Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 34 Changes
Huang Wenfeng rubbed his hands together and quickly began playing his first campaign mode game.

New enemies are pouring in from the edge of the map. Although they are all ordinary enemies, they are now appearing in squads, which means that the number of enemies on the battlefield has doubled.

Almost the instant the enemy entered firing range, a dense line of fire intertwined across the expanding battlefield.

The tracer of bullets, the fireballs from explosions.

With the view zoomed in, it now looks somewhat like an RTS game.

"Hiss—this firepower density!"

"The bullet screen effects are pretty good, it really feels like a battlefield!"

With the expansion of the battlefield, the operational space for tactical squads has also increased.

Don't underestimate this 3x6 grid; there's a story behind it. Huang Wenfeng initially arranged three small teams vertically in the center, forming a line-up for execution.

However, he soon discovered that if he moved the central squad back a little, the enemies appearing in the center could move forward, creating a three-pronged attack.

In addition, the battlefield was not entirely open flat ground.

There are also some wreckage that can be used to block gunfire, and the occasional enemy artillery fire also requires the mobilization of squads.

The larger battlefield and the addition of more humanoid units to the battle, although he could only actually move three squads, still gave him a command experience completely different from small-scale conflicts.

"Awesome! Now that's more like a commander!"

In many anime-style games, especially those with a "war" theme, no matter how grand the background setting is, players can often only control a few small squads.

This results in a certain disconnect between the gameplay and the storyline.

Of course, in most cases, players of anime-style games don't care about this, since gameplay is gameplay and story is story.

However, Chu Chen still hoped to further integrate the content of these two games, and thus, this "Campaign Mode" was born.

The gameplay of this mode doesn't actually make any major breakthroughs within the original framework.

It's simply a matter of assembling the original humanoids into squads, much like changing the system from controlling individual villagers in the Age of Empires to controlling squads in Company of Heroes.

The gameplay itself hasn't changed much, so the learning curve is almost zero.

However, the new gameplay and visual experience brought by the expanded battlefield are truly refreshing for players.

In addition, this model has another advantage: to a certain extent, it can solve some of the character development issues in anime-style games.

For anime-style games, the character development system is both the source of revenue from in-game purchases and the foundation for maintaining player engagement.

However, players dislike lengthy progression systems.

Under normal circumstances, most players will raise two or three teams of characters, and once they are enough to handle the vast majority of battles, they will enter a period of retirement.

To attract players to continue developing their characters, manufacturers will invest time and money to strengthen new characters and gradually phase out older ones.

Hey, if you can't use your old character anymore, don't you have to develop a new one?
Essentially, this is the same principle as weapon iteration in the MMORPG era, also known as numerical inflation.

There are two ways to deal with numerical inflation.

One type is called "paying for emotions," or "paying for love."

Another approach is to increase the character's play rate. Essentially, most systems in previous games, such as the Abyss and Tower Climbing, were designed to increase the character's play rate through gameplay, thereby enhancing the depth of character development.

So... how did Chu Chen make his choice?

The answer, of course, is to want them all!

~~~
Because Huang Wenfeng's squad was highly skilled, even though he led his squad over, using squad skills and dodging shells, making it look chaotic but skillful, he still managed to pull his squad over.

But in reality, this level itself isn't that difficult.

Fortunately, those watching him play games at this time are mostly people who, for various reasons, can't actually play the game themselves, so judging solely from the visuals, Huang Wenfeng does seem to be playing quite well, and the comments section is quite supportive.

The plot moves quickly and continues.

Three consecutive battles tell the story of how the Star Squad on the front lines reorganized, found their teammates, and cleared out nearby enemies to establish a defensive line.

These are all storylines that focus on the front lines.

Therefore, under the commander's decision, the squad dealt with the surrounding enemies and temporarily stabilized the defensive line.

But clearly, this crisis has only just begun.

The scene shifts again, this time to the Earth Federation Command Center, where the central screen displays the entire battlefield situation to the player.

The AI ​​army used tunnels to ambush the human counterattack forces on the battlefield, cutting off their retreat and creating a true "two-pronged attack."

On this virtual map, the red and blue dots clearly form three columns, creating the Chinese character "川" (river).

The red and blue dots on the virtual map are all disappearing rapidly, but it is clear that the blue dot surrounded in the center is disappearing much faster.

“We’ve fallen into a trap!!!”

"Reporting battle losses! The casualty rate has reached 11%!! 12%! And it's still rising!!!"

"What should we do now?"

"Do you want to retreat?"

"We have no choice but to retreat! The humanoids can't hold out any longer, and the front line is about to collapse."

"Is the question now about retreating? How do we retreat? In this situation, we need the army to go out and support them. What about the reserves?!"

"We don't have enough reserves! If we send the reserves up now, who will guard the Giant Ring when the omnics come back?"

The situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

From ordering the pursuit to being outmaneuvered by the omnics.

The situation on the battlefield changed very quickly.

At first, there were two opposing views in the command room: to save or not to save. However, soon the voices advocating for saving grew quieter and quieter, and the crowd stopped arguing, and the atmosphere became silent.

Only the blue dots on the front lines are rapidly fading away, and the loss rate is still increasing.

Soon, the Federation Commander-in-Chief, standing at the very top, sighed.

“Milai is right, we must ensure the safety of the Giant Rings... Let them break through and retreat on their own..."

When the Federation Commander-in-Chief uttered the words "Let's retreat," the game's background music suddenly stopped, leaving only the fading blue dots behind the dialogue box.

at this time.

The emotions throughout the entire game were suddenly brought to a peak.

The comments section started refreshing like crazy, clearly indicating that the storyline was making even the casual viewers feel a sense of oppression.

However, Huang Wenfeng did not interact with the audience at this time.

He kept clicking the chat box, and to be honest, he had a very bad feeling about it, because he had played quite a few games.

Many domestically produced games share a common characteristic in their storylines.

Just when the protagonist should be getting fired up, they are always made to "silently endure" it, which is euphemistically called "realism".

(End of this chapter)