Chapter 645: The Peak of Artistry of Domestic Single-Player Games
"So, what do game makers really want to express?"
"It's actually easy to distinguish."
"The real-life issues reflected in the game are what the official is collecting in Weibo activities. This is the 'mirror' function of the game "Struggle". It uses the method of reproducing realistic elements to allow everyone to pass
This game sees reality."
"But if it completely reflects reality, obviously documentaries or documentary-themed movies will be a better carrier, able to present all the content in front of everyone more objectively."
""Struggle" is a game. The reason why it is used as a carrier is because the producers can combine the content they want to express with the game mechanism!"
"So, those parts that are combined with the game mechanics are what the producers really hint at through this 'mirror'!"
"Next, there is a series of questions and answers. These questions are all unreasonable things that the creators left in the game. It is precisely because they are unreasonable that they are puzzles."
"Everyone can think carefully about the meaning behind them."
"[1] Why is the game divided into a poor version and a rich version, priced separately, and stipulated that buying them together cannot enjoy discounts?"
"On the one hand, it is because pricing itself is a kind of performance art, such as emphasizing that 'there is no second chance in life'. We can choose games, but we cannot actually choose our own lives; on the other hand, it is because the poor are encouraged to buy the rich.
The human version encourages the rich to buy the poor version, so that each other is not limited to their own world, but can truly take on each other's living environment."
"In the game, the living environments of the poor and the rich are so different that they can no longer understand each other at all."
"The rich protagonist asks, why can't poor people take time to spend with their children? Can they be busier than the CEO of a large company?"
"This is because the rich protagonist has never really put himself into the situation of the poor, so he cannot understand why the poor at the bottom are unable to control their own time;"
"The poor protagonist believes that as long as he struggles, he can get a better life. He must learn from outstanding people and change the thinking of the poor, so that he can change his life."
"This is because the poor only see the efforts promoted by the rich, but often ignore the blessings provided by the massive resources behind the rich. Many rich people preach that they have "zero wealth outside of their efforts" and that they are self-made, but
The poor still believe it, why? It’s because the poor have no way of knowing the rich’s connections, way of thinking, educational background, etc., and how much benefit it has brought to the rich.”
"Including the murderer who thought the rich man was a liar, it was also because he originally believed the rich man, but later found out that the rich man only told part of the truth."
"So, this pricing strategy itself encourages the poor and the rich to experience each other's lives in the game, get out of their own cognitive blind spots, and look at this issue from a more comprehensive perspective."
"This approach is to break the dimensional wall and use real-life decisions to determine your experience in the game. This approach can only be achieved by the artistic carrier of games."
"[2] Why does the English name of the game use struggle?"
"This is precisely the beauty of language. If we simply express the meaning of 'struggle', then fight or struggle is obviously better. These two words are more positive, more positive, and more in line with the original meaning of struggle."
"But the word struggle not only means struggle, but also struggle and struggle. Combined with the full English story background, it is easy to find that this is actually a pun: the rich are struggling, while the poor are struggling."
"After understanding this meaning, if you look back at the Chinese translation of 'struggle', it will add a layer of irony. You will know that although they are both struggles, the struggle of the rich and the struggle of the poor are not the same thing at all.
"
"The struggle of the rich is in the misty clouds. If you want to struggle, you can fly up. If you don't want to struggle, you can lie down and wallow. But no matter how you struggle, you are still in the clouds;"
"The struggle of the poor is like a sinking quagmire. Their hard work is just to prevent themselves from sinking further. Once they stop, they will be swallowed up by the quagmire."
"[3] Why are the characters in the game so facial-shaped?"
"When you play the game, you will find that rich people are handsome and glamorous, while different poor people all conform to our stereotypes of this kind of people."
"Even the game's style of painting exaggerates the appearance, demeanor and expression of each character, making them no longer look like a living person, but become facial makeup."
"This is obviously not in line with the theme of the game, because if realism themes want to highlight the sense of reality, they must be as real as possible, and facial makeup characters and exaggerated artistic expressions will weaken this sense of reality."
"On the one hand, it weakens the player's discomfort. On the other hand, it also allows the player not to be too obsessed with the perspective of the character itself, and can look at these issues with a higher dimension and a more detached mentality."
