will: A Better World review: A masterpiece of independent domestic games

If the previous text introduction can only prove that I can be a qualified MC, then I say again: "She is rotten enough!" This is bound to change from a master of ceremonies to a mailbox for nerds.

The overall style of women's design

This is a word puzzle game, but it seems that the game's developer, Arbitrary Door Game Studio (hereinafter referred to as Arbitrary Door), is very shy and modest, and it calls its own work "strange word puzzle game."

Ren Yi door should have been this feeling: "I am afraid that the officials can not see me like this, so I freshen up, pink and beautiful, concubine is afraid to think too much!"

I'll talk more about the game's weird mechanics later. I think it's important to know the identity of any man.

The reason why any door is a "female", the first game players have to play a girl, this girl is in the alien space of the God, as to why a girl can become a god, I have my own explanation.

According to Xenophon, the ancient Greek philosopher, a crude argument for the non-existence of gods: "If there were gods, then the gods of every animal would look like themselves." What this means is that man can only imagine what God looks like based on his own experience. Of course you take this to mean: "My goddess may be just like me." There's nothing I can do about that.

In the game, the player has to accept that he or she sees the game from the perspective of a girl and participates in the game, which is, in a way, a projection of the identity of a female game designer. The girl's lines are almost the same as the lines of your female desk mates in elementary school: full of capricious, spoiled but not yet cute and kind.

This female-centric perspective is emblematic not only of the rise of female gamers, but also of the proliferation of games with a female-oriented overall design style.

The reason why I say Any door is gentle and considerate is that the game constantly shows you instructions, and it also carefully reminds you not to forget to save automatically. And when I deliberately didn't remember the game's operation tips and annoyed her, she half mocked and half jokingly punished me, while still not forgetting to help me back up the archive, this angry and caring person is the best choice for a girlfriend.

She is a cuteist, because in the next story the player will continue to encounter a variety of emojis, they are hard to find, which you can only hold the same "= =" such expression in response.

She is not afraid of horror and blood, because she designs stories with several characters whose storylines are talking about "Why are you blushing?" This shy little love, this is from the heart of the red. Other characters' stories say, "Why are you blushing?" The big red one. The red one is called blood. That is to say, its story is a collection of soft, shy, youth, violence, blood in one.

And also as Patrick's snack shortage syndrome, she can also allow "you can eat snacks while playing oh", by eating snacks while scrolling documents, you and she seem to return to the days of watching Korean dramas.

She is corrupt because of this text in the game: "A bar of soap rolled out of nowhere, and I looked back to see this, and I looked down at myself, and I looked down at the team leader."

The reason I go to the trouble of listing these things is to say that she has ensured her overall design style. According to famous game designer Jesse Schell, "Mature games are able to complete their own overall design style." Through the text dialogue, the graphic style (Japanese-Korean manga), the design mechanics (the various care-taking mechanics just listed), you can really feel the design effort of the author.

The most important task for an indie game studio is how to make your audience remember you. In this era of triple-A monsters twisting their waists, games in the collusion of finance and technology industry have shaped the popular aesthetic as Hollywood movies did in the past.

The game industry has entered a post-industrial era (that is, from a production-led to a consumption-led era), and the greatest value of the existence of independent game studios is to meet the multi-level consumer needs of the public. When I know the game type and unique game style of this game studio, which is a scarce style in today's 3A world, and this style meets my needs, then this game studio and players like me will establish a long-term positive promotion cycle in mutual needs.

As a result, we can see the game's impressive overall design style.

"Strange" game puzzle mechanics

In the game, the player takes on the role of a girl who will continue to receive letters from humans as the story progresses, these characters come from different countries, have different beliefs, belong to different races.

From different countries means: When you open the Mexican storyline, players from Sichuan may hear a "my ancestors" break the screen, but it is actually a Spanish word (empty ear disease).

Having a different faith means that the previous Mexican protagonist silently prays, "Lord, please save me." The next Korean protagonist immediately says, "Amitabha, not bad." So where the hell have you put this girl?!

To belong to a different race means to say, "I'm a little stray cat, and Daddy calls me Rhubarb."

When helping these characters solve their problems, the player will first receive a narrative, and the original version of their story will have a bad ending due to certain events, so the girl God's task is to rearrange the conditions that led to the bad outcome to create a different ending than the original version.

These preconditions are represented by white boxes, which the player can move to arrange. But the player can't move it to the front and the end of the story. This structure is divided into the following examples: I go out (this is a big premise), the dog takes a dump in front of the door (condition 1), I step in front of the door (condition 2), I look at my sticky feet and faint in pain (result).

Conditions 1 and 2 cannot be placed in the major premise and result, and other arrangements of conditions 1 and 2 can affect the result. So in this case, if we switch condition 1 and condition 2 by one position, our result will definitely be better: I will step on it tomorrow.

In order to be more logical, the designer set other restrictions on the conditions in the future story to be more in line with common sense, such as condition 1 and condition 2 if they are contradictory, they can not be put together to meet the most basic law of contradiction, such as "I am cold" and "I am hot", sometimes condition 1 and condition 2 must meet the order of the restrictions.

