Chapter 247: Past Events in the Mountain Village
After discussion, the official name of the new game was determined to be "Mountain Village Past".
This is a suspense horror game.
The gameplay is a hodgepodge, including not only the puzzle-solving and exploration gameplay of traditional suspense horror games, but also some more special gameplay, such as parkour, real-time combat, etc.
“Parkour?”
“Yes, parkour!”
Chen Ba explained: "Compared to other horror games, the map of "Mountain Village Past" is relatively large. It covers the entire village including the back mountain, so the scope is quite large."
Why such a large picture?
In other horror games, the story basically takes place in a house or a separate building, which does not allow much room for movement. When you encounter danger, you either hide in a closet or lie under the bed...
This is also done by creating a narrow activity space to make players feel insecure and a sense of crisis.
To put it simply, it’s best not to make the map scenes in horror games too large!
But "Mountain Village Past" goes against the norm and creates a large map in the game. The scope of player exploration activities is no longer limited to a certain building, but an entire village.
This puzzled Xiao Lu, Liu Jinfu and others. Why make such a large map? Did Brother Ba want to create a so-called semi-open world in the horror game?
The result is for parkour! In Chen Ba's words, the reason why the map of "Mountain Village Past" is so large is mainly to facilitate players to parkour and hide and seek when being chased by monsters.
"Hide and seek?"
"That's right, classic horror game play, you chase me and I run, you hide and I find..."
Chen Ba explained: "Horror games all have chase elements to stimulate players' adrenaline. Especially the scene where a bloody face suddenly appears on the screen and scares the player into panic, which is always effective."
"Past Events in a Mountain Village" strengthens this plot, and the hide-and-seek segment is very crucial.
The village looks big, but it actually feels small when you play. When players are frightened or stimulated and run away in a panic, the village is not as big as they imagined.
And there’s a horror element in this! Chen Ba tried to describe a scene: the player is frightened in Building A, chased by a monster and flees to Building B to hide. When he hears the footsteps getting smaller and smaller, he breathes a sigh of relief, but turns around and sees…
"The monster is right in front of us?"
"No!"
Chen Ba smiled and said, "A family of four wearing funeral clothes and looking like dead people sat around a wooden table. On the wooden table was a bloody head of an animal that you couldn't tell clearly..."
When the four members of the family all looked at the player, a sense of terror came over them all at once.
When the player is chased out of the house by a family of four holding kitchen knives, and sees a row of low stone and wooden houses not far away in the dark night, he will feel the third shock and excitement.
"I roughly understand..."
Liu Jinfu said thoughtfully: "Brother Ba, you want to create a terrifying feeling that although the village is large, the players have nowhere to settle down, and even feel that every place is a den of dragons and tigers?"
“That’s about it!”
Chen Ba nodded and said, "The game is divided into two modes: day and night. During the day, the villagers all have smiling faces, and they look very kind and amiable."
"At night, everyone had expressionless faces, their faces were as white as paper, and there was no sign of life..."
This is also the reason why the map is so large.
When Chen Ba was a child, he once went to visit relatives with Lao Chen. Because Lao Chen drank too much and made mistakes, it was already midnight when they returned to the village.
It happened that there was no moon that night.
It was pitch black. Standing at the entrance and looking into the village, one could vaguely see rows of houses. They looked like bloody mouths ready to eat people, and gave a strong sense of terror.
But this is not the point. The point is that in this terrifying atmosphere, Chen Ba, who was less than ten years old at the time, subconsciously wanted to grab Lao Chen's sleeve, but when he turned around, Lao Chen was gone.
"I was so scared that I started to cry, but it turned out that my dad was just peeing in the bushes nearby!"
After Chen Ba talked about his personal experience, he mentioned a key setting: the feeling of being in a strange place! The protagonist of the game grew up in this village, so he is a little braver. But has the player who controls the protagonist and hides behind the screen been to this village before? No!
For the players, every tree and blade of grass in this village is unfamiliar, and precisely because of the unfamiliarity, the sense of horror will be enhanced.
Put yourself in their shoes.
If players were allowed to experience the protagonist's experience in person, they would probably be frightened into unconsciousness as soon as dark before the first puzzle was solved.
certainly!
How to create a horror atmosphere and guide the player's adrenaline rush is a profound knowledge and cannot be explained in a few words.
The plot is one thing, the picture is another, and the sound effect is also a crucial part! In addition, there are details...