"Facialization is a highly condensed image of each character. At the same time, it also symbolizes that the story of "Struggle" is a highly condensed story of many stories."
"In the game, each facial mask is used to represent a certain type of person, and the game also uses the life of a poor person or a rich person to reflect the lives of all poor people and all rich people."
"And this, like the propaganda method, is obviously an implicit expression rich in symbolic meaning."
"[4] Why does the game have only one ending and it cannot be changed?"
"The rich will be killed no matter what they choose, and the poor will fall into a cycle of poverty no matter what they choose."
"At first, I thought this was a fatalistic thought, implying that no matter how hard people try, they cannot change their destiny."
"But I quickly realized that this was obviously wrong."
"The reason is very simple, because Mr. Pei, the producer of this game, cannot be a person who believes in fatalism!"
"Although Mr. Pei and I have never met, anyone who knows a little bit about the inside story will know that Mr. Pei is different from the rich protagonists in the game. He is truly self-made!"
"From the beginning of "Lonely Desert Highway" to one successful game after another, and then to each industry, we have witnessed the rise of Tenda in the past two years, and no matter how hard we try, we can't find any sign of capital intervention.
, all signs indicate that Pei was born into an ordinary working-class person and started from scratch step by step."
"Mr. Pei himself is a person who changes his life entirely on his own. How can he promote a fatalistic idea?"
"It's like a top student who studies hard and gets 100 points in every test, but tells you every day that studying is useless. Do you believe it?"
"If you use your brain a little bit, you will know that this view is completely untrue!"
"So, why does the game have only one ending and it can't be changed?"
"As I said before, the game uses the life of a poor person and a rich person to reflect the lives of all poor people and all rich people."
"Everyone's life is different. There are huge differences between poor and poor, rich and rich. So once you let go of multiple endings, it will dilute the idea that the game wants to express."
"The game forcibly stipulates the only ending for the poor and the rich. There are two considerations."
"First, like most stories and movies, a single ending can ensure the integrity of the entire story and allow the creator's thoughts to be expressed."
"If you don't limit the ending, you can't make the beginning and end of the game echo each other."
"The kind-hearted rich man ends up in tragedy, and the kind-hearted poor man also ends up in tragedy. The story will be more tense. But if a happy ending is used, the tension of the whole story will be diluted, and the idea that the creator wants to express will be lost."
Off track."
"Second, this is a more advanced form of 'fatalism'. It does not emphasize that people cannot change their own destiny, but emphasizes that in this social environment, an individual's choice cannot change the entire class."
"The rich may die violently, or they may enjoy their old age, and even the vast majority of the rich will enjoy their old age. However, the hatred between classes has been established, and the hatred of the poor towards the rich is irreversible, so 'kill the rich'"
It will become an inevitable event, it is just a matter of 'who kills the rich man' and 'which rich man is killed'."
"The poor may counterattack and become rich, or they may go bankrupt and become beggars, but the relationship between the poor and the rich remains unchanged. Just like in the game, if the poor are always exploited by the rich in various ways, then the poor will always be exploited by the rich in various ways.
Poverty is an inevitable event. Even if there are individual exceptions, looking at the entire group, it will become increasingly unsolvable."
"So, the game deliberately locked the ending, allowing us to open up various branches in the game over and over again, make different choices, and find two versions of hidden plots... but in the end nothing changed."
"Why can't we change the ending? Because the game mechanism is restricting us."
"And by extension, the poor man in the game cannot change his life through struggle because the game mechanism of the entire society is restricting him."
"Here, the dimensional wall of the game is broken again: within a certain set of game rules, no matter how hard you try, you will never become a real winner."
"[5] Only one clothing brand appears repeatedly in the game, what does it mean?"
"Many people should have seen the luxury brand, which is the golden logo of 'll'. This is the only brand that appears in the game. It is a luxury brand run by the father of the rich protagonist and inherited by the rich protagonist. It has also appeared in
on many characters.”
"From a game perspective, players' memory is very limited. If you make two brands, it is likely to be confused, so the best way is to make only one brand to represent luxury goods, and the ones without labels are ordinary products. This is a game
The basic concept of design: Occam’s razor, express a certain content in the most concise way.”
"But this expression is magically integrated into every aspect of the game. It is by no means just a decoration."
