pinnacle game producer

Chapter 62 Designing Levels Is Like Kneading Surfaces
Not only Luo Shuai, but several other people also showed curiosity.

After entering this industry, I have heard about the names of smart consoles for game development, but I don’t know if they are as magical as the legends say.

Wang Jian stroked his chin: "I bought the basic model 'White Wolf', and it will probably arrive in a few days."

Even the cheapest basic model costs 700 million, which almost wipes out the monthly income of "To the Moon".

Wang Jian was able to decisively buy one, firstly because he was not short of money now, and secondly because he had experienced the smart host at Xinghe Game University before and understood the powerful auxiliary functions of the smart host.

If you use the system to mark props and introduce them to the smart host, it will look like this:
【

Props: basic game development smart host Bailang

Function: Summon 20 robots with C- ability to assist in the development, and can assign tasks such as programming and art by themselves.

How to use: up, down, left, right, left, right, BABA
Description: Eliminate human tyranny!The world belongs to three bodies! (
】

In short, smart hosts have both advantages and disadvantages. The developers who use them are strong, and they can play more roles. If they are used well, they can reduce a lot of workload and shorten the development time.

For some small and medium-sized game companies, smart consoles are just tasteless, and they are not as cheap and easy to use as manual labor.

But for Wang Jian, it is very cost-effective to develop with a smart host.

When the difficulty of game development increases in the future, if you want to produce ultra-high-quality games, you must have top-notch employees.Wang Jian can use points to improve the strength of employees, but the price of experience books in the point store increases several times for every level up, and the more elites need to invest more points.

A small number of elites plus intelligent host assistance, this is the development route Wang Jian decided to take.

Next, Wang Jian assigned another task and said: "Ye Meng, you are responsible for the models of monsters and heroes. Remember that the game is drawn in a cartoon style, so don't draw monsters that are too fierce and realistic. Tong Ke, you are responsible for the maps of each level, Drawing of towers, soldiers, achievement icons, cutscenes, particle effects.”

Ye Meng clenched her fists tightly, looking energetic: "Understood!"

Tong Ke lay on the table like a salted fish, tilted her head and looked at Wang Jian miserably: "Boss, there are too many tasks! Can you ease it up?"

Wang Jian smiled and said: "It's okay, the auxiliary function of the smart host is very powerful, you will know when you use it. I will send you various specific requirements later."

"Okay, I understand."

Wang Jiandao: "Bai Xueyao, you are responsible for the music and sound effects of the game. This should not be difficult for you."

Bai Xueyao nodded lightly: "Yes."

After experiencing "Going to the Moon" and being photographed by Wang Jian for several experience books on arrangement, Bai Xueyao has a certain level of arrangement in addition to playing.

Different from the music of "To the Moon" that closely surrounds the plot, the music of "Kingdom Rush" only needs to be able to echo the game scene and enhance the atmosphere, and there is no need to reproduce it as it is.

So this time Wang Jian intends to let her act on her own according to the situation.

Wang Jian said again: "Bailiao, you and I are responsible for the design of defensive towers, monsters and heroes, as well as level difficulty adjustments - this is the part that best reflects the charm of the game, and it is also the most difficult part. Are you confident?"

Bailiao felt as if he was going to challenge a difficult lord in the game, the pressure and excitement gushed out at the same time, and his blood was agitated: "Yes!"

Wang Jian nodded and said, "Okay! Then let's start!"

So everyone got busy.

……

After a few days of developing "Kingdom Defense", Wang Jian recruited three new customer service staff, responsible for managing forums, game groups, and scarves, and giving feedback to players.

Another thing is that the smart console finally arrived, so the development speed suddenly increased.

Luo Shuai developed a simple demo of the first level with a smart host, which is convenient for Wang Jian and Bai Liao to design and test.

The degree of simplicity... The defense tower is a square shape, and the monster is a circle, marked in different colors, with a blood bar on its head.

Although simple, it is also quite intuitive.

The first level has only one monster exit, the monster has no skills, the advanced form of the defense tower and the hero are not unlocked, even a simple demo is enough for testing.

The difficulty of "Kingdom Rush" is divided into three levels, novice, ordinary and veteran, and the same level is divided into three modes: campaign, hero and iron blood.

Different difficulty levels, different modes, resource allocation, and fault tolerance rates for skill casting are also different.

Wang Jian and Bailiao tested repeatedly and made adjustments little by little.

"It seems that this wave of monsters can appear a little earlier."

"There can be two more mobs in this wave to increase the difficulty."

"The difficulty of this wave is enough, two more resources are a bit too much, a little resource is stuck, so that the next wave of monsters can miss two, and the front is just enough to build a tower to make up for the knife."

In addition to the lack of strategy, another major shortcoming of the tower defense games on the market today is the unbalanced difficulty.

When the defense system is completed, the mid-term is too easy to allow players to feel the fun of eliminating monsters, and the later stage is too difficult and loses the fun.

The balance of difficulty and interesting level design are both difficult and fun challenges for developers.

The relationship between defensive towers and monsters is like dough, first add a little flour, then add a little water, just to make it evenly mixed, then add a little flour to break the balance, and then add a little water—the resources for defeating monsters, if you can get reasonable The allocation is just enough to deal with the next wave of monsters, so that players can experience the pressure and fun of the challenge, and feel refreshed and fulfilled after winning.

The difficulty must be just right, it can't be too easy, making players feel "so boring, I've beaten it", and it can't make players slap the table and scold "*explosive* producer, why is this game so difficult".

But after the player fails, they will feel "If I adjust the position of my tower, I might be able to beat the wave of monsters just now!", or "What a pity! Just now I released my skills a little earlier and cleared the level with three stars. Already!"

From a development perspective, the design difficulty of tower defense games is mainly reflected in the fuzziness of numerical calculations, which are not as clear as other games.

For example, in an RPG game, if you have 10 points of strength, you can cut a knife on a monster, subtract the monster's defense coefficient, and you can deal 8 points of damage with one knife - even if you add the floating damage and crit, there is also a fixed range.

In tower defense games, with different maps, different attack ranges of defensive towers, and different moving speeds of monsters, the calculation of damage suddenly becomes blurred.

A turret with slow attack speed and high damage may only hit a fast-running monster once before the monster runs out of the attack range; while a low-level arrow turret has low damage, but fast attack speed and long range The range is wide, when the monster passes through its attack range, it can attack three times to explode the monster.

How to calculate the firepower of the tower?

Therefore, the numerical design of the tower defense game is generally to leave a large elastic range for the player after initially calculating the monster's blood volume and the firepower needed to defend against the monster's attack, allowing the player to use their own operations and resources. Cope with each wave.

The size and number of this elastic range is the embodiment of a designer's strength and experience.

(End of this chapter)