It took 6 years and Steam was the top seller, and this “Shanghai native” independent game was a success!

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GameLook special manuscript, no unauthorized reprinting!

GameLook report August 12th, Nintendo held an indie game face-to-face meeting, a game finale with 16bit music and exquisite pixel style, with its unique temperament and style, amazed players all over the world.

On September 16, this game was finally released on the Steem platform and the NS platform simultaneously, and its name was “Eastward” (Eastward).

When I first saw “The Land of the Wind”, it was easy to be attracted by the game’s art style and retro style. More importantly, such exquisite visual effects were actually made by Chinese people. It is reported that “The Land of the Wind” was developed by Pixpil, a Shanghai-based independent game team, and it was published by Xindong in China.

According to the official introduction, 500,000 players have already added the game to the wish list before it went live, and the results after the game went live are also very good. After the game was officially unlocked at 3 pm on September 16th, it successfully topped the Steam global hot list. At the same time in the Nintendo eShop store also came to No. 3 on the best-selling list. The current game Steam praise rate is 88%, and the highest online game reaches 13,800.

At the same time, 18 media outlets on the well-known game evaluation website M reached an average score of 85, and even two media outlets gave full marks. So what kind of game is this? Why can it be loved by players?



The real machine of “The Land of the Wind”

Full of the beauty of pixels, the game is small but full of enthusiasm

Before boarding the Nintendo’s indie game face-to-face meeting, “Land of the Wind” also participated in many international events, such as The Game Festival organized by TGA. Therefore, the game also has a lot of influence overseas, even not Few overseas players call the game “artwork”. These praises are not without a target, but are derived from the audio-visual experience that the game brings to the player.

To be honest, the first impression of “Land of the Wind” is very direct. It is small and exquisite. The game adopts the classic pixel style, but the scene design is full of details, character expressions and scenes. The easter eggs in are clearly visible.

According to the official statement, “The Land of the Wind” uses purely hand-painted frame-by-frame animation, and even adds a 3D lighting system to the pixel scene, which also makes the game’s expressiveness better than traditional pixel-style games.

And on this basis, the game also invited the Irish studio Hyperduck Soundworks, which had performed soundtracks for well-known games such as “Death Stranding” and “Halo: Infinite”, to compose a 16Bit-style soundtrack for the game, which is a retro design for the game. Add posture and increase mining.

The game’s development team, Pickpi, used a very romantic word to describe “Land of the Wind”. The game is a love letter written to pixel games, taking players back to the fantasy world of animation in the 90s.

As it says, as a “love letter”, “The Land of the Wind” is not only exquisite, but also expresses affectionately in terms of content and plot.

The story of the game takes place in the distant future. The world is falling apart in disasters. Mysterious disasters are rampant on the ground, destroying and devouring everything. In order to avoid this disaster and to continue civilization, people hide underground and open up. new life. The player needs to play the protagonist John, explore this wonderful world with the sleeping girl Shan who awakens in the cave, and gradually unearth the story behind the world’s disintegration.

It is not difficult to find that in the setting of the world view, “The Land of the Wind” is somewhat similar to the movie “The Wandering Earth”. The reconstruction of the human civilization in the last days and the separated human civilization provides more room for the underground world to describe.

At the same time, in a strict sense, the setting of survival in the end times gives the game a bit of wasteland color, but the game design is not empty and desolate in the design of the scene, and the colors are mostly warm colors, which are prominent everywhere. Humanity.

Moreover, under such a worldview setting, the R&D team Pickpi has added a lot of details to “Land of the Wind”, some are tributes, some are playful, and more are for the plot. The foreshadowing or suggestive form gives the story a little more flavor.

For example, the unmanned train in the game is called “Charon”, which is taken from the ferryman in the underworld in Greek mythology, and is mainly responsible for crossing the deceased across the Styx. In the first chapter of the game, the protagonist John is sent to “Charon” after being tried and punished, which corresponds to the meaning of the name.