"Have you noticed the biggest difference between the rich version and the poor version? In the rich version, no matter how you choose, you will only change from one kind of success to another. In the poor version, you only need to make a slight choice.
If you make a mistake, you will immediately slide down and usher in the end of the poverty cycle early.”
"What's the difference? The game has actually hinted at it, it's the numbers."
"For the poor, life is a long series of numbers, because they must be careful in order to keep the chain of life running. Once a certain number is wrong, it will trigger a chain reaction, causing the entire chain to collapse in an instant, destroying all the previous ones.
All your efforts are instantly wiped out.”
"On the other hand, rich people, no matter what they choose, no matter how much money they spend, they will immediately have more funds to make up for it."
"So, the game mechanism has been controlling the number of game money, constantly 'getting back on track' for the struggling poor, working hard to clear the money number, and finally ushering in the only ending."
"Why do the poor's expenses keep increasing as their income increases? Some people think it's because many poor people lack financial awareness and are brainwashed by consumerism. But we have to note that for many expenditures in the game, we don't have them at all.
Choice.”
"For example, why should a poor person spend a month's salary to buy a luxury suit, a belt and a briefcase? Does he really need these things? Can't cheap things be used?"
"Yes, he really does."
"Because in the game environment, if he wears cheap clothes, he will be rejected and isolated by his colleagues and the people around him, and he will never be able to integrate into that circle."
"This is why many people want to maintain 'decency', because decency is not just a matter of face, but also a matter of real real interests."
"Yes, this is consumerism as we know it."
"The luxury brand is the aggregation of consumerism and a concrete symbol."
"In the game, everyone wears this brand, whether rich or poor. The only ones who don't wear it at all are the homeless and homeless people."
"Once the poor protagonist finds a better job, he must change into luxury, live in a better house, and drive a better car. Because if you don't do this, people around you will use malicious or well-intentioned intentions.
Way to remind you constantly.”
"Malicious people will avoid you, exclude you, and prevent you from entering certain circles; kind people will remind you and tell you why you need these things."
"So, both the poor protagonist and the player have no choice. This is another design that breaks the dimensional wall."
"You are angry because you clearly made the right choice, but you still can't save money. Yes, the poor protagonist in the game feels the same as you."
"What's even more ironic is that the rich protagonist never wears luxury. Is it because he is more self-disciplined? No."
"Because he is the son of the president of Luxury. He has a private horse farm. So what does it matter if he wears Luxury? No one doubts whether he can afford it. It is normal for him to wear it, and he supports his own brand;
Not wearing anything is the virtue of simplicity."
"The rules and regulations for the poor do not exist for the rich, because no matter what the rich choose, under the blessing of a specific halo, it will become a virtue."
“Think even deeper, the rich don’t wear luxury, but they are using the high profits of this brand to harvest all the poor indefinitely. The rich are desperately advocating consumerism, and the quality of luxury goods makes you feel like yourself.
By using luxury, you can have the same life as the rich, and even the entire group has formed a consensus that will spontaneously exclude poor people who cannot afford luxury. This in itself creates a cage for the poor and identifies a poor person.
The rules of the game cannot be broken, no matter what the choice, the rich will win."
"It's like playing dice. The poor are trying their luck, but the rich will always end up with six points no matter how they roll."
"[6] Are there really only two classes in the game?"
"Obviously not."
"I believe many people are trying their best to find the connection between the rich protagonist and the poor protagonist. They may even think that the rich protagonist was killed by the poor protagonist or the poor man's son."
"But the game is trying so hard to deny that. You can't find any connection between the poor and the rich."
"Why? Because this is not a complete closed loop."
"There is actually a third class in the game, which is the 'homeless'. You will find that it is the link that connects the entire closed loop. It actually runs throughout the game and is everywhere."
"In the beginning and ending of the rich version, the people who kidnapped the protagonist's mother and killed the protagonist are homeless people."
"In the beginning and ending of the poor man's version, the protagonist's father worked hard to prevent the protagonist from becoming a homeless person, so the protagonist is grateful to his father; and the protagonist struggled all his life and deceived his son to continue struggling, all in order to make himself
Don’t become homeless with your kids.”
