I Just Want Players to Save Money, They Insist on Giving Me!
Chapter 744 - 232: The Game Design Philosophy That Made Global Manufacturers Kneel!_2

Chapter 744: Chapter 232: The Game Design Philosophy That Made Global Manufacturers Kneel!_2

"Players only need to make one choice between the two: walk to the left to interact with NPCs, or go right to venture into the mines, simple and intuitive."

"And once they exit the mines, they just need a few more guided points of interest."

"Of course, it is not possible to use such direct examples in the game, as you cannot just place a public bathroom wall anywhere—it would be too jarring. And if changed to another nearby vision-blocking object, once or twice would be okay, but frequent use would bother players as it restricts their view. After all, you keep emphasizing an open world, yet you’re always blocking their view, how does that fit? It’s not really free."

"Let’s now see how the prime player in ’Zelda’ managed this issue."

Brother Beici in Figure 3 selected a scene from inside the ’Zelda’ game.

In the distance, a mountain.

On the left side of the mountain, there is a resting point capable of activating side quests, while on the right, an inactive Divine Temple.

And that’s it, aside from some decorative environmental props and scattered collecting materials, these are all the interest points visible to the player in that image.

"By comparison, we can see that the prime player simply used ’a mountain as a blocking object,’ confining the player’s gaze to only two or three conspicuous points nearby, which then become the targets for the player to approach."

"This is clearly not me making excuses for the prime player. If you reach the Divine Temple on the right and then look up to see the mountain from ’a perspective beside the Divine Temple,’ you will notice that the interest points around you change again."

"As described in Figure 4, the Sheikah Tower, previously invisible from the perspective of Figure 3, would be visible halfway up the mountainside in Figure 4, and on the right, a Pokoblin camp appears, which was also not visible from the original viewpoint."

"Through comparison, it’s not hard to see that ’Zelda’ almost fully implements the principle of triangular design, ensuring that no matter the viewpoint, there are only two or three interest points visible to the naked eye, making it easier for players to make choices."

"Why is it called triangular design? Because you will notice from a macro perspective, a mountain’s outline looks like an isosceles triangle."

"And mountains, naturally existing and ubiquitously visible in the environment, do not create the abruptness of a ’public bathroom’s wall.’"

"’Always keeping players engaged with interest points, yet not overly cluttered by too many of them,’ this, I believe, is the second powerful aspect of ’Zelda’s’ design."

"The next point, the third, is what I consider to be the absolute ace in the sleeve of the ’Zelda’ design philosophy! Under normal circumstances, I feel even charging for courses on this wouldn’t be exaggerating, and currently, no other reviews mention this point."

"But, as my regular viewers know, Brother Beici isn’t one to profit from such trivial gains, and even if I don’t do it today, with Designer Ke’s character, once the initial wave of game hype subsides, the prime player would likely reveal the design principles anyway, so at best I’m just gilding the lily here. I’ll just ask for a small favor in the form of likes, and if you find the article of good quality, feel free to share and forward it to your friends/smile/smile."

Halfway through the article, Beici made a small joke, but quickly returned to the main subject.

"The third point, the framework structure—I left it for last because the entire core of ’Zelda’s’ open world is completely supported by this structure."

"Before delving into this framework, for easier understanding, let me first talk about how other game developers designed open world frameworks in the past half year."

"Perhaps deeply influenced by the pioneer of open worlds, ’Elden Ring,’ the open-world games developed in this half year all share a distinct feature—a large, free map for players to explore."

"But frankly, even for ’Elden,’ its core allure for players is actually its ring-like experience, not the open world; the open world is merely more inclusive compared to the ring-like experience, so many developers opt to focus heavily in this direction."

"But without the ring-like elements, the remaining content in your various open worlds is not enough to sustain the exploratory desire of players."

"It’s common to encounter issues such as ’uneven distribution of interest points,’ ’improper control over leveling pace,’ ’unbalanced distribution between side rewards and main rewards,’ ’enlarging maps just for the sake of enlargement,’ etc."

"Even excluding ’Elden,’ and considering the Blizzard team, which has the deepest understanding of open worlds and their design of ’Divine Land,’ I must clarify here that Blizzard’s CEO Mide’s so-called 37 principle is truly absurd."

"The definition of an open world is not something like 30% main quest and 70% side quests + exploration points; such understanding is overly simplistic, similar to how primitive people might see lightning ignite a fire in the sky and certainly believe that lightning is necessary to generate fire—such ignorance and one-sidedness."

"And the understanding of many other developers is even worse than Blizzard’s. Their concept of an open world is just tossing things randomly on a large map, be it side quests, interest points, or items, as long as they seem evenly distributed and keep the players always busy."