Reboot the age of gaming

Chapter 381 Auto Chess

Jia Jia's design idea is generally similar to that of "City Guard War", which is basically an optimized version, and the practice of changing the soup without changing the medicine can also be regarded as "City Guard War 2".

Although there are some changes on the map and optimizations in terms of arms and combat systems, in Zhong Ming's view, this change is still a bit conservative.

At the time when "City Defense War" appeared, this gameplay was unique and very fresh to players, so it was able to achieve such good results; and now, "City Defense War" has been successful and is a mobile game all over the world. Manufacturers are researching and copying the gameplay of "City Defense Warfare". At this time, it will be difficult to achieve such success if they release a new version of "City City Defense Warfare 2".

What's more, such a game similar to "City Defense War" will impact the status of "City Defense War", and their own games collide with each other, which is meaningless.

Since we are going to make a new game, we must take a long-term view. It must be able to fully surpass the gameplay of "City Guard" and form a dimensionality reduction blow to all other game manufacturers that produce similar gameplay.

Zhong Ming randomly took a hand-painted tablet from the side, and simply drew a sketch on it.

Jia Jia looked at the horizontal and vertical lines drawn by Zhong Ming: "Is this a chessboard?"

It's really like a chess board, a chess board.This is an 8*8 chessboard with a total of 64 grids. Zhong Ming symbolically drew a few villains on the chessboard. There is a small army on the top and bottom of the chessboard, and the two sides are distinguished by different colors.

"This game is called "Auto Chess." Zhong Ming said, "As the name suggests, the main gameplay of this game is to assemble the lineup and arrange troops. All battles are carried out automatically by the chess pieces."

"Hmm..." Jia Jia looked at the sketch drawn by Zhong Ming and nodded.

"The game has some basic concepts. Such as population, money, how to draw chess pieces, upgrade chess pieces, lineup collocation..."

The basic mechanism of the game is not complicated. Zhong Ming briefly explained it to Jia Jia, and Jia Jia quickly understood it.

The basic mechanism of auto chess, to put it bluntly, is to use the limited funds given by the system to maximize the funds in your hands by upgrading the game records/refreshing chess pieces/earning interest as much as possible, and cultivate a strongest lineup, and finally stand Be the winner in the end.

From this gameplay point of view, auto chess is a bit like eating chicken, and it is all about fighting to the end as much as possible.If you live to the last place, you will eat chicken, and you can also get points if you get the first few places.

The strength of the players is sorted and graded through the points, and the players are matched according to their ranks.On the one hand, a similar ranking mechanism can ensure that the matched players are of a similar level and guarantee the game experience, and on the other hand, it can allow players to have a long-term game goal.

"As for lineup collocation, three aspects are mainly considered. The fetters of chess pieces, the strength of chess pieces, and the difficulty of obtaining chess pieces. Different lineups can be formed between chess pieces. For example, if N soldiers of the same type are in battle at the same time, they can have special lineup bonuses. The chess pieces themselves can release skills, and rare cards have higher attributes and stronger skills. Of course, these rare cards are also more difficult to obtain, and some easy-to-obtain chess pieces are easier to synthesize three stars."

"At the same time, use three dimensions to restrict the player's lineup selection, and at the same time, there will be a certain degree of randomness every time the chess pieces are refreshed. After adding random factors, players need to always consider their own lineup collocation, and use limited resources to find winning cards. Optimal solution, this is the fun of auto chess."

Jia Jia nodded while listening.

Sure enough, this design basically has nothing to do with "City Defense", which is a completely different game.

Jia Jia subconsciously compared this game with "City Defense". The combat strategy of "Auto Chess" is obviously completely different. There is no defense tower, and it is impossible to place the positions of the arms independently during the battle to form the effect of gathering troops.

In other words, "Auto Chess" is a bit like some very traditional mobile card games. After the lineup is set up, players can't intervene at all.Players only need to pay attention to the pre-battle strategy, there is no strategy in the battle.

And "City Defense War" is a game that takes into account both pre-war and in-war strategies, and there must be a difference in game experience.