"Just like my previous metaphor, in this game, there are not only the rich in the clouds and the poor struggling in the mire, but also the homeless who are completely swallowed up at the bottom of the mire."
"The poor told us from the beginning that these people at the bottom of the quagmire are dropouts from cesspool middle schools, prisoners in prisons, beggars and mental patients on the subway. They die socially after receiving relief, and their hands and feet are not healthy.
A homeless person who can only live on the streets for the rest of his life."
"Once poor people give up, they will become homeless, so they have to struggle hard in the quagmire. If you struggle, you may not be able to climb up, but if you don't struggle, you will definitely sink."
"The faster you give up, the faster you sink."
"So, why did the poor protagonist say those words to his child? Doesn't he know that he has been deceived by his father's lies his whole life?"
"Maybe he was lucky and thought his child would be different. Maybe he just had to tell this lie."
"Because if he tells his children that struggle is useless, then his children will sink and become one of the homeless, and the protagonist knows very well what a miserable life it will be."
"So, the poor protagonist has no choice but to tell his children to struggle. If you look at the results, this kind of struggle is meaningless because it cannot get you to the clouds; but if you look at the bottom of the quagmire,
You will know that this kind of struggle is meaningful, and it at least prevents you from sinking."
"What about the rich?"
"The rich protagonist almost died when he was born, but he never believed what his father said. He met poor friends. He worked hard to write books and wanted to help those poor people change their destiny."
"But he didn't realize that it was not the poor who kidnapped his mother, but the homeless; it was not the poor who killed him, but the homeless; he could be friends with the poor in college, but he
It’s impossible to take another look at a beggar in the subway.”
"So, he thinks that the rich can be friends with the poor, which is correct; but he does not realize that it is the rich and the homeless who are truly incomprehensible and become two species, while the poor just appear out of nowhere.
In the part of the quagmire that he could see, there were more people slowly rotting under the quagmire, but he couldn't see it in the clouds."
"The most ironic thing is that what makes the poor homeless are precisely the rules of the game set by the rich."
"So, the homeless man calls the rich protagonist a liar, because in the homeless man's eyes, this man preaches struggle while taking everything away from him."
"And this, the rich protagonist will never understand."
"[7] In the game, there is only one relationship between the poor and the rich. So, how many relationships between the poor and the rich are there that Mr. Pei wants to express?"
"This is the last question, and it is also the last thing the game makers want to express after taking into account all the above details."
"Actually, Mr. Pei has already expressed this aspect."
"Do you still remember the movie "Better Tomorrow"? It was a more tragic scene than "Struggle"."
"It is conceivable that if the society in "Struggle" develops for a few more decades, it will become "Better Tomorrow"."
"In "A Better Tomorrow", there is an easter egg at the end where someone throws a gun into the protagonist's room. The implication is very obvious that when social conflicts reach the level of "A Better Tomorrow", the poor have the only choice."
"But in "Struggle", there is no similar choice because the environments they describe are different and the emphasis they want to express is different."
"Violent resistance cannot cure all diseases and is not the best choice in any situation. In the environment of "Better Tomorrow", this may be an option, but in "Struggle", this possibility does not exist
Soil. We can imagine that even if this poor man chooses to fight, he will only become the next murderer who will be locked up for saying "liar", and will be condemned and criticized by tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people, which will only make his situation worse.
It gets worse."
"So, is there a third situation?"
"Actually, there is. It is the real world we live in."
"In the game, poor people don't have a way up, but in reality, we do."
"In the game, poor people can't fight consumerism, but in reality, we actually can."
"In reality, most people don't actually define a person by his clothing, clothing and luxury goods - except for a few people who are deeply influenced by consumerism."
"So, solutions that don't exist in the game do exist in reality."
"In the game, the poor have no choice but to continuously increase their consumption level. Eventually, due to an unexpected factor, the numbers in a certain link are wrong, and everything collapses and returns to zero."
"But in reality, we have choices. We can reject consumerism, continue to save money, complete the initial accumulation of wealth, and change our destiny through struggle."
"If you have hands and feet and work hard to get rich, you can get out of the quagmire."
"In the game, no one tells the rich and the poor what they should do."
"But in reality, someone is telling us what we should do. The game "Struggle" tells us what we should do by breaking the dimensional wall."
