Almighty Game Designer Chapter 209: The spiritual connotation of “Famine”

For the game "Don't Starve", there are many points that attract players, but in the final analysis, its original driving force is "survival."

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, needs are divided into five categories: physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, respect, and self-realization.

These five needs form a pyramid-shaped structure. The lowest level is the physiological need, and the highest level is the self-realization need.

The more elementary requirements are, the easier it is to achieve, but they are also the most important and urgent.

In other words, if a person lacks food, safety and respect at the same time, then in general, his need for food should be the strongest. In contrast, safety and respect are not so important.

Therefore, people will take risks when they are extremely hungry, to fight against large beasts (giving up safety), or bowing to power (giving up dignity).

Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory is widely used in various fields, and the game field is no exception.

Many game designers use this theory to build a complete Maslow demand hierarchy in the game, which is used to drive players to chase illusory data in the game, and indulge in it.

To give a simple example, some games that focus on "selling combat power" as their core selling point highlight the two needs of safety and respect.

For a weaker player, he is always at risk of being killed by the stronger player in this game, so he feels a strong sense of insecurity, which will drive him to spend more More money or time in the game becomes stronger to maintain your safety.

After the more powerful players possess the attribute of safety, they will turn to pursuit of respect and self-realization, such as fighting for the king, setting up a big guild, leading the younger brothers to participate in national wars, for these virtual His sense of honor and lavish money.

Generally speaking, few games can use the "physical needs" level, because this gameplay is relatively troublesome, especially because many game mechanisms do not support it.

In fact, people's physiological needs are very simple, they are nothing more than food, water, health, reproduction and so on. But in general games, characters are generally not allowed to run for food and water, and there is no concept of hunger value, because the game content is limited, and there are many more content that is worth the player to experience.

"Famine" captures this blind spot well and reveals the theme of "survival".

Moreover, "Famine" is not just a simple game. If you dig into its spiritual connotation, you will find that it actually has depth that some masterpieces don't have.

Unlike many protagonists with a great mission, Wilson’s meaning is existence itself. He doesn’t need to save the world or others. His only goal is to live well, in "Famine" Everything we do in the world is for the most basic goal: to live better.

"Famine" is a highly stylized game with a very mature mindset.

The world of "Famine" is not any known historical background, and even this world is full of settings completely out of reality. Its entire painting style and music are full of black humor, but when facing death, it is extremely real.

This feeling of coexistence of absurdity and reality runs through the game "Don't Starve", including the coexistence of technology and magic in the game, which greatly strengthens this feeling.

The moving machinery, the inhabited pigmen, the tombstones in the forest, the remains of the predecessors, the terrifying monsters... all kinds of settings that are extremely scary at first glance do not affect each other, but behind them are inextricably linked Link.

The background of the entire world is highly unified, forming a unique magical realism world.

The playability of "Don't Starve" comes from its rich settings. It looks like a simple 2D game, but the actual playability is much richer than some masterpieces.

The types of monsters are very complicated. Each type of monster can provide unique food and resources. The protagonist can use a rich construction system to create fires, barbecue grills, pots, traps, and so on.

Moreover, the protagonist also has a wealth of interactive actions, such as empty-handed gathering, felling, digging, lighting, planting, etc. All props, including the surface itself, can be interacted with. Those precious props can also be directly used as fuel at critical moments. To use.

The ways to obtain resources are also different. If the player wants to obtain pig skins, they can go to the pigman’s front face, or find abandoned pig man’s huts, altar search materials, or plant them next to the pig man’s village. The spider eggs, waiting for the spiders and pigmen to tear, sit back and reap their profits.

When the player has achieved something and has lost interest in survival mode, and the need for survival is no longer enough to stimulate the player to continue the game, the player will also find the adventure mode and open a new challenge.

Furthermore, this is also an extremely ruthless game. In the face of survival, any negligence may cause irreversible consequences.

But because of this, the meaning of survival itself becomes more precious. When I was hungry, I found a pig village full of carrots and berries. The feeling at this moment will be very good.

After playing "Don't Starve", many players will understand how happy it is to be "satisfied".

It is precisely for these reasons that "Don't Starve" can attract novice players who are interested in survival games, but also retain those hard-core players for a long time. There are even many people who insist on playing this game for several years. Don't feel boring~IndoMTL.com~Because every "Don't Starve" journey will be different.

And, like many sandbox games, mods are the eternal charm of Don’t Starve Together.

Aside from the official DLC, the mods created by the players also bring a lot of fun to this game.

For character mods, there are Sauron (bring your own knives, you can cut trees, road idiots, all maps are always black), Ace (bring your own fireball, return mental value next to the fire) and other One Piece characters; auxiliary mod In terms of display values, architectural geometry; functional mods, permanent tents, expansion backpacks...

There are also super large mods, such as Dark Heroes. A single mod is enough for many players to play for half a year. This super large mod is almost equivalent to a new game.

Of course, Chen Mo just picked out a few more commonly used mods that do not affect balance. As for other mods, just leave them to the players to develop them.

Sandbox games are just like that. Only when players fully participate can the potential of this game be truly developed.