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GameLook report/In recent years, women have developed rapidly in the game market. With the emergence of explosive products in 2017, they have gradually evolved from a potential category to a competitive star track. At the same time, the user circle of tactical competitive games and Moba games has continued to widen, infiltrating more female users, and the voice of female players has also been increasing.
However, in traditional game categories, the emotional feelings and gaming experience of female players are easily overlooked; at the same time, with the gradual popularity of the two-dimensional and “social fear” culture, women who are in love with the “paper man” become the part of the game. An emerging harbor for groups.
After the release of “Love and the Producer”, large and small manufacturers have entered the game to compete for users in this vertical field. A variety of products with their own characteristics, such as “Dream Collection · Cygnus”, “Knights and Alien Knights”, and “Dream Floating Lights” After debuting one after another, the female game showed a “blowout” trend after 2019.
Exploring and accumulating: groping forward like “opening up wasteland”
Faced with the huge potential of women in the market, the Northern Lights studio group became the “first person to eat crabs” in Tencent’s Otome game. Whether it’s “The End of the World Moon Knife”, which was launched in 2015 and developed by a self-developed engine, or the “Law of Infinity” which scored 8.5 points on IGN, the Northern Lights studio group seems to have a “soft spot” for the new category of “open wasteland”. . After targeting women to the market, the Northern Lights studio group began a new exploration.
Although Tencent does not have a traditional competitive advantage in the two-dimensional circuit, “Love of Light and Night” finally showed an amazing appearance and a star lineup with a big factory style when it was first exposed. Tencent’s entry has undoubtedly attracted the attention of many women to game enthusiasts. But unexpectedly, this product ushered in the first setback in the second test period.
Obsolete soap opera
In the author’s opinion, the second test word-of-mouth crisis of “The Love of Light and Night” is rooted in the fact that some too common ancient idol drama love scenes can no longer be loved by most female users. With the improvement of women’s independence consciousness, core users of Otome games who have a strong desire to speak up prefer evenly matched feelings. This is also reflected in the film and television industry: in order to attract the attention of modern women, some dramas began to use “big heroine” as the main selling point. Obviously, “The Love of Light and Night” did not handle this aspect well during the second test. As a result, even when the music and art were widely acclaimed, it was still criticized by players because of the plot and copywriting performance. .
Under the circumstances at the time, “Love of Light and Night” may face two choices. One is to regain the word-of-mouth and make a significant overall optimization, and the other is to give up the word-of-mouth of core players and use Tencent’s powerful own channels and user traffic to carry out “a wave” promotion. There is no doubt that the cost of the former is obviously huge. If the production of a text love game is simplified into a workflow, then the plot copy is at the upstream of this pipeline, which will directly affect the work content of the subsequent process. Assuming that the copywriting is to be modified, it is equivalent to remaking it from the beginning no matter what process or production level it is currently in. Such a workload requires a lot of time, manpower and material resources, and for the project, it is likely to be thankless behavior.
However, “Love of Light and Night” chose the former, and announced on the third day of receiving feedback from players that it would undergo major revisions, and gave clear directions for revisions at the end of the second test. Regarding the part of the copywriting with the most negative reviews by players, the official even gave a promise of “adjusting 300,000 characters”. At the same time, since the plot of 300,000 characters has been adjusted, the corresponding art, music, dubbing, etc. also need to be adjusted accordingly. It is indeed surprising to adjust and modify such workload after the paid test, but it can also be seen from this that Tencent is determined to build a self-developed flagship Otome product that can impact the market.
Reshape the “sense of love”
As a love game, the plot of the game revolves around “I” and characters that can be attacked. In the strategy process, the feeling of love is mainly reflected in the following three aspects: the easy-to-introduce “I” perspective, the male protagonist setting that makes the player’s heart appealing, and the emotional plot that takes place between “us”.
Reshape the “I” persona so that it is easy to substitute and not play
The living conditions and marriage concepts of young Chinese women are generally undergoing changes. The traditional concept of “you must get married and have children at a certain age” is gradually disintegrating, but they are looking forward to meeting their own “destined son”. The appearance of the virtual lover “he” just solves the contradiction between women’s “intimacy” demands and unwillingness to leave. In such a virtual relationship, the image of “I” used as the first perspective needs to achieve a balance-it needs to have the beautiful characteristics that modern women expect, such as bravery, freedom, and independence; at the same time, it cannot have too distinctive characteristics. , So that players feel “out of play” because they are not like themselves in the game.
Judging from the third test, “The Love of Light and Night” accomplished this task well. In the game, “I” is the image of a brave and tough newcomer in the workplace. For example, when encountering a crisis, “I” will choose solutions calmly and deal with the situation rationally; when facing the finals of the most important designer competition, “I” will decisively challenge the most severely rated Chisley as himself The score guests.
In addition, the design of some key options in the game plot also enhances this sense of substitution. For example, in a coffee shop, “I” and Lu Chen discussed the plot of a movie. In addition to paying tribute to the classic movie “This Killer Is Not So Cold”, the “choice” of “I” also implies the player’s own value tendency.
This kind of discussion and interaction draws players directly into the scene. In this way, the recognized basic quality and freely-chosen response methods enhance the player’s sense of substitution and help the player truly become the “me” in the game and walk in the game world.
Distinctive male protagonist personality, each one is full of exploration desire
If knowing a person is an adventure, then every player is an adventurer in this game. In the portrayal of the male protagonist, “Love of Light and Night” describes the image of four distinctive male protagonists: a gentle black-bellied president-Lu Chen, a poisonous and arrogant designer-Qi Sili, a racing driver who is good at straight ball. -Xiao Yi, and the narcissistic and somewhat “sand-sculpture” fiance Charlie Su.