There are many similar details in the game. In addition, the game portrays the image of each character well, giving people a sense of substitution. It can be said that “The Land of the Wind” is like a well-made movie. From the pictures to the music to the plot, it has been carefully polished and processed, and finally presented a good show to the players.

Simple combat system, not simple puzzles

From a macro perspective, “The Land of the Wind” can be said to be a standard plot-driven game. Following the development of the main storyline, players will be able to unlock new scenes. If the player’s mainline progress is relatively behind, in some areas Will also be in a locked state.

But if it is refined to the level of gameplay, it can be seen that the R&D team Pickpi still worked hard to bring full interest to the player’s special journey.

In the game, the protagonist controlled by the player is John most of the time, and the attack method is a melee pan. Of course, the player can also collect materials in the game to make more advanced shotguns and other weapons.

However, combat is not the core of the game.

According to the official statement, “The Land of the Wind” is a product of Zelda Like. Of course, the “Zelda” here is not the “Breath of the Wild” on that NS, but the early Zelda series that is still in the 2D version.

In other words, at the level of gameplay, the game is a product driven by solving puzzles. To put it bluntly, the core gameplay and fun points of the game actually focus more on solving puzzles, and fighting is actually a service for understanding puzzles. , Even BOSS battle.

Refined to “Land of the Wind”, most of the battle scenes in the game actually take place in a maze, and the details and structure also echo the plot, and the ultimate goal of the player is to clear each maze.

At the same time, a large number of items or props are designed in each maze, and players need to use these items and cleverly combine with their own special abilities to traverse the maze step by step.

For example, the player can place a bomb on the air duct and wait for it to “storm in”, thereby blowing up the device and opening up a new path.

Or, some places are blocked, and players need to solve the puzzles through some specific props on the map and find a way to pass the level.

In general, “Land of the Wind” is very good in the design of the maze. The character operation is simple and easy to use, but it takes a lot of thought to solve the different mazes.

It can be said that “Land of the Wind” has done an excellent job of solving puzzles, and even tried and explored and innovated. The setting of “dual protagonists” is added to the game. The above mentioned John and Shan are actually both It is a manipulable character.

In the dungeon and the maze, the player needs to play the characteristics of the two characters. For example, John’s bomb can be used to clear roadblocks and help the player get out of the maze, while Shan can temporarily control the enemy. Even in some levels, the two characters will be Separate, need to cooperate with each other to solve the puzzle.

In addition, as mentioned above, the abundance of details in “The Land of the Wind” has become a topic that players talk about, and the gameplay level also adds “billion dots” details. For example, an arcade game called “Children of the Earth” is implanted in the game, and players can play through the arcade in the game.

It needs to be pointed out that although “Son of the Earth” is a built-in mini game or a small easter egg, it has extremely high integrity. It has everything from combat and development systems. Players can even fight monsters in “Son of the Earth”. Upgrade and challenge the devil, so many players ridicule that “Son of the Earth” is the main body of the game.

6 years of sharpening a sword, mobile games are being bred

From the exquisite portrayal of the future world to the massive details and interesting gameplay in the game, “Land of the Wind” all reveals the intentions of the developers, and it is precisely because of this sincerity that the game has won the praise of many players around the world. favorite.

Like many indie games, there are not many developers at Pickpi Studios, and they have been polishing the game “Land of the Wind” for nearly 6 years.

It is understood that “The Land of the Wind” was released on the independent game forum “TIGSource” as early as 2015. At that time, there were only 3 people in Pickpi Studio. Now that six years have passed, Pickpi is still an independent game studio with a small number of people, but they have used a stroke to outline a beautiful pixel style world.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to the Steam and NS platforms, the mobile version of “The Land of the Wind” is also being bred, and the publisher is also very excited. Up to now, the game has received nearly 120,000 reservations on TapTap. . According to the official introduction, the porting work will begin after the games on the PC and NS platforms are gradually improved.

Six years is enough for a product to die, but it is also enough to support a team to create a fantastic game world. Isn’t “Land of the Wind” just such an independent game?

This Article is curated from Source and we only provide the English version of the Story.

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