I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 552 - 178: The Internet is buzzing! The company that teaches the whole world how to make games!_1

Chapter 552: Chapter 178: The Internet is buzzing! The company that teaches the whole world how to make games!_1

Kate looked down on the gaming market and players in Huaxia Nation from the bottom of her heart.

In her eyes, this market, which had started with piracy around the turn of the millennium and was now dominated by pay-to-win games, was hardly worth her attention.

The game companies that grew from this soil weren’t even listed, amounting to nothing more than small-time operations; honestly, there wasn’t much to take note of.

However, since this was an order from above, and it was required to sweep all the awards, focusing the design conference on Hope Flute.

Kate wasn’t foolish enough to enter the competition without doing any homework; her eyes wide shut.

After looking up the competition schedule, Kate found that there were three themes set for this event.

Meat Dove, Sidescrolling Levels, Platform Jump

And there were also five awards.

Best Creativity, Best Design, Best Plot, Best Visuals, Best Game.

At that moment, Kate had an epiphany.

"So, why not just make a game that takes care of all three themes and five awards in one fell swoop?"

"Give those bumpkins in Huaxia Nation a little shock of where the game originated!"

Having made up her mind, Kate began to search online for relevant information.

Sidescrolling and Platform Jumping were not uncommon gameplay mechanics, and Kate already had some ideas for them.

As for Meat Dove, it was still quite popular in the recent game market.

Kate had also heard about the general gameplay of this genre.

It simply involved shuffling a series of items and skills in random order, where players would receive an unknown item at each node and then mix and match these items to deal higher damage.

"This type of game is really just a luck game if you boil it down, and the attractive point for players is nothing more than the novelty that each round is different, constantly giving them a sense of freshness." After a cursory search online for a few Meat Dove titles and perusing reviews, Kate came to her own conclusion.

"If I integrate this feature into Sidescrolling and Platform Jumping... Let me think."

While jotting down notes and sketching rough drafts on paper, Kate reflected deeply.

Soon, she felt as if she had found a balance point.

To verify whether her idea was sound, she immediately convened a temporary meeting with the heads of the third design department as the game’s director.

"I’m thinking of adding Meat Dove to the racing gameplay, and then including Sidescrolling and Platform Jumping. What do you guys think?" Kate said bluntly.

She had started out with racing games, where she displayed her talent and was hired by Hope Flute with a high salary to be the game director of the third division.

Indeed, she lived up to expectations, having released a racing game last year that won her the Employee of the Year title at Hope Flute.

Therefore, even when developing games with these three themes unrelated to racing, Kate’s first thought was still her racing game.

Her employees also expressed their doubts one after another.

"What’s a good way to combine racing with Meat Dove?"

"We can create a highway for players to drive their cars forward, picking up random customization parts, supplies, or even equipping the vehicle with firearms along the way," Kate proposed.

"That seems like a rather good idea?"

"But what does this have to do with Sidescrolling Levels?" Another employee offered their point of view.

Typically, racing games have three camera angles: a third-person view, top-down view, and cockpit view.

But none of these perspectives have anything to do with sidescrolling.

Sidescrolling 2D or 3D typically presents a ’cross-sectional view,’ a theater-style presentation.

The advantage of this game design is that by discarding depth in space, it allows players to gain a more intuitive feel for the background, terrain, interactions.

The ’visible range’ of players is greater than that in traditional 3D games.

Place a treasure chest at the top right of the screen, and the player’s character appears in the bottom left; there may be many winding terrains in between, but players can immediately understand what kind of terrain they need to traverse to reach the treasure chest room at the top right corner.

In the same scenario in a 3D game, the player’s sight would be blocked by various objects.

Then, many designers choose to provide step-by-step guidance to lead the player to the hidden treasure chest using hints.

From the player’s beginning action to reaching the treasure chest, since they can’t see the chest the whole time, the desire to explore gradually weakens.

Thus, designers need to create more fresh ideas along the way to continuously motivate the player to move forward.

If this process is placed back into a sidescrolling game, just placing a treasure chest within the player’s field of vision is enough; the player will move forward as eagerly as a mule chasing a carrot on a stick.

This approach is not only suitable for treasure chests but also for powerful enemies, enhanced skills, or even just a door that looks a little different.

It could be said that sidescrolling 2D, compared to 3D, gives players more desire to move forward because they can always clearly see their next step.

However, not all game types are suitable for sidescrolling design.

For example, the racing game type that Kate is currently discussing.

A game must have a logical core mechanic to gain player acceptance; that is, the motivation fits within logical reasoning.

What’s the fundamental logic that racing brings to players?

Speed.

It’s about the representation of speed.

Therefore, making it run through a winding 2D terrain like other traditional sidescrollers doesn’t make sense logically.