"This gameplay is indeed a bit like chess. It's just that the packaging of the chess pieces has been changed to game characters." Jia Jia said.

Zhong Ming nodded: "Yes, and, don't you think it's a bit like mahjong?"

Jia Jia was taken aback for a moment, but thinking about it this way, it was true.

In some respects, auto chess is similar to mahjong. For example, playing cards is based on luck, and playing cards is about strategy. A real master uses good cards to win as much money as possible, and loses less money when he gets bad cards.

In auto chess, the three pieces can be upgraded, which is somewhat similar to the touch and bar in mahjong, and the ultimate goal of auto chess is to form a perfect lineup, which is also a bit like pursuing some high-level tricks in mahjong similar.

In the actual game experience, the feeling of auto chess is also similar to that of mahjong, so many players who get good cards for nothing at the beginning of the game are called "Brother Tianhu". This statement should also have some connection with mahjong.

As for the playability and richness of fun of traditional chess and card games such as mahjong, it goes without saying.Auto Chess has the characteristics of both chess and mahjong, and there is no problem with the richness of the gameplay.

Then there are the specific pieces of auto chess. Each piece has different elements such as basic attributes, skills, and fetters. Players need to filter out a lineup that suits them through these contents.

For novice players, you only need to memorize a few well-matched common lineups, and then work hard to make them together; .

In short, "Auto Chess" is a game that is not particularly easy to learn and difficult to master.Compared with "City Defense War", its learning cost is higher. Players must first memorize at least a relatively powerful lineup, and they must understand the most basic gameplay of the game (for example, don't rush to get money at the beginning) Keep brushing chess pieces to spend all the money) to get the fun of the game, otherwise you can only play at a loss.

But once the players get started, this game brings far more happiness to the players than "City Defense War".Moreover, the balance of this game is much better than "City Defense".

After briefly talking about the gameplay, there are still some relatively unimportant designs, such as the game's style of painting, special effects, and the game's profit mechanism.

Now that wristband games are fully holographic projection, "Auto Chess" must be made into a holographic projection mode, which is a matter of course.On the virtual chessboard of holographic projection, it feels like playing chess in the real world.The three-dimensional display effect of the holographic projection mode is much better than the flat display effect.

As for the operation method of the game, it is mainly completed by dragging, clicking and other operations, and it is enough to follow the general operation method of most mobile games.

And then there's the art style of the game.

Zhong Ming's auto chess player in his previous life played in the Q version style. On the one hand, he considered possible copyright issues, and on the other hand, he wanted to take care of a wider user group, such as female players, as much as possible.

But in Zhong Ming's opinion, the Q version style doesn't really match auto chess.

There are many problems with the art style of the Q version. First of all, the recognition of the chess pieces is not high enough due to the Q version. In addition, the screen itself of the mobile game is relatively small, and it will be difficult to distinguish the chess pieces. Secondly, the core player group of "Auto Chess" is Male players even account for more than 80% of the game group. The Q version style does not meet their taste. Even if it is a Q version, keeping the head-to-body ratio at about 1:3 is the limit. A more Q style is not suitable for straight men They have some dissuading effects; at the same time, the Q version of the painting style means that the style of the entire game has to be adjusted, whether it is combat special effects, dubbing, or actions, etc., it is inevitable to move closer to the Q version, and the effect is very good. It's hard to stand out.

Therefore, the "Auto Chess" produced by Zhong Ming this time is basically based on a realistic style of painting, trying to strengthen the differences in the appearance of different chess pieces as much as possible, and making some rare chess pieces as handsome as possible, so that the whole game The texture is stronger.

Of course, a little detail will be added to make the whole game less serious.For example, the daily movements of these chess pieces, the lines when playing/being sold, etc., will be made more playful. Some female chess pieces in the game are also made to look good, so take care of the appearance party players a little bit.

There is also the question of game revenue.