In order to increase the richness of the story and puzzle, the game lets the player listen to the story of the two protagonists, and then lists all the conditions involved in the two for the player to control, and the different arrangements of the conditions correspond to different story results, which can affect the development process of the story and the relationship between the characters. There are good and bad outcomes, and every puzzle game has the best combination by default.

When the characters describe themselves, the screen will be filled with a solid color page background, and the color will be determined according to the character's personality: Yellow and red mean bold and lively (Zhang Jingmin), green means green and naughty (character Ji Zai), purple means female maturity, mystery and a certain insight of the beauty (Alicia), blue means melancholy, dignified and contradictory thoughts (artist Wen 櫂).

So designers will definitely design such colors for some people: colorful, black and white difficult to distinguish. A symbol of the evolution of truth, elusive and hard to find. Like some professors at Southern Power.

The same goes for the game's music. The music is mainly composed of piano and guitar instruments, which can ensure the player's immersion in the story and the continuity of thinking puzzles. Each person's music is also different, corresponding to different personalities. For example, the background music of my fellow Mexican from Sichuan has a relatively fast tone frequency, a lively sense and a sense of rhythm, and a very Spanish melody style, which is in line with his foreign identity, and also in line with his knowledge level is not high but kind and enthusiastic character.

Flaws in game mechanics

Generally speaking, word games are the product of small companies, niche and small costs, and these three conditions are almost mutually restrictive and mutually causal, forming a closed interaction triangle.

This game is constantly being called "the best word puzzle game in China", and I am not interested in such comments. The word game is stuck in a relatively awkward position by the "three small", just like a group of wilderness explorers are stuck in a desperate situation. Due to the scarcity of resources, explorers will cherish whatever resources are available to them and their surroundings.

For word games, cost is actually the creation of characters, and resources are the resources that can create characters. For example, if we want to design the word game of the water band hero, we must consider the relationship between the character drawing, background music, character background and characters of the 108 heroes, and the relationship between the characters need to consider the scene, interactive dialogue, story design and so on.

Unlike fiction, word games are more expensive to create because they not only have to visualize the characters as much as possible, but they also have to design their dialogue into a reversible narrative. A reversible narrative is one in which there are non-linear alternatives to the dialogue between the characters, allowing for an "open ending".

Generally successful word games tend to build most of the interactions on a small number of protagonists, in order to keep the story's tension as low as possible. So it's almost impossible to see a group description in a word game. Do not underestimate this pattern, even the famous writer Shakespeare's plays also follow this pattern to some extent.

For "WILL: A Wonderful World," that's exactly what they haven't done well. Your connection to me is probably a cabbage, a bullet, an apple, or the blob by the door.

For example, for A: go out (major premise), the floor is smooth (condition), and fall (result). For B: skating (major premise), the floor is not smooth (condition), fell due to loss of balance (result)

In response to the above, the girl God said loudly: "This is not halal!" So they exchanged terms, and then they avoided a bad outcome, and then they went about their business and never saw each other again. In a way, this arrangement is slightly absurd.

Instead of spreading the characters out like this and setting up a bunch of events that have nothing to do with either side, try to create fewer key characters and try to connect them. My advice is based on the awkward situation that all word games face: the three small situations.

Finally, I want to talk about one of the "weird" mechanics in the game. Many players have reported that the arrangement of these conditions is "a lot of guessing", especially when some players get tired of randomizing those conditions as blocks to try their luck. Why does this happen?

The selling point of this puzzle is nothing but People's Daily life, our world of experience. It does not require you to have too much abstract calculation ability, but to have a tendency to think in relation to life. I believe this is what the game wanted.

What does the player think? A lot of my reaction was, "No way, what's the difference between answering the phone and not answering the phone?" Let's wait. That is to say, certain conditions do not constitute sufficient and necessary conditions for the outcome of the event, that is to say, you gave me this condition, you gave me a hint, but I still have difficulty understanding the necessary connection between this condition and a good outcome.

People have individual differences, and people's experience of life is also different. If we follow the logical law of sufficient and necessary conditions for the occurrence of events, then everyone shares a rational way of thinking and can understand the author's arrangement.

But if we don't do this, it's very tempting to make our players' life experiences passively dependent on the designers. This is also what most steam players have commented: "Basically guessing what the designers are thinking." The reason.

Players still love the product for a variety of reasons, but the design is definitely not what the designers intended. Because if the player's puzzle does not require the player's abstract reasoning ability, nor does it match the player's experience perception, then how can the player achieve a sense of accomplishment? In the future, it is expected to absorb the advantages of detective and detective works and integrate them into their own games.

Summary: My attitude towards this game is that I have little interest in whether it is "the best Chinese text puzzle game", but it can basically afford it, the overall female design style is unforgettable, the picture and sound quality are highly consistent with the character's personality, the game's puzzle mechanism is really amazing, but there are defects behind it that can not be ignored.