For example, scattered paper money, paper figurines in the corner, blood-stained strips of cloth, mysterious claw prints and footprints, deep and shallow footsteps, etc.
Only when all the elements are combined can it be called a qualified horror game.
By the way.
Horror games do not necessarily have to feature visually terrifying creatures or ghosts and demons.
Psychological horror is greater than visual horror! A truly excellent horror game actually does not have any supernatural phenomena or things throughout the game. It always uses psychological hints and atmosphere creation to let players scare themselves.
"Scare yourself?"
"This is a good concept. It seems that those popular horror games do a good job in this regard." Xiao Lu agreed.
"You scare yourself. If you can ignore the underlying psychological cues and the impact of the environment, the so-called horror game is as simple as Snake."
Luo Ji, who had been silent, understood this very well and said, "Different people have different adaptability to this aspect."
Some people are born bold and reckless.
So when these people play horror games, at most they will feel a little adrenaline rush, but it is impossible for them to feel scared due to psychological suggestion and environmental atmosphere.
"Is there really such a person?"
"some!"
Chen Ba replied: "The world is so big that there are all kinds of strange things. There are indeed some talented people in this world who only feel excitement when playing horror games and don't feel scared or panicked."
But then again, such people are very rare.
It is hard to find one person like this in ten thousand people. Most people find it difficult to go against their biological instincts and feel fear and terror towards the unknown.
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
"Or I'd better quit this project. I'm too timid and I'm afraid I can't keep up with your pace!" Xiao Lu said weakly.
"Timid? That's just right..."
Chen Ba laughed and said, "You are timid, so forget about running away! People like you are most suitable for testing horror games!"
Is the game qualified or not?
That depends on whether this game can scare Xiao Lu to tears. If it can, then it will be considered a success! If Xiao Lu has no reaction after the test, then the game should not be released.
"Please be a human being!"
Xiao Lu wailed, "You know I'm timid and have been afraid of these things since I was a child, but you still let me be a tester. Do you still have any humanity?"
"Why am I not a human being?"
"You are not the only tester. We will find a few more people to test when the time comes..."
Xiao Lu is in the brave group. In addition, there should be a “normal group” and a “brave group”.
Only by comparing these three sets of tests can we analyze the true situation of the game and how scary and thrilling the game is.
This is not a good thing to do!
Many people may think that horror games should be as scary and frightening as possible.
But this is a wrong perception!
There is a range of values for horror games. If the horror level is too low, the meaning of the horror game is lost and such a game is a failure.
At the same time, if the horror level is too high and it can easily induce heart disease or even other illnesses in players, it will also be a failed horror game.
It's more than a failure! It's easy to scare people into going crazy. Games that are too scary may not be able to pass the review process and will be aborted.
Therefore, horror games must strike a good balance. They cannot be too scary, nor can they not be scary at all.
"So what's the appropriate level of terror?" Xiao Lu asked.
“It’s very simple!”
“Even brave players with strong tolerance will be scared to death. This is the right level of horror.”
Chen Ba explained: "When normal players face this kind of horror value, their heartbeats will speed up and their adrenaline will surge, while timid players will lose control of their emotions."
This is pretty much the upper limit.
It’s not that games that exceed this limit cannot be made, but that no one dares to play them even if they are made. Even laws and regulations do not allow such games to be released.
There are often jokes online that players with heart disease or high blood pressure should not play XX game! This tone is usually a joking statement, meaning that XX game is very irritating.
But horror games, especially those with a high degree of horror, really should not be played by players with heart disease or high blood pressure, as bad things can easily happen.
As the saying goes, there is a shocking story behind every outrageous school rule, traffic rule, and company rule!
In the gaming industry, the same is true for the "warm reminders" on the game loading page.
When game developers advise XX players not to play the game, you should know that there must be an unknown story behind this statement.
"In fact, there are quite a few accidents caused by horror games every year."
Chen Ba sighed and said, "This is why most horror games now remind certain special players on the loading page not to play such games or to play less of them."
This is a lesson learned the hard way! Just like the photosensitive epilepsy warning and disclaimer on the loading page of Horizon 5, 99% of players probably don’t know what photosensitive epilepsy is.
But this is not important. What is important is that players must be reminded and a disclaimer should be posted.
Countless peers have proved through practical actions that if such games do not have a disclaimer, it is fine if nothing goes wrong. But once something goes wrong, you will definitely be blackmailed and all kinds of compensation will be inevitable.
(End of this chapter)