The game of "Auto Chess" is not suitable for making a routine of spending money to draw cards like "City Defense Battle", because the fun of "Auto Chess" lies in the lineup of different chess pieces.Although giving players all the chess pieces at once will increase their learning costs, if they are restricted from obtaining chess pieces, it will cause great unfairness.

Even if a matching mechanism is added according to the strength of the player lineup, so that all novice players can be matched together, then the "post-castration" lineup matching method will also change, directly causing novices and veterans to play different games, which is completely inconsistent with " How to play the game Auto Chess.

Therefore, the profit model adopted by Zhong Ming is the DOTA2 model of selling accessories.

Players can get tokens in the game by playing the game or recharging, and accessories can be obtained by drawing with these tokens.These trinkets mainly change the appearance of pieces, boards, or other elements in the game, and have no effect on combat power.

Ornaments can decorate various parts of different chess pieces, and have different qualities according to their appearance.At the same time, these accessories are allowed to be traded in the game, which has a certain value preservation effect.

As for the way of displaying the appearance, whether it is an accessory or a skin, there is actually not much difference.

The advantage of making a skin is that it is relatively controllable, because the skin is designed by a dedicated artist as a whole, there will be no eye-catching collocations, and it is more convenient to make; the advantage of accessories is that they can be matched at will. You can create a unique matching plan according to your own preferences and needs.

……

Zhong Ming talked about all aspects of the game, and then talked about the general composition of the lineup.

According to the bonds between the pieces, the lineup of the player group needs to comprehensively consider many aspects such as the effect of the bond, the strength of the pieces, and the difficulty of obtaining them. Naturally, there are countless types of lineups.But in the final analysis, players will definitely sum up the optimal solutions of several commonly used lineups. This is normal. The official encourages novice players to memorize these optimal solutions by rote. into homogenization.

As for the specific balance, it must be done by Jia Jia. Zhong Ming only needs to give him the list of these commonly used chess pieces.

"Boss, I feel that the game will last a long time." Jia Jia suddenly realized a problem.

"Auto Chess" is divided into the early, middle and late stages. Even if the game time is shortened, the forty rounds will take at least 35 minutes. If you can really eat chicken or reach the top three, and the battle in the finals is more intense, the game will last longer. May be longer.For a mobile game, this is obviously quite slow-paced.

However, it is inappropriate to forcibly compress the game time, because "Auto Chess" has different strategies in the early, middle and late stages. For example, some players will choose to sell blood and save money in the early stage to hold back chess pieces in the later stage. This is also a strategic choice.If the game time is forcibly compressed and the pace of the game is accelerated, players may be more inclined to take the powerful units in the early stage, resulting in the homogenization of game tactics.

Therefore, Zhong Ming's approach can only be to shorten the battle time of the chess pieces as much as possible. After all, the battles are all automatic battles. When the overall battle speed is accelerated by 1.5 times, some battles that "slow down the battle time" can be accelerated.For example, when the battle has been going on for a period of time, other battles are over, and only two relatively fleshy lineups are still fighting. At this time, the playback speed should be accelerated to make the battle end as soon as possible.

In addition, a "ready to complete" button can also be added. When everyone has finished the formation stage, click this button to enter the next round immediately without waiting for the time to run out.

For some handicapped players, the time may not be enough in some cases, and the game will start without adjusting the lineup.For this, Zhong Ming added a "time bank" mechanism in accordance with the usual practice of general chess and card games.

Each player has a "time bank". When the player's formation time is over, the game will not start directly, but will enter an extra few seconds of stoppage time, so that the player can prepare more fully.This supplementary time comes from the "time bank" and cannot be used frequently, it is only an emergency measure.

At the same time, if the player completes the operation within the specified time, or presses the ready button in advance, they can recharge the "time bank". The more time saved in the front, the more "time bank" available later, thus forming A dynamic time balancing mechanism.This can also encourage players to use the "ready" button more and save game time.

Of course, having said that, although the game "Auto Chess" is time-consuming, it is also one of its fun.What Zhong Ming has to do is to optimize it as much as possible while ensuring the fun of the game, so that it adapts to the player's game rhythm.

(End of this chapter)