As the plot unfolds, the unknown side of each character is gradually revealed to the players. For example, the seemingly gentle Lu Chen approached “I” deliberately and with ulterior motives; the harsh and demanding Qi Sili hides a story that has passed through thousands of years. These fantasy settings are not deliberately concealed in the “Love of Light and Night”, but at the beginning of the story, they clearly tell the player through the plot that every male protagonist has a secret behind him, and “I” is urgently Want to explore his true appearance.
Heartbeat
The presentation of love interaction is the soul of love games. The most important thing for love interaction is touching, so that players can experience the feeling of heartbeat and heartbeat. The dating of “Love of Light and Night” performs very well in this aspect. On the one hand, in the form of interaction, the use of ASMR, touch, voice and other methods makes the player feel as if they are experiencing a love in person; on the other hand, the plot setting is natural and smooth, and the moment of the heartbeat is integrated into the naturally occurring plot. , “Heartbeat” is at your fingertips.
In the dating gameplay, players can “experience a relationship in person” through four gameplays.
“Heartbeat” retains the best atmospheric CG display in the long-story reading experience, and is more in line with traditional Otome players’ game habits; while the other three gameplay rules are more prominent in the instant interaction between “I” and the hero, which blurs reality and The virtual boundaries allow players to choose how to interact with the male protagonist, and the male protagonist will respond instantly to the player’s choice.
“Intimacy” is actually the standard “touch interaction” of the two-dimensional game. This form of interaction is the standard “active operation → immediate feedback”, and the improvement made by “Love of Light and Night” integrates it In a private or romantic situation brought about by a long plot. For example, when Xiao Yi wins the championship again, players can choose to celebrate with him by high-fiving or other interactive forms to get a unique close experience.
“Calling”-I think the most exciting feeling in love is “anxiety.” Perhaps “The Love of Light and Night” is trying to make a gameplay design that makes people feel “anxious”, or that makes players feel a little bit shy. When the player gently called the actor’s name to the mobile phone, the shyness that the player could feel at that moment, “love” was conveyed in a way that broke through the dimension.
“Listening” is to create an atmosphere of whispering in the ear through the spatial sense of sound. Under the passionate interpretation of the well-known CV, the index of heartbeat and privacy has risen sharply, making people scream.
In terms of plot performance, “The Love of Light and Night” also strives for a heart-warming feeling of love. The male lead seems to be cold and quiet, but the atmosphere between “I” and the male lead is hot and hot. For example, in the dating story of Lu Chen, when “I” showed the “Jane Eyre” which implies the distance between the two sides, Lu Chen immediately quoted the famous lines in the book to express the ambiguous atmosphere, the passionate heart, the love that cannot be said but must be said. Intertwined together, reaching the culmination at this moment, truly sultry intangible.
Reality in virtual
In addition to the feeling of love, the author also observed many detailed portrayals in “Love of Light and Night”, which increased the realism of the game. The game has designed many small details around the identity of “I” as the “newcomer designer in the workplace”. For example, the “mobile phone” system, which is well-recognized by players, can not only receive video calls from the male lead through the “mobile phone”, but also grab red envelopes in the work group, and even gossiping with colleagues in the anonymous tree hole. Boss of …. The presentation of such details makes the connection between “I” and the virtual world more closely, so that the whole game becomes more real. The player jokingly praised, “This social game experience is also great. It is worthy of your traditional art, goose.”
“I” has a career side as well as a life side. In “Love of Light and Night”, players can also set their own image, and this image will appear in the main storyline in the form of Live2D. This detailed design not only fits the game preferences of female users, but also adds a sense of substitution.
Pursue details like “obsessive-compulsive disorder”
In the third test, the substantial tuning of the UI was beyond my expectations. In fact, not many players publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the UI of the second test version, but in the third test, “Love of Light and Night” presented a new set of UI design-from the main interface to the character dialog box, everything Made adjustments.
In the author’s opinion, this set of UI not only highlights the theme of the game itself about fashion and design, but also a set of completely “not utilitarian” UI. In some Tencent games, the purpose of the UI is more obvious. This type of UI design will display icons such as “must do” and “stronger” to players in a more eye-catching way. However, in “Love of Light and Night”, the main interface UI is designed in an elegant and advanced form, instead of stacking icons, trying to visually convey the game’s “fashion sense” and “design sense”, and also represent This is Tencent’s in-depth insight into user preferences of vertical products.
“She Game” and “She R&D”
Women represented by “The Love of Light and Night” contend for the game, and the female developers who participated in the development of the game have also gained more opportunities and voice. According to the author’s understanding, “Love of Light and Night” is a game project entirely dominated by female developers. From the three test changes, it can also be seen that these female developers have amazing courage and huge energy. Gamelook also expects that female game workers can enrich the entire game market from a more diverse perspective.
Breaking the stereotype, what kind of layout does Tencent have?
Since the development of women into games, game themes, gameplay, and forms have gradually been finalized, and the market has become more and more stringent in terms of hard power such as product quality and richness of interaction. According to gamelook, the stronger the team, the more willing to listen to players’ needs and work hard to polish the product, the more likely it is to compete for a place in the race track among increasingly heated women.
Tencent’s recent emphasis on the two-dimensional and female-oriented fields has become more and more obvious, and it has continued to invest in related content companies, and continues to make efforts in the two-dimensional and female-oriented products. As a boutique Otome game launched by Tencent’s Northern Lights studio group, it is very likely to become a blockbuster product for women on the market this year. So, can “The Love of Light and Night” win an important match point for Tencent to broaden the women’s track? gamelook will continue to wait and see the follow-up performance of this product.
This Article is curated from Source and we only provide the English version of the Story.
