Almighty Game Designer Chapter 226: The principle of VR game production

How popular was "My World" in Chen Mo's past life?

Simply summarized, it is the most successful independent game in terms of popularity and business, and none of them; it is the second highest-selling game in the world, with sales exceeding 100 million, second only to antique Tetris.

Considering that "Minecraft" was released in 2009, there were already many very good PC and console games at that time, and it was a miracle to get this sales.

Moreover, the power of "Minecraft" lies in the fact that it can be used in the hall, in the kitchen, on the PC and console, and on the tablet and mobile phone. All platforms can be transplanted smoothly.

There are some data that can slightly corroborate the popularity of this game.

In 2014, the Mojang studio that produced "Minecraft" was acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion.

"Minecraft" has 4.31 billion views on Youtube.

During the "Minecraft" test period, more than 10 million players applied to join, which also made it the most popular beta game.

It is said that the Military Survey Bureau of the State of Corruption created a topographic map of the entire British Isles in Minecraft, using 22 billion squares.

Why is this game so magical that countless people are addicted to it?

In short, because "Minecraft" greatly reduces the difficulty of making a three-dimensional object on the computer.

In fact, many people have the idea of ​​"creating their own space/world". When they were young, they could experience it through sand castles, building blocks, paper molds, etc., but when they grew up, they could experience various games.

On the computer, there are many ways to create a virtual world, but traditional 3D design software has extremely high learning costs, and most people do not have the patience to learn from scratch.

And "Minecraft" allows most people to create a 3D virtual world relatively easily.

Just pile the cubes.

No need for materials, textures, rendering, terrain, vegetation, particle effects, all of them are not needed, anyway, you have to choose the right square and stack it up.

The squares in "Minecraft" are unconventional. They are the standard size of 1m*1m*1m. It is not easy for players to feel lost in the scale of the virtual world, and the finished product is more convincing.

Moreover, "Minecraft" is not just a world creator, it is also a rich game. Hanmen Hanlin

For Chen Mo, porting this game to the VR platform is a very challenging thing and also very meaningful.

……

After Chen Mo explained the concept draft, everyone began to hurry up to prepare for various tasks, especially the technology tree, art style and derivative gameplay mentioned by Chen Mo, which was enough for everyone to have a headache for a while.

After all, there is no game for reference in this world. How to make a game similar to building blocks? What does it look like? How should some details be designed?

This is a question that everyone should consider carefully.

As for Chen Mo himself, he returned to the second floor of the experience store and began to study the relevant rules for making VR games.

The Magic World Editor supports the production of VR games, but the specific production methods are different from PC and mobile games.

Chen Mo is now an A-level designer and an honorary member of the game committee. He has very high authority in the fantasy editor and can open the corresponding section for making VR games.

When he became an A-level designer, Chen Mo had already browsed the related process of making VR games, and now he confirmed it again.

Chen Mo has also experienced VR games represented by "Earth OL" before. Simply put, the VR technology of this world allows players to directly input their consciousness into the game cabin and receive feedback signals.

The game cabin has replaced traditional input/output devices, such as keyboards, mice, monitors, etc., and has become a bridge between player awareness and the virtual reality game world.

The game cabin has the ability to analyze player consciousness.

For a simple example, the player wants to reach out for a certain item in the game, then the game cabin will interpret this consciousness, transform it into the actions of the characters in the game, and interact with the game world, the final result It was the game character who picked up this item.

Similarly, actions such as moving, climbing, jumping, attacking, shooting, etc. are all achieved in this way.

Theoretically speaking, the virtual reality technology in this world can analyze any player's intentions, but whether it can be applied to the game depends on whether the designer has designed the corresponding rules.

To put it simply, in a cold weapon battle game, the player can send out the consciousness of "I want to pull the trigger", but the game compartment is analyzed and transmitted to the game world, because the game world does not support This action, so the character in the game will remain motionless and will not react in any way.

Specific to a certain VR game, what actions it supports, and what operation methods it supports, all depend on the designer's design. [Summary] Disabled Zhijian

For example, in the game, you are a soldier with a gun, and you want to make the action of "stomping the gun under your feet", but the designer did not design it, so your character will be motionless.

It sounds strange, but after playing VR games for a long time, you will get used to this setting. (Just like you are in the 3A masterpiece, many times you can only do the actions that the plot requires you to do.)

So, the more executable actions a designer can design for the game, the more freedom the player can do in the game, the more things they can do, and the more realistic the game will appear.

But this way, the greater the load of the game, the more energy the player needs to consume.

This is also one of the reasons why VR platforms generally do not play games like RTS.

There is no special advantage in art performance.

Expensive.

The player needs to consume too much consciousness, which makes it easy to get tired and unable to play for too long.

If there is an RTS game on the VR platform, the player’s consciousness needs to select a certain unit and then perform a certain operation. In the process of the infinite loop behavior, they must continue to think about combat strategies. For the player, the spirit of consumption is required. The power is doubled.

The PC platform is different. Players also need to think about these things, but all operations are done through the mouse and keyboard~IndoMTL.com~ And many of them are subconscious habitual actions, so they are not that tired.

Therefore, some VR games will also deliberately simplify the game operation to prevent over-complex operations from causing fatigue to the player's spirit, so as to achieve the purpose of extending the game time in disguise.

For example, in some VR games, all the "attacks" of the players are fist attacks, and the direction, angle, strength and other attributes of the fist cannot be determined. This is to simplify the game operation and reduce the burden on the player's spirit. .

In addition, in terms of perception, VR games have the ability to fully simulate the player’s senses, including sight, hearing, smell, touch and so on.

The image in the game will be transmitted to the player in the form of visual signals, which is 124 degrees like a normal person’s overlapping field of view, and the focus area is about 25 degrees, which is consistent with reality.

Hearing and smell are transmitted to the player in the form of signals, which can fully simulate the sounds and smells in the real world.

……

After understanding that the basics of VR game design are far away, there are some basic design principles.