repeatedly to find the optimal solution for this level.

At the same time, the design that all monsters will resurrect after using the bonfire makes the game more difficult, but it also guarantees the integrity of this level design to the greatest extent.

If the monster does not resurrect, then players only need to slowly ride one by one, and one day they will pass the level, but this is obviously not the original intent of the game "Dark Soul" when it was designed.

"Dark Souls" hopes that players can solve the puzzles perfectly, from one campfire to another under the premise of limited blood volume and blood bottles.

Although this kind of level design is very difficult or even desperate for many people, it ensures that the level experience of "Dark Souls" is always maintained at a super high level without any discount.

Moreover, the reason why "Dark Souls" is popular~IndoMTL.com~ is not because it is difficult, but because it is difficult and reasonable.

The meaning of this game is not suffering itself, but the sense of accomplishment that comes after suffering.

In other games, the player’s character grows, and "Dark Souls" is the player’s own growth.

At the beginning, the player had to drink the elemental bottle to deal with a skeleton, but then he could parkour all the way to the boss room and kill at the limit.

From cute new to big boss, the character of the player may not have become much stronger, but the player itself has actually become stronger.

The charm of the level design of "Dark Soul" is that it does not deliberately make things difficult for the player, but guides the player through repeated failures, allowing the player to try different methods, and finally find the most suitable way to pass the level.

At the same time, "Dark Soul" takes the charm of exploration to the extreme.

Although this is not an open world game, "Dark Souls" allows players to explore multiple routes.

Different areas have different levels of difficulty. "Dark Souls" does not require players to follow a certain line. If some big guys completely defeat the second boss and kill the old woman and defeat the dancer After that, enter the advanced area of ​​Losric City.

At the same time, there are a lot of hidden props in the corners of the map, and these props hide the unknown history of "Dark Soul".

Through these short descriptions of the props, players can brainstorm the story behind the props and the world background of the entire "Dark Soul".

The third point is the unique game characteristics. Although as early as the "Diablo" period, many people already have a certain understanding of dark games, but it is clear that the launch of "Dark Souls" has pushed the concept of dark games forward a big step. !