"It actually tells us that we should work hard in the real world, because our current struggle is meaningful."
"Many people complain that we live in hell just because they have never seen a real hell."
"And after seeing the world in "Struggle", we will realize that we are actually already living in paradise."
"Although this paradise is not so perfect, at least we are still full of hope."
"Many players do not understand the plots in the game well because these plots do not conform to our real life, so they feel alienated and feel that the choices of the characters are very weird."
"And this actually proves that the things we take for granted are actually a great blessing."
"Using the game "Struggle" makes us realize the happiness of real life, and encourages us to cherish the present and work hard. This is the deep meaning of the game producers in making this game."
"For all game makers, "Struggle" is a textbook-level work because it repeatedly breaks the dimensional wall in various ways and truly expresses the greatest advantage of games as the ninth art: among other art forms
, you are just a spectator, and in the game, you are a participant."
"And many things can only be seen clearly from the perspective of the participants."
"This practice of repeatedly breaking the dimensional wall means that the producer's ability to control the artistry of the game has reached the pinnacle and is extremely proficient. Every detail has its own meaning."
"So, back to the original question."
"How does "Struggle" surpass the four basic game theories even though it seems to violate these four basic theories?"
"The purpose of choosing a misplaced publicity method is to break the dimensional wall and make the publicity method a part of the game content;"
"Interactive movie games that choose realistic themes may seem unpopular, but they actually provide convenience for breaking the dimensional wall and build a bridge between games and reality;"
"The private goods contained in the game may make people feel uncomfortable at first glance, but the deeper you dig, the more inspired you will be. You may suffer in the game, but you can gain happiness in reality;"
"Its existence is not to tap needs, but to create needs. In fact, most people don't realize that we need to understand these principles in order to live a good life. So after understanding all this, we will suddenly realize that we
This game is needed.”
"So I think that "Struggle" is the highest artistic peak of domestic stand-alone games so far. It is even a precious spiritual wealth for players."
…
After finishing the last sentence, He An still felt that there was still something left to be desired.
He seemed to have a lot more to say.
In fact, there are many details in the game "Struggle", and each detail can be expanded into hundreds or thousands of words in detail.
But He An decided to stop there because Tenda’s official Weibo attitude was very clear.
The reason why the game is all-encompassing and has countless details is because it itself has the function of a "mirror". Analyzing these details is actually analyzing reality, and reality cannot be completely analyzed.
These should be completed by all the players on Weibo.
He An believes that his mission is to analyze the top design concepts in games from the perspective of a game designer and drive the progress of the entire domestic game industry. At the same time, he also analyzes the deep meanings that game makers want to express in games.
meaning.
So far, it's just right.
Therefore, He An checked the entire long Weibo content and pressed the send button.
The content is a bit long and boring.
People who have never played games may think this is meaningless preaching, but people who have played games should have some resonance.
He An feels that this is precisely the charm of the art of games.
The sugar coating on the outside of the pill seems to have no effect and cannot really cure the disease, but it can make the patient less painful when taking the medicine.
It's just candy, it can't cure a disease.
It's just a pill, so it won't be accepted by many people.
To sugar-coat pills and really help some people is exactly the ultimate goal that He An, as a game producer, has pursued throughout his life.
Just like the "Landlord Game" he once produced, it was also to achieve this goal.
Although he experienced the catastrophe of domestic stand-alone games during this period and had to turn to online games for the survival of the company, in the bottom of his heart, he always regarded this matter as his mission and pursuit.
Even if his ideas are outdated, and even if he can no longer produce a work like "The Landlord Game", He An has never given up on this pursuit, and will try his best to pass on this pursuit when teaching.
Now "Struggle" has surpassed "Landlord Game" in all aspects.
This shows that domestic stand-alone games really have a leader, and He An is very pleased.
Although I have never met Mr. Pei, the communication through this kind of game is enough to make me a close friend.
"Telling these contents to Mr. Ma, my teaching content will be complete."
"The four previous basic theories have been overthrown and reshaped, and they fit perfectly at a higher level."
""Struggle" is another comprehensive transcendence and in-depth interpretation of "Landlord Game", which can explain what a truly responsible and ambitious game producer should do."
"After listening to these contents, Mr. Ma will definitely be inspired, right?"
