Game Development: Starting with Recreating the Anime Game Style

Chapter 57 Plot Depth
Huang Yu grew angrier the more he thought about it. The frustration he felt from being reprimanded by Wan Wang that afternoon, combined with the alcohol, surged up and churned in his stomach.

Sea Cat, sitting opposite him, didn't seem to care much. He just ate the salmon in front of him, since it wasn't common for Huang Yu to treat him to something.

But he enjoyed his meal.

Huang Yu, who was complaining, received no agreement.

"Stop eating. Tell me, is our game really inferior to Starry Night?"

Huang Yu's question was a typical example of asking a question, but not really asking one.

What he wanted to hear wasn't Umineko's answer, but rather to hear Umineko spray stars with him.

However, upon hearing this, Hai Mao actually put down his chopsticks.

"What's wrong with it..."

Believe it or not, Hai Mao has actually thought about this question very seriously.

Moreover, he is one of the few people in the entire Gun Girls production team who has completed the first chapter of Final Frontline, so he can actually answer this question.

However, Hai Mao also knew that it was definitely not appropriate to say it directly in such a situation.

So he took a slightly roundabout approach.

"You heard the user feedback in the meeting this afternoon."

"Feedback? Didn't I already say this afternoon that those were all paid trolls hired by Xingchen!"

The sea cat frowned.

"Not all feedback is from paid trolls."

"And, to be fair..."

"Aside from the gameplay, I think the storyline is also pretty good.

Huang Yu froze, his hand holding the wine jug hanging in mid-air. He wondered if he had misheard, or if the alcohol had begun to numb his hearing.

"What did you say?"

"I said, their plot is not bad, at least the narrative logic is clear, the plot framework and the character arc of the commander are well-developed."

"Moreover, the use of animation for transitions is something worth learning from."

"The investment was indeed large, but the results are real."

"Players buy into this, and the market response proves it."

Hai Mao had thought about what he said.

Firstly, there's the comparison of the plot.

Before the release of Final Frontline, Gun Girls' storyline was relatively grand for anime games, telling the story of a disaster that triggered World War III.

After the great war, the surviving forces all wanted to break the balance and establish a new world order.

Among them, Griffin, the armed contractor of the new Soviet Union, which is the "security" company where the player is located, is caught up in the political turmoil and forced to fight against the rebels.

After defeating the rebels, they went on to fight the terrorist organizations that cooperated with them.

In the end, the organization the protagonist belonged to won, and the World Government was established. However, because of his high profile, the protagonist was not officially included in the organization and had to leave without being formally appointed. He was sent to the radiation zone to become a bounty hunter.

This is a simplified version of the entire story from Gun Girl 1 to Gun Girl 2.

Thanks to the producer's obsession with "dark, profound, and brutal" themes, even setting aside the outrageous actions in Gun Girl 2, the film still manages to achieve its potential.

The overall plot of the game is actually quite depressing.

The two factions in the game, whether it's Carter or the Rolian, are essentially a bunch of lunatics. It's a war between warlords, and there's no justice to speak of.

Players cannot bring such a faction into the game.

Moreover, in Gun Girl 1, there are many storylines where players are not involved at all due to their low status, or even if they do participate, they have no control over the course of events.

Defeated or not, the player is merely a pawn in the entire story.

Is this story? Of course it is a story, even a story that could explain various technical terms for hours, with hundreds of pages of background information.

If you can really grit your teeth, bear all the settings, and keep watching, there are indeed many touching moments.

Of course, this is on the premise that you don't put yourself in the commander's shoes, otherwise you'll just have a stroke.

To truly experience this kind of game, you have to immerse yourself in the characters' perspective.

It was precisely this experiential aspect that led Hai Mao to agree with Huang Yu's creative approach for a long time, and he also believed that those commercialized and popular cultural and creative works were very low-level.

He even agrees with putting the narrative into the characters, after all, he has an art background and is more able to empathize with the characters he creates.

I didn't feel anything for the main character in the game, on the contrary.

So when he was looking at the characters and storylines he drew for "Gun Girls," he was able to get into it.

However, after playing "Final Frontline" himself, and especially after reading a report about Chu Chen, he had some different thoughts.

People admire success.

Since the release of "Final Front".

Chu Chen frequently appears in interviews on various websites. In one video interview at Yufeng Industrial Park, Chu Chen also responded to the criticism that the story of "Final Front" was "clichéd".

Do you think the story of Monkey King: Hero Is Back is cliché?

This was Chu Chen's first sentence after hearing the host's question, and he immediately added another sentence.

What do you think of the story framework of Spirited Away?

After asking these two rhetorical questions, Chu Chen didn't elaborate but directly gave his conclusion.

"I don't know what you think, but I think the most important thing for any storyline is to make it understandable to the players."

"On this basis, a good work is one that can make players feel happy and emotionally moved."

"If, in this process, there is still some artistic expression of one's own, then it can become a classic."

At first glance, this entire passage seems to be nothing more than a string of correct but meaningless statements.

However, by combining the plot of the first chapter of "Final Battlefront", Umineko actually figured something out.

So he went and verified this viewpoint again. He found a fan group for "GunGirls" and pretended to be a newbie, asking a few questions about the plot.

Then he discovered something very interesting.

That is, although players of "GunGirls" have a very high opinion of the storyline, saying things like it's dark, brutal, very realistic, and has a sense of war.

But if you ask what actually happened in the story...

But very few people could answer that.

This shows that the storyline of "GunGirls" did not actually leave an impression on players. The reason why they felt that the storyline of "GunGirls" was good was not because the storyline was actually good.

Rather, it's an "atmosphere" created by art direction, UI design, various settings, and public opinion.

Furthermore, during the communication, HaiMao went a step further and discovered that many players actually liked the character art and the light strategy gameplay of "GunGirls" the most.

The most praised aspect of the game is its various suggestive character illustrations.
As for the storyline, while it's not a negative factor, it's not a positive one either. Especially after the release of "Final Frontline," many "GunGirls" players have become less satisfied with the storyline.

Because in the Gun Girl storyline, the commander and the android are really just the commander and the android.

It can only be said that Hai Mao's observation is actually reasonable.

After all, if GunGirls' storyline was truly strong enough, it wouldn't have died out while Azur Lane, Arknights, and even Honkai Impact 2 were still thriving.
Just as battle lines don't lie, player churn rates don't either.
And on this world line.

After Final Frontline delivered a near-perfect performance, the storyline of Gun Girls could no longer be considered a plus, naturally leading to a higher player churn rate.

Therefore, in Hai Mao's view, since the other party has succeeded by using a more popular narrative method.

This is certainly something we can learn from. It's not that we have to write the plot so straightforwardly. After all, in Hai Mao's opinion, the plot of "Final Battlefront" is a bit too straightforward and loses some of its style.

However, in terms of performance, such as animation and the art design of large scenes, Terminal Battlefront is still worth learning from.

(End of